>Gottfried Schramm, "Anfänge des albanischen Christentums
>Die frühe Bekehrung der Bessen und ihre langen Folgen",
>1994.
>
>I read the book ten years ago and made lengthy notes.
Thank you for your highly interesting input re this book.
>also Du Nay's 1977 book on the past of Rumanian (which reaches
>virtually the same conclusions as Schramm in his later series of
BTW, do you know the real name of this scholar (from Romania, I
suppose)? "Du Nay" must be a pseudonym (a Hungarian one =>
<dunai> ['du-nO-i] "Danubian," or "Donauer").
>Linguistically the consequence is a very low level of dialectal
>differentiation, at least compared with most of western
>Europe, where sedentary life has given rise to spectacular
>dialect differences.
This applies to Romanian as well. Dialectal differenciations as
strong as in various W-Eur one can see only by comparing it with
the lesser known dialects of Romanian: Aromanian, Meglenite and
Istria-Romanian. (The differences are as big as between
Schwizzer Düütsch and High German or between High and Low German.
Such differentiations are not extant within the Romanian dialect
that's called Dacoromanian; hence I always use the term "sub-
dialect" whenever referring to certain aspects concerning areas
within the Romanian territory and a circa 100 km wide "belt"
surrounding it [in Moldavia and Ukraine it is much wider thou'].)
>(4) Schramm writes about the speakers of Albanian: "Rund 800 Jahre
>Römerherrschaft und im 7. Jh. n. Chr. die großen Einbrüche
>der Slawen haben sie überstanden, ohne jemals ihre
Eigenständigkeit
>als Volk mit seiner angestammten Sprache zu verlieren
Tja, aber verwandelt bis zur Unkenntlichkeit, wobei die angestammte
Kultur und die Überlieferungen (samt Personennamen) ein für
allemal vergessen wurden. :^)
BTW, isn't it strange that neither Romanians nor Albanians have
preserved names of people, of deities, creeds, namely to such an
extent and clarity that experts can make better conclusions than
those forever vague statements referring to a blurred "substrate"?
All existing foklore, old traditions etc. are obscure, no one knows
what's a genuine inherited Thracian, Dacian, Illyrian (and even
Hunic, Avar, Sarmatian) element and what nor.
Compare this state of affairs with, say, what happened in the Slavic
and esp. Germanic worlds where so much old onomastics has been
preserved even through and esp. thanks to the Church. (In the case
of Romanians, even the genuine Italic onomastics disappeared, being
replaced by Christian names of Greek, Hebrew as well as by Slavic
names. Neither exists in the Romanian vocabulary any reflex of
<ecclesia>, unlike in Albanian. The term used is a reflex of
<basilica>.)
>the Ottoman empire never penetrated the area either.
Well, it depends on the content of "penetrated". Most of Albanians
became Moslems about four centuries ago.
>If anywhere you expect the retention of what Schramm chooses
>to call "Barbarensprachen" it is here.
But it's exactly this the question: where was that "here"? The
Nish and Shtip phenomenon shows that the initial linguistic area
must've been much closer to an imaginary Belgrade-Sophia line
than to the Mediterranean. On top of that, the pockets of
linguistic-ethnic resistence of Protoromanians quite coincide
with those of Protoalbanians (at least partially).
>All crucial sentences in his argument contain the German
>word "wohl", expressing the fact that Schramm knows very well
>himself that the entire story is speculative.
Lacking real evidence, whole lotta things will stay under the
sign of "wohl" in the area. There's nothing one can do about
it, I'm afraid. Hence the "market" of speculations booming, :^)
>It should be recalled that the area Zagreb-Belgrade-Nis^/Sofia
>(notably the area between Vinkovci and Nis^) played a crucial role
>in the Roman Empire from the middle of the third to the middle
>of the fifth century. Constantine the Great himself held court
So, this could be seen as the center of the "Urheimat" for the
Eastern Romance world, right?
>periods in Mitrovica (near Belgrade)
Sirmium
>Willem
George