from
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?26076-sea-peoples&p=399077&viewfull=1#post399077
Serdi and Scordisci are both celtic tribes in the balkans, they have nothing to do with Ser. The triballi became the Serbs after these celtic tribes destroyed the Triballi.
Serdi resided in modern day Bulgaria - basically the capital area of Sofia and the Scordisci where NW of them.
that is possible scenario...
but not very likely...
Serbs came to Balkan from area of Bohemia/Bavaria... question is where they came from to that area....likely guess is from area north of northwest Carpathians... which fits well with birth place of Slavs around Vistula...
Russian primary chronicle does however list Serbs among Danubian Slavs who migrated to Vistula area when pushed from Danube by expanding Roman empire...
Danubian Slavs are described to live along Danube in Hungary and Bulgaria of moment of writing Primary chronicle which was around year 1113 when Bulgaria was further to north encompassing also most of north Serbia and Hungary was in control of area of Vojvodina (north province of Serbia)... this is exactly Scordisci area prior to Roman expansion....
in fact you can see at 1AD that they have already retreated to north....
attacked people typically retreat to closest mountains that they can defend...it makes sense that Scordisci have retreated along Danube and towards north-west Carpathians and north from that using northwest Carpathians as defendable obstacle to spread of Roman empire.... hence using this logic they would end up in south Poland and Slovakia...from there expansion to east Germany and Czech republic makes sense in times when those areas are more or less vacant due to migrations of Germanic people (around 5th century)
now if thracanized Scord+isci were known as Serd+i, than slavicized Serdi would easily give Serb+i
it is unlikely that Tribali would take the path up the Danube and into northwest Carpathians when moving away from expanding Roman empire...
i think that Tribali either stayed (they already lived in highlands and were thus relatively isolated from direct influence of Roman empire that rulled over them) and melted in Romanized populations or moved towards Black sea and east Carpathians.. or both..
considering their latin borrowings comming from north of Jirecek line in fact being the same as in area of Romania,
it is more likely for Albanians to origin from Tribali that merged into Roman empire and than later retreated to mountains of Albania when Roman empire was crumbling and nations like Huns, Goths and Avars were terrorizing Balkan area...... in Albanian word "
ballë" = front, facade
3-balli is thus facade of their living space, that is borderland with three other ethnic groups....
partially romanized Tribali probably merged with partially romanized Dardanians to give (D)Ardanasi-> Arbanasi (which is medieval name of Albanians)
note here same change from 'rd' to 'rb' as in Serdi->Serbi... this could be some issue in satem branch of IE
Illyrians have nothing to do with Albanians... few preserved Illyrian words whose meaning is known match Slavic much much better than Albanian... Illyrians are dinaric race like south Slavs, Albaians are east mediteranean.... Illyrians are tribes that wage wars among themselves all the time like south Slavs do, Albanians are firmly united despite religion differences...iIlyrians being proto-Slavic people is explanation why there are no borrowings from Albanian in Bosnia and Croatia, but there are lot of borrowings from Slavic in Albanian...
The medieval nobility of Serbs always took the triballi as their origins..
never heard of that...
some Byzantine historians did call Serbs Triballi though...
but they also attributed ancient names to some other people based on the current location...
so, this may be about location of Tribali north of their empire.....
as for Croats, they may origin from Carpi that moved from Black sea towards west (pressed by Roman empire from south and Huns from east) along east Carpathians....
eventually they occupied south of Poland neighnbouring Serbs...there their language started merging..... according to De administrando imperio, 'white Serbia' borders state of Franks on west and 'white Croatia' on east....