Carlin, here are some points.
1)
[B]The DNA[/B] - some hundreds of Albanians have been tested. The result tells us that the majority of Albanians belong to EV-13 40-45% (Balkanic) haplogroup. If they were Levanite or Arabic in origin this would not happen. (Especially Ghegs)

2)
[B]Orthodoxy[/B] - exists among Albanians. The majority of Slavic toponyms are more numerous in south were it was occupied and under control of Greco-Savic territory rather than in North. While the Ghegs are more isolated and thus Catholic. (Tosks came from Ghegs). Considering Orthodoxy and Catholicism being present in Albanians is mostly safe to assume the ''half believer'' refer to Orthodox/Catholic contrast. (?)
3)
Mirditor is not very similar as 'Mardaite'' (in spelling). The word is actually of foreign origin like Greek to ''Hellene'; the actually reference to that word is ''al-Jarājimah''. The word Mirditor is less meaningful than Parisian is to a French or Athenian to a Greek. The root of the word 'Mirditor' is from the location called Miredita; Mire meaning good, Dita meaning day while the person living on that zone is called Mirditor. Mirditor is not and never was a primary reference before Arbereshe/Shqiptar/Albanian.

Albanians have been know to use the term 'shqa' in a pejorative manner against people in the Balkans who speak 'Slavic' languages, particularly their neighbours. They may have borrowed it from Aromanian (Vlach) 'shcljau' or Romanian 'șchiau', ultimately from Latin 'sclavus'. Albanians in Greece use a similar word, 'shkljira', to refer to Greeks. It's been suggested that this term developed a general meaning of 'foreigner', but I am not aware of Albanians using it to refer to Roma, Vlachs and Turks, who also lived near or among them. Albanians apparently started moving into Attica and Morea from the 13th and 14th centuries. I haven't looked into this much further, just wanted to explore the possibility if, when they arrived, some of their new neighbours were initially speaking 'Slavic' languages, hence the reason why they continued to use the term.

[QUOTE=Soldier of Macedon;166493]Albanians have been know to use the term 'shqa' in a pejorative manner against people in the Balkans who speak 'Slavic' languages, particularly their neighbours. They may have borrowed it from Aromanian (Vlach) 'shcljau' or Romanian 'șchiau', ultimately from Latin 'sclavus'. Albanians in Greece use a similar word, 'shkljira', to refer to Greeks. It's been suggested that this term developed a general meaning of 'foreigner', but I am not aware of Albanians using it to refer to Roma, Vlachs and Turks, who also lived near or among them. Albanians apparently started moving into Attica and Morea from the 13th and 14th centuries. I haven't looked into this much further, just wanted to explore the possibility if, when they arrived, some of their new neighbours were initially speaking 'Slavic' languages, hence the reason why they continued to use the term.[/QUOTE]

It is possible this happened in [B]Epirus[/B]. Apparently, at some point in the middle ages, there were still 'Slavic' speakers there.

Unrelated, but not sure if I ever shared the following.

The position of Albanian by Eric Hamp
[url]http://www.kroraina.com/balkan/ehamp.html[/url]

(Not endorsing the following fully, simply sharing what I found online. Not sure if this is the right place to put it.)

[I]Nicholas Hammond[/I]

In 1204 the Franks of the Fourth Crusade and the Venetians sacked Constantinople and began to divide up the provinces of the Byzantine Empire among themselves. [B]A period of chaos ensued, during which [U]several small principalities were established[/U] in the southwest Balkans[/B]. The only one which upheld the Greek tradition was that of the Angeli. the rulers of Epirus from 1206 to 1260, and they had to contend with the Albanian principality of Demetrios and Ghin, the Serbian principality of the Nemanja and Uros families, the kingdom of Thessalonica, and the rival Byzantine principality of Nicaea, quite apart from raids delivered from the west on the coast of Epirus. [B]It was in this period that the flow of immigrants from the northwestern area began. It became a flood in the fourteenth century. They went as mercenaries, raiders and migrants. The great majority of them were speakers of Albanian, but others joined the movement.[/B] When they wanted to leave Thessaly and go elsewhere, many others appeared with their wives and children ("multicum uxoribus et filiis") and their combined forces proceeded to wreck other parts of Thessaly. John Cantacuzenus 1.495 described their raids on the west side of the peninsula in 1335: "The Albanoi who inhabit the area of Balagrita [Berat] and Kanina [inland of Valona], being adaptable to change and by nature revolutionary, ravaged and plundered … and oppressed the towns there with their brigandage and open raids".

The Byzantine rulers had recourse to two methods of treating these raiders The Emperor Andronicus III gave land to [B]12,000 Vlach-speaking raiders[/B] who submitted to him in Thessaly. ‘The Great Domestic', John Cantacuzenus, carried out a campaign against the Albanian-speaking tribes in 1335. "As the Albanians inhabited great mountain ranges which were difficult of access and had many retreats and hiding-places, they could not easily be injured by the cavalry." For this reason, light armed infantry and archers were recruited in Asia and took part in the campaign (Cantacuzenus 1.495). Even so the Albanians were not destroyed, for they withdrew into the mountains and beat off their attackers from above. However, the Emperor advanced from Thessaly to Dyrrachium and took spoil to the amount of 300,000 cattle, 5,000 horses and 1,200,000 sheep. But the Albanian raids continued and Acarnania was laid waste, in 1341 the Emperor attacked the offending Albanians "around Pogoniane and Libisda" (Lidizda), i.e. in the central part of northern Epirus; (20) and then in 1355 he campaigned from Thessaly as far south as Aetolia and Acarnania and was killed in action (Cantacuzenus 3.319). These campaigns did not stop the flood. [B]Albanians were serving as mercenaries in the Peloponnese c. 1350, and they and their families were given land there to cultivate.[/B]

[B]In 1358 the Albanians overran Epirus, Acarnania and Aetolia, and established two principalities[/B] under their leaders, John Spatas (shpate in Albanian meaning a sword) and Peter Leosas (lios in Albanian meaning a pockmark), Naupactus fell into their control in 1378. The cities which held out against them, especially loannina and Arta, were ravaged by a series of plagues, and Thomas, the Serbian Despot of loannina, saved himself at first by making marriage alliances with the two Albanian leaders. In the Greek account of the Albanian advance under Peter Leosas we learn that he was accompanied by "Mazarakii and Malakasei of his own race" (Epeirotica 2.220; cf. 222 f.), (21) While Mazaraki is in central Epirus by the river Kalamas, Malakasa is the coastal plain of central Albania farther north and the words ‘of his own race' were used to [B]distinguish the Albanian-speaking Malakasaei from the Vlach-speaking Malakasii[/B]. It is clear that Thomas feared the Albanians above all. Whereas he mutilated the [B]Bulgars[/B] and the [B]Vlachs[/B], he allowed most of his Albanian prisoners to be ransomed. Atrocities were committed no doubt by both sides, and Thomas came to be called [B]Albanitoktonos (Albanian-killer; Epeirotica 2.225)[/B]. In 1380 Thomas brought in the Turks as allies and passed to the offensive, but he did not advance farther than the basin of the upper Kalamas, where he took Vela (by Vrondismeni), Boursina (Vrousina), and Kretzounista (Dhespotikon) (21). The Albanians and in particular the Mazarakii of the Kalamas valley held firm against him. In 1385 he was assassinated by some of his own bodyguards (Epeirotica 2.230).

[B]Other bands of Albanians and Vlachs invaded the Catalan principality of Boeotia and Attica, and a great many Albanians settled there as peasant-farmers in 1368 and later years. Around the end of that century a migrating group of 10,000 Albanians with their families and their animals came from pastures in central Greece to the Isthmus of Corinth and sought entry to the Peloponnese. [/B]This was granted by Theodore, who settled them within his own domains, where he used them as tough soldiers and "expert cultivators" (Manuel II, Funeral Speech, p. 40). [B]Albanians and others were invited in 1402 to settle on uncultivated but cultivable lands in Euboea[/B], if they were willing to serve as soldiers in defence of the island and work the soil. The proclamation of the Venetian rulers was extended to "quilibet Albanensis vel alia gens qui non sint no&tri subditi, qui cum equis volent venire et venient ad habitandum’ (23). [B]By the middle of the fifteenth century the Albanians in the Peloponnese were so numerous[/B] that they tried to seize control, led first by one Peter the Lame, and then by a Greek, a member of the Cantacuzenus family, but their attempt failed.

[B]The penetration of the Greek mainland which we have described occurred during the hundred or more years after 1325.[/B] The opportunity arose through the decline and disruption of the Byzantine Empire and the wars which followed between the various small principalities of Greeks, Serbs, Catalans, Venetians and others. One of the pressures which set the Albanians and others in motion came from the expanding power of the Serbs which reached its peak under the rule of Stephen Dusan (1331-1355), who subjugated Epirus and Acarnania. [B]A contributory factor seems to have been [U]overpopulation[/U] among the Albanians (24) - always a prolific people and [U]underpopulation[/U] in mainland Greece as a result of internal collapse and foreign intervention. The strongest single group of invaders was that of the Vlachs which pressed down into Thessaly and opened the way there for the Albanians.[/B] But the most numerous by far were the Albanian-speakers, and their main line of invasion and penetration was down the western side of northern and central Greece.

[B]Once in possession of most of north-western Greece, the Albanians opened the way for other immigrants. Offshoots of Albanians and Vlachs entered Boeotia, Attica and Euboea, having probably come from summer pastures on Mt Parnassus and from southern Aetolia; and other groups of Albanians forced an entry or gained an invitation of entry into the Peloponnese, sometimes crossing over the western part of the Gulf of Corinth and sometimes coming to the Isthmus of Corinth. [/B]When 10,000 Albanians came to the Isthmus of Corinth, they brought not only their families but also their flocks of animals. The Albanians in the Peloponnese took their herds in the winter to the coastal plain of Elis, “which was open to the sun, near the sea, had good grazing and was deserted by men (i.e. by the Greeks)"; and these herds consisted of "very many herds of horses, very many of cattle, most of sheep and most of pig"(29). Such Albanians as these—and they were evidently the majority - were described by Laonicus Chalcocondylas (406) as follows: "This race are all nomads, and do not make their stay for long in any one place" they were, then, transhumant pastoralists without fixed abodes or villages. But there were many others who wanted to cultivate the land and were given land by the Venetians and the Greeks, because they were such hard-working and expert cultivators. When Manuel Cantacuzenus, Despot of Mistra in the Peloponnese, took over "all Albania," he deported two groups of Albanians and settled them, one near Constantinople and the other in the Peloponnese, the latter "a great number" (30). The Albanians were acceptable to the Greek, Catalan or Venetian overlords, as the case might be, because they were capable of reviving agriculture in derelict areas.

In the eyes of the Greeks/ the Albanians and those associated with them were fine hunters, (31) excellent horsemen and redoubtable warriors. As has been said by Joseph Campbell, "by and large hunting people are warrior people; and not only that, but many are exhilarated by battle and turn warfare into exercises in bravura"(32). These were the ancestors of the Souliote warriors, whom Byron admired so much in the Greek War of Independence. In the fourteenth century they were feared and hated in northern Greece, but they were hired as mercenaries or attracted as settlers by the rulers of the principalities in the Peloponnese and central Greece and Thessaly. The most warlike of the Albanians were those described by the Greeks as living in great mountainous areas, that is those engaged in pastoralism with the transhumance of sheep. They were certainly illiterate, but they were tightly organised in tribal units with a patriarchal system of leadership. The leaders were evidently very capable men, possessing wide powers over their followers, and 'John the Sword', 'Peter the Pockmark' and 'Peter the Lame' led very large armies of Albanian warriors with success. When they were hired as mercenaries, they came not as individuals but as organised bands, sometimes accompanied by their families and animals. The hope of their employers was that the Albanians would "come with their horses" and fulfil their obligations "to maintain their horses, garrison the forts and obey orders (34)". It was these cavalrymen, with their entourage, who were the leaders. The rank and file fought on foot.

With the capture of Ioannina by the Turks in 1430. The role of the Albanians changed very little. The Albanians of Kruje, Mati and Dibra, i.e. of the areas north of the Shkumbi river, fought heroically against the Turks until the death of their leader, Skanderbeg, in 1467 and indeed after it, but unavailingly. The Albanians of the Peloponnese participated in a rising against the Turks in 1459. On the other hand the Turks were soon employing the Albanians as mercenaries and encouraging them to settle in the devastated areas not only of the Greek mainland but also in some of the Aegean islands. So the process of infiltration and expansion continued under Turkish rule. [B]By 1687, for instance, almost all the population of Euboea was Albanian, (35) the Greeks having fled in 1471.[/B]

[B]Piracy had led to impoverishment and depopulation in the islands during the late Byzantine period, and Albanians moved in as occasion arose. Thus they were brought to Andros (sic Salamis?) in the Saronic Gulf c. 1600 to cultivate the land; they went from Troezen to Hydra in 1580, and other settlers arrived from Parga, Souli, Valona, Euboea and Cythnos in the seventeenth century. Other groups went to Samos, Psara and Casos, many of the settlers being from western Epirus, Euboea and Thessaly. Yet other groups entered Andros, Ios, Cythnos and Ceos among the Cyclades and Scopelos in the Northern Sporades. They became excellent seamen, winning distinction in the Greek War of Independence and raising Hydra and Spetsae to a leading position in the carrying trade of the Aegean basin. Groups of soldiers were employed far afield: in Cyprus, for instance, in Byzantine times, and for some 250 years in Crete during the Turkish period.[/B]

One Albanian leader, 'Ali the Lion', emulated the achievements of 'John the Sword' and 'Peter the Pockmark' when he established himself as Ali Pasha, independent ruler of Ioannina. He and his Albanian soldiers, recruited mainly from his homeland in the Kurvelesh and the Drin valley of North Epirus, controlled the whole of Epirus and carried their raids far into western Macedonia and Thessaly. As we have seen, they destroyed the Vlach settlements in the lakeland and weakened those farther south. After the assassination of Ali Pasha in 1822 sporadic raids by bands of Albanians were a feature of life in northern Greece until the liberation or 1912-13.

The Albanian language persisted in Greece with full vigour into the 1930s. When Perachora on the Isthmus of Corinth was being excavated, all the workmen spoke Albanian; and I visited Albanian-speaking villages in Boeotia, Attica, Argolis and Epidaurus in the 1930s. Albanian gave way to Greek when the conditions of life changed through the introduction of universal education, military conscription, organised commerce and more mobility of population. In the islands change came sooner; and there Albanian receded in the nineteenth century. It is likely that Albanian will give way to Greek altogether under the conditions of the present half-century.

I am objective. My belief is that Albanians are Latinized Dacians that were separated from Vlachs many hundreds years ago.
[IMG]http://www.norwaydna.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Haplogroup-E-V13-Eupedia-2013.gif[/IMG]
[url]http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_E1b1b_Y-DNA.shtml#V13_origins[/url]

[IMG]http://i45.tinypic.com/iyn809.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=Carlin;166508]It is possible this happened in [B]Epirus[/B]. Apparently, at some point in the middle ages, there were still 'Slavic' speakers there.[/QUOTE]
Arvanites moved much further south than just Epirus and it is not unrealistic to suggest that even in those places there were people speaking 'Slavic' languages.
[QUOTE="tchaiku"]My belief is that Albanians are Latinized Dacians that were separated from Vlachs many hundreds years ago.[/QUOTE]
The Albanian and Romanian languages share a number of similarities. But on what do you base the belief that Albanians descend from Dacians?

Originally Posted by tchaiku -
[I]My belief is that Albanians are [B]Latinized[/B] Dacians that were separated from Vlachs many hundreds years ago.[/I]

This must be an error.
If not --- how are Albanians [B][SIZE="3"]Latinized[/SIZE][/B] Dacians?

(If Albanians are Latinized Dacians, what are Vlachs and/or Romanians?)

It is an error. Anyways for your question:

A good amount of the non-Latin features present in Romanian language have their correspondence in Albanian, not only concerning lexicon but also structure, phraseology and idioms. These characteristics belong to two linguistic periods: the substratum, that is the language spoken by the Vlach before their Romanization ‒which may be the same of Albanian or a similar language‒, and the subsequent close contact between both peoples throughout a long period, mainly regarding their common life-style as shepherds.
Since the controversy about the origin of Albanians is presented by two main theories, one proposing the Illyrian stem and the other the Thracian stem, the advocates of the Daco-Roman myth vehemently support the second possibility, as they cannot deny the strong links between the Vlach and the Albanian peoples in early times. It is not our task to discuss about the origin of Albanians here, and in any case it is irrelevant whether one or the other theory is the right one, because the whole complex of proofs point out in a definitive manner to the area of present-day Albania and surrounding territory as the birthplace of the early Romanians and not the eastern side of the Balkans ‒ even if the Albanians would not be autochthonous but coming from any other place, it is in the area they live today where both peoples met and not elsewhere. A further factor is that there is not any historical record attesting any hypothetic migration of Albanians from Dacia (and there is not any vestige of their presence in that land), while there are many documents proving that the Vlach people lived since the early centuries by the southern Adriatic coastland ‒even before the Roman occupation of Dacia!‒ and as a matter of fact, there are still historic Romanian communities (Aromanians) living there.
Linguistic research has determined that most of the words shared by Romanian and Albanian are not loans from one tongue to the other but have a common origin in the substratum, before than these two languages began to be distinguished from each other. Romanian terms that are similar to Albanian mainly regard primary elements like body parts, names of animals and plants, and words specifically related with the pastoral life. It is significant that such vocabulary in Romanian is not found in Slavic or any other language spoken in the Balkans but only in Albanian. Another interesting fact concerns the very name of the capital city of Romania: Bucureşti, a word that is similar to the Albanian term "bukurisht", having the same meaning.
While the Vlach people were thoroughly Latinized, Albanian language has also received the influence of Latin since early times. A common territory and life-style shared by both peoples have produced the same semantic changes in both languages: a considerable number of Latin terms have undergone identical changes of meaning without parallel in any other tongue, and they cannot have happened just by chance or by any logical reason except because both peoples were living in a common environment and in the same territory.
Among the unusual features present in Romanian that are explainable by a comparison with Albanian we find also the definite article, that in Classic Latin precedes the noun but is enclitic in Romanian and follows the same patterns as in Albanian, and the personal pronoun in accusative case, that contains the suffix ~ne, exactly like in Albanian.


The Romanian language shows evidence of having been originated from a substratum that shares in common with Albanian, spoken in Southern Illyria. A branch of the Vlach people still inhabits in that original homeland.

[IMG]http://www.imninalu.net/Myths_files/Vlach-expansion.jpg[/IMG]

[url]http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Vlach.htm[/url]

E X A C T quotes from Book I of Laonicus Chalcondyles:

1)
[SIZE="3"]"As far as one may infer, [B]the Serbs may well be an Illyrian people[/B], given where they came from before they acquired dominion over Europe. They thus came to Skopje from the lands to the west, by the Adratic Sea, [B]speak a language similar to that of the Illyrians[/B]. The Illyrian people is populous and has spread far and wide along the Adriatic Sea, as far as the Venetians. It would, then, not be difficult to infer that it was from them that the Serbs came to be dispersed across Europe. Even today both of them speak the same language and have the same customs and way of life, so that [B]those who venture an opinion about the Illyrians would be wrong were they to say that they are the present-day Albanians. I do not accept the premise of the argument, that the Albanians are an Illyrian people[/B]."[/SIZE]

2)
[SIZE="3"]"But I know that Serbs, Bulgarians, [B]Illyrians[/B] ([I]meaning Bosnians[/I]), Croatians, Poles, and Russians speak one and the same language. So if we must draw a conclusion from this evidence, it would be that they are all one and the same people, being of the same race."[/SIZE]

3)
[SIZE="3"]"[B]The Illyrian race[/B] is ancient and lives by the Adriatic Sea, and they are mentioned as flourishing in many places. [B]Today they are called Bosnians. But the Dalmatians, Bulgarians, Serbs, and Russians speak the same language as they do[/B] ............. [B]But I am amazed at those who propose that the Illyrians are the Albanians[/B] by arguing that the Illyrians by the inner gulf of the Adriatic Sea moved to Epeiros, Aitolia, and Thessaly."[/SIZE]

[QUOTE=tchaiku;166749]It is an error. Anyways for your question:

A good amount of the non-Latin features present in Romanian language have their correspondence in Albanian, not only concerning lexicon but also structure, phraseology and idioms. These characteristics belong to two linguistic periods: the substratum, that is the language spoken by the Vlach before their Romanization ‒which may be the same of Albanian or a similar language‒, and the subsequent close contact between both peoples throughout a long period, mainly regarding their common life-style as shepherds.
Since the controversy about the origin of Albanians is presented by two main theories, one proposing the Illyrian stem and the other the Thracian stem, the advocates of the Daco-Roman myth vehemently support the second possibility, as they cannot deny the strong links between the Vlach and the Albanian peoples in early times. It is not our task to discuss about the origin of Albanians here, and in any case it is irrelevant whether one or the other theory is the right one, because the whole complex of proofs point out in a definitive manner to the area of present-day Albania and surrounding territory as the birthplace of the early Romanians and not the eastern side of the Balkans ‒ even if the Albanians would not be autochthonous but coming from any other place, it is in the area they live today where both peoples met and not elsewhere. A further factor is that there is not any historical record attesting any hypothetic migration of Albanians from Dacia (and there is not any vestige of their presence in that land), while there are many documents proving that the Vlach people lived since the early centuries by the southern Adriatic coastland ‒even before the Roman occupation of Dacia!‒ and as a matter of fact, there are still historic Romanian communities (Aromanians) living there.
Linguistic research has determined that most of the words shared by Romanian and Albanian are not loans from one tongue to the other but have a common origin in the substratum, before than these two languages began to be distinguished from each other. Romanian terms that are similar to Albanian mainly regard primary elements like body parts, names of animals and plants, and words specifically related with the pastoral life. It is significant that such vocabulary in Romanian is not found in Slavic or any other language spoken in the Balkans but only in Albanian. Another interesting fact concerns the very name of the capital city of Romania: Bucureşti, a word that is similar to the Albanian term "bukurisht", having the same meaning.
While the Vlach people were thoroughly Latinized, Albanian language has also received the influence of Latin since early times. A common territory and life-style shared by both peoples have produced the same semantic changes in both languages: a considerable number of Latin terms have undergone identical changes of meaning without parallel in any other tongue, and they cannot have happened just by chance or by any logical reason except because both peoples were living in a common environment and in the same territory.
Among the unusual features present in Romanian that are explainable by a comparison with Albanian we find also the definite article, that in Classic Latin precedes the noun but is enclitic in Romanian and follows the same patterns as in Albanian, and the personal pronoun in accusative case, that contains the suffix ~ne, exactly like in Albanian.


The Romanian language shows evidence of having been originated from a substratum that shares in common with Albanian, spoken in Southern Illyria. A branch of the Vlach people still inhabits in that original homeland.

[IMG]http://www.imninalu.net/Myths_files/Vlach-expansion.jpg[/IMG]

[url]http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Vlach.htm[/url][/QUOTE]

Thanks - I don't necessarily share your opinion, but it is a working hypothesis with most pieces and proofs missing or lacking. Most linguists and experts still struggle with it due to scarcity of sources and data.