Re: [tied] Genetic Link between Albanian and Romanian

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 30514
Date: 2004-02-02

02-02-04 21:40, alex wrote:

> The Hungarian and Slavic (North and West-Slavic) examples won't point in
> that direction with respect to Romanian. And the big thing here is ,
> Albanian _is_ not a neighbour of Romanian.
> At least they have not been neighbours for more as 1500 years after some
> sources and more as 2000 years after other sources.

First, you overrate the similarity (and its importance). The argument
that the Romanian consonant inventory is a subset of the Albanian system
proves nothing: the same is true of English! Secondly, it isn't true
that Romanian and Albanian have been isolated from each other for so
long (1500 years -- the other number is simply absurd) unless you
identify Romanian with Dacoromanian and forget how different the ethnic
geography of the Balkans was in the Middle Ages. There are large
Aromanian communities in Albania even today, so Albanian and Balkan
Romance are still neighbours!

Piotr