Where does the Albanian language come from? [VIDEO]

[Southpaw]

What makes all these Albanian - Daco-Thracian concordances that these linguists argue for interesting also is the particular relevance of Albanopolis to the Albanian ethnogenesis.

In Thomas Maurer and Elvana Metalla's latest 2024 study on Albanopolis, their analysis of the earliest inscription to mention Albanopolis, found in North Macedonia, points out the all the names of these early Albanopolis dwellers belong to the Daco-Thracian realm, not the Illyrian realm.

Given that this region is where the Albanian people get their name from, the importance of this cannot be understated.

They write:

"A look at the known Illyrian name material shows the absence of comparable personal names in present-day Albania and the surrounding northern regions.

Thus, we must conclude that the names of the person(s) from Albanopolis mentioned in the inscription from Gorno Sonje are more likely to be associated with the (Western) Thracian than with the Illyrian linguistic area."

View attachment 18618

This is a very interesting find.

 

[Johane Derite]

Very interesting new development:

This Tuesday at the 43rd edition of the International Seminar on Albanian Language, Literature, and Culture held in Prishtina, linguist and researcher Alexander Robert Herren gave a fascinating presentation of his new article about Proto-Albanian.

Mostly it was about comparing how "Proto-Albanian" is actually defined differently across the works of many different scholars and an attempt at giving a more updated and rigorous definition of what constitutes the Proto-Albanian language as well as timing its linguistic contacts with Eastern Romance more precisely.

This was a really interesting lecture but what really stood out for me was a short preview of a dissertation that he is working on that has huge ramifications.

Specifically, he gave us a sneak peek into some of the conclusions from his upcoming dissertation which i have put below:

"There are up to 120 lexemes in Daco-Romanian (and far fewer in the sub-Danubian Eastern Romance varieties, i.e. Aromanian, Megleno-Aromanian, and Istro- Romanian)."

So this is huge as it infers geographic information about the Proto-Albanian community, namely that it must have been closer and in more intense contacts with the proto-Romanians then the more southern proto-Aromanians, Megleno-Aromanians, etc.

This means Proto-Albanian must have been north of them.

Also very interesting is that certain phonological mismatches in the proto-albanian loans into Daco-Romanian shows that the period of contact when this intense cohabitation/exchange could have happened was when Proto-Albanian was undergoing internal phonological changes in its sound system.

Now lets revisit this map after taking into consideration these new findings:

 

[Johane Derite]

View attachment 18674

I took this screenshot from the revised paper "Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians"

I will make a post about latest localisations of Albanopolis as well as some other overlooked points regarding it in the next week or two.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

"There are up to 120 lexemes in Daco-Romanian (and far fewer in the sub-Danubian Eastern Romance varieties, i.e. Aromanian, Megleno-Aromanian, and Istro- Romanian)."

So this is huge as it infers geographic information about the Proto-Albanian community, namely that it must have been closer and in more intense contacts with the proto-Romanians then the more southern proto-Aromanians, Megleno-Aromanians, etc.

This means Proto-Albanian must have been north of them.

Also very interesting is that certain phonological mismatches in the proto-albanian loans into Daco-Romanian shows that the period of contact when this intense cohabitation/exchange could have happened was when Proto-Albanian was undergoing internal phonological changes in its sound system.

The conclusion is wrong. This comparison was known in the past, and I am glad they are doing a more detailed re-analysis. But the reason Romanian shares more with Albanian than Aromanian, Megleno-Aromanian, and Istro- Romanian cognates is because the Romanians came into contact with the Hutsuls or their ancestral group and borrowed additional Dacian words through them. From y-haplogroup point of view Romanians and Albanians do not have much overlap in direct sub-branches of the paleo-Balkan haplogroups. So genetics confirm my point of view. Also from the words Hutusls share with Albanian and Romanian analyze them yourself or ask chat gtp, to which language are the forms closer to, Hutsul words and Albanian are closer to eachother. Romanian words are not true substrate, but second hand borrowing from 1) early Albanian and 2) North Dacian(Hutsuls).

Old research that discussed this very phenomena

E. Illyés, Ethnic Continuity in the Carpatho-Danubian Area - Linguistics

 

[PaleoRevenge]

The ethnogenesis of Albanians seems to have started after the mentioning of Albanopolis by Ptolemy. I do not know the specifics regarding to Albanopolis and its whereabouts but it might be important to pinpoint its location.

View attachment 18674

I took this screenshot from the revised paper "Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians"

The graph is deceptive because R-Z2705 had many branches by 800 AD and in the graph they are all one. To truly see the comparative growth rates of the three main paleo-Balkan clade, all J-L283s and all E-V13s should be collapsed into one.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

A related research to the Romanian question
:https://www.researchgate.net/public...s_and_Carpathianisms_or_Carpathian_Balkanisms

It looks like some authors are flirting with the idea that Balkanism in the Carpathians could be native? That would imply direct Dacian substrate without Romanian transmission as originally assumed.

 

[Johane Derite]

The conclusion is wrong. This comparison was known in the past, and I am glad they are doing a more detailed re-analysis. But the reason Romanian shares more with Albanian than Aromanian, Megleno-Aromanian, and Istro- Romanian cognates is because the Romanians came into contact with the Hutsuls or their ancestral group and borrowed additional Dacian words through them. From y-haplogroup point of view Romanians and Albanians do not have much overlap in direct sub-branches of the paleo-Balkan haplogroups. So genetics confirm my point of view. Also from the words Hutusls share with Albanian and Romanian analyze them yourself or ask chat gtp, to which language are the forms closer to, Hutsul words and Albanian are closer to eachother. Romanian words are not true substrate, but second hand borrowing from 1) early Albanian and 2) North Dacian(Hutsuls).

Old research that discussed this very phenomena

E. Illyés, Ethnic Continuity in the Carpatho-Danubian Area - Linguistics

Herren here is also not arguing that the 120+ lexemes in Daco-Romanian are from a substrate but rather that they were loaned from Proto-Albanian into Daco-Romance.

A scenario of the lexemes having two different Albanoid sources like you suggest (from Proto-Albanian and a pre-slavicised Hutsul Albanoid language) might account for some inconsistencies that appear between Albanian and the lexemes in Romanian that would then possibly not require the solution Herren lists of the contact happening at a time where there was internal phonological change happening in Proto-Albanian.

I'm open to it but i'm still skeptical/wary of the Hutsul question so can't really say either way.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Herren here is also not arguing that the 120+ lexemes in Daco-Romanian are from a substrate but rather that they were loaned from Proto-Albanian into Daco-Romance.

A scenario of the lexemes having two different Albanoid sources like you suggest (from Proto-Albanian and a pre-slavicised Hutsul Albanoid language) might account for some inconsistencies that appear between Albanian and the lexemes in Romanian that would then possibly not require the solution Herren lists of the contact happening at a time where there was internal phonological change happening in Proto-Albanian.

I'm open to it but i'm still skeptical/wary of the Hutsul question so can't really say either way.

I think there are issues with Albanian (word) forms in the Roman and post-Roman period having extreme archaic features, then all the sudden after 600-700 AD all the shifts happen/transition into modern Albanian. The proposal of an Albanoid language answers this and many other problems. And this was proposed in the past by other linguist that specialized in the study of Dacian and Thracian. I have confirmed and found the culprit.

Let's examine shkrumb and analyze the current concesus:
From shkrumb it went to Romanian skrum(sh went to s) from Romanian to Hutsul škrum(s shifted sh), it went back closer to Albanian?

Let's try another:
gërlatet - to bend, bow, sag------>cârlig - shepherd crook--------->gyrlyha(shepherd crook). So in both scenarios, the Carpathian Hutsuls variant morphed the form closer to Albanian. Based on data, we cannot conclude the Romanians are the loaner, but should consider if they are the borrowers, hence why the Romanian form is so deformed and unrecognizable with the Albanian version that it was never part of the 120+ shared substrate proposals with Albanian.

 

[dubsteroaks]

Lets not try and beat a dead horse here, it's obvious even E-V13 in Late Antiquity Eastern Dardania and Himera had autosomal profiles similar to Illyrians or somewhere between and even different from the samples north of Viminacium. You got debunked. The Late Antiquity E-V13 from Bulgaria plots nowhere close. And cannot be identified with any proto-Albanians. If such different autosomal profiles existed then one would expect linguistic differences too which is why linguists today do not support Thracian origin of proto-Albanian. You could argue there is influence maybe. That's it. Easternmost expansion of proto-Albanian is considered area of Nish-Shtip and expert linguists such as Vermeer did not considered as proper Thracian territory and rejected Thracian origin of Albanian despite they are placenames that show Albanian developments like other placenames. Even the E-V13 Nish sample has a different profile from E-V13 Late Antiquity Bulgaria.

 

[dubsteroaks]

As for Matzinger ... as much as I respect other linguists associated with him and their opinions such as De Vaan and Vermeer, Matzinger has been debunked and the claims he makes have no support. One thing he agrees is that Albanian did not come from Thracian like all other linguists, however his claim that Messapic was not Illyrian nor Dardanians therefor not Albanian either is completely unfounded yet at the same time he admits Messapic, Albanian and Illyrian are related. It's a well established fact that Iapygians/Messapic were proto-Illyrians. For example Vermeer never makes such claims about Albanian, he rather states we don't know as Illyrians might of spoken different languages with different influences. Even he does not consider Nish-Shtip-Shkup as proper Thracian territory and rejects a Thracian origin , and seems to rather imply Albanian was spoken there and that its irrelevant if its Illyrian or not since they might of spoken different languages. But even that area does not seem to exclude a relationship to Western Balkan people as noted. Matzinger has also grouped them into different groups (Like Katicic did), however Matzinger leaving out the Dardani, Messapic and even Albanian are unfounded. Thracian names and elements appear mainly in Eastern Dardania (Nish-Shtip-Shkup-Lipjan) where it even there mixed with an Illyrian one going by genetics.

As for placenames in Albania, they developed the same way as the ones in inland Balkans. Again debunked fringe theories. Sharr developed from Scardus and not Sierra. There is no record of any toponym ''Sierra'' , again a fringe theory invented by Matzinger. Even 16th century traveller Lazaro Soranzo used the name ''Scardo'' to refer to the mountains and not ''Sierra'' . He also mentioned the Dukagjini plains.

 

[dubsteroaks]

I have thought this for a while now and I realized all these are complete fringe theories like Nish, Shtip are complete fringe theories. I don't know about Shkupi though. The actual Albanians after the Slavs arrived were obviously a people that were mostly located somewhere in the mountains of Albania-Montenegro and were a mountain people which is why most of ancient dna there that is similar to Albanians was found there. The easternmost expansion after the Slavs arrived was in the Prizren-Ohrid area but the actual majority Albanians kept themselves in the highlands. The actual Albanians did not start moving out of the mountains until the 15th-16th century (rather than 18th century, though they sped up in the 18th century). Toponyms are everything. I believe this was due to harsh conditions in the mountains following Ottoman occupation so people started moving somewhere else.

 

[dubsteroaks]

I am Kosovo Albanian myself but in Kosovo and Macedonia prior to Ottoman occupation we were a minority. We started moving out of the mountains in the 15th-16th centuries. We have been there for centuries , that's why we look different from the ones in Albania-Montenegro and speak different, such a split did not occur in the 18th century but earlier. That's why we know our tribes. 90% are linked to North-Albanian tribes. Or tribes from the mountains of Western Kosovo-Northern Albania-Montenegro (Malsia e Gjakoves, Malsia e Dukagjinit, Malsia e Madhe etc) Such as Morina, Mazreku, Gashi, Bytyqi, Krasniqi, Kelmendi etc. Dukagjini plains is an Albanian name because people from the mountains of Dukagjin in north Albania and other areas moved into the plains (Western Kosovo) already somewhere in the 14th-16th centuries. If people had not moved out it would be like Bangladesh , overpopulated.

The main lineages of Illyrian origin in Albanians are clearly linked to the Illyrians that lived in what is today Albania,, no more east than in the Prizren-Ohrid area I believe which is why it's related to Messapic whom are believed to of been proto-Illyrians. I don't know about the E-V13 though. The theories of Matzinger and other supposed historians alike are nothing but fringe theories. I rest my case for now. The most diverse lineages are J-L283 and R1b too. The E-V13 was absorbed later and is a founder effect.

 

[Johane Derite]

Then how come Romanian and Bulgarian happen to have the definite article feature loaned from proto-Albanians if the supposed pre-slavic Albanians lived in Albania-Montengero, part what makes bulgarian different than other south slavic languages is this feature. You see the issue here? We are not arguing here proto-Albanians came from proxima centauri but rather a different balkan position where everything ties as a knot together haplogroup wise and linguistic wise. Albanians were very well integrated within the Ottoman empire by 18th century especially tosks whom were less tribal, this doesn't matter because it belongs to a later period and is not relevant to the earlier context.

Also the shtokavian dialects lack these substrate/contact features. If albanian was a west balkan language then the west balkan slavic languages should reflect that albanoid influence also, but it doesnt. In some shtokavian you have later medieval loans from albanian or vlach cognates to albanian directly and thats it.

Both with balkan slavic and balkan latin, albanian shares deeper features with the central-eastern varieties than with the west balkans varieties, pointing to albanian not being a language of the west balkan block (as do countless billion other facts).

 

[broder]

I am Kosovo Albanian myself but in Kosovo and Macedonia prior to Ottoman occupation we were a minority. We started moving out of the mountains in the 15th-16th centuries. We have been there for centuries , that's why we look different from the ones in Albania-Montenegro and speak different, such a split did not occur in the 18th century but earlier. That's why we know our tribes. 90% are linked to North-Albanian tribes. Or tribes from the mountains of Western Kosovo-Northern Albania-Montenegro (Malsia e Gjakoves, Malsia e Dukagjinit, Malsia e Madhe etc) Such as Morina, Mazreku, Gashi, Bytyqi, Krasniqi, Kelmendi etc. Dukagjini plains is an Albanian name because people from the mountains of Dukagjin in north Albania and other areas moved into the plains (Western Kosovo) already somewhere in the 14th-16th centuries. If people had not moved out it would be like Bangladesh , overpopulated.

The main lineages of Illyrian origin in Albanians are clearly linked to the Illyrians that lived in what is today Albania,, no more east than in the Prizren-Ohrid area I believe which is why it's related to Messapic whom are believed to of been proto-Illyrians. I don't know about the E-V13 though. The theories of Matzinger and other supposed historians alike are nothing but fringe theories. I rest my case for now. The most diverse lineages are J-L283 and R1b too. The E-V13 was absorbed later and is a founder effect.

Brah, first of all there is no concrete data that confirms we were a minority on those regions.

Secondly, yes the linguistics are complex and yes the Alb/Messapian connection can’t be ignored - even the Y linages found among Iapygians.

Third, R1b and L283 are not more diverse among us than V13 - not sure where you are getting that idea? Simply put V13 is most certainly the most diverse linage among us with deep structure in some subclades going back 2000 years. What can be said about R1b, more specifically PF7563 and BY611>Z2705, however, is that they are more specific and unique to us with the diversity they have. V13 in other hand is not that unique with that diversity, because it has structure and diversity across the Balkans and beyond.

 

[Southpaw]

Since that Albanian origin paper from 2023 showed E-V13 as the most diverse lineage, the same crowd suddenly went into overdrive pushing J2b and R1b "diversity" stories, pure damage control, propaganda dressed as science. The pattern is clear: deflect, spin, bury the result.

Now strip the noise and look at structure in terms of linguistics, not myth:

Illyrian -> simple, Centum-leaning, low compounding
Albanian -> synthetic, Satem-leaning, high compounding

And the founder effect line, that’s just the goto excuse when the data won’t bow to the narrative.

 

[Southpaw]

In Egypt: https://www.trismegistos.org/text/29802#text-content

Provenance: Claudianus Mons - Egypt ( Eastern desert- Egypt) [found & written]

Dardanos appears among the names, and the most frequent others are Daco-Thracian names along with Latin. It doesn't say Dardanos ethnic affiliations, but maybe we can guesstimate he was affiliated with Daco-Thracians.

Dardanos was the father of Diernaios. There is another instance of the name Diernaois Bastiza. Bastiza is a Dacian name.

A Dacian-Moesian name Diernaois. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dierna_(castra)

I think we have far more evidence that Dard/Dardania/Dardanos appears far more frequently in Daco-Moesian/Thracian world than Illyrian, but i do believe Dardania was where these two groups met. The name Dardania might be an artefact of shared origin, and a legacy of LBA Belegis-Gava II/Stamped-Ware expansion.

 

[Johane Derite]

"Y-DNA Piecharts of Illyrians, Thracians, Iron-Age pannonia and Early Medieval Pannonia"

By @Maptysk on twitter.

A pretty good effort considering the discord crew of 3rd rate Illyrian jihadists that are in his ear trying to orient him towards their fantasies.

Whats clear immediately from looking at the charts even for a layman is that the Albanian branches of EV13 like Z5018 and Z5017 were Daco-Thracian.

They have been trying for a while to push this meme about BY5022 being Thracian and the lack if it among Albanians somehow therefore making Albanian non-Daco-Thracian.

This was a poor attempt that was dead on arrival since BY5022 is a Southeast Thracian clade, and Albanian is from Moesia not Southern Thracians, so Albanian descends from Moesian clades and we shouldn't expect it to have BY5022.

The almost total lack of BY5022 among Albanians is also another strong indicator that Albanian EV13 and the Albanian language descend from Moesia.

Why?

Well, the Illyrian jihadists are already trying to do damage control:

The Albanian Ev13 branches they have no chance of laundering as Illyrian they will instead claim now as romanised thracians that entered Albanian.

But if EV13 had entered Albanian as a romanised group the distribution would have had a hodge podge ratio of random Latinised peoples, not a cohesive Moesian single unit. We would see way more southeastern branches among Albanians like By5022, but instead we see the opposite.

What follows is that this is actually a total inversion of the real state of things, that Ev13 in Albanians isnt from Romanised Thracians but that J2b-L283 is actually from Romanised Illyrians, of which there is a clear archeological and toponymic signal in Albania, even matching where J2b-L283 concentrations are highest.

Link: https://tinyurl.com/4pcvjha6

 

[PaleoRevenge]

A pretty good effort considering the discord crew of 3rd rate Illyrian jihadists that are in his ear trying to orient him towards their fantasies.

Maptysk is German, I never seen a German willingly engage in falsehood. I want to see the serpents of mordor try harder to sway him.

 

[Fshatar]

Well, the Illyrian jihadists are already trying to do damage control:

The Albanian Ev13 branches they have no chance of laundering as Illyrian they will instead claim now as romanised thracians that entered Albanian.

But if EV13 had entered Albanian as a romanised group the distribution would have had a hodge podge ratio of random Latinised peoples, not a cohesive Moesian single unit. We would see way more southeastern branches among Albanians like By5022, but instead we see the opposite.

What follows is that this is actually a total inversion of the real state of things, that Ev13 in Albanians isnt from Romanised Thracians but that J2b-L283 is actually from Romanised Illyrians, of which there is a clear archeological and toponymic signal in Albania, even matching where J2b-L283 concentrations are highest.

First, the chart for the Illyrians is incorrect. Second, Albanian has been shown to be related to Messapic (supported by J-L283>Z638 and R-Z2103>CTS9219 samples), from which we can conclude a clear Illyrian origin for Proto-Albanian. When examining Proto-Albanian lineages, one should focus on deep and long-standing diversity, which is found in R-BY611, J-PH4679, and R-Z29758. In terms of bottlenecks and number of branching, they fall in that order. So although E-V13 lineages show considerable diversity among us, they are represented by singletons without any older, group-specific internal diversity. Take R-Z2705 as an example, there's no Albanian E-V13 branch that comes even remotely near to how massive it is.

No one claims that E-V13 is exclusively Illyrian, or that only a certain branch is Thracian, since E-V13 is ultimately an Anatolian Neolithic Farmer lineage. Around half of the ancient DNA samples carrying E-V13 don’t show a purely Thracian profile. It’s reasonable to assume that most of the E-V13 found in modern Albanians comes from nearer inland western Balkan groups, like those Roman-period samples carrying E-V13 who by autosomal profile match Bronze and Iron Age Albania.

And when it comes to Latinized Balkan “Roman” commoners, groups like the Cincars, Megleno-Romanians, Aromanians, and Sarakatsani are all relatively rich in E-V13 rather than R-Z2705 or J-PH1751...

 

[Southpaw]

Imagine what we are dealing with guys, R-Z2705 has literally a 500 A.D founder effect absolutely no diversity within, J2b2-L283 appears to be quite inconsistent among Albanians letalone abroad the Balkans, Arberesh and Chams seems to be suspiciously too low, Labs moderately low.

You can flip the coin whichever side you like.