Talk:Origin of the Romanians/Archive 22

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Historiography: origin of the theories

Section 2.1 Historiography: origin of the theories should be slightly modified. For the time being, it fails to provide a proper context for non-specialist readers in many cases and fails to mention important aspects of the development of the theories, while other aspects are over-emphasized. My proposal for the new text is the following (text to be deleted are scored out, text to be added are in bold):

Byzantine authors were the first to write of the Romanians (or Vlachs). The 11th-century scholar Kekaumenos wrote of a Vlach homeland situated "near the Danube and [...] the Sava, where the Serbians lived more recently". He associates the Vlachs with the Dacians and the Bessi and with the Dacian king Decebal. Accordingly, historians have located this homeland in several places, including Pannonia Inferior (Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu) and "Dacia Aureliana" (Gottfried Schramm). When associating the Vlachs with ancient ethnic groups, Kekaumenos followed the the practice of Byzantine authors who named contemporary peoples for peoples known from ancient sources. The 12th-century scholar John Kinnamos wrote that the Vlachs "are said to be formerly colonists from the people of Italy". William of Rubruck wrote that the Vlachs of Bulgaria descended from the Ulac people, who lived beyond Bashkiria. Rubruck's words imply that he regarded the Vlachs a migrant population, coming from the region of the Volga like their Hungarian and Bulgarian neighbors. The late 13th-century Hungarian chronicler Simon of Kéza states that the Vlachs used to be the Romans' "shepherds and husbandmen" who "elected to remain behind in Pannonia" when the Huns arrived. An unknown author's Description of Eastern Europe from 1308 likewise states that the Balkan Vlachs "were once the shepherds of the Romans" who "had over them ten powerful kings in the entire Messia and Pannonia".

Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar wrote was the first to write (around 1450) that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled by Emperor Trajan. This view was repeated by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who stated in his work De Europa (1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians. Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin was repeated by many scholars—including the Italian Flavio Biondo and Pietro Ranzano, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian Stephan Szántó—in the subsequent century. Flavio Biondo noted that "the Dacians or Wallachs claim to have Roman origins"; Pietro Ranzano wrote that the Vlachs declared themselves "descendants of Italians"; the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius mentioned that Trajan "led the Vlachi along with Italian people into the kingdom, spread them all around the Dacian kingdom" and "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land"; the Hungarian Jesuit Stephan Szántó stated that the Wallachians were "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" and "true Italians" could understand their language. On the other hand, Laonikos Chalkokondyles—a late-15th-century Byzantine scholar—stated that he never heard anyone "explain clearly where" the Romanians "came from to inhabit" their lands. Chalkokondyles also wrote that the Romanians were said to have come "from many places and settled that area". The 17th-century Johannes Lucius expressed his concerns about the survival of Romans in a the territory of the former Dacia Traiana province, exposed to invasions for a millennium.

A legend on the origin of the Moldavians, preserved in the Moldo-Russian Chronicle from around 1505, narrates that one "King Vladislav of Hungary" invited their Romanian ancestors to his kingdom and settled them "in Maramureş betweeIovaniorgovan (talk) 05:20, 27 November 2018 (UTC)n the Moreş and Tisa at a place called Crij". Logofăt Istratie and other 17th-century Moldavian historians continued to credit "King Vladislav" with the settlement of the Romanians' ancestors in Maramureş. Grigore Ureche's Chronicle of Moldavia of 1647 is the first Romanian historical work stating that the Romanians "all come from Rîm" (Rome). In 30 years Miron Costin explicitly connected the Romanians' ethnogenesis to the conquest of "Dacia Traiana". Constantin Cantacuzino stated in 1716 that the native Dacians also had a role in the formation of the Romanian people. Petru Maior and other historians of the "Transylvanian School" flatly denied any interbreeding between the natives and the conquerors, claiming that the autochthonous Dacian population which was not eradicated by the Romans fled the territory. The Daco-Roman mixing became widely accepted in the Romanian historiography around 1800. This view is advocated by the Greek-origin historians Dimitrie Philippide (in his 1816 work History of Romania) and Dionisie Fotino, who wrote History of Dacia (1818). The idea was accepted and taught in the Habsburg Monarchy, including Hungary until the 1870s, although the Austrian Franz Joseph Sulzer had by the 1780s rejected any form of continuity north of the Danube, and instead proposed a 13th-century migration from the Balkans.

The development of the theories was closely connected to political debates in the 18th century. Sulzer's theory of the Romanians' migration was apparently connected to his plans on the annexation of Wallachia and Moldavia by the Habsburg Monarchy, and the settlement of German colonists in both principalities. The three political "nations" of the Principality of Transylvania (the Hungarians, Saxons and Székelys) enjoyed special privileges, while local legislation emphasized that the Romanians had been "admitted into the country for the public good" and they were only "tolerated for the benefit of the country". When suggesting that the Romanians of Transylvania were the direct descendants of the Roman colonists in Emperor Trajan's Dacia, the historians of the "Transylvanian School" also demanded that the Romanians were to be regarded as the oldest residents of the country. The Supplex Libellus Valachorum – a petition completed by the representatives of the local Romanians in 1791 – explicitly demanded that the Romanians should be granted the same legal status that the three privileged "nations" had enjoyed because the Romanians were of Roman stock.

References

Thank you for all comments. Borsoka (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Funny, you added (in bold) sections that belong in IT, and struck out (for deletion) passages that should be in DRCT. A more biased approach can hardly be seen on Wikipedia. Thanks for showing your true face. I think you should just wait for the result of our dispute resolution before trying to shoehorn your ideologically tainted edits into this article.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 04:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Your approach is funny. You have not realised that the core of the sentence which was struck out was placed in the previous sentence. Do you think that listing Italian, Saxon and Hungarian scholars who accepted the continuity theory is a neutral approach, while mentioning that the earliest Romanian historians thought that their ancestors had been moved from the Balkans to Maramures during the reign of a Hungarian king is a biased way of presentation? I think you should familiarize yourself with the concepts of "neutrality" and "bias" before making comments on these pages. Do you think that Victor Spinei, an ardent supporter of the continuity theory, represents a pro-immigrationist view? Sorry, I must think that your knowledge about the theories is quite limited. Borsoka (talk) 04:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

You again misunderstand. Each theory has its own historiography, and this big confusing section (the one you listed above) should be broken up, with each segment linked to its proper theory (DRCT, IT, or AT) as the case may be, in order to preserve neutrality.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 04:55, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Which theory should appropiate the earliest sources (Kekaumenos, Simon of Kéza, Kinnamos, Description of Eastern Europe). They unanimously write of the Vlachs' south-Danubian homeland. Should we mention these sources only under the IT? Should we ignore "continuity" scholars' comments on them? How this approach could secure the neutral presentation of facts? Borsoka (talk) 05:08, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Present no evidence without explaining its relevance to an Origin of the Romanians theory.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 05:20, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Your dismissive non-answer to Borsoka's questions is why we get nowhere. TrixAreForKidsSillyRabbit (talk) 05:44, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

No, it's your and Borsoka's (and others') ignorance of "moderators'" suggestions and Wiki guidelines that turned this article into a mess. You might also want to take a look at who's responsible for the shape of the failed article unanimously panned by all independent editors in the first place. Does anyone want to take responsibility for that? No matter, this discussion's going nowhere. I'll let the moderators decide the next course of action.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 05:55, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

No, it's your inability to grasp that you cannot impose unilateral changes in the article. I saw what you did neutral approach is far far away from you. Anyway why did you sign in the middle of the proposed text?[1] Fakirbakir (talk) 08:01, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Yet another good example of how we end up in an endless debate because some editor or another tries to add (or remove) content that seems relevant to him/her, instead of content that is relevant in the framework of mainstream theories.Cealicuca (talk) 11:16, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Instead of making general statements, please quote a single statement from the above text whose relevance in the context of the Romanians' ethnogenesis is not verified by reliable sources. Please also quote a single statement which should exclusively be presented within the framework of one of the theories. Borsoka (talk) 13:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be incapable of realizing that there can be two or more diverging theories based on the same set of data. Thus the "exclusively" added attribute is nonsensical.Cealicuca (talk) 14:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

This is what I have been explaining to you for months. Borsoka (talk) 15:03, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

No, don't try to spin it. You said that because the same fact can be interpreted differently we cannot (somehow, because of this original concept of "neutral facts") present those interpretations. The interpretations are the theories.Cealicuca (talk) 19:33, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I never claimed that we cannot present the different interpretations of the same facts. Borsoka (talk) 19:35, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

You claimed, several times, you cannot distribute "fats" among theories. But never mind that, what you did here is to misrepresent what sources said. For example you took out "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania and true Italians" (Stephan Szántó) and attributing to several sources (including this one) the following: "[...] the Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race")" using the following sentence: "Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin was repeated by many scholars—including the Italian Flavio Biondo and Pietro Ranzano, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian Stephan Szántó—in the subsequent century.".

This is misrepresenting what the sources state, practically (and this is but one example, he did the same with several sources) he removed Szanto's "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" and attributed to him and true Italians" with "Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race")". As always, you removed the most relevant thing and left only what would serve your preferred view. In short, manipulated the sources (and carefully placing them one after another so that the idea of "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" is gone but the idea of "Vlachs were a genus Italicum" is preserved (which is not under contention). So practically you removed some sources that were used as argument (proof) by one theory by removing the relevant element from them.Cealicuca (talk) 13:55, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Please read before commenting. No source was "manipulated": it is clear that Szántó believed that the Transylvanian Vlachs descended from Roman colonists who settled in Dacia Traiana. If you continue to misrepresent my edits, I will ignore your comments. Borsoka (talk) 14:23, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not at all clear. The original was this:

• Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar wrote was the first to write (around 1450) that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled by Emperor Trajan. This view was repeated by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who stated in his work De Europa(1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians. Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin was repeated by many scholars—including the Italian Flavio Biondo and Pietro Ranzano, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian Stephan Szántó—in the subsequent century. Flavio Biondo noted that "the Dacians or Wallachs claim to have Roman origins"; Pietro Ranzano wrote that the Vlachs declared themselves "descendants of Italians"; the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius mentioned that Trajan "led the Vlachi along with Italian people into the kingdom, spread them all around the Dacian kingdom" and "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land"; the Hungarian Jesuit Stephan Szántó stated that the Wallachians were "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" and "true Italians" could understand their language.

you changed it into:

• Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar was the first to write (around 1450) that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled by Emperor Trajan. In 1458, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini stated in his work De Europa (1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians. Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin was repeated by many scholars—including the Italian Flavio Biondo and Pietro Ranzano, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian Stephan Szántó—in the subsequent century.

Suddenly, the reference to "remaining in Dacia" and all that has vanished. Any reader, when asked to summarize the modified paragraph will say "yeah, some sources attest to the Romanians being of Roman stock" or whatever. The important reference to where they were romanized is gone. For example: Trajan "led the Vlachi along with Italian people into the kingdom, spread them all around the Dacian kingdom" and "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land"; the Hungarian Jesuit Stephan Szántó stated that the Wallachians were "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" and "true Italians" are all gone. So that's that - you changed the whole thing.Cealicuca (talk) 18:17, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Fair point. I changed the text to clarify the issue. Borsoka (talk) 01:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't understand what exactly you fixed. One of the most important part is still missing: "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land". This part has been now replaced, practically, with Piccolomini's view, who "stated in his work De Europa (1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians.".

It is not fixed as the sources viewpoints are still not accurately presented. According to the "fix", Johannes Lebelius is, by association, in agreement with "Vlachs were a genus Italicum("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians." instead of his own "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land" which is something else entirely - Vlachs that remained in Dacia.

Basically, if we ask ourselves, "Would it be possible for the romanized dacians to migrate south and afterwards migrate north?"

• The "new" paragraph says "Yes!", as there is nothing there to contradict that.

• Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar was the first to write (around 1450) that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled in Dacia Traiana. In 1458, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini stated in his work De Europa (1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians. Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin from Roman settlers in Dacia Traiana was repeated by many scholars—including the Italian Flavio Biondo and Pietro Ranzano, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian Stephan Szántó—in the subsequent century.

• Previously, it would have been a "No!", since it was pretty clear it was not the case (see underlined text):

• Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar wrote was the first to write (around 1450) that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled by Emperor Trajan. This view was repeated by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who stated in his work De Europa(1458) that the Vlachs were a genus Italicum ("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians. Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin was repeated by many scholars—including the Italian Flavio Biondo and Pietro Ranzano, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian Stephan Szántó—in the subsequent century. Flavio Biondo noted that "the Dacians or Wallachs claim to have Roman origins"; Pietro Ranzano wrote that the Vlachs declared themselves "descendants of Italians"; the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius mentioned that Trajan "led the Vlachi along with Italian people into the kingdom, spread them all around the Dacian kingdom" and "these people after so many severe fights which they have survived, remained in Dacia, and are now farmers of the land"; the Hungarian Jesuit Stephan Szántó stated that the Wallachians were "the offspring of an ancient colony of the Romans that used to be once in Transylvania" and "true Italians" could understand their language.Cealicuca (talk) 06:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you commented actual text instead of additions made by yourself in your thoughts. Where is it mentioned that the Romanians' ancestors whenever left Dacia Traiana, according to Bracciolini, Piccolomini, Biondo, Lebelius, etc? Which sentence suggests that they says that the Vlachs returned to Transylvania? Borsoka (talk) 06:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Iovaniorgovan, in future, please try to refrain from signing your posts in the middle of other editors' comments as you did here. TrixAreForKidsSillyRabbit (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

my apologies, cursor must've skipped...Iovaniorgovan (talk) 00:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Politics in the lead?

If the Habsburg policies have to be featured in the lead then we must mention how the Marxist/Leninist/Far-right doctrines of the National Communism used the continuity theory (e.g. [2]). Fakirbakir (talk) 20:40, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

What would be the relevance of that?Cealicuca (talk) 21:00, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The relevance is that both sides had an axe to grind. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:07, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

No, I meant that both communist governments tried to use history to prop their regimes. In both countries. Comparison with the Habsburg policies is unwarranted in this context. Apples to oranges.Cealicuca (talk) 11:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Wrong comparison, the Hungarian Communist Government was totally anti-Hungarian with zero national feelings, even chasing any idea that would be just a little bit "right", by any sense, practically they would gladly give up more territories to the neighbours just to have "less fascist" or "reactionist" in the country in their meaning, the total silence of sensitive questions and brainwash was the agenda of the hardline Communists in Hungary.(KIENGIR (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

Are you refering to Bela Kun's government?Cealicuca (talk) 13:20, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

No, how could I refer to that??(KIENGIR (talk) 13:24, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

I am happy that politics are not in the lead anymore (more accurately, it contains a sentence about politics, but that is absolutely NPOV). However, I am still thinking that the "Historiography: origin of the theories" section is missing some infos at its present state. If the section mentions that Sulzer's theory and Habsburg expansionism were connected then we will definitely have to write something about Ceaucescu's obsession with the continuity theory and the highly politicized Romanian historiography at the time of Ceaucescu (e.g. "From the Geto-Dacian state to the unitary Romanian state"[3]). So I suggest that we should either delete political related content or improve it. Fakirbakir (talk) 22:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe the context of that observation, as per the source, says a lot about this subject. It was about the obsession of the Dacian state. If anything, the communist regime lead to the birth of the all-dacian continuity theory. Things like "[...] In some extreme cases extravagant claims about the direct line of descent of Romanians not from the immixture of Dacians and Romanians [source mistake: Romans], that is Daco-Romans, but from Dacians alone. Thus, the argument ran, descent from the Dacians proved that the Romanians were indigenous to Romania [...]. Such surmise, by completely denying the role of the Romans in the ethnogenesis of Romanians, dispensed with the need to press the traditional theory of Daco-Roman continuity [...] The regime's obsession with with the Dacians was highlighted in 1980 when the propaganda section of the Central Commitee proposed the celebration of the 2050th anniversary of the foundation by King Burebista of the 'centralized independent Dacian state' [...]. The most authorative presentation of this view [the Dacian-only continuity] was given by Mirecea Musat and Ion Ardeleanu in their "From the Geto-Dacian state to the unitary Romanian state" [...]".

So my question now is: shouldn't we say that the Communist Regime actually hurt the development of the Daco-Roman theory? It didn't encourage it (as per the source you brought) but actually impeded it. There is a distinction between the Dacian Continuity promoted by the Communist regime in Romania and the Daco-Roman continuity.Cealicuca (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Lead

According to WP:LEAD, "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." For the time being, the lead is not fully in line with this policies. The last attempts to solve this problem resulted in a parody of lead, describing several aspects of a late 18th-century document and some minor issues ([4]). To fix the problems, I suggest the following text:

Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. According to the "admigration theory", migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of a Romance-speaking population in those territories.

The earliest records about the Vlachs' homeland are contradictory, but the idea that they descended from Roman ("Italian") colonists appeared already in the late 12th century. Humanist scholars were the first to propose (around 1450) that the Romanians' ethnogenesis started in Dacia Traiana. On the other hand, the earliest Moldavian chronicles described the ancestors of the Romanians of Maramureș and Moldavia as colonists who were settled in the Kingdom of Hungary to strengthen its defense and Transylvanian legislation did not regard the local Romanians as a native population. Wallachian historians started to emphasize the Dacians' role in the formation of the Romanian people in the early 18th century. Their theory became widely accepted and taught even in the schools of Hungary in the next century. Political motivations—the Transylvanian Romanians' claim to emancipation, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentism—influenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates.

Each theory have their own sets of arguments. Most defenders of the continuity theory regard the archaeological evidence for the development of the Romanian people from the Romanized population of Dacia Traiana (or Daco-Romans) undisputable. Their opponents emphasize that linguistic data exclude the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors in the lands north of the Lower Danube. In 2013, authors of The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages came to the conclusion that the "historical, archaeological and linguistic data available do not seem adequate to give a definitive answer" in the debate. Their view was accepted by scholars contributing to The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, published in 2016, which concludes that "the location and extent of the territory where "Daco-Romance" originated" is uncertain.

References

• Andreose, Alvise; Renzi, Lorenzo (2013). "Geography and distribution of the Romance languages in Europe". In Maiden, Martin; Smith, John Charles; Ledgeway, Adam (eds.). The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, Volume II: Contexts. Cambridge University Press. pp. 283–334. ISBN 978-0-521-80073-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hitchins, Keith (2014). A Concise History of Romania. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-69413-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Maiden, Martin (2016). "Romanian, Istro–Romanian, Megleno–Romanian, and Arumanian". In Ledgeway, Adam; Maiden, Martin (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 91–125. ISBN 978-0-19-967710-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Thank you for your comments in advance. Borsoka (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I am ok with it.(KIENGIR (talk) 01:05, 30 November 2018 (UTC))

I will come back later in the day with a few comments. I must underline that overall I am pleasantly surprised by the proposal. As I said, I will add some specific comments later in the day. Peace.Cealicuca (talk) 08:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Let's see now...

• Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. - OK

• The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity.

I find it weird that this is the second sentence in the lead, and reinforces the idea that the language is the main element while neglecting the others. this is not for an editor to decide frankly, but for the academics supporting (or criticizing) the theories. Keep the section clear and concise.

• The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. According to the "admigration theory", migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of a Romance-speaking population in those territories. - OK

• The earliest records about the Vlachs' homeland are contradictory, but the idea that they descended from Roman ("Italian") colonists appeared already in the late 12th century.

This is, again, simply cluttering. Moreover, using the anachronism "Vlach" is both confusing and breaking NPOV by association, since it will simply reinforce the only sentence that mentions Vlachs in the previous paragraph which is referring to the immigrationist theory.

• Humanist scholars were the first to propose (around 1450) that the Romanians' ethnogenesis started in Dacia Traiana.

let's leave the scholar's arguments in favor of one theory or another for the sections dedicated to describing each theory.

• On the other hand, the earliest Moldavian chronicles described the ancestors of the Romanians of Maramureș and Moldavia as colonists who were settled in the Kingdom of Hungary to strengthen its defense and Transylvanian legislation did not regard the local Romanians as a native population.

same as the two above, keep this for the presentation of the theories, if the relevance of that is given by a RS in the context of one or another theory.

• Wallachian historians started to emphasize the Dacians' role in the formation of the Romanian people in the early 18th century.

Again using an anachronism - the sensible solution would be, if we would really want to underline the location of the scholars, to say "Romanian scholars from Wallachia". But, just like above, this is supposed to be lead. Short and concise. Leave the arguments (as they are made by the scholars) for the section dedicated to the theories.

• Their theory became widely accepted and taught even in the schools of Hungary in the next century.

Again, leave it to the theories, not in the lead.

• Political motivations—the Transylvanian Romanians' claim to emancipation, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentism—influenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates.

First comment, the "claim" is not a good choice of words here. The primary meaning of the word is "state / assert that something is true, generally without providing evidence or proof." I propose "activism". The second comment - Romanian expansionism is not backed up by any source so far. So either someone bring a source to back up that "Romanian expansionism" is mentioned in the context of any of the three theories or remove it. The only "Romanian expansionism" is expressed, and this is why I ask for sources, by communist elements during interwar periods (when referring to Bessarabia) or Bulgarian sources when it comes to Cadrilater. I would also add Lucian Boia's - History and Myth [...] since it seems a source that is respected by both sides. Relevant quote: "The denial of Romanian continuity and the bringing of the Romanians from south of the Danube obviously corresponded to Austro-Hungarian objectives in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It continues to be a point of dogma in present-day Hungarian historiography, where it serves to ensure chronological primacy in Transylvania for the Magyars."

So my proposal is (provided there's a WP:RS that mentions "Romanian expansionism", not necessarily literally, in the context of any of the mainstream theories - but especially the continuity and denial of continuity theory):

Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. According to the "admigration theory", migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of a Romance-speaking population in those territories.

Political motivations—the Transylvanian Romanians' emancipation activism, Austro-Hungarian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentism—influenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates.

Cealicuca (talk) 23:21, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I have only one remark - though my initial statement did not change, and I'll let others right now to deal with the other things you pop up - that "Romanian expansionism" is considered the motivations and struggles to acquire Transylvania, by the concept of Daco-Romanism; in other words, the concept of Unirea, that manifested in countless occasions, thus I am surprised about your claim such would be only the "by communist elements during interwar periods"...how could you ignore this...although this is the primary and supreme core of everything...(KIENGIR (talk) 00:35, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

Look, there is at least one WP:RS (hungarian) that describes the Transylvanian Romanians were actually "loyal subjects" of the Austro-Hungarian empire. They, initially at least, did not wish to unite with the Old Kingdom (and if I were'n afraid of a polemic I would start enumerating the reasons). They were "forced", along with others in Transylvania (like Germans) to do that because of the fear of magyarization (real or not) and because they were hopeless that in the end they would gain the political equality they were looking for (within the AH Empire, later Hungary). I will find the source and be back with it, ok?Cealicuca (talk) 01:10, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Please, you are totally missing the subject, I did not refer to the Transylvanian Romanians especially, or anybody according to location! The same way I disagree that Romanians or Germans would be "forced" of anything by the fear of Magyarization or they would be hopeless, it is really polemic and fringe! Transylvanian Romanians wanted to keep Transylvania's autonomy mainly even by joining Romania, while Germans first became neutral, later with one vote with the occupying Romanian army nearby they opted for Romania. But you don't have to find any source about this, because this is not the subject!

The subject is, that there were Romanians (apart from location, some in Transylvania, some in the Regat, I don't speak about a compact community or similar) and there was a poltical agenda for establishing the Unirea. This recurently came up by some leaders, shall it be the Church, or 1848, or the further rendering of the Daco-roman theory, but mainly motivated by this. From 1867 it was an open political agenda in the Kingdom of Romania by some circles, later with more support by the intelligentsia or in the parliament in a way. It is true that it may not manifest to an official policy, but the sounds of it and the agenda was known. I did not brought up this now to generate a 80 km long discussion again, don't worry, if we need sources for this, won't hard to find, calm down!(KIENGIR (talk) 01:29, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

I support Cealicuca's version of the lead. I assume it's just one paragraph, right? The second paragraph, as written by Borsoka, cannot possibly be included since the DRCT WP:RS disagree with all the statements made there (Pavel Parasca, Demir Dragnev, etc).Iovaniorgovan (talk) 01:37, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. (2) Romanians are regarded a Romance people, because their language descended from the Vulgar Latin. That the language from which Romanian descended was spoken to the north of the "Jireček Line" is a common element of all theories. We editors should respect scholarly consensus. (4)-(8) "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should ... summarize the most important points": the development of the theories is an important element of the article (and the topic). (4) Why is the expression "Vlach" an anachronism? Romania was established in the lands to the north of the Lower Danube in 1859 while the sentence refers to 11th-13th century Balkan Vlachs. (7) Why is Wallachian an anachronism? It refers to scholars from Wallachia, some of them being of Greek origin. (9) That the Daco-Roman continuity theory served Romanian irredentism in the late 19th and the early 20th century is as well-supported by sources as the immigrationist theory's role in Hungarian irredentism after 1920. (I can refer, for instance, to Schramm, Gottfried (1997). Ein Damm bricht. Die römische Donaugrenze und die Invasionen des 5-7. Jahrhunderts in Lichte der Namen und Wörter (in German). R. Oldenbourg Verlag. p. 278. ISBN 978-3-486-56262-0.) If we mention the Romanian scholar's view about the alleged dogmatism of Hungarian historians, we should also mention that a German scholar (Schramm) criticize the low scholarly level of studies supporting the continuity theory. I think the best solution if we ignore these view. (+1) Why do you want to ignore views reflecting the consensus of the international scholarly community? Two recently published books (the first one was published in 2013 by the Cambridge University Press, the second one in 2016 by Oxford University Press) explicitly contain this conclusion. My proposal is the following:

Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. According to the "admigration theory", migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of a Romance-speaking population in those territories.

The earliest records about the Vlachs' homeland the topic are contradictory, but the idea that they Romanian descended from the language of ancient Roman ("Italian") colonists appeared already in the late 12th century. Humanist scholars were the first to propose (around 1450) that the Romanians' ethnogenesis started in Dacia Traiana. On the other hand, the earliest Moldavian chronicles described the ancestors of the Romanians of Maramureș and Moldavia as colonists who were settled in the Kingdom of Hungary to strengthen its defense and Transylvanian legislation did not regard the local Romanians as a native population. Wallachian historians started to emphasize the Dacians' role in the formation of the Romanian people in the early 18th century. Their theory became widely accepted and taught even in the schools of Hungary in the next century. Political motivations—the Transylvanian Romanians' claim to emancipation, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentism—influenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates.

Each theory have their own sets of arguments. Most defenders of the continuity theory regard the archaeological evidence for the development of the Romanian people from the Romanized population of Dacia Traiana (or Daco-Romans) undisputable. In their view, the lack of evidence for mass migrations across the Lower Danube and the Carpathian Mountains contradicts the immigrationist theory. Proponents of the latter theory emphasize say that linguistic data exclude the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors in the lands north of the Lower Danube, while the gradual settlement of Romanian groups first in the mountainous regions, later in the lowlands in the same territory is well-documented. In 2013, authors of The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages came to the conclusion that the "historical, archaeological and linguistic data available do not seem adequate to give a definitive answer" in the debate. Their view was accepted by scholars contributing to The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, published in 2016, which concludes that "the location and extent of the territory where "Daco-Romance" originated" is uncertain.

References

• Andreose, Alvise; Renzi, Lorenzo (2013). "Geography and distribution of the Romance languages in Europe". In Maiden, Martin; Smith, John Charles; Ledgeway, Adam (eds.). The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, Volume II: Contexts. Cambridge University Press. pp. 283–334. ISBN 978-0-521-80073-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hitchins, Keith (2014). A Concise History of Romania. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-69413-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Maiden, Martin (2016). "Romanian, Istro–Romanian, Megleno–Romanian, and Arumanian". In Ledgeway, Adam; Maiden, Martin (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 91–125. ISBN 978-0-19-967710-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Support.(KIENGIR (talk) 01:48, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

Oppose Borsoka's version for reasons stated above: most DRCT WP:RS dispute those statements in the second paragraph (just read the authors I cited). The last two sentences of the third paragraph are also unnecessary (or, at best, could be combined into one).Iovaniorgovan (talk) 03:50, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Please name those authors who dispute those statements in the second paragraph. Why do you think that The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages and The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages are unneccessary? Borsoka (talk) 03:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

@KIENGIR:I was and I am calm. How about you? You seem a little on edge (all the "!" and such...). Anyway, Szilágyi N. Sándor's expresses twice that Transylvanian Romanians (at least at the level of political elite, the one who were actually making political use of the continuity theory): "[...] they were completely loyal citizens of Hungary at that time, and they would not have had an interest in joining Romania [...]" and "[...] Romanian politicians to the Hungarian state were necessarily loyal and ultimately law-abiding citizens [...]". I did not deny Romanian expansionism, but it had nothing to do with the development of the theories. The political emancipation of the Romanians in Transylvania did. We have plenty of sources for that - but OK, I might be wrong. I am not all knowing. So if there are RS linking the Romanian expansionism to the development of the theories please let us know. Thank you.

Sorry, also down you acknowledged what mistake you have commited because you are so sudden and it is useless to generate again long discussions just becase you are mistaking some contexts instantly, better concentrate just and only to the topic (however, despite you spent again time to "demonstrate" something that is not connected to the topic). Yes, you are partially wrong, because the development of theories had connection to the idea of acquariation to Transylvania, mutually vica-versa. Only in case I will care about this.(KIENGIR (talk) 12:34, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

@Borsoka:

• (2) Romanians are regarded a Romance people, because their language descended from the Vulgar Latin. That the language from which Romanian descended was spoken to the north of the "Jireček Line" is a common element of all theories. We editors should respect scholarly consensus. - And who said we shouldn't? Still, the article is about the Romanian origin. That is explained by three mainstream theories. That Romanian is a Romance language is just one part of the argumentation. By bringing it in the summary it simply shifts to focus to the language, instead of the theories. Not a summary at all.
• (4)-(8) "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should ... summarize the most important points": the development of the theories is an important element of the article (and the topic). - Yes, the development is important, but it is not the only one that is important. It is also polemical and it will invite other "expansions" of this summary.
• (4) Why is the expression "Vlach" an anachronism? Romania was established in the lands to the north of the Lower Danube in 1859 while the sentence refers to 11th-13th century Balkan Vlachs. - Because it is when it's used to describe to Romanian people as they are today, and it's funny you claim otherwise.
• (7) Why is Wallachian an anachronism? It refers to scholars from Wallachia, some of them being of Greek origin. - I agree with this point.
• (9) That the Daco-Roman continuity theory served Romanian irredentism in the late 19th and the early 20th century is as well-supported by sources as the immigrationist theory's role in Hungarian irredentism after 1920. - So you say. We have yet any source to support that (but please add one if you have). The Daco-Roman continuity theory was used by the Transylvanian Romanians in their fight for political and social emancipation. Nothing else (so far as per RS). "we should also mention that a German scholar (Schramm) criticize the low scholarly level of studies supporting the continuity theory." I don't see how the "low scholarly level of studies [...]" supports your claim that

"That the Daco-Roman continuity theory served Romanian irredentism".

• Why do you want to ignore views reflecting the consensus of the international scholarly community? Two recently published books (the first one was published in 2013 by the Cambridge University Press, the second one in 2016 by Oxford University Press) explicitly contain this conclusion. - I did not ignore your views. And you're really not saying what consensus, consensus about what conclusion?

So my counter-proposal is: (for a leading summary) is:

Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. According to the "admigration theory", migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of a Romance-speaking population in those territories.

Political motivations—the Transylvanian Romanians' political and social emancipation activism, Austro-Hungarian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentism—influenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates.Cealicuca (talk) 09:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

(4)-(8) You simply ignored my argumentation. We should summarize the most important points of the article. (9) You misunderstood my message. Please read more carefully. (+1) You did not answer my question. Sorry, if you continue this type of communication, I will ignore your messages. Borsoka (talk) 09:54, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I did not ignore your argumentation. It's just that your argumentation is... irrelevant. Nobody said to ignore sources (although you claim that, for what purpose - I'm sure we shall discover...). The point is that a summary section must and should include the conclusions that the theories reach, and not delve into the argumentation (which, by the way, opens pandora's box). For that - we have the sections dedicated to each theory. Even language is simply a component of the theories (several linguistic details are used as arguments by each theory). As for (9), again, the Daco-Roman Continuity theory did not serve any Romanian irredentism according to the sources I've read. It was used as a political tool, true. So if you have a source, a relevant RS source, please do bring it to surface. I've come to understand that you have access to lots and lots of sources.

I already responded to your question (+1). I said: "I did not ignore your views. And you're really not saying what consensus, consensus about what conclusion?".Cealicuca (talk) 10:49, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

OK. I shortened the lead. We cannot ignore that Romanian descends from a Latin variant spoken to the north of the Jireček Line, because this is the basis of all mainstream theories. Neither could we ignore, that independent scholars regard the debate undecided in the 2010s.

Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. According to the "admigration theory", migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of a Romance-speaking population in those territories.

Political motivations—the Transylvanian Romanians' efforts to achieve their emancipation, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentism—influenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates. In 2013, authors of The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages came to the conclusion that the "historical, archaeological and linguistic data available do not seem adequate to give a definitive answer" in the debate. Their view was accepted by scholars contributing to The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, published in 2016, which concludes that "the location and extent of the territory where "Daco-Romance" originated" is uncertain.

Borsoka (talk) 11:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Two things - actually one (that applies to two things).

• You are (at best) WP:CHERRYPICKING with attributing "Romanian expansionism" as a factor in the development of the theories to Schramm. As I said, the prevalent view (substantiated by a whole slew of sources NOT mentioning this) is that Romanian expansionism (such as it was) did not influence the Daco-Roman Continuity theory. It was the political struggle of the Transylvanian Romanians political elite. This is virtually what all WP:RS agree on, and it is mentioned already. Yet you added the Schramm citation to the "Romanian expansionism", which at best is a minority view. The struggle for social and political equality of the Transylvanian Romanian political elite does not equate to Romanian expansionism. Nor does it mean that Romanian expansionism did not exist, but it had no effect per say to the development of the Daco-Roma theory. Or are you saying that it affected the development of the Immigrationist theory? Or the Admigration theory? Please clarify.
• The last two sentences are WP:CHERRYPICK since there are sources on both sides of the isle who are "certain" that the romanians originated from one place or another. We also have non-hungarian / non-romanian WP:RS that actually accept on or another theory as the working premise for their studies (implicitly considering one theory or another as acceptable). Moreover, those are linguistic studies, limited in scope (which is not the same with the scope of the theories).Cealicuca (talk) 12:20, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not continue this absurd debate with you. If you think that books recently published by CUP and OUP do not represent the POV of neutral scholars on this issue, I have no reason to continue this debate. Borsoka (talk) 09:12, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

@Borsoka So you unilaterally closed this debate and published your edit without consensus!? I'm afraid the admin folks clearly admonished us against doing such a thing. I suggest you revert your edit and seek a third opinion before adding this bit to the article.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 09:43, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

No, I will not seek third opinion. I do not want to waste editors' time to read absurd claims as they can be read above. Borsoka (talk) 09:49, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I did not say, nor think that books recently published by CUP and OUP do not represent the POV of neutral scholars on this issue. What I am saying is that all theories make use of several types of arguments - linguistics being one of them - and those sources that you added are linguistics in nature (limiting thus the scope). Any reader would naturally assume strong emphasis on the linguistic elements of the theories, in the detriment of others (written sources, archaeological etc.). Moreover, using the same argument as you (OUP source being NPOV), I could point out to the Oxford Ecyclopedia of the Middle Ages - which for example references several times the "native" Daco-Romans in different contexts (like when the settlement of the Slavs in the 5th or 6th century lead to an evolution of the native Daco-Romans). So the Oxford Encyclopedia of Middle Ages goes another route than those linguistic studies. Why would a linguistic study outweigh a history encyclopedia in the study of a historical subject?

For the "Romanian expansionism" - again. I do not say it existed or not, but you imply it and that it had a role in the development of the theory. Which it did not. It was the Transylvanian Romanians that made use of it in their political struggle. For example, here is a Hungarian recent source describing the Transylvania Romanians as loyal subjects. Moreover, I believe you are already aware of the fact that Carol I had no intention whatsoever to joining Entente (that happens after his death), Carol I being Romania's king between declaring independence and joining WW I. During that time nobody can argue that Romanian expansionism was targeted towards Transylvania.

And I'm sorry you feel like this is an absurd discussion. It seemed like we are inching forward to a compromise...Cealicuca (talk) 10:15, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

You again did not understand that was explained earlier, that the subject has not any connection to the Transylvanian Romanians suggested loyalty, neither to the official pro-Central Powers stance of the King. Simply there were ideas and movements among Romanians - shall they be anywhere - that openly argued and targeted the "Unirea", expressis verbis.(KIENGIR (talk) 10:40, 6 December 2018 (UTC))

Semi-Romance language

The following statement (among others) was added by Borsoka (without any discussion on the talk page) while the editor himself was complaining of others adding/moving content without discussion...

So let's see, beside WP:CHERRYPICKING, it tries to present a WP:FRINGE statements under the guise of a respected source. The chapter describes the history of Romance language studies. The same author (R. Pozner) then goes on and mentions that although Diez's work remained very important for half a century it has been improved and surpassed by other works. Interestingly enough, R. Pozner then goes on with her own study of Romance languages and Romanian is analyzed along with the other Romance languages without any distinction (see for Chapter "What is a Romance language" p. 43, p. 65 etc.). I would say that R. Pozan is of greater relevance to the Romanian language than Diez.

It's simply just another attempt at an anecdotal piece of "evidence" added in this article on the part of Borsoka or, as we can see on this talk page, just to get a laugh.

In any case, I respectfully invite the editor to remove thisCealicuca (talk) 00:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

The whole context is the following: "One of the first scholars who systematically studied the Romance languages, Friedrich Christian Diez, described Romanian as a semi-Romance language in the 1830s. In 2009, Kim Schulte likewise argued that "Romanian is a language with a hybrid vocabulary". The proportion of loanwords in Romanian is indeed higher than in other Romance languages. Its certain structural features—such as the construction of the future tense—also distinguish Romanian from other Romance languages. The same peculiarities connect it to Albanian, Bulgarian and other tongues spoken in the Balkan Peninsula. Nevertheless, as linguist Graham Mallinson emphasizes, Romanian "retains enough of its Latin heritage at all linguistic levels to qualify for membership of the Romance family in its own right", even without taking into account the "re-Romancing tendency" during its recent history. The core vocabulary is to a large degree Latin, including the most frequently used 2500 words. Around one-fifth of the entries of the 1958 edition of the Dictionary of the Modern Romanian have directly been inherited from Latin. More than 75% of the words in the semantic fields of sense perception, quantity, kinship and spatial relations are of Latin origin, but the basic lexicons of religion and of agriculture have also been preserved." Consequently, the presentation of the issue is neutral and fully in line with scholars who study the languge. Furthermore, the section provides a good background for the development of the theories, especially because all theories deal with these issues.

References

Borsoka (talk) 03:44, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

No Borsoka, what you said is the context is WP:SYNTH. The context, as the source presents it, is the one I described.Cealicuca (talk) 09:04, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not synthesis. That modern scholarship regard it as a Romance language is emphasized in the same text. Modern scholars describe Romanian as a peculiar member of the Romance family. This is what the text says, fully in accordance with the cited sources. We could delete the "likewise" expression form the second sentence. Borsoka (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

You took out a quote from a source, without providing the context that source meant (which I did). The same statement is, today, WP:FRINGE (at best) yet you are using it in the article, mingled with other statements from other sources. "Modern scholars describe Romanian as a peculiar member of the Romance family." - "peculiar" is a weasel term, and no matter how hard you try, modern scholars (including the source you took the statement from!) do not refer to Romanian as a "semi-romance" language. It is a Romance language that has some specific characteristic due to (enter here a lot of reasons). Furthermore, this is just another "piece of evidence" that you scour the sources for, that has no proven relevance (as per the source, not as per your view) to any of the theories.

So you do insist on keeping this statement?Cealicuca (talk) 11:13, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

The same context is provided based on an other source (Mallinson). Until a Romanian linguist's POV about the unmodified Latin structure of Romanian is mentioned in the article, we should keep the balance through mentioning that it is not a clear issue. Borsoka (talk) 10:16, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Why should I have a Romanian PoV's when Posner treats Romanian under the same Romance language category? Again, you took something from Posner, which is used by Posner to illustrate the development of romance language study development. Posner states that the thing you took is outdated (was considered "the Bible" of Romance language studies for 50 years). Posner then goes further, in accordance with the overwhelming majority of modern linguists, and treats Romanian as a Romance (not semi-Romance) languages. But no, you had to squeeze in the article an already rebutted, outdated opinion. And the fact that Romanian is a Romance language with peculiarities is not the same as "semi-Romance" language (whatever semi-Romance language may mean). You are pushing it hard. In Mallison's own words Romanian language "retains enough of its Latin heritage at all linguistic levels to qualify for membership of the Romance family in its own right".Cealicuca (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and Mallinson's words are quoted. Borsoka (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

So what if Mallison is quoted? You said/implied Mallison shares the same opinion as Diez!!! Mallison (as Posner) does not share it. Diez's "semi-romance language". This is what we are talking about. You run out of excuses for your blatant WP:OR / WP:SYNTH.Cealicuca (talk) 14:47, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Read before commenting. Sorry, I do not want to discuss your thoughts about my thoughts. Borsoka (talk) 14:58, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Sure, I understand you don't want to comment on my thoughts about your thoughts, since this is not happening what's happening. Nut maybe you can then enlighten us about:

• What is the relevance of this Diez's "remark" in relation to the Origin of Romanians. The relevance according to scholars, not according to you.
• Explain why should there even be a mention of a study that is outdated, as per the very source (Posner) you mention. Even the source you cite from (Posner), is in disagreement with Diez - clearly treating Romanian just as any other Romance language (treating Romanian and other Romance languages in bulk, not in a differentiated way).Cealicuca (talk) 15:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Posner mentions it in his study dedicated to the Romance languages. She even emphasizes that the Balkan features of Romanian distinguish it from all other languages (Posner op. cit. page 340). By the way, she does not say that it is outdated. (I also think that it is outdated, but we should not verify our own thoughts referring to scholars.) Borsoka (talk) 15:31, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

You haven't answered what is the relevance of Diez's remark in relation to the Origin of Romanians. As per Posner (since this is where you quoted from).

Posner mentions Diez only to show the chronological development of the field of romance language studies. Moreover, on p. 4 (the same page that you took the remark from...), Posner says: "[...] Wilhelm Meyer, whose own Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (1890 - 1902), translated immediately into French, was to replace that of Diaz [...]" and goes on to explain in more details why this has happened, as the latter work was an improvement in a lot of ways over Diez's work. At any rate - Posner clearly established Diez's work as outdated.

Moreover, and again taking things out of context, Posner may mention all the things you say, but even though you try and equate that (through Posner's voice nonetheless) the particularities of Romanian with a "semi-Romance language" (whatever that is since neither you nor the source explains), Posner does not mention anywhere this. It's just your WP:OR.Cealicuca (talk) 17:21, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

No, I do not try to credit Posner with describing Romanian as a semi-Romance language, I only say, that she also distinguishes it from all other Romance languages. However, Posner establishes the relevance of the statement that you have been challenging. Posner says that Diez wrote one of the first books dedicated to the development of the Romance languages from Vulgar Latin and she thinks that Diez's description of Romanian ("a semi-Romance language") is relevant enough to be mentioned in this context. Borsoka (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and Posner's mention is relevant in the context of the development of the studies of Romance languages. That's it. Oh wait, there's more. Posner also establishes Diez's work as being outdated. It's not the context you have used the statement in, as per the article. Again, how is this (outdated) work of Diez relevant, as per Posner, to the origin of Romanian people?Cealicuca (talk) 17:51, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Again (and before you unilaterally decide to archive stuff that's only 4-5 days old) could you justify this semi-Romance addition with anything other than you getting a kick out of it on the talk page?

• What is the relevance, as stated by Posner, between this remark and the Origin of Romanians (Did Posner conclude that Diez's work influenced one theory or another?). I looked at the source and there's nothing about this connection, but maybe I am mistaken. So please clarify.Cealicuca (talk) 10:29, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

We do not need to prove that Diez's work influenced one of the theories about the Romanians' ethnogenesis. We should prove that Diez's work influenced scholars who studied the development of Romance languages (including Romanian), because the Romanians' ethnogenesis cannot be studied independently of the development of the language. Posner makes this context clear. References to other scholars in the text (as it is demonstrated above) also prove, that there are number of elements of the Romanian variants (vocabulary, syntax, phonetics, etc) which sharply differentiate them from all other Romance languages. That the Romance character of the language was deliberately strengthened through intensive borrowings from French (and Italian and scholarly Latin) during the last centuries is a common place in linguistic literature cited in the article. Sorry, I stop discussing this issue. Borsoka (talk) 04:59, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Such an interesting answer, and an even more interesting rationalization of it... So I guess you can back it up with a citation from Posner (needs to be from Posner since that is the source you cite for this statement) in which Diez's work is shown to have influenced linguists studying Romance languages (including Romanian) who, in turn (the same linguists who were influenced by Diez's work, otherwise it's irrelevant), are shown (by the same source, otherwise it is WP:SYNTH) that their work was referenced by scholars who studied the Romanian's ethnogenesis. So where is this citation from Posner?Cealicuca (talk) 16:24, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Posner, op. cit. page 4: she mentions Diez's view explicitly as one of the relevant views in the first studis of the development of Romance languages, especially Romanian. I think I stop debating this issue. Borsoka (talk) 16:46, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Historic Background section -- Unnecessary and Biased

The Historic Background section is completely unnecessary and should be deleted. There's nothing in that section that cannot be gleaned from the WP:RS (if properly summarized). There's also such a thing as hyperlinking, when in doubt, so there's no need for "historic background" in addition to what the sources say. To boot, there are Wikipedia pages for History of the Balkans, and History of Romania for the reader who wants more in-depth info. Finally, the word "Romanian" is mentioned only 3 times in this section; the word "Vlach" is mentioned once; meanwhile, the words Hun/Hungarian/Hungary are mentioned 10 times!! All this in the "historic background" section of the Origin of the Romanians article. I wonder who wrote this piece... There are many other issues with this section but it's all moot because the entire section should be marked for deletion.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 02:05, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

You may not know, but there are about 6,5 billion people who have no knowledge of the history of Southeastern and Central Europe. We should provide them a general picture. The Huns are mentioned once, but we can delete some references to the Hungarians if it is so disturbing. Borsoka (talk) 02:11, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I diasgree complete deletion, some parts may be tranformed partially but only with consensus.(KIENGIR (talk) 02:38, 1 December 2018 (UTC))

• Support integrating it in each theory's section - This is self evident. The only relevant info on this article should be the historic context of the theories (the historical context of their development). History of [insert country name here] - there are dedicated articles on that. Having a short (one-two sentence) neutral summary is no excuse for a lot of unrelated (to any of the mainstream theories representing mainstream academic views on the subject).Cealicuca (talk) 11:30, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

How could you distribute the facts between the theories? Could you quote a single sentence which should only be mentioned in connection with only one of the theories? Borsoka (talk) 11:37, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Stop with the false premises (statements that have a false assumption from which a conclusion arises). I did not say, nor do I wish to distribute "evidence". But maybe you are... As for your assessment - "Romanian is a language of Latin origin only in connection with the continuity theory" - if there are sources using the Romance aspect of the language as an argument in favour of the continuity theory, we need to present that interpretation (view). If there are sources using the same aspect of the Romanian language (a Romance language) arguing that this is an argument for the immigrationist theory, we should present that interpretation (view). If there are sources using the argument that Romanian is a Romance language in arguing for the admigration theory, we should present that interpretation (view). Simple. We do not get to distribute anything, and we present in a neutral way all points of view.Cealicuca (talk) 13:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Absurd. Why should we mention the same fact three times? Could you refer to sn encyclopedia which repeats the same fact three times in the same article? Borsoka (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Why? Because we don't present the "facts" (therefore we don't repeat the same thing three times, as you seem to be concerned). We present the interpretations the scholars give to those "facts".

No, it is not absurd at all. Say the "evidence" is "The Sun is a dwarf star." Say you had an article that deals with how our solar system formed, and you have two competing theories (example just for the sake of it, not factual necessarily).

• One says: "Because the Sun is a dwarf star, it would have been impossible to retain as many planets as there are now in our solar system. Therefore some of those planets are "wanderer" planets that have been captured by the gravity of the Sun over time".
• The competing theory says: "Because we have so many planets in the Solar system, and because the sun is a dwarf star, it means that the Sun must have had a companion star."

It is only absurd because you do not wish to present the context that the sources give that evidence. It is absurd only when you think in terms of "evidence. Collecting "evidence". You believe that this article should somehow present all the "facts". Sorry, "neutral facts". Irrespective of how the academia thinks those "facts" fit in the picture. The main problems with that is that, since we no longer attribute meaning to the evidence according to the sources, we can make whatever we want with that "evidence" and paint whatever picture we want. Arrange them differently, put one next to another, remove one from a section etc. And what do you know, we're now pushing the idea and the view we like, not the one that was meant by the source.Cealicuca (talk) 17:00, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

You have not named a single encyclopedia which repeats the same facts in the same article. Sorry, I will not comment your proposals which could result in an original encyclopedical structure. It is extremly annoying, that you have been blowing up this Talk page for months only to repeat the same set of arguments. We are discussing the same issue under half a dozen subtitles now. Borsoka (talk) 09:01, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

No, I have not. This is simply because other encyclopedias, and I mean serious ones - not encyclopedias who leave the content of an article to the whims of one editor and his group of friends, have no qualms in weighing the theories and establishing a basic framework for their content. Yes, they do nod towards the fact that there is a debate, but that's it. Not more than a nod...:

The fate of the Romanized, or Daco-Roman, population north of the Danube after Aurelian’s withdrawal has been a subject of great controversy. Many scholars, especially Hungarians, argue that Romanization in Dacia was, in fact, modest and that the later Romanian population living north of the Carpathians was not native to the region but migrated there from south of the Danube. Other scholars, including the majority of Romanians, insist that a substantial Romanized population maintained itself continuously in old Dacia and that the ethnogenesis of the Romanian people occurred precisely there. The account that follows expands upon the latter interpretation.

- This is from Britannica in case you're wondering. Or is Britannica biased?

So other encyclopedias are not concerned with the "facts", "evidence" whatever. Being encyclopedia, they rather focus on the result - and what do you know They even assign WP:WEIGHT to it to their further explaining of things. But this is not what is happening here. No, here we have an article that somehow is rather concerned in presenting "evidence". Lots and lots of it. And have the editors fight over which bit of evidence comes first, and the language and whatever.Cealicuca (talk) 15:36, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) If you had read Britannica, you would have realized that it also mentions the Goths, Huns, Gepids, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and Hungarians, similarly to first section of the article. (2) As I mentioned several times, recent summaries of the subject regard evidence for the continuity theory unconvincing. Borsoka (talk) 15:48, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't the one to bring up other encyclopedias. You did. Yes, it mentions Goths, Huns, Gepids, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and Hungarians. So what? Has anyone argued against it? It is irrelevant to what we were talking. Here, let's see the full quote:

The fate of the Romanized, or Daco-Roman, population north of the Danube after Aurelian’s withdrawal has been a subject of great controversy. Many scholars, especially Hungarians, argue that Romanization in Dacia was, in fact, modest and that the later Romanian population living north of the Carpathians was not native to the region but migrated there from south of the Danube. Other scholars, including the majority of Romanians, insist that a substantial Romanized population maintained itself continuously in old Dacia and that the ethnogenesis of the Romanian people occurred precisely there. The account that follows expands upon the latter interpretation.

The Slavs

For nearly eight centuries after the withdrawal of the Roman administration and army, Dacia was overrun by a series of migratory peoples. The earliest of them—the Visigoths (275–376), the Huns (end of the 4th century to 454), and the Germanic Gepidae (454–567)—had little impact on the Daco-Roman population. But the Avars’ defeat of the Gepidae in 567 opened the way for a massive advance of Slavs into Dacia. Together with the Avars, the Slavs then broke through the Danube frontier of the Byzantine Empire in 602 and occupied much of the Balkan Peninsula. Now, for the first time since Trajan’s conquest, Dacia was cut off from the Roman (Byzantine) world.

The Slavs achieved political and social preeminence in Dacia in the 8th century, but even then they were undergoing assimilation by the more numerous Daco-Romans. Their position was enhanced in the 9th century when the rulers of the first Bulgarian empire extended their control over Dacia following Charlemagne’s crushing defeat of the Avars in 791–796. Local Slav chiefs apparently entered into a vassal relationship with the Bulgarian tsars, who, after the conversion of Boris I to Christianity in 864, served as religious and cultural intermediaries between Dacia and the Byzantine Empire.

- from Britannica

So except a brief (and only) mention of the Hungarian view on the matter, the encyclopedia makes it quite clear what is the basic premise for everything that follows. Reinforced by the bolded text in the second and third paragraph.

So by all mean let's follow on the model of other encyclopedia. As I see it, there's no "evidence" section, no "facts" presented or whatever.

Again, I did not invoke other encyclopedias. You did. Are you sure you want to follow that route?Cealicuca (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I must think that you are wasting other editors' time on purpose. Please try to be serious. I could refer to encyclopedias which prefer the immigrationist theory. Could you refer a single encyclopedia which repeats the same fact three times in the same article? Borsoka (talk) 17:58, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I am serious. Please do bring Encyclopedias who refer to the Immigrationist theory and use it as a basis for their article. Preferably an internationally recognized encyclopedia. Preferably not an obscure one. Like Britannica. Actually, one of the most respected historical encyclopedias actually goes with the Admigration theory - which I personally, as I said more than once, believe it's closest to reality. But I have yet to see a respected encyclopedia using the Immigrationist theory as the standard. So please surprise us, I am completely aware of how many resources you have access to. Again, I did not initiate this, but you seem to like to bring it up from time to time...

As for your question - your question is irrelevant, because it contains a false assumption. I did not say that each theory should list the same "fact". All I said is that each theory should be faithfully (to the sources used) presented. The theories are build by interpreting various evidence, or facts. Therefore there is no repetition since the interpretations are different. You agreed, more than once, that the same fact can have different interpretations. All it takes is to drop the "info dump" and present the theories, their argumentation, the interpretations the scholars give (sometimes wildly different) to those "facts".Cealicuca (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Some references to Hungarians were deleted and the links between the general historic background and the principal theories were underlined ([5]). Sorry, I will ignore all your remarks about the restructruing of the article, because it is now subject to an RfC. As to Britannica, it is a tertiary source, and Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. The article cites a number of recently published secondary sources that are not convinced that the continuity theory is the only theory which should be presented. (For instance, I can refer to books quoted in the lead and authors cited in section 2.3 Immigrationist theory.) Borsoka (talk) 05:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Romanian irredentism

Since some editors challenged the view that Romanian expansionims and the continuity theory are clearly connected, I suggest that section 2.1 Historiography: origin of the theories should be expanded with the following text:

The concept of the common origin of the Romanians of the Habsburg Empire, Moldavia and Wallachia inevitably gave rise to the development of the idea of a united Romanian state. A series of "Dacian" projects about the unification of all lands inhabited by Romanians emerged in the 19th century. Moise Nicoară was the first to claim that the Romanian nation extends "from the Tisza to the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Dniester" in 1815. After irredentism became an important element of political debates among Romanian nationalists in the 1890s, the continuity theory "added a considerable element of historical prestige to Romanian claims to Transylvania". In 1916, the Romanian Prime Minister, Ion I. C. Brătianu joined the war against Austria-Hungary only after the Entene powers had offered to reward Romania with Transylvania in case of their victory. After World War I, the peace treaties confirmed the new borders of Romania, acknowledging the incorporation of Transylvania, Bukovina and some neighboring regions in Greater Romania. Debates about the venue of the formation of the Romanian people became especially passionate after Hitler enforced the restoration of northern Transylvania to Hungary in 1940. Hungarian scholars published a series of well-established studies to disprove the continuity theory, but the Romanians did not fail to take issue with them.

After some oscillations in the 1950s, the strickest variant of the continuity theory became dominant in Communist Romania. Official historians claimed that the formation of the Romanian people started in the lands within the actual Romanian borders, stating that the south-Danubian territories had only had a role during the preceding "Romanic" phase of the Romanians' ethnogenesis. Nicolae Ceaușescu made history one of the "pillars of national Communism" in the 1970s. To meet his expectations, historians started to diminish the role of Slavs, and even of Romans, emphasizing the authochthonous character of Romanian culture and society. On the other hand, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences published a three-volume monography about the history of Transylvania in 1986, presenting the arguments of the immigrationist theory. The Hungarian government obviously supported its publication, because and the Minister of Education was the general editor of the volumes. Historian Keith Hitchins notes that the controversy "has lasted down to the post-Communist era", but it "has assumed an attenuated form as membership in the European Union has softened territorial rivalries between Romania and Hungary". Vlad Georgescu notes that Bulgarian historians tend to support the continuity theory, but also to diminish the Vlachs' role in the history of the Balkans, while most Russian historians accept the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors in Transylvania and Banat, but deny any form of continuity in Moldova. Linguist Gottfried Schramm emphasizes that the Romanians' ethnogenesis is a "fundamental problem of the history and linguistic history of Southeastern Europe" and urges scholars from third countries to start studying it. On the other hand, Kim Schulte (also a linguist) refuses to enter into this hot topic, regarding it as a politically motivated debate.

References

• Georgescu, Vlad (1991). The Romanians: A History. Ohio State University Press. ISBN 0-8142-0511-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hitchins, Keith (2014). A Concise History of Romania. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-69413-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kwan, Jonathan (2005). "Nation-States and Irredentism in the Balkans". In Trencsényi, Balázs (ed.). Statehood Before and Beyond Ethnicity: Minor States in Northern and Eastern Europe, 1600-2000. European Interuniversity Press. pp. 275–302. ISBN 978-90-5201-291-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schramm, Gottfried (1997). Ein Damm bricht. Die römische Donaugrenze und die Invasionen des 5-7. Jahrhunderts in Lichte der Namen und Wörter [=A Dam Breaks: The Roman Danube frontier and the Invasions of the 5th-7th Centuries in the Light of Names and Words] (in German). R. Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN 978-3-486-56262-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 230–259. ISBN 978-3-11-021843-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Thank you for your comments. Borsoka (talk) 03:36, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Each theory has its own historiography, which should be incorporated into their respective sections. Even so, this paragraph is problematic-- for instance, how is Schulte's statement relevant in any way? It's completely redundant. Also, the Bratianu statement is an over-simplification. Why only quote one author/viewpoint on that? It's unbalanced. Why not mention "the Austro-Hungarian policy on nationalities" (Georgescu/165) as reason for joining the Entente? The whole presentation is overly preoccupied with Transylvania, no mention of Bessarabia, etc. Too many problems to mention. Again, the only way to give this justice is by incorporating Historiography into the theory sections, else we'll be tangling over every sentence (and, if need be, we will).Iovaniorgovan (talk) 06:25, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I will change the text. Please, take into account that the restructuring of the article is subject to RfC. We do not need to d8scuss it here. Borsoka (talk) 06:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I would say ok, but we should make a distinction what we are really speaking of. Regarding Transylvania and other Hungarian territories it was expansionism. Regarding Bessarabia - that you understandably ignored since the issue was about Transylvania and Hungarian-Romanain relations - it is better irredentism, as it was former included in Romanian principalities. We should not mix the two, since one is about a consideration based on a theory, the second is to regain something held before.(KIENGIR (talk) 13:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC))

No, Romanian irredentism covered all lands "from the Tisza to the Dniester". Borsoka (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The proposed text is mostly fine. However Janos Kadar's Hungary was a real internationalist phenomena where the scholars were (usually) not driven by a nationalist agenda. Contrary to Hungary the Romanian historiography was usually seen as nationalist and was politicized badly in Ceaucescu's Romania. So we cannot put an equal sign between Hungarian and Romanian historiographies in the seventies and eighties. Therefore we should somehow improve this sentence from Schramm "Hungarian scholars published a series of studies to disprove the continuity theory and the Romanians did not fail to take issue with them.". I do not say Schramm is not correct, but the overall picture was much more complicated than he depicted IMO. Fakirbakir (talk) 20:51, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Borsoka, you misunderstood me, I did not say the Romanian agenda was not from the "from Tisza to the Dniester", but usually we use the denomination "irredentism" when something is claimed that belonged before sometime to the entity. This is true from Bessarabia or other territories that was once held by the Romanian principalities, but not for Transylvania or other former Hungarian territories that were never held before any Romanian state. That's all. Carefully phrasing when we speak about irredentism, or expansionism - even when the former one is claimed by an assumption that has no proof or ground or connection. Not to mix it improperly to be misunderstood.(KIENGIR (talk) 23:20, 7 December 2018 (UTC))

(1) Fakirbakir, Schramm actually writes of the 1940s. You are right, Kádár's Hungary was internationalist, Ceausescu's Romania chauvinist. (2) Irredentism means a political movement for the unification of the lands which are supposed to be due to a nation based on actual or imaginary rights. Romanian irredentism claimed the restoration of Dacia. Borsoka (talk) 01:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I modified and expanded the text, as it is demonstrated above. @Iovaniorgovan:, could you quote Georgescu's text verifying that Brătianu decided to support the Entene because of "the Austro-Hungarian policy on nationalities"? I did not find it. Borsoka (talk) 05:51, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your modifications. NPOV, -as it happened.Fakirbakir (talk) 07:16, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Borsoka As I said before, I don't agree with this type of presentation although I do agree that this stuff should be presented "in some form" in the article. I can't help but notice a couple things...1. over-reliance on Schramm (Schramm didn't write the be-all end-all of Romanian history/historiography/linguistics so why is he and/or his work cited five times in two paragraphs?); 2) why no mention of how Romania's other neighbors view this subject? The Russians (as former neighbors), the Bulgarians, the Serbs... the scholarly mainstream views in all those countries is that the Romanians formed in present-day territories, though they each debate some other aspects (re. Bessarabia, for instance). Again, too many issues to mention and, seeing as we're in the middle of an RfC, I prefer to wait until the ruling before I start "fixing" some of this stuff. So I won't object to your including this into the article as a stop-gap measure. I mean, it belongs there and it won't make the structure any worse than it already is. As for the Georgescu quote, I already gave you the page# (165): "Bratianu spoke emphatically on Romanian opposition to Austria-Hungary's anti-Serbian Balkan policy.[...] In December 1913 old King Carol himself told the German ambassador in Bucharest that because of the Austro-Hungarian policy on nationalities "the Romanian people will not side with Austria in war...""Iovaniorgovan (talk) 08:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) Schramm is cited four times in a text which contains 18 citations. Schramm is a scholar who dedicated a monography to the very subject of the article. (2) We can mention Georgescu's PoV about Bulgarian and Russian historians, although he does not mention a single Bulgarian or Russian historian (3) Georgescu does not write that Romania joined the Entente in 1916 because of the Austro-Hungarian policy on nationalities. He writes that Bratianu opposed Austria-Hungary's anti-Serbian Balkan policy and the King referred to the Austro-Hungarian policy on nationalities in 1914 to explain why Romania did not enter into the war on behalf of its allies (Austria-Hungary and Germany). (4) Yes, the RfC is ongoing, but there is little chance that vast majority of editors would support a version which requires that each data and scholary interpretation be repeated twice or three times, because WP is an encyclopedia. Borsoka (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

1) Schramm is a linguist, his monograph is about names and words and stuff, hardly what one would call an authority in historiography. Not debating that he's a reliable source, or that he can be cited, just questioning the weight of his work/viewpoint (4 citations + 1 name-drop = 5). 2) So what if Georgescu doesn't mention them by name? He doesn't need to when he makes a sweeping statement or else he'd need to mention a hundred of them. 3) He writes that the "treatment of nationalities" is at least one reason why that happened. I think it's pretty clear. 4) The "vast majority" counts for little here, seeing as we're not taking a vote. There are only two broad views on the structural issue and the "moderator" will bring his/her own recommendations as to which we should follow. So there's little chance either of us knows anything yet.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 07:14, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) Yes, Schramm's monography is a reliable source. Are there concurring scholarly PoVs debating his conclusions mentioned in this section? (3) No, Georgescu does not mention that Romania attacked her allies because of the treatment of nationalities in Hungary. Sorry, I will not debate this issue any more. Borsoka (talk) 08:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

1) "Hungarians published a series of "well-established" studies..."?! Yeah, I think there might be an issue with that. 3) It's okay if you don't "get it", we can just quote Georgescu and let the readers decide what that means. Else, tell that to the next RfC "moderator".Iovaniorgovan (talk) 06:11, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) Schramm's words about the Hungarian scholars' publications: "Trotz dieses düsteren politischen Hintergrundes muß ich annerkennen, daß die damalige - für die Kürze der zur Verfügung bleibenden Zeit erstaunlich reichhaltige - Kollektivleistung alles in allem nach dem Gewicht der Argumente und einem durch das politische Engagement nicht außer Kraft gesetzten Methodenbewußtseins den bisherigen Gipfelpunkt der Diskussion markiert." (2) I added Georgescu's remarks. Borsoka (talk) 02:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I know he says that, my point is you should directly attribute that statement to Schramm, as in "Schramm states that..."; else, it sounds like a statement of fact, which it definitely isn't. Anyway, all this could/should be incorporated into their respective sections (at least in the draft version of the article).Iovaniorgovan (talk) 04:52, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) OK. (2) There are no "respective sections", because there is only one: the section dedicated to the development of scholarly views about the Romanians' ethnogenesis. Borsoka (talk) 05:06, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

2. I was talking about the draft version of the article. Even with historiography, there are different viewpoints according to each theory.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 05:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is one aspect of the draft version which obviously contradicts all relevant WP policies. It starts the presentation of theories about the Romanians' ethnogenesis with references to books written in the 17th century, ignoring earlier works. I have not read a single reliable source which follows this arbitrary approach. Borsoka (talk) 06:01, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

What relevant Wiki policies are those? I guess that section could be improved. Again, the section was/is in "draft" mode. I have some other sources (which I already mentioned in a previous discussion but have yet to place them in the article). What would you start the section with?Iovaniorgovan (talk) 07:51, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. We are not here to present our own approach. The present section 2.1 Historiography: origin of the theories is fully in line with all policies. Borsoka (talk) 09:31, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Section 3.3.1 Development of Romanian

Taking into account that editors suggested that the relevance of each fact mentioned in the article within the context of the Romanians' ethnogenesis should be emphasized, I tried to rewrite one of the sections of the article. My proposal is the following:

The formation of Proto-Romanian (or Common Romanian) from Vulgar Latin started in the 5th-7th centuries and was completed in the 8th century. The common language split into variants during the 10th-12th centuries. The Romanian dialects spoken to the north of the Danube display a "remarkable unity". Primarily the use of different words differentiate them, because their phonology is quite uniform. Linguist Gabriela P. Dindelegan (who accepts the continuity theory) asserts that the Romanian shepherds' seasonal movements, and commercial contacts across the mountains secured the preservation of language unity. From another point of view, Paul Wexler proposes that the "relative recency of the Romance-speaking settlement" is a more plausible explanation, because the levelling effect of migrations is well-documented (for instace, in eastern Germany, and along the western coasts of the USA). Some Eastern Romance variants retained more elements of their Latin heritage than others. Primarily, the dialects of the peripheral areas (like Maramureș and Moldavia) preserved archaic linguistic features. For instance, the Maramureș subdialect of Romanian still uses both the ancient -a ending of verbs, and the Latin word for sand (arină) instead of standard nisip (a Slavic loanword), and Arumanian kept dozens of words—including arină, oarfăn ("orphan") and mes ("month")—lost in other variants. Emphasizing that western Transylvania used to be an integral part of Dacia Traiana, Nandriș concludes that "Transylvania was the centre of linguistic expansion", because the Transylvanian dialects preserved Latin words which were replaced by loanwords in other variants, furthermore place names with the archaic -ești ending abound in the region.

There are about 100-170 Romanian words with a possible substratum origin. Almost one third of these words represent the specific vocabulary of sheep- and goat-breeding. The substrate language has been identified as Thraco-Dacian, Thracian, or Daco-Moesian, but the origin of these words—Albanian, Thraco-Dacian or an unidentified third language—is actually uncertain. When analyzing the historical circumstances of the adoption of these words, linguist Kim Schulte asserts that initially the "political and cultural dominance of the Romans" defined the relationship between the Latin-speaking groups and speakers of the substrate language, but the two communities continued to live side by side, communicating "on regular basis about everyday matters regarding their pastoral activity and the natural environment" even after the end of Roman rule.

About 70-90 possible substrate words have Albanian cognates, and 29 terms are probably loanwords from Albanian. Similarities between Romanian and Albanian are not limited to their common Balkan features and the assumed subtrate words: the two languages share calques and proverbs, and display analogous phonetic changes. Most linguists suppose that Albanian descended directly from the Eastern Romance substratum, or from a language closely related to it. Marius Sala, who supports the continuity theory, argues that Thraco-Dacian was "a variant of Thracian from which Albanian originited". Vladimir I. Georgiev proposes that both Albanian and Romanian developed in the "Daco-Mysian region" (encompassing Dacia to the north of the Lower Danube, and Moesia to the south of the river). He describes Romanian as a "completely Romanized Daco-Mysian" and Albanian as a "semi-Romanized Daco-Mysian". According to Nandriș, the common features of the two languages have been overvalued. On the other hand, proponents of the immigrationist theory regard these similarities as an important evidence for the Romanians' south-Danubian homeland. One of the latter scholars, Schramm proposes that the Romanians' ancestors were Roman refugees who settled near the native pastoralist population of the mountains in the central Balkans in the 5th-6th centuries; they could only take possession of the highest mountain pastures where they lived surrounded by the semi-sedentarian Proto-Albanians for centuries.

Every Romance language inherited only about 2,000 words directly from Latin. More than 200 Latin words that other Romance languages preserved are missing in Romanian, but about 100 Latin terms were inherited only by Romanian. The preservation of the latter terms—including creștin („Christian”) and împărat („emperor”)—was due to their frequent use, according to Sala. Proponents of the continuity theory are convinced that the preservation or lack of certain Latin terms reveal that Romanian developed north of Lower Danube. One of these terms is the Latin word for gold (aurum), preserved in Daco-Romanian, but lost in Aromanian and Istro-Romanian. For Nandriș, the word is important evidence for the Romanians' continuous presence in Transylvania, because Romanian mountainers owned many Transylvanian gold mines in Modern Times, and Nandriș thinks that newcomers would not have been allowed to open mines in the province. The Latin terms for fig tree (ficus) and chestnut (castaneus) were kept in Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, but they disappeared from Daco-Romanian. Nandriș and Sala say that this fact is also a clear testimony for the Daco-Romanians' north-Danubian homeland, because these plants did not grow there. Nandriș asserts that the semantic evolution of certain inherited Latin words also supports the continuity theory. For instance, he refers to the development of Latin terminus ("border, boundary, frontier") into Daco-Romanian țărm ("embankment, sea-shore, river bank"), proposing that this must have occurred north of the Lower Danube after the Roman withdrawal which made the river the empire's northern frontier. He also mentions a Latin inscription in Dacia Traiana which contains the Latin word for moon (luna) with the meaning for month, because Daco-Romanian displays a similar semantic development. Other scholars attribute the same change to Slavic influence.

Romanian reflects most changes of Latin which occurred in the 2th-6th centuries. In Gábor Vékony's view, only uninterrupted contacts between the ancestors of Romanians, Dalmatians, Italians and other Romance peoples within the Roman Empire could secure the adoption of these changes, which excludes the north-Danubian territories, abandoned by the Romans in the late 3rd century. Vékony and Schramm also emphasize that the meaning of almost a dozen of inherited Latin terms changed paralelly in Romanian and Albanian, suggesting that contacts between the speakers of Proto-Romanian and Proto-Albanian were frequent. For instance, the Latin word for dragon (draco) developed into Daco-Romanian drac and Albanian dreq, both meaning devil; Daco-Romanian bătrîn and Albanian vjetër (both meaning old) descend from the Latin term for veteran (veteranus). Furthermore, Romanian sat ("village") was not directly inherited from Latin, but borrowed from Albanian fshat ("village"), the direct continuation of Latin fossatum ("military camp").

In addition to words of Latin or of possible substratum origin, loanwords make up more than 40% (according to certain estimations 60-80%) of the Romanian vocabulary. Schulte notes that even "relatively basic words denoting continually present meanings, such as features of the natural environment, are frequently borrowed". The names for most species of fish of the Danube and of dozens of other animals living in Romania are of Slavic origin. Dindelegan says that contacts with other peoples has not modified the "Latin structure of Romanian" and the "non-Latin grammatical elements" borrowed from other languages were "adapted to and assimilated by the Romance pattern". Nandriș also says that linguistic influences "are due to cultural intercourse" and do not reveal closer contacts.

No loanwords of East Germanic origin have so far been proven. Scholars who accept the immigrationist theory emphasize that the lack of East Germanic loanwords excludes that the Romanians' homeland was located north of the Lower Danube, because Germanic tribes dominated these lands from the 270s to the 560s. Defending the continuity theory, historian Stelian Brezeanu proposes that the absence of East Germanic loanwords is "basically the consequence of the gap" between the Orthodox Romanians and the Arian Germans. He adds that the Daco-Romans assimilated the last Eastern Germanic groups in Transylvania before the middle of the 7th century. Also in defense of the continuity theory, Sala mentions that the Germanic peoples stayed in the former Dacia Traiana province "for a relatively brief span of time, only a couple of centuries", without maintaining close contacts with the Daco-Romans. Nandriș says that those who propose a south-Danubian homeland "on the ground of the lack of Germanic elements" in Romanian "have the same argument against them", because Germanic tribes also settled in the Balkans in the early Middle Ages. In contrast, Schramm proposes that both Proto-Romanian and Proto-Albanian must have developed in the central Balkan regions where no Germanic tribes settled, because direct borrowings from East Germanic are also missing in Albanian.

Slavic loanwords make up about one-fifth of Romanian vocabulary. According to certain estimations, terms of Slavic origin are more numerous than the directly inherited Latin roots, although the Slavic loanwords often replaced or doubled the Latin terms. All Eastern Romance variants contain the same 80 Slavic loanwords, indicating that they were borrowed during the Common Romanian period. The vast majority of Slavic loanwords display phonetic changes occurring after around 800. To explain the lack of early borrowings, Brezeanu supposes that the Christian Proto-Romanians and the pagan Proto-Slavs did not mix. Schulte proposes that the Proto-Romanians and Proto-Slavs lived in close proximity under Avar rule, but neither group could achieve cultural dominance, because the Avars formed the elite. In contrast, Schramm argues that the only explanation for the lack of early Slavic borrowings is that the Proto-Albanians separated the Proto-Romanians (who lived in the mountains in the central Balkans) from the agriculturalist Proto-Slavs (who inhabited the lowlands) for centuries.

The most intensive phase of borrowings form Slavic (specifically from Southern Slavic) tongues started around 900. The proportion of Slavic loanwords is especially high (20-25%) in the Romanians' religious, social and political vocabulary, but almost one-fifth of the Romanian terms related to emotions, values, speech and languages were also borrowed from Slavs. Slavic loanwords tend to have positive connotations in "antonym pairs with one element borrowed from Slavic". Romanians also adopted dozens of Latin words through Slavic mediation. Wexler proposes that Slavic patterns gave rise to the development of significant part of about 900 Romanian words that are deemed to descend from hypothetical Latin words (that is words reconstructed on the basis of their Romanian form). Linguists often attribute the development of about 10 phonological and morphological features of Romanian to Slavic influence, but there is no consensual view. For instance, contacts with Slavic-speakers allegedly contributed to the appearance of the semi-vowel [y] before the vowel [e] at the beginning of basic words and to the development of the vocative case in Romanian.

Linguist Kim Schulte says, the significant common lexical items and the same morpho-syntactic structures of the Romanian and Bulgarian (and Macedonian) languages "indicates that there was a high decree of bilingualism" in this phase of the development of Romanian. Brezeanu argues that contacts between the Romanians' ancestors and the Slavs became intensive due to the arrival of Bulgarian clerics to the lands north of the Lower Danube after the conversion of Bulgaria to Christianity. Thereafter, Brezeanu continues, Slavs formed the social and political elite for a lengthy period, as it is demonstrated both by loanwords (such as voivode and cneaz, both referring to the leaders of the Vlach communities) and by the semantical development of the term rumân (which referred to Wallachian serfs in the Middle Ages). Schramm argues that the Proto-Romanians' spread in the mountains in search for new pastures and the Slavicization of the Balkans explain that close contacts developed between the Proto-Romanians and the Bulgarians in the 10th century.

Borrowings from Slavic languages show that there were "localized contacts" between Romanian and Slavic groups even after the disintegration of Common Romanian. The Daco-Romanian subdialects of Maramureș and Moldavia contains loanwords from Ukrainian, Polish and Russian. The Romanian form of loanwords from Ukrainan evinces that they were borrowed after the characteristic Ukrainian sound change from h to g was completed in the 12th century. Serbian influenced the subdialects spoken in Banat and Crișana from the 15th century. Bulgarian influenced the Wallachian subdialects even after Bulgarian ceased to influence other variants.

About 1,7% of Romanian words is of Greek origin. The earliest layer of Greek loanwords was inherited from the variant of Vulgar Latin from which Romanian descends. Schulte proposes that Byzantine Greek terms were adopted through close contacts between Romanian, Southern Slavic and Greek communities until the 10th century. Hungarian loanwords represent about 1,6% of Romanian vocabulary. According to Schult, the Hungarian loanwords show that contacts between Romanians and Hungarians were limited to occasional encounters. On the other hand, Sala says that bilingualism must have existed. Loanwords from Pecheneg or Cuman are rare, but many Romanian leaders bore Cuman names, implying that they were of Cuman origin.

All neighboring peoples adopted a number of Romanian words connected to goat- and sheep-breeding. Romanian loanwords are rare in standard Hungarian, but abound in its Transylvanian dialects. In addition to place names and elements of the Romanian pastoral vocabulary, the Transylvanian Hungarians primarily adopted dozens of Romanian ecclesiastic and political terms to refer to specific Romanian institutions already before the mid-17th centuries (for instance, bojér, logofét, kalugyér and beszerika). The adoption of the Romanian terminology shows that the traditional Romanian institutions, which followed Byzantine patterns, significantly differed from their Hungarian counterparts.

Linguistic research plays a preeminent role in the construction of the way of life of the Romanians' ancestors, because "historical sources are almost silent". The Romanians preserved the basic Latin agricultural vocabulary, but adopted a significant number of Slavic technical terms for agricultural tools and techniques. Inherited terminology for motion is strikingly numerous, showing the preeminent role of transhumant pastoralism in medieval Romanians' economy. In his study dedicated to the formation of the Romanian language, Nandriș concludes that the Latin population was "reduced to a pastoral life in the mountains and to agricultural pursuits in the foothills of their pastural lands" in the whole "Carpatho-Balkan area" (both to the north and to the south of the Lower Danube) after the collapse of the Roman rule. For historian Victor Spinei, the Slavic loanwords evince that the Romanians had already "practiced an advanced level of agriculture" before they entered into close contacts with the Slavs: otherwise they would not have needed the specialized terminology. On the other hand, Sala says that the Slavic terms "penetrated Romanian" because they designed the Slavs' more advanced technology which replaced the Romanians' obsolete tools. Schramm concludes that the Proto-Romanians were pastoralists with superfitial knowledge of agriculture, limited to the basic vocabulary and retained only because they regularly wintered their flocks on their sedentary neighbors' lands in the foothills. According to him, the adoption of Slavic (and later Hungarian) agricultural terminology clearly shows that the Romanians started to practice agriculture only at a later stage of their ethnogenesis.

References

• Augerot, J. (2009). "Romanian". In Brown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. pp. 900–904. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Brezeanu, Stelian (1998). "Eastern Romanity in the Millenium of the Great Migrations". In Giurescu, Dinu C.; Fischer-Galați, Stephen (eds.). Romania: A Historic Perspective. Boulder. pp. 45–75. ISBN 0-88033-345-5. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |ignore-isbn-error= ignored (|isbn= suggested) (help)
• Georgescu, Vlad (1991). The Romanians: A History. Ohio State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8142-0511-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Georgiev, Vladimir (July 1966). "The Genesis of the Balkan Peoples". The Slavonic and East European Review. 44 (103): 285–297. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Izzo, Herbert J. (1986). "On the history of Romanian". In Marino, Mary C.; Pérez, Luis A. (eds.). The Twelfth LACUS Forum, 1985. Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States. pp. 139–146. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kopecký, Peter (2004–2005). "Caractéristique lexicale de l'élément slave dans le vocabulaire roumain: Confrontation historique aux sédiments lexicaux turcs et grecs [Lexical characteristics of the Slavic elements of the Romanians language: A historical comparison with the Turkic and Greek lexical layers]". Ianua: Revista Philologica Romanica. 5: 43–53. ISSN 1616-413X. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mallinson, Graham (1988). "Rumanian". In Harris, Martin; Vincent, Nigel (eds.). The Romance Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 391–419. ISBN 978-0-19-520829-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mihăescu, H. (1993). La Romanité dans le Sud-Est de L'Europe [=The Romans in South-Eastern Europe] (in French). Editura Academiei Române. ISBN 97-3270-342-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mišeska Tomić, Olga (2006). Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4020-4487-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nandris, Grigore (December 1951). "The Development and Structure of Rumanian". The Slavonic and East European Review. 30 (74): 7–39. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela (2013). "Introduction: Romanian - a brief presentation". In Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela (ed.). The Grammar of Romanian. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–7. ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Petrucci, Peter R. (1999). Slavic Features in the History of Rumanian. LINCOM EUROPA. ISBN 978-3-89586-599-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sala, Marius (2005). From Latin to Romanian: The Historical Development of Romanian in a Comparative Romance Context. University, Mississipi. ISBN 1-889441-12-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schramm, Gottfried (1997). Ein Damm bricht. Die römische Donaugrenze und die Invasionen des 5-7. Jahrhunderts in Lichte der Namen und Wörter [=A Dam Breaks: The Roman Danube frontier and the Invasions of the 5th-7th Centuries in the Light of Names and Words] (in German). R. Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN 978-3-486-56262-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 230–259. ISBN 978-3-11-021843-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Spinei, Victor (2009). The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth century. Koninklijke Brill NV. ISBN 978-90-04-17536-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Szabó T., Attila (1985). "Hungarian Loanwords of Romanian Origin" (PDF). Hungarian Studies. 1 (1): 51–65. ISSN 0236-6568. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Vékony, Gábor (2000). Dacians, Romans, Romanians. Matthias Corvinus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-882785-13-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wexler, Paul (1997). "The case for the relexification hypothesis in Rumanian". In Horváth, Júlia; Wexler, Paul (eds.). Relexification in Creole and Non-Creole Languages: With special attention to Haitian Creole, Modern Hebrew, Romani, and Rumanian. Harrassowith Verlag. pp. 162–188. ISBN 978-3-447-03954-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Thank you for your comments. Borsoka (talk) 04:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Again, it's not for you to decide what goes into the theory sections (DRCT, IT, AT) and what doesn't. There's already a Wikipedia page on the History of the Romanian Language and some of this stuff should go there (if it's not there already). The last thing this article needs is another "info dump" of the "he said, she said" variety and little (to no) presentation of the actual theories.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 04:27, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

The article contains sections dedicated to the theories, so the principal arguments of the theories are presented. The "History of the Romanian" article is not dedicated to the linguistic aspects of the Romanians' ethnogenesis, consequently we cannot transfer material relating to the topic of this article to that article. The above texts clearly shows that there is no uniform approach, even within the theories. For instance, scholars who support the continuity theory do not agree whether the "substrate" words are actually substrate words or borrowings from Albanian, or the lack of early Slavic loanwords is the consequence of the Slavs' paganism or the fact that both the Slavs and the Romanians were subjected to the Avars, and the Slavs could achieve cultural dominance only after the fall of the Avars. How could you explain these internal contradiction in a coherent way in the section dedicated to one of the theories? How could you secure that immigrationist scholars' PoVs (which are not in contradiction with explanations provided by some continuity scholars) are also presented in connection with the same facts? The "he said, she said" approach is called NPOV in our community. No doubt, the text should be boldly copyedited, but this is an other question. Borsoka (talk) 04:41, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Separate DRCT section, separate IT section, separate AT section... that's WP:NPOV. Your approach violates several Wiki guidelines, as outlined in the RfC above.Iovaniorgovan (talk) 04:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

There are sections dedicated to each theory. You have not answered my questions. Until you ignore my questions, I will ignore your remarks. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

No, this approach does not violate any guideline, it is totally neutral. Fine work, I support!(KIENGIR (talk) 10:53, 6 December 2018 (UTC))

• Comment:

Why does the editor want to mirror several articles on the romanian Language?

Why are statements clearly referencing one theory or another not in the sections dedicated to the theories? If the linguistic element is such an important one then by removing it from the framework of the theories means to implicitly not present the theories in NPOV way.

For all the remaining statements not referencing a theory of another, why should they be included?Cealicuca (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) Nobody wants to mirror several articles on the Romanian language, but linguistic research is a most important element of the study of the Romanians' ethnogenesis. (2) How could the presentation of all relevant scholarly interpreations of the same fact contradict WP:NPOV? (3) Sorry, I do not understand your remark. Would you clarify it? Borsoka (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) The why do we have a section dedicated to linguistics and not have the content integrated in each theory? (2) How can we present a relevant point of view if we don't include the relevance of it without breaking WP:NPOV? (3) Sorry, I do not understand what is unclear. Could you clarify?Cealicuca (talk) 16:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

(1) Because WP is an encyclopedia and encyclopedias do not repeat the same facts and interpretations twice or three times. The general sets of linguistic arguments of each theory are mentioned in the sections dedicated to them. (2) The relevance of each sentence within the framework of the Romanians' ethnogenesis is clearly explained in the above text. (3) Would you quote one sentence which should be deleted, according to your opinion? Borsoka (talk) 16:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I slightly modified the text and added information about Greek, Hungarian and Turkic loanwords [6]. Borsoka (talk) 03:14, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I also made some copyedit ([7]). Borsoka (talk) 02:16, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

It's still as abstruse as before you "made some copyedit".Iovaniorgovan (talk) 06:15, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Splitting the Daco-Roman continuity theory section

The theory is a key topic in Romanian history, it has been considerably studied and it is one of the biggest clash issues between Hungarian and Romanian historians (and not so historians). I think it has good potential to become a nice and long article. We already have articles on the origins of some ethnicities, although they tend to be more linguistically focused. Super Ψ Dro 19:56, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Although the Hungarian vs Romanian historians/Hungarians vs Romanians approach is simplistic, the split is a good idea. The present summary in the article could hardly present all aspects of the theories. Borsoka (talk) 02:23, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I think the article per it's title covers sufficiently the subject and approprietaly summarizes it (and the other major directions), which could expanded if anyone would consider something relevant would be missing. I hope split out would not mean we just cut-off and remove and leave only a link, e.g. what is already here would remain here, and in the supposed new article everything would be expanded? I agree with Borsoka on that the approach is a bit simplistic, even if HU-RO issues are relevant in that subject, but not solely. Also we have to mind with a new article we don't open a new battleground and place for POV-trolls, given the history of also this page?(KIENGIR (talk) 02:34, 1 October 2020 (UTC))

I didn't intend to remove anything from this article, so yes, the new one would be expanded. I imagine we could protect it to prevent trolls from coming but I doubt a new article will be protected and this one somehow isn't in the first place so I guess we can only just keep an eye on the page. Super Ψ Dro 09:47, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I support the split as well. The main article is getting cluttered with citations and resembles a debate. Aristeus01 (talk) 13:28, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Currently we have 93,422 characters, which means that the article probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time). I don't think splitting is imperative. Anyway, why not to treat the both main theories equally? Why not to also split out the Immigrationist theory? 86.120.179.11 (talk) 08:33, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

The scope of the topic surely justify the size, and it is within the "readable prose size" category. We could also split it, but we should secure the neutral presentation of both theories. Borsoka (talk) 09:24, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Sure, we can split it too. Super Ψ Dro 13:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

• How could we secure the neutrality of both articles and how could we avoid to triplicate the present article in order to secure the neutrality? Borsoka (talk) 14:08, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

To prevent vandalism, we could semi-protect both pages, and regarding the other, I imagine that researching and expanding is the only way. Another option is to leave it as a start-class article but without using any of the sources used here so that we don't repeat the text. We could also remove some parts that are more detailed about both theories on this page once the sections are split. I think we should wait a couple of days to see if other editors agree with the split or not and to see if they offer any help or ideas. Super Ψ Dro 14:31, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe the development of the theories could be presented in separate articles. We could hardly provide a neutral picture about any of the theories if criticism and evidence contradicting them are not presented in the same article. Borsoka (talk) 17:08, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you mean to include the development of the theories in the articles of the theories or to make other separate articles for them? Super Ψ Dro 20:19, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I mean the separate articles could be dedicated to the development of the theories. None of the theories are dogmas, so we could hardly present any of them as a uniform approach. The separate articles could nicely present the internal discrepancies. Borsoka (talk) 01:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, sure then. Super Ψ Dro 09:42, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I support a split. It seems to be a notable theory worthy of an article.★Trekker (talk) 17:07, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Article formulated as a debate

This article, although well-structured, mirrors the political debate between Hungarian and Romanian pov's. The categories are even separated in such a way nearly falling under political POV, excessive citations, making it incomprehensible for the reader. Until the proposed splitting of Daco-Romanian theory, please keep this discussion opened. Aristeus01 (talk) 13:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Since I cannot reply to the user who reverted my flag: there are 539 citations in this article. By comparison the entire World War II article only has 445, and Israeli–Palestinian conflict has 287. I'm not debating the neutrality, I'm stating this is excessive citations and is described as a debate in its own introduction. Aristeus01 (talk) 17:05, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

First of all, this is not a Hungarian-Romanian issue but a scholarly discussion between historians representing concurring PoVs. How can you describe neutrally a discussion without mentioning that it exists and listing the scholarly PoVs?

Improper synthesis?

@Aristeus01: could you explain the following edit: [8]? Borsoka (talk) 05:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

It's explained in the edit summary.

To clarify:

-the cited source says "Daco-Romance branch" not Romanians. They are not the same thing. We need to be extremely accurate with words and faithful to the source or we risk making the wrong conclusion, for example: (most) Peruvians speak Spanish. Spanish formed in the Iberian peninsula. Therefore Peruvians originated in the Iberian Peninsula.

-the editor says the source concludes. The source has a big "8.1 Introduction" just 5 lines from the quoted text. So it does not conclude, it introduces. Concludes implies a reasoning that formed an opinion, introduces could mean presents based on an acquired knowledge. So "The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages" does not form its own opinion, it reiterates an opinion (bringing no further arguments).

-and finally, to close the circle, "their early history and the historical links between them remain obscure", clearly this speaks of the languages/dialects not of Romanians. So it's not the history of Romanians, it's the history of the languages. Think of it this way:

Scenario 1. Daco-Romance languages formed on the North bank of the Danube as well, and the speakers from that side completely perished, so Romanians (in the modern meaning) did not originate North of the Danube. But Daco-Romance languages did.

Scenario 2. Daco-Romance did not originate North of the Danube, but early on, before dialects appeared, some of its population moved North. The northern population after developing its own dialect can be correctly described as formed (individualized) in the area. But the Daco-Romance language didn't.

Granted, it's not only editing. The author (cited source) chose to name both the Proto-Language and the branch of languages with the same phrase that does not have a plural form. In simple English "We have no clue, mate". Anyway, I'm going too far with the explanations. The simple solution is a phrasing like: "The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages" reiterates "The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages" conclusion in regard to Daco-Romance history. Aristeus01 (talk) 08:41, 18 October 2022 (UTC)