Talk:Substrate in Romanian

Old talk

Of the list, the following words have meaning in Albanian:

• buză - "lip" -> buza (same)
• grumaz - "neck" -> gurmaz (throat, not an endearing term)
• bucuros - "pleasant" -> bukurosh (beautiful child, boy)

Found it interesting, thought I would point those out. Dori | Talk 04:51, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

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a speria - "to hope" or "to expect"

"a speria" it means "to scare", while "a spera" means "to hope" :) Bogdan 19:06, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

shpresoj means to hope in Albanian. Dori | Talk 04:16, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

'A spera' is Latin: see Latin sperare. Decius 00:02, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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17 Jan 2004 in two successive edits 195.92.67.78 removed all references to the Albanian language with the remark, "The similarities between the Dacian language and Albanian are totally inappropriate, and defeats the purpose of this entry. It is like comparing apples to oranges." I have restored this content. I am not sure what this anonymous user considers to be the "purpose of this entry", but I believe the place to take this up should be this talk page before removing significant and (to my mind) highly appropriate content.

It would seem to me that the existence of these words in a quite unrelated language other than Romanian and from a nearby part of the world would be quite relevant as evidence these words compose part of an ancient language of that region, quite possibly the Dacian language. That would seem to me to be precisely "the purpose of this entry." 195.92.67.78, could you please state your case to the contrary so I have a chance to respond? -- Jmabel 06:11, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The title of this article is misleading. It should be something like List of possible Dacian cognates to words in the Romanian language, or something like that. RickK 06:14, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe just "list of possible Dacian words"? After all, the Dacian origin of these words in conjectural. But in any case, it seems to me that the article should be specifically about the relation of a possible Dacian to Romanian, but for the evidence for and against certain words being of Dacian origin, and consequently for the nature of the Dacian language, which makes Albanian cognates just as relevant as Romanian ones. -- Jmabel 06:43, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Rick has overlooked something very important: these words ARE ROMANIAN WORDS that may be and most likely are Dacian, and have been identified as Dacian by many scholars. They are not Dacian words being compared to Romanian words as 'cognates'.(Decius)

Russian squirrel

Actually, Bogdan, the mostly-Russian-language material you deleted, while ill-placed, was not irrelevant, so I'm moving it here to the talk page.

The same meaning "squirrel":

Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary :

ве́верица 1. "белка", 2. "горностай", др.-русск. вiве́риця, укр. вiве́риця, ви́вiрка, блр. вавёрка, болг. ве́верица, сербохорв. вjе̏верица, словен. vẹ́verica, чеш. veverka, veveřice, слвц. veverica, польск. wiewiórka. Родственно лит. voverė̃ "белка", диал. voverìs, vėverìs, также vaiverė, лтш. vãvere, др.-прусск. weware, кимр. gwywer, нов.-перс. varvarah, англос. ác-weorna "белка", др.-шв. ékorne; ср. также заимств. лат. viverra "хорек"; см. Зубатый, AfslPh 16, 418 и сл.; М. -- Э. 4, 512; Буга, РФВ 75, 153; Траутман, BSW 356; Вальде 846. Шпехт (KZ 62, 253 и сл.) видит здесь древнюю основу на -r. Эндзелин (Don. Natal. Schrijnen 402) связывает это слово с *ver- "гнуть" ввиду изогнутой формы хвоста зверька.

What it says, effectively, is that "veveriţă" exists identically in Russian, and it provides a quotation from a rather authoritative dictionary to back up the claim. It also points out a closely related words in quite a few other Slavic languages. None of this specifically means that the word is not of Dacian origin, but it does indicate that it is common in Slavic languages. My Russian is not good at all, and I cannot read much of what is there (in particular, I cannot tell what Vasmer's considers to be the origin of the word). Could someone with good Russian do us the courtesy of a translation. -- Jmabel 17:53, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

"Exists identically in Russian"---okay, forget about this word veveriţa which isn't that important, but I'm going to address this problem in general for readers in general: the fact that a Romanian word is found in Slavic does not prove that the Romanian word is from Slavic. A word must first be proven to be native to Slavic, from a Proto-Indo-European root, following the sound-changes from Proto-Indo-European to Slavic. Even if proven to be native to Slavic, the next problem arises: Dacian may have been close to Slavic, so Dacian and Slavic may have had many words in common: so a Romanian word commonly believed to be from Slavic may in fact be from Dacian or Thracian. Decius 09:11, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry but *-ica is a common Slavic suffix, which is found in many, many other words. So veveriţă is definitely borrowed from Slavic. In Romanian this suffix has spread even to Latin-derived words, such as furculiţă.

Some I can't confirm

Where did these Albanian words come from? I've never heard of them, and my dictionary doesn't list them, but it could be that they're slightly misspelled, or regional, or not that common, etc:

• căpuşă - "tick" (insect); Albanian "këpushë"
• a se gudura - "to fawn"; Albanian "gudutis" -> though there is gudulis = to tickle
• a hămesi - "to starve"; Albanian "hamis" -> though there is hamës = gluttonous
• măgar - "donkey"; Albanian "magar" -> though there is gomar = donkey
• mărar - "dill"; Albanian "mëraj", Greek "marathron"
• măgură - "hill"; Albanian "magulë" -> hill is kodër
• mătrăgună - "mountain laurel"; Albanian "matërgonë"
• rânză - "gizzard", "stomach"; Albanian "rrëndës" -> rennet according to my dict, plëndës is stomach (as is stomak)

âmbure - "stone", "pit"; Albanian "sumbull" -> button, "thumbull" -> ?

• ţarc - "fold", "pen"; Albanian "carc" -> ?, carac -> hackberry, "thark" -> pen, çark -> trap (as in mousetrap), qark -> round, around, circle
• viezure - a wild forest animal like a ferret or marten (badger); Albanian "viedhullë"

Dori | Talk 04:10, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Tungjatjeta. Did you check the references? I don't know where the Romanian dictionaries got the Albanian words from, I just quoted their suggested etymology. Maybe some are specific to the Gheg dialect or older words which are currently out of use.

Mentatus 18:00, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Me again. The DEX mentions that "rrëndës" means "rennet" in Albanian. "Badger" is actually "vjedull" in Albanian - DEX mentions it as "viedhullë". As for "magar", it may be the transformed form (through metathesis) of "gomar".

Mentatus 11:52, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yep, vjedull is a badger (which is close in pronunciation to the word viedhullë). Dori | Talk 13:22, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia or Wiktionary?

On a different note, we only need a few words to give a sampling, there is no need to put every word out there. Dori | Talk 23:11, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

I thought the idea of an encyclopedia was to give an exhaustive view on a certain subject (and Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia after all). Is it that bad if a complete list of all the (known) words in Romanian which may be of Dacian origin is included here? And may I ask who do you refer by "we" to? Others than "you" might need more than just "a few words". Cheers, Mentatus 06:44, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We, the Wikipedia community, there is a separate project also by the Wikimedia foundation called Wiktionary, that handles this type of thing I believe. Wikipedia has a different scope, and adding more words is not adding anything to the article. That's what I meant. Dori | Talk 12:18, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe you were elected to speak on behalf of the whole community and I didn't know. My apologies. It looks like some are more equal than others. But that's not the point. You can delete whatever you want - and others can decide what should belong to the article or not and whether they want an exhaustive list of Romanian words of Dacian origin or not. You're also free to "add" something to the article :) And by the way, if you cared to check, Wiktionary lists each word (and its translations in several languages) in a separate article, it's kind of difficult to group them together by a concept (such as common origin). Cheers, Mentatus 17:42, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Boy, you sure do get upset easily. I was just suggesting it, if I were more equal than others I would have just done it and said nothing. What I'm saying is that articles don't usually have long lists like this (unless they are a List of X). That would be an alternative, leave some here, create a List of X article, and say "For a more complete listing see blah". I am just trying to improve the article. Dori | Talk 22:58, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

My friend, this article is called "List of Dacian words", ain't it? What's the difference? And secondly, as I said before, we could start improving it without useless debates. Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn, as the French say :) Cheers, Mentatus 06:21, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Bah, you know what I mean. The text separately from the long list. The list can stay here and the text somewhere else. The title itself is not what's important. All I'm saying is that the long list obscures the article (i.e. text) which is pretty small to begin with, but since the list wasn't that big, it was ok. Dori | Talk 12:31, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

What you were suggesting is already there: the article called Dacian language which points to the List of Dacian words. I'm really sorry for spoiling the artistic impression of the article. Hope it'll get a better mark for technical merit :) Ars longa, vita brevis, as the old Chinese used to say. Cheers, Mentatus 16:51, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

To which the Germans reply, "Chacun a son gout"? Dori, I think it's probably best that we develop this here, because Wikipedia gets so much more attention than Wiktionary. When the article matures, it may be best to move it to Wiktionary and end up focusing more on discussion and representative examples in Wikipedia, but if we just moved it to Wiktionary now, I think it would probably be neglected. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:51, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

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Cognates

You may be right about the Ferret and Veveritza being cognates, but veveritza is clearly a Slavic word: you can find it in most Slavic languages (including Russian) and it even has an "-itza" suffix.

It cannot be an old Romanian word because of:

1. phonetics: intervowel "b"/"v" dissappear; see cabalus -> cal
2. morphology: I don't think I know any duplicated word in Romanian (excepting onomatopoeia)

BTW, an old Romanian word (fallen out of use) for veveritza is "sângeap". Maybe you should investigate this instead of veveritza. :) (but is probably derived from "blood"/"sânge" -- the colour of squirrels) Bogdan | Talk 11:27, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There is actually at least one substratum duplicated-non-onomatopoeic word in Romanian, ţurţur (icicle; ţur- duplicated and meant 'tube' or 'tunnel'), and there is at least one old duplicated-non-onomatopoeic word from inherited Latin, purpura (>Lat. purpura, 'pur' duplicated). Decius

what about the word "ţurca" ? it is the name of a game by which a little stick is threw by a player and the other player hits it with a bat. Criztu 06:15, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See 'A New Dimension to the Linguistical relations between Romanian and Greek' essay that's given as a link under the Dacian word list, where the ţur- stem is explained. Decius

*bhel is a very productive word. English 'blow', 'boil', boulder, balloon, 'phallus' (from greek) are derived from it, but also words such as 'bold'.

There is balenë/balena in Albanian for whale, no need to go to the snake.

Balenë is most likely derived from Italian/French/Latin, so it's not an original Albanian word. Bogdan | Talk 16:43, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know where bollë/bolla comes from but there is also the word boll which means enough, plenty, sufficient, etc, *hint* *hint* :) By the way, could you please register/sign in? Dori | Talk 02:29, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Of course. It's because they, unlike you, understand how languages evolved and that is an almost impossible coincidence. evil grin Now, seriously talking, both Latin and Albanian developed from PIE, but suffered different sound changes. You can take a word from PIE, apply the Latin sound-changes and you should get a Latin words. The same thing about Albanian. If a IE word does not look to suffered Albanian sound changes, then it was borrowed at some time in the past, rather than be inherited from PIE. It's that simple. Bogdan | Talk 16:43, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK. I'll tell you what happened. Latins romanized a part of the 'proto-Albanians' people (Dacians, Thracians, Illyrians, whatever) and they got to develop their own language, which included some words from their old language, and was called 'Balkan Latin'. From this language, the proto-Albanians borrowed many words ("qytet" - city, "kal" - horse, etc). Somehow, the Balkan Latins and proto-Albanians are separated by distance and there we have today's Romanians and Albanians.

Any other theory does not cope with the facts and has no more credibility in the linguistics than the theory that GW Bush is a green reptilian alien has in political science. Bogdan | Talk 16:43, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Somehow, the Balkan Latins and proto-Albanians are separated by distance and there we have today's Romanians and Albanians. Not just by distance, but also cultural influences I'd wager. I don't know much about Albanian, but Romanian culture is a real mish-mash of everything from Turkish to Roman influences, and the Romanian language tends to reflect this cultural mixing, doing exactly what the Spanish language (and to a lesser extent, English) does, which is often borrow words from other languages that end up pronounced slightly differently (manager, as I recall, is pronounced differently in Romanian, but has the same meaning as the English word), or else have their spelling altered to make them seem "Romanian" (the reason I compare this to "what Spanish does" is that I'm studying it right now, and you have words like hamburguesa - hamburger that are quite obviously direct imports with slight alterations, similar to how some modern Romanian words came about). I don't know how far Albania is away from Romania, let alone its history, but my guess is that other than simply being isolated from each other, they'd have quite different influences from the past few centuries or so as well. I know modern Romanian didn't really exist until the Roman dialect of Latin became imported into the region after the Roman conquest and widely-used as a lingua franca that ended up heavily influencing the local dialects to the point where a Romanian (or Moldovan) supposedly finds it fairly easy to learn the other, western Romance languages today. - (User:runa27 not logged in)

English to a lesser extent? Au contraire. But, yes, Romanian borrows like mad, too. I don't know enough about Albanian to say a thing about it as a language, although I do have a fair grasp of their history and, like Romanian, there has been plenty of opportunity to be exposed to Turkic, Slavic, and Romance influences, with probably some Greeks, Magyars, and a few marauding steppe-dwellers for good measure. - Jmabel | Talk 00:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard the word magar in Albanian, and it's not in my dictionary. As to the second issue, modern Albanian borrows so many words from so many languages that people think it's a safe bet to say a word was borrowed from another language into Albanian rather than the other way around. Also, written Albanian is not very old so there isn't much proof to back anything up. I am not a linguist so I can't offer much of a professional opinion. Dori | Talk 03:02, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

"As to the second issue, modern Albanian borrows so many words from so many languages that people think it's a safe bet to say a word was borrowed from another language into Albanian rather than the other way around." Ah, but Romanian does the same thing. I wouldn't be any more surprised to find something had been in the substratum and gone into Albanian and THEN gotten borrowed into Romanian, than I would to find the reverse, OR to find that such words came directly from the substratum in both languages. Makes it all interestingly complicated, eh? ;) (user:runa27, not logged in)

Don't know what it means in Romanian, but in Albanian pulë/pula is simply chicken. Dori | Talk 02:18, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Note that bollë is not the only word for snake in Albanian, the most commonly used word for snake is gjarpër User:Dori 14:19 Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Proto-Romanian of "groapă" should be "gropa", from proto-Albanian *grop root, which was derived from the "O-grade form" of the root: *ghrobh.

That's an easy word: PIE root *met means "stir vigorously" and "-tură" is a common suffix in Romanian (see: acru - acritură, sec - secătură). Bogdan | Talk 11:06, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vatra

There were two PIE words for fire (one animated and one inanimated: you know that PIE had animated and inanimated nouns, instead of genders): *egnis (-> ignite, ogon) and *pa€wr (-> pyro, fire).

Vatra might be non-IE. Bogdan | Talk

Might be non-IE, though many sources connect it to Latin atrium, and derive it from PIE *ater, 'fire'. Might be so. There apparently is an explanation for the initial 'v' that was prefixed. Decius 00:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would be interesting to "graph" all the Slavic languages that vatra is found in. The linguistic references I've seen all say that vatra is native to Romanian and/or Albanian (Alb. vater, voter). Decius 00:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually bretkosë (some say bretkocë) is frog, bretk is a male frog or a toad, thithëlopë (literally suck-cow) and zhabë are also words for toad, and bretk also means back (as in the posterior part of a body), but you're right that bretkosë is also used for toad. Breshkë is used for both tortoise and turtle, but there are also specifiers as in breshkë uji for freshwater turtle, and breshkë deti for sea turtle. Dori | Talk

In Romanian, "Tree frog" is brotac or broatec (< lat. brotachus) and "turtle" or "tortoise" is broasca ţestoasă ("hard headed frog").

"Broasca" is probably also cognate to Greek "batrakhos".

The Albanian "zhabë" could be of Slavic origin. Bogdan | Talk 09:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes. And related to Polish żaba, Bosnian: žaba, Bulgarian: жаба, Slovak: žaba, Slovene: žaba, etc.

Zhabë is either slavic or russian, I don't know. There is also zhapik which is a small lizzard. Dori | [[User

talk:Dori|Talk]] 06:48, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

words beginning with "izb-" are Slavic. DEX says that it's from Bulgarian "izbukna".

Yes, indeed, derived from Romanian "bucă". (cheek)

from Latin Bucinum = "trumpet".

I think you're reaching a bit too far here. In Albanian, bukurosh comes from bukur which means beautiful. I have no idea where bukur comes from but I just don't see the plump, puff connection. I should also correct myself a bit. Bukurosh simply means beautiful or pretty (bukuroshe for female). It's just that you wouldn't usually call an adult bukurosh unless you meant it a bit sarcastically or something, as the "-sh" ending is a bit endearing, or meaning young, etc. Dori | Talk 07:04, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Original

Decius, you do realise that original research cannot go into Wikipedia right? Dori | Talk 00:17, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Well Dori, if that is so, then I'll abide by the rules.(Decius)

You can continue to have the discussions, it's just that you can't really make any use of them in the articles if it's just your research. Dori | Talk 02:36, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, you're referring to the cognates I added in the article. Alright. All of them come from my own research, except for (the list is now full AFAIK): Mezenai and Manzana for 'Manz' have already been established; Zgaver and Excavare for 'zgau' have already been established; 'Neperke' and 'Nepertke' for 'Naparca' have already been established. That's it. The new Dacian words I added to the list have all been cited as Dacian candidates already. I won't cross the line by putting words that I personally think are Dacian, because if I did that, I would have to put such Latin words as 'Apa', 'Cer', 'Soare'.(Decius)

The fact that good cognates will have to be removed shows: that many professional linguists are not professional; that more people need to do research on their own, instead of waiting for the academics to notice something.(Decius)

I removed the original cognates I added to the article. (Decius)

romanian "soare" from sanskrit "surya"

is there any study for any sanskrit words that have evolved into romanian words, are there any linguistic rules by which the sanskrit words evolved into romanian words ? User:Criztu

as i can see the romance languages have the following words for sun: latin:sol spanish:sol portuguese:sol italian:sol french:soleil romansch:sulegl romanian:soare User:Criztu

then danish:sol norwegian:sol swedish:sol User:Criztu

then russian:solntse bulgarian:slantse User:Criztu

then english:sun dutch:zonnig german:sonne User:Criztu

then sanskrit:surya User:Criztu

i understand there is this "rotacising" pattern by which latin "l" becomes romanian "r", but is there any study for this sanskrit "surya" that might have evolved into romanian "soare" and sanskrit "r" was preserved into romanian as "r" ? i ain't a linguist, that's why i'm asking this question Criztu 14:21, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Latin Sóle -> Sóre (rhotacisation) -> Soare (stressed vowel became a diphtong). There are hundreds of words that prove these rules: "Mola" -> "Moară" (mill); "Viola" -> "Vioară" (violin); etc.

Let's use the same sound changes on "surya"

Surya -> (y becomes e) -> Surea; which would obviously be feminine (o surea - două surele) Bogdan | Talk 19:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Criztu, the Romanian word soare is not linked to Sanskrit surya in anyway other than the usual Indo-European correspondance. The Romanian word is from PIE *sawel, 'sun'. Decius 06:14, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In any event, is there any particular reason to think that (before modern times) any words came from Sanskrit to Romanian, rather than having common Indo-European roots? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:07, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

well, isn't Sanskrit an IE lang., the older sister of Latin ? Criztu 01:29, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, this was User:Criztu who believed that "surya" is directly linked to "soare" (an idea I've seen on Savescu's site)---not User:Decius (=That's me). I do not consider any close connection even worth noting between soare and surya. Decius

<brz> <zbr> <zdr> dacian patterns ?

a few more words: (from User:Criztu)

bort(bortos) - et.nec., zburli(zbarli) - et.nec., burzului - from magyar, zapaci - et.nec., zbantui - et.nec., zvarli - scr. bulg., breaz - bulg., zgrabunta - et.nec., zdreli - et.nec., zadari - scr.bulg., zdrahon/zdragon - et.nec., zdravan - bulg. brustur - et.nec.

I don't know, i have this feeling that the dacians had these patterns <zbr> <brz> <zdr>, i'm thinking at Trajan's "inde Berzobim, de inde Aizi processimus" ... and the bulgarian Barzo for "quick/fast"

... and again the singularity of romanian:zbor/zbura amongst romance languages - latin:vol/volaticus italian:volo/volare french:vol/voler spanish:vuelo/volar portuguese:voo/voar for english:fly/flight

... even russian:letat bulgarian:letia/letene .... couldn't the romanian:pluti = 'to levitate' come from latin volaticus, instead of scr.:plut and bulg.:pluta ? Criztu 01:27, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In Albanian, flutur is butterfly, fluturoj is to fly, and fllad is breeze. Dori | Talk 13:56, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

What's it mean in Romanian? In Albanian, that's what the obligated military service is called. Dori | Talk 03:44, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Romaanian zbura < Latin exvolare. Latin v becomes in some cases Romanian b. zbor 'gathering' is from Slavic (Bulg. zbor means 'addition', spelled sbor, from Old Bulgarian sъ-borъ -a compund word, with regular elision of yer).

In Daco-Romanian, 'a zbura' means 'to fly', 'in zbor' means 'in flight'. In Aromanian, 'zborla' means 'speech'. 'Zbureste' is the Aromanian equivalent of Daco-Romanian 'vorbeste'. I've seen 'azbuira' in an Aromanian text used for 'flight', so in Aromanian it means both 'speech' and 'flight'. (Decius)

The meaning it has in Albanian shows to me that the Albanian word in this case comes from slavic, because it has the same meaning in slavic languages. In no slavic language, AFAIK, does 'zbor' mean 'to fly'; in slavic, it generally means 'to gather, to meet' and variations on that idea. (Decius)

so romanian:burduf -et.nec. =bag/sack, can be considered dacian too ? Criztu 00:00, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. (Decius)

bori, cobori, dobori

romanian:bori -et.nec. =to vomit, romanian:cobori -cf.pogori -unspecified orgin =to descend, romanian:dobori -conf.obori -sl.oboriti =to knock down, to bring down

can we make a List of Romanian words, that is, with no known origin/not found outside Romanian ? Criztu 11:25, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea.(Decius)

you can create it here: http://ro.wiktionary.org/ -- just remember to put a link on this page and on the page Romanian language. Bogdan | Talk 09:16, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

frikë/a is also the Albanian word for fear. Dori | Talk 03:48, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Actually the Albanian word for harnessing is mbreh. There are also the words mbret - king, mbretëri - kingdom, mbretëroj - to rule. Dori | Talk 04:51, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Discussion about 'Lupta'.

This claim of Dacian origin seems odd to me, given that cognates to "lupta" are in pretty much every Romance language; Spanish "lucha", Italian "lutta", for example. And what do you mean when you say "The Roman Latin form had the form 'Luc' within it"? Are you saying that the Romans used "Luc" for "wolf"? If so, I believe that is simply wrong. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:57, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

The claim is hard to beleive, and I know there is no solid evidence for it. That's why I'm not trying to put Lupta on the Dacian word list. Those examples from other Romance languages are from Roman contact. I'm not saying the Romans used the word 'luc' for wolf (I never said that, see history files). The proto-Latin speakers did. The IE root currently proposed for the Latin word 'lucta' is a mere conjecture, so I have no qualms about giving an alternative root: *wlko, 'wolf'. Decius 09:38, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is indeed wrong. ct → pt is a well established sound change in Romanian. (octo -> opt, fructus -> frupt, directus -> drept, adspectare -> aştepta, factum -> fapt, intellectus -> înţelept, lactis->lapte, noctis -> noapte, pectus -> pept, trajecta-> teaptă, victus -> vept, etc) and even the Romanian grammer transforms ct into pt (coace -> coct -> copt, suge -> sugt -> supt) Bogdan | Talk 09:07, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All those other examples are not proof, they are circular reasoning. The medial (and initial in Greek) 'c' > 'p' sound change is found in Thracian and Ancient Greek. There is no proof that my etymology of 'Lupta' is wrong, and I see no reason to change my argument. Of course, you can agree or disagree. The Latin word 'lucta', if you want to know, is generally assigned to the IE root *leug, 'to bend'. That's possible, but by no means proven, and if you think that is proven, it is because you beleive in the 'illusion of knowledge', the emotional need to believe that human beings/scientists have definite knowledge about everything they conjecture and that they somehow 'know' the true origin of the word. They don't. They have proposed a hypothesis. Decius 09:38, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The change of initial 'k' into 'p' was also a feature of ancient Umbrian: [1]. If Dacian was a Latin language, it often changed both initial 'c' (patru) and medial 'ct' into 'p' and 'pt'. Even if you found 'lupta' in Dalmatian, it wouldn't disprove my idea, because the possibility of a native Dacian form 'lupta' would remain. If somebody else comes along and thinks they have real proof against this idea, post it on my Talk Page. There are two major points here: that 'lupta' was native to Dacian; that the IE root of 'lupta' and 'lucta' is in fact *wlko, the root of 'lupus' and 'lukos'. Decius 10:26, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The word varse means chain (as in pendant) or coathanger, coming from the word to hang, me var. Dori | Talk 04:03, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

No I didn't mean that they are related. On words I mention here I don't mean to imply that I agree or disagree with something said about that word. I simply don't know enough about linguistics to have an opinion that is more than just a random guess. Dori | Talk 04:46, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

The words are: jeshil/e - green, gjelbërt and blertë are lighter shades of green. The word for yellow in Albanian is verdhë Dori | Talk 04:03, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Actually sorrë is for rook and korb is for crow (bigger), but they are interchanged sometimes. Dori | Talk 04:08, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

This Page

Somebody should kindly remove the links to books by Sorin Paliga. They do not represent normal, standard historical linguistic research, and are not accepted as such. All of his etymologies are speculation, of the Erich von Daniken type. 93.153.59.244 (talk) 02:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)Dan Ungureanu Sometimes I wonder how many people are reading this page.Decius 00:53, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm reading, I just have nothing to contribute. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:20, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

I want to bring something up. I've probably said this a dozen times, but I haven't said it on this page: Duridanov's "Thracian glossary" is a piece of fantasy-fiction written by slavs for slavs and in the interest of slavs: the Thracian language was not even closely related to the Baltic languages, and definitely not related to the slavic languages. To decipher the Thracian language you have to turn to: Romanian, Albanian, Latin, and Greek. Then one can fish around in other IE languages. Decius 04:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

While it does seem that Thracian is an ancient IE Balkan language like Albanian, Greek or Armenian, your claim that it wasn't related to Slavic implies that it's a non-IE language, in which case it isn't related to Baltic or anything else you name, either, of course. Phonetically at least, Dacian, Thracian, Macedonian etc. really resembles Baltic from what I've seen, and so does Albanian, the more the farther back you reconstruct. Given that we now have very good arguments (by Mareš and Holzer) that proto-Slavic was very similar to Baltic, and more and more scholars accept that they are indeed quite closely related, this has an interesting implication, in that it partly explains the success of Slavic: Many, if not most of the languages that (proto-)Slavic-speaking groups encountered and eventually assimilated were reasonably similar, more so even than other IE languages from the same time period which we know much better, and the same could perhaps be said for the cultural aspect, so it was a popular choice for a language to borrow from and to use as lingua franca in Eastern Europe, even more so than Greek or Latin. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm on Winter break, so I might as well get back to business. What word should I choose next... Decius 06:22, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I read some of it, but you are writing so much that it's hard to keep up :) I would seriously suggest gathering all your thoughts and then publishing a paper. Dori | Talk 03:45, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Good suggestions, Dori. I should do that. Though it's fun to write on this page too, because it comes out more spontaneous sometimes. Also, here I can engage in bravado and taunts that are not appropriate in a more formal essay.Decius 04:22, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I want to second what Dori said here. The work you are doing here looks really good to me; even if you prove not to be right on some points, it'd provocative. You might do well to go back through some of what you've done and see if you can present it in a context aimed at linguists and see what they think. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:56, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Daltë is the indefinite form and dalta is the definite (as well as plural) form. I've added Ëë to the list of special characters (see below the 'Save page' button when you edit). Dori | Talk 06:06, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Baiat

Considering all the other ancient Greek cognates, I think it's safe to say that the Romanian/Dacian word Baiat (boy, son) is cognate to the ancient Greek word Baia , which meant 'little, small'. The word also exists in the inflected forms Baios, Baian, BAIATeros, et cetera. This ancient Greek word baia/baios (etc.) has not been traced to an Indo-European root, and the linguists that I've read consider it pre-Indo-European. The Romanian word would thus be from Daco-Thracians, who picked it up from pre-IE groups. The Greeks also picked up the word from pre-IE groups. This etymology is much more convincing than the speculation that baiat might "somehow" be from PIE *bher, 'to bear'. Decius 04:19, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There are also the ancient Greek words Pais, Paus, Paidos, Paidon, etc., which meant 'child', 'son', or 'daughter'. Though these words are closer in meaning, they are from PIE *pou and cannot be cognate to Romanian baiat. Those other Greek words of unknown origin (which are closer in form) that I mentioned above are the true cognates. Decius 04:19, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is a regional word in Romanian "a baia" = "to give birth" which looks akin to "barrë" = "pregnant" in Albanian ("a băia" < proto-Romanian "a băria"). These words are most likely related to PIE "*bher", to "bear" a child, to give "birth" to a child. (these English words have their origin in the same root). Now, it wouldn't be unlikely to have "băiat < băriat"? :-)

I saw that idea in Paliga's file (though he just mentioned it, not that he supports it), and it is erroneous. 'A baia' (to give birth) is not cognate to Albanian 'barre', and 'a baia' is not a substratum word, but is in fact from Latin 'bajulo', 'to bear something heavy'. The Albanian word 'barre' is cognate to Latin 'ferre' (to bear) and Greek 'phero' (to bear). It is not cognate to Romanian 'a baia', and Albanian 'barre' has absolutely nothing to do with Romanian 'baiat'. Decius 09:37, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Don't rely on those 5-cents-a-piece linguists (those "Dacian-Albanian" linguists, whoever they may happen to be), is what I meant to say. Don't take this personally. It is unfortunate that you happened to be the one to bring up that false idea. Decius 10:44, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"baiulus" looks like a noun, not a verb Bogdan | Talk 10:43, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

'Bajulo/*Baiulo/Bajulare/*Baiulare/Bajlare/*Bailare' are some of the attested verbs. 'Bajulus' and 'baiulus' are some of the attested nouns. 'Bajulo' is defined as I have defined it on the Perseus Digital Library, and it is equivalent to Latin 'fero' (to bear). Decius 10:47, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It appears there are two forms: "bajulare" and "bajlare". Let's apply the phonetical changes from Latin to Romanian: it's not hard, we have only a rhotacism (intervowel "L" -> "R") and an unstressed "a" that transforms into an "ă". So we got "a băiura" and the second one "a băira". Bogdan | Talk 11:12, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, quite amazing. 'A baia' still has nothing to do with Albanian 'barre'. 'A baia' is shortened from 'baiulo/baiulare' by way of Vulgar Latin, resulting in 'a baia'. Decius 11:29, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"baiulo" is the first person, indicative. Romanian infinitive is inherited from the Latin infinitive, which is "baiulare". Bogdan | Talk 11:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

'A baia' is by way of vernacular Latin forms that dropped the 'l' . Vulgar Latin often had quite different forms. Decius 11:59, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So the argument here comes down to this: is Romanian baiat from Pre-Indo-European, and cognate to those ancient Greek words (as I propose) that are of unknown origin/etymology (pre-Indo-European most likely); or is it cognate to those Albanian words, which would thus force a derivation from PIE *bher, 'to bear'. Decius 02:21, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

About the DEX

Most of the information that is found in the DEX ultimately is the product of work done in communist, soviet times, regardless of when the first edition of the DEX was published (it was a book before it was an online dictionary, I own a copy of the second edition from 1998). I don't know what impulses guided some of their derivations (tunnel-vision is my guess).

What I do know is that in many cases they are mistaken. Sometimes the mistakes are excusable, many times they are not. Other times, if I cannot say that they are mistaken, I can say that they are speculating or assuming. Sometimes it seems as if all they did (for example, the word naparli) was grab a Bulgarian dictionary for instance, and, if they find a Romanian word of unknown origin that is also found in Bulgarian, they seem to think they have 'found the source', when in truth all they have done is find that the Bulgarians also have the word---not that the word is from them.

Sometimes they are not that superficial, and instead of proclaiming that the word is 'from bulg.' they say 'cf. bulg.'. That is what should be done in many cases. In the meanwhile, instead of including new research and releasing a revised edition, we'll probably see the same old derivations given until someone does something about it. [[[User:Decius|Decius]] 06:36, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)] 06:20, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The DEX is full of errors. Decius 06:48, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry. It seems that the Hungarian and Bulgarian dictionaries do the same thing: when in doubt, they say: "from Romanian <word>", in the good old local tradition of "passing the dead cat" :-) Bogdan | Talk 11:23, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some Dacian and Slavic correspondances: Dac. suta<-->Slav. sto; Dac. balta <-->So.Slav. blato; Dac. dalta <--> So. Slav. dlato: and so on. So we can expect more Romanian words of Dacian origin to be similar to Slavic forms: and we can expect many Romanians that are considered to be Slavic loans to be in fact from Dacian. Cognates between Dacian and Slavic are to be expected. There are even a number of close cognates between Latin and Slavic. One example: Latin domus (house) is an exact cognate of pan-Slavic dom (house), though the Romans of classical times never encountered the Slavs. The words come from PIE. There are many Romanian words that are indeed from Slavic. But many others can be disputed. Even if a word is found in Russian or Polish, it doesn't mean the word is native to Slavic. A word must also pass other tests: the stems must be broken down and analyzed.Decius 08:49, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The proto-Slavic form is *dolto < *dolb-to, with regular methathesis of the liquids in South Slavic (where we have e-vocalism in the stem: Bulg. dleto, Serb. dlijeto, Slovene dleto, from *delb-to - probably a secondary form), but Church Slavic dlato, Czech dlato, Russian doloto, Polish dłóto preserve the original o-vocalism. The word is derived from the verb *dъlbiti with a basic meaning 'to carve'. So this word cannot be Dacian, but a very early loan in Albanian and Romanian (around 8 century). Slavic *sъto is suspected to be of Iranian origin because of the lack of nasal vowel, which is present in Baltic (Lithuanian šimtas, Latvian simts). Romanian regularly renders Salvic ъ as u, so sută is a borrowing from Slavic.

Craciun

Craciun is an old Dacian word, and it's from the IE root Ker-, meaning 'bent, crooked'. The root is the source of words meaning 'wrinkled, bent, crooked, curved, hooked'. The PIE 'k' sound in Ker- would have remained 'k' (c) in Dacian.

The idea behind the word 'Craciun' is the idea of Old Man Winter, bent and crooked, who was beleived to hover over the earth around Christmas time. Often he was imagined to carry a hooked scythe, like father time. Among the ancient Romans, Christmas was the time of the Saturnalia, a festival dedicated to Saturn, who was also often depicted with a scythe (he was associated with time, with the elder world, and with agriculture). The ancient Greek name for Saturn was Kronos: and I beleive the name KRonos may also come from the root Ker: in the Iliad, Homer on several occasions refers to Kronos as 'crooked-minded Kronos'. 'Craciun' may have been the Dacian name for 'Saturn', or at least the name of the old Saturn festival formed from the name (as Saturnalia from Saturn).

Many words beginning with Cra- (Kra-) are known to come from Ker-, and I'll list them later. A number of other Romanian words also come from this root, such as 'creanga' and 'craca'. I'm sure the word Craciun is an old substratum word, and I'm pretty sure it's from the Dacians, from the IE root Ker-. There is a parallel root Ger-, that also meant 'bent', 'crooked'. 'Ger-' is the source of the English word 'cringle' (as in Chris Cringle), and that gives us a solid parallel example. Yet Ker- is the better root for Craciun, because PIE 'k' would remain 'k' (c) in Dacian, while PIE 'g' (in 'ger-') would remain 'g' in Dacian. These sound-changes are usually constant. I've assembled a Dacian-PIE phonetic table on my User Page, that shows the sound-changes that I expect from PIE to Dacian. Decius 05:30, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Gee, Decius, I wonder what made you think of these particular topics this week... -- Jmabel | Talk 05:57, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

)It was all part of the master plan. Decius 06:33, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ţurţur

Ţurţur is a Romanian word for an 'icicle' (also for a 'pipe') that is considered to derive from Dacian. Previous researchers have already done a good job tracing the stem of this word (Olteanu's article), yet I have some extra info I haven't seen discussed elsewhere that adds to the case.

Olteanu correctly identifies ţur- as a substratum Dacian stem that meant 'a tube, a tunnel', and he cites the ancient Greek word Syrinx (=Surinx, that 'Y' is always an Upsilon) as being from the same stem. Correct. I found another ancient Greek word that seals the case (though it was already sealed): Turisdo (tur-), which was the Doric variant for Surizo, which was a verb that meant 'to play the surinx or play other pipes'. There is a continuity from sur<>ţur<>tur, and the Romanian form is inbetween the standard Greek and the Dorian form. This is interesting in another respect: it is known the Dorians once lived well up in the North of Greece, adjacent to Thracians (though Thracians also lived well south into Greece, especially in earlier times): perhaps they had the Tur- form under Thracian influence, though the Dorians themselves were Greek-speakers (at least I beleive so).

This stem is found in other Romanian words such as ţurloi which means 'the leg from the knee down to the ankle', 'a pipe', or an 'icicle'; and in other words such as ţuţuroi (a water-pipe), ţurca(a type of bat/stick; the game played with this bat) and possibly ţurcan (a type of sheep with long tube-like ears) and ţurca (a type of caciula made from the wool of the turcan sheep; from ţurcan). ţurloi can mean 'pipe' or 'lower leg' just as in Latin 'tibia' could mean 'pipe' or 'lower leg'. In ancient Greek surinx is also used in some texts to mean 'any long hollow object' such as the sheath of a lance. Polybius used the word to refer to 'a tunnel' or 'mine shaft'. The word 'Syringe' (suringe, hollow tube) is known to be from Surinx. A cognate to these Greek words is found in Sanskrit: surunga, which meant 'an underground tunnel'. Though there was a German linguist who said this word may have entered sanskrit after the Greeks entered India: that's irrelevant to my point, and I won't get into that. The fact that the Sur- stem produced words that meant 'sheath' as well as 'underground tunnel' seals the case (though it was also already sealed) that the Wag- root produced 'vagina' (sheath) and 'vagauna' (a cave, a deep tunnel-like hollow). And the existence of such a Dacian word as 'vagauna' (so close to Latin 'vagina') makes a good case for the Dacian Latin theory: especially when added to all the other etymological evidence (thanks mostly to me: linguists had overlooked all those connections).

I also beleive that the anc. Greek word Turris (a tower: a long, high usually cylindrical, partly hollow construction: an icicle looks like a small upside down tower of ice) is from the same stem (both 'turris' and 'surinx' are described as being of unknown/obscure origin and both may have entered Greek from Thracian). The word entered Latin and from there it entered the Romance languages, and then other languages such as English: tower. The stem is definitely an ancient Balkan stem, and the Romanian words are from Dacian and Thracian. Decius 02:21, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The native Romanian word Surla (a pipe instrument) shows that in Romanian we find both ţur- and sur-. Decius 06:22, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Taraboi

Taraboi (noise, uproar) has already been linked to ancient Greek 'Thorubos' (noise, uproar) and Albanian 'terboj' (to enrage). This is from a good-sized cluster of anc. Greek words, and the cluster is known to be related to anc. Greek 'turba', 'turbe' and Latin 'turba'.

'Thorubos' (noise, uproar, tumult, confusion) is found in a number of inflected forms. Here are some: 'Thorubeo' (verb= to make a noise or uproar, to shout together for or against something, to cheer, to raise clamours against, to confuse the enemy, to throw someone or something into confusion); 'Thorubodes' (adjective= uproarious, turbulent, tumultuous, causing alarms, causing confusion).

I am 100% certain that the Dacian term Tarabostes (the ruling class of Dacians) referred to a click or cadre of Dacian warriors known as 'the Rowdy Ones' who were known to scatter the enemy in battle (Lupta, under the sign of the wolf) and throw them into confusion. 'Tarabostes' is a hellenization of the actual Dacian term: Taraboshti. The word still survives in Romanian (Dacian) as Taraboi: we are descended much more from the Dacians than from the Romans, and our language is much more Dacian than we are led to beleive. Decius 03:16, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bãţ , Bâtã

Bãţ - stick, unknown origin

Bâtã - bat, unknown origin

Bate - hit, Lat. "batt(u)ere"

can Bãţ & Bâtã come from dacian ? -- Criztu 13:07, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yep. Possibly. It appears we have the PIE root *bhat- "to strike", from which we also have words Gaelic "batair" (to strike) and "batta" (stick), Latin "battuere" (to strike) and English "to beat". Bogdan | Talk 15:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Article title

The article begins: The Romanian language contains... Albanian language., which doesn't match with the title (List of Dacian words) very well IMO. Does this mean that no other languages that have dacian words? If yes, please say so. Also, it is a habit to start an article with the sentence that starts (or almost starts) with article title, highlighted. Mikkalai 21:22, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Other languages do have Dacian words, but in a lesser degree (unless one considers Albanian as a "Dacian dialect", in which case Albanian would have the most Dacian words). Most of the possible Dacian words in other languages entered from Romanian/Aromanian (for example, vatra is found in a number of Slavic languages, yet the consensus is that vatra entered these languages from the Vlachs, not from the Dacians themselves). I don't know of any scholar who has proposed that Slovak, let's say, has any Dacian words aside from words like vatra that entered from Vlachs. In the case of South Slavic languages like Serbian and Bulgarian, my opinion is that they do have some Dacian words, that entered either from Romanians or from Dacians. In the case of Bulgarian, these words are more often described as Thracian words, rather than as Dacian words, though it is difficult to tell the difference. Decius 01:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

thank you for explanations. In fact, most of the clarification should go into the article itself IMO. Can you do this? Mikkalai 01:12, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'll try to do it soon. Decius 01:52, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wulfila's Bible

Did any of you guys check the Wulfila's Bible? Apparently Wulfila learned Gothic while the Goths were living north of Danube. His Bible's Gothic contains words in Latin, probably they learned those from the locals. I was wondering if it would offer us some more information about the language that was spoken then north of Danube. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.81.182.37 (talk) 01:01, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

The concept itself is dubious

From talking to specialists in the field of Albanian and Balkan linguistics, I got the distinct impression that the idea of the Eastern Romance substratum as an independent language is beginning to fall out of favour, mainly because it violates the principle of parsimony.

The argument from etymology is also unsound, because new etymologies are constantly being proposed, so it is disingenuous to argue "word X has no etymology in language Y, so it must be from (substratum) language Z". An etymology for word X in language Y may well be found and argued for compellingly, so that the specialists may eventually be convinced that word X is actually native to language Y. This is especially true for languages that are not that well known, such as Albanian.

For the time being, it is best to work on the assumption that all the words in question can ultimately be traced back to known or reconstructed languages such as Latin, Greek, (early stages of) Albanian, Slavic, or Germanic. Scholars working on Romanian etymology are not necessarily experts on Albanian, Slavic, or Germanic etymology at the same time, which may prevent them from recognising or acknowledging etymologies involving those languages that might convince experts in those (unfortunately small and obscure, with no good comprehensive dictionaries to present the state of the art) fields. For example, with my knowledge of early Slavic I see no reason not to treat baltă/baltë, daltă/daltë and sută as direct borrowings from (proto-)Slavic; in fact, in light of the helpful anonymous contribution under #About the DEX I find the derivation from a putative substratum (such as Dacian) much less credible than the derivation from Slavic.

Also, there may be a resistance against the assumption that words could have been borrowed from early Albanian to early Romanian (or, in fact, the other way round) directly, because of the geographic distance between modern Romania and Albania, but there is actually no reason to reject the possibility, especially given the fact that proto-Romanian has variously been proposed to have been located in the immediate vicinity of proto-Albanian, or even in the same region (north-eastern Albania, perhaps even more specifically the Šar Mountains given their remoteness and isolation, which would explain how Albanian and Romanian escaped assimilation through Slavic), so much that (taking into account the basically identical lifestyle of semi-nomadic mountain pastoralism that can be reconstructed for both groups) one may wonder if (especially considering their mobility) the speakers of proto-Albanian and proto-Romanian might not ultimately have been one and the same ethnic group immediately preceding the settlement the Slavic-speaking groups in the area (which happened in the 7th century), namely a bunch of mountain pastoralists that moved around in the inner Balkans and used both their original Balkan Indo-European language (among themselves) and a form of Latin/Romance influenced by it (to communicate with outsiders), who then split and either retained their original language and stopped using the Romance variety, or stopped using their original language and retained the Romance variety, spreading out from an area in or close to Albania to other mountainous areas in the inner Balkans, each, however, retaining traces of the other language in their respective language. To me, this sounds like the best explanation for the intimate intertwining of both languages. Don't forget that (proto-)Romanian and (proto-)Albanian are also the only Balkan languages that originally seem to have been characterised by numerous typical Balkanisms, including the characteristic vocabulary, while Slavic and Greek at the time weren't typical Balkan languages in the modern sense.

Other old Indo-European Balkan languages such as Dacian, Thracian or Illyrian are not likely to have played any big role in the early Middle Ages and are not very likely as conveyor of loanwords, probably already having been mostly assimilated to Latin and Greek by the time, even before Slavic (and languages such as Gothic, Hungarian or Bulgar Turkic) came in and finished off what was left of them.

There might be a small residue of words left after the process of weeding out that cannot be plausibly explained as ultimately borrowed from known languages (or earlier stages of them, respectively), but I doubt it is as much as has been insinuated. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:42, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I know some linguists oppose the concept of substratum (see for example Stefan Schumacher, "Lehnbeziehungen zwischen Protoalbanisch und balkanischem Latein bzw. Romanisch" in Albanische Geschichte. Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung. 2009, p. 37-59), however this is only a point of view. For many scholars the substratum is one or more languages which are pre-X (pre-IE, pre-Latin, pre-Celtic, pre-Germanic, pre-Greek etc - for pre-Greek see also R. S. P. Beekes' "Pre-Greek").

I disagree with the method "it is best to work on the assumption that all the words in question can ultimately be traced back to known or reconstructed languages such as Latin, Greek, (early stages of) Albanian, Slavic, or Germanic". This assumption violates the Uniformitarian Principle. With this assumption we're supposed to believe the sources of loanwords are several languages in contact with Latin/Romance which are those languages we know better, and not any other. Why? Moreover we know that some ancient Celtic words were borrowed in Latin and thus inherited in Romance languages. J. N. Adams (Bilingualism and the Latin language, 2003) evidenced many cases of contact and borrowing in Roman times. Thus it is more reasonable to assume some paleo-Balkan words were inherited in Eastern Romance languages.

I also disagree with what's been said about linguists and etymologies. Contrary to the opinions expressed here, linguists are usually fluent in several languages, ancient and modern. A Romanian linguist can be a Romanist, a Classicist but also a Slavist, thus in the latter case he can be expert in Slavic etymologies. The editor complaining about the DEX also believes the Dacians spoke Latin (or a language very similar to it), so his assertions about the DEX being wrong cannot be trusted. Moreover the method is not "no etymology in language Y, so it must be from substratum": in the same DEX there's a category of words with unknown etymology. After further research, a word with unknown etymology may be eventually traced back to Latin, Greek, Slavic, Turkic or, why not, to substratum.

These substratum words in Romanian did not enter (Vulgar) Latin in 2nd century only, but until the 6th century or so. As the line of contact between Proto-Romanian and Proto-Albanian was south of Danube, the traditional opposition between "continuists" and "migrationists" is moot. Whatever words were borrowed from Proto-Albanian in (Balkan) (Vulgar) Latin before the 7th century are also from substratum. And now we reach the questions of chronology. In the evolution from (Vulgar) Latin to Romanian there some significant sound changes. One of them is the rhotacism of intervocalic l (e.g. Latin mola(m) becomes moară in Romanian, caelu(m) > cer, and so on). However this doesn't happen for Slavic borrowings, thus we can conclude (as many other scholars did) the articulation habits which led to rhotacism were already lost by the time of the first contacts between Proto-Romanians and Slavs. From this perspective some Albanian-Romanian parallels are obviously ancient, see Rom. viezure cf. Alb. vjedhullë (in the evolution of Albanian, l changed to ll between vowels), mazăre cf. modhullë, zară cf. dhallë, etc. As we now know these words were in Proto-Romanian before the contact with Slavic languages, it's quite likely they come from substratum. This example also shows that is unlikely the Proto-Albanians and the Proto-Romanians were one and the same (bilingual) linguistic community before the contact with the Slavs. There are arguments for many words, I will not discuss them all. My point is there are indeed some arguments, and these words are not merely some words for which no other etymology was found. Daizus (talk) 17:08, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The Uniformitarian Principle cannot be used to advocate substratum origin for specific words. (Nobody denies that substratum languages must have existed, the problem is to demonstrate that they left any traces.) The principle of parsimony still dictates that we have to try to find an etymology from a known language, else we run the risk of explaining obscurium per obscurius, i. e., an obscure word by something even more obscure, namely completely unknown and only postulated (not even reconstructed from known materialto have necessarily existed). The default assumption or working hypothesis (for etymology to be a productive endeavour) cannot be that a word with unknown etymology is from a substratum, the default assumption must be that the correct etymology has not been found yet and may still be found without recurrence to substratum explanations (especially when there are reasons, as I have given, to consider substratum influences unlikely in the specific case, here Romanian). Only when there are specific reasons to suspect substratum origin (for example exotic phonotactics or morphological alternations) one should even consider it.

I said "not necessarily experts", that does not mean that I claim the linguists in question are unfamiliar with these languages. Still, how many scholars working on Romanian etymologies are deeply knowledgeable about Old Albanian, for example?

I did not refer to Decius's complaint about the DEX (by the way, Decius explicitly claims that the Dacians spoke something close to Balto-Slavic, not Latin, and I don't see why I should distrust his judgment because of this belief only; his criticism of the DEX makes sense and has nothing to do with his beliefs about the language of the Dacians), but to the anonymous contribution about daltǎ and sutǎ at the end. The Slavic forms must have been *balta, *dalta and *suta as late as the 8th century, as we have plenty of evidence that Slavic (especially its vocalism) was still very Baltic-like at the time.

You still do not explain in your last paragraph why the words in question cannot simply be loanwords from early Albanian (some stage – predating Proto-Albanian in the proper sense – roughly contemporary with Classical Latin, which can be reconstructed to some extent, although only indirectly, with the help of Latin and Greek loanwords) into Romanian, and inherited in Albanian instead of borrowed from some unknown other source. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Castelmezzano dialect and the Balkans

@Rgvis:, could you refer to a reliable source stating that the Castelmezzano dialect of the Italian language developed in the Balkan Peninsula and shares a substratum with the Balkan Romance languages (Romanian, Arumanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian)? Borsoka (talk) 08:06, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

There is no connection between the ancient languages (Dacian-Thracian) that form the substratum and the Balkans term. (Rgvis (talk) 12:34, 3 September 2019 (UTC))

@Rgvis:, if you cannot refer to a reliable source which states that the Castelmezzano dialect of Italian (an Eastern Romance idiom) shares a substratum with the Balkan Romance languages, why did you revert my move? This article is dedicated to the common substratum of the four Balkan Romance languages.Borsoka (talk) 13:10, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 3 September 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to "Substrate in Romanian". (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:05, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

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Eastern Romance substratum → Balkan Romance substratum – According to standard categorization, Balkan Romance languages and the Castelmezzano dialect of Italian together form the Eastern Romance subgroup of the Romance languages. However, no reliable source states that the Balkan Romance languages and Castelmezzano share a common substratum. The subject of the article is the Balkan Romance substratum: if we want to follow WP:Name, we have to rename the article. Borsoka (talk) 17:38, 3 September 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this subsection with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose (a more appropriate name would be "Romanian substratum", as explained below). (Rgvis (talk) 17:56, 3 September 2019 (UTC))
• Oppose Balkan Romance also implies inclusion of the Dalmatian language, which is not typically discussed in relation to this topic (but is sometimes discussed as forming a clade with Romanian; alternative would be "Italo-Dalmatian" as a clade).--Calthinus (talk) 17:00, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

"Balkan Romance substratum" also means something different as used here in scholarship -- [[2]][[3]]. Whereas "Eastern Romance substratum" refers to the substrate in Eastern Romance, Balkan Romance substratum refers to a Romance substrate present in Balkan Slavic. --Calthinus (talk) 18:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Well said, Calthinus. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:17, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

• • @Calthinus:, @Ktrimi991:, thank you for your comments. I highly appreciate that you dedicated time to cast your votes. I am still asking you to reconsider your votes for the reasons that I list below. Borsoka (talk) 04:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

• • @Borsoka and Ktrimi991: alternate proposal: Substrate in Romanian. Below for extended reasoning.--Calthinus (talk) 07:40, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

OK. I can accept it. Borsoka (talk) 07:51, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I support Substrate in Romanian. I think it adresses concerns raised by both of you. Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:57, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Actually, the article deals only with the Romanian substratum, as it was originally created, making no mention of other related languages (and later renamed without any explanation: [4]). (Rgvis (talk) 17:56, 3 September 2019 (UTC))

Can you refer to reliable sources stating that the Romanian substratum and the Balkan Romance substratum are different languages? All relevant literature say that the Balkan Romance languages (Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian) descends from the same Proto-Romanian language. Borsoka (talk) 01:01, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Or better, Daco Romance substratum. (Rgvis (talk) 11:58, 5 September 2019 (UTC))

"Balkan Romance" is the most widely used term in English literature, according to the reliable sources cited in the article dedicated to the Balkan Romance languages. Borsoka (talk) 13:08, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

There are no such statistics of terms, all being equally used (sometimes even in the same paper). (Rgvis (talk) 17:26, 5 September 2019 (UTC))

What is for sure, most sources of the "Balkan Romance languages" prefers this term. The term is neutral, because it shows that these languages are spoken in Southeastern Europe, not only in the former Roman province of Dacia. Nevertheless, if you could demonstrate that "Daco-Romance languages" is the proper term, the page could be moved in accordance with the rules of Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial. Borsoka (talk) 17:42, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Also big oppose for "Daco-Romance". The Eastern Romance substratum is also of interest to Albanian linguistics. Calling it Daco-Romance is anathema to the vast majority of scholars who oppose the Dacian-Albanian theory.--Calthinus (talk) 17:56, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The issue of the single site of Castelmezzano is not commonly discussed. Google scholar returns just 2 relevant results, one of them being an Oxford encyclopedia, the other this [[5]] which notes common features but does not claim a common origin, much less a substrate. Castelmezzano's location is also bizarre here, but I guess it was close to the Messapians, related to Balkan peoples, so that could be relevant. The vowel treatment also resembles developments in Albanian -- but this is OR and should not be in the mainspace as such.--Calthinus (talk) 16:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Calthinus and Ktrimi991, again thank you for your comments. Here are the facts based on which I am asking you to reconsider your votes:

• If the term "Balkan Romance" includes Dalmatian, this is also true for "Eastern Romance", because the Balkan Romance languages are also Eastern Romance languages, according to the sources cited in the article Eastern Romance languages. Consequently, your above argumentation requires that that the article be renamed.
• None of the sources that Calthinus referred to above states or implies that the use of the term "Balkan Romance substratum" is limited to a Romance substrate present in Balkan Slavic. Indeed, one of the sources states that Balkan Romance substrate had influence on Balkan Slavic, but this does not mean that the term can only be used in connection with Balkan Slavic languages. For instance, Slavic languages had strong influence on Hungarian, according to all reliable sources, but based on this fact we cannot claim that the term "Slavic languages" can only be used in the context of the study of the Hungarian language ([6]). The other source identifies Balkan Romance as "coastal Dalmatian or continental proto-Vlachian", but please remember that this is a source specialized in Slavic linguistic and works specialized in Romance linguistic follow a different approach.
• Works specialized in Romance linguistic state that Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian form the Balkan Romance subgroup. For instance, there are three reliable sources cited in the article "Balkan Romance languages" which make it clear. Please note that one of them (Lindstedt, Jouko (2014). "Balkan Slavic and Balkan Romance: from congruence to convergence". In Besters-Dilger, Juliane; Dermarkar, Cynthia; Pfänder, Stefan; Rabus, Achim (eds.). Congruence in Contact-Induced Language Change: Language Families, Typological Resemblance, and Perceived Similarity. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 168–183. ISBN 978-3-11-033834-8.) is dedicated to the study of both Balkan Romance and Balkan Slavic languages. Works specialized in Romance linguistic are also unanimous that the four Balkan Romance languages developed from the same Proto-Romanian language and the same sources also refer to its substrate (identifying it as a Thracian, Dacian or Illyrian dialect, or as Albanian).
• Linguistic terms are not always precise from geographical point of view. If the term "Balkan Romance" implies the inclusion of the Dalmatian language (which used to be spoken along the westernmost coasts of the Balkans), what about the term "Indo-European languages" which implies the exclusion of Persian, Hittite and Tocharian (not spoken neither in Europe, nor in India). Or what about the term "Indo-Iranian languages wich implies the inclusion of the Dravidian languages spoken in significant regions of India, although they are not included in the Indo-Iranian language family. I proved above that the scientifically defined term "Balkan Romance" includes only four languages which share a common substrate, so we can dedicate a properly named article ("Balkan Romance substrate") to it.
• Thank you for your time. Borsoka (talk) 04:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Indo-European was conceived in a way that "Indo" referred not to India, but to Indo-Iranian, while at the time scholars didnt know of the existence of Tocharian, thought Armenian was Iranian, and thought Anatolic was Semitic (I guess Phrygian was just a lapse). The family also had other names, like "Aryan", which fell out of use predictably after Nazis appropriated it.

However Borsoka your point is well taken. Eastern Romance has the same problem. I think we need to be very clear with article naming. We should not be implying that Pannonian Romance spoken on the shores of Balaton shared the same Romanian-Albanian "substrate" vocab (some might call it an a adstrate instead). Nor Dalmatian. And we know too little of the Romance idiom that was once spoken around Kavaje. Propose instead: Substrate in Romanian. Romanian, broadly defined, also includes Aromanian, Meglenoromanian and Istroromanian. But not the idioms of Balaton, Ragusa, Kotor or Kavaje. And furthermore, this way it is clear we are talking about the substrate beneath Romanian, not cases where Romanian itself is the substrate (i.e. Bosnia).--Calthinus (talk) 07:35, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Although you did not address my reference to Indo-Iranian and Dravida languages [:)], I think your proposal is a compromise. Borsoka (talk) 07:50, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Borsoka Off topic but modern India is a recent British invention. The geographic and cultural region existed before but it was and still is Bharati. "India" is from Hindush, Hindia, Hindustan and traditionally referred to the north, and before that it meant the northwest i.e. the Indus.--Calthinus (talk) 16:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, geographical terms are inventions. Nevertheless, Dravidian languages are spoken in India, but they are not Indian languages. Borsoka (talk) 00:59, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I support Substrate in Romanian. I think it adresses concerns raised by both of you. Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:59, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Felecan and Felecan

Hi @Borsoka!

First of all, the etymon you present as fringe is proposed by Draganu, a reputable linguist that you support as the most reliable source for the etymology of Ardeal. What made you change your mind about him?

The list presents the known roots of those words as written by the authors of the cited paper (Nicolae Felecan and Oliviu Felecan) with the description as substrate words. I did not took the liberty of naming them "substrate" myself. All etymons converge to Indo-European languages that are listed as descendants of Proto-Indo-European, widely influential in European toponomy. Again, the choice of describing them as substratum belongs to the authors, I'm just a scribe.

If you like to contest the implications of Felecan's research paper I suggest to do so on the Origin of Romanians, where this sort of debate belongs. As far as Romanian language goes he (they) are a solid source of information. Else, please present a (reliable) paper that specifically refutes their neutrality. Aristeus01 (talk) 11:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

No reliable source states that Romanian had four subsrtate languages and Sankskrit was one of them. It is quite obvious that you misinterprete the cited source or it presents a fringe theory. Borsoka (talk) 13:15, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Here's the specific line

"Someș(în lat.Samus,cf. CIL III, I, 827) este afuent pe stânga al Tisei și provine de la un rad. sanscr. çam- “calm, liniștit” (cf. Drăganu,1933: 474)"

You can translate it or have another editor translate it and then tell me where the misunderstanding is.

If I was to interpret it in any way I would've put Proto-Indo-European in the corresponding box. But Sanskrit is what the authors say and that is what I wrote. Aristeus01 (talk) 14:09, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Whatever it says it cannot say that Sanksrit is a substrate of Romanian. Please, do not edit based on sources you obviously do not understand. Borsoka (talk) 14:19, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Please don't patronise me.

Since needed: the language of origin in the column refers to the etymon. An etymon refers to a word or morpheme (e.g., stem or root) from which a later word or morpheme derives. Therefore the language of origin is the one where the etymon was identified. It is not my responsibility as an editor to interpret in what way this happened.

All 3 authors are reputable and accepted as sources on other pages. Aristeus01 (talk) 15:47, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Again: neither Sanskrit nor Proto-Indoeuropean could be the substrate language of Romanian. You are obviously misinterprete the source or the source represents fringe theory. Standard literature maintains that those river names are not substrate worlds but loanwords in Romanian. Borsoka (talk) 04:48, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Linguist Grigore Brâncuși says: "Comparison can be made to other Indo-European languages from outside Balkan area if the words cannot be attested in Thracian or Illyrian." The reason for this is that the word could have an etymon from Proto-Indo-European transmitted to Romanian substrate from the pre-Latin languages. This doesn't mean those languages are substrate languages to Romanian. It means they have a connection trough Proto-Indo-European with the language of substrate in Romania, a substrate for which I never read any opinion placing it outside the Indo-European family. However, this should not be confused with language contact. Sanskrit is not a substrate language for Romania but it can be the language where the etymon was identified. This is exactly what the authors say. Does this clarify things for you? Aristeus01 (talk) 17:56, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

I must assume you do not understand the concept of substrate. For instance, the Carpathians were known in Romanian as Munții Ungurești ("Hungarian Mountains") or Munții Transilvaniei ("Mountains of Transylvania") until the 19th century, when the Classical name was adopted as a neologism ([7], [8]). A similar process can be detected in other languages of the region. For instance, in Hungarian the same mountains were known as Havasok ("Snowy Mountains"), but from the 19th century the Hungarians also adopted the Classical name: Kárpátok. Neither Romanian Carpați, nor Hungarian Kárpátok can be described as substrate words because they were not inherited from a substrate language but adopted as a neologism. Borsoka (talk) 04:08, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Substratum words in this line is used for words from the language spoken in the area that had influence on Romanian, and the phrasing used was "the name of the mountain range" not "inherited name" in purpose of leaving room for etymological debate. If you want to expand on the etymology and the language interference of this particular name, there's a page for the geographical feature. As I said before, if you want to suggest a rephrasing or want to add something relevant, please feel free to do so. Just tagging things you do not agree with as dubious is disruptive. Those are cited lines closely following the source material.

I notice also that your pattern of flagging for this article follows the line of Dacian contact with Vulgar Latin and its influence on Romanian. I will not put up with systemic bias on this article. Here we speak of the language. A page you heavily contributed to deals with the theories about the Romanian language connection to Dacian, I suggest adding your thoughts there.

Last, but not least: again, "You do not understand" (and you do?). I do not understand what? Romanian? I clearly stated again and again I am following cited material. The only one taking liberty here to draw overall conclusions and create synthesis from selected materials that you then present as "standard literature" is yourself. This lack of etiquette needs to stop. Aristeus01 (talk) 09:54, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Original research is to be stopped. Standard literature is what the Romanian Academy of Science supports. Again, you obviously do not understand what substrate means: Dacian and Celtic are not substrate languages of Hungarian, although the Hungarian names of the Tisza, Mures, Somes, Cris, Danube are most likely of Dacian or Celtic origin. The idea that the present Romanian form of the same rivers' name did not develop from a Latin form, but from assumed "substrate" forms, including Sankskrit contradicts anything that academic sources state. Borsoka (talk) 13:31, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

This is what the Academy supports. The main sources, History of Romanian Language and From Latin to Romanian are written by full members of the Academy, language professors Grigore Brâncuș and Marius Sala, respectively. The river names etymology I already explained to you, why ignore the explanation?

It is clear from your answer you are supporting a theory about Romanian ethnogenesis and it's argument: the substrate elements of Romanian are not from a language spoken in the area of Romania. Wikipedia however does not encourage original research and I stick to what the sources say. Aristeus01 (talk) 14:07, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Could you refer to a single academic work suggesting that Sanksrit or Proto-Indoeuropean was spoken in the lands now forming Romania or Romanian speakers migrated from India (where Sanksrit was spoken) to Romania? Borsoka (talk) 02:12, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European source: The Genomic History of Southeastern Europe - PMC (nih.gov), The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe | Science; most famously Kurgan hypothesis with all the associated literature;

Connection to South and Central Asia and Scythians: The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia - PMC (nih.gov), Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe - PMC (nih.gov)

That comment on Sanskrit is a new low...

After going through this sources let me know if you want to rephrase Sanskrit to Proto-Indo-European. Aristeus01 (talk) 12:04, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

If Felecan & Felecan really propose that Someş/Samus originates from the Sanskrit root çam- (शम्), that's really a big red flag. If it's just their way of saying that Someş/Samus comes from an early IE substratum and is cognate to Sanskrit शम्, well that's a sloppy way to put it but not as outlandish as a direct Sanskrit origin. But: we cannot state such a thing in Wikivoice (the column heading "Proposed origin" takes a Sanskrit origin at face value). To say that Sanskrit could be a substratum in any European language is an extraordinary claim that needs extraordinary sources. And also: why is Sanskrit displayed as "Sanscrit" with a piped link? –Austronesier (talk) 20:36, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out the typo!

That is my understanding as well: Sanskrit is the language where the root was identified (the original proponent-researcher was Nicolae Drăganu), and the substratum word is a cognate to Sanskrit from an IE language.

The "Proposed origin" is my phrasing. It makes sense what you are saying about stating that in Wikivoice. I am trying to figure a way to express it in a less ambiguous way. Perhaps "Felecan's List of Romanian river names"? I'm going a bit in circles here, I'm afraid. If I say that, change the language to PIE for example, the author referenced Drăganu and then I'm not faithful to the sourced material (not to mention non-factual) . If I say "Felecan's list" and leave Sanskrit on the list the reader might just wave a red flag at the sight of it, as you said. Aristeus01 (talk) 21:42, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Aristeus01!

The name origin of the rivers in these main pages do not match with your for example Timiș (river), Danube, Tisza etymons. OrionNimrod (talk) 17:29, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're merely pointing at a discrepancy, or saying the list is wrong, or you are inviting me to correct those pages. Aristeus01 (talk) 17:56, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I pointed out, that the origin of the rivers names in the main pages of the rivers are different, which means incoherence between articles. OrionNimrod (talk) 09:23, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! It is a difficult topic to write about and different results of the comparative method are often cited on related articles. Hopefully we can expand on this topic and reach some consensus. Aristeus01 (talk) 12:06, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

NPOV

The article is clearly biased towards the continuity theory which claims that Romanian started to develop in the lands to the north of the Danube (in present-day Romania). For instance, the article mentions "the relatively short period of Roman rule" as a fact, although if the development of Romanian started in the land to the south of the Danube the period was longer than 400 years. Borsoka (talk) 08:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I actually agree with you on this particular example. When I added it I was thinking of the impact of the substratum, not the implication to its location. I will remove that line.

As for the general "bias towards continuity theory" the so-called bias belongs to the sources, not me - the editor. I am not interested in providing arguments for or against, I am looking to rigorously mine the best sources for language. If this sources come up with research that has implications in the historical debate is beyond my scope and interest. However, even if others disagree, I will not put aside dedicated Romanian studies to the topic of Romanian language on an alleged bias. Most, if not all other foreign studies, also rely on this native sources to research it. Aristeus01 (talk) 12:35, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

The selection of sources can itself lead to an obvious bias. Why should Romanian studies be put aside? Who has suggested it? Borsoka (talk) 14:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm referring to the phrases you flagged as neutrality disputed and dubious, as opposed to so-called standard literature. Aristeus01 (talk) 15:22, 24 October 2022 (UTC)