Common Romanian (), also known as Ancient Romanian (), or Proto-Romanian (), is a comparatively reconstructed Romance language which evolved from Vulgar Latin and was spoken by the ancestors of today's Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and related Balkan Latin peoples (Vlachs) between the 6-7th centuries AD and the 10th or 11th centuries AD. The Romanian language, the Aromanian language, the Megleno-Romanian language, and the Istro-Romanian language all share language innovations rooted in Vulgar Latin, and as a group they are all distinct from the other Romance languages.
History
The Roman occupation led to a Thraco-Roman syncretism, and similar to the case of other conquered civilisations (see, for example, how Gallo-Roman culture developed in Roman Gaul) led to 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, 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 the western Balkans (Dalmatian).Al. Rosetti: "Istoria limbii române" ("History of the Romanian Language"), Bucharest, 1986 The Thraco-Roman period of the language is usually delimited between the 2nd century (or earlier via cultural influence and economic ties) and the 6th or the 7th century.Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă ("Dictionary of the Romanian Language, new series"), Academia Română, responsible editors: Iorgu Iordan, Alexandru Graur, Ion Coteanu, Bucharest, 1983; 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,"Istoria limbii române" ("History of the Romanian Language"), II, Academia Română, Bucharest, 1969; and that between the 5th and 8th centuries, the new language, Romanian, switched from Latin speech, to a vernacular Romance idiom, called .I. Fischer, "Latina dunăreană" ("Danubian Latin"), Bucharest, 1985.A. B. Černjak "Vizantijskie svidetel'stva o romanskom (romanizirovannom) naselenii Balkan V–VII vv; "Vizantijskij vremennik", LIII, Moskva, 1992 The nature of the contact between Latin and the substrate language(s) is considered to be similar to the contact with local languages in other parts incorporated in the Roman Empire and the number of lexical and morpho-syntactic elements retained from the substrate is relatively small despite some ongoing contact with languages closely related to the original substrate, Albanian for example.
In the ninth 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. It already contained around a hundred loans from Slavic languages, including words such as (body, flesh), as well as some Greek language loans via Vulgar Latin, but no Hungarian and Turkish words, as these peoples had yet to arrive in the region.
In the tenth century or some earlier time, Common Romanian split into two geographically separated groups. One was in the northern part of the Balkan peninsula and the other one was in the south of the peninsula where the Aromanian branch of Common Romanian presumably was spoken. This is sometimes considered the upper end of the language, leading into the separate Eastern Romance languages period. A different view holds that Common Romanian, despite the early split of Aromanian, continued to exist until the thirteenth or fourteenth century when all the southern dialects became distinct from the northern one.
According to the theory, it evolved into the following modern languages and their dialects: Romanian language (sometimes called Daco-Romanian to distinguish it from the rest of the Eastern Romance languages) Aromanian (sometimes called Macedo-Romanian) Megleno-Romanian (also sometimes called Macedo-Romanian) Istro-Romanian
Early attestation
Referring to this time period, of great debate and interest is the so-called episode. In Theophylactus Simocatta Histories, ( 630), the author mentions the words . The context of this mention is a Byzantine expedition during Maurice's Balkan campaigns in 587, led by general Comentiolus, in the Haemus, against the Avars. The success of the campaign was compromised by an incident during a night march:
Nearly two centuries after Theophylactus, the same episode is retold by another Byzantine chronicler, Theophanes Confessor, in his Chronographia ( 810–814). He mentions the words [; "turn, turn brother"]:
The first to identify the excerpts as examples of early Romanian was Johann Thunmann in 1774.Johann Thunmann: "Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der östlichen europäischen Völker" ("Investigations into the histories of eastern European peoples"), 1. Theil, Leipzig, 1774, p. 169–366.: "Gegen das Ende des sechsten Jahrhunderts sprach man schon in Thracien Wlachisch" ("Towards the end of the sixth century, someone already spoke in Tracian Vlachish") Since then, a debate among scholars had been going on to identify whether the language in question is a sample of early Romanian,This view, which suggested that the expression should be taken as such: the language of the country and the language of their fathers/of the natives, thus being a sample of Romanian was supported by historians and philologists such as F. J. Sulzer in "Geschichte des transalpinischen Daciens" ("History of the Transalpine Dacians"), II, Vienna, 1781; G. Șincai in "Hronica românilor și a mai multor neamuri" ("Chronicle of the Romanians and of many more peoples", I, Iași, 1853; C.Tagliavini in "Le origini delle lingue neolatine" ("The origins of the Neo-Latin languages"), Bologna, 1952; W. Tomaschek in "Über Brumalia und Rosalia" ("Of Brumalia and Rosalia", Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften, LX, Viena, 1869; R. Roesler in "Romänische Studien" ("Romanian Studies"), Leipzig, 1871; Al. Rosetti in "Istoria limbii române" ("History of the Romanian Language", Bucharest, 1986; D. Russo in "Elenismul în România" ("Hellenism in Romania"), Bucharest, 1912.; B. P. Hasdeu in "Strat și substrat. Genealogia popoarelor balcanice" ("Stratum and Substratum: Genealogy of the Balkan Peoples"), Analele Academiei Române, Memoriile secțiunii literare, XIV, Bucharest, 1892; A. D. Xenopol in "Une énigme historique. Les Roumains au Moyen Âge" ("An historic enigma: the Romanians of the Middle Ages"), Paris, 1885 and "Istoria românilor" ("History of the Romanians"), I, Iași, 1888; H. Zilliacus in "Zum Kampf der Weltsprachen im oströmischen Reich" ("To the struggle of world languages in the Eastern Roman Empire"), Helsinki, 1935; R. Vulpe in "Histoire ancienne de la Dobroudja" ("Ancient history of Dobrugea"), Bucharest, 1938; C. Popa-Lisseanu in "Limba română în izvoarele istorice medievale" ("The Romanian language in the sources of medieval history"), Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile secțiunii literare, 3rd series, IX, 1940. Lot 1946; G. I. Brătianu in "Une énigme et un miracle historique: le peuple roumain" ("An enigma and an historic miracle: the Romanian people"), Bucharest, 1942; etc. or just a Byzantine commandThis view had proponents such as J. L. Pić in "Über die Abstammung den Rumänen" ("On the descent of the Romanians"), Leipzig, 1880; J. Jung in "Die romanischen Landschaften des römischen Reiches" ("Romanian landscapes of the Roman Empire"), Innsbruck, 1881; A. Budinszky in "Die Ausbreitung der lateinischen Sprache über Italien und Provinzen des Römischen Reiches" ("The propagation of the Latin language in Italy and the provinces of the Roman Empire"), Berlin, 1881; D. Onciul: "Teoria lui Roesler" ("Rosler's Theory") in "Convorbiri literare", XIX, Bucharest, 1885; C. Jireček in "Geschichte der Bulgaren" ("History of the Bulgarians"), Prague, 1876; Ovide Densusianu: "Histoire de la langue roumaine" ("History of the Romanian language"), I, Paris, 1901; P. Mutafčief: "Bulgares et Roumains dans l'histoire des pays danubiens" ("Bulgarians and Romanians in the history of the Danubian lands"), Sofia, 1932; F. Lot: "La langue de commandement dans les armées romaines et le cri de guerre français au Moyen Âge" ("The language of command in the Romanian armies and the French war cry in the Middle Ages") in volume "Mémoires dédiés à la mémoire de Félix Grat" ("Memoirs dedicated to the memory of Félix Grat"), I, Paris, 1946; (of Latin origin, as it appears as such–torna–in Emperors Mauricius Strategikon), and with used as a colloquial form of address between the Byzantine soldiers.Idea supported by Franz Dölger in "Die „Familie" der Könige im Mittelalter" ("The 'family' of the king in the Middle Ages"), „Historisches Jahrbuch" ("Historical Yearbook"), 1940, p. 397–420; and M. Gyóni in "Az állitólagos legrégibb román nyelvemlék (= "Das angeblich älteste rumänische Sprachdenkmal", "The allegedly oldest spoken evidence of the Romanian language")", „Egyetemes Philologiai Közlöny (Archivum Philologicum)", LXVI, 1942, p. 1–11 The main debate revolved around the expressions ( – Theopylactus) and ( – Theophanes), and what they actually meant.
An important contribution to the debate was Nicolae Iorga's first noticing in 1905 of the duality of the term in Theophylactus text: the shouting to get the attention of the master of the animal (in the language of the country), and the misunderstanding of this by the bulk of the army as a military command (due to the resemblance with the Latin military command).Nicolae Iorga, Istoria românilor ("History of the Romanians"), II, Bucharest, 1936, p. 249. Iorga considers the army to have been composed of both auxiliary () Romanised Thracians—speaking (the "language of the country"/"language of their parents/of the natives") —and of Byzantines (a mélange of ethnicities using Byzantine words of Latin origin as official command terms, as attested in the Strategikon)."Într-o regiune foarte aproape de Haemus, unde se găsesc nume romanice precum Kalvumuntis (calvos montes), unul dintre soldații retrași din cel mai apropiat ținut primejduit strigă «în limba locului» (ἐπιχωρίᾳ τε γλώττῃ) unui camarad care-și pierduse bagajul «retorna» sau «torna, fratre»; datorită asemănării cu unul din termenii latinești obișnuiți de comandă, strigătul e înțeles greșit și oastea, de teama unui dușman ivit pe neașteptate, se risipește prin văi". ("In a region very close to Haemus, where one finds Romanic names such as Kalvumuntis (calvos montes), one of the soldiers retreated from the nearest endangered land shouts 'in the local language' (ἐπιχωρίᾳ τε γλώττῃ) to a comrade who had lost his baggage retorna or torna, fratre ("turn back" or "turn, brother"); given the similarity to one of the customary Latin terms of command, the shout is misunderstood and the host, fearing that an enemy had unexpectedly appeared, disperses through the haze." Nicolae Iorga, Istoria românilor ("History of the Romanians"), II, Bucharest, 1936.