From: willemvermeer
Message: 35636
Date: 2004-12-24
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <st-george@...> wrote:
WV had written:
> > What is needed is an in-depth comparative study of the various
> > alternatives, particularly with respect to the dialectological
> > consequences that follow from each option. No easy job. To
> > the best of my knowledge such a study has never been performed.
> >
Then Gt. George wrote:
> Did you read Ernst Gamillscheg's essay "Über die Herkunft der
> Rumänen" (Berlin, 1940)? In connection with the finds registered
> in the "Atlasul Lingvistic Român" (finished cca. 1938, and
> co-ordinated by Sextil Pu$cariu).
>
> A presentation thereof by Christian Schneider (a Transylvanian
> Saxon) in his diploma thesis in Vienna:
> "5 Das romanische Kerngebiet in Siebenbürgen. Die Theorie
> Ernst Gamillschegs."
> http://land.heim.at/toskana/210046/kontinuitaet_schneider.htm
>
> [both in German]
>
> #
>
> BTW, an essay by Stelian Brezeanu re. 10th c.:
> http://www.geocities.com/serban_marin/brezeanu2002.html
That's all very nice in its way, but it is obviously far from being
the "in-depth comparative study ..." I had in mind.
And I'm afraid I have have never been able to bring myself to
understand the logic of the Puscariu/Gamillscheg evidence. It is a
non-sequitur quite on a par with the PVL evidence. If anybody out
there can explain, please don't hesitate because I am eager to learn
and I'm keeping all options open.
If I remember correctly, the Atlas evidence is held to show
convincingly that Daco-Rumanian dialects spoken in mountainous areas
have fewer Slavic loans than those spoken in the lowlands. If true,
that is a welcome confirmation of what one would expect also on the
basis of a Rumanian Urheimat somewhere near Ohrid. How that fact can
be perceived as support for the transdanubian continuity hypothesis
(and the Lord knows it has been perceived as such by many people for
several generations now) is totally beyond me.
I would like to illustrate how problematic the point is by
transposing the situation to another language.
Let us assume that there is a controversy about the origin of
Croatian.
Some scholars hold that Croatian has descended from a Slavic dialect
that was carried to the present-day Croatian-speaking area by a
migration that took place in late antiquity. That is what we shall be
calling "the migration thesis".
Others assume that all Slavic languages including Croatian have
descended from Illyrian, which was present on the Balkans in
classical antiquity and that the presence of Slavic in, say, Poland
and Russia and all those other areas has to be explained on the basis
of population movements out of Croatia. That is "the autochthony
thesis". (Since virtually nothing specific is known about Illyrian
Slavic can be derived from it equally plausibly as Albanian.)
Now let us assume that Croatian is traditionally known primarily on
the basis of coastal dialects (Zadar, Split, Dubrovnik ...), which
abound in Italian loans. Normative linguists are ashamed of those
loans and do their utmost to get them replaced with equivalents from
Old Church Slavonic or Czech. There is what we could call an "Italian
loans trauma", comparable to the "Slavic loans trauma" that has been
noticeable in Rumanian normative work. Italian loans are a sensitive
issue everybody cares about. Then, lo and behold, dialectologists who
have ventured inland, show that inland dialects have significantly
fewer Italian loans than coastal ones. Immediately that discovery is
tauted as clinching evidence in favour of the autochthony thesis.
Wouldn't that be a weird world? Not only is the evidence irrelevant
(because the geographical distribution of Italian loans is totally
unproblematic on the basis of the migration hypothesis too), but the
adherents of the autochthony thesis persistently refuse to discuss
the difficulties their stance raises, e.g. how to explain the greater
dialectal variety of Slavic outside Croatia, or the clear connection
with Baltic, or the external evidence for migrations of Slavs to the
Balkans, or whatever.
To give an example of an issue that should be addressed: what
adherent of the transdanubian continuity thesis has ever provided a
plausible motivation for the presence of Arumanian in northern Greece
and southern Albania? On the basis of the Ohrid thesis it is easy:
Arumanian has remained closest to what one might call the Urheimat,
whereas more northerly dialects have moved out to take advantage of
opportunities offered elsewhere, e.g. the lush soils of Muntenia.
Things are getting out of hand,
Cheers!!
Willem