>I wish I did. And I don't approve of people pulling stunts like
that,
>but the book amply makes up for it.
I've got a copy of that as an online version (I don't know whether
the paper and online versions are identical).
>I don't think it is strange at all. Both Albanian and Rumanian are
>obviously the languages of small (possibly tiny) traumatized refugee
>populations who went through periods with living conditions too
>painful to contemplate, perhaps more than once.
Indeed, it makes sense. But I for one assume that in addition
the Romanization of those populaces also must've played an
enormous role, along with their belonging to the Christianity,
since all pagan religion things disappeared, I'd say, completely.
(In Romanian, there are very few vocabulary vestiges reminiscent
of pagan *Latin* festivities. Of pre-Roman substratum, there's
nothing, or if there is something scattered it is as mere...
folklore, the experts being unable to ascribe certain motifs
to certain ancient populations and epochs and pantheons. For
example the South-western Romanian legend of the hero Iovan
Iorgovan that killed the pluricephalous dragon Corcoaia. Some
say it must be a local variant of the myth of Hercules and the
Hydra of Lerna. In South-West Romania, the dragon Corcoaia's
place was in a cavern near the river... Cerna (the name is a
reflex of something Dacian, according to Ptolemeus: Tsierna
or Dierna). A mere coincidence? Speculated by some contempo-
rary... wiseguys? On top of that, geologists say that in
the area there happened a geologic catastrophy in prehistoric
times, which affected the region. BTW, the region is quite
near and North of the mentioned Sofia-Ni$-Belgrade area. Can
it be that those motifs hide some "encrypted" prehistoric
memory? If so, then there must've be some continuity or at
least the legend/myth was passed on from one group to another.
Just one example - that might have some significance or none.)
>In addition Albanian looks pretty much like the language of a
>population that was on the verge of completely shifting to Latin
>(hence forgetting about their collective past) when Roman power
>structures crumbled, robbing the shift of its usefulness.
>Germanic and Slavic are not suitable as models.
Agreed. I compared these worlds only to underline a thing
that, in the case of Albanians and Romanians, might suggest
that both ethnogeneses were sort of... catastrophes: a
Romanization which for parts of the population (esp. those
who were to become Albanians) was slow and by far incomplete;
this also could be valid as interpretation for the Romanian
language if one takes into consideration big chunks of
Romance vocabulary absend in Romanian (due to oblivion, ie,
replacing it by autochtonous substrate vocabulary and esp.
Slavic one? or due to the fact that those parts were never
learnt? This could (I don't know if what I'm suggesting is
correct after all) imply some kind of simplified vulgar
Latin of low social strata, berieved of contacts with
the main "corpus". A quite similar case I see in Yiddish
compared with the German dialects spoken within the borders
of the old "Heimat": Austria, Switzerland, Alsacia, Lotharin-
gia and Germany. A simplified dialect, with simplified dialect,
having in many cases reinvented grammar structures, but pre-
serving old elements and even words that remotest and isolated
rural/pastoral spots themselves have meanwhile forgotten, e.g.
<ets> "ihr", <enk> "euch" (that were preserved until some
generations ago in Bavaria and Austria, but now out of use).
So, among all these speculations and interpretations, this
one might also be valid: that the Albanians reflect linguistically
a population more resistant to Romanization, and Romanians a
Romanized population. If a considerable part of that substratum
population was the same, then no wonder that both languages
share a small, but important, part of the vocabulary -- although
an Albanian language speaker and a Romanian language speaker
won't ever make the most primitive conversation without resorting
to other languages. To a Romanian ear, Albanian is as foreign
as Hungarian, although Albanian does have phonetics that somehow
is similar to the Romanian and... Portuguese ones. (I myself
tried to understand something by watching TV newscasts broadcast
via Eutelsat either by Albanian TV or by the Voice of America
in Albanian. I only could understand international words of
Latin origin. Nothing else. Not even words from that common
Albanian-Romanian words could I recognize. I'd rather detect
more Slavic words in some Slavic languages, although I can't
speak any Slavic language.) Go figure. :-)
>Given the type of things that happen in Balkan demographic history
>you can't say "where" without "when"
Of course.
>in more accessible areas (say the Morava valley), but if it was, it
>had surely been given up in favour of Latin by the end of the third
>century at the latest. Chances are, by the way, that the outcome was
>a Latin dialect strongly coloured by Albanian.
Sure, very logical.
>Then the Huns appeared, making the Morava valley uninhabitable (that
>at least is an undisputed historical fact). Latin-speaking
>inhabitants of the Morava valley fled to the mountains and took
>up mountain pastoralism, giving rise to a new phenomenon:
>pastoralists speaking Latin.
I once found a text by Belgrade archeologists concerned an archeology
area called GradiSka (approx. SW of Belgrade). According to the
authors, everything unearthed shows that late Roman life continued
there (where they assumed there was an important Roman bishopric),
and along with... Gepidic neighbors (mixed local Christian cemeteries
including Germanic tombs with the characteristic inventories). And
all that ceized to exist with the advent of the Avars, around 600).
A good map shows us which mountainous regions could have been
adequate for refugees; so, along with those not far away in the
South, South-West and West, a good region could also have been the
mountains in the neighboring North, which is the region of Banat
adjacent to Serbia. This could've been valid for the Romance
population, for the earliest Hungarian chronicles/documents
mentioning Romanians mention them in the context of this region,
both left and right of the Danube and in the context of events in
the 10th century, ie, contemporary with those Vlakhs mentioned
by Greek sources in the opposite area of mountainous refuge places,
namely in Greece. Albanians weren't with them; so, they must've
gone only westwards and southwards after the Avar+Slavic impact.
(I'll have to look for the URL re. that arch. site.)
>their dialect pre-Romanian. When conditions in the Morava valley
>improved somewhat after Attila's death, people speaking Albanian and
>pre-Rumanian moved into the valleys again where they taught speakers
>of Slavic the names of Naissos and Astibos a few generations later.
Approx. 75 years, if the 2nd assumption is correct: the Avar
impact.
>Such a scenario allows for ample interaction between speakers of
>Albanian and pre-Rumanian, but we can't hope to tease out what
>exactly happened because each movement and change of lifestyle
>obliterated a lot of information (linguistic and otherwise) about
>what went before.
On top of that it seems that some Avar kagan moved some Romance
population (about 200 thousand) from western regions into other
regions (I hope I have some details on this forgotten on some
sector of a harddisk; otherwise I can't remember).
>The real tragedy is that Albanian linguists are paid to prove that
>Albanian is a continuation of Illyrian and has occupied the coastal
>strip since time immemorial, whereas their Rumanian colleagues are
>paid to prove that Rumanian is the descendant of Latin as
>spoken "north of the Danube" after Roman rule collapsed there in or
>around 275 CE.
Yes indeed. Politics have played a great role in this. (Besides,
there it played a role within the process in the so-called
"nation building", ie., the building of the modern nation.)
>It is a sad world.
We ain't seen nothin' yet. For future developments, I for one am
very sckeptical, fearing that the 20th c. totalitarian experiments
weren't mere accidents, but... "forewords" for that what could
come in the next 2-3 centuries (with the help of computerization,
nanotechnology and... genetic engineering; Huxley's "Brave New
World" has chances to come into existence).
>Willem
George