CrazyDonkey
Regular Member
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The term 'Pelasgian' is used in different ways by different authors. Sometimes apparently it was used for speakers of non-Doric 'Greek', possibly for people whom we label today 'Bronze Age Greeks'.
The statement that this term refers to 'pre-Greek inhabitants of Greece' is false. First of all that is a modern concept. There no such concept in ancient sources.
Also, another statement which is false is that 'the Greeks generally equated Pelasgians with Etruscans'
I take the term to refer to remnants of the pre-Greek "neolithic" population. Herodotus:
If one can judge by this evidence, the Pelasgians spoke a barbarian language. And so, if the Pelasgian language was spoken in all these places, the people of Attica being originally Pelasgian, must have learned a new language when they became Hellenes.
The Athenian claim of being originally Pelasgians is half-true - the base population of the Mycenaeans were originally non-Greek farmers who were part of the Neolithic expansion from Anatolia and the Near East.