> Let's try to inject some linguistics into the problem.
>
>
> Rumanian and Albanian share a certain amount of linguistic
material.
> Unless I'm mistaken that is one of the really hard facts that have
to
> be incorporated somehow into the story: it has to be determined
> where, when and how those common elements were acquired.
Thanks for this sentence. This is the only available path that can
be followed.
I try to answer first to the question: When the Albanian -
Romanian contact started?
I begin (again) with the 2 clear examples:
PAlb ra:t(s)ja > Rom ratsã <-> Alb. rosë
PAlb ma:dzula > Rom mazãre <-> Alb. modhull
This shows PAlb a: > Rom. a <-> Alb. o.
Because Latin Loans in Albanians shows
Lat a: > Alb. a the timeframe of PAlb a: > PAlb o is located
before 'Roman arrival in Balkans' so this 2 words were present in
Romanian-Substratum (and of course in Pre-Albanian) before Romans
arrival in Balkans.
So based on the 2 words above we can say that the contact Between
Pre-Romanians and Pre-Albanians was already in place before Romans
arrival in Balkans (to put some dates here: in 165 BC Romans
occupied Skodra)
NOTE : Piotr proposal a: > O: > o cannot fit due to the fact the Alb.
o: > e is a later transformation (see Lat. po:mus > Rom. pom <-> Alb.
pemë) so PAlb would been had O: and o: in the same time that would
give us a: > O: > o: > e and not a: > O: > o as it was the case.
So based on this : in fact both Albanian and Romanian-Substratum
could be based on the Same Balkan Ancient Language (so we also could
well have a genetic link between Romanian-Substratum and Albanian not
only a Pre-Roman contact).
Being already in Balkan Pre-Roman times we have to introduce in
equation the real Balkan Lnaguage that existed at that time in
Balkans : Dacian, Thracian and Illyrian in order to find out also
with which among this language the Romian-Substratum and Proto-
Albanian fit better.
I propose to try to find out the End Date of this contact (but
also when the More Intensive contact took place) based on the common
words presented by Rosetti (about 98 words) trying to fix a timeframe
for them (even the real number of common words is about three
hundreds )
Best Regards,
marius
P.S. you can download Rosetti's list from :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanika/files/Rosetti/