Who were and are the Albanians and their DNA

[Dibran]

For a while I've noticed that this forum has a really odd and far too frequent phenomenon where these sorts of arguments centered around the Balkans would erupt randomly and out of nowhere in the middle of a thread that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with that region.
Before and for a while, I never really understood how any of them were started, or what they were about, and I would either attempt to understand what's being said and fail, or i would just ignore the posts.
Johane did give me a nice walk thru just last week regarding them, and it seems that the Serbian government wants to spread false and ridiculous rumors about Albanians (which is ethically disgusting) by forcing schools to teach students about how they supposedly originate from the Caucasus and were transplanted by the ottomans or another really wild and wacky theory involving them being appointed by the Romans to crucify Bartholomew. None of this garbage is true and it seems like an attempt to make Albanians the "bad guys".
Hopefully I didn't offend a Serbian here, as I have nothing against Serbians at all.

Did you ever hear the one about how supposedly we Albanians are born with tails and brought from Hell by the Ottomans? Lol true story. Not the story itself but the fact they believed it. In very rural isolated areas, they still do. Mainly elderly.
If a Serb is offended by the truth then they prefer to believe a lie. Even Albanians has their devils.
As human beings who aim to ascribe to Justice and Equity, one needs to define the same rules for all peoples.
They don’t realize their toxic being is a detriment to the future they desire and not a benefit. Everyone is trying to be the big ancient OG native. As if it makes any difference that the Balkans is a backwards shithole. And this is coming from an Albanian.
My biggest confusion is, many of these fervent bigots are themselves the product of those who migrated away from descrimination.
For many Albanians, becoming communist was a matter of life and death. One could imagine how hard it is to make the better choice.
So, like many, my grandfather as much as he loved his nation, knew that his family and his self were doomed if they remained. Risking all to come to this nation.
This is the case for many. To have them rekindle old dramas from the host nation. Despite having no impact or even experience of what life is like in their country of origin.
A month or so ago, I read an article about the Serbian government trying to evict a woman and her son from their home. Both these people were mentally disabled. Severely so.
The Serbian people in the area gathered and formed a bridge between police and the building to keep police from forcing these poor people from their home.
That shows goodness and human decency is not dead. My friend even told me their Serbian neighbors sheltered and hid Albanians from Serb forces/weekend raids etc.
What people don’t understand(and this applies to all nations) is that if you make yourself part of the problem, you will contribute to said problem. You will have no choice but to choose sides.
People have to treat themselves as Sovereign individual and uphold justice even in their own nation turns from it. That is why many left the Balkans.
There’s animals on all sides. But, as a political entity(not individual as a whole) Serbia was a aggressor. Had they just learned from other nations and didn’t allow religion ethnic hatred a and dogma to dictate their decisions, they probably would never have lost Yugoslavia and made it prosper.
But these nations are given to fear. And so they give life to those very fears.
They have a real chance to move forward. But, much of this online hatred comes from those born OUTSIDE the Balkans. Privileged middle and upper class citizens of western nations who see that part of the world with one eye half closed.

 

[davef]

^^ Wow! Excellent post!


"People have to treat themselves as Sovereign individual and uphold justice even in their own nation turns from it."


That is my attitude and I would've done the same as your grandad! If the nation threatens justice and I can't do anything against it, I'm out. I'll look after myself and abandon any piece of land where freedom isn't allowed. When the ship sinks, I'm grabbing a lifeboat.

 

[Zanatis]

I should bet the Ghegs are maybe the closest ones to ancestors (without seeding war within Albanians!) and that the suthern Tosques are ("maybe" again) in part a remnant of an older pop, akin to North-Italian and other more Western pops, separated in some part from them by late historical moves where Illyrians (badly defined and known), meta-Italics and Slavs took part.
Have all a good peaceful evening, for me it 'll be the case.

I'm impressed by your knowledge and I always read your comments carefully.

Since you've shown interest in the subject I'll tell you a few points that will clear up a lot of confusion as it's impossible for a foreigner to understand the actual situation, even with the help of internet and books.

To begin with, I advise you to refrain from using the Gheg and Tosk differentiation as it is a waste of time in our case. That's a simplified division between North and South and should not be taken seriously. What you are calling Tosks/Tosques are actually Tosks + Labs + Chams + Vlachs + others (Albanian South Epirots that are not Chams per se), all of them being different and many of them being more similar to "Ghegs" and vice-versa. On top of that, what you call Tosks is the post-Ottoman and post-Communist term for simply meaning Southerner.

So going to the idea of Ghegs being the closest ancestors, first that is incorrect because we're talking about the ancestors and not the actual post-Ottoman population. A lot happened during the last 600 years that resulted in what is confusing us nowadays.

To make it simple without ending up writing an essay, before Ghegs = Tosks, but with Serbs coming (especially Car Dusan) many tribes were pushed South, basically "Tosks" became "Chams", "Chams" became Arvanites, Ghegs went South and became Tosks or Labs, and similar Albanians came from Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro) and became Ghegs (I'm not saying they weren't Ghegs before). Then the Ottomans came and the same happened, but this time instead of internal movements and migration to Greece, add the migration to Italy.

Now it's during these last migrations that the real difference would appear slowly and that is because Southern Albanians were affected more by migration, therefore their country was way more depopulated. North Albania was also depopulated as many Northerners went to Italy or South Albania or Greece, but the difference is that it wasn't re-populated a lot afterwards.

Unlike North, South Albania got more urbanized and was basically "immigration friendly" during the Ottoman period, while North Albania was too mountainous and nobody would want to go there anyway, with the exception of Shkodra and surrounding areas, and big centers in Kosovo such as Prizren, Peja, Gjakova, Prishtina, etc.

Yet, until the early 20th century the population of South Albania was diverse but still not that "mixed", as the mountainous areas were still clannish and did not differ from Ghegs at all, whereas the urban centers were obviously well, urban centers People living in these cities could have been from anywhere in the Balkans mostly, as well as Turks, Arabs, Jews, Vlachs, you name it.

So long story short, if you were to test only "traditionally Albanian" regions in South, those differences that you see today will be greatly reduced. Similarly, people from Shkodra (North Albania) are more similar to "Tosks" than to other North Albanians, and that's because Shkodra was desolated and resettled again with people from all over the Ottoman Empire, whereas the original population fled either to the nearby mountains or to Venice (including my family).

P.s. As for the dialect, note that the Southern dialects are more archaic than the Northern ones, despite the rhotacism and other changes that it underwent. Personally, I come from the northernmost Gheg region and our local dialect shares a lot of archaic similarities with Tosk and not Gheg, which logically makes no sense.

Every Albanian actually "accuses" me of speaking a Gheg dialect with Tosk/Standard rules and tell me to "stop doing that, either speak Gheg or Standard, don't mix them up when you obviously can't".

 

[Dibran]

I'm impressed by your knowledge and I always read your comments carefully.

Since you've shown interest in the subject I'll tell you a few points that will clear up a lot of confusion as it's impossible for a foreigner to understand the actual situation, even with the help of internet and books.

To begin with, I advise you to refrain from using the Gheg and Tosk differentiation as it is a waste of time in our case. That's a simplified division between North and South and should not be taken seriously. What you are calling Tosks/Tosques are actually Tosks + Labs + Chams + Vlachs + others (Albanian South Epirots that are not Chams per se), all of them being different and many of them being more similar to "Ghegs" and vice-versa. On top of that, what you call Tosks is the post-Ottoman and post-Communist term for simply meaning Southerner.

So going to the idea of Ghegs being the closest ancestors, first that is incorrect because we're talking about the ancestors and not the actual post-Ottoman population. A lot happened during the last 600 years that resulted in what is confusing us nowadays.

To make it simple without ending up writing an essay, before Ghegs = Tosks, but with Serbs coming (especially Car Dusan) many tribes were pushed South, basically "Tosks" became "Chams", "Chams" became Arvanites, Ghegs went South and became Tosks or Labs, and similar Albanians came from Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro) and became Ghegs (I'm not saying they weren't Ghegs before). Then the Ottomans came and the same happened, but this time instead of internal movements and migration to Greece, add the migration to Italy.

Now it's during these last migrations that the real difference would appear slowly and that is because Southern Albanians were affected more by migration, therefore their country was way more depopulated. North Albania was also depopulated as many Northerners went to Italy or South Albania or Greece, but the difference is that it wasn't re-populated a lot afterwards.

Unlike North, South Albania got more urbanized and was basically "immigration friendly" during the Ottoman period, while North Albania was too mountainous and nobody would want to go there anyway, with the exception of Shkodra and surrounding areas, and big centers in Kosovo such as Prizren, Peja, Gjakova, Prishtina, etc.

Yet, until the early 20th century the population of South Albania was diverse but still not that "mixed", as the mountainous areas were still clannish and did not differ from Ghegs at all, whereas the urban centers were obviously well, urban centers People living in these cities could have been from anywhere in the Balkans mostly, as well as Turks, Arabs, Jews, Vlachs, you name it.

So long story short, if you were to test only "traditionally Albanian" regions in South, those differences that you see today will be greatly reduced. Similarly, people from Shkodra (North Albania) are more similar to "Tosks" than to other North Albanians, and that's because Shkodra was desolated and resettled again with people from all over the Ottoman Empire, whereas the original population fled either to the nearby mountains or to Venice (including my family).

P.s. As for the dialect, note that the Southern dialects are more archaic than the Northern ones, despite the rhotacism and other changes that it underwent. Personally, I come from the northernmost Gheg region and our local dialect shares a lot of archaic similarities with Tosk and not Gheg, which logically makes no sense.

Every Albanian actually "accuses" me of speaking a Gheg dialect with Tosk/Standard rules and tell me to "stop doing that, either speak Gheg or Standard, don't mix them up when you obviously can't".

I was born in the United States, so as a intermediate Gheg speaker, isn’t the Tosk dialect younger than the Gheg one, hence branching off from it? I can’t see how it went from Tosk to Gheg. Unless you meant something differently by archaic.

With regards to the south, I remember reading a document that the area of a Durres was majority Italian and Greeks with Jewish Vlach And Slavic minorities including lastly Albanians.

Supposedly after a earthquake took Durres in 1200, it left a vacuum for Northern Ghegs to fill. This roughly correlates with the mixture resulting in Arvanites Cams and other Southerners. The proposed age of Tosk dialect seems to roughly correlate to the time period of the Quake.

Perhaps, archaic forms are result of loan words?

But I know very little with phonetics and other language rules. I just know our dialect is Dibran. I mix words though as my mom is from Puka, so a bit of her dialect rubs off as well.

 

[Johane Derite]

Supposedly after a earthquake took Durres in 1200, it left a vacuum for Northern Ghegs to fill. This roughly correlates with the mixture resulting in Arvanites Cams and other Southerners. The proposed age of Tosk dialect seems to roughly correlate to the time period of the Quake.

The gheg tosk dialectal difference is constituted long before 1200.

Here is a link on Albanian dialects: http://dialects.albanianlanguage.net/

There are recordings on the left side also

 

[Zanatis]

I was born in the United States, so as a intermediate Gheg speaker, isn’t the Tosk dialect younger than the Gheg one, hence branching off from it? I can’t see how it went from Tosk to Gheg. Unless you meant something differently by archaic.

I didn't say Gheg originates from Tosk nor the opposite. I just said that Tosk retained many archaic features which most of the Gheg dialects didn't.

With regards to the south, I remember reading a document that the area of a Durres was majority Italian and Greeks with Jewish Vlach And Slavic minorities including lastly Albanians.

Supposedly after a earthquake took Durres in 1200, it left a vacuum for Northern Ghegs to fill. This roughly correlates with the mixture resulting in Arvanites Cams and other Southerners. The proposed age of Tosk dialect seems to roughly correlate to the time period of the Quake.

Highly unlikely and possibly a document full of errors, especially when it comes to ethnicity and language. If you do some reading on the Norman-Byzantine wars I bet you'll wonder why the least numerous Albanians in Durres are always mentioned and except some Italian general. Even the defense of the city was left to the local Albanians. But again you can't expect much from those chronicles as in many cases the Albanians are referred to as Italians, Latins, Greeks, and Bulgarians/Slavs.

Perhaps, archaic forms are result of loan words?

But I know very little with phonetics and other language rules. I just know our dialect is Dibran. I mix words though as my mom is from Puka, so a bit of her dialect rubs off as well.

I'm not talking about loan words.

Tosks spoke a separate dialect and indeed spoke Albanian long before the Ghegs came from the North. Actually what was called Gheg at the time before the migration is completely different from what we call Gheg today.

Do some research on the old dialect of the Albanians in today's Montenegro (Ulqin for instance) and note the similarities. If we call these older dialects in North Pre-Gheg and the later arrivals as Gheg, you will notice how various modern Gheg dialects are partly "Pre-Gheg" and partly "Gheg". The least "Gheg" ones are located in coastal Montenegro, then its Shkodra, as well as Central Albanian Gheg to a degree.

Some examples are how the Malsors of Montenegro and North Albania retained the -ua instead of -u or -ue, or how in Ulqin and Kraja they say isht instead of asht, osht, a, o. It seems highly likely that people within the borders of modern Albania all the way down to Greece used "isht" before the new wave brought ansht, asht, a, osht, o, esht, eshte, etc. Old dialects in Laberia say isht too for example, or the old dialect of Arta in modern Greece (South Epirus) says "ke ban/ben?" instead of "ce ben?". Do you believe anyone from the North brought the "ke ben?", a version never heard anywhere else.

 

[Sile]

I didn't say Gheg originates from Tosk nor the opposite. I just said that Tosk retained many archaic features which most of the Gheg dialects didn't.
Highly unlikely and possibly a document full of errors, especially when it comes to ethnicity and language. If you do some reading on the Norman-Byzantine wars I bet you'll wonder why the least numerous Albanians in Durres are always mentioned and except some Italian general. Even the defense of the city was left to the local Albanians. But again you can't expect much from those chronicles as in many cases the Albanians are referred to as Italians, Latins, Greeks, and Bulgarians/Slavs.
I'm not talking about loan words.
Tosks spoke a separate dialect and indeed spoke Albanian long before the Ghegs came from the North. Actually what was called Gheg at the time before the migration is completely different from what we call Gheg today.
Do some research on the old dialect of the Albanians in today's Montenegro (Ulqin for instance) and note the similarities. If we call these older dialects in North Pre-Gheg and the later arrivals as Gheg, you will notice how various modern Gheg dialects are partly "Pre-Gheg" and partly "Gheg". The least "Gheg" ones are located in coastal Montenegro, then its Shkodra, as well as Central Albanian Gheg to a degree.
Some examples are how the Malsors of Montenegro and North Albania retained the -ua instead of -u or -ue, or how in Ulqin and Kraja they say isht instead of asht, osht, a, o. It seems highly likely that people within the borders of modern Albania all the way down to Greece used "isht" before the new wave brought ansht, asht, a, osht, o, esht, eshte, etc. Old dialects in Laberia say isht too for example, or the old dialect of Arta in modern Greece (South Epirus) says "ke ban/ben?" instead of "ce ben?". Do you believe anyone from the North brought the "ke ben?", a version never heard anywhere else.

Thanks.
.
But to conclude, the reasons you give is why Albanian academics have decided that Tosk will be the national language of Albania ................due to it being older.
History of Durres as a town was it was founded by greek Corinthians, then became macedonian, then Rome made it a far greater and important city due to it was the only road to Constantinople from the adriatic................from this point it was mainly a "italian" town along with one other , Butrino ( I am only referring to modern Albania )

 

[Johane Derite]

Thanks.
.
But to conclude, the reasons you give is why Albanian academics have decided that Tosk will be the national language of Albania ................due to it being older.

Not true. If you're going to make a claim like that then post evidence please.

 

[Sile]

Not true. If you're going to make a claim like that then post evidence please.

http://aboutworldlanguages.com/albanian
there are many many sites that say this..
.
.
.Dialects
There are two main dialects of Albanian: Tosk (Toskësisht) and Gheg/Geg (Gegnisht). The dividing line between them is the Shkumbin river. Tosk is the official language of Albania, and one of the official languages of Kosovo and Macedonia, and is spoken in southern Albania, Turkey, Greece and Italy. Gheg is spoken in northern Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria. The dialects are more or less mutually intelligible, and transitional varieties of Albanian are spoken in central Albania.
.
.

http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/albanian-language
.
.
It is amazing that you did not know that Tosk became the official language of Albania as per the constitution in 1972

 

[Johane Derite]

It is amazing that you did not know that Tosk became the official language of Albania as per the constitution in 1972

You're either being tendentious and rude or you have a low reading comprehension. You stated that the reason that that the tosk dialect was chosen
was "due to being older" which is not true. It's very clear from my quoting your comment and my reply that this is what I was replying to.

 

[Zanatis]

You're either being tendentious and rude or you have a low reading comprehension. You stated that the reason that that the tosk dialect was chosen
was "due to being older" which is not true. It's very clear from my quoting your comment and my reply that this is what I was replying to.

Bro don't waste time with Sile. If I were to simply analyze his persona I'd be banned immediately as every drawn conclusion will be taken as an insult and personal attack. So leave him be.

I think he's above 40 and has kids and still goes around saying stuff like "older language" and many other bs about Illyrians, Dacians, Thracians. Sile, what do you do for a living?

For the sake of staying on topic, Tosk was wrongfully chosen to please the dictator or he just threatened everyone with life sentence if they refuse to comply. There were only 2 intellectuals against Tosk becoming the Standard and they both their lives ended horribly.

And by "Italian" town dont expect the population to have been Italian. They were a minority and mostly governors and merchants that lived between Albania and Venice. All the famous Albanian families of the main cities controlled by Venice were practically considered Italian despite their heritage. The Brutti and the Bruni are a perfect example.

 

[Yetos]

Jirecek Line
day by day is abandoned as conserning the archaiological founds

it rather simmilar with Diocleatian codex.
but we have seen Greek above that line
even in areas were occupied by Romans
and we know that bellow that line existed important Roman Villas

 

[Fatherland]

Gegisht is the oldest of the Albanian languages. It even retains many Ancient Doric words.

 

[Zanatis]

Gegisht is the oldest of the Albanian languages. It even retains many Ancient Doric words.

What is Gegisht? And what are these other Albanian languages? How do you estimate the birth of a language?

 

[Fatherland]

What is Gegisht? And what are these other Albanian languages? How do you estimate the birth of a language?

Toskisht of todays Albania is an abomination.

 

[Zanatis]

Toskisht of todays Albania is an abomination.

I tested you to see if it was a typo or complete lack of knowledge, even for the name of dialect you’re supposed to have inherited from your parents.

The correct way is Gegënisht (in Gheg, the ‘ë’ is silent) and Toskërisht (in Standard and Tosk).

You are Malsor, right? If yes, from which clan?

Toskërisht is not an abomination per se, but basing the Standard entirely on it is one. Many Tosk sub dialects are beaituful and very pleasant to listen to, but Standard is obsolutely disgusting. Choosing the variant of Elbasan would be the best way to go but that will never happen I guess.

If I were to be the decision maker I’d focus on the language of Meshari, Frang Bardhi, and Arvanite/Arbereshe to bring back the Medieval Albanian as the Standard because we’ve simply butchered the language. Although Albanian does tend to butcher words just like South Italian lol

 

[Fatherland]

I tested you to see if it was a typo or complete lack of knowledge, even for the name of dialect you’re supposed to have inherited from your parents.

The correct way is Gegënisht (in Gheg, the ‘ë’ is silent) and Toskërisht (in Standard and Tosk).

You are Malsor, right? If yes, from which clan?

Toskërisht is not an abomination per se, but basing the Standard entirely on it is one. Many Tosk sub dialects are beaituful and very pleasant to listen to, but Standard is obsolutely disgusting. Choosing the variant of Elbasan would be the best way to go but that will never happen I guess.

If I were to be the decision maker I’d focus on the language of Meshari, Frang Bardhi, and Arvanite/Arbereshe to bring back the Medieval Albanian as the Standard because we’ve simply butchered the language. Although Albanian does tend to butcher words just like South Italian lol

Ur right mate! Rock on!!

 

[Fustan]

Yuppity do.. (We're dont hate Italians btw! Catholic Power.)

On spot broder.

Philo-Italian charlatans is what they are.

 

[Yetos]

xaxaxa

these guys always appear as pair
always 2 speaking each other

 

[Zanatis]

xaxaxa

Are you laughing or cutting objects with a katana?