I am Montenegrin and quite interested in European and Balkan history. Usually I do not enter any discussion about Montenegro with people that are not Montenegrin because it is quite boring to explain facts to them. Mostly they do not have a clue about anything concerning Montenegro. If do have some knowledge it is usually based on wrong info or, even worse, prejudices coming mostly from Serbia or Croatia. To fight against ignorance and hate is a job that does not appeal to me at all. However, when I read all of this written I have to comment and hope to give you some useful info.
First of all, the sample was around 400 inhabitants of Montenegro, regardless of their nationality or religion. For your info in Montenegro we have Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians and Montenegrins living alongside. Total population is 620.000 and in ex Yugoslavia some 120.000 national Montenegrins on top. 400 hundred visitors randomly picked in the hospital in Podgorica is hardly a representative sample. Therefore, the study is not a big one and regional distribution was not mentioned, it was a population coming to hospital because of different reasons and mostly from the vicinity of Podgorica. In vicinity of Podgorica are large settlements Albanian speaking population. The same was done in Serbia – only Belgrade was tested. Taking into consideration that Belgrade is far from Kosovo and influenced by Hungarian population in Vojvodina, the results are not representative at all. I wonder what would be their results if they went to south of Serbia near Kosovo or Macedonia.
I do not mean disrespect at all. On contrary I do respect Albanian people a lot. What I am arguing is the fact that Montenegrins have something wrong and they must be of wrong ancestors when they do not want to be Serbs or Croats.
Also, one curiosity about Montenegrin inhabitants that might be interesting – people that are having Albanian ancestors traditionally are declaring themselves as Serbs. Moreover, they are aggressive nationalists.
I do not argue the fact that EV13 can’t be found in Montenegro. For sure there are a lot of individuals carrying this haplotype. How much exactly has to be seen in future. I can even tell you exactly where because Montenegrins are clannish people and all is known about the ancestors and history of families.
It is not division by north or south; neither east and west. It is simply by location of newcomers coming from Albania. I shall give you 2 examples:
a. Vasojevici – tribal name of many clans. Their ancestor Vaso came as Albanian speaking person to Montenegro and all his decedents are EV13.
b. Kuci (Kuchi)- the old tribal name known more than 1000 years in old homeland (now Germany) are divided 50%/ 50%. During a great plague I DIN carriers were doing en mass. Orphans and widows accepted Albanian guys, who were more resilient to plague, as fathers and husbands. A century after there was a fight what language shall prevail and at the end it was Montenegrin.
About “Old Herzegovina”.
Every time I hear this term I have to laugh. This ancient Herzegovina does not exist. Herzegovina is a term that was introduced in 15th century therefore it can’t be ancient. The territory of Herzegovina covered one large part of the Montenegrin Kingdome known as Dioklecia, Zeta or originally kingdom of Primorska (as it was called in ancient homeland “Pomerania”). Therefore, majority of inhabitants of today’s Herzegovina, including eastern or western part, meaning Croats and Serbs at the present are decedents of fathers that were close cousins and tribesman of Montenegrins. So, it is very natural that they share a large proportion of same I Din with Montenegrins.
Dialects!!!!
Good lord! Can you believe that is a possibility to have several distinct dialects in 620.000 large population? Yes some villages are accenting a bit different some words. Some of them roll the R when pronouncing it. But they can perfectly understand each other. To be very clear Serbs and Croats having very similar language to Montenegrin CAN NOT so easy and they have to ask about meaning of same words. By the way, people from Herzegovina perfectly can understand every localism in Montenegro. The same goes vice versa.