Chronology of the breakup of Common Romance [long]

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

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