Talk:Protochronism

	This Pseudohistory related article has been awarded SILVER status for quality. We like it, and you should too! See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

(create an archive)

This is a great article. Well done to those who helped create it. Tielec01 (talk) 06:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Mention of this article

Page 7 of ANALYSIS OF THE HOTEL INDUSTRY OF ROMANIA. TRENDS AND FACTS cites the March-April version of this article in support of the assertion that Latin is descended from Romanian. The article's been greatly expanded since then, so anybody following that link expecting to find confirmation that they're part of the great Dacian master race will be sorely disappointed. ---Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 11:11, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Trajan=Thracian

Is there any particular reason why the "Trajan was a Thracian" bit occurs twice? It's already covered under "Historical" so why does it appear again under "Miscellaneous"? JorisEnter (talk) 12:03, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I'll merge the two.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 12:10, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

For reference

User:Terraflorin. Could be incorporated/refuted later.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 20:23, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Neat article

Hi Krej! Just wanted to say that I appreciate all the work you've put into this article. Nicely done, though I can tell it is by no means done being polished yet. I think this article has a good shot at Silver (or higher in the future) if you keep polishing it to improve readability. I made the headlines slightly more readable for starters. Keep it up, anyways! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm glad you like it.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 11:39, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Anyone know Latin?

Section XVI of the Latin book Origines Hungaricae supposedly says that Latin is a corrupt form of Wallachian (i.e., Romanian). I don't know Latin, so I can't verify if this is true. Any help?--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 23:32, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

The most relevant passage in XVI reads

“”Ubi per Ausoniorum linguam, intelligo Walachiam, quasi corruptam Latinam.

• Ubi can mean a several things, most importantly "where", "when" and "whenever"
• per has a shitload of meanings, but most of them (when using the accusative case, as is the case (pun not intended) here with words such as linguam and corruptam) amount to "through", "by" or "by means of"
• The Ausones or Ausonii (genitive Ausoniorum) were the original inhabitants of central and southern Italy
• intelligo means "I understand" or "I perceive", but in pre- and post-classical Latin intellegere and its declinations may also mean "to understand a language"
• Walachiam (with presumed ellipsis of linguam) would indeed refer to Romanian (my dictionary has never heard of Walachia or Valachia, but the W was largely unknown in Latin until the Middle Ages, I believe)
• quasi means something along the lines of "just like", "like" or "in a sense"
• corruptus indeed means "corrupt"
• Latina (again with ellipsis of linguam) is of course the Latin language (in the accusative case).

My best attempt at translating this particular phrase would therefore be

“”Through the language of the Ausones, I understand the Wallachian language, as a sort of corrupt version of Latin.

The author seems to imply that Ausonian is related to Latin in some way, and that Ausonian is also kind of like Wallachian (because the former helps him to understand the latter). If anything, this quote would therefore mean that Romanian is derived from Latin, not the other way around.

All translations of the different words are from Pinkster, Harm, ed (2009). Woordenboek Latijn/Nederlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978 90 8964 073 4. .

The sentence directly preceding this one also talks about the Huns trading with the Romans, and something about the Gothic and Ausonian languages. This seems to support the idea that Wallachian was influenced by Latin through Hun/Ausonian things.--JorisEnter (talk) 11:24, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

According to Protochronists, the Romans considered Ausonian to be the language from which Latin is derived, and interpret this statement as meaning "Where by the Ausonian language, I mean Wallachian, which is corrupt Latin." In other words, they say this sentence says that Ausonian is the same thing as Wallachian, and that therefore Romanian must be the original form of Latin.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 20:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I am finding the word Ausonii and Ausoniorum to be scarcely attested in the searchable corpus. There were also Ausones, but these were Italic speaking people related to the Oscans. The most famous Ausonius was a poet from the Bordeaux region in then Aquitaine. Ausoniorum only appears in a passage of Priscus, a 5th century Byzantine historian writing in Latin, but whose work survives only in a Greek epitome preserved by Constantine VII's De legationibus, which does describe an embassy to the court of Attila which was located in Pannonia or Dacia at the time. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 01:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

My dictionary only knows a tribe of Ausones or Ausonii that lived in Italy. Wikipedia also refers to them as being an Italic tribe. The protochronist translation seems valid, as intellegere can also mean "to mean". However, if Wallachian/Romanian is corrupt Latin, how the fuck can Latin possibly be derived from Romanian? It seems like the phrase means precisely the opposite: that Romanian is derived from Latin.--JorisEnter (talk) 13:11, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Protochronists claim that "corrupt" here is a synonym for "vulgar", and that therefore the sentence is saying that Romanian/"Ausonian" is Vulgar Latin.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 16:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

In one sense they're right. Romanian represents Vulgar Latin; then again so does every other Romance language. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 19:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Protochronists claim that "Ausonian" means Proto-Latin. In light of this, they interpret Otrokocsi's statement as an assertion that Romanian is both Ausonian (i.e, the ancestor of Latin) and corrupt/Vulgar Latin (i.e., the ancestor of the Romance languages). According to this interpretation, the Romance languages are descended not from colloquial Latin, but from Romanian, with Romanian itself being both the source of both Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin. However, upon further reflection, I don't think this is an accurate interpretation. Instead, I think "Ausonian" here is merely another way of saying "Latin". Ovid, in Tristia, says, "But, that I may not lose all acquaintance with the Ausonian tongue, and my voice become dumb in its native language, I talk to myself, and I run over the unaccustomed words, and repeat the unfortunate exponents of my pursuits." Given the synonymity of the words "Ausonian" and "Latin", I think the more likely explanation is that by "Ausonian" is meant Latin, and Otrokocsi is saying that Romanian, a "corrupt" form of Latin, was present in Dacia at that time and was spoken at Atilla's court. In other words, Otrokocsi is equating Romanian not with Proto-Latin, but with the specific Latin dialect derived from Latin (hence the word "corrupt") spoken in the general region Priscus is talking about. But I can't be sure, since I would have to read the entire section in context, and I can't do so, because I don't know Latin.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 21:50, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

And, for what it's worth, Walachia is originally a Germanic word (cf. Wales, Wallonia) that means "foreigners here", and that got taken into Slavioc. As a name for anywhere in eastern Europe, it can't precede the irruption of the Goths into the general area. Ovid seems to use "Ausonia" as a synonym for the area of Rome, or at least Italy: qua me discedere Caesar / finibus extremae iusserat Ausoniae. - "when Caesar commanded me to leave the farthest borders of Ausonia" (Tristia, 3.1). Since Ovid was in Dacia at the time, and none too happy about the fact, obviously he didn't use Ausonia to mean anywhere around him. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 22:34, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, like JorisEnter said, it doesn't make much sense to say that Latin is descended from "corrupt Latin." If something is corrupt, then by definition it is derived from an original – in this case, Latin. If Otrokocsi had really meant to say that Romanian was the ancestor of Latin, he would have used a different word, since "corrupt" clearly implies derivation or descent from something else.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 01:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Silver or higher?

I think this article easily meets the standards for Silver rating, and I for one would support a Gold rating for it. Krej has also shown that the article is being continually worked on, which is a plus when considering Gold rating. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Seconded. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 15:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I read that as support for Gold rating. :3 Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Worthy of Silver, at least. Krej has written a magnificent and well-cited article, which is an excellent example of RationalWikian scholarship.--JorisEnter (talk) 15:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I have upgraded the article to Silver status. Congratulations to Krej!--JorisEnter (talk) 17:17, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks guys! I'm glad you like the article!--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 07:14, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

I also support the upgrade silver (after the fact). Bongolian (talk) 07:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

As a side note, this article is fourth in the list of longest articles on RW.--JorisEnter (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

This article is well-researched and contains a thorough debunking of Protochronist themes. I feel it could benefit from some background on Romanian nationalist mysticism and Protochronism and wrote a brief semi-satirical essay on the development of protochronism. Please keep it if you feel it is keeping with RationaWiki. Falx-Cerebri (talk) 01:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

links to similar ideas with different cultures

I recall a Serbian coworker tell me that he was watching youtube videos proving that the latin alphabet originated in what is now Serbia (a hilariously wrong opinion if you do a quick lookup of both the origins of the latin alphabet and historical serbian alphabets). Do we have an article on that we could link to under See Also?--"Shut up, Brx." 07:05, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

There is a separate article for "thracomania" focusing on Bulgarian nationalist myths asserting the purely "Thracian" character of the Bulgarian people. I am sure you could start one on Serbian national myths. Far-fetched theories about obscure ancient peoples are common in the region, other examples would be "Illyrianism" (Croatians=Illyrians), "Venetic theory" (Slovenes=Venetii), Turanism (Hungarians=Turanians), etc. Falx-Cerebri (talk) 22:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Name perseveration?

Did "Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu Hasdeu" really reduplicate his last name? That's a quote from the article. Vivisectionist (talk) 23:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC)