User talk:Bogdangiusca

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Banat

Please check the article on Banat. Is it posible to take this wiki in the Romanian Project?

Slim Helu

Discuss Carlos Slim on the talk page.

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Vikings-Voyages.png

You might want to look at Talk:L'Anse aux Meadows where your map is being, er, questioned, Dougweller (talk) 20:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

A report

Hi, Dahn posted this over a month ago on the talk page of WP:RWNB: "What I meant to say is that, culturally, most Romanians I know seem to get the more excited the more the topic relates to something far back in the past, the more it is obscure, and the more it allows one to speculate about how extraordinary Romanians once were."

I have the suspicion that observation of his is not far from the truth, though I don't know whether this would be prevalent among young Romanians also. I noticed this among many older Romanians in L.A. as I was growing up (most of whom left Los Angeles in the 1990s, many going back to Romania). My dad also showed that tendency a lot. However, I did not notice this trend among young Romanian-Americans. And I don't think it is as prevalent among young Romanians in Romania either, it is more among the older Romanians I'm pretty sure. 76.208.187.168 (talk) 09:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, some inclination to believe in an obscure, but extraordinary distant past is found in most cultures. Perhaps only the 'new' countries (like the US, Australia, etc) and/or the 'big' countries (Russia, Germany) don't have it. bogdan (talk) 19:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

That's true. I think Dahn's report/observation is accurate enough for older Romanians and Romanians abroad (including in the U.S.), but I think it is an exaggeration for: younger Romanians abroad and in Romania. Here in the U.S., I didn't notice it among the younger Romanians that I knew, and my foray into Thraco-Dacic stuff in October 2004--February/March 2005 was a shortlived phase that grew out of my isolation, the need to escape occult-and-drug-induced madnesses etc., jumping into fields I had hitherto largely not been concerned with (Romanian studies, I had never gone deep into Romanian studies prior to late 2004), my unfamiliarity with the rigours of linguistics which led to me imagining etymologies and proto-languages etc. I view my foray from back then as a "madness", a temporary aberration, which was brought on by the need to escape a previous, different kind of madness. Thanks, I like discussing stuff with you because you are a smart guy too and we have some stuff in common. But I'm not going to overuse your availability. I expect that as time goes on and progress in science continues and new generations come, the tendency will lessen a lot among the populace, and I don't think it's as prevalent at the moment as Dahn's report can make it seem. 76.208.174.47 (talk) 00:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Some final details, and since you are in many ways responsible, you will understand why your talk page is a fitting place to post these posts. Over the years at my user pages/subpages, I would sometimes describe my milieu in 2004, and in one of my last subpages on the topic (which no one read except me?), I mentioned that there was more to tell, including how you (B.G.) were I think the most influential factor leading to my straying into Dacian-Italic speculations in late 2004 (also I had mentioned the idea of a language similar to Italic which may be a substrate in Romanian, but I mentioned that it didn't necessarily have to be Dacian or Thracian or Illyrian: in fact such languages seem to have existed: the Venetic language and the Liburnian language, but I would be surprised if they are part of the Romanian substrate) up to the first or second month of 2005. I first came across Wikipedia sometime I think before the summer of 2004, because I seem to remember having come across and used (but I didn't edit it yet) the website during a Spring semester in 2004. Another early use which I distinctly remember was looking for information on the ethnic background of Nikola Tesla, and on Talk:Nikola Tesla I first came across you and your posts, on that talk page. Later on I came across your Origin of the Romanians article, and the undue space that you gave to the Dacian-Italic idea influenced me to actually begin to consider such a scenario (or alternatively, not Dacian but some other substrate language being close to Latin, "explaining" why Romanian---almost paradoxically---is in many ways the closest Romance language to Latin, when, considering the area where Romanian was formed, one would "not expect" such a closeness to Latin). I found out also that in your younger days (and I had just turned 24 when I was confusing myself with that stuff: in order to escape into another world), you also were confused by the idea, and your posts here dating back to july 2003 show that you were also wondering whether Dacian or whatever was close to Latin [1] (look, you were confused by that too!). It was from you that I had that Densusianu/Savescu/whoever idea presented to me, innocent (of linguistics and of the field) as I was. I had never heard of him (or even of Densusianu), the book, or of the idea till I found out about it in Wikipedia...from you! :) But it's okay, because as I mentioned before, it did help me to escape, and to heal from previous occurences of a very different nature (2003 etc.). Again in late 2007, mid to late 2008, and (early-)mid 2009, I returned to Paleo-Balkanic linguistics-ethnography-history etc. to help heal from events that occured in 2007 (the rigours of linguistics & science, and detective work can do wonders for the mind). The fantastical linguistic/"ethnographic" scenarios left my vocabulary after the first months of 2005, so since then my studies in the field are as they initially were before I had spun-off into fantastical stuff in late 2004. But as I posted earlier, I have learned enough about the field since 2005 (I contributed a lot on those topics and even began to excel), and awhile ago I went beyond my initial intentions, which were "to study and understand my Romanian background" (from the last pages of my July 2004 notebook). My dad by the way never talked about any of those "the languages were close to Latin" theories nor do I recall him discussing Dacians or Thracians to any significant degree, but he did very very much discuss stuff like "how great the Romanians are", how "the Romanian language is one of the best, perhaps the best, language to think in" etc. and he was surprised when I told him that I didn't think in Romanian. He would also discuss scenarios about the territory of Romania having once been home to some great unrecorded ancient civilization, and he probably mixed that with his Atlantis and ancient Astronaut theories. But I don't recall that he thought of that civilization as "Dacian", I think he was imagining a pre-Dacian civilization. But my dad was also a collector of art, and he would discuss Art Nouveau, Deco, etc., and his historical fantasies were occasional; he had books of the fantastical type, but he had more art books (and also, a collection of art). Anyway, so I'm not sure if I mentioned before how you were a factor in mid/late 2004, but you were and I've described the sequence of events accurately. And you are getting it on your talk page because you should not have let that stuff multiply at this website. But you were a youngster, and kind of green. It would be cool if we could have this knowledge packaged for us in a pill (so we can be free to devote that time spent for other studies), but it took some years to work it out. Later, 76.208.172.125 (talk) 05:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's look at Bogdangiusca's statements from July 2003: Bogdangiusca:

"One way to explain this is that Romanian/Dacian is in fact proto-latin, a language from which Latin evolved. Even Dacians from the Roman Empire were mostly living in mountains and there were not so often contacts with Roman cities (mostly in lowlands). And also the Roman occupation lasted only around 150 years, less than England's domination and most colonists and soldiers were not from Rome, but from other previously occupied provinces and it's hard to believe they could teach Latin in its whole complexity to the locals.

Another thing that could enforce this theory is that Romanian keeps some characteristics of classical Latin grammer not found or simplified in other Romance languages (even Italian), like declensions, neutre gender, verb tenses, etc.

Also, on a more subjective tone, once someone learns Romanian, learning another language (latin or even just indo-european) much easily.

It is believed that the Latins (to become Romans after the founding of Rome in 700 BC) came to Italian peninsula only in the 1st millenium BC and the most likely place to be their origin can't be Northern Europe (no language connection to German), nor Western Europe (Gauls, Celts), but Danube region, where the Dacians lived. There are quite a few historians that agree to this theory, but still not enough physical proofs. We just know that the Danube culture of the Dacian was pretty advanced at the time (clay plates writing even older than Sumer)

The only proof of an independent Dacian language from Latin is the 200 words that are believed to be of Dacian origin, some of them are also found in Albanian (they have a language based on the local Thracian dialects) and some in the language of the Balts. But the Dacians were just a tribe of the Thracians (as Herodot said) and they shared some vocabulary, but the differences were pretty big.

Oh, and there are some similarities of Romanian with Sanskrit (about 500 words, for example "doina" = some type of mourning song -> "daina" in Sanskrit).

Another evidence is that of there are many words from Sardinian which are closer to Romanian than to Italian, French, Spanish or even Latin. That was explained by saying that the same rules of language developement were used in both places. (as example: "limba" in Romanian and Sardinian as opposed to all other Romance languages: langue, lingua, etc. and "cantigu" in Sardinian, "cantec" in Romanian as oposed to canzone, chanson etc). Could it be that not Romans colonized Sardinia, but another Dacian tribe as the Latins ?"

Bogdan 11:25 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Note that in July 2004, Alex had still not gone towards any such ideas and had not yet heard of such ideas. In July 2004 I was still not using the internet much, I was using a notebook to collect some of my thoughts and heal from what happened in 2003. In my July 2004 notebook, I was writing notes on my photographic excursions through L.A. (I was getting into street photography back then, and had plans to expand upon that, but I haven't expanded on that yet as I wanted to back then and still want to), notes on Balzac and his literary "realism" (I was not yet familiar with Charles Bukowski's work, but I knew of him by name, that's about it), notes on economic/sociological (I took sociology in spring 2002) aspects of various neighborhoods in Los Angeles etc. (which I also want to expand upon, part of my anthropological studies, I took physical anthropology in Spring 2004 and cultural anthropology in fall 2004, I aced them both). So in July 2004, I had not yet spun-off into that stuff, nor had I heard of it; in July 2003, when Bogdan posted the above comments, I was even further away, dealing with OCD, some occultism, solitude, etc., and I barely used the internet a few times in 2003, and I had no idea that this WP website existed. I don't want to post anymore about this on B.G.'s page, but it was hard to resist this Closer Look, and a comparison. 76.238.155.49 (talk) 06:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually I have a lot more to say about this and related topics, but there is only so much I will post here: because this is not my talk page. But something I want to emphasize again, Dahn's statement/observation was an exaggeration, or more like: he was underlining some trends he commonly encounters as a Romanian in Romania; and as a Romanian-American growing up in L.A., I also noticed that often enough. The expression of that took many forms among the Romanians/Romanian-Americans that I remember as I was growing up (when there were more Romanians in L.A. and when I was in almost daily contact with Romanians beyond my immediate family; as I noted above, many/perhaps most of the Romanians that I encountered in my childhood/boyhood left Los Angeles and California, many going back to Romania; my dad went back to Romania in 1996 when I was 15; hey but thanks for leaving your art books, dad, although maybe you took a few with you, and you sold a lot of the art). The expression of that took many forms, but I personally had never heard a discussion about Dacian being close to Latin (didn't hear that from my dad or any others who I encountered in the U.S.), so it was not expressed in that way. What I wrote above about first encountering the Dacian-close-to-Latin or some-Balkanic-language-close-to Latin ideas after July 2004: that is accurate, correct, true, and so on, and borne out by a study of my early posts, if anyone were to take a look. I first encountered the "close to Latin" ideas in August 2004 online, on the internet, and I came across that stuff in my solitary searches, and no Romanian, Romanian-American, Romanian-Canadian etc. was with me in those searches. And the contact was first from and chiefly from Wikipedia, because I never bothered to read much of the stuff elsewhere online (I didn't even visit the sites much, I was too independent, and pursuing my own leads); what little I read was online, and mostly at Wiki. I have still never physically encountered any book or magazine or pamphlet on the subject; I've never found a bookstore that sells such books around here (though I still haven't really looked), have never seen those specific kinds of books in a local library, never ordered any, etc. I encountered that stuff on the internet as I began getting into Romanian and Romanian-related studies in August 2004, as I decided to go further into that in late July 2004. That decision was spelled out on the last pages of a notebook that I was keeping from April/May to July 2004; however the contens of that notebook are from a time when I had not yet gone into Romanian studies much, it was just on the last pages of the notebook that I saw that that was where I should go next: "Romanian and Romanian-related studies": a vast set of connected fields that I had barely gotten into prior to July 2004. In late July 2004: in August 2004: etc. my researches in those fields began to go beyond a very light level (before late July 2004 such studies were very light and not a common activity). Early encounters in summer 2004 were: 1) books from local libraries, mostly books from BHPL, a library that I frequented more at that time; books such as Hoddinott's The Thracians and Wilkes' The Illyrians, books which from 2004 to the present, I'm not sure anyone checked them out besides me; 2) S. Olteanu's LTDM site, which is in my opinion some very good Thraco-linguistic work 3) Wikipedia, where via Bogdangiusca's text I came across the Dacian/Latin stuff 4) a very small (really very small, just perusing one or two websites, they can polygraph me on that) amount of persusing other websites with such material . I've written elsewhere about how the events of 2002 & 2003 affected my mind states, and caused me to seek relief even in pseudoscience, though one may argue I was so linguistically/Thracologoically green and inexperienced that I could not readily tell it was pseudoscience. Well I knew it was not conventional. Anyway, by October 2004 I began to edit Wikipedia anonymously, on those subjects. Then I created my first Wiki account in November 2004. Then by March 2005 if not sooner I could no longer deceive myself, and I abandoned speculations that Dacian or Illyrian was close to Latin (by March 2005, maybe occasional tendencies towards that until April 2005 etc., as far as I'm concerned it was over by March 2005).

My foray into those areas was short-lived as we see. Bogdan's foray also was short-lived, by late 2004 when I encountered him he had moved on. Dahn's statement/observation (which I copy-pasted further up), I consider it an exaggeration, or more like: he was underlining some trends he commonly encounters among Romanians, as a Romanian in Romania. I especially don't think it is so prevalent among the young; and it is more prevalent among men than women, but I'm not being feminist here, this is just my observation. I'm a man and I tend to say that historically Romanian men have contributed more than women to intellectual progress, but I do recall that it was mostly the Romanian men who expressed what Dahn described. And as I pointed out earlier, as Dahn knows, as Bogdan pointed out, this tendency is not found among Romanians more than among Bulgarians or Serbs etc., and it is common throughout the world, throughout many nations, ethnicities, "races" etc. One reason that I did not like it when Dahn posted that comment (besides questions of accuracy) is context: a random reader may get the false impression that Romanians have that more than their neighbors. Not true, and Dahn was not saying that. Coming back to my case, I think I've explained enough here, how it was a temporary spin-off in late 2004 up to March 2005, caused by events in 2003 and enhanced by the persona that I created when I began editing on the topic at Wikipedia, a persona which as I showed on a subpage once or twice, I was switching to-and-from in late 2004: I can link at least one post from that time on another topic where I was emphasizing/using another persona (another spin-off), such as the one at Talk:Beastie Boys from October or November 2004. In Bogdan's case (July 2003), I don't know the details, but like me, he also knew better, but due to some problems (different from mine, nevertheless I call them problems), not applying himself as well as he could have, giving into a persona, a spin-off persona, linguistic/thracological/even historical naivete (which in retrospect probably surprises him, because I'm betting, like me he was a long-time student of history, and yet he slipped up there)---there are people who have written papers on the "phenomenon", how even very learned fellows can fall into it for a time. I look at it on an individual basis, but there are common trends, in fact if you read the article Pseudoscience you will find quotes such as:

"Psychological explanations: Pseudoscientific thinking has been explained in terms of psychology and social psychology. The human proclivity for seeking confirmation rather than refutation (confirmation bias),[62] the tendency to hold comforting beliefs, and the tendency to overgeneralize have been proposed as reasons for the common adherence to pseudoscientific thinking. According to Beyerstein (1991), humans are prone to associations based on resemblances only, and often prone to misattribution in cause-effect thinking.

Lindeman argues that social motives (i.e., "to comprehend self and the world, to have a sense of control over outcomes, to belong, to find the world benevolent and to maintain one’s self-esteem") are often "more easily" fulfilled by pseudoscience than by scientific information.[63] Furthermore, pseudoscientific explanations are generally not analyzed rationally, but instead experientially. Operating within a different set of rules compared to rational thinking, experiential thinking regards an explanation as valid if the explanation is "personally functional, satisfying and sufficient", offering a description of the world that may be more personal than can be provided by science and reducing the amount of potential work involved in understanding complex events and outcomes."

And more about this, I'll post elsewhere. In my case it was mostly a need to escape from the previous year (and Dahn was not alluding to Bogdan's case or my case, he was talking about a trend among Romanians in Romania that he encountered). I think Romanians are doing well in that respect and do not have the tendencies more than their neighbors. We have Romanian cinema, Music of Romania, some contemporary poets, painters, authors, etc. etc. and the youth will surely not be as preoccupied with such fantasies about the distant past. By the way, I do check your contributions sometimes and I noticed that your edit to Beastie Boys appears to be incorrect: the reference was to their debut album Licensed to Ill from 1986 I think (so it would be over 20 years ago, not over 30 years ago as you changed it), not to their earlier EP releases, but I'm not sure. I know Pollywog Stew is an EP and Cookie Puss, I don't think anyone calls that the Beasties' debut album? 76.208.170.29 (talk) 06:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Map

Dear Bogdangiusca,
do you think you could make a correction to this map? User:Gwyonbach has pointed out (see: Talk:L'Anse aux Meadows) that the region appointed on the map as Rollo's reign in 911 is in fact not placed in the proper part of Normandy. The spot that is coloured now is West Normandy, but Rollo started out in East Normandy around Rouen, which was his first capital. Can you change the map accordingly?
Best regards, Notum-sit (talk) 08:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)