Romanian ethnic identity and language

 

With points like these who needs arguement.

 

"The Dacians never christiniazed because they vanished from history.
Some historians claim that Albanians are Dacians who added an addstratum to their
language due to their cohabitation with the Romanians/Vlahs."

 

Read about Badea Cartan.

 

 

So it seems the Dacians were well enough known through out history. You're opinion is wishful thinking backed up by...air.

 

"Jordanes claim that the Goths are Getians was adopted by most of the Germans, all over Europe.
The Spanish kings claimed that even recently. On maps during the XVI-th century the occurrence
of Dacia among German lands is pretty often."

I have never heard anyone claim that the Dacians were Germans. Jordanes simply said one of the kings was related to Decebal, quite possible. Whatever Germanic historians want to see they will see as usual.

 

"THe Celts left a very important legacy in Transylvania because they introduced the La Tene culture,
which is a period of the Iron Age  during 450 BCE to  the 1st century BCE, which spread only
in Transylvania (not other Romanian territories) around 300 BCE . Most of the Dacian arheological
artifacts are actually Celtic."

 

Spending some time in the Austrian museum have we? I've heard of the Rossleresque museums in Vienna claiming Celtic origin of Dacian artifacts. Even heard of a "Celtic Falx". That was a good laugh.

 

Again the Celts roamed through north western Dacia but was kicked out.

 

"You have a paroxysmal attitude by promoting continuity north of Danube,
by denying to the same people continuity south of the Danube.

Are you able to see the paradox?

You are saying, that Romanians were both north and south of the Danube.
But south of Danube they disappeared. "

 

No i don't see a paradox because i'm able to know the difference in geography. If the Welsh (Romanized Celts) could remain after being invanded by Angles, picts, vikings, saxons and normans behind some crappy hills how could the Daco-Romans not remain using the thick forests and carpathian mountains asa shield? It is obvious the core of the Daco-Romans (Vlachs) is Dacia, is Romania.

 

"First of all, Daco-Roman continuity is defined as a continuous living in the area of Dacia Traiana
from 106 up today. Prove it! (nobody was able to prove it).

It is very simple to prove it (if you can).
Find a place in Transylvania or Oltenia (this was the territory of Dacia Traiana) and prove
that in that place people lived continuosly. It is really simple your task."

 

Easy, the archelogical findings detailing a culturally Dacian and Roman populations including burials, pots, all throughout the centuries.

 

I hope you have your check book ready.

 

But we do know about Romanised people in Dacia. Here, see with your own eyes:

(This fragment of a pot was discovered in Teleorman county (Muntenia) in a site of Militari-Chilia culture (3-4th century AD), the culture of the Free Dacians from Muntenia. The pot was local produced and the use of Latin shows that the Free Dacians were oriented for adopting the Latin language.)

(Fragments of 5th century pottery from Soporu de Câmpie (Cluj county). Soporu de Câmpie is the biggest Dacian village from the time of the Roman province, discovered by archaeologists (2-3rd century). In 5th century pottery of Roman tradition was still produced there.)

(Pottery from Biharia. Biharia, the residence of Menumorut (fron the Gesta Hungarorum) was continuously inhabited from the Dacian time to the medieval period. This pots are from 1). 5-7 century, 2). 6th century, 3). 4th century)

(Graves of the cemetery Nr. 1 from Bratei, 4th century. The population was Daco-Roman, pagan, but a grave in form of a cross is observed.)

(1). Two Christian seals from Palatca (Cluj county) and Jabar (Timis county) used for the consecration of the bread; they are from 4-5th century. 2). Stencil for cross-shape jewels from Sânmiclaus (Alba county), 5-6th century.)

(Roman pottery from Gropsani (Olt county, Oltenia), 4-6th century.)

(continued on next PM)

Continued:

(6th century pottery from Dulceanca (Teleorman county), of Dacian tradition (Ipotesti-Cândesti culture).)

(Roman and Dacian tradition pottery from sites of Costisa-Botosana culture, 5-7th century, Moldavia)

(Christianized Dacian pottery from Poian (Covasna county), 7th century.)

(5-7th century Christian stencils from Botosana (Iasi county, Moldavia), Dumbraveni (Mures county), Straulesti (near Bucharest), Olteni (Covasna county), Traian, Poienita, Cristur (Hargihta county))

(Grave from Izvoru (Giurgiu county), on the banks of Danube. The necropolis (344 inhumation graves and 100 incineration graves) from 8th century is the first presence of Christian burial rite North of Danube. Until this time, the pagan tradition was mantained for inhumation, the incineration being almost the only rite of the Daco-Romans. Their religion (with the exception of some groups, deeper Christianized) was a mix of pagan and Christian elements.)

(Signs on the pottery from Bucov (Prahova county), 8-10th century.

This site belongs to the Dridu culture, uniformly present in most of the territory of Romania and in North-East Bulgaria. It was an expression of a phenomenon which consisted in the linguistical uniformization (the last Dacian speaking groups have been Rumanized) and in the introduction of the Slav language as eclesial and administrative language. From this period dates the presence of the Slav fund of words in Romanian language.)

 

"Your quotes have nothing to do with the Daco-Roman continuity"

 

Except for the part were the Austrian royalty and Italian historians say our forefathers were Roman veterans and colonists.

 

"What I see in your quotes is the Roman continuity north of Danube.
At the same time, during Renaissance, the German intellectuals in Transylvania (Saxons),
were claiming that Dacian were their forefathers (Jordanes claim). On the other side the
Italian merchants were discovering a language very similar to Italian north of Danube.
Their first thought was that these people must be descendants of the Romans."

 

I have never heard of any Germans claiming anything you have said. The Saxons and the Austrians are not one in the same. So Fredinand saying what he said has what relation to the Saxons? Perhaps the Italian historians came to this opinion BECAUSE THERE IS NO CHRONICLE mentioning a south to north move. NONE. Again the migration of such a people would have to be so large SOMEONE must have recorded it. If we can record the movement of 500 Cumans then surely we can document a migration the scale of the slavic migration. And another funny thing is, according to you the vlachs and slavs are migrating straight into each other. Don't wars usually break out when that happens?

 

See your theory that there was a south to north migration is full of holes.

 

"This is foolish.
Ianos Hunyadi was the son of Voicu (Vajk) and Erzsébet Morzsinay(a Hungarian). He married Erzebet
Szilagyi, a Maghyar noble, and had a son, the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus.

It is really hazardous to claim that Matthias Corvinus was a Romanian."

 

I didn't say they were Romanian, i said part Romanian. And to be honest I don't much care for either one.

 

"Where?
In Pannonia.
Exactly in the place, where around the year 900 the Hungarians meet some remnants of a population
which they call the Roman's shephards."

 

I didn't say in Pannonia. And the Huns reached all the way to the Danube. And in the 400s there was a Latin population north of the danube.

 

"According to your mind this means continuity of people?
The fact that a pocket of a romanized population still exist in Pannonia is a proof for
Daco-Roman continuity north of Danube?"

 

Yes pockets of Romanized people in Dacia is proof of the Daco-Roman continuity. That's kind of what it entitles. And they must have been in such a large number that we have kept the customes, cultures and language. Even though or addstratum has slavic, most of those words have latin counter parts. Which is why Romanians have an easy time understanding Italian, but Italians have a harder time understanding us. Our vocab is more varied. At the same time our grammar is closest to classical latin out of all the languages.

 

"In the XIX-th century several important Austrian linguists discover that Romanian is a language which
formed itself south of Danube in the area of today's Serbia."

 

The fact that there are Romanians in Serbia doesn't mean we migrated from there either. It simply means that the entire balkans was inhabited by us, Romanized Thracians. Even Vuk Karazdic said "All Serbs are Vlachs." And a Vlach is a Romanized Thracian. If you havn't noticed I use Vlach, Romanized Thracian, Daco-Roman, Romanian, all interchangably and so do the chronicles and historians that I mentioned here.

 

"One of their students was Dimitrie Onciul, president of the Romanian Academy of Science between
1925-1933 (until his death). He embraced a theory called the "admigration" theory, which became
very popular in Romania during the interwar period, but was put to rest by the communists
(this is the reason that you guys know only the national-communist theory of Daco-Roman continuity)."

 

Says you. But again the Daco-Roman continuity isn't a communist invention.

 

Laonikos Chalkokondyles, a Byzantine writer, came to the conclusion in the 15th century came to the conclusion, after interacting with Vlachs from the Pindus mountains, that the Dacians spoke "a broken Italian”, affirming that the Vlachs were descendants of Dacians and Romans (though his linguistic analysis was wrong).

Maybe he was a communist?

 

Pope Pius II (1458-1464) Commentarium rerum memorabilium

"Valachi lingua utuntur Italica, verum imperfecta, et admodum corrupta; sunt qui legions Romanas ….."

German historian Leopold von Ranke: “Dacia was organized into a Roman province. The indigenous Romanians give the name, even today, of “The path of Trajan” to the road which leads into Transylvania, and call Turnu Rosu “The Roman gate”. They are what remains of Trajan’s colonists brought into Dacia.”
( in Weltgeschichte , Leipzig , 1883 , page 272, 448 )

Damn those commies they have long reaching arms. Even through time!

 

The Armenian cartographer Chorenatsi writes in the 9th century of a "the country which is called Balak” (in reference to Blachs/Vlachs) North of the Danube.

 

Byzantine writer Kinnamos writes of the Vlachs North of the Danube in 1167, saying “They arrived long ago as colonists from Italy.”

 

Persian Gardizi (end of 11th century) speaks about a Christian Latinate people situated between Russians, Bulgarians and Hungarians: "They are all Christians… they are more numerous than the Hungarians".

 

Man even the Persians in the 11th century were communists.

 

The Roesler theory was a 19th century invention, one which cannot be regarded today due to the circumstances it was formed in. Roesler's invention was made as an argument against granting the Romanians the same rights as the other inhabitants of Transylvania. What did Roesler discover to completely turn established Romanian history on its head? A few words shared with Albanian. It's too bad Roesler never realized the Illyrians and Dacians were related.

Daco-Roman continuity on the other hand, not only predates nationalism, but wasn't even made by Romanians! Daco-Roman continuity was an established historical fact until the Hungarians broke away from it in the 19th century. Even Pope Clement VIII wrote to Michael the Brave, commending him on "making proud the name of his Roman ancestors."

Antonius Bonfinius wrote: “Because the Romanians are descendants of the Romans, a fact that even today is attested by their language, a language that, even though they are surrounded by diverse barbarian peoples, could not be destroyed.... even if all kinds of barbarian attacks flooded over the province of Dacia and the Roman people, we can see that the Roman colonies and legions that had been established there could not be annihilated”

Francesco della Valle wrote in 1534: "the emperor Trajan, after conquering this country, divided it among his soldiers and made it into a Roman colony, so that these Romanians are descendants, as it is said, of these ancient colonists, and they preserve the name of the Romans"

Despot Voda (a Greek) wrote in 1561: "we are a brave people of a warrior race, descendants of the illustrious Romans, who made the world tremor. And in this way we will make it known to the whole world that we are true Romans and their descendants, and our name will never die and we will make proud the memories of our parents"

"The most important ones were the Maghyars.
Actually, the Romanians moved north of the Danube mostly due to the Hungarians."

 

Of course what sane minded human wouldn't want to live under the rulership of a people that abuse you. The Romanians should be thankful to the Magyars first and fore most for giving us a place in history.

 

"Because the Maghyars were the first Turks to christianize and adopt catholicism,
soon they became an important power broker in the Balkans, controlling important
Slav territories, from where they imported workforce to colonize their territories north of Danube."

 

I'd love to see the chronicles backing this up. This highly advanced colonization movement used by importing these specific latin people from the south of the danube. I showed you chronicles of a Hungarian noble that said all of the Romanians were fleeing to Moldova and Wallachia and he couldn't do anything to stop them. It seems if anything the Romanian population (even though always a majority according to everyone including those darn communist Persians in the 11th century) suffered in numbers in transilvania under the Hungarian Kingdom.

 

Since you love talking about Turkic so much try reading Oguzname, the oldest Turkish chronicle in existence, mentioning a warlike expedition of the Cumans, affirms the existence of a “Country of the Vlachs” east of the Carpathians in 839, affirming that the region was well organized and with a powerful army.

 

"They are our ancestors too."

 

No doubt and i don't think he was denying that. He was simply saying to what extent. For you to say that the Bulgars found these un-Romanized Thracians and mixed with them and now the Bulgarians are more or less un romanized Thracian with not even a drop of Bulgar blood etc etc is fantasy.

 

"There was an intensive interactions between the Romanians/Vlachs and their
Slavs neighbors. Thus, the Romanian language borrowed loanwords from the
Bulgars and the Serbs, as adstratum, mostly in the realm of institutionalized life.
But Romanian is still a Latin language and not a Slavic language."

 

Yes we interacted alot, but NORTH of the danube river as affirms the Kieven Chronicle of Nestor.

 

"Albanian borrowed a lot from Romanian, being aside Romanian/Vlach the only  balkan
language with a large Latin lexicon."

 

Albanians got it via Italy (which is just across the adriatic) and the Illyrians. Albanians and Romanians never shared a boarder in history.

 

"The Latin speakers became the underdogs of the Balkans, the Vlachs, a ridiculed people,
called by the Greeks also "village idiot"."

 

Good job you can use wiki. I don't think this term is even that old. But it is funny how you draw your conclusions. Like a heavy steel door on paper hinges.

 

"The Romanians are an offspring of these Vlachs."

 

You are really confused about the Vlach etymology.

 

"Ha, it is my turn to accuse you in nationalism. Because present day Romanians are offspring not only of those people but also "those primitive people" and also all sorts of other members of Byzantine, Bulgarian and later Ottoman Empires. Refusal to recgnize this, to my opinion is nationalism and figth for national purity "

 

Bulgarian? Slighty, no doubt. No doubt we have some slav mix with us. Byzantine? Of course. No doubt there too. Ottomans? Uhm no. We were NEVER conquored by the Turks. We were token vassels at most but we managed to keep out of being under the Turkish Empire unlike Bulgaria. And unlike Bulgaria there was never a turkish fort north of the Danube because of men like Mircea, Vlad, Stefan, Mihai. Mihai for example reached as far south as Adrianopolis.

 

No doubt and i don't think he was denying that. He was simply saying to what extent.

Extents are hard to calculate. Similar to yours if you taker a look at our culture.

 

For you to say that the Bulgars found these un-Romanized Thracians and mixed with them and now the Bulgarians are more or less un romanized Thracian with not even a drop of Bulgar blood etc etc is fantasy.

This is amazing how geniously you constantly make wrong interpretation to what I wrote.  

 

 

Yes we interacted alot, but NORTH of the danube river as affirms the Kieven Chronicle of Nestor.

No interaction between Bulgarians and Vlachs in Secodn Bulgarian Kingdom? Did you miss something?

 

Bulgarian? Slighty, no doubt. No doubt we have some slav mix with us. Byzantine? Of course. No doubt there too. Ottomans? Uhm no. We were NEVER conquored by the Turks. We were token vassels at most but we managed to keep out of being under the Turkish Empire unlike Bulgaria. And unlike Bulgaria there was never a turkish fort north of the Danube because of men like Mircea, Vlad, Stefan, Mihai. Mihai for example reached as far south as Adrianopolis.   No one doubts that many ethnic groups contributed to the Romanian nation (Turks not included however) but the predominant element is still Roman in language and Dacian in folklore.

Similarities between our folklores (and customs) are much more obvious between ours and that of non-Balkan Slavs (Poles, Ukrainians and others). Please don't tell me that we borrowed it from you  It is a sign of common ancestry and extent of it is actually very large. Again you forget about very large common substrate in our languages. Which by the way couldn't come neither from Latin nor from Greek.

 

We can guesstamate Bulgarian is less then Romanian through history.

 

"No interaction between Bulgarians and Vlachs in Secodn Bulgarian Kingdom? Did you miss something?"

 

This is amazing how geniously you constantly make wrong interpretation to what I wrote. ;)

 

No, alot of interaction did take place. The Asen Vlachs ruled that Empire ;).

 

"Similarities between our folklores (and customs) are much more obvious between ours and that of non-Balkan Slavs (Poles, Ukrainians and others). Please don't tell me that we borrowed it from you  It is a sign of common ancestry and extent of it is actually very large. Again you forget about very large common substrate in our languages. Which by the way couldn't come neither from Latin nor from Greek. "

 

Borrowed it from us? But who is us? Thracians mixed with Romanians. Who came later? Bulgars.

 

"Nations are linguistic groups. Romanians are the descendants of many migratory peoples who speak Romanian due to gradual assimilation of the migrators. "

 

Worthy to note that these migratory groups were always smaller then the local population which had strong defensive structures. So yes we are mixed with all sorts of people, but very slightly. I don't beleive in genetically pure nations either. If I found out I had Cuman blood in me, awesome. I'm glad for it. If i figure out i'm part Serbian or Bulgarian, just as well. But the main is Romans, and Dacians.

 

Those show directly artifacts of a Roman population north of the Danube which are the Daco-Romans. If you don't want to see it you won't.

 

"I don't think. Goths were far more numerous then the Dacians, in Moldavia and Muntenia where they mainly settled. Gepids too should have been more numerous in Central Transylvania. "

 

Impossible. I mean no offense but this is a mistake many people make when speaking of migrations. Compared to the local populations they were smaller. For example the legions used in Trajan's war against Dacia were massive, and it took a massive logistics operation to keep the whole thing going. The entire empire was behind this invasion. So unless the migratory people killed/pushed aside or worked very hard to assimilate the people they don't become the majority. Like wise with the Goths. It was impossible that they were larger. And even they moved on.

 

"Actually apart from Assenides whose origin is unclear there were plenty of other interactions. It is really weird you know nothing about this  as soon as you call this state Vlacho-Bulgarian Empire which means you badly know your own history "

Imperium Vlachos et Bulgarios. That was the name of the Empire. If it doesn't appear in your history books :X

 

"By that logic you are Cumans  "

 

No because they did not settle the land. They moved on to Hungary. But sure there was Romanian/Cuman interaction.

 

Point is when Bulgars came they found Thracians that were Romanized (at least mostly). And who are those Romanized Thracians? Hi nice to meet you.

 

"Oh, yes, how could I forget that Slavs didn't stay much of north of Danube!? -- they crossed it quickly to exterminate locals south and north and kill the rest "

Slavs came from the north. White Serbia remember? I'm not denying there were no slavs north of the danube, but they weren't large enough to change who we are to a great extent.