Chronology of the breakup of Common Romance [long]

[Eduard Selleslagh]

At 23:15 19/07/99 EDT, you wrote:

>In a message dated 7/19/99 12:15:24 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote:

><<That's merely because the Slavic languages have retained the
>"(c)h" in the Germanic loanword which was dropped in the modern
>Germanic languages (OE wealh, OHG walh).>>

>That would explain a lot of the way the variances seem to go.  But what
>happens in MHG?  I have 'Walch' (n), 'walsch', 'walche' (adj).   It seems
>like there's some back and forth.  I guess that makes sense in that 'vlach'
>itself is a form borrowed back from Slavic.

>In Old Norse, where the reference to anything Rumanian is least likely,
>'valskr' is typically reconstructed from '*valr' (which would put it before
>800 AD.)  I wonder if that reconstruction isn't questionable.

>Regards,
>Steve Long

[Ed Selleslagh]

I agree with you. In Dutch we have Waal (French speaking Belgian) and the
adjective Waals (older form, still in use in West-Flemish dialect: Waalsch.
The -sch is s+ach-laut, which corresponds to Scand. -sk and Eng. -sh).
There is no trace of -lch in MDu or ODu.

My hypothesis for the origin of the East-European -ch in Walach and the
like: a derivative ending, often depreciative, still productive as -ak in
Slavic (but also as an adjective forming suffix in Greek -ako's and in
various forms in other IE lgs, and even in Etruscan -ach and in Sumerian
-age).

Ed

Eduard Selleslagh
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