And wouldn’t you say that the Cumans belonged to a nomadic
Turkic tribe?
I think Şăineanu was well aware of the Cuman connection, but he may not have possessed the linguistic tools to distinguish between
Turkish (the Ottoman strand, the prevalent one) and
Turkic (the Cuman strand). Some work on this has been done in Hungary where the problem is the same as in Rumanian - only that in Hungary turcological studies are flourishing.
In Rumania it has been much more important to assess the Latin origin of Rumanian and to study, say,
French loanwords, than to continue Şăineanu’s work. I see the present debate in this light. “Consulting Aristotle” may be interesting enough, but diving into the linguistic reality of Rumanian would be epistemologically more rewarding. Şăineanu is forgotten and his huge
Influenţa orientală ... is a
liber rarissimus. I have got a copy of it – but my library is not next to me for the time being.
Could we have a couple of names here?
Caveat: I am not saying that Rumanian
vai unequivocally is a Turkish/Turkic loanword in Rumanian. I am now primarily reacting against peremptory statements like “I still consider
vai to be a Latin cognate.”
By the way, Turkish
vay is considered to be of Persian origin.
