From: willemvermeer
Message: 35694
Date: 2004-12-28
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
[On the use of compounds like "Thraco-Illyrian".]
> I assume they are using always this notion of "traco-illiryan" from
> two
> points of view. One since there is not sure which languages was
> which, thus
> they make a gulash of Tracian and Illyrian fancing out Traco
Illirian as the
> another construction "Celto-Italic" used somewhere else.
OK. (But I don't like it one bit and Celto-Italic is a different
thing.)
> Albanian cannot be mentioned by name since the phonetical
concordances
> speaks about a pre-Roman time, and there cannot be mentioned any
Albanians
> but just other "Folkerschaften" which have been recorded in &
before that
> time.
Well, there is a lot more to the Albanian-Romanian nexus than this.
You can't talk about the early medieval past of Romanian without
bringing in Albanian or the language of which Albanian is the
descendant, and without bringing in Albanian dialectology. (We're not
talking Völkerschaften but languages.)
---
[On the plausibility of migrations of various types.]
> well, here I am on the same path due several reasons as they are:
> -no migration from South to North except the danger came from
Souts. See
> migration of Serbs and Bulgarians into Romanian Principality in the
time of
> Osmans.
> -missing of the grounds. Why should someone leave the relatively
safe area
> of Roman and later Bizantine Empire for chosing to live somewhere
in the
> Barbaricum.
Because starting around the middle of the seventh century those
previously hazardous areas became progressively more inviting due on
the one hand to changes in Avar behaviour and on the other to the
rise of the First Bulgarian state, which appears to have gone in for
managerial methods favouring stability (we've gone over this in
earlier postings). Assuming for the moment the Ohrid scenario is
basically correct, starting with 650 or 700 there must eventually
have been speakers of Romanian (let's call them Vlachs) who realized
that in the north there were empty spaces worth millions of sheep.
And started acting upon that realization, knowing that if they didn't
others would and they happened to have the skills. And would I like
to know who they were and interview them and hear them speak Proto-
North-Romanian!
The trouble with moving to old-established civilized areas is that
they are full already, or perceived to be full. People just won't let
you in unless you give them good reasons why they should do so.
One of the serious weaknesses of the transdanubian scenario is its
failure to account for Aromanian.
> I simply don't see
> any data, historical or linguistical which will help out to locate
> the Valahs between VI-X century North or South of Danube.
Obviously there are no documentary data. Happily the linguistic front
is different because the period of Albanian/Romanian contacts has to
receive a time and a place. And on a transdanubian scenario the place
can only be Transylvania or thereabouts, implying southward movements
of speakers of Albanian and Aromanian at awkward moments, not to
speak of the dialectological complications such a scenario generates.
-----
[On the linguistic situation in Albania.]
> ... It remains curious that same scarce Albanians assimilated the
> "numerous" Slavs.
I've not used the word "numerous" and it is not curious at all.
Starting from the early Slavic agricultural lifestyle it is obvious
that there can't have been room for large numbers of Slavs in what is
the Albanian-speaking heartland. Linguistic assimilation of the Slavs
there is not at all strange.
> The paralel with the Romanians which assimilated the Slavs
> North of Danube is not too oversee.
Whatever the exact dynamics it would seem to be obvious that a
Bulgarian-speaking population was assimilated to Romanian north of
the Danube. But now that we're on the subject of language shift it is
important to realize that we need a reverse shift south of the Danube
in order to account for the linguistic Balkanisms of present-day
Bulgarian-Macedonian. But that, I suspect, is textbook knowledge.
-----
[On the subject of Slavic loans in Rumanian.]
...
> Well, that will mean the oldest loans are to be located too in the
IX-X
> century? And what did happen between VI-IX/X century? Was there no
contact
> between Slavs and Valahs?
No it is not so easy. Most Slavic loans into Romanian must be later
than Kretschmer's reorganization of the vowel system, but that
reorganization cannot be very late either.
At the stage of the initial impact of Slavic with the autochthonous
languages of the areas where they spread the reorganization of the
vowel system had not yet taken place (indeed even the
monophthongization of diphthongs ahd not yet taken place either,
although it soon did). That is the stage where speakers of Slavic
would have wanted to take over myriads of (to them) new names and
also the terminology for such interesting (to them) novelties as
Christianity. At that stage it is pretty unlikely that any of the
locals would have wanted to adopt any Slavic words except perhaps
names of individuals.
But this is sixth or at the latest early seventh century. The
reorganization of the vowel system cannot be very much later because
there was a lot else waiting to be squeezed in between, say, 600 on
the one hand and the rise of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition and the
severing of the grographical links between Bulgarian-Macedonian and
the north on the other.
So when speakers of Romanian were beginning to press northward
starting from their impregnable mountain strongholds near Ohrid (say
not long before or after 700) the type of Slavic they started
interacting with is just right: it is the Bulgarian-Macedonian
dialect of Common Slavic busy evolving into Bulgarian as attested in
the Church Slavonic tradition.
-----
[On Hungarian loans that can be explained only by way of Slavic.]
> Rosetti mentions here the verbs which are ending in "-ui" as
alcãtui, bãnui,
> bântui, where the "ui" is to explain just via Slavic since the
Hungarians
> forms will hardly be suitable for yelding the Romanian forms
directly.
>
> alcãtui < alkotni, bãnui < banni, bântui < bantani
Yes, but if -ui was a productive suffix you don't need Slavic
intermediacy for every individal case. I don't see how the point can
be important from the point of view of the formation of Romanian.
...
----
> Well, here we have a little bit more luck. As the Asans borther
needed help,
> they came with help from the Black Valahs North of Danube and with
Cummans.
> That is: if the migration of DR took place in the X century ( due
Hungarian
> and Cummanic loanwords in AR), then they became already in one
hundred of
> years numerous enough for assisting the Asans.
The Asen brothers episode is late twelfth century (1185-, if I'm
correct). Note that the Ohrid scenario does not exclude the
possibility of a northward expansion the initial phases of which may
have been going on as early as 700CE. Nothing that happened as late
as the Asen episode can be of any conceivable consequence for the
problem of the rise of Romanian. Note by the way that the Asen
brothers' activitities are primarily associated with the Ta~rnovo
area in present-day Bulgaria, which does not sound very transdanubian
to me.
Willem