Paleo Balkan Languages

[blevins13]

just wait,
you have already read what is going to come,
But you never took serious what I wrote,

The reason?

Albanian true scientists decades now are struggled by politicians,
politicians loved the para-science which created fantastic myths, overwhelming powers etc etc,

I said it many times, but never never took it as possibility,

Albanian major population fits as Balkanic population, and is major a Balkan population,
the only thing that does not fit in the today place in Linguistic form,

besides soon a genetics parameter that you read it many times,
but you choose to ignore it, will show more about true Albanian population.
A varriant that today you never guess, soon is about to be revealed,
Linguistic already show this varriant, soon will be announced in Gennetics,

Albanians are local Aimos peninsula people,
but from that to original PIE motherlanguage, or para-linguistic, or whatever historical artifficial possibilities, etc etc is 'far far ro' (pa-pa-ro)
Marin Mema is your 'prisoner', understand it.

you should let your true scientists to express them shelves,
and do real search, instead of such we see in TV or read somewhere and then

The 'party' that struggled true Albanian scientific searchers the times of isolation, must end.
Time to turn the page, and welcomed to global community.

most of your population lives abroad, some in EU some outside EU.
they know,

how much long some of you will run, you can not hide anymore,
Isolation era of Hodza is over,
and by blaiming Greeks for whatever happens in your country,
even for drag scandals, or hydropwer plants, or
is not an excuse.

Let the Albanians create a new state, let them fly,
most of them are nice people, waiting for a chance.

Stop the isolation era propaganda from the times of Hodza,
come into the modern more open world.

just decide it.

AND PLZ STOP BLAIMING THE GREEKS FOR WHATEVER HAPPENS IN ALBANIA,
IT IS NOT THE GREEKS BEHIND IF IT IS SNOWING IN TIRANA,
or the horse eat the drying grain



BTW,

Before few posts, it was mnetioned here, by an Albanian the Sevres treaty and the Laussane treaty,
you still blaim the Greeks Blevins,
But today we have violation of Laussane treaty by a third one, not Greek, not Albanian,
Have you any idea, that what you call today S Albania, tomorrow might not be yours, by peacefull way, cause someone else is violating Laussane treaty today? and we might go back to simmilar Sevres treaty?
Have you?

,

Good night Blevins.
When someone is pointing the moon, don't look the finger
finger is not the moon

you are not Western Ottoman empire anymore.
you are not in communistic era anymore,
time to break the stupid chains, that lock a rich country, that has working and progressive people, with stupidity and poverty,
just thing,
'Doctor's' relative has a good % of JP Morgan
the 'Short' has a yacht 36 meters long and at least 3 big buildings, in central squares in Greece
and the 'alcoolic' is about to wash 600 M to Turkey and Australia.

do not bother, yes we have same problems in Greece,
many of our 'chosen' might be even worse,

Yetos...you write a lot without saying anything....like Lazaridis just words no scientific proof.....here most of the people want the truth not IT guy, fake linguistics opinions. I still don’t see any reason why the Albanians should have come from North.....their DNA matches the exact place where they are ....I challenge you which y-Dna haplogroup carrier of Albanian language have came from North, name one?


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[Leutrim]

offcourse,

But History also says the opposite,

The biggest damage from 1700 till 1920's to the Greeks were made by Albanians

most of Aromani and Greeks, even in Peloponese were killed, or looted by Albanians.
remember the term Turk-Albanian,

at 1770-90's , Albanians Killed so many Greeks and Aromani and Sarakatsans, that even the Sultan took care to stop the genocides,
same at 1821

SO STOP CRYING,
THEY DID TO YOU WHAT YOU DID TO OTHERS,

It was not your case to reveange the Orlov's Greek revolt for the Ottomans
But you did.

So Stop Crying, oh poor Albanians,
when you wearing the 'skoutia' the others were dressed with 'tsoli'
So plz STOP it

except if you want to open again the history of what you did to Greeks Aromani Sarakatsans AND EVEN SOULIOTES & ARBANITES


BTW
why I have a feeling that you dream the Ottoman empire times?
are you an Albanian or a Turk-Albanian?

PS,
I am from a land that was guarded by 7 000 Albanian troops and 3 000 Turks at begining of 1900's
the dwellings of pyrgoi, sarakatsana, skoyterna, were burned to the ground.

So stop crying, and see the future.

Without Albanians(Arvanites) your country would still be Ottoman's vassal till Second Balkan war, so be thankful.And please stop writing these bullshits that have never happened.

 

[Yetos]

A tale for all of us,
that it is said by our youth in Greece
mainly at the ages of Lyceum Lykeion, (before university) sometimes very wise.

A man has an ache,
the first he does he goes to the local cafe to ask for help
there all 'wiseb guys' tell him diseases they heard and medicines
- I have aspirin, they say it is good,
-I have basilico with honey and chamomile, it is good, want some?
-put some grappa, with lettuce juice, lemon and cinammon, it reliefs the pain,
tired of the many solutions, goes away,
but the ache continoues

then goes the priest,
the priest gives him some blessings and orders him to eat by church 'kanon', and hands him some prays to read.
and sends him home,

the ache continues, so he decides to go to the old lady who has magical knowledge
the sourceress lights up some herbs, say some spells, and gives him 'emmerald' tea to drink everyday,
Nothing

the ache continues and goes to the village teacher,
well he says I heard about that symptoms, my ungle had them
try these things for a week, and if nothing happens, then we move to the city to the doctor,

Now this has 2 ending varriants

1 varriant, in 6 days the man died,

2 varriant,
in a week, He goes to doctor, the doctor exams him, holds him few days in hospital, and gives him medicines,
then he return to village,

the first he mets is the teacher, and the teacher 'wise guy' says,
-oh so you did not had what my ungle had, (pitty) but it was good that you went to doctor (at least he recogn that, cause also is the one who suggested, but after his 'wise advise', after all he is a scientist)

then he meets the sourceress, she looks at him strange, waiting from him to express his gratitude to her powers,
he moves away, and the sourceress curse him behind his back

then he meets the priest,
-No the doctor did not save you, 'It was the will of God' your prays reach God's ears, and he used his tool the Doctor, to save you, Bless the Almighty, hallelujia

finally reach the cafe,
there he says about his visit to the doctor,
and the reactions,
-ha, no needed, didn't I tell you that you had this, All you had to do was to follow my instructions, not go to city
- what? you did that in vein, all you needed was just a rest and a nap, you spend so much money for nothing, pff Doctors
and a third one, from a distance
- what the doctor said? what is that? can I get that too? STAY AWAY FROM ME, doctors touch dead bodies, they are dirty.

End

 

[Yetos]

Without Albanians(Arvanites) your country would still be Ottoman's vassal till Second Balkan war, so be thankful.And please stop writing these bullshits that have never happened.

you are new in forum
so no blame to you,

so I suggest read some threads,
as also why he came to Peloponese,
and under who's command,

[FONT=&quot]Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha
[/FONT]Thank you
I will not expand more,



[FONT=&quot]Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha[/FONT]

 

[blevins13]

I think you're simplifying this a bit too much, or rather you seem to be projecting the modern genetic and ethnic distribution of the Balkans onto the very remote past, more than 2000 years ago, as if a "northern migration" meant a migration of modern northern populations. However, we already know from some ancient DNA samples (as far north as Hungary and North Italy) that "southern" genetic structures were present in a much wider and much more northerly area in the Late Antiquity. Besides, the hypothesis that I'm referring to here is not about a very northerly location, but actually a geographic core origin in present Kosovo, North Albania, Southern Serbia and Northern Macedonia (not discounting the probable presence of similar dialects and languages around it, including in the rest of present-day Albanian territory). It doesn't even take a "dramatic" migration for that. You also should never assume that the genetic (haplogroups, autosomal admixtures etc.) makeup of the people who lived in that region 2000 years ago was the same as it is now after Germanic, Turkic, Slavic (mainly) and other migrations. They may have simply been very Albanian-like genetically, an extension of the "Illyrian/Western Paleo-Balkan cluster", and that's particularly likely if, as is the case, we're talking about a region that literally borders on the present territory of Albanian. What you guys do not seem to even consider is the possibility that culturally, linguistically and genetically Proto-Albanian people may just have also (but not exclusively) lived outside the borders of present-day Albania, as if that somehow denied the ancient presence of Albanian people and language in the Western Balkans.

Again elaborate your hypothesis....name the year of migration, from which part to which part... and which haplo groups in the Albanian population where part of this migration ....or silence. To me the Albanian tribes has been always at the same place where they have been identified in antiquity.


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[blevins13]

Like you would be able to judge his work. He is so much more intelligent than you are that you might as well be part of two different species.

Btw, it's not even his work.

This is an example of a moderator insulting a member for not agreeing with moderator’s idol. Go figure.


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[Nik]

Thanks for your words, Nik. Nice to see some reasonable and polite behavior in this topic.

Thank you and it's my pleasure to share knowledge and opinions as long as we're both interested in the topic and obviously civil and open minded, without trying to push our opinions to others.

But then do you think Moesian was also an Illyrian/Albanoid language related to Proto-Albanian, but its role was just influencing the local language that would eventually become the modern Albanian dialects? Since there are "Albanian-like" phonetic developments in cities in modern Serbia, Macedonia and of course Kosovo, I'd be tempted to say that Moesian and other local languages were closely related to Proto-Albanian and may have formed part of the "melting pot" and eventual linguistic homogeneization that led to the modern Albanian (and its dialects).

That's the issue I was referring to earlier, that there's no actual melting pot and homogenisation in Albanian until the last 100 years or 1972 which created today's Standard Albanian that still hasn't really affected or endangered any dialect. There was never an unifying central government to create an environment of gradual homogenisation, just random mostly mountainous villages interacting and trading with the city/town nearby at best.

Many or perhaps even most of those speakers may have spoken already similar languages and dialects and just shifted to the dominant language (a bit like Castillian in much of Spain in the Modern Era and Koiné Greek in the Hellenic world in the Middle Ages). But, as you imply, I definitely don't think it's certain that Moesian was the Proto-Albanian core language. It's just a plausible hypothesis, which does not mean it's necessarily the better explanation for what happened.

Again, there was no actual shifting but simply influence further South and West and those that remained got influenced, those that left South brought their variant which again it's as if they pushed and replaced each other. Moesia/Dardania was simply the most Northern area and that's about it, which nowadays represents the North-Eastern Gheg spoken in North-East Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, parts of Northern Macedonia, but it definitely influenced the rest of the North to different degrees.

By the way, I'm aware about the significant divergence between Tosk and Ghegh Albanian, but I find it a bit doubtful that their initial differentiation may date to as much as 2000 years ago, they probably started to split from a common and reasonably more uniform dialect quite a bit later. But, as you say, exposure to different foreign influences (including the influence of other now extinct Albanoid/Illyrian languages) could've hypothetically have contributed somewhat to the modern dialectal differentiation.

Forget about the Gheg - Tosk split and divergence. That's something like "Albanian for dummies" to get the basics of the modern situation. There's an even more archaic and interesting division which is rather West - East and not North - South like nowadays. Some of the oldest Albanian texts from North-West and Montenegro show striking resemblance to archaic Tosk variants which have mostly disappeared or survived only in South Epirus and Greece. These variants barely survived as they received right next to them newcomers from Bosnia and Herzegovina with a distinct dialect, as well as what we're calling the Moesia/Dardanian further East, all these within a strip of land that will take only 1 hour by car to pass through all the 3 "layers".

 

[Johane Derite]

By the way, I'm aware about the significant divergence between Tosk and Ghegh Albanian, but I find it a bit doubtful that their initial differentiation may date to as much as 2000 years ago, they probably started to split from a common and reasonably more uniform dialect quite a bit later. But, as you say, exposure to different foreign influences (including the influence of other now extinct Albanoid/Illyrian languages) could've hypothetically have contributed somewhat to the modern dialectal differentiation.

Even the latest most conservative date for the Tosk-Gheg split put it at around the years 300 AD.

Robert Elsie:

"The major dialect division in the Albanian language, between the Gheg (northern Albanian) dialect spoken north of the Shkumbin River, and the Tosk (southern Albanian) dialect spoken south of the Shkumbin River, which seems to have implications. One of the most prominent features of this dialect split is the historical evolution of an “n” between vowels (VnV). In the southern dialect, this“n” was “rhotacised”, i.e. turned into an “r”. For example, the present term for “Albania” is Shqyp(ë)nia in Gheg and Shqipëria in Tosk.

The rhotacism of southern Albanian is a very ancient development because it occurs in Latin loanwords, too, e.g. Lat. arena “sand” became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë; Lat.vinum “wine” became Gheg venë but Tosk verë. However, rhotacism does not usually occur in Slavic loan words, that obviously entered the Albanian language after the Slavic invasion of the sixth century.As such, the sixth-century Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today. Had the early Albanians immigrated to their present territory from somewhere else, even from the nearby southern central Balkans, it is unlikely they would have done so in two clear and distinct dialect groups."

Like I said, medieval migration of Albanians as Lazaridis is supporting makes no sense for someone that knows even the basics

 

[Ygorcs]

Again elaborate your hypothesis....name the year of migration, from which part to which part... and which haplo groups in the Albanian population where part of this migration ....or silence. To me the Albanian tribes has been always at the same place where they have been identified in antiquity.


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I think you didn't get what I'm trying to say is a possible and plausible hypothesis, not necessarily the truth: considering many evidences which I have already mentioned in other posts, it seems at least plausible to me that the Proto-Albanian language arose from a confluence of dialects in a dialect continuum that may have had a striking presence in the region of Dardania, Moesia Superior and parts of northern Macedonia, roughly from modern North Albania to South Serbia, passing through Kosovo. I am pretty sure Albanian tribes' descendants are still there, aren't you? I'm not denying it is more likely that Albanian indeed derives from an Illyrian language, nor do I think it is likely that Albanians came from a totally different and distant region with a totally different ethnic makeup. As I said in my previous post, which basically you seem to have ignored, is that under that "alternative scenario" there is no need for distinctive haplogroups and autosomal admixtures to be present in the Albanian population and have been markers of that migration. Why? Because the scenario is simply that Albanian-like people and Albanian-like dialects extended more to the north and the east of its present-day distribution. So, obviously, those Proto-Albanoid tribes would be just as "southern" as modern Albanians, because simply the genetic makeup of the entire region was different back then and "genetically Albanian" people had a much greater territory before being pushed southward and southwestward by the eventual large migrations of the Migration Era/Late Antiquity-Early Middle Ages. The hypothesis here is that Proto-Albanian was one among closely related (South) Illyrian languages/dialects (because Proto-Albanian is just not old enough to be synonymous with a Common Illyrian, unless a huge genetic homogeneization had happened in the Western Balkans in the late 1st millennium BC, of course), and that "center of gravity" of that dialect continuum simply shifted southward across the centuries.

 

[Ygorcs]

Thank you and it's my pleasure to share knowledge and opinions as long as we're both interested in the topic and obviously civil and open minded, without trying to push our opinions to others.

Agreed - and much appreciated.

That's the issue I was referring to earlier, that there's no actual melting pot and homogenisation in Albanian until the last 100 years or 1972 which created today's Standard Albanian that still hasn't really affected or endangered any dialect. There was never an unifying central government to create an environment of gradual homogenisation, just random mostly mountainous villages interacting and trading with the city/town nearby at best.

But I wasn't referring to an actual homogenization of the language to form one common, uniform language/dialect, some sort of koiné standard. Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough. I meant that Proto-Albanian, the common ancestor of all present-day dialects, is certainly not old enough to date as far back as Proto-Illyrian/Common Illyrian itself, so it probably expanded and absorbed other closely related dialects/languages somewhen in the past (roughly since the start of the Common Era) before starting to split again. That does not mean, of course, that everyone came to speak exactly the very same dialect (that rarely happens in linguistic history), but, as it's happened multiple times in history, just a certain degree of partial homogenization preventing and earlier and more profound linguistic divergence must've happened. That is, the ancient languages would remain but gradually re-converge or at least not diverge quickly. That can happen even in the absence of a centralized government or a formal literary culture/elite, just through strong areal features and closer contact. Don't you think we should expect a much higher degree of linguistic differentiation if all the modern Albanian dialects had been diverging continuously since the pre-Roman Era?

Again, there was no actual shifting but simply influence further South and West and those that remained got influenced, those that left South brought their variant which again it's as if they pushed and replaced each other. Moesia/Dardania was simply the most Northern area and that's about it, which nowadays represents the North-Eastern Gheg spoken in North-East Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, parts of Northern Macedonia, but it definitely influenced the rest of the North to different degrees.

That sounds very reasonable and probable, indeed. I think that could explain nicely the evidences for a strong Albanoid presence in Moesia/Dardania. Then we could just say that the "center of gravity" of the Albanian-speaking area shifted a bit to the south and west with the later migrations, but the "northern" element (which, contrary to what some people think I am saying, was already Albanoid and genetically "southern" in my opinion) would've just mingled into the existing dialects and influenced some of them as well as been influenced by them. I just happen to think that such a scenario would probably cause that gradual and partial homogenization/re-convergence of the dialect continuum at least up to some point, before they started to diverge again later.

The result of that "shifting" (not shifting the language, but shifting the linguistic distribution concentrating it more in the southwest, i.e. present-day Albania, as the "northern Albanoid" that wouldn't have migrated would've been gradually subsumed into the Slavic and Romance-speaking areas) could've been the formation of the Proto-Albanian linguistic community out of a confluence of several closely related Illyrian dialects/languages. That happened in much of Spain with Castillian in the last 500-800 years, forming the present-day Castillian dialects (e.g. Andalusian) and the modern, pretty Castillianized version of some local languages (e.g. Asturian, Extremaduran, Leonese) out of the partial or in some cases total convergence of languages that were already very similar to each other, causing the near extinction of some of them and the homogeneization of some others. What do you think?

Forget about the Gheg - Tosk split and divergence. That's something like "Albanian for dummies" to get the basics of the modern situation. There's an even more archaic and interesting division which is rather West - East and not North - South like nowadays. Some of the oldest Albanian texts from North-West and Montenegro show striking resemblance to archaic Tosk variants which have mostly disappeared or survived only in South Epirus and Greece. These variants barely survived as they received right next to them newcomers from Bosnia and Herzegovina with a distinct dialect, as well as what we're calling the Moesia/Dardanian further East, all these within a strip of land that will take only 1 hour by car to pass through all the 3 "layers".

Very interesting information! Thanks.

 

[Ygorcs]

Even the latest most conservative date for the Tosk-Gheg split put it at around the years 300 AD.

Robert Elsie:

"The major dialect division in the Albanian language, between the Gheg (northern Albanian) dialect spoken north of the Shkumbin River, and the Tosk (southern Albanian) dialect spoken south of the Shkumbin River, which seems to have implications. One of the most prominent features of this dialect split is the historical evolution of an “n” between vowels (VnV). In the southern dialect, this“n” was “rhotacised”, i.e. turned into an “r”. For example, the present term for “Albania” is Shqyp(ë)nia in Gheg and Shqipëria in Tosk.

The rhotacism of southern Albanian is a very ancient development because it occurs in Latin loanwords, too, e.g. Lat. arena “sand” became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë; Lat.vinum “wine” became Gheg venë but Tosk verë. However, rhotacism does not usually occur in Slavic loan words, that obviously entered the Albanian language after the Slavic invasion of the sixth century.As such, the sixth-century Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today. Had the early Albanians immigrated to their present territory from somewhere else, even from the nearby southern central Balkans, it is unlikely they would have done so in two clear and distinct dialect groups."

Like I said, medieval migration of Albanians as Lazaridis is supporting makes no sense for someone that knows even the basics

Interesting, but honestly I do not think the conclusions written by Robert Elsie should be as categorical as that because of the fact that two clear and distinct dialect groups exist today. Dialects expand and recede, replace others here and there, move their borders in all directions, it's just what usually happens in a dialect continuum especially if it is indeed as old as ~1700 years. It's kind of bold to assume that Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today because of that, as if people never changed their language, let alone their dialect within a more or less mutually intelligible linguistic community. Besides, if the split between Gheg and Tosk indeed began as early as 300 AD, that makes it totally possible (I'm not saying it happened like that, but it's still hypothetically plausible) that at least one of those dialect groups (maybe the northern Gheg) was a later arrival (even if from an adjacent region, e.g. Dardania, the etymology of which is probably related to Proto-Albanian) that moved into and partially replaced other dialect group(s) in part of their former territories, perhaps also getting influenced by the local and similar dialects already put in place there.

Nobody can just assume that, if two dialect groups have a separate distribution nowadays, then that distribution is exactly the same that existed more than a millennium ago, and there was no shift, no convergence, no replacement and no expansion of dialects. That is, considering the possibility that an Albanoid (maybe "South Illyrian") dialect continuum existed beyond the borders of present-day Albania and had a larger reach than it has now ~2000 years ago, which is actually pretty likely. What perhaps that information alone (without any other input) indicates to us is just that the two main Albanian dialect groups belonged to different areas even in the remote past and were in that broad region for a very long time. But projecting present-day situations onto the distant past is just not accurate.

 

[LABERIA]

There is a consensus that the split into dialects occurred before the arrival of the Slavs. When this happened, it is not known.
One thing is certain, however, that the split happened in the territories where the Albanians live now. It would be unthinkable that this division would happen elsewhere and these groups would emigrate to the current territory where they live strictly respecting this dialectal split. This is possible only with the teleportation of Enterprise.
Then, the internal movements in these territories inhabited by Albanians were and are a normal thing.

 

[blevins13]

I think you didn't get what I'm trying to say is a possible and plausible hypothesis, not necessarily the truth: considering many evidences which I have already mentioned in other posts, it seems at least plausible to me that the Proto-Albanian language arose from a confluence of dialects in a dialect continuum that may have had a striking presence in the region of Dardania, Moesia Superior and parts of northern Macedonia, roughly from modern North Albania to South Serbia, passing through Kosovo. I am pretty sure Albanian tribes' descendants are still there, aren't you? I'm not denying it is more likely that Albanian indeed derives from an Illyrian language, nor do I think it is likely that Albanians came from a totally different and distant region with a totally different ethnic makeup. As I said in my previous post, which basically you seem to have ignored, is that under that "alternative scenario" there is no need for distinctive haplogroups and autosomal admixtures to be present in the Albanian population and have been markers of that migration. Why? Because the scenario is simply that Albanian-like people and Albanian-like dialects extended more to the north and the east of its present-day distribution. So, obviously, those Proto-Albanoid tribes would be just as "southern" as modern Albanians, because simply the genetic makeup of the entire region was different back then and "genetically Albanian" people had a much greater territory before being pushed southward and southwestward by the eventual large migrations of the Migration Era/Late Antiquity-Early Middle Ages. The hypothesis here is that Proto-Albanian was one among closely related (South) Illyrian languages/dialects (because Proto-Albanian is just not old enough to be synonymous with a Common Illyrian, unless a huge genetic homogeneization had happened in the Western Balkans in the late 1st millennium BC, of course), and that "center of gravity" of that dialect continuum simply shifted southward across the centuries.

Again scenarios based in thin air....From what you write it seems that you have no idea of the Albanian tribes culture and geography. Moesia is a flat land while Albanian tribes show shepherd’s culture. And as for Dna, deep testing should be able to dive these assumed new comers in current modern Albania. And when this event happened, give us a hint.


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[Ygorcs]

Again scenarios based in thin air....From what you write it seems that you have no idea of the Albanian tribes culture and geography. Moesia is a flat land while Albanian tribes show shepherd’s culture. And as for Dna, deep testing should be able to dive these assumed new comers in current modern Albania. And when this event happened, give us a hint.


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It's interesting you don't consider it likely that speakers of Proto- or Pre-Albanian may have lived in Moesian flat lands because of the "shepherd's culture" of the more historically recent Albanian tribes, since many Albanian members, apparently very nationalist ones, have repeatedly presented linguistic evidences of Proto-Albanian presence in Dardania (the toponym itself), in parts of Macedonia and in towns of present-day Serbia (e.g. Nish). Therefore, either Proto-Albanian speakers could well have lived in flat lands, too, and were not somehow intrinsically restricted to the mountains and to shepherd activities, with a much broader geographic range and a more diversified economy than you're implyign; or all those supposedly Albanian etymologies that evidence the Albanoid character of people living in those lands are in fact incorrect. You can't have both ways.

By the way, the example of the Vlachs, descendants of the Romanized Balkanites and mainly changed into semi-nomad shepherds along the Middle Ages, should give us a hint that unsurprisinly people can adapt their economic strategies and conequently their way of life, especially when they migrate (or are pushed out) from their original lands and arrive at a land with a different natural environment.

 

[Ygorcs]

There is a consensus that the split into dialects occurred before the arrival of the Slavs. When this happened, it is not known.
One thing is certain, however, that the split happened in the territories where the Albanians live now. It would be unthinkable that this division would happen elsewhere and these groups would emigrate to the current territory where they live strictly respecting this dialectal split.

I see no reason to presume that that would be totally "unthinkable" if we're talking of events that supposedly would've happened more than 1500 years ago, and the possibility of extension of the Albanian-speaking area to the immediate vicinity of present-day Albanian borders (not remote lands at all). It's not like dialects or even distinct languages cannot expand and become totally dominant in one region, pushing others out or replacing them along the centuries with internal movements or even just with linguistic prestige and concomitant expansion.

By that token one would look at the present neatly defined distribution between Portuguese and Castillian and presume that that distribution is very, very old, dating back to the Roman Empire, just because you can't find Castillian-like dialects in Portugal or Portuguese-like dialects in the Castillian-speaking regions of Spain, i.e. "they're strictly respecting this dialectal split". Languages/dialects tend to absorb all the neighbors when they expand their reach and become more influential than the others, thus creating different dialectal groups and neatly distinct dialectal areas.

I'm not saying that's what happened with Albanian, but to assume that it's "unthinkable" that a clear dialectal division couldn't have happened elsewhere just because of that sounds incorrect to me. In my own personal opinion, Albanian was definitely spoken in Albania since the very beginning (pre-Roman Era), but it's not certain that its distribution was exactly the same as it is nowadays (as you guys assume as a kind of dogma) and that it was spoken exclusively and exactly on the very same lands that it is now, and no Albanian-speaking migration into Albania may have happened in the past (even from neighboring Dardania and Macedonia) - at least it is not certain due to arguments like the one you exposed above, though others may be stronger.

 

[blevins13]

It's interesting you don't consider it likely that speakers of Proto- or Pre-Albanian may have lived in Moesian flat lands because of the "shepherd's culture" of the more historically recent Albanian tribes, since many Albanian members, apparently very nationalist ones, have repeatedly presented linguistic evidences of Proto-Albanian presence in Dardania (the toponym itself), in parts of Macedonia and in towns of present-day Serbia (e.g. Nish). Therefore, either Proto-Albanian speakers could well have lived in flat lands, too, and were not somehow intrinsically restricted to the mountains and to shepherd activities, with a much broader geographic range and a more diversified economy than you're implyign; or all those supposedly Albanian etymologies that evidence the Albanoid character of people living in those lands are in fact incorrect. You can't have both ways.

By the way, the example of the Vlachs, descendants of the Romanized Balkanites and mainly changed into semi-nomad shepherds along the Middle Ages, should give us a hint that unsurprisinly people can adapt their economic strategies and conequently their way of life, especially when they migrate (or are pushed out) from their original lands and arrive at a land with a different natural environment.

Moesia was too Roman urbanized for the Albanian tribe to survive romanization. As for Vlach how do you know if they changed the way of life from farmers to shepherds? Maybe they were shepherds all along. To me makes more sense that the Albanian tribes that survived romanization we highlander tribes in north and south Albania. Definitely some tribes might have moved but not migrated as you describe. Moesia!!!!? ....think again.


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[Yetos]

Good morning

I have wrote many times about Simon Semeonis

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

but some want to ignore him.

Semeonis in his trip drom Ireland to Jerusalem past from Epidamons, (Dyrracheim)

Simon Notice the existance of Albanian language,
but in Demographics he places 3rd speaking
after Latin and Greek, so what happened and Albanian are now almost exclusive first?

It is called Albanization,
simmilar to Hellenization, simmilar to Latinization etc,

in 300 years Albanian language spread either by peace,
either by force like the case of Moscholpolis (aromani great center)
either by priviledges given by the Great Gate (Υψηλη Πυλη) Sultan Himshelf,

some Slavomakedonian Searchers Give a huge expand from the times of vallavan Pasha till today,
especially at 1700 and after,

as for starting place of albanian speaking at today Albania is considered Germidava the ancient city Greeks used to call Thermidava.
Starting era the times of Maximus of Moesia,
through time created a language mainly based on old Getto-Thracian aspirations but absorving and assimilating local older languages, like Illyrian Brygian primitive Greek Latin and Slavic.

Major of population is local, who got Albanized,


Btw
the return of Maniakis
Maniakis forces were mainly from today Romania, although he was from Bithynia
late Romans and Byzantines used to take population from a far country to send to another country

 

[Ownstyler]

I see no reason to presume that that would be totally "unthinkable" if we're talking of events that supposedly would've happened more than 1500 years ago, and the possibility of extension of the Albanian-speaking area to the immediate vicinity of present-day Albanian borders (not remote lands at all). It's not like dialects or even distinct languages cannot expand and become totally dominant in one region, pushing others out or replacing them along the centuries with internal movements or even just with linguistic prestige and concomitant expansion.

By that token one would look at the present neatly defined distribution between Portuguese and Castillian and presume that that distribution is very, very old, dating back to the Roman Empire, just because you can't find Castillian-like dialects in Portugal or Portuguese-like dialects in the Castillian-speaking regions of Spain, i.e. "they're strictly respecting this dialectal split". Languages/dialects tend to absorb all the neighbors when they expand their reach and become more influential than the others, thus creating different dialectal groups and neatly distinct dialectal areas.

I'm not saying that's what happened with Albanian, but to assume that it's "unthinkable" that a clear dialectal division couldn't have happened elsewhere just because of that sounds incorrect to me. In my own personal opinion, Albanian was definitely spoken in Albania since the very beginning (pre-Roman Era), but it's not certain that its distribution was exactly the same as it is nowadays (as you guys assume as a kind of dogma) and that it was spoken exclusively and exactly on the very same lands that it is now, and no Albanian-speaking migration into Albania may have happened in the past (even from neighboring Dardania and Macedonia) - at least it is not certain due to arguments like the one you exposed above, though others may be stronger.

True, it is not certain that the distribution of the Albanian language and its dialects is not certain to have been identical to today. Actually it much more likely to have been a little different since many ethnic groups lived in Albania, especially in the early Middle Ages, and some non-Albanian areas today were probably speaking Albanian before.

However, what is being suggested is not a gradual and change/expansion of this distribution but the idea that the Albanian language moved into the Albania, and this idea is not is not at all plausible when we consider the dialects. Let me demonstrate with two examples. There are to this day Arbereshe and Arvanite communities who speak their own dialects, mostly Toske. In both cases, the expansion/migration of Albanian speakers included both Tosk and Gegh groups. We know most were Tosk, but there are many northern clans' names among the Arvanites and Arbereshe too. Yet today, all their communities have their own largely coherent dialects. A common migration means people will mingle, localisms will wane and a group identity will be forged.

 

[Johane Derite]

Interesting, but honestly I do not think the conclusions written by Robert Elsie should be as categorical as that because of the fact that two clear and distinct dialect groups exist today. Dialects expand and recede, replace others here and there, move their borders in all directions, it's just what usually happens in a dialect continuum especially if it is indeed as old as ~1700 years. It's kind of bold to assume that Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today because of that, as if people never changed their language, let alone their dialect within a more or less mutually intelligible linguistic community. Besides, if the split between Gheg and Tosk indeed began as early as 300 AD, that makes it totally possible (I'm not saying it happened like that, but it's still hypothetically plausible) that at least one of those dialect groups (maybe the northern Gheg) was a later arrival (even if from an adjacent region, e.g. Dardania, the etymology of which is probably related to Proto-Albanian) that moved into and partially replaced other dialect group(s) in part of their former territories, perhaps also getting influenced by the local and similar dialects already put in place there.

Nobody can just assume that, if two dialect groups have a separate distribution nowadays, then that distribution is exactly the same that existed more than a millennium ago, and there was no shift, no convergence, no replacement and no expansion of dialects. That is, considering the possibility that an Albanoid (maybe "South Illyrian") dialect continuum existed beyond the borders of present-day Albania and had a larger reach than it has now ~2000 years ago, which is actually pretty likely. What perhaps that information alone (without any other input) indicates to us is just that the two main Albanian dialect groups belonged to different areas even in the remote past and were in that broad region for a very long time. But projecting present-day situations onto the distant past is just not accurate.

Its not bold when its a synthesis of countless and countless arguments which just complement the dialect split.

And, I never denied or said that I don't believe Dardania was Albanoid. I firmly believe it to be the case. What I hold issue with is that Albanian languages are being presented as not being present in epirus.

This is wrong on so many levels. First off, there are two strata of ancient greek loanwards. The first one is from local west greek in makedonia and epirus. These are words that were not likely to have travelled far, and
before the reign of Phillip the second, when he began using the greek Koine. The second layer is corinthian type loans that travelled from merchants from far away places, so probably through trading with greeks. This could happen at further locations, whereas the first one has to happen in close contact with western greek dialects. This early close contact also explains how Laconian folk vocabulary could have gotten Albanian loanwords.

Also stop repeating this straw man: that the issue we are having is that we are angry that in ancient times the borders dont match exactly albanians borders today.

Thats not the issue, I already know that the borders arent matched in ancient times (they were much bigger if you look at where Albanian pops up).

The issue is that Albanians presence in Epirus is being avoided/erased without even presenting any evidence, despite the burden of proof being on your end, all of you are just pronouncing this moesian argument. Epirus had the Albanian language in it since before Phillip, at the least, and the laconian folk words in the 7th century bc make it likely that even earlier than that. Nobody has debunked this or proven this wrong, yet they just make these bold statements.

Read this again:

"The presence of ancient West Greek loans in Albanian implies that in classical antiquity the precursors of the Albanians were a Balkan tribe to the north and west of the Greeks. Such people would probably have been 'Illyrians' to classical writers. This conclusion is neither very surprising nor very enlightening since the ethnographic terminology of most classical authors is not very precise. An Illyrian label does little to solve the complex problems of the origins of the Albanian language.

The Makedonian nature of these loans is supported by the geographical distribution Of classical place-names that show the same effects of the Albanian accent rule:
8) Niš (Alb Nish) < ad Naissum, Ναϊσσός,
9) Rusc (in Bogdan, modern *Rush, present-day Dubrovnik) <
ad Rugúsās,
10) Štip (Alb Shtip) < "Aotlßov and
11) Vloré (Gheg Vloné) < Αυλώνα.

These place-names leave little doubt that the Albanian accent rules were observed over Macedonia, Epirus and Upper Moesia.

 

[Yetos]

"The presence of ancient West Greek loans in Albanian implies that in classical antiquity the precursors of the Albanians were a Balkan tribe to the north and west of the Greeks. Such people would probably have been 'Illyrians' to classical writers. This conclusion is neither very surprising nor very enlightening since the ethnographic terminology of most classical authors is not very precise. An Illyrian label does little to solve the complex problems of the origins of the Albanian language.

also the existance of Brygian Illyrian etc

Yes and no

it may implies neighbohood,
BUT
it may also implies Albanization of Illyrian Brygian Greek speaking populations

Symon Semeonis demographics show the second