Origins of Albanian language and ethnos

[Soldier of Macedon]

Some of the points he makes are very significant. If we entertain the notion of an Iranian origin for the Proto-Albanians, we could probably outline a possible scenario as follows:

1) The Proto-Albanians started as a westward-migrating tribe from the eastern parts of 'Scythia' (or maybe even beyond)

2) By the 6th century, they reached areas north of the Danube, within close proximity to Dacia where Proto-Romanian was spoken

3) The formation of the Albanian language (from the original Proto-Albanian mixed with Slavic, east Latin, and others) is probably almost complete by the 9th or 10th century.

4) Come the 10th century, Hungarian advancements contributed to the mixture of people in parts of Pannonia and adjacent territories, which at that time were peopled by Slavs, Bulgars and Vlachs - as recorded in the Gesta Hungarorum.

5) From that region in Dacia, pastoral peoples migrated southwards throughout the Balkans, among whom were both Vlachs and Albanians, although there is little distinction between them at the time. Many of them settled in what came to be known as Albania.


Of course, this is just one scenario. It would be good to get non-sentimental opinions about why this may or may not have happened.

[Epirot]

I found an interesting article about Illyrians and Albanians written by a Russian linguist. Epirot, you may find this interesting since you were talking about the similarities between Albanian and Romanian languages;

Thanks for the article! Vladimir Georgiev is beyond any doubt, a great linguist. By the way, he is not Russian, but Bulgarian:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_I._Georgiev

Georgiev's article provides some interesting points, especially on Albanian-Rumanian connection. I agree at a certain degree with his conclusions that Dardania is the cradle of formation of Albanian people. But this doesn't mean that Albanians are not authochonous in Albania and Epirus as he suggests. The second error he made during his research on ethnogenesis of Albanians is that he ignore completely some Illyrian features of Albanian and other elements. Anyway, he admit that his hypothesis is not proper at all: "The above arguments are well known, but they have not been regarded as sufficient for a definitive solution of the problem".

I personally accept Georgiev's assertions as half-truth. He is right when he stresses out the Thracian component in Albanian, but he is dead wrong when he assumes that Albanians arrived in todays Albania. There is aboslutely no proof to witness any Albanian arrival in Albania.

Interesting article but it ignores the Iranian elements in Albanian language by totally focusing on Latin elements in it. Nevertheless, the author concludes it by saying that Albanians has been linguistically semi-assimilated by the Latins/Romans. Thats what i always thought about them too.

The Iranian elements in Albanian? That's weird! I haven't read not a single account elaborating the Iranian component of Albanian, so far! you're more than welcomed to present any detailed account in regard with your claim. Thanks!

So, i still believe that Evliya Celebi`s writings about Albanians is the most reasonable claim about their origins

What? You're suggesting to take in consideration a 17th century travaler?? His credibility is disputed...which is why his assertions have no echo at modern scholarship. He wrote in his account as following:

Accordingly, the Albanian people boast that they are descended from the Quraysh, the companions of the Prophet

I am pretty sure he was refering to a section of fanatic Islamic sects among Albanians who thought themselves as descendants of Prophet's companions. Albanians of Celebi's time had no idea who were 'Quraysh'. I heard no legend, no tradition about him...
For instance, Catholics all over the world may consider themselves as having descended from Jesus...Should we assume that they're remote descendants of Jesus's people!??

[Onur]

Epirot, you seem like a quite reasonable person but unfortunately you Albanians playing the same antiquity game like today`s noe-hellenes. I am quite sure that you have Illyrian heritage because you live in same place as they lived b4 but you gotta accept that no one in Balkans can relate their heritage with a single source and thats valid for Albanians too. So, you cant explain every cultural elements you have today with your Illyrian theory.

The Adriatic coast was not part of the primitive home of the Albanians, because the maritime terminology of Albanian is not their own, but is borrowed from different languages.

This is quite an important indication that you have migrated to the current Albanian lands. For example, in Turkish, nearly all the names of fish types special to Aegean sea are Greek words and all most of the maritime terminology are Greek too. This is an indication that Turkish speakers wasn't living by the sea, at least not by the Aegean sea and we learned that terminology from the local Greek speaking inhabitants when we came here.

Btw tell us the names of fish types specific to your Adriatic coast and your maritime terminology. What is the etymology and roots of these words? The etymology of those words in your language would probably explain about who were living in current Albanian coasts when you came there and what language they were speaking.

Don't be afraid about that and don't be fooled with the game of Greeks play. You Albanians are living there for centuries or millenia and you don't need to be the descendants of ancient Illyrians to have a legitimacy for current Albania. Thats bullshit and a stupid thing. Greeks play that antiquity game because they have to since they cant claim any legitimacy for neither medieval nor modern age but this is not the case with you Albanians, so you don't need to do that.

I really appreciate your national unity with catholics, muslims, orthodoxs, living together peacefully by all being Albanians and i think your motto should be an example for all other Balkan states. But like i told you, you don't need to create and pursuit antique Illyrian myths to continue with this.

The Iranian elements in Albanian? That's weird! I haven't read not a single account elaborating the Iranian component of Albanian, so far! you're more than welcomed to present any detailed account in regard with your claim. Thanks!

Check this msg;

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3389

You will see that Albanian language is kinda distinct from all other languages but it gets it`s position close by Romanian in terms of grammatical features but for vocabulary, it`s standing by Indo-Iranian languages, Persian being closest.


So, what Evliya Celebi said about Albanians?;
Some Iranian tribe with the Albanians from Caucasus Albania migrated to current Albania from the north of Blacksea and they got mixed with the Frankish(Latin and Romance speakers) people in there.

I think this claim shouldn't be cast away so easily. Also did you ever wonder why we dont have anything about your islamisation? For example, we know that Bosnians was bogomils before and we have documents, illustrations and testimonies about their conversion but we have nothing about Albanians. It`s quite clear that Albanians was already muslim when Ottoman empire gone there in 1390s. Thats what Evliya Celebi learned from Albanian leaders in 17th century and wrote this.

[Epirot]

Epirot, you seem like a quite reasonable person but unfortunately you Albanians playing the same antiquity game like today`s noe-hellenes.
.

I do not think we have much in common with our assimilated southern brothers in regard with antiquity "games". It's only Albania that cannot be blamed for using selective parts of antiquity to legitimize its politic goals or something like that. I hope you get my point! Unlike Greece, Albania has never purified foreign cultural signs by reviving ancient Illyrian names. Greece when finished its invading campaigns in Epirus, Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace and Aegean islands erased all "foreign names" by replacing with 'Hellenic' ones. That's why today, there are just a few 'foreign' names into Northern areas of Greece. Albanians never played with Illyrian cards to put forward territorial claims towards their neighbors. Albanians never emerged any expansionist platform on behalf of former Illyrian lands. This cannot be said for our 'Ellines'.

Btw tell us the names of fish types specific to your Adriatic coast and your maritime terminology. What is the etymology and roots of these words? The etymology of those words in your language would probably explain about who were living in current Albanian coasts when you came there and what language they were speaking..

E. Çabej, the renowned specialist in linguistics stresses out that there are some original Albanian terms relating with sea, fish types, etc. I'll try to find out his account and to post parts of it here.

It`s quite clear that Albanians was already muslim when Ottoman empire gone there in 1390s. Thats what Evliya Celebi learned from Albanian leaders in 17th century and wrote this

Your claim cannot sustain since there are incontestable evidences that Albanians were initially Christians before they passed as Muslims.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Unlike Greece, Albania has never purified foreign cultural signs by reviving ancient Illyrian names.

Maybe not on placenames, but on personal names, you absolutely have. How many Albanians were called Bardyl or Teuta prior to the 19th century?

Albanians never emerged any expansionist platform on behalf of former Illyrian lands.

I'm not sure about the distant past, but they certainly do now with the dreams of 'Dardania' in Kosovo and 'Ilirida' in Macedonia.

Some Iranian tribe with the Albanians from Caucasus Albania migrated to current Albania from the north of Blacksea and they got mixed with the Frankish(Latin and Romance speakers) people in there.

The Iranian theories need to be looked at more closely, there is definetly something there worthy of further research.

[Epirot]

Maybe not on placenames, but on personal names, you absolutely have. How many Albanians were called Bardyl or Teuta prior to the 19th century?.

To be honest, I simply do not know if 'Bardhyl' and 'Teuta were in use before XIXth century. But I've read that 'Agron' and 'Pirro' (Pyrrhus) were in use by Northern Albanians.

I'm not sure about the distant past, but they certainly do now with the dreams of 'Dardania' in Kosovo and 'Ilirida' in Macedonia.

I assure you that Albanians of Kosova got their idendepence because their will was so and not because some politicans were inspired from the remote Dardanian past. When Albanians rose up against Serbian yoke, they did so because they wanted to be free. No Albanian was ever motivated from distant Illyrian past. It would be an absurd of its kind to struggle on behalf of antiquity past. But we have an exception here: for our southern assimilated brethern, it was that normal to struggle on behalf of the imaginary ancient Hellas...

[Soldier of Macedon]

To be honest, I simply do not know if 'Bardhyl' and 'Teuta were in use before XIXth century. But I've read that 'Agron' and 'Pirro' (Pyrrhus) were in use by Northern Albanians.

Epirot, I am almost certain of Bardyl and Teuta. With regard to Pirro and Agron, I don't know, at the moment I doubt it, but if you can provide something that proves this, then I have no issues accepting it.

[Soldier of Macedon]

The PIE root *ank- which means 'bend', ie; 'angle', gave rise to Latin angulus, Greek ankylοs, etc. Here is how the Zazaki word would have likely evolved:

Middle Persian angust -> Persian angošt -> Zazaki -> gisht.

It appears that there may have been a stage during and after Indo-Iranian where the 'l' was still present in the word, hence, a hypothetical example for Proto-Iranian would perhaps be something like angulust. In this case, some similarities can be drawn when comparing the Iranian and Albanian word:

- Both eventually dropped the 'l' in the word
- Both eventually dropped the 'an' at the beginning of the word
- Both had an st ending which developed to a sht ending
- Both use the final product to describe a 'finger'

Coincidence or not, this is a very similar phonological development. And I am sure if one were to dig further there would be more examples.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Do you have any information on Michael Attaliates? He apparently wrote of a people called 'Arbanitai' who were transplanted as mercenaries from Sicily to Albania by a rebel military commander called George Maniakos in 1042. I have seen this repeated on the internet, but never confirmed with a source.

I wrote this earlier in the thread. The reason I bring it up again is because of what I read on an article relating to the Norman crusaders from wikipedia (although there is no source for it and the terminology relating to East Rome or Byzantium is somewhat bizzare):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans

Several families of Byzantine Greece were of Norman mercenary origin during the period of the Comnenian Restoration, when Byzantine emperors were seeking out western European warriors. The Raoulii were descended from an Italo-Norman named Raoul, the Petraliphae were descended from a Pierre d'Aulps, and that group of Albanian clans known as the Maniakates were descended from Normans who served under George Maniaces in the Sicilian expedition of 1038.

And the below relating to George Maniaces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Maniaces

George Maniakes (Greek: Γεώργιος Μανιάκης, transliterated as Georgios Maniaces, Maniakis, or Maniaches, Italian: Giorgio Maniace) (died 1043) was a prominent Byzantine Greek general during the 11th century, he was the catepan of Italy in 1042. He is known as Gyrgir in Scandinavian sagas.[1]

Maniakes first became prominent during a campaign in 1031, when the Byzantine Empire was defeated at Aleppo but went on to capture Edessa from the Seljuk Turks. His greatest achievement was the partial reconquest of Sicily from the Arabs beginning in 1038. Here, he was assisted by the Varangian Guard, which was at that time led by Harald Hardrada, who later became king of Norway. There were also Norman mercenaries with him, under William de Hauteville, who won his nickname Iron Arm by defeating the emir of Syracuse in single combat. However, he soon ostracised his admiral, Stephen, whose wife was the sister of John the Eunuch, the highest ranking man at court, and, by publicly humiliating the leader of the Lombard contingent, Arduin, he caused them to desert him, with the Normans and Norsemen. In response, he was recalled by the emperor Michael IV, also brother-in-law of Stephen. Although the Arabs soon took the island back, Maniakes' successes there later inspired the Normans to invade Sicily themselves.

Maniakes' accomplishments in Sicily were largely ignored by the Emperor, and he revolted against Constantine IX in 1042, though he had been appointed catepan of Italy. The individual particularly responsible for antagonizing Maniakes into revolt was one Romanus Sclerus. Sclerus, like Maniakes, was one of the immensely wealthy landowners who owned large areas of Anatolia - his estates neighboured those of Maniakes and the two were rumoured to have attacked each other during a squabble over land. Sclerus owed his influence over the emperor to his famously charming sister the Sclerina, who, in most areas was a highly positive influence on Constantine. Finding himself in a position of power, Sclerus used it to poison Constantine against Maniakes - ransacking the latter's house and even seducing his wife, using the charm his family were famed for. Maniakes response, when faced with Sclerus demanding that he hand command of the empires forces in Apulia over to him, was to brutally torture the latter to death, after sealing his eyes, ears, nose and mouth with excrement.[2] Maniakes was then proclaimed emperor by his troops (including the Varangians), and marched towards Constantinople, in 1043 his army clashed with troops loyal to Constantine near Thessalonika, and though initially successful, Maniakes was killed during the melee after receiving a fatal wound (according to Psellus' account). Constantine's extravagant punishment of the surviving rebels was to parade them in the Hippodrome, seated backwards on donkeys. With his death, the rebellion ceased. In Sicily, the town of Maniace and the Syracusan fortress of Castello Maniace are both named after him.

[Soldier of Macedon]

I would like to suggest an alternative 'theory' as to the origin of the Albanian language. I will cite it in point form:

- By the 6th century, the Dacian region was populated by Balto-Slavic (and more specifically the Slavic component) peoples, in addition to Latin colonists and some Turkic and Iranian groups that were dominant (in terms of rule and not numbers) above the rest. Germanic by way of Gothic may have also had a presence. Most numerous was the Balto-Slavic group.

- By the 10th century, Hungarians had also moved near and into the area, adding another dimension to the already comsopolitan make-up and becoming the dominant force. A 'common tongue' probably began to take shape as a result of amalgamation between Balto-Slavic, Latin, Germanic and to a lesser degree Turkic, under the possible 'hegemony' of Iranian or Hungarian - but probably wasn't distinct enough and was used by too few a number, hence its absence from the Gesta Hungarorum.

- Groups from this region made several sporadic incursions into the Balkans. One of these groups may have settled in the western Balkans near the Adriatic coast and mingled with the local Slavic-speaking groups (who previously absorbed the related Illyrian populations and some of their characteristics, such as loanwords from ancient Greek). Aside from those speaking the 'common tongue', others spoke a predominantly Latin tongue (Vlachs), and this may be why there is often a lack of distinction between Albanians and Vlachs in the earlier centuries after they were first recorded.

- A group of Varangian and Norman warriors arrived in the western Balkans and fought under the leadership of George Maniaces, who reconquered parts of Sicily in 1038. A group of later Albanian clans known as the Maniakates were descended from these Norman warriors. The 'common tongue' may have been solidified during this period, which gave rise to Proto-Albanian.

Some of the above may loosely correlate with certain aspects of the explanation from Celebi:

When the blessed Omar conquered Jerusalem, Jabal could not remain any longer in that place, so they boarded ships and took refuge with the king of Spain. Jabal-i Alhama was given the mountains of Dukat, Progonat and Frengis in the Albanian regions of Avlona and Delvina to live in, which were then under Spanish rule. These lands were previously uninhabited and, within a short period of time, he settled them and, mingling with the Franks, they created the Albanian language from a mixture of Frankish and Arabic.

I guess the question would then be, how close are western Romance languages to Albanian? Is it more or less significant that the influence from Vulgar latin? Did Norman French have a similar effect in Albania as it did in England? Did Germanic languages play more of a role? Or was the Norman influence mainly restricted to creating conditions for a Proto-Albanian tongue to arise, rather than playing any significant part in terms of the language? The Italo-Celtic or Celto-Latin combination in languages makes for an interesting case, quite often the 'sound' of languages such as Portuguese appears similar to Albanian.

The above may be able to explain the various elements contributing the Albanian language and ethnos. Interested in any thoughts. To any Albanians answering, this is just an opinion which I have presented for criticism, so don't come here beating your chests, I want to see some logical suggestions and rebuttals.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Just to throw another angle into this (posts from TM and Onur):

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1957

TM wrote: The family of the Arabian Emir Anemas in Crete was in the service of John Tzimisces, while George Maniaces, who reconquered Sicily (1038), bears a Turkish name.


Onur wrote: "Asil" is derived from Persian and probably used in Turkish after 13th century as earliest. Turkish originated words for "Noble" are "Koklu, Soylu" but i didn't hear or know anything similar with "Maniakes" which means "Noble" in Turkish. I just know an old Turkish word like "Mank, Manik" which means "Staid, Graceful". I don't think anyone still uses "Mank" today in Turkey. It`s just a question for crossword puzzles anymore.


I heard this Byzantine general tough. Byzantines calls these people as "Tourkopouloi". They are Christians Turks converted from shamanism. George was a famous one among them. When Byzantines converted these Turks to Christianity, they usually took Greek first name but most was using their Turkish names too. Like the names of medieval Bulgarian kings, for example "Ivan shisman", Ivan is a slavic name but shisman is Turkish. So, it`s highly possible that "Maniakes" is derived from a Turkish word.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Something further to the above. The Estonian and Finnish word for brother is "veli" - quite similar to the Albanian word for brother, which is "vella".

[Soldier of Macedon]

Just with regard to Maniaces, both Komnena and Psellus make mention of him, will post the relevant sections later.

[Onur]

We don't use it much in modern Turkish anymore but "veli" means "close relative, guardian person" in Turkish. It`s probably Arabic/Persian word used in Ottoman era.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Thanks Onur. I think one of the difficulties in trying to understand the origin of some Albanian words rests with the large amount of foreign loanwords that have been mutated (almost) beyond recognition over time. Unfortunately, such examples inspire others to incorrectly consider them unique "Illyrian" words.