Talk:Dacian language

Hoddinott quote
According to archaeological work cited by Ralph Hoddinott, the last Dacians held out in the territory corresponding pretty much exactly to what is now Moldavia into the 4th century ad (300-400 ad) at least, but beyond that "dating depends on how far the Carpic culture can be considered a seperate entity after the Gothic arrival". Here again, speaking of the last archaeological layers "whether there is any overall ethnic basis for the horizon or whether it represents a varying amalgam of invaders and a North Thracian (by this he means Dacian as elsewhere in his book) or other substratum, all "barbarians" but in different ways reflecting the influence of the Roman world, it is generally agreed that, at least west of the Dneister (=Moldavia), a Thracian element remained to makes it contribution." Alexander 007 04:53, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Some romanian "lingvist" says that the free dacians remained in small comunities across what is now Romania until the XVII-XVIII century, when they where finnaly asimillated byt the romanians.His argument is the word "curca" (turkey in romanian, the animal not the country), which would have been invented by those "dacian remnants".Preety fantastic this theory for me, but whorth to try at least analizing this word "curca". &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.231.84.73 (talk &bull; contribs) 30 Aug 2005.

romanian substratum issues
I certainly agree with most of the passage about how the presumed "substratum" words in Romanian don't have a clear or solid link to what we know of Dacian, and how many in the past assigned the words of unknown origin to Dacian by default, which isn't necessarily right. In some cases they may be Albanian borrowings by the proto-Romanians or Vlachs there, depending on which theory one subscribes to, but that's another heated topic that concerns the "origin or Romanians" page more. I also agree there is an underlying effort by many Romanian scholars in the past to heighten or emphasize connections that aren't very strong realistically, and believe Lucian Boia had some points, especially when regarding the fringe theories like the link to proto-Italic with Dacian, making Latin ultimately descended from it, which is complete pseudo-linguistics.

However that being said I think there's got to be a better way to word or organize parts of the following paragraph:

"Despite strenuous efforts by Romanian scholars to prove a Dacian linguistic "substratum" for the modern Romanian language, there is in reality little hard evidence that Romanian is linked to the ancient Dacian language at all. None of the few Dacian words known (mainly plant-names) and none of the Dacian words reconstructed from placenames have specific correspondent words in Romanian (as opposed to general correspondents in several IE languages). Words defined as "autocthonous" (i.e. indigenous) by DEX are assumed by several scholars to be of Dacian origin, but there is no proof that they are. They could, in some cases, be of pre-Indo-European origin (i.e. truly indigenous, from Stone Age Carpathian languages), or, if clearly Indo-European, be of Sarmatian origin. It seems plausible that a few Dacian words may have survived in the speech of Carpathian inhabitants to be imported later into the Romanian language, when the latter became the predominant language in the region. But this incidental connection hardly qualifies as a linguistic substratum. (In contrast, Slavic has a far stronger claim to constitute the substratum of Romanian, since 10-15% of the Romanian lexicon, numerous grammatical features, and a majority of Romanian placenames, are of Slavic origin: see Slavic influence on Romanian). In any case, there is no genetic relationship between ancient Dacian and modern Romanian: Romanian is descended from the Italic branch of IE, through Latin and proto-Romance; the classification of Dacian remains uncertain, but all linguists agree that it did not belong to the Italic branch."

I understand what they're trying to say regarding the technically stronger possible claim that Slavic has to being a substratum in Romanian, but I could see how this could be misleading to people who aren't familiar with these issues at all or the history of the region, who might actually misunderstand it as Slavic having a strong possibility for being the substratum. While this is technically not impossible, historically it does not seem very probable at all for a Slavic people to have been directly Latinized, since the ancient Romans hardly made direct contact with true Slavic people during the classical era (who weren't in Dacia or the Balkans at the time), and Romanian as a Romance language underwent many of the same Late and Vulgar Latin and early proto-Romance transitions and evolutions that were paralleled other Romance languages. It would have been a rather late start for this process if it only began in the 6th century when the first Slavs moved into the Dacia and Balkan region, making it highly improbable. Unless they're hinting that Romanians were a Slavic people who later had an element of Balkan Latin added or forced onto their language, but this doesn't make much sense either and there are numerous problems with that. Sound shifts from Slavic are different from those of Latin, indicating a probably later layer. Additionally, while there are Slavic grammatical influences in Romanian, this doesn't necessarily constitute a substratum, and there are stronger influences from the Balkan sprachbund (which is usually explained as being of Paleo-Balkanic origin, or at least linked with Albanian, rather than being of truly Slavic origin, despite its presence in Bulgarian/Macedonian, some Serbian etc. So while I'm not saying Romanian is linked with Dacian as far as we know, I do believe there is some kind of paleo-Balkanic influence on it) I realize the person who wrote that wasn't trying to suggest or say that it was actually the case that Slavic is a substratum, and simply that it had more of an impact on Romanian than Dacian, but I feel like the way it was worded wasn't necessary.

Also the way some parts of the passage were written seem to be subtle jabs at Romanian academic and scholarly work in the past overall; while I agree there are plenty of problems with it, the tone doesn't seem right here. There are also no citations in that whole section either. And why does that paragraph belong in the Baltic theory section necessarily? Whether or not it has any substratum link to Romanian doesn't seem to have much to do with whether Dacian was possibly originally linked with Baltic languages, unless they're trying to say that Baltic grammar would be more apparent in Romanian if it was the case that Dacian was a substratum for it. Just wanted to check to see if people had any opinions on this before just editing, thanks, Word dewd544 (talk) 21:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * A few more things: I don't know if Romanian necessarily even has a substratum that's truly proven really. I don't know why people try to hard to find one or prove it was one language or the other. We're probably looking at mostly later additions to the language that happened to have significant and deep impacts.


 * Also, there's a part that seems to assume most of the cognates with Albanian words were borrowed from Albanian. It may be true for many or even most of them, but I wouldn't throw them all in that category, and it hasn't been definitively proven in general. Addtitionally, it says the borrowing was one-sided. That's true, but there were also some early Romance words that entered Albanian probably from interaction with proto-Romanians (separate from the larger amount of borrowings Albanian made directly from Latin). Word dewd544 (talk) 17:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Citation still needed
After I added a "Citation needed" template to the claim that most Romanian place names are of Slavic origin, somebody removed it and added a link to an article about Slavic influence on Romanian. However, nothing in that article supports the claim, so I have put the template back on. I have no shares in the question but a profound interest in toponymy, so it would be great to see a link to a reliable source. --Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 17:40, 29 November 2012 (UTC) PS: Yes, the article about Slavic influence says that no place names known from Latin sources survived - which is an uncontested fact - but it does not follow that a majority of all place names of Romania are therefore Slavic. For example, East Romance or Romanian names could have been formed at a later stage. So a source would be great. --Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 18:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The majority of Romanian place names are Romanian, they're either a geographical description, like White River or Long Valley or derived from a family name Ciocăneşti = Hammerville, probably from the name of someone known as Ciocan (Hammer). Slavic placenames are found throughout the country, but they're not the majority anywhere. bogdan (talk) 22:37, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Intersting, thanks. It would be great with a source, though. Unfortunately, Balkan toponomy seems to be utterly neglected by linguists/philologians--Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 05:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Bogdan, the example you have chosen, Ciocanesti, disproves your own argument, since ciocan derives from a Slavonic word meaning "hammer". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.175.177.125 (talk) 20:32, 17 April 2013 (UTC)  This word was then adopted into Romanian. The point is that most Rom. placenames are based on Slavic words, although in many cases they have been "romanianised" by slightly modifying them, or giving them Rom. endings (e.g. -esti); or alternatively, translating them into Rom. (but the Slavic original appears in 16th/17th century maps)

Romanian placenames and Slavic substratum
The point about Romanian placenames is that, as a whole, they constitute an insurmountable obstacle to the Daco-Roman Continuity theory. They prove beyond reasonable doubt that medieval Dacia was predominantly Slavic-speaking before it became Romanian-speaking.

Quoting from the excellent section on Rom. placenames in Origin of the Romanians:

"Although some towns preserved their ancient names in South-eastern Europe up until now, the names of all Roman settlements attested in Roman Dacia in Antiquity disappeared. The names of some rivers survived the Roman withdrawal, but their modern forms suggest a Slavic mediation instead of a direct transmission from a native language or Latin to languages now spoken in the territory. For instance, the vowel shift from [a] to [u] or [o] experienced in the case of the rivers Mureş [< Maris], Olt [< Aluta], and Someş [< Samu(m)] is attested in the development of the Slavic languages, but is alien to Romanian and other tongues spoken in their regions. Dunărea, the Romanian name of the Danube may have developed from a supposed Geto-Dacian *Donaris form. However, this form is not attested in written sources. Therefore, it is possible that the Romanians' ancestors in this case also adopted a Slavic name." EraNavigator (talk) 18:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

If Latin-speakers continued as the majority group without interruption from Roman times, then the original (Daco-)Latin names would survive without Slavic mediation. Thus the river Aluta would still be called Aluta, and not Olt. The point about toponyms is that they are very conservative, often surviving successive changes in predominant language.

In contrast, the fact that many original Latin names survive in Rep. of Macedonia (the homeland of the Aromanians), probably implies that this was the region where the Romanian language originally developed - and was then spread into Dacia by migration of Vlach populations, most likely after the collapse of the First Bulgarian Empire in 1014, when tens of thousands of Vlachs, who were allied too the Bulgarians, fled north of the Danube to escape the reprisals of the Byzantines under Basil II the "Bulgar-Slayer". They probably formed a military elite which established their hegemony over Wallachia (then still known to the Byzantines as Sklavinia ("Land of the Slavs") and gradually superimposed the Vlach language by elite transfer (the process was not complete until the 16th c) . Once they had done so, they attracted even more Vlachs to migrate from south of the Danube, during the Byzantine oppression of Bulgaria (which was only ended in 1185 by the Vlach-Bulgarian Rebellion).

"Place names of Latin origin abound in the region of Lake Shkodër, along the rivers Drin and Fan and other territories to the north of the Via Egnatia. Gottfried Schramm argues that the names of at least eight towns in the region, likewise suggest the one-time presence of a Romance speaking population in their vicinity. Romanian place names can still be detected in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia. For example, such names are concentrated in the wider region of the river Vlasina both in Bulgaria and Serbia, and in Montenegro and the nearby territories. 18:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC) EraNavigator (talk) 18:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

§4.4 issues with etymologies
In §4.4, reconstruction of Dacian words, there are some serious issues with Georgiev's proposed etymologies; there is no PIE word for black *n̥-ks(e)y-no, and even if there were, it could not result in Axios (where is the nasal?). The Avestan form cited, 𐬀𐬑𐬱𐬀𐬉𐬥𐬀 axšaēna 'dark-coloured' (Bartholomae Altiranisches Wörterbuch pp. 51) is most likely the alpha-privative *n̥-, used to negate things (cf. the α-/αν- of Gk., the a-/an- of Sanskrit and Avestan, the a- of Latin, the un- in English, etc.) and some word for light or bright 𐬑𐬱𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬀 xšaēta 'bright, shining' (Bartholomae Altiranisches Wörterbuch pp. 541). This word, axšaēna 'dark-coloured', could conceivably come from a root *n̥-ks(e)y-no, but we have no other attestations outside of Iranian. Using a poorly-known language like Dacian to explain a poorly-known root like *ks(e)y- (the *n̥-, again, is the alpha-privative) is unhelpful at best. I think it would be pertinent to find another Indo-European attestation of this word before using it as the basis of an argument like Georgiev has done her. And I think it would be best to remove the portion about the etymology and the name of the lake; onomastics and hydronymy are very difficult to conclusively prove, and generally unhelpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vindafarna (talk • contribs) 17:04, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

9 yr old cite tagged - where is the reference??
' (For some historians, mainly Hungarian, this allegedly didn't occur before the 13th or 14th century[citation needed]), but the hypothesis is highly controversial since it likely is politically motivated.) ' - 2013 this was tagged - it needs an inline reference otherwise it reads like nationalist propaganda - PLEASE address!!! -HammerFilmFan 50.111.25.27 (talk) 00:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)