Balkan Linguistics

Gheg

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The now contemporary Serb idea that Albanians came from Thracians is flawed and silly. Linguistically it has been proven that Albanian couldn't have come from Thracian. The "Bessi" clan or other Thracians named their towns with the word para (town/city) at the end. That goes against the Albanian language rules. In modern Albanian they call a city "qytet" which is a Latin loan. However despite this, one can still prove Albanian couldn't have come from Thracian. For example you can't say "Bessaqytet" in Albanian like "Bessapara" in Thracian because it is grammatically incorrect and does not make sense, you can however say "qyteti i Bessës". This doesn't mean proto-Albanian and Thracian were not related languages because there is evidence for that as well but it does mean Albanian does not come from Thracian. So there goes that theory ;).
 
The now contemporary Serb idea that Albanians came from Thracians is flawed and silly. Linguistically it has been proven that Albanian couldn't have come from Thracian. The "Bessi" clan or other Thracians named their towns with the word para (town/city) at the end. That goes against the Albanian language rules. In modern Albanian they call a city "qytet" which is a Latin loan. However despite this, one can still prove Albanian couldn't have come from Thracian. For example you can't say "Bessaqytet" in Albanian like "Bessapara" in Thracian because it is grammatically incorrect and does not make sense, you can however say "qyteti i Bessës". This doesn't mean proto-Albanian and Thracian were not related languages because there is evidence for that as well but it does mean Albanian does not come from Thracian. So there goes that theory ;).

I don't understand how this proves once and for all that Albanian can't be a Daco-Thracian language (the theory is not necessarily that it comes from Thracian, I've actually seen more proposals about a link with Dacian, which was actually probably more than 1 language). I mean, if the very word for "city" in Modern Albanian comes from Latin, then we don't know what the native term was. Also, as for grammatically incorrect toponyms, this is not really a proof because the grammar of most European languages changed from syntectic to more analyctical in the last 2 milennia. Many Latin expressions and toponyms are "gramaticaly incorrect", that is, not a part of the way Neo-Latin (Romance) languages work any more, because they all use much more prepositions and conjunctions than Latin, but despite those profound changes in the way the sentences and expressions are formed they still come from Latin without a drop of doubt. I'm not saying Albanian does come from Thracian, but this is certainly not the best argument to counter that hypothesis.
 
I don't understand how this proves once and for all that Albanian can't be a Daco-Thracian language (the theory is not necessarily that it comes from Thracian, I've actually seen more proposals about a link with Dacian, which was actually probably more than 1 language). I mean, if the very word for "city" in Modern Albanian comes from Latin, then we don't know what the native term was. Also, as for grammatically incorrect toponyms, this is not really a proof because the grammar of most European languages changed from syntectic to more analyctical in the last 2 milennia. Many Latin expressions and toponyms are "gramaticaly incorrect", that is, not a part of the way Neo-Latin (Romance) languages work any more, because they all use much more prepositions and conjunctions than Latin, but despite those profound changes in the way the sentences and expressions are formed they still come from Latin without a drop of doubt. I'm not saying Albanian does come from Thracian, but this is certainly not the best argument to counter that hypothesis.

It actually is proof that the Albanian language and the Thracian language had different rules. Good enough for Noel Malcolm if not you ;). How Latin may have applied names doesn't translate to how proto-Albanian applied names since Albanian is not quite a Romance language . Though it could have become.
 
It actually is proof that the Albanian language and the Thracian language had different rules. Good enough for Noel Malcolm if not you ;). How Latin may have applied names doesn't translate to how proto-Albanian applied names since Albanian is not quite a Romance language . Though it could have become.

To be frank, you probably did not understand the point of my comparison between the Thracian/Dacian/Illyrian > Modern Albanian connection with that of Latin > Modern Romance. The main point is that you're comparing a 17th-20th century language with one from Antiquity and comparing a Latin loanword in a modern language with an indigenous term in an ancient language - and still expecting them to appear to be similar languages. That won't work and is not a good linguistic argument.
 
To be frank, you probably did not understand the point of my comparison between the Thracian/Dacian/Illyrian > Modern Albanian connection with that of Latin > Modern Romance. The main point is that you're comparing a 17th-20th century language with one from Antiquity and comparing a Latin loanword in a modern language with an indigenous term in an ancient language - and still expecting them to appear to be similar languages. That won't work and is not a good linguistic argument.
I understood exactly what you said but I am not sure you understand I am talking about a fundamental structural rule of the Albanian and not some superficial sidefeature that can change over time. You implied some Latin town names are "grammatically incorrect" but you did not take one example, I on the other hand did. Nonetheless I concur, one short paragraph is not enough to disprove a false theory, my post was really a hyperbole :D. But I will recommend you read Noel Malcolm's "Kosovo a short history" or at least p.28 through p.40 where he addresses the Bessi and the Thracian theory mistakes some linguists and people here seem to throw around.
 
I don't understand how this proves once and for all that Albanian can't be a Daco-Thracian language (the theory is not necessarily that it comes from Thracian, I've actually seen more proposals about a link with Dacian, which was actually probably more than 1 language). I mean, if the very word for "city" in Modern Albanian comes from Latin, then we don't know what the native term was. Also, as for grammatically incorrect toponyms, this is not really a proof because the grammar of most European languages changed from syntectic to more analyctical in the last 2 milennia. Many Latin expressions and toponyms are "gramaticaly incorrect", that is, not a part of the way Neo-Latin (Romance) languages work any more, because they all use much more prepositions and conjunctions than Latin, but despite those profound changes in the way the sentences and expressions are formed they still come from Latin without a drop of doubt. I'm not saying Albanian does come from Thracian, but this is certainly not the best argument to counter that hypothesis.
one needs to check the admixture of ancient and modern.....since and including the 2015 haak paper, all albanians a very very similar with Greeks ..........I also know for the past year there is a "push" from some areas of scholars to link etruscan and albanian due to these admixture tests.

the issue with Albania is that the Romans latinized the area to a high degree due to the major "highway" from Durres to Istanbul and so any original peoples/cultures etc where completely removed........the byzantines also did a good job using this highway.
 
As for the Dacian theory, that is a little more complicated to assess right now and I won't completely rule it out since that language is nearly extinct. As far as I am concerned, the signs do seem to point towards Illyrian since Illyrian towns are more "Albanian" sounding especially the region towards Malesi. But then Bucurest does sound Albanian as well. What this says at least in part is that some languages (if not all apart from Celtic) north of the Hellenes may have been mutually intelligible. Where Albanians fit exactly I'll leave it up to aDna to hopefully uncover in the near future.

One thing is clear however, politics in this are silly. Let's say for example Albanians did come from Dacians? What then? Does anyone actually think that Kosovo will go back to Serbia? Only someone seriously deluded would.
 
As for the Dacian theory, that is a little more complicated to assess right now and I won't completely rule it out since that language is nearly extinct. As far as I am concerned, the signs do seem to point towards Illyrian since Illyrian towns are more "Albanian" sounding especially the region towards Malesi. But then Bucurest does sound Albanian as well. What this says at least in part is that some languages (if not all apart from Celtic) north of the Hellenes may have been mutually intelligible. Where Albanians fit exactly I'll leave it up to aDna to hopefully uncover in the near future.

One thing is clear however, politics in this are silly. Let's say for example Albanians did come from Dacians? What then? Does anyone actually think that Kosovo will go back to Serbia? Only someone seriously deluded would.

IF albanians did come from Dacians then it would be a breakthrough in finding out that this language is what Dacian spoke before they changed to Latin ............that is important enough
 
one needs to check the admixture of ancient and modern.....since and including the 2015 haak paper, all albanians a very very similar with Greeks ..........I also know for the past year there is a "push" from some areas of scholars to link etruscan and albanian due to these admixture tests.
the issue with Albania is that the Romans latinized the area to a high degree due to the major "highway" from Durres to Istanbul and so any original peoples/cultures etc where completely removed........the byzantines also did a good job using this highway.
A friendly advice, open a geographic map of the region.
 
To be frank, you probably did not understand the point of my comparison between the Thracian/Dacian/Illyrian > Modern Albanian connection with that of Latin > Modern Romance. The main point is that you're comparing a 17th-20th century language with one from Antiquity and comparing a Latin loanword in a modern language with an indigenous term in an ancient language - and still expecting them to appear to be similar languages. That won't work and is not a good linguistic argument.

The problem Gheg is talking about is very simple:
In Albanian: noun - adjective (ex: that is a girl pretty)
In Thracian: adjective - noun (ex: that is a pretty girl)
 
I don’t know why you also talk about Albanians in Greek related discussions.....anyway language arguments do not cut the origin of Albanians only DNA, wait and see, Ancient DNA will from the Balkans will provide answers for this....


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As long Albanians claim Greek heritage
and and believe they are descendants of Greek Kings,

where is your problem?
 
As long Albanians claim Greek heritage
and and believe they are descendants of Greek Kings,

where is your problem?

When you mix E-v13 in Greece discussion with Albanian language the result is just more noise....


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I understood exactly what you said but I am not sure you understand I am talking about a fundamental structural rule of the Albanian and not some superficial sidefeature that can change over time. You implied some Latin town names are "grammatically incorrect" but you did not take one example, I on the other hand did. Nonetheless I concur, one short paragraph is not enough to disprove a false theory, my post was really a hyperbole :D. But I will recommend you read Noel Malcolm's "Kosovo a short history" or at least p.28 through p.40 where he addresses the Bessi and the Thracian theory mistakes some linguists and people here seem to throw around.

What fundamental rule? A change in noun declension to form expressions or a change in the productivity of the formation of noun compounds? Those are simply two things that have changed tremendously between Proto-Germanic and English or between Classical Latin and Portuguese, so I still don't see why you assume that the grammar of modern Albanian can be considered a good proxy for how pre-Proto-Albanian (whether it was an Illyrian, Dacian or Thracian language) worked 2,000 years ago. It simply cannot, unless we find good evidences that there was indeed no big change in grammar since milennia ago.

Oh, and of course there are several examples of Latin toponyms that evidently would not work the same way in a Romance language, much like the compound [something-genitive]-para(city) would not work in Albanian, which has a roughly Romance-like structure formed by [city]-preposition-[something]. The same exact change in the formation of new compound expressions happened from early Vulgar Latin to modern Romance. A good example is Augusta Treverorum, that in Portuguese and other Neo-Latin languages would necessarily be Augusta dos Tréveros, and Castra Batavorum, that in Portuguese should now be translated as Castra dos Batavos, or Colonia Minervia, that should now be Colônia de Minerva. And still, well, Portuguese definitely descends directly from Latin, but with a brand new noun morphology.
 
What fundamental rule? A change in noun declension to form expressions or a change in the productivity of the formation of noun compounds? Those are simply two things that have changed tremendously between Proto-Germanic and English or between Classical Latin and Portuguese, so I still don't see why you assume that the grammar of modern Albanian can be considered a good proxy for how pre-Proto-Albanian (whether it was an Illyrian, Dacian or Thracian language) worked 2,000 years ago. It simply cannot, unless we find good evidences that there was indeed no big change in grammar since milennia ago.

Oh, and of course there are several examples of Latin toponyms that evidently would not work the same way in a Romance language, much like the compound [something-genitive]-para(city) would not work in Albanian, which has a roughly Romance-like structure formed by [city]-preposition-[something]. The same exact change in the formation of new compound expressions happened from early Vulgar Latin to modern Romance. A good example is Augusta Treverorum, that in Portuguese and other Neo-Latin languages would necessarily be Augusta dos Tréveros, and Castra Batavorum, that in Portuguese should now be translated as Castra dos Batavos, or Colonia Minervia, that should now be Colônia de Minerva. And still, well, Portuguese definitely descends directly from Latin, but with a brand new noun morphology.

This is not about noun declensions or compounds :facepalm:. Your examples are simple normal changes that happen with different dialects and far from my example. I.e. in Albanian "I am going" - "Tu shkue"(Gheg), " duke shkuar" (Tosk) What you can't do however is say "shkue tu" or "shkuar duke" . That would be too big of syntactic change, against structural principle.

And there is no such "tremendous" syntactic change between German and English either. "I am John" "Ich bin John" the structural principle is the same. "John I am" - "John ich bin". What you can do in English you can still do in German.

"Kolonia Minerves" or "Kolonia e Minerves" your examples would be normal in Albanian nothing surprising there. What would be impossible in Albanian however would be "Minerva Kolonia" and that seems to be the opposite with Thracian.
 
This is not about noun declensions or compounds :facepalm:. Your examples are simple normal changes that happen with different dialects and far from my example. I.e. in Albanian "I am going" - "Tu shkue"(Gheg), " duke shkuar" (Tosk) What you can't do however is say "shkue tu" or "shkuar duke" . That would be too big of syntactic change, against structural principle.

And there is no such "tremendous" syntactic change between German and English either. "I am John" "Ich bin John" the structural principle is the same. "John I am" - "John ich bin". What you can do in English you can still do in German.

"Kolonia Minerves" or "Kolonia e Minerves" your examples would be normal in Albanian nothing surprising there. What would be impossible in Albanian however would be "Minerva Kolonia" and that seems to be the opposite with Thracian.

You still didn't convince me. What you're considering a "fundamental" change against a structural principle is something that is as easily changeable throughout the milennia as the loss and as "structural" and "fundamental" as noun declensions or lexical derivation. Do you really want us to believe that the fact that adjectives or adjectival/genitive expressions must come after the noun is MORE fundamental and MORE structural than a whole complex system of grammatical cases that was eventualy totally lost in less than 2 milennia? For me at least that won't sound convincing at all. Just look at French, where the main positioning of the adjectives in expressions is now exactly the opposite of Latin's.

As for English vs. German, we really can't keep discussing this issue of grammar if you don't consider as "tremendous syntactic change" such profound changes as the loss of noun declension, the simplification of several verb conjugations, the loss of most verb-second sentence structures, the loss of the rule to place the main verb of a verbal expression in the end of the sentence, and so many others. This is not a matter of opinion open for debate, it's a proven fact: English and German diverged a lot in terms of syntax.

If that's not "tremendous" to you, then you must really be coming from a position where you severely underestimate how much languages (Albanian vs. Pre-Proto-Albanian; English vs. Proto-Germanic) can change in the most unexpected ways in 2,000 years. Anyway, I still think much more research is needed to either confirm or discard the hypotheses about the origins of Albanian. We can't simply dismiss or consider as "long-distance influence" the fact that much of the "Pre-Romance" substrate in Romanian looks suspiciously close to Albanian words, that in a language that supposedly arose in places where Dacian and Thracian tongues were spoken - certainly not in the Illyrian mountains.

We can't simply assume as a given fact that it came from Illyrian when, especially in the long gone past, the regions where it is spoken (and which were probably even larger before Slavic migrations) were literally neighbored by Dacians and Thracians, whose language we still know little about. Albanian may have changed significantly in relation to its Iron Age parent language, because it certainly did not derive directly from either Illyrian, Dacian or Thracian. It's gone through a very long process of evolution.
 
The problem Gheg is talking about is very simple:
In Albanian: noun - adjective (ex: that is a girl pretty)
In Thracian: adjective - noun (ex: that is a pretty girl)
Yes, I understood that, and that's why it baffles me that someone considers that a "fundamental" part of the language and a "structural principle" that could not be changed at all, whereas the same person thinks that the complete loss of a whole system of grammatical cases and noun declensions, which once commanded the entire structuring of a language's sentences, is instead expected and unsurprising in the development of languages. But for some weird reason the simple re-positioning of adjectives (not before, but after the noun) would be impossibly difficult to happen. That, honestly, does not make sense.
 
You still didn't convince me. What you're considering a "fundamental" change against a structural principle is something that is as easily changeable throughout the milennia as the loss and as "structural" and "fundamental" as noun declensions or lexical derivation. Do you really want us to believe that the fact that adjectives or adjectival/genitive expressions must come after the noun is MORE fundamental and MORE structural than a whole complex system of grammatical cases that was eventualy totally lost in less than 2 milennia? For me at least that won't sound convincing at all. Just look at French, where the main positioning of the adjectives in expressions is now exactly the opposite of Latin's.

As for English vs. German, we really can't keep discussing this issue of grammar if you don't consider as "tremendous syntactic change" such profound changes as the loss of noun declension, the simplification of several verb conjugations, the loss of most verb-second sentence structures, the loss of the rule to place the main verb of a verbal expression in the end of the sentence, and so many others. This is not a matter of opinion open for debate, it's a proven fact: English and German diverged a lot in terms of syntax.

If that's not "tremendous" to you, then you must really be coming from a position where you severely underestimate how much languages (Albanian vs. Pre-Proto-Albanian; English vs. Proto-Germanic) can change in the most unexpected ways in 2,000 years. Anyway, I still think much more research is needed to either confirm or discard the hypotheses about the origins of Albanian. We can't simply dismiss or consider as "long-distance influence" the fact that much of the "Pre-Romance" substrate in Romanian looks suspiciously close to Albanian words, that in a language that supposedly arose in places where Dacian and Thracian tongues were spoken - certainly not in the Illyrian mountains.

We can't simply assume as a given fact that it came from Illyrian when, especially in the long gone past, the regions where it is spoken (and which were probably even larger before Slavic migrations) were literally neighbored by Dacians and Thracians, whose language we still know little about. Albanian may have changed significantly in relation to its Iron Age parent language, because it certainly did not derive directly from either Illyrian, Dacian or Thracian. It's gone through a very long process of evolution.


Lol I think you may have had some trouble understanding that I did refer a work to you and did admit that my original post was a hyperbole :). Albanian couldn't have come from Thracian, in my opinion, for reasons outlined in said book and not just because of linguistic reasons. I didn't completely deny a possibility of a Dacian origin however, but I did say, I think signs point to an Illyrian origin. How you misinterpreted that and took it as if I said it was a given fact is beyond me.

The Illyrian toponymy like i.e. Ulcinium >Ulc>Ulk (wolf), Acruium> Cru> Kru (source, fountain head) (Milan Sufflay) etc. seem to correlate to Albanian more than the toponymy in other regions. Can't ignore there seems to be correlation to other regions as well just not to that extent. This is not personal research btw. This, like I said, could mean that the "Barbarians" north of the Hellenes could have spoken a mutually intelligible language. Or Albanians could be a blend of different ancient tribes and as a result inherited some words from all of them, you never know. All in all I think L283 with Albanians looks to be Illyrian, some V13 may not be ,some may, we will see.

Like I said in a previous post I will wait for Ancient DNA to reveal who the Thracians, Dacians, Illyrians, Epirotes, Macedonians and the Greeks were. Dragging this subject through unnecessary mud with just linguistics is futile because it is only a piece of the puzzle.

Adieu,
 
Lol I think you may have had some trouble understanding that I did refer a work to you and did admit that my original post was a hyperbole :). Albanian couldn't have come from Thracian, in my opinion, for reasons outlined in said book and not just because of linguistic reasons. I didn't completely deny a possibility of a Dacian origin however, but I did say, I think signs point to an Illyrian origin. How you misinterpreted that and took it as if I said it was a given fact is beyond me.

The Illyrian toponymy like i.e. Ulcinium >Ulc>Ulk (wolf), Acruium> Cru> Kru (source, fountain head) (Milan Sufflay) etc. seem to correlate to Albanian more than the toponymy in other regions. Can't ignore there seems to be correlation to other regions as well just not to that extent. This is not personal research btw. This, like I said, could mean that the "Barbarians" north of the Hellenes could have spoken a mutually intelligible language. Or Albanians could be a blend of different ancient tribes and as a result inherited some words from all of them, you never know. All in all I think L283 with Albanians looks to be Illyrian, some V13 may not be ,some may, we will see.

Like I said in a previous post I will wait for Ancient DNA to reveal who the Thracians, Dacians, Illyrians, Epirotes, Macedonians and the Greeks were. Dragging this subject through unnecessary mud with just linguistics is futile because it is only a piece of the puzzle.

Adieu,


@Gheg

Ulcini is not Illyrian neither Albanian toponym
it is a colony of Colchians and is the remnant of word COLCHINIUM
and has nothing to do with ulk=wolf

by Pliny the elder

a tout aller
 
@Gheg

Ulcini is not Illyrian neither Albanian toponym
it is a colony of Colchians and is the remnant of word COLCHINIUM
and has nothing to do with ulk=wolf

by Pliny the elder

a tout aller

Can you quote Pliny the Elder, please? Thanks in advance.
 
Useless discussion .....according to Ptolemy might be Greek as well, for for Albanian is Ujk=wolf....we might be wrong so Dna will settle this useless discussion on E-v13 thread.


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V-13 nucleotid is a generick Y-dna mark from minor Asia and Haimos till Italy and East Europe.
its existance at W Balkans at Palaiolithic era, does NOT mark that V-13 is Illyrian or Albanian, neither its high peaks,
you need to search deeper and deeper and also use other combos to find which subclades are possibly connected with a certain ethnicity
and also to find older and younger forms to establish a a connection,

G2a2 was running balkans and Europe at Neolithic era,
because it does not peak somewhere today, does not mean, that was not dominant in Neolithic population,
but finding one at Kleitos Greece and one in Hungary.
what results can you extract?
that Greeks rule till Hungary?
or that Hungarians occupied Greece?

Simple things,
only those who do not understand them, speak about 'global conspiracy'

PS
WHEN YOU FIND THE EXACT OR CLOSER AREA AMONG LEVANT AND CENTRAL EUROPE,
THEN WE KNOW CORRECT.

If a V-13 found in Future at minor Asia, or at Bulgaria,
what extracts you will gather?
 
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