Re: etyma for Crãciun, RomanianforChristmas

From: tgpedersen
Message: 28906
Date: 2003-12-29

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <george.st@...> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 29, 2003, at 12:08 PM, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Wasn't the name of the mountain range the Beskidi supposedly of
> > Albanic origin too? If so, why would Romanian be necessary as an
> > intermediary for <watra>, another word from the mountains?
> >
> > Torsten
>
> <vatra> means <hearth>, <oven>, <Brandstätte>,
> with the figurative sense <home>, <Heimstatt>,
> <Heimstätte>, <Heimat>. (Hence, sometimes it's
> also translated with <cradle> into English; I
> don't quite agree with that, but that's how news
> agencies such as AP, Reuters, AFP translated the
> name of a Romanian post-commie era nationalist
> organization called "Vatra Româneascã".)
>
> So <vatra> means <zu Hause>, <daheim>. Hence, a
> Romanian conscript, when he leaves the army,
> "este lãsat la vatrã".
>
> This word must've reached Southern Poland carried
> thither esp. by Romanians who emigrated from
> Transylvania, to which belongs the province of
> Maramuresh that's neighboring East Slovakia and
> South Poland. (Some say that Pope Wojtyla also
> stems from a village founded by mountain peasants
> of Romanian extraction, the so-called <góral>s.
> Such migrations reached Moravia and Bohemia;
> there, today's touristic spots called "Vlachia"
> or "Vala$ske" don't bear these names out of the
> blue.)
>

Thanks, but you didn't answer the question: Why "must've"? Could the
word not be older, since there is already one supposedly Albanian-
substrate word in the area?

Torsten