Hello,
I took a look and on the Romanian Phonetic System and :
a) I compared with Italian Phonetic System based on the assumption
that Italian is the closest Romance language to Romanian (that is
considered a Romance language too).
b) next I compared Romanian with Albanian Phonetic System based on
the assumption that Romanians and Albanians could be once the same
ancient people, the Dacians, part of them fully Romanized: Romanians,
part of them partial Romanized : Albanians. (also I wanted to check
again the "loan theory" that said that Romanian ONLY borrowed some
words from Albanian due to a vicinity of some hundred years, but
there is NO genetic link between the 2 languages, so No Dacian
inheritances are kept in Romanian )
Well for sure that "our Latinists" will bet that the Romanian
Phonetic System have to be closer to Italian Phonetic System, because
the Romanian is a Romance Language, sin't it ? (you remembered also
that the same argument is used to deny the Romanian h-substratual
theory) but....
the TRUTH IS that Romanian Phonetic System is much closer to
Albanian Phonetic System!!!
The results of this differences are the following :
(I counted 1 square = 1 difference (see below urls) -> but this is
just a simplication , you can look next on each detail)
Vowels System: Romanian versus Albanian = 1 differences
(almost identical)
Consonants System: Romanian versus Albanian = 4 differences + 2
shifts
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TOTAL = 5 differences + 2 shifts
Vowels System: Romanian versus Italian = 3 differences
Consonants System: Romanian versus Italian = 6.5 differences
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TOTAL = 9.5 differences
Note :
I considered the Albanian "d" "t" only a shift of Romanian/
Italian "d" "t" and not different sounds and also I considered "a
shift" the fact that "n" could be generated in two modes in Albanian.
In Conclusion: Despite the fact that Romanian is a Romance
Language, the Romanian Phonetic System is much closer to the Albanian
Phonetic System than to Italian one.
This great similarity with Albanian cannot be explained by an
existing vicinity (that could existed as well) between the 2
languages (the Romanian were geographically closer with Hungarians
for 1000 years and with Slavs even more, around 1400 years, but
theirs phonetic systems are NOT AT ALL closer each one)
This GREAT similarity could only be explained by a GENETIC LINK
between Romanian and Albanian as both languages derived from an
Ancient Balkan language : the Dacian (I used "genetic link" as a
linguistic term not as a biological one, and as result this is
another argument against the "loans theory").
Despite how many foreign languages somebody learned (like Latin
in case of the pre-romanian (Dacians)), the "inherited" sounds that
somebody have, will be the last ones that will be lost (even when
somebody forget all the words from the previous language). Every
sound in Romanian exists also in Albanian. The Albanians added
(/transformed the existing ones to) new sounds, BUT they didn't loose
any of the Romanian ones.
Please take a look at :
http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/nl-ipa/albanianipa.html
http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/nl-ipa/romanianipa.html
http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/nl-ipa/italianipa.html
(I want to thanks to LISA for these urls)
Best regards,
marius alexandru