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Proto-Romanian Language
Proto-Romanian (also known as "Common Romanian", româna comună or "Ancient Romanian", străromâna, Balkan Latin) is a hypothetical and unattested Romance language evolved from Vulgar Latin and considered to have been spoken by the ancestors of today's Romanians and related Balkan Latin peoples (Vlachs) before c. 900 (7th–11th century AD). In the 9th century Proto-Romanian already had a structure very distinct from the other Romance languages, with major differences in grammar, morphology and phonology and already was a member of the Balkan language area. Most of its features can be found in the modern Balkan Romance languages. It already contained around a hundred loans from Slavic languages, including words such as trup (body, flesh), as well as some Greek language loans via Vulgar Latin, but no Hungarian and Turkish words as these nations had yet to arrive in the region. According to the Romanian theory, it evolved into the following modern languages and their dialects: The first language that broke the unity was Aromanian, in the 9th century, followed shortly after by Megleno-Romanian. Istro-Romanian was the last to break the link with Daco-Romanian in the 11th century. The place where Proto-Romanian formed is still under debate; most historians put it just to the north of the Jireček Line. See: Origin of Romanians. The Roman occupation led to a Roman-Thracian syncretism, and similar to the case of other conquered civilisation (see Gallo-Roman culture developed in Roman Gaul), had as final result the Latinization of many Thracian tribes which were on the edge of the sphere of Latin influence, eventually resulting in the possible extinction of the Daco-Thracian language (unless, of course, Albanian is its descendant), but traces of it are still preserved in the Eastern Romance substratum. From the 2nd century AD, the Latin spoken in the Danubian provinces starts to display its own distinctive features, separate from the rest of the Romance languages, including those of western Balkans (Dalmatian). The Thraco-Roman period of the Romanian language is usually delimited between the 2nd century (or earlier via cultural influence and economic ties) and the 6th or the 7th century. It is divided, in turn, into two periods, with the division falling roughly in the 3rd to 4th century. The Romanian Academy considers the 5th century as the latest time that the differences between Balkan Latin and western Latin could have appeared, and that between the 5th and 8th centuries, the new language, Romanian, switched from Latin speech, to a vernacular Romance idiom, called Română comună.
  • 2.8K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Samic
Proto-Sami is the hypothetical, reconstructed common ancestor of the Sami languages. It is a descendant of the Proto-Uralic language.
  • 463
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th century A.D. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; scholars have reconstructed the language by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic languages and by taking into account other Indo-European languages. Rapid development of Slavic speech occurred during the Proto-Slavic period, coinciding with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Dialectal differentiation occurred early on during this period, but overall linguistic unity and mutual intelligibility continued for several centuries, into the 10th century or later. During this period, many sound changes diffused across the entire area, often uniformly. This makes it inconvenient to maintain the traditional definition of a proto-language as the latest reconstructable common ancestor of a language group, with no dialectal differentiation. (This would necessitate treating all pan-Slavic changes after the 6th century or so as part of the separate histories of the various daughter languages.) Instead, Slavicists typically handle the entire period of dialectally-differentiated linguistic unity as Common Slavic. One can divide the Proto-Slavic/Common-Slavic time of linguistic unity roughly into three periods: Authorities differ as to which periods should be included in Proto-Slavic and in Common Slavic. The language described in this article generally reflects the middle period, usually termed Late Proto-Slavic (sometimes Middle Common Slavic) and often dated to around the 7th to 8th centuries. This language remains largely unattested, but a late-period variant, representing the late 9th-century dialect spoken around Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia, is attested in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts.
  • 1.2K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Tai
Proto-Tai is the reconstructed proto-language (common ancestor) of all the Tai languages, including modern Lao, Shan, Tai Lü, Tai Dam, Ahom, Northern Thai, Standard Thai, Bouyei, and Zhuang. The Proto-Tai language is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method. It was reconstructed in 1977 by Li Fang-Kuei and by Pittayawat Pittayaporn in 2009.
  • 448
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Timor–Alor–Pantar
The Timor–Alor–Pantar (TAP) languages are a family of Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages spoken in Timor, Kisar, and the Alor archipelago in Southern Indonesia. Holton and Klamer (2018) classify Timor–Alor–Pantar as an independent language family, since they find links with Trans-New Guinea too unconvincing.
  • 286
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Trans–New Guinea
Proto-Trans–New Guinea is the reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Trans–New Guinea languages. Reconstructions have been proposed by Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley.
  • 380
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Uralic
Proto-Uralic is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Uralic language family. The language was originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE (estimates vary), and expanded to give differentiated protolanguages. The location of the area or Urheimat is not known, and various strongly differing proposals have been advocated, but likewise the vicinity of the Ural Mountains is generally assumed.
  • 537
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Q'eqchi' Language
The Q'eqchi' language, also spelled Kekchi, K'ekchi', or kekchí, is one of the Mayan languages, spoken within Q'eqchi' communities in Guatemala and Belize.
  • 1.4K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Q’anjob’al Language
Q'anjob'al (also Kanjobal) is a Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. According to 1998 estimates compiled by SIL International in Ethnologue, there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. Municipalities where the Q'anjob'al language is spoken include San Juan Ixcoy (Yich K'ox), San Pedro Soloma (Tz'uluma' ), Santa Eulalia (Jolom Konob' ), Santa Cruz Barillas (Yalmotx), San Rafael La Independencia, and San Miguel Acatán (Pedro Mateo Pedro 2010). Q'anjob'al is taught in public schools through Guatemala's intercultural bilingual education programs.
  • 2.0K
  • 06 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Romansh Language
Romansh is a Romance language spoken in the Graubünden canton of eastern Switzerland, and is one of the official languages of the country. It is the native language of about 40,000 Swiss people and, of the major Romance languages, is most closely related to French. However, the accent and writing system of its speakers appear to the casual observer to more closely resemble Italian and German – a significant fact in historical conflicts over the region. Romansh is actually an umbrella term for several dialects, with each speech community in the region using different names for them. The term ‘Romansh’ is itself an anglicisation of the various local language names, including Romansch in German, and Rumantsch in Romansh itself. It is most closely related to Ladin and Friulian, varieties spoken in northern Italy, and together these form the Rhaeto-Romance sub-family of Gallo-Romance, a larger group that includes French and various varieties of northern Italy. These are only distantly related to standard Italian. 'Rhaeto-Romance' is sometimes considered a single language, and its three varieties dialects, and on occasions, 'Ladin' has been used to mean any or all of these.
  • 1.8K
  • 04 Nov 2022
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