--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Not the best example, I think. <episcopus> 'overeseer' is attested
> already in Classical Latin, and why should not the Greek ecclesiastical
> term have been adopted into Latin early enough to become a valid
> Proto-Romance lexeme?
When did Sardinian diverge? 12th century Sardininan for 'bishop'
seems to be _piscupu_, so I think you're relying on 'episcopus' being
well established with its secular meaning.
Will the 'priest' (< Greek _presbyter_) words do? Romanian _preot_
looks a plausible inherited item, but I don't know the Sardinian form.
Will the 'war' words lile _guerre_ and _guerra_ do? What's the
Proto-Romance - *guerra? The absence of a Romanian reflex might be
viewed as suspicious.
I don't think we can reconstruct a Proto-Romance form for 'tobacco' -
French _tabac_ does not fit. I don't think 'café' can be
reconstructed either. (I'm picking the examples from Pulgram's
caricature of linguistic palaeontology, which had 'Caesar's soldiers
guzzling beer and smoking cigars in sidewalk cafés'. It needs careful
dating to argue that Proto-Romance speakers were not well acquainted
with Christianity.)
Richard.