Who were and are the Albanians and their DNA

[Piro Ilir]

The Tocco family of Lombard (Langobardi) origin from Benevento that settled in Greece (Epirus and other places)? Do You have any sources? I'm just curious.

I see that Toci (pronunciation? c=?) is a surname spread in Albania but it's also an Italian surname (Toci, Tocci) not spread in Arbereshe places and derived from Toccio pet name for Rober-toccio, Alber-toccio, generally Italian names of Germanic origin.

The Tocco family ruled in south Albanian territories

 

[Dibran]

If it was about the Arberesh, then it is even more important, because Arberesh of Italy are mostly Tosks with less Slavic Y-dna

Most is an overstatement. There were plenty of Northern Albanian migrations to Italy as well. Many of Skanderbegs army that fled after his death were northern clansmen. Sure most may have been Tosk. Not to the degree one would think. If anything, considering the heavy Slavic/Latinized Slavic settlements in the South prior to the Arberesh migration, there should be even MORE I2-Din and R1a among them. G2a is pretty sparse today, most of which(unless I am mistaken) is found in Greeks as far as the Southern Balkans is concerned. So those G2a in Arberesh could have been Albanized Greeks in the South and or G2a that was absorbed earlier in Albanians.

 

[Piro Ilir]

I have just remembered that We already discussed here, from post 139 to about 153 http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...cans-albanians?p=393400&viewfull=1#post393400.

Still remains my full point fo view on the issue. We don't need to discuss anymore. The point is that Albanian Tosk is an exonym, and They weren't self-aware of a connection with Etruscans, of course. As we know, this connection doesn't exist, despite the claims of Albanian nationalists.

I add only this from Treccani:

Nell’ambito cancelleresco, amministrativo, giuridico, ecc., l’uso dell’italiano-fiorentino restava basato su conoscenze approssimative e condizionato dal volgare locale più a lungo di quanto accada nella lingua letteraria. Così, per es., le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneziani al Senato della Serenissima all’inizio del XVI secolo appaiono scritte in un volgare sostanzialmente toscano, cioè italiano, ma che conserva ancora elementi fonologici, morfologici e lessicali veneziani. Questo genere di lingua è chiamata spesso tosco-veneto. Nei decenni successivi i tratti locali vennero progressivamente abbandonati, e si giunse entro la fine del secolo a una pressoché completa toscanizzazione (Durante 1981: 163-164; Tomasin 2001: 158-164). L’adozione del modello toscano nel secondo Cinquecento e nel Seicento è un fenomeno che riguarda più in generale la lingua degli scriventi colti di tutta Italia. Da questo termine in avanti solo le scritture dei semicolti (➔ italiano popolare) presentano fenomeni di ibridismo tra la norma scritta nazionale, l’italiano, e la lingua parlata locale, il dialetto (Bartoli Langeli 2000).

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/volgari-medievali_(Enciclopedia-dell'Italiano)/

It means that Venetians in the past wrote in a language more similar to Tuscan than spoken Venetian was (pay attention, the word tosco-veneto doesn't have a real connection with we are discussing about, the etymology of Tosk).[/Qan

Self consciousness of Tosks either being or not related with Etruscans has nothing to do with the truth about history, either if they are really related. Etruscans disappeared many centuries ago , hence modern Tosks can't keep any historical popular memory. It would be like modern Greeks having any certain popular memory about their ancient past , without using classical writings studied by current scholars

 

[LABERIA]

Let's put an end to this idiotic discussion because it's seriously getting annoyed.

Mandala flet per arvanitasit dhe origjinen e arberesheve (EKSKLUZIVE)
Mandala talk about Arvanites and the origin of the Arbëresh.
The whole interview is interesting, but at the 2'20'' is the part where he explain the origin of the Arbëresh people.

 

[Piro Ilir]

Typical of Pan-Albanism.

Actually, indeed, the infamous one is "pan Hellenism"

 

[Piro Ilir]

this is the latest theory.....fleeing from southern carpathian mountain area from the migrating "slavs" into Roman lands in approx 100AD . also the same time many dacians began going south to the safety of the roman empire

Not the latest theory, but one of the latest theory without any serious back up

 

[Piro Ilir]

Please read my earlier posts in this thread, because Albanians have the highest % of E-V13 in the world then it is very unlikely that they have come from north of Black Sea.
If you read more about E-V13 then you will have a better understanding.
On the other side even if lets say the Albanians were predominantly R1b, then its clearly not the dark age they came there....R1b passed by and settled in south east Balkans in small number i believe at least 5,000 years ago, earlier than western Europe which it is believed it went there 4,000 ago and found their home there.

Mostly okay, except that R1b is found in Ireland as earlier as 3000bce, bronze age elite warriors graves

 

[Sile]

View attachment 10286
The Tocco family ruled in south Albanian territories

The family of Tocco (plural in Italian: Tocci or Tocchi (source: Del Regno di Napoli, Scipione Manzella, 1601, in Greek: Τόκκοι) was a noble house from Benevento of Longobard origins, which in the late 14th and 15th centuries came to prominence in western Greece as rulers of the Ionian Islands, County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos and the Despotate of Epirus.[1].
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The rule of Venice on most of Dalmatia will last nearly four centuries (1420 - 1797).
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THe rule of Venice on Friuli was from 1415 - 1797
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So your map is prior to 1415

 

[Sile]

I have just remembered that We already discussed here, from post 139 to about 153 http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...cans-albanians?p=393400&viewfull=1#post393400.

Still remains my full point fo view on the issue. We don't need to discuss anymore. The point is that Albanian Tosk is an exonym, and They weren't self-aware of a connection with Etruscans, of course. As we know, this connection doesn't exist, despite the claims of Albanian nationalists.

I add only this from Treccani:

Nell’ambito cancelleresco, amministrativo, giuridico, ecc., l’uso dell’italiano-fiorentino restava basato su conoscenze approssimative e condizionato dal volgare locale più a lungo di quanto accada nella lingua letteraria. Così, per es., le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneziani al Senato della Serenissima all’inizio del XVI secolo appaiono scritte in un volgare sostanzialmente toscano, cioè italiano, ma che conserva ancora elementi fonologici, morfologici e lessicali veneziani. Questo genere di lingua è chiamata spesso tosco-veneto. Nei decenni successivi i tratti locali vennero progressivamente abbandonati, e si giunse entro la fine del secolo a una pressoché completa toscanizzazione (Durante 1981: 163-164; Tomasin 2001: 158-164). L’adozione del modello toscano nel secondo Cinquecento e nel Seicento è un fenomeno che riguarda più in generale la lingua degli scriventi colti di tutta Italia. Da questo termine in avanti solo le scritture dei semicolti (➔ italiano popolare) presentano fenomeni di ibridismo tra la norma scritta nazionale, l’italiano, e la lingua parlata locale, il dialetto (Bartoli Langeli 2000).

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/volgari-medievali_(Enciclopedia-dell'Italiano)/

It means that Venetians in the past wrote in a language more similar to Tuscan than spoken Venetian was (pay attention, the word tosco-veneto doesn't have a real connection with we are discussing about, the etymology of Tosk).[/Qan

Self consciousness of Tosks either being or not related with Etruscans has nothing to do with the truth about history, either if they are really related. Etruscans disappeared many centuries ago , hence modern Tosks can't keep any historical popular memory. It would be like modern Greeks having any certain popular memory about their ancient past , without using classical writings studied by current scholars

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

The only Tosk town that Venetians ruled and abandoned after a very short time..........so I do not understand what connection there is there with Venice

 

[Piro Ilir]

Albanians have already incorporated a large body of autochthonous populations like Macedonians, Aromanians, etc. into their nation. It is hard to distinguish now what part of current Albanian population would be originally Albanian, and what part Albanized. The best bet would be to focus the research in the parts of Albanian vocabulary that has no proven ancestry in surrounding languages.

Latin loanwords predates the Slavic invasion, furthermore the second must important layer of interfere is North west Greek dialect.

 

[Piro Ilir]

Pelazgians were not Indo-European in speech. They probably spoke a language derived from Neolithic farmers similar to Etruscans, and maybe even Basques. E-V13 got absorbed by proto Albanians that brought the Indo-European language that we speak today, similar to how they got also absorbed by Greeks in Greece.

The history tells us that some times the lower class it's assimilated by the ruling class, and some other times it happened vice versa, the ruling caste was absorbed by the lower class. I think Minoans, Etruscans and Pelasgians were the same ethnic people. They were partly assimilated by the IE people, meanwhile the Mycenaeans were almost all IE people.

 

[Piro Ilir]

So 1/5 have albabnian origin.

When I was hearing albanian I was amazed how
many slavic-like and romanic-like words I hear.

And do exist albanian by origin names or not?

This is what happens when you are too long settled in this piece of land called , Troje ' by Albans. You may inherit a lot of vocabulary from newcomers. Your language may be as an open living book

 

[Piro Ilir]

I don't know who Gustav Meyer is, but 5,000 words is hardly a sample, and Ike's math is wrong. The Romance % in Albanian is about 40%. Slavic[1] and Turkish[2] words only comprise about 1,000 and 3-5000 words each, respectively, out of a total of 60,000+. Turkish words are exclusively social vocabulary (social positions, cuss words) and miscellaneous household terminology like cooking. Slavic terms are more related to lowland farming. I'm not sure about Greek, but I do know that Ancient Greek words are very scarce, and only modern ones appear. Direct Germanic borrowings are only a small select few due to Gothic raids, but otherwise non-existent. The pre-IE substratum is fairly small compared to Greek. Since we lack a relative of Albanian, it is more difficult to use comparative linguistics and close the gap to PIE. At least 30-50% of the words in Albanian are non-Latin, non-Greek, non-Slavic, PIE-derived.Overall, the Albanian language was spoken north of the Jirecek line, which accounts for the high borrowings from Latin, and low from Greek. The lack of maritime vocabulary coincides with the fact that the Albanian coastline was dominated until 1400 AD by Latin, Venetian and Greek colonists, and Albanians were tribal, mountainous tribes, living on the central and eastern fringes of the country, which coincides with the location of the Illyrian tribe of Albanoi.


[1] https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1338406907&disposition=inline
[2] http://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/viewFile/2184/2171

The nature and evolution of loanwords suggests that Albanian language straddled the Jitecek division. Via Egnatia it's boundary between Tosk and Gheg.

 

[Piro Ilir]

I think trying to determine the position of the language through Latin loanwords is a bit far fetched. Albanian also displays some pre 0 AD Latin borrowings, that would otherwise be non-existent in Dacian and Thracian populations. The language displays affinities to both Western and Balkan Latin, and the difference between the two variants is not great to begin with. Daco-Thracian is usually presented as an alternative to Illyrian, not as a main theory. I think for now it's fair that the latter remains the default. Georgiev's Daco-Thracian theory picked up some momentum when linguists thought Illyrian was a centum language because of its affinity with Venetic. Then it turned out Venetic is very closely related to Latin. So far, we do have some Thracian inscriptions and one Dacian inscription. Nothing shows any relation to Albanian, especially Thracian.We also have no records of any significant migrations into Albania. The Byzantines recorded all Slavic, Gothic, and Avar incursions into the Balkans, so again it would be far fetched to consider Daco-Thracian as a main theory. However, since we lack Illyrian recordings, we can't make any definite statements yet. Illyrian might have even referred to different languages. The existence of Liburnian attests to this.

Liburnian is considered as Venetic

 

[Piro Ilir]

Thanks.
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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 )

First official language in Albania was the Gheg, from 1912 until the communist regime was installed. Then communists decided to make the Tosk dialect official language in Albania, roughly with 20% Gheg comprising it. The reason why the official language it's based mainly in Tosk is only due to political reasons.

 

[Piro Ilir]

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

Most of Communist leaders were Tosks including the dictator. This has nothing to do with the science of history, either the Y-dna , neither with the linguistics

 

[Piro Ilir]

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

I think there's no need for an official language based in one of the two dialects. I think both can be official, as long as Albanians understand both

 

[Piro Ilir]

There is some political note in the choice of tosk as official albanian in 1972. There was a brief civil war after WW2 in albania, and the communists won. Their epicenter was is tosk albania. There were very few ghegs in the communist elite and also education was tougher for ghegs. Over 50 years it changed almost the landscape. Just to imagine: tirana, durres and elbasan used to speak ghegh dialects - now that is almost lost.

Sent from my SM-G903F using Eupedia Forum mobile app

You're wrong. Almost all Tirana and Durres speaks Gheg today, especially the rural areas speak a really heavy Gheg dialect of the region.

 

[Piro Ilir]

I agree with everything but the part in bold. Tirana, Durres, and Elbasan have not changed their Gheg dialect. It sounds even crazy to imagine people in Tirana, Elbasan, and Durres speaking Tosk or Standard. There are only a few people in Tirana of Southern origin that tend to speak a hybrid version of the Tirana variant and Standard, but that is all.

That's pretty strange how with all that massive Tosk migration from the south into Tirana during communism and in recent years, all of them are assimilating in Gheg

 

[Piro Ilir]

quhet not quet.

Well, i think Zanatis explained very well this:

Exactly for this reason i suggested to Sile to be careful in my post 288.
The word qien does not exist in Albanian language.

I had met some people from Divjake, and I think in their dialect it's 'qien', though not sure.