Jirecek Line

[1337]

What do you think about the jirecek line ? There are various lines drawn from different people. Where do you think was the Greek-Latin border, which one is more correct ?

 

[enter_tain]

Does more harm than good imo, because there is no clear "border". That's not how humans work. People think it's some kind of law, when we've found clear exceptions. This was the Roman Empire, not the Greek Empire. There was Roman influence even in the "Greek zone", and they've found Hellenized tribes north of the line too.

I think it's more helpful to talk about a transitional zone where you could find examples of both cultures.

 

[1337]

Does more harm than good imo, because there is no clear "border". That's not how humans work. People think it's some kind of law, when we've found clear exceptions. This was the Roman Empire, not the Greek Empire. There was Roman influence even in the "Greek zone", and they've found Hellenized tribes north of the line too.

I think it's more helpful to talk about a transitional zone where you could find examples of both cultures.

Very true. It's like that for a lot of things in general.

 

[1337]

Does more harm than good imo, because there is no clear "border". That's not how humans work. People think it's some kind of law, when we've found clear exceptions. This was the Roman Empire, not the Greek Empire. There was Roman influence even in the "Greek zone", and they've found Hellenized tribes north of the line too.

I think it's more helpful to talk about a transitional zone where you could find examples of both cultures.

Christian teachings in Albanian are for example mostly Latin.

 

[torzio]

Does more harm than good imo, because there is no clear "border". That's not how humans work. People think it's some kind of law, when we've found clear exceptions. This was the Roman Empire, not the Greek Empire. There was Roman influence even in the "Greek zone", and they've found Hellenized tribes north of the line too.

I think it's more helpful to talk about a transitional zone where you could find examples of both cultures.

DNA does not have borders that match national borders either

 

[1337]

The Jireček Line is a conceptual boundary through the ancient Balkans that divides the influence of the Latin (in the north) and Greek (in the south) languages in the Roman Empire from antiquity until the 4th century. The border has been and still is repeatedly corrected by the discovering of new inscriptions.^[1] A possible rough outline of it goes from near Lissus (near Lezhë and Laç in modern Albania) to Serdica (now Sofia, in Bulgaria) and then follows the Balkan Mountains to Odessus (Varna) on the Black Sea, or continuing along the coastline northwards to the Danube Delta.

This line is important in establishing the area where the Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Albanian people formed (see Origin of the Romanians and Origin of the Albanians). It was originally used by Czech historian Konstantin Jireček in 1911 in a history of the Slavic people.
The placement of the line is based on archaeological findings. Most of the inscriptions found to the north of it are written in Latin, and most of the inscriptions found to the south of it are in Greek.

The proposed line, in its various forms, is a theoretical tool. Already in antiquity there were significant exceptions: there were Hellenized groups north of the line (e.g. the Greek colonies along the western coastline of the Black Sea) and Latinized groups may have lived south of the line. Even so, it is a useful — although approximate — instrument for determining which influence a certain area was predominantly exposed to.
More recent scholars have revised it somewhat: Kaimio (1979) places Dalmatia and Moesia Superior in the Latin area and Moesia Inferior in the Greek sphere. MacLeod (1982) suggests that there may not have been "an official language policy for each and every aspect of life", but that "individual Roman officials [made] common sense ad hoc decisions". He also points out that while the area was under pre-Byzantine Roman rule, "even in Greek areas... Latin was the dominant language in inscriptions recording public works, on milestones, and in the army".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jireček_Line


South of the line the 'Albanos' was found in Greek while in Skopje/Shkup the Albani inscription was found in Latin .

 

[1337]

For example the 'Albanoi' inscription found North of the Jirecek in Scupi (In Modern Northern Macedonia, Skopje) was found in Latin:

In the archaeological record, the Albanoi and Albanopolis have been directly attested on two funeral inscriptions. The toponym Albanopolis has been found on a funeral inscription in Gorno Sonje, near the city of Skopje (ancient Scupi), present-day North Macedonia.^[14] It was excavated in 1931 by Nikola Vulić and its text was curated and published in 1982 by Borka Dragojević-Josifovska. The inscription in Latin reads "POSIS MESTYLU F[ILIUS] FL[AVIA] DELVS MVCATI F[ILIA] DOM[O] ALBANOP[OLI] IPSA DELVS" ("Posis Mestylu, son of Flavia Delus, daughter of Mucat, who comes from Albanopolis"). It dates to the end of the 1st century CE and the beginning of the 2nd century CE. Dragojević-Josifovska added two lines to the existing reading: VIVA P(OSUIT) SIBI/ ET VIRO SUO. Delus Mucati is an Illyrian name and his home region was Albanopolis (domo Albanopoli). Dragojević-Josifovska proposed that like others he had settled in Macedonia from southern Illyria.^[15]

Then we have some 'Albanos' south of the line in North Macedonia found in Greek and 'Arbaios' in Southern Albania found in Greek:

The ethnonym Albanos was found on a funeral inscription from ancient Stobi, near Gradsko about 90 km to the southeast of Gorno Sonje. The inscription in ancient Greek reads "ΦΛ(ΑΒΙΩ) ΑΛΒΑΝΩ ΤΩ ΤΕΚΝΩ ΑΙΜΙΛΙΑΝΟΣ ΑΛΒΑΝΟ(Σ) ΜΝΗΜ(Η)Σ [ΧΑΡΗΝ]" ("In memory of Flavios Albanos, his son Aemilianos Albanos"). It dates to the 2nd/3rd century CE.^[19]
An inscription in ancient Greek in Phoenice, southern Albania related to the liberation act of the slave Nikarchos Nikomachou Arbaios is linked to the Albanoi as Arbaios is an ethnonym which has the same root as that of the Albanoi and hasn't been attested anywhere else.^[20] Arbaios is considered to not have been a local of the city, but someone who had been moved there from more northern areas in central Albania.^[21] The inscription was excavated in the 1920s by Luigi Ugolini. It dates to the 3rd/2nd century BCE.^[1]

 

[enter_tain]

DNA does not have borders that match national borders either

Well if those borders are separated by geographical features, military, language, culture, then yeah it would.

 

[1337]

The 'Albanoi' inscription in Latin was found in Scupi on the map and the others in Greek in Stobi and Southern Albania. P.Shok has the last two marked as South of the Jirecek while Scupi North of the Jirecek ... Could P.Shok's blue line actually be the most accurate ? I wonder what he based it on ?