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© 2014 Firenze University Press – issn 1824-7601 (online) M a t e r i a l i e d

© 2014 Firenze University Press – issn 1824-7601 (online) M a t e r i a l i e d i s c u s s i o n i Studi Slavistici xi (2014): 171-181 Raffaele Caldarelli On Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts. Some Remarks on a Recent Paper by Salvatore Del Gaudio In a recent paper written on the occasion of the 15th International Congress of Slavists, Salvatore Del Gaudio tackled the problem of linguistic relations (mainly at a lexical level) between Latin (later Romance) and Slavic. His article contributes some interesting data and ideas concerning the ethnic and historical context and provides a good opportunity for a reflection on the possibility of using different tools in research concerning the past of South-Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the paper is much less solid, at least in my opinion, from the linguistics point of view. For the sake of clarity, I’ll divide my observations into five points: 1. Author’s introductory remarks and the state of the art Maybe the main cause of dissent lies in the first paragraphs. The author says (Del Gaudio 2013: 49): Latin elements are primarily investigated in Church Slavonic textual sources, also as a consequence of a lack of written evidence in the early Slavic vernaculars. For this reason, in the literature, the early Latin borrowings are often associated with the appearance of Slavic writing and the formation of the distinct Slavic languages. However ethno-linguistic research on ancient toponymy, along with archaeological evi- dence, has demonstrated the fallacy of such an assumption. According to the author, then: a. until now, scholars have (at least “primarily”) investigated Latin borrowings in the first Slavic written documents, especially Old Church Slavonic1 (hereinafter: OCS); b. research on ancient toponymy etc., along with archaeological evidence, can contrib- ute new, useful data; c. we can then obtain entirely new results in the field of Latin (Protoromance?)-Slavic linguistic relations. 1 To be precise: the author speaks of “Church Slavonic”. 172 Raffaele Caldarelli That such disciplines as those mentioned in point b above can contribute useful data, is true2. By contrast, however, it is not true that the problem of Romance-Slavic pre-documen- tary linguistic relations has not been investigated. There is a considerable amount of bibliog- raphy on this subject3. Pre-documentary relations were and are investigated with the usual tools of historical linguistics, first of all the comparative ones. T o deny this possibility is tanta- mount to saying that pre-documentary linguistic stages cannot be investigated at all. Nor can archeological or toponymic data replace the comparative method (though they can comple- ment it). Why then do we only know a relatively small number of borrowings of Romance origin that we can treat as Protoslavic4? Because linguistic comparison does not provide us with sufficient linguistic evidence to prove such deep, extended loan relations; probably, such deep relations simply did not exist. Moreover, I do not think it is methodologically correct to infer wide lexical relations5 from data that are insufficient and partly contradictory. In addition, the following passage (Del Gaudio 2013: 50) is somewhat unclear to me: For this reason an approach to this topic can only follow if we examine the problem ac- cording to two main directions: one that deals with the presumed “direct” oral contacts; the other that assumes the cultural mediation of other languages. Nonetheless an over- lapping of the two approaches is conceivable, due to the practical difficulty of operating a clear-cut distinction between two aspects of the same issue. The oral contacts can be distinguished as: a) pre-historic contacts; b) historic contacts. What we really find here (leaving aside what is said in the last line, certainly true, but rather self-evident) is an unjustified overlapping of two quite different problems: a) is the contact popular/oral or cultural/bookish?; b) is the contact direct or not? A popular but indirect contact (i.e. with mediation) is quite conceivable, and, for instance, “oral” Romance-Slavic contacts through Gothic mediation are attested in several cases. 2. Periodization and the like Like every scholar wanting to shed light on Slavic pre-documentary linguistic devel- opment and the earliest phase of the documentation, Del Gaudio is concerned here with 2 It is generally well known that the study of hydronymy has been used for a long time with reference to the problem of the first Slavic homeland; cf. Shevelov 1964: 20. 3 See for instance Meillet 1902: 179-187; Lehr-Spławiński 1929; Bernštejn 1961: 100; Shevelov 1964: 621 (and elsewhere); Boček 2010; Id. 2014: 343-357. 4 Let’s also note that, notwithstanding the author’s suggestion to the contrary, many among these borrowings come to Slavic through the mediation of other languages (especially Germanic, first of all Gothic); cf. Bernštejn 1961: 100. 5 Even less convincing is the attempt made by Mario Enrietti to demonstrate the strong in- fluence of Protoromance and Old Romance dialects on Protoslavic (especially at the level of syllable structure). I hold firm to my criticism for the reasons I illustrated in Caldarelli 2012. On the lively debate between the Turin slavist and myself, see note 11. On Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 173 certain problems involved in defining and periodizing Protoslavic. What he says on this subject is basically acceptable. Personally I would not say that “the Slavic peoples and their Proto-Slavic ancestors were present in Eastern Europe from at least the first millennium b.c.” (Del Gaudio 2013: 52). Moreover: I do not think it is possible to demonstrate any- thing about the Slavic peoples or their ancestors for such early periods; but naturally these problems remain open. Del Gaudio himself correctly acknowledges (ibid.: 51) that we are mainly dealing with “theories of a speculative nature”; he is right also when he points to the importance of the investigation of hydronymy, toponymy and the like and I also agree on the importance of research into ethnogenesis, at least as long as it is based on solid and verifiable data. What he says on the original homeland of the Slavs is acceptable too. It is highly likely that Slavs, starting from an area located on the middle Dnieper (maybe quite close to the Pripet marshes?), moved towards the central Danube (Holzer 2006)6 and further on to their later settlements. But on the subject of protolanguages, I have two objections: a) it is a rough and partly misleading simplification to say (Del Gaudio 2013: 52): “The concept of Proto-Slavic in fact is a theoretical abstraction, since unlike Latin, in relation to the Romance languages, Proto-Slavic was never recorded”. Although the latter statement on Protoslavic is undoubtedly true, here the author fails to take into account a very long and lively debate on the relations between literary Latin/Vulgar Latin/Proto- romance7 etc.; b) (which for us is the main point): although it is true that “the concept of Proto-Slavic is in fact a theoretical abstraction” (Del Gaudio 2013: 52, words already quoted) and “the concept of Proto-System has been repeatedly questioned” (ibid.: 52, n. 10)8, the author seems close to completely denying the real value of the protolanguage as a scientific tool. Protolanguage is a way of expressing a complex set of genetic relations (and the only possibility to do so), notwithstanding the difficulty of a historical interpretation of the construct. However, it is a complete mistake to quote Georg Holzer among the ad- versaries of the heuristic possibilities of Protoslavic since he defends exactly the opposite opinion (Holzer 1996, 1998, 2006). Holzer firmly believes in the possibility of, and the need for, a rigorous reconstruction of protolanguages. Only after this technical operation is it worth investigating the historical frame in which we can include this construct (he ac- cepts the concern with the problems of ethnogenesis and the like; he also indicates a very 6 I’d only be a little more cautious on the allegedly frequent mentions of the Danube “in ancient Slavic songs, folklore, rituals etc.” (Del Gaudio 2013: 51). Dunaj and the like often refer to something different from the huge river nowadays known as the Danube. Such is clearly the case in Igor’s tale; see Saronne’s remarks in Saronne 1998: 233. 7 See for instance Tagliavini 1982: 209-266 (operating entirely without the concept of “Pro- toromance”) and, for a totally different approach, Hall 1950. 8 But there is a huge difference between the situation in the field of ie linguistics and what the Slavist has to deal with. Where is a unitary ie reconstructed morphology? I think we only really have just fragments of a picture here. But a Protoslavic reconstructed morphology does exist, with a good degree of coherence. 174 Raffaele Caldarelli precise chronological position for Protoslavic, i.e. around 600 a.d., cf. Holzer 1998: 57-58). There is certainly a relation between the older stages of Slavic linguistic development and later periods. But to speak of continuity without a clear vision of what is common and what is not, is misleading. 3. Older stages of Slavic linguistic history I think this concept of continuity, which in my opinion is not very clear, may lead to a number of misunderstandings. Such is the uploads/Litterature/ on-latin-protoslavic-language.pdf