[tied] Re: Albanian origins and much more

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@... wrote:

> g wrote:

>> NB: the Romanian spoken south of the Danube down to South of
>> Serbia and as far in the West as Croatia (amazingly until today
>> in some spots - of which one knows only because people from there
>> went to Romania a couple of years ago to participate in
>> appropriate festivals and cultural encounters)
>
> We've already been over this on the list. The so-called
> IstroRomanians in Istra in Croatia are very well known and there
> is a very good grammar and dictionary of it etc. If somebody
> doesn't know of them, that can be attributed only to ignorance
> or lack of interest...

Of course, George hinted what Romanians in Romania know about
Istro-Romanians (that is essentially zero): there is really no
widespread conscience about South-Danubian dialectal speakers
of Romanian. Specialists are perfectly aware, but they form an
obvious minority. :-)

>> belongs to the same dialect as Romanian of Romania and Moldova
>> and Transcarpathia and Northern Bulgaria, namely the
>> "Dacoromanian" dialect. The other sorts of Romanian, spoken in
>> the Epirus, Thessalia, Macedonia as well as in Istria (almost
>> extinct) and some spots in Dalmatia (with the native-speakers
>> barely able to utter something in that dialect, whereas their
>> 1st perfect language is Croatian),
>
> No such thing. The only Romanians in Croatia are those already
> mentioned in Istra.

If "no such thing" is intended to label "spots in Dalmatia", I
would tend to agree: while Istro-Romanians should have made it
to their present location along some continuous path, there is
no historical decisive proof or sign of them in Dalmatia. That
obviously holds even stronger for present day situation.

> They came to Istra rather recently (a couple of centuries ago)
> from the island of Krk and to Krk they came from the region Lika
> in Croatia and to Lika from the inner Balkans...

On that assertion there could be some debate. Irineo della Croce
mentions an undoubtedly (Istro-)Romanian speaking population in
"Historia del Trieste" (1698): that makes certain at least three
centuries, but indications for their existence in the area are to
be found even prior to that date (first document about these "Cici"
in Trieste area is dated 1490). There is to be noticed that IR
dialect (including even those words quoted by della Croce) exhibits
some features (the most important: rhotacism of intervocalic /n/)
pointing towards a deep link with W Daco-Romanian subdialects in
Banat & Crisana. Romanian scholars tend to agree that IR splitted
from DR some centuries after Aromanian & Megleno-Romanian, around
13th/14th century. That leaves of course plenty of time for their
westward journey.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi