It is interesting hypothesis, although Albanian is IE Satem and probably R1b ht35 Armenian haplotype bearers were main speakers of proto Albanian, probably with J2.
I think Colhidians are linked with Greeks, not Albanians, but anyway, it's sure interesting assumption.
There are more authors who claim that
area of origin of Albanians is Caucasus, and among them are Albanians.
One of them is
Dr Philip Curti, according his surname he is Albanian by origin.
Curti writes:
Curti considers that Albanians came from eastern Caucasus. But he gives complicated assumption that Albanians came in three waves, two of them moving from Caucasus over area around Black sea to South Europe and further to northern Albania, in two different routs, and in both cases refer to Gheg Albanians and one of them from Caucasus through Anatolia to South of Albania, what refer to Tosk Albanians. Curti speaks about 1500-800 years BC.
Curti highlights differences in physical characteristics between Ghegs and Tosks, and classify them in different types. According him Armenians are metrically like Albanians, especially the Gheg, in most antropological characteristics:
The author concludes for origin of
Albanian there is evidence which supports Caucasian nidus:
Sabars and Avars
The name "Serb" is non-Slavic in origin and more likely than not original Serbs were overlords of the Slavs. The name 'Serb' designates not only the population in the invaders of Balkan peninsula but of Lusatia as well. Lusatia, a region in Eastern Germany is inhabited by a nation the Germans call the Wends from which the Greeks derived the word Venedi, alb.
vendi 'homeland, country' hence an Illyrian not Slavic name. The name "Serb" is e neologism from the ancient homeland of Serbs, Sarmantia an ancient district between the Vistula River and the Caspian Sea, occupied by the Sarmatians [Lat. Sarmatae] from the 3d cent. B.C. through the 2d cent. A.D. The term is vague and is also used to refer to the territory along the Danube and across the Carpathians where the Sarmatians were later driven by the Huns. The Sarmatians, who until c.200 B.C. lived E of the Don River, spoke an Indo-Iranian language and were a nomadic pastoral people related to the Scythians (see Scythia), whom they displaced in the Don region. The main divisions were the Rhoxolani, the Iazyges, and the Alans or Alani. They came into conflict with the Romans but later allied themselves with Rome, acting as buffers against the Germans. They were scattered or assimilated with the Germans by the 3d cent. A.D.The common Indo European phonetic mutation allowed
-m > -mb > -b from
Sarmoi >
Serboi.
The name of Sarmatians derived from PIE
Root / lemma: ker-6 and
k̂er- : 'dark colour; dirt, etc'.
ahd.
horo, Gen.
horawes, mhd.
hor,
hurwe `ordure, smut' (
*kr̥-u-); ags.
horh, Gen.
horwes, ahd.
horg `dirty, filthy' (
*kr̥-k-u̯-o); aisl.
horr m. ` nasal mucus, snot, smut'; ags.
hrot m. ` snot ', ahd.
hroz ds., asächs.
hrottag `snotty'; ahd.
ruoz,
rouz, mhd.
ruoz,
ruost, asächs.
hrot `smut'; ags.
hrum m. `smut', asächs.
hrum, mhd. PN
Rum-olt;
Maybe
Sarmoi >
Serboi,
Srb from lit.
sarma `gray, white weasel' [common PIE
b > w mutation].
Both root names
Hrv (Croat) and
Srb (Serb) are interchangeable: s > h, b > v phonetic mutations. Clearly
Srb (Serb) is the origin of the latter
Hrv (Croat).
lit.
šir̃vas `gray, greyish-blue' (*
k̂r̥-
u̯o-
s),
šir̃mas ds. (
*k̂r̥-mo-s), lett.
sirms `gray' (compare ai.
śyā-má- `black, dark' besides
śyā-vá- ds.); lit.
šir̃vis `hare'; in addition lit.
šarmà f. ` hoarfrost', lett.
sarma, serma ds., lit.
šarmuõ, šermuõ `ermine'
ahd.
harmo, ven.-illyr.
carmō);
šarmuonỹs m. `weasel', with ablaut ostlit.
širmuonė̃lis ds., lett.
sermulis m. `ermine';
The Indo European root/lemma
Root / lemma: ker-6 and
k̂er- : 'dark colour; dirt, etc' could be a collective name for Sarmatea 'dark people'.
Yet the origin of the name
Sarmat could be an Indo European interpretation of
Sabar (
Sabat) common PIE
b > mb > m phonetic mutation].
Serbs and Croats would retain their sumptuous Turkic names in contrast to their Slav mercenaries called Slovenians. Bosnia was populated by an Illyrian tribe called
Besoi which eventually drowned under the Slavic tide. Montenegro would be called by Serbs as
Crna Gora 'black mountain'. The true Slavs who defeated the Avars in the Balkans were actually Slovenians. They would impose their language on defeated Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats and Macedonian Avars. Bulgar Avars would suffer the same identity crises while Huns managed to survive in their tiny kingdom.
The origin of the name Serb from an Indo European root seems incredible. Serbian toponyms in their homeland in Caucasus are often remote to Slavic tongues.
Azerbaijan
Ser-Abad :
Serboi Greek reading.
Both names
Serboi earlier
Sabar and
Hrvat (Croat) earlier
Havar, Avar seem to have originated in the shores of the Caspian Sea. The forefathers of Serbs and Croats were not Indo European but Caucasian.
The names of Asian tribes
Sabar and
Kavar (*
Havar)
Avar derived from the same root [common shift
b > v, also allophones
s/ h].
Serbs (*Sabar) and Croats (Hrvat) were Avar tribes which Magyar sources essentially call Kabar and Kavar.
The remnant of Sabar, Avar excellent horsemanship in Turkish language was stamped in the cognate: tr.
süvari ' cavalier, cavalry, cavalryman, chevalier, mounted troops, man'. Clearly the origin of Serbs and Croats is not Indo European. Although they adopted the language of their slaves, the Sabar and Avar overlords preserved their original name. Franks, a Germanic tribe who had conquered Gaul.It has been understood that the Avar Khanate had had influence particularly over the Islamic tribes. It has been known that as a result of the precautions taken by Avar people, the first Slav groups settled in the Balkans in an essential manner. There are some indicators that showed that this Turkish tribe established domination over the southern and the eastern Slavs for a long time and most of the Slavic tribes were totally defeated by the Avar people.
The Slavic groups were under the domination of German Goths until the 4th century and then, they were under the domination of Turks subject to the Hun Empire. The history of the Slavic communities has turned into nearly "a part of the Turkish history" from that date on. The disperse of crowded Slavic groups towards various Eastern Europe regions and the Balkans took place mostly in the period of Avar people. These large-scaled migrations were arranged and implied by the Avar government. Therefore, the Avar government led them to undertake the agricultural works in order to yield the harvest and crops that were needed by the Avar Khanate and the performance of border forefront services at the same time.
Therefore, various Slavic tribes were directed towards today's Czechoslovakia and the banks of Elbe River, the coasts of Dalmatia and the Balkans. In the years of 750, it was cited that there was some Slav people that were called as "Avar" within the environs ofAthens. In the same periods, the names of the leaders that led the Croatian people to the Adriatic coasts were listed as follows: Kiıliik, Lobel (Alp-el?), Kösenci (Koşuncu), Buga, Tugay. It has been alleged that there were some Avar beys that became Slavs who were the leaders of 9th Pannonia (Western Hungary) and Morva Slav groups. On the other hand, it has been declared that the German tribes abandoned their homelands in the Czech country as a result of the pressure of Avar leaders rather than Slav people that were so weak in respect of war capabilities.
It has also been stated that this situation was confirmed with the works related with Avar art that were found in the Eastern Hungary. Therefore, according to the statement of Bishop Syrian Johannes in the year of 584, "While the Slav people could not dare even to get out of the forests in the past, the Slavs got accustomed to war by means of the Avar people and they became the owners of gold, silver, and herds of horses. They were oriented towards migration in a systematic manner. Therefore, it has been understood that the ethnical map of today's Central and Eastern Europe was drawn by the Avar Khanate. The Avar groups that live in the Caucasus today are accepted as the descendants of them.
The original Serbs and Croats were Central Asian Sarmatian nomads who entered Europe with the Huns in the fourth century A.D. The Sarmatian Serbs settled in a land designated as White Serbia, in what is now Saxony and Western Poland. The Sarmatian Serbs,
adopted the language, and transferred their name to the Slavs. Byzantine sources report that some Serbs migrated southward in the seventh century A.D. and eventually settled in the lands that now make up southern Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Hercegovina. Rival chiefs, or zupani, vied to control the Serbs for five centuries after the migration. Zupan Vlastimir formed a Serbian principality under the Byzantines around 850, and the Serbs soon converted to Eastern-rite Christianity. The Serbs had two political centers in the eleventh century: Zeta, in the mountains of present-day Montenegro, and Raska, located in modern southwestern Serbia.
The proto-Serbs were part of the Caucasian Race much like the Georgians, Mingrelians, Lezghians, Ingush, and spoke a language similar to these peoples. At some point in the history of the Serbs, this Old Serb language stood side by side with the Slavic language in White Serbia (Porphyrogenitus) and likely even in the first 300 years leading up to the formation of the Serb state on the Balkans in the 9th century. Even to this day, the Serb language has at least a third as many words in its vocabulary than other Slavic languages. This is because of the influence of Old Serb and Illyrian as well as Turkish on the Slavic language spoken by Serbs today EXPLAINS THE EB1 IN SERBS. Here is a list of Old Serb words which exist side by side with Slavic words in the modern Serb language.
he Serbs were mentioned by Plinius the Younger in the first century BC (69-75) as living on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov as Serboi in his Geographica. In the 2nd century, Herodotus writes in his Persian Wars that Serbs (Serboi, Sirboi - Serboi, Sirboi) live behind the Caucasus, near the hinterland of the Black Sea. In the fourth century the Carpathians are mentioned as 'Serb mountains' by the Roman emperor Licinius.
In the Caucasus, the homeland of the Serbs, they left their traces around the river Volga (Araxes in Greek). In modern Georgian, that river is called "Rashki". This name was used by Balkan Serbs as a name for their first state and is found wherever the name Serb is found in clusters indicating settlements. It is often used to designate hydronyms and likely meant 'river' or 'water' in Old Serb.
The Serbs migrated in two directions from the Caucasus, northwest and northeast. Those who went northwest became overlords to the Slavs. There they established a mighty empire and became slavicized. Konstantine Porfirogenitus called this "White Serbia". Their descendants are known as Lusatian Serbs today and despite immense Germanization, there are still a few thousand left. These we will call 'White Serbs'.
The other branch moved northeast to the southern base of the Urals, settled there for a period of time and split into two. We will call them 'Volga Serbs'. One tribe moved west and eventually met up with the above mentioned White Serbs. The other moved east and went deep into Siberia and left its traces in the names of cities and towns along the coast of the Sea of Japan. They faded out with onslaught from the Mongols. These we will call 'Siberian Serbs'. It seems likely that Siberia was named after this Old Serb tribe.
It seems that the western branch of the Volga Serbs, upon their rendezvous with the White Serbs did not stay long. They must have found the White Serbs completely Slavicized by then (6th century). The descendants of these Slavicized white Serbs are today's Lusation Sorbs. This would explain why Lusatian Sorbs did not pick up the Caucasian words of the original Serb language while Balkan Serbs retained theirs. The western Volga branch of the Serbs must have left White Serbia immediately upon their own arrival, and according to Porfirogenitus, came to the Balkans (7th cent), invited by Heracleus, defeated the Avars and were given Macedonia to inhabit. There they took the already settled Slavs (who began arriving in the 5th and 6th cents) under their control and became Slavicized much as the White Serbs.
Serbs: living among the ancient peoples of the Black Sea
The first mention of the Serbs ('Serboi') in history locates them in the Caucasus among the Dinaric peoples of Ibero-caucasian linguistic stock.
Here are a few of the earsliest quotations from well known ancient geographers and historians:
Strabon (63 - 19. god. stare ere)
"...the rivier Ksant is called Srbika by the natives."
( Strabonis rerum geographicarum libri septendicini, Basileza 1571 s. 763)
Plinius (69-75 AD)
"... beside the Cimerians live Meotics, Valians Serbs (Serboi), Zingians, Psesians."
("On Nature" "A Cimmerio accolunt Meadici, Vali, Serbi, Zingi, Psesii - Plinius Ceacilius Secundus Historia naturalis, VI, c. 7 & 19 Leipzig 1975)
Claudius Ptolomei (150 AD) - geographer
" ... between the Keraunian mountains and the river Pa, live the Orineians, Valians and Serbs."
(Claudius Ptolomaius, Geographica... V, s. 9)
