The Illyrians

[Constellation]

Who rejected the idea? Why would Illyrians be something you cannot seem to define like "slavs"?

The argument in the post was that:

1. Westerners reject Slavic speakers as being descendants of Illyrians.
2. The author makes the point that today's people are not pure Slavs.
3. He then states that the Illyrians spoke what appears to be proto-Slavic.

The question I have is not whether the Illyrians were Slavic speakers. Nor is the issue of whether modern day Bosnians etc are of Illyrian lineage.

The issue is with the argument. It appears to be a paradox. On the one hand, there were people living in the Balkans before the Slavic migration, who spoke a proto-Slavic language. The Slavs came, of which Westerns believe to be the heirs of modern day Balkan people. For Westerners the logic is that the migrating Slavs cannot claim to be Illyrian, because there were no Slavs nor Slavic speakers among the Illyrians.

The author disagrees with this.

So if Slavic was already spoken in the Balkans by the Illyrians, and then Slavs came, it does not make sense that the author of the article would state that modern day Balkan people are not pure Slavs, an argument the author used to negate the counter argument used by Westerners to state that today's Yugoslavs cannot be Illyrian. By logic, today's Balkan people would have to be more on the pure Slav side.

[George S.]

constellation your talking bs here.We are not slavs .We have had some Slavic language influence but we still are Macedonia,All those authors are doing is speculating.As I said to people on other threads if we apply the same logic that Macedonians are slavs then most of the Balkans would also be Slavic.Just think how many different types of people have gone though the ages,Celts romans huns etc they didn't change the Macedonian identity.The same could be said about the slavs.THe rest is pure bs propaganda to rob real Macedonians of their culture,history their land.Stop believing speculation theories.
Just remember because of propaganda people at one stage believed they were not Macedonian but slavs.
You lnow years ago I spoke to a Macedonian professor on languages & history.I said to him how we are doing ourselves a disservice by calling ourselves slavsİou know what he said you are totally right.We can call ourselves what we like but we are stlill Macedonia,That is our ethnicity is still Macedonian.We should be proud of who we are and stop beleivin theories that we are something else.
Just reminding you constellation we have had countless greeks and others asking similar questions but were aimed at telling us we are slavs I hope you are not trying to do that.?hat would mean that you are trying to discredit us.

[julie]

Good point with the Celts and Romans George.

[Constellation]

constellation your talking bs here.We are not slavs .We have had some Slavic language influence but we still are Macedonia,All those authors are doing is speculating.As I said to people on other threads if we apply the same logic that Macedonians are slavs then most of the Balkans would also be Slavic.Just think how many different types of people have gone though the ages,Celts romans huns etc they didn't change the Macedonian identity.The same could be said about the slavs.THe rest is pure bs propaganda to rob real Macedonians of their culture,history their land.Stop believing speculation theories.
Just remember because of propaganda people at one stage believed they were not Macedonian but slavs.
You lnow years ago I spoke to a Macedonian professor on languages & history.I said to him how we are doing ourselves a disservice by calling ourselves slavsİou know what he said you are totally right.We can call ourselves what we like but we are stlill Macedonia,That is our ethnicity is still Macedonian.We should be proud of who we are and stop beleivin theories that we are something else.
Just reminding you constellation we have had countless greeks and others asking similar questions but were aimed at telling us we are slavs I hope you are not trying to do that.?hat would mean that you are trying to discredit us.

George, how in the world did you come to the conclusion that I wrote or conveyed that Macedonians are Slavs. I have written repeatedly that Macedonains are NOT Slavs.

This thread is NOT about Macedonia. It is about Illyrians. I wrote that the author's statements made no sense because it represented a paradox. The paradox was that the author made the statement that today's Balkan people are not pure Slavs. He also implied that the Illyrians were proto Slavic. He made the argument that because today's Balkan people are not pure Slavs, Westerners have misjudged the historical narration of the Balkans.

What I meant was that it would have made more sense for the author to have written that the ancient Illyrians were not proto-Slavic speakers but they mixed with Slavic migrants. And thus today's Balkan people are not "pure Slavs" a phrase he used. This would mean they are descendants of the Illyrians with some Slavic.

I'm not arguing in favor of the Slavic migration theory here nor am I arguing against it. I am simply pointing out the weakness in the author's comments. This has nothing to with Slavs or the Macedonians.

Why is it no one understands this elementary form of logic?

[Soldier of Macedon]

The issue is with the argument. It appears to be a paradox. On the one hand, there were people living in the Balkans before the Slavic migration, who spoke a proto-Slavic language. The Slavs came, of which Westerns believe to be the heirs of modern day Balkan people. For Westerners the logic is that the migrating Slavs cannot claim to be Illyrian, because there were no Slavs nor Slavic speakers among the Illyrians.

The author disagrees with this.

So if Slavic was already spoken in the Balkans by the Illyrians, and then Slavs came, it does not make sense that the author of the article would state that modern day Balkan people are not pure Slavs, an argument the author used to negate the counter argument used by Westerners to state that today's Yugoslavs cannot be Illyrian. By logic, today's Balkan people would have to be more on the pure Slav side.

It gives the appearance of being paradoxical because the terminology is somewhat anachronistic. That's why you need to look past that superficial layer and break down the argument to its core. Slavic languages didn't just suddenly appear when first recorded by that name, instead they existed and were known by other names. What is being implied here is that the Illyrians spoke a language akin to what came to be known as Slavic languages. Therefore, terms such as "pure Slavs" are simply incorrect and have no historical basis in terms of ethnicity.

Why is it no one understands this elementary form of logic?

There you go again with your generalisations. The longer you continue doing that, the more illogical you come across. Do you have a hard time being specific?

[Constellation]

It gives the appearance of being paradoxical because the terminology is somewhat anachronistic. That's why you need to look past that superficial layer and break down the argument to its core. Slavic languages didn't just suddenly appear when first recorded by that name, instead they existed and were known by other names. What is being implied here is that the Illyrians spoke a language akin to what came to be known as Slavic languages. Therefore, terms such as "pure Slavs" are simply incorrect and have no historical basis in terms of ethnicity.

No sir. Your are reading into the text your view of ancient history. The author wrote:

Later on when the Serbian reformer Vuk Karadzic was chronicling the Serbs of Bosnia, he noticed that many of them called themselves Illyrians. He was puzzled and wrote: "To say that they are "Illyrians"; that is a dead and dark name, which today has no meaning, for all reknown historians know today that Slavs are not Illyrians..." Vuk automatically assumed the people of Bosnia to be pure Slavs. This could hardly be his fault as he was of limited education, and the fact that Slovophilism was in vogue...

I find it difficult to believe that the author is arguing semantics. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the author is arguing that because the Illyrians were not technically called Slavs or Slavic speakers in the ancient world before the Slavic migration, that therefore means that today's Bosnian Serbs are not pure Slavs. More logically, it would follow, if the author believes that the Illyrians spoke a Slavic language, or a language akin to Slavic, that they would be related to the Slavic migrants who descended into the Balkans from the north (it is not logical to assume unrelated peoples who have never communicated before in history to have very similar languages by chance).

And for some odd reason, even though the invading Slavic migrants knew that the people they were invading spoke a similar language, they nonetheless decided to fight with them, conquer them, and intermix with them. So instead of two civilizations, which spoke a language with the same Slavic root, forging a pure Slavic people, even though they were called different names, it formed an impure Slavic people, that is to say, mixed, because technically the ancients, though Slavic speaking, were not identified as Slavic.

There you go again with your generalisations. The longer you continue doing that, the more illogical you come across. Do you have a hard time being specific?

I'm afraid the problem characterizes your posts, not mine.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Your are reading into the text your view of ancient history.

Perhaps, but this is not some unique argument, it has been suggested by others in one form or another.

I find it difficult to believe that the author is arguing semantics.

In some respects, it is semantics, because it appears that they are talking about the same people and language but using two different terms.

More logically, it would follow, if the author believes that the Illyrians spoke a Slavic language, or a language akin to Slavic, that they would be related to the Slavic migrants who descended into the Balkans from the north.....

What language, according to your logic, does the author believe these Illyrian Bosnians spoke?

...it is not logical to assume unrelated peoples who have never communicated before in history to have very similar languages by chance...

What separated them to the point of being completely unrelated, the Danube? Why wasn't that river a barrier to communication between Thracian tribes who lived on both sides yet spoke similar languages?

And for some odd reason, even though the invading Slavic migrants knew that the people they were invading spoke a similar language, they nonetheless decided to fight with them, conquer them, and intermix with them.

Why is that odd? One group was within the Roman sphere of influence for centuries, while the other wasn't. Serbs and Croats speak a similar language and were in the same sphere of influence for a century yet they butchered each other multiple times.

So instead of two civilizations, which spoke a language with the same Slavic root, forging a pure Slavic people, even though they were called different names, it formed an impure Slavic people, that is to say, mixed, because technically the ancients, though Slavic speaking, were not identified as Slavic.

Neither life nor history are that simple.

I'm afraid the problem characterizes your posts, not mine.

Is that why you're being 'misconstrued' all of the time, because everybody here is wrong and you're the only one who is right?

[Constellation]

What language, according to your logic, does the author believe these Illyrian Bosnians spoke?

The author in the piece seems to suggest something akin to southern Slavic, though he does not use the word Slavic, but instead seems to prefer Serbian. For example:

His colonel Vialla, in charge of the area visited Montenegro and wrote of the language that it is an "Illyrian dialect." A catholic population survey in the late 1870s on Macedonia identified that the people spoke the "Serbian language" and noted that ita was called 'Illyrian' (Tutti questi sono in Servia Superiore,e parlano lingua Illirica).

This seems to suggest something akin to southern Slavic/Serbian. But the author makes it clear that today's Bosnians are not pure Slavs and are racially dissimilar to Slavs.

What separated them to the point of being completely unrelated, the Danube? Why wasn't that river a barrier to communication between Thracian tribes who lived on both sides yet spoke similar languages?

Here there is a misunderstanding. What I'm arguing is that if the people south of the Danube spoke a Slavic language, even though it was not called such, and the people north of the Danube spoke a Slavic language, the implication is that in some point in time there must have been an original genesis of the Slavic root language, a proto Slavic language. This means that these people are probably related and ultimately descend from the same tribes. It is not logical to argue unrelated peoples to have created a similar language based on chance. Which means either certain tribes created this language in the distant past and split into north and south. Or the language originated in the north or south and spread to unrelated peoples, similar to Spanish and Arabic. I am of the opinion that the latter is true, based on the DNA haplogroups. But here lies a problem. If Slavic was originally spoken and/or developed in the south, and there was no ethnic affinity between the migrating Slavs from the north and the Balkan people, how did the Slavic migrants speak a similar language? It would have been impossible, unless at some point in history, or prehistory, the language already spread up north to dissimilar ethnic groups or developed by certain ethnic tribes, who later would be identified as Slavic tribes, and would later fork into northern and southern groups. But DNA tests do not allow a common Slavic descent.

Why is that odd? One group was within the Roman sphere of influence for centuries, while the other wasn't. Serbs and Croats speak a similar language and were in the same sphere of influence for a century yet they butchered each other multiple times.

No doubt. Even the ancient Greeks fought and killed each other, tribe against tribe. The problem I have is not so much that migrating Slavs endeavored to conquer seemingly their own kin. The problem I have is that these people were seemingly the same people as the Balkans' people (Slavic speakers), but the ancient historians for some odd reason or another could not understand that their speech was similar to the Illryians and Macedonians. So instead of documenting the obvious, that Slavic migrants invaded these areas, who happened to speak a similar dialect as the locals (let's face it, it is easy to distinguish a Slavic language from a non-Slavic language), no one mentioned this. Why? And even though Slavic speakers mixed with Slavic speakers, regardless of the semantics involved, they did not produce a pure Slavic people, but a seemingly mixed people.

When I am wrong about something or ignorant of something, as in the surnames thread, I am happy to admit it. I would rather learn than remain ignorant or wrong.

[George S.]

Constellation you are simply asking for questions there are no ready answers.Previously everything was written about the classical period and a so called romantism.People had or have ready made answers to their questions.Those answers that they supposed ly know or have do not today cooberate their particular model for the slavs.Current theory would have you believe that the slav influence whether linguistic was prior to the slavs coming to the region.I heard of talk of indian influence of the sanscpit language .Who is influencing who.??Who knows the answer Its like asking who came first the chicken or the egg.There needs to be more cooberation all around.Simply saying that we are slavs and we came in in the 7 or 8 century doesn't cooberate the fact that the Slavic language??words pre-existed the the slav migrations in the 7&8 centries.
YOu reach a point of meanignless questions and that there are no answers or the answers aren't satisfactory.

[George S.]

Constellation you are simply asking for questions there are no ready answers.Previously everything was written about the classical period and a so called romantism.People had or have ready made answers to their questions.Those answers that they supposed ly know or have do not today cooberate their particular model for the slavs.Current theory would have you believe that the slav influence whether linguistic was prior to the slavs coming to the region.I heard of talk of indian influence of the sanscpit language .Who is influencing who.??Who knows the answer Its like asking who came first the chicken or the egg.There needs to be more cooberation all around.Simply saying that we are slavs and we came in in the 7 or 8 century doesn't cooberate the fact that the Slavic language??words pre-existed the the slav migrations in the 7&8 centries.
YOu reach a point of meanigness questions and that there are no answers or the answers aren't satisfactory.Where is the so called evidence???

[Constellation]

after the Turkish conquest of Europe a general veil was shed upon the Serbian people, their origins and prehistory. Even many Serbian historians, reformers and rennaisance figures, hoping to attract Russia to the plight of the Serbs began to emphasise and exhaggerate the Slavic character of the Serbs. They ignored historians, travellers, observers and even the people themselves who described the Serbian population as being ethnically Illyrian.

For example, Napoleaon, when he liberated the Dalmatian coats in the early 1800's, he formed the "Illyrian provinces" knowing full well that Illyrians inhabitted those territories. His colonel Vialla, in charge of the area visited Montenegro and wrote of the language that it is an "Illyrian dialect." A catholic population survey in the late 1870s on Macedonia identified that the people spoke the "Serbian language" and noted that ita was called 'Illyrian' (Tutti questi sono in Servia Superiore,e parlano lingua Illirica).

The Ban's Council, when inviting bids for the writing of a primer in the "Illyrian" language for elementary schools, emphasized that it should have chapters on the history of the Croats and Serbs, as well as of other "Illyrian peoples," that it must be so conceived as to respect all religions, "particularly western and eastern," and that it must offer some instruction in the Cyrillic script. In a Serb village in Istrian peninsula in 1593 the villagers rioted demanding that a priest be sent to preform church services "who knows the Illyrian language and script, and can sing in Slavonic."

Later on when the Serbian reformer Vuk Karadzic was chronicling the Serbs of Bosnia, he noticed that many of them called themselves Illyrians. He was puzzled and wrote:
"To say that they are "Illyrians"; that is a dead and dark name, which today has no meaning, for all reknown historians know today that Slavs are not Illyrians..."
Vuk automatically assumed the people of Bosnia to be pure Slavs. This could hardly be his fault as he was of limited education, and the fact that Slovophilism was in vogue and necessary at the time. Today we know that the people of Bosnia are not pure Slavs and are racially dissimmilar to Slavs.

In the 1820s a dictionary of the "Illyrian" language was published in Vienna based on the dialect of the Bosnian Serbs. In the mid 1800s Croats and Serbs formed an "Illyrian movement" to unite the "Illyrian peoples" in the Balkans. The movement was strong and led to eventual yugoslavism.

In the late 19th century, Albania became the focus of Austria's ambitions to keep the Serbian kingdom from gaining access to the adriatic. Austrian propaganda became aggresive in championing the Albanians as Illyrians. In Serbia, the power of pan-Slavism and the beliefe in Serbs as pure Slavs, prevented the Serbs from showing any great resistance to having their Illyrian roots stolen by Austrian and German propaganda.

With nobody to defend Serbian illyrianism, the Austrian theory prevailed, thus identifying the Albanians as Illyrians, and the Serbs as 'Slavic' newcommers. Albanians began to term themselves Illyrians only with the begining of the 20th century! However the fact must be noted that that Serbs were called Illyrians while the Albanians were still using their own respective tribal names to designate themselves.

....

this is not my work but i find it quite intriguing and it was always what i thought and made the most common sense, what are your thoughts.

We have many problems in the Balkans. Part of this is due to geography. Part of it is due to the number of invasions and conquests. But I suspect part of it has to do with Western academia.

Let's face it, history is written by the victors. The theory put forth by the Austrians and the English earlier was always based geopolitics.

I know I keep pounding this to death--but it all comes to that theory, the Slavic migration theory. That theory is used to deny the unique ethnicities of the Balkans, deny them their history, their legacy, and their ancient roots in these lands. At the same time, it is designed to elevate the non-Slavic speaking people of the Albanians and Greeks.

Frankly, I'm tired of reading on web pages the same tired old lies that the Macedonians, Serbians, Bosnians, etc are all Slavs, ethnic Slavs, descendant of Slavs, with little to no connection with the ancient peoples. But the Albanians, who never in their history identified as Illyrian until Western propaganda began to take root, are descendants of the Illyrians.

According to igenea, Bosnians are 40% Illyrian, while Albanians are only 20%, this would prove John Wilkes' thesis. The Bosnians, not the Albanians, are Illyrians, though in truth almost the whole Balkans is mixed.

[Toska]

further to add to what your saying its only logical that the ancient historians tied the Macedonians,Illyrians and Thracians as related and as barbarians too our southern neighbors, the reason they where related because they spoke a common or similar language, the Macedonians,Illyrians,Thracians,Dardarians and Paeionians, which Phillip United/Subjected and Created the Macedonians Kingdom at its peak before crushing the City states at Chaeronea, these people that i mentioned encompass the same areas that todays "slavic" speakers live in.

[Soldier of Macedon]

.....the author makes it clear that today's Bosnians are not pure Slavs and are racially dissimilar to Slavs.

And who, according to you, is the author referring to as these 'Slavs' which are so dissimilar to the Bosnians?

What I'm arguing is that if the people south of the Danube spoke a Slavic language, even though it was not called such, and the people north of the Danube spoke a Slavic language, the implication is that in some point in time there must have been an original genesis of the Slavic root language, a proto Slavic language.

Sure, and that Proto Slavic language developed from an older ancestral language commonly referred to in linguistic circles as Proto Balto-Slavic. And the latter (including its descendants) shares many similarities with Paleo-Balkan languages.

This means that these people are probably related and ultimately descend from the same tribes.

Perhaps in some distant past, but not necessarily.

If Slavic was originally spoken and/or developed in the south, and there was no ethnic affinity between the migrating Slavs from the north and the Balkan people, how did the Slavic migrants speak a similar language?

A linguistic affinity doesn't automatically equate to an ethnic affinity.

The problem I have is that these people were seemingly the same people as the Balkans' people (Slavic speakers), but the ancient historians for some odd reason or another could not understand that their speech was similar to the Illryians and Macedonians.

That's because despite their linguistic affinities they weren't the same in a cultural sense. After years of occupation the Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, etc were considered (politically) Roman, at least for the most part by the 6th century, whereas those invading from the north were not, instead they were but one element among many 'barbarians' beyond the Danube.

[Constellation]

And who, according to you, is the author referring to as these 'Slavs' which are so dissimilar to the Bosnians?

The Slavs of the north.

We have gone over this already. It is semantics. Ultimately, it boils down to this. The people of the Balkans were not Slavs, even though they spoke Slavic, because politically and culturally they were not called Slavic. And the peoples of the North, who also spoke Slavic, were Slavs, because that is what they were called. And when the Slavs of the North invaded the Balkans, and intermixed, it did not produce a pure Slavic people, because they were culturally and politically different, and so produced an impure Slavic race of people. Your interpretation is based on culture and politics. You are arguing that they were (possibly) different ethnic peoples with different cultures, and so when they mixed, they were not pure Slavs. And I am arguing that if the Slavs of the north shared a similar language to the Balkan people, it would either mean the language spread to the north to unrelated people (hence producing an impure Slavic race), or in the distant past, they descend from the same family which split. If both groups descend from the same ethnic stock, then regardless of the cultural and political differences between the two, if they intermixed, they would produce a pure Slavic race. It is genetically impossible, however, for there to exist a single ancestral source of Slavic speaking people. This means that if the Slavic language spread north in the distant past, we would have to have some evidence that this happened. We have no such evidence.

A linguistic affinity doesn't automatically equate to an ethnic affinity.

No one is arguing that it does. But in the context of this argument, it is highly suggestive that somewhere in the distant past the original developers of this language were ethnically related and split into two groups: north and south. Again, it is highly improbable that a similar common language developed independently by two or more unrelated ethnic groups of people.

That's because despite their linguistic affinities they weren't the same in a cultural sense. After years of occupation the Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, etc were considered (politically) Roman, at least for the most part by the 6th century, whereas those invading from the north were not, instead they were but one element among many 'barbarians' beyond the Danube.

Doubtful. Again, you are reading your history into the text. Even if they were culturally and politically different, it still does not explain why the ancient historians would not have pointed to the obvious, which is to say, the invading Slavs spoke a language similar to the people of the region.
I do not find your argument here convincing, though I concede that it is possible the ancient historians left this information out of the historical record, though I think it to be highly improbable.

[Sovius]

Doubtful. Again, you are reading your history into the text. Even if they were culturally and politically different, it still does not explain why the ancient historians would not have pointed to the obvious, which is to say, the invading Slavs spoke a language similar to the people of the region.
I do not find your argument here convincing, though I concede that it is possible the ancient historians left this information out of the historical record, though I think it to be highly improbable.

The Eastern Roman 'Sklabenoi' term is proof that the ancient Macedonians, Thracians and Illyrians spoke languages that were similar to those of the various peoples to the north of them. Think about it for a moment. There never were any "Slavs" during the 6th Century AD. This is a Germanic slang term that came to be used to de-humanize Vindelicians and Venetian populations in the eyes of Frankish subjugates around the 8th Century or so, if memory serves. There never was a tribe of people who were known as " the people who can kind of understand each other " tribe, so 'Sklabenoi' had to have been a descriptive term. As 'sklabenoi' meant 'sloveni', it had to have been known and used by those who recorded Eastern Roman history. 'Sklabenoi' was simply 'sloveni' in the lingua franca of the Eastern Roman Empire, an adaption that conformed to the limitations of the Greek language by Illyro-Thracian speaking chroniclers writing in the language of the Roman state. People to the south of Macedonia referred to Sarmatians as Sarmatians, while Macedonians, used both terms. Eventually, historians who thought, wrote and spoke exclusively in the Eastern Roman lingua franca adopted the term, as well. Mistranslations are not translations; they are myopic miscommunications.