I'm fairly sure we can, I've seen linguistic argument based on dating of sound changes in South Slavic before 1000 CE, which strike me as unlikely to be detectable if otherwise all Slavic stayed purely uniform until 1000 CE
But how uniform were they? as south slavic isn't one single thing, there is such a thing as language continum.
In regards to the direct evidence we discussed.
See my post from page 14 for the complete version with sources and everything:
But to summarize.
With or without linguistic evidence, the last evidence of Slavs in Moldavia we have is from the 10th century. Since the 10th century we have no sources mentioning Slavs living in Moldavia, either before or after 1337. By contrast, we have Vlachs mentioned living in Moldavia, including Northern Moldavia, up to 1337, and of course even after 1337.
Thus, the most reasonable deduction we can make is that Romanians kept being more and more numerous in Moldavia since the 10th century while the Slavs slowly disappeared/became less significant since the 10th century. Possibly a leftover minority, possibly none at all.
But, in 1337 specifically, all unnamed voivodships in Moldavia were mentioned as being Vlach, with no exception. It is reasonable to assume that had Slavs existed in Moldavia by 1337 we would have a mention of at least one Slavic Moldavian voivodship, but we only know of Vlach Moldavian voivodships in this period.
Additionally, 50 years after 1337, we have this source. Where all cities from Moldavia are listed as "Vlach" cities, including in Northern Moldavia, and even some outside of Moldavia on the northern border
(in Galitia).
These are some of the cities that were listed as "Vlach cities" in the list of Russian cities: (using Russian and Ukrainian wikipedias)
Even Chern, which was not part of Moldavia, was listed as a "Vlach city".
Which I would regard as more concrete evidence than linguistics. Not to say linguistics is bad, it can tell us a lot, but it's a lot more speculative. Where as if you have an administrative document mentioning a people in a region, even a handful of mentions as you said, it's likely those people were in that region.
But at the end of the day we have a severe lack of documents in this region, it's like a dark age. Anything could have happened.
Well, not anything, but a lot.
In my opinion, the map the devs made in this feedback is the most accurate we can get in 1337.
Yes, there are no records of the slavs in Moldavia since the 10th century and no records after 1337, but as Ludi said, it's likely some of them still existed in the north. While the Romanian accounts are scarce between 10th-13th century, but they exist, even if scarce. As a lot of things in this region in this time period is scarce. And after 1337 the records start to become even more numerous.
Based on this, the most natural assumption is that they were in 1337 there if you can find them before 1337 and after 1337 too.
Of course using the few scarce records we have it's speculative, but there is no way you can be anything but speculative with the information we have.
Even the linguistic argument, it's not less speculative but more speculative, as all it says as a core is interaction after 1100, which is not much, and kind of evident as they were neighbours. Or the toponyms, who get even more speculative, if it is possible in the 21st century for people to inhabit localities with names of different origin, which hold no meaning for them, it was no less possible in the 1337, as they merely explain the name of those who founded the cities. Not the ones who currently live in them in 1337.
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