Where does the Albanian language come from? [VIDEO]

[kl1ki]

Hello Hawk,

In your opinion, what is preventing scientists in the Balkans (or anyone else) from finding and examining Ancient Illyrian skeletons to 1) Analyze their DNA 2) Compare to modern populations 3) Close the gaps of historical disagreements through science? Perhaps lack of funding or not enough interest?

I've skimmed over these forums to discover fascinating theories on Illyrians, especially your comments regarding the Albanian ethnogenesis, but I believe nothing will be objectively and undeniably agreed upon unless DNA evidence is brought into the picture. Otherwise, it's the Albanian theory vs Skeptic theory; a never ending (and often volatile) discussion.

For example, two recent studies show that Albanians have some continuity with Thracians and Mycenaeans, which is what we have always known (that Albanians are Paleo-Balkan), but up until then, many historians, especially those from particular countries in Europe, have denied Albanian Paleo-Balkan origins in favour of more pseudoscientific explanations to muddy the waters of history.

For this reason, I would like to know how much credibility the Illyrian theories have, and even better, why not find DNA to solve the discussion once and for all?

Sorry if this is an inappropriate thread to ask or if I've deviated from the rules at all by not opening a new thread.

It's my first time commenting here.

I'm not sure where you saw this or who told you about these "studies" but no such studies exist. This is something which you can spot yourself very easily by checking the distance between Albanians and Mycenaeans.

 

[Riverman]

Well, that's the North European PCA with the proper references:

Main groups:

 

[Archetype0ne]

The only study that comes to mind is Lazaridis paper but that one used fstats, so its not exactly PCA based. What it said iirc is that from modern populations Greeks, Italians, Albanians and maybe some more I am forgetting show "continuity" with Minoans and Myceneans. There was huge debates at the time, and I think that is the most discussed thread on this forum so I hope it stays there.

 

[Southpaw]

Hello Hawk,

In your opinion, what is preventing scientists in the Balkans (or anyone else) from finding and examining Ancient Illyrian skeletons to 1) Analyze their DNA 2) Compare to modern populations 3) Close the gaps of historical disagreements through science? Perhaps lack of funding or not enough interest?

I've skimmed over these forums to discover fascinating theories on Illyrians, especially your comments regarding the Albanian ethnogenesis, but I believe nothing will be objectively and undeniably agreed upon unless DNA evidence is brought into the picture. Otherwise, it's the Albanian theory vs Skeptic theory; a never ending (and often volatile) discussion.

For example, two recent studies show that Albanians have some continuity with Thracians and Mycenaeans, which is what we have always known (that Albanians are Paleo-Balkan), but up until then, many historians, especially those from particular countries in Europe, have denied Albanian Paleo-Balkan origins in favour of more pseudoscientific explanations to muddy the waters of history.

For this reason, I would like to know how much credibility the Illyrian theories have, and even better, why not find DNA to solve the discussion once and for all?

Sorry if this is an inappropriate thread to ask or if I've deviated from the rules at all by not opening a new thread.

It's my first time commenting here.

Hey, i don't have an answer to your question. As far as i know, Albanian archaeologists actually sent samples to the Western laboratories and we will have results soon enough, so far from Early Bronze Age North Albania 1 R1b-PF7562 is confirmed, Middle Bronze Age Albania 1 J2b2-L283 is confirmed, and the person who leaked the results (by confirmed i mean if we trust his word, the leaks make sense anyway) said that he expects E-V13 to show up during Iron Age in Albania (he didn't confirm as the previous two results though).

Curious, is your paternal origin Albanian?

 

[Androgenica]

Said studies do exist, Excine.

Mycenean/Ancient Greeks:"We generated genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals. . . We estimated FST of Bronze Age populations with present-day West Eurasians, finding that Mycenaeans are least differentiated from populations from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, and Italy"

Thracians: "Computing the frequency of common point mutations of the present-day European population with the Thracian population has resulted that the Italian (7.9%), the Albanian (6.3%) and the Greek (5.8%) have shown a bias of closer [mtDna] genetic kinship with the Thracian individuals than the Romanian and Bulgarian individuals (only 4.2%)

Eupedia won't allow me to post links until I have 20 points.

From this text, you can easily find the sources.

Also, I'm skeptical of online "genetic calculators". Who devised them and with what sample size, references, and data? I would love to see sources first before believing it as 100%.

 

[Androgenica]

Hey, i don't have an answer to your question. As far as i know, Albanian archaeologists actually sent samples to the Western laboratories and we will have results soon enough, so far from Early Bronze Age North Albania 1 R1b-PF7562 is confirmed, Middle Bronze Age Albania 1 J2b2-L283 is confirmed, and the person who leaked the results (by confirmed i mean if we trust his word, the leaks make sense anyway) said that he expects E-V13 to show up during Iron Age in Albania (he didn't confirm as the previous two results though).

Curious, is your paternal origin Albanian?

That's fascinating! Glad to see they're doing this work.

Yes, my father is Albanian from Kosovo.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

You are so uneducated on this topic, it's quite frankly embarrassing. Geg/Tosk split around Shkumbin around 400-500 AD. The split predates Slavic contact.

Their characteristics^[17][18] in the treatment of both native words and loanwords provide evidence that the split into the northern and the southern dialects occurred after Christianisation of the region (4th century AD),^[19][20] and most likely not later than the 5th–6th centuries AD,^[21][22][23] hence occupying roughly their present area divided by the Shkumbin river since the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic period, straddling the Jireček Line.^[24][25][26]

Nice wikipedia quote. Imaginary split right on the Shkumbin river around 450 AD. This is black Athena tier. If Tosk and Gheg split around that time frame, it did not happen on the Shkumbin, guaranteed. But I suspect this is just gentle treatment some "expert" wrote not to offend the special needs crowd, so they don't riot. Illyrian at all costs.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

J-L283 comprises about 30% of Timacum Minus in late antiquity. Tim Minus is in the far east of Serbia. Wherever you want to assume Proto-Albanian-speakers were, in eastern Serbia or right in the middle of the Mat valley, they're going to have J-L283. It's as simple as that.

In a Roman city yes. Just like you live in America now under the American imperialism era. In two decades you'll probably move to China and your lineage will be a good ancient Han haplogroup.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Collapse?? You do realize Komani is argued to be a symbiosis between Illyrians, Greco-Romans, Slavs, Avars, Huns etc right?

Komani likely represents the late proto-Albanian ethnogensis which eventually solidified into the early medieval Albanians mentioned first the first time between the 9th-11th centuries.

Komani is literally a recipe in the making and would demolish our neighbors lies. This is why Serbs, their sympathizers, anti-Albanians and even Albanian ignorants are so terrified at that prospect so they cling to Daco-Thracian nonsense. Anything to pull Albanians out of their homelands. And you wonder why it's forbidden to test those remains.

Depending on the number of remains, Komani culture sites will have it all, from R1b, J2b-L283, E-V13 including R1a and I-Y3120.

Albanians definitely carry some Daco-Thracian stock, but the overwhelming number of lineages and relation to Messapic are clear indicators of a Paleo-West Balkan origin for pre-proto-Albanians.

Even if our language is not Illyrian, there is a large amount of support for Albanian representing a paleo-balkan tongue that likely developed close to their present territories.
Illyrian language family could have been extensive with Proto-Albanian representing one branch.

So, in summary, the discovery of those very lineages among others present in Albanians would fortify that house of cards, not collapse it.

Albanian is not Illyrian. Illyrians had ties to Italics as revealed in their autosomal DNA. They arose on the eastern Alps. Albanian just like Dacian shows strong early contact with Baltic. Proposing proto-Albanian emerging out of the Gava(E-V13 dominated) culture complex is not outrages. Clinging to the Illyrian hypothesis blindly like some ISIS fanatic is ignorant. It takes personality to even consider Daco-Thracian direction, not some average joe that can be programed with the basic Illyrian talking points.

Depending on the number of remains, Komani culture sites will have it all, from R1b, J2b-L283, E-V13 including R1a and I-Y3120.

This is embarrassing. Why don't you add some Q, N, G, and T to make that more colorful. Why not some H as well, one big belly dancing fest.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

This is utterly wrong in so many ways. It's really a shame to think someone could be so deluded. Or perhaps there's a clear agenda.

The diversity of J2b-L283, E-V13 and R1b within Albanians stretches back to the LBA and Iron Age. They were present for all stages of the Proto-Albanian ethnogenesis. Actually J2b-L283 and R1b is far more diverse in Albanians that E-V13 which appears to encompass an Iron Age arrival.

E-V13, and R1b didn't arrive in 900AD and absorb J2b-L283 in the 1300s. What in God's good name are you smoking?

These lineages were already part of Proto-Albanians long before the latinuzation process started. Matter of fact E-V13 is more prevelant in latinized populations of the Balkans than J2b-L283 is. But that's something that seems to go over your "J2b-L283 are latinizied Illyrians" mumbo jumbo. With your E-V13/R1b Daco-Thraco-Trojo-Dardanian orig9n of Albanian nonsense.

I don't think you get it. Why does J2b have to be reduced to a one branch or two for it to be assimilated Illlyrian remnants? Why should Albanian E-V13 should be limited to few branches, they have been in the Balkans since the late Bronze Age. You don't know what you're trying to say. In addition, there would have been non-Albanian speaking E-V13 in Albania as well that got there at earlier times, these would eventually be picked up as well just like R1a and I2a were.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

It's obvious 1337, paleorevenge and mount are all the same person.

My account is almost as old as yours. And you are not good at reading people's personalities, just as you are incompetent at understanding history.
The only thing me and Mount have in common, is we are willing to talk and listen to people. Even the most boorish and close minded group out there.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Bessi lived in majority in modern western Bulgaria ................they where 100% a Thracian tribe
The Bessi (/ˈbɛsaɪ/; Ancient Greek: Βῆσσοι, Bēssoi or Βέσσοι, Béssoi) were an independent Thracian tribe
I have not read this 2020 paper on them
https://www.academia.edu/46362991/The_Bessi_in_the_Roman_empire_Studia_academica_Šumenensia_7_2020

The area where Bessi lived had mixed toponyms, Thracian(para ending) and Moesian (Deba, Daba ending). Ancient authors don't make clear distinctions between these different factions and called pretty much everyone south of the Danube Thracian. In Roman time they migrate north-west, occupying the mountain slopes around the border area of Bulgaria-Serbia-Macedonia.

 

[kl1ki]

User Bruzmi on anthrogenica has made a great response on the issue of the linguistic classification of Albanian. Maybe some members here can learn quite a bit about it .

Matzinger's argument in many ways follows that of Hamp, hence he argues that Illyrian = language of the Illyrii proprie dicti and can't be seen as the language from which other languages diversified, but rather as existing in the same era as them. In this scheme, they are grouped under a common wider grouping.

Matzinger (2018), Lexicon of Albanian in Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics (vol. 3), De Gruyter:

Although it is widely believed that Albanian goes back to Illyrian or even Thracian, this view cannot be seriously upheld from the linguistic point of view (see Matzinger 2009). None of the ancient personal or local names ascribed to Illyrian are continued in Albanian without interruption (e.g. the place-name Shkodra is merely a loan from Latin Scodra). Consequently, Albanian cannot be regarded as an offspring of Illyrian or even Thracian but must be considered to be a modern continuation of some other undocumented Indo-European Balkan idiom. However, Albanian is closely related to Illyrian and also Messapic (a language spoken in Southern Italy in antiquity but originally of Balkan origin), which is why Albanian in some instances may shed some light on the explanation of Messapic as well as Illyrian words (see Matzinger 2005): (Messapic-) Oenotrian ῥινός ‘clouds’ ~ Old Geg rẽ, Old Tosk rē ‘cloud’, the Messapic gloss βρένδο- ‘stag’ and the place-name Brundisium (Italian Bríndisi) ~ Old Geg brĩ, or the name of the Illyrian tribe of the Taulantioi ~ Albanian dallëndyshe ‘swallow’ (see Eichner 2004: 10 f.).


Albanian shares a considerable number of words in common with Rumanian (see Solta 1980: 3 f., 125 f. and Vătăşescu 1997). Some of them are remnants of an old inherited vocabulary (e.g. Albanian thark ‘pen for young livestock’ ~ Rumanian ţarc ‘id.’), while others comprise a younger category of Latin words attested in some cases only in Albanian and Rumanian (e.g. Albanian mëngon ‘get up very early’ ~ Rumanian mâneca ‘id.’ ← Latin *mānicāre ‘id.’). Both classes emerged from old and intensive contacts between the Proto-Albanians and the ancestors of the Rumanians. A widespread opinion regards the older category of the Albano-Rumanian common lexicon as the reflex of an ancient substratum of Thracian, Dacian, or unknown origin (a collection of these words is Brâncuş 1983). Aside from a few single words of perhaps non-Indo-European origin (Albanian modhullë ‘yellow vetchling [Lathyrus aphaca]’ ~ Rumanian mazăre ‘pea’), the largest part of this alleged substratum common to both Albanian and Rumanian consists simply of loan-words in Rumanian from Proto-Albanian, e.g. Rumanian ţarc ‘pen for young livestock’ from Proto-Albanian */tsárka-/ (Modern Albanian thark). The derivational base of this noun is continued in the Old Albanian verb thurën ‘interweave’ (< IE */k̑erH-/ ‘weave’, cf. Latin crātis ‘pen’; see details in Schumacher 2009: 43−45).

It is a characteristic feature of the Albanian language to be open to loan-words from various sources. The oldest stratum is found in Ancient Greek loans, which result from contacts between Greeks and speakers of Proto-Albanian from about 600 BCE onward. Subsequent to the Roman occupation of the Balkans, Proto-Albanian was heavily influenced by Latin. Single words as well as a good many derivational suffixes were taken over. The Greek loan-words are of various chonological origins. The oldest are of Ancient Greek (Doric) provenance, mostly designations of vegetables, spices, fruits, animals, and tools (cf. Old Geg drapënë, modern Albanian drapër ‘sickle’ ← δρέπανον ‘id.’, Old Geg lakënë, modern Albanian lakër ‘cabbage’ ← λάχανον ‘potherbs’, presh ‘leek’ ← πράσον ‘id.’). These loans resulted from the earliest contacts between Greeks − either colonists of the Adriatic coastal regions or more probably Greek merchants in the Balkan hinterland − and Proto-Albanians from the 8th century BCE on.

For Matzinger, Proto-Albanian and Illyrian and Messapic existed in the same era.

Hamp (2012) reconstructs the relation between them as:

Joseph and Hyllested (2022)(to be published) will reconstruct the relation between Messapic and Albanian as part of an "Illyric" branch in a broader argument about a wider Armenian-Greco-Phrygian-Illyric IE branch.

I believe that linguistic investigations are useful, but they will be limited as they inadvertently rely on a small linguistic dataset because very little is known about Illyrian-Messapic. DNA studies about Iapygians and Illyrians have shown they shared the same origin. In my opinion, we should treat Illyrian and the relation with attested languages in the same way as the relation between Proto-Germanic and Germanic languages today. Frisian and Norwegian both stem from Proto-Germanic, but they have diversified and they are independent languages today.

Clearly, some individuals on this forum are irritated and ignorant of what linguists are truly saying. Matzinger, who entirely dismisses a Thracian or Dacian origin for Albanian, despite being one of the more controversial scholars discussed on this forum. Despite this, the E-V13 dilemma has led users to incessantly clutch at baseless Dacian or Thracian origins for the Albanian language.

 

[kl1ki]

This forthcoming paper disproves PaleoRevenge's assertion that Balto-Slavic and Albanian share the greatest number of isoglosses. With regard to Joseph and Hyllested; However, the authors argue that Albanian and Greek are the Indo-European languages closest to each other, not Balto-Slavic, so there goes that.

 

[torzio]

This forthcoming paper disproves PaleoRevenge's assertion that Balto-Slavic and Albanian share the greatest number of isoglosses. With regard to Joseph and Hyllested; However, the authors argue that Albanian and Greek are the Indo-European languages closest to each other, not Balto-Slavic, so there goes that.

link this paper ......

Messapic language at 300BC was not a pure North-Balkan language anymore, it had already been mixed with the local italic people they absorbed after 600 years .........the language is compromised......it would have Samnite and Calabri mixed in by that time

Every language changes .............English today is different from English 500 years ago

 

[Southpaw]

link this paper ......
Messapic language at 300BC was not a pure North-Balkan language anymore, it had already been mixed with the local italic people they absorbed after 600 years .........the language is compromised......it would have Samnite and Calabri mixed in by that time
Every language changes .............English today is different from English 500 years ago

Funny that he quotes Matzinger 2018 and he doesn't quote the published book of 2021. Matzinger is refuting Illyrian-Albanian connection as much Albanian-Thracian connection.

The thing is, we are not really sure whether Albanoid was part of Balkan-Yamnaya IE or came with Channeled-Ware people per this model. Yet to see.

 

[enter_tain]

Funny that he quotes Matzinger 2018 and he doesn't quote the published book of 2021.

You know a scholar is legit when he changes his mind every 3 years.

 

[kl1ki]

Funny that he quotes Matzinger 2018 and he doesn't quote the published book of 2021. Matzinger is refuting Illyrian-Albanian connection as much Albanian-Thracian connection.

The thing is, we are not really sure whether Albanoid was part of Balkan-Yamnaya IE or came with Channeled-Ware people per this model. Yet to see.

There's 0 difference from Matzinger's work in 2018 and the book Die Illyrer. Matzinger's argument is that Proto-Albanian was already an existing language in the 8th century BC thus it can't be a "modern continuation of Illyrian of Illyrii Proprie Dicti" since for Matzinger Proto-Albanian was coterminous with the language of the Illyrii proprie dicti and Messapic. For Matzinger they are separate languages by that time "however, Albanian is closely related to Illyrian and also Messapic (a language spoken in Southern Italy in antiquity but originally of Balkan origin), which is why Albanian in some instances may shed some light on the explanation of Messapic as well as Illyrian words". (Matzinger 2018) which is a position held by Hamp:

 

[enter_tain]

User Bruzmi on anthrogenica has made a great response on the issue of the linguistic classification of Albanian. Maybe some members here can learn quite a bit about it .

Clearly, some individuals on this forum are irritated and ignorant of what linguists are truly saying. Matzinger, who entirely dismisses a Thracian or Dacian origin for Albanian, despite being one of the more controversial scholars discussed on this forum. Despite this, the E-V13 dilemma has led users to incessantly clutch at baseless Dacian or Thracian origins for the Albanian language.

Albanian and Messapian being linked has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even non-linguists can pick on basic stuff

biri -> bilihi whereas in Latin (filius)
bija -> biliha whereas in Latin (filia)
ner -> njeri

Now the Iapogyes DNA link to Italy is seeing that even "Illyrian" (who for some reason just means Croatian Illyrians to a select few) belongs to this triangle.

 

[enter_tain]

which is a position held by Hamp:

Hamp was smart enough to recognize the region of Illyria was too big for it to be 1 identical language. Matzinger is either too stupid or hoping to trick his university into employing him with scam research.

To talk of "Illyrians" is like to talks of Celts or Italics. There was no 1 Celtic language or 1 Italic language but a family of them.