Can I reply all your quotes in one? OK, Medieval Albanians were called by two names, although I'm still confused whether one named referred to the people, the other to the language. The first one was Arber or Arben depending on the dialect, and this is what Albanians outside Ottoman Albania still call themselves. There are the Arberesh (<Albanensis) in Italy, Arvanitika in Greece and Arbanasi(also oldest term recorded to refer to Albanian) in Croatia. They're all derived from the same root. It's pretty much agreed it's from Albanoi, but it's a loanword in very very early Albanian.
The other word used to refer to Medieval Albanians, although used more to refer to the language than the people, is Epirotean. In fact one of the oldest Albanian curses was pound in a play "Dramburi te clofto goglie" (I hope your mouth trembles [from sickness]), using Albanian orthography it would be "Dramburi te klofte golje", but standard Albanian form is "Tremburi te qofte goja". The people are not referred as Epirotean, but the language is. The medieval people referred both themselves and the language something that had the root arb-. Epirotean was very likely an exonym. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...28&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103894958891
The term Shqiperi on the other hand appeared very late, earliest mid 17th century, so please don't use the excuse Albanians don't use the term Albania to refer to their country therefore they can't be related. We used to. That's the name we're recorded with during our medieval history. It still refers to Albanians, just not in Albania.
Yeah, I agree I don't know why internet Albanians are so frightened at being part Thracian, it's learned in schools and normal people accept it. I have nothing to say about this. I-Albanians are quite contradicting to what's learned in elementary school. On scholar level, Mysi based on placenames, graves etc. followed the linguistic evolution of Albanian:
This is the last time in history Illyrians are attested. In roughly Mysan territory. But Mysan was related to Thracian https://encrypted.google.com/books?...d=0CEMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=daco mysian&f=false So what, Thracians and Illyrians mingled together? Name mistaking? TBH I just wanted to clarify the Albania-Shqiperi debate, that's why I posted here, I don't care how you interpret that, or why is that map like that. I did not make it. That and I wanted to explain how the Balkan history has been a mess for a looong time.
The only thing that's sure of the origin of Albanians is Proto-Albanians did not originate from somewhere outside the Balkans.
Calling all the Eastern Romanian languages Romanian it's not the right way. It's like denying Mozarabic a place in the Romance family and calling it Spanish. Aromanians are a weird group and cannot be classified as one. The thing is their genetic analyses puts them all in different branches. There is nothing that unites all Aromanian people, they resemble the most the population they reside next to. It's a blanket term. There are several different Aromanians residing in several different countries. They're not the same.
As far as I know Arber or Arben don't mean anything in albanian language. Only shqiptar means something from the word shqipe which means eagle in albanian. You say Arber and Arben are derived from albanoi and they're loanwords. If serbs decide to loan the word greek tomorrow and call themselves greek, that doesn't make them descendants of greeks. If albanians decided to loan the word Arber, Arben or Albanian from albanoi, that doesn't make them descendants of the albanoi
Montenegrins remember those times.
