Chronology of the breakup of Common Romance [long]

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Victor y Rosario" <vjpaniego at worldonline.es> wrote:

>After calling again our attention on the many sources that use b- and -k-
>for the name of this people (e.g. *Balak* in the Armenian Geography by
>Chorenatzi, 9th century), Isbasescu concludes that either

>a. These items represent more or less the word *Vlach* as heard by other
>ethnic groups (access to written sources, especially in the case of the
>Scandinavian inscriptions, is considered unlikely),

Yes.

>or

>b. The word was coined by Germanic tribes, with the meaning of *the
>black-haired or -skinned ones*.

I don't think so.  As far as I know, there was no *blak(u)- in
the sense of "black" in early Scandinavian.  It's only in English
and OHG (blah).

Despite the objections made here, there's absolutely nothing
wrong with the traditional account:

Vlach, "Roman", name given to the Balkan Romanians by their
Slavic neighbours.

vlax, vlox, volox "Roman", borrowed by the Slavs from Germanic
walh.

walh, "Roman, foreigner", applied by the Germanic tribes to their
neighbours, especially those to to the south.  Formerly "Celt,
foreigner", from the name of a Celtic tribe to the south of
Germania (called Volcae by the Romans).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl