Re: Slovanik, Enamyn, and Slavic slaves

Quoting Peter Clark <peter-clark@...>:

> On Friday 02 August 2002 16:07, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > As I tried to explain in my last post, the Romans always used
> > whatever was most convenient to rule subdued populations.  In
> > the East, this meant Greek, and they had no hesitation in doing
> > so.  The point of this debate, it should be recalled, was whether
> > the Slavs were ever near or in Roman territory, and my argument
> > has been that the Byzantines were fundamentally a continuation of
> > ancient patterns of government as established by the Romans in
> > the immediately preceding centuries.
>         No, the point of this debate was to determine the probability of a
> Slavic-Romance language. It just got off on the wrong foot by my incorrect
> association of the Roman Empire with Latin-speaking Rome proper. Yes, the
> Slavs were close to Roman territory, as you effectively pointed out. No,
> they were not close to *Latin*-speaking Roman territory, as I pointed out.
> We are violently agreeing. :)
No, we're really not.  My assertion has been that the Byzantines were
merely a continuation of Roman rule, which is how most modern historians
take it.  In the East, there were significant populations of Romance
speakers, especially in the trans-Danube region but also all throughout
Dalmatia.  Indeed, one might even say that Romanian, Dalmatian, Aromanian,
and Megleno-Romanian are all to varying degrees Romance languages with
significant Slavic sub- and super-strates.  (It's often impossible to
tell the difference between them, and the terms "substrate" and
"superstrate" probably serve only to conceal the complexity of the
social relationships.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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