• Aqarius@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    6 months ago

    I mean the Welsh/Waloon/Wallachian/waelsc word for “those people over there” that all the rest of Europe seems to have. It’s not unheard of for neighboring people to call eachother ‘vlach’. I just never noticed Latin doesn’t have it.

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      6 months ago

      Ah, got it.

      The relevant root is Proto-Germanic *walhaz. If I got it right it was used by PG speakers first to refer to a specific Celtic tribe, then other non-Germanic Europeans. (Proto-Slavic borrowed the word but changed the meaning - from “any speaker of a foreign language” to “Latin/Romance speaker”.)

      Latin never borrowed that root because they simply called any non-Roman “barbarus”.

      • Aqarius@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        6 months ago

        …You know how basically all Indoeuropean languages have a word for Canis Lupus that sounds vaguely like “Ulku”? Ulv/Ulf/Wolf/Vlk/Vilks/Vuk/Loup/Lykos? Well, there’s another word, walhaz that started off meaning “Celt”, then “Roman”, then generic “foreigner”, and can be found today in exonyms all over Europe. It didn’t occur to me that Latin wouldn’t have had it, since they were the Vlachs in question.