Gjuhësi Ballkanike

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Chapter XI
Some Concordances Between Albanian and Rumanian
Albanian and Rumanian have some particular concordances between them, as: 1) A
considerable number of ancient words; 2) some indefinite pronouns having a similer
construction; 3) gender shift of some inanimate nouns in the plural; 4) the prepositive “articles”
of the genitive and of the adjectives; 5) the postposition of some determinatives; 6) some
peculiar uses of the past participle.(1).
The ancient lexical concordances between Albanian and Rumanian are of a great interest also
for balcanology.(2). Since Miklosich it has been acknowledged that these common ancient
words, having phonetic and semantic similarities, have been inherited from pre-Slavish
times.(3). It is generally admitted that such words are relatively numerous. According to Russu,
they amount to 70 unities, while according to Brвncuµ, their number amounts to, at least, 89.
(For such common words see the Albanian version).(4).
According to some scholars, the source of these Albanian-Rumanian common words is to be
sought in an ancient Balkan substratum language. Some others have sought their source in
Albanian, from which they should have penetrated into Rumanian at a period, when the contacts
between these two languages were not yet interrupted by the Slavish invasions. Some of those
who sustain the substratum hypothesis, uphold a Thracian or Daco-Mysian origin of
Albanian.(5). Such a hypothesis has been criticized by some other linguists, among whom is
also Зabej. According to Зabej, one cannot admit the substratum hypothesis, as far as Albanian
is concerned. He tries to explain the ancient Albanian-Rumanian common words mainly
through their pre-Slavish long neighbourhood. But he, at the same time, admits that a part of
those common words may owe their origin to a “non-Greek I.E. language of the ancient
Balkan”. (For further details see the Albanian version).(6).
This rather complicated problem, which requires further more profound investigations, cannot
be adequately solved without a previous chronological stratification of the words under
discussion. Such a stratification, however, presents great difficulties because of the rather late
written attestation both of Albanian and Rumanian. Nevertheless, the ancient phonetic
mutations as well as some ancient place-names of the western and eastern Balkan Peninsula
may help us to separate, at least, the oldest layer of these ancient Albanian-Rumanian common
words as well as its post quem non limit. If that time-limit is anterior to the very formation of
Albanian and Rumanian, then one cannot speak either of Albanian or of Rumanian loanwords.
In such a case one can rather speak of common words, which Albanian has inherited from its
“parent” language, whereas Rumanian should have inherited them from its substratum. The
further discussion of this problem should be connected with the elucidation of the most ancient
and historical relations among the I.E. languages that were spoken in the western and eastern
regions of the Balkan Peninsula prior to the formation of Albanian and Rumanian.(7).
Rumanian is generally acknowledged to have been formed during the V-VIII centuries (see
III/16), whereas Albanian has been formed during the IV-VI centuries (see III/6). Therefore
their inherited common words, which can be dated prior to these periods, should be included in
the inherited stock of Albanian and Rumanian respectively. Such are for ex. mal and some other
words, which have undergone a rather ancient evolution (see the Albanian version).(8). The
words pertaining to that ancient layer may have been partly a common I.E. stock of the “parent”
language of Albanian and of the Rumanian substratum. But partly they may have penetrated
from the one language into the other during their long contacts on the Balkan Peninsula.
Moreover, some of those common words may have been inherited from a more ancient Balkan
language.(9).
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