Paleo-Balkan & Balto-Slavic - Common Proto Language

[Agamoi Thytai]

I also believe you overemphasize on this voiced aspirates-voiced stops thing in order to prove that Macedonian was not a Greek dialect.However such differences between dialects of the same language are not uncommon in IE languages,like in Armenian.Pay attention to chapter 16.45,East and West Armenian dialects have the same difference in pronouncing these consonants like anc. Greek and Macedonian displayed.However no linguist ever thought of classifying them as two distinct languages:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_kn5c5dJmNUC&pg=PA394

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Agamoi Thytai

If you claim that some Greek dialects of Peloponnesus developed these consonant changes (even as exception and not as norm) because of interaction with non-Greek peoples,why can we not conclude the same for Macedonians?

Macedonians were a non-Greek people, and all of their neighbours aside from those to the south developed the same consonant changes thousands of years ago. That is different to a few random dialects in the Peloponnese undergoing 'barbarian' sound changes, while the overwhelming majority surrounding them exhibit typical Greek sound changes.

No,don't be confused with the suffix bere- in the name Berenice.Bere- means nothing in ancient Macedonian,just as phere- means nothing in Greek:

I'm not confused, you seem to be though, as 'bere' is not a suffix but a prefix placed at the beginning of the word 'berenike'. You could have saved yourself some time with the rest of what you wrote by simply making note that 'bero' is the present tense of the verb 'bere'.

More important is the meaning of the word which is exactly the same in anc.Macedonian,anc.Greek and mod.Greek while in modern Macedonian it is slightly different........

Hence your point is slightly relevant, as ultimately, it is still a cognate word that sounds more similar to Macedonian today than it does to Greek, because of the use of 'b' instead of 'f'.

However Greek thanon and thanatos are much closer to anc. Mac. danon and danos in both meaning and pronouncation,than mod.Mac. udaven

You've missed the point, again. Because of the use of 'd' instead of 'th', mod. Macedonian sounds more similar to anc. Macedonian, although I will concede that the form of this particular word is closer to both anc. and mod. Greek.

I don't think so,because you put the stress on Ο while in both anc. and mod. Greek the stress is always in Ι.It is Μακεδονία,not Μακεδόνια:
http://books.google.com/books?id=8i2...%CE%B1&f=false

In the link it shows the stress at the bottom of the last 'a' in both examples of Μακεδονία, doesn't it? The stress is placed on the 'o' for Μακεδόνων in both anc. and mod. Greek though, interesting. The pronounciation in Macedonian can also be diverse, as the stress can be placed on other vowels as the term is applied in different ways. In the end, the use of the sound 'd' as opposed to 'dh' makes it closer to mod. Macedonian.

Also you include a J between I and A (Македонија) which didn't exist in the ancient spelling.

A minimal difference that can hardly be noticed when said, and quite often omitted in speech.

Of course:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Nfo...=0CEoQ6AEwBzgK
Most linguists believe the pronounciation of Δ as "th" in English "this" changed in late Hellenistic time.

The link you provided was from Harvard University Press, 1963, here is something from Oxford University Press, 2002, a dictionary centred on Classical (Attic) Greek:

Δ d as French d (with tongue on teeth, not gums)

Several of the most esteemed in studies concerning ancient Greek were involved with the compilation of this dictionary. And, as mentioned, it is based on Attic, not Koine, so it cannot have "changed in late Hellenistic time", like you suggested. On what do you base your assertion?

East and West Armenian dialects have the same difference in pronouncing these consonants like anc. Greek and Macedonian displayed.However no linguist ever thought of classifying them as two distinct languages:

Exactly. Both west and east Armenian are easily mutually intelligible. Yet several linguists have questioned the apparent 'Greek' origin of anc. Macedonian, and they are rightfully classified as distinct languages.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Here is a comparison for the word 'head':

PIE ghebhelo - Anc. Maced. gabala or gavala* - Proto Balto-Slavic galava - Latvian galva - Mod. Maced. glava - Mod. Russn. golova - Mod. Greek kefali

*As recorded by Hesychius of Alexandria, 5th century AD.


Once again, the different change in the PIE aspirated consonant gh between anc/mod. Macedonian -> g (γ) and anc/mod. Greek is evident, only this time it is -> k (k) and not -> kh (χ) in the latter. On the other hand, it would appear acceptable to place anc. Macedonian between PIE and mod. Macedonian where it concerns the change from b -> v and the swap of v and l. The Illyrian name glavus may also be connected to the above, bringing it closer to mod. Macedonian. It is reasonable to assume that the Paleo-Balkan languages had their own dialects and tongues that developed separately from each other, similar to what happened with Balto-Slavic or within the Slavic group itself in later times.

Although Aristophanes' citation of the word keblē displays the ancient Macedonian voiced stop b and the exclusion of the following vowel a as characteristics, the writer shows some Attic influences such as the e instead of a as the first vowel, the i or ē instead of a as the last vowel, and in this case the devoiced consonant at the beginning of the word. Initially therefore, it would have been gabala and kefali in Macedonian and Greek respectively, unless Macedonian reverted back to the original g from k.

[Soldier of Macedon]

The lack of sentences or elaborate texts in the Paleo-Balkan languages means we remain ignorant of their grammar, cases and other linguistic characteristics to a large degree. However, some may be identifiable. For example, see below:

Wet - PIE wed - Thracian udréna (water, aquatic) - mod. Macedonian vodena, vodna, vodnata (wet, water, aquatic)

The 'ena' suffix in mod. Macedonian turns the root voda (water) into vodena (wet, water). Thracian too, would also have a root for udréna. Given the existence of the word udra (otter), which is connected to mod. Macedonian vidra, the Thracian word utos (water, river), with its devoiced stop t could suggest an earlier uda for 'water'.

In addition to the devoiced stop, the Thracian u can often be identified with mod. Macedonian v. Another example which exhibits both features is the Thracian word taru (spear), which stems from PIE deru (tree) and is a cognate with mod. Macedonian drvo (tree, wood) and possibly even treva (grass), in which mod. Macedonian, like Thracian, demonstrates the use of a devoiced stop t for the purpose of differentiating a word with the same root.

If we apply that same 'ena' suffux to this word, the term 'wooden' would become taruena, which will then be similar to drvena in mod. Macedonian. This is only a suggestion, as I have not come across many other Thracian words that have the 'en(a)' suffix, the only I can think of is mezéna (horseman), and Thracian tribal names such as caeni and maduateni (mentioned by Livy).

It is important to note the following, however, in relation to the Illyrians by John Wilkes (pg. 71):

Place-names from the Illyrian territories add little to our knowledge of the Illyrian language. The recurrent element -ona, for example, Aenona (Nin), Blandona (south Liburnia), Emona (Ljubljana), Narona (Vid), Scardona (Skradin near Sibenik), Salona (Solin near Split), does no more than indicate that Illyrian place names followed a basic Indo-European configuration. Indo-European characteristics in the formation of personal names include the derivation of feminines in -on, for example, the masculine Aplis/Aplinis with feminine Aplo/Aplonis, or the use of the prefix epi- in Epicadus, the different derivations in -nt and -menos in Dasant-, Dasmenos, and the use of numbers as personal names, Tritonus/Tritano, Sestus/Sextus/Sesto.

I have reservations about the second half of the paragraph, as the use of certain characteristics could be either from the retainment of PIE features or the 'Latinization' or 'Hellenization' of Illyrian names for formal purposes.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Although there are cases where local Balkan populations were driven out of their homes during the turmoil, co-existence also took place in several cases. A number of Balkan and Baltic placenames that were retained exhibited slight changes indicating an advanced form of satemisation through the palatalisation of certain consonants, resulting from the interaction with Common Slavic. Although each BSB group was at different stages of development when this occured, the 'lingua franca' produced by the (perceived) 'uncivilised' north, while bringing with it several changes, was familiar enough to be adapted by most in the Balkans.

Here are some examples of changes in Baltic placenames after interaction with Common Slavic: volčesa instead of vilkesà, očesa instead of akesa, lučesa instead of laukesà, and mereč instead of merkys.

Now compare them to the changes which took place in the following Paleo-Balkan placenames after interaction with Common Slavic: sredets instead of the Thracian serdika -> serdica, ultsin instead of the Illyrian olkin -> olcin, and the names maritsa instead of the Illyrian marika -> marica, veritsa instead of the Illyrian verika -> verica, and so on.

These words could have been replaced, but they instead followed a natural path of development to reach the same advanced level of palatalisation in Common Slavic. Along with certain other words in the Paleo-Balkan languages, they also appear to fit well as a preceding or equivalent element to Proto Balto-Slavic, Proto Baltic, Proto Slavic, and Common Slavic.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Thus far I have not seen any attempt at explaining the Thracian tribal name maduateni which was mentioned by Livy. It must have some sort of meaning that is IE. The following is hypothetical but an interesting comparison nonetheless, and relevant to the topic. I would like to explore the possible connection between the words maduat(eni) and medved, which means 'bear' in most Slavic languages. It stems from the compound of two common Slavic words: medu (partitive singular case of med) meaning 'honey', and ed meaning 'eat'. I haven't come across a recorded Thracian word for 'honey', while a word for 'eat' is cited as esko, which is more akin to jesti in Slovenian. However, some of the characteristics identified in Thracian when comparing it to today's Macedonian and Slavic languages may provide a means for possible reconstruction, such as:

• the use of the vowel u instead of v (taru instead of drvo, so proposed maduat instead of medved), which is akin to the earlier Slavic medued evolving into medved
• the use of the vowel a instead of e (bal instead of bel, so proposed maduat instead of medved, and ad instead of ed)
• the common (but not exclusive) use of devoiced consonant t from d (taru instead of drvo, so proposed maduat instead of medved)
• the use of the eni suffix (maduateni instead of proposed medvedeni, which translates into 'bear-men' or 'bear-people' in today's Macedonian)

The words developed from Proto Indo-European as follows:

PIE médhu - Slavic med
PIE bhel - Slavic bel, byal - Thracian bal
PIE ed - Slavic jed, jad - Sanskrit** átti

**I cited Sanskrit because it also uses the devoiced consonant t, and shares important similarities with Balto-Slavic and Paleo-Balkan languages.

One may argue that we cannot speculate in the absence of a cited Thracian word, particularly given that the construct of this word is exclusive to Balto-Slavic languages (I include Baltic in this case because a word for bear in Lithuanian is meška, strikingly similar to Macedonian mechka, ultimately deriving from medved) but that would only be relevant to those that cannot accept a commonality between the Balto-Slavic and Paleo-Balkan languages. Furthermore, an example has already been show where an assumed Slavic construct of a word (zemlja 'earth' evolving to zmija 'snake' and zmei 'dragon', compare that to semela in Thracian or zemela in Phrygian evolving to zuml 'dragon') may likely have a parallel in Thracian.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Here is something with regard to the process of Palatalisation in the Slavic languages:

Third Palatalisation:

What is likely to be the chronologically oldest palatalization is often called the "third" palatalization (hereafter called the progressive palatalization) due to confusion over the exact phonetic conditions that triggered it as well as forms such as the nominative singular *otĭcĭ (from *otĭk-os) but vocative singular *otĭče (from *otĭk-e) which made it seem that the progressive palatalization happened after this first regressive palatalization (see below).[36] However, incorporating and strategically ordering other diachronic changes (such as the fronting of back vowels after palatal consonants) sufficiently explains most of the discrepancies while placing this "third" palatalization before the other two.[37]

This palatalization goes as follows: Velar consonants become palatalized (*k, *g, *x → *ḱ, *ǵ, *x́) when following a front high vowel (either long or short) and preceding a mid back vowel (either long or short) across a morpheme boundary. An *n or *r between the velar and the high vowel does not prevent this palatalization. Also, the preceding front high vowel must itself follow a consonant.[37]

Slavic contact with Germanic tribes (such as the migrating Goths) around the second or third century is the earliest date from which the progressive palatalization could have occurred since loan words such as *kuning ('king') → kŭnędzĭ ('prince') and *penning ('penny') → *pěnędzĭ ('coin') show the reflex of this palatalization.[38] After the ninth century, this palatalization was likely no longer operating since Varangians (*varying-) were known as варѧгъ (varęgŭ) in Eastern Slavic branch of languages (Ukrainian and eventually Russian - without the palatalization of *g to *z) while the nominative plural: варѧзи (varęzi), and locative singular show that either the second regressive palatalization was still operative or that an analogy with other nouns ending in a velar consonant.

Second Palatalisation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_...palatalization

Slavic second palatalization is a Proto-Slavic sound change, that manifested as a regressive palatalization of inherited Balto-Slavic velars and velar fricative, chronologically occurring after the first and the third palatalization.........The second palatalization of velars is a direct consequence of the monophthongization of diphthongs, or more precisely, the change *aj > ē.[1] While the clusters *kaj, *gaj and *xaj were in accordance with the principle of so-called intrasyllabic synharmony that operated during the Common Slavic period, the clusters resulting from monophthongization *kē. *gē, *xē defied the intrasyllabic synharmony because the velar consonant was preceding the front vocalic, and that defied the Proto-Slavic phonotactical constraints..............That anomaly has been resolved by palatalization of velar consonant, just as it was done during the preceding first palatalization. Only the results of this new palatalization were different, and not completely uniform on all Slavic territory, indicating first dialectal differences. Usually this palatalization is described as gradual, first fronting of the velars to proper palatals occurred, and then (perhaps with those that were affected with the third palatalization) they were assibilated.[1] Hence it's sometimes called sibilantization.

Inherited velars *k (< PIE *k, *kʷ) and *g (< PIE *g, *gʰ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ) change before the Proto-Slavic diphthong *aj/āj (< PIE *oy, *h₂ey/ay), which itself must have become *ē by the time the second palatalization started to occur:[2]

*k > *t' > c
*g > *d' > dz > z
Proto-Slavic velar fricative *x that was absent in PIE, and which arose primarily from PIE *s by means of RUKI law, from word-initial PIE #sk- as well as from Germanic and Iranian borrowings, changed in the same environment as:

*x > *ś > s/š
Ultimate output of the third palatalization is thus the same as that of the preceding second palatalization. The difference of the palatalization of *x is dependent upon chronology and the Slavic dialect in question: In East and South Slavic it's /s/, and in West Slavic languages it's /š/.

Compare:

PIE *koylo- > PSl. *kajlu 'whole, healthy' > OCS cělъ, Russ. célyj, Pol. cały
The intermediary /dz/ has been preserved only in the oldest Old Church Slavonic canon monuments, Lechitic languages, and the Ohrid dialects of Macedonian. Other Slavic languages have younger /z/.

In South Slavic languages the second palatalization operates even if medial *w (> OCS v) is present between the velar and the diphthong (or its reflex), whereas in West Slavic languages the original *kvě/gvě clusters are preserved.[3] Although words with groups cv, zv resulting from the second palatalization are found in East Slavic languages, they are likely to be a consequence of the Church Slavonic influence, since there is evidence of preservation of original groups in Ukrainian and Belarusian languages and in Russian dialects.[4] Compare:

PSl. *gwajzdā 'star' > OCS zvězda, but Pol. gwiazda, Cz. hvězda
PSl. *kwajtu 'flower' > OCS cvětъ, but Pol. kwiat, Cz. květ, Ukr. kvitka, Belarus. kvetka, Russ. dial. kvet
In natively coined and inherited Slavic words the second palatalization occurs only before the new *ě < *aj, because the first palatalization already operated before all the other front vowels, but in the loanwords it also operates before all front vowels.[3] Compare:

Latin acētum 'vinegar' > Goth. akit- > PSl. *akitu > OCS ocьtъ
Germanic *kirkō 'church' > PSl. *kirkū > OCS crьky

First Palatalisation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_...palatalization

Inherited velars *k (< PIE *k, *kʷ) and *g (< PIE *g, *gʰ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ) change before Proto-Slavic front vowels *e/ē, *i/ī (PIE *e/ē, *i, *ey/ēy, *ew/ēw > OCS e/ě, ь, i, 'u), and also before the palatal semivowel *j:

*k > *kʲ > *č
*g > *gʲ > *dž > *ž

Even though it is commonly stated in the literature that the result of first palatalization were consonants */č/, */ž/, */š/, there is no certain evidence that that process was indeed finished by the 600 CE[1].

There is also some disagreement on whether Proto-Slavic velars became affricates before front vowels and before */j/; at first sight, it seems likely that palatalization of velars was an older process than palatalization before */j/.

Some examples of this phase of palatalisation, which is essentially the evolution of certain consonants, are words like PIE *gʷeneh₂ 'woman' > PSl. *ženā > OCS žena, and PIE *wĺ̥kʷe 'wolf!' (vocative singular of *wĺ̥kʷos) > PSl. *wilke > OCS vlьče. This sort of practice can still be applied to a range of words in the Slavic languages. For example, the name 'vera' can also be said as 'verka', and in vocative case as verke, verche or vertse.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Something with regard to the development of the sound 'shch' in Macedonian and other Slavic languages. Although this doesn't directly relate to the relationship between Balto-Slavic and Paleo-Balkan languages, it is relevant to the evolution of Slavic languages in general, and I will continue to add as much information as necessary on this thread to further build on the arguments put forth previously.

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

Shcha or Shta (Щ, щ, italics: Щ, щ) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, today representing the sound /ɕɕ/ in Russian (historically representing the consonant cluster /ɕt͡ɕ/[citation needed]), the consonant cluster /ʃt͡ʃ/ in Ukrainian and Rusyn, and the consonant cluster /ʃt/ in Bulgarian. Originally, this letter was a ligature of sha and te (Ш + Т = Щ, like in the modern Bulgarian language), with the descender in the middle of the sha, and is descended from the Glagolitic letter Shta

The appearance of this sound change is explained as follows:


Of course, the table above refers only to today's standardised Slavic languages, and incorrectly lists 'c' instead of 'kj' for Macedonian. It is also well know that the 'shch' sound was used in a number of places across Macedonia, and it has been asserted that when the Miladinov brothers used the letter щ, it did not represent the sound 'sht' but instead 'shch', like was common in their native Struga. Nevertheless, the sound 'shch' did evolve from 'sht', so the latter is the older variant. It is interesting to note that the 'kj' sound in modern Macedonian resembles Proto Slavic 'k' more than any other Slavic language does, including Church Slavonic/Old Macedonian, for example; PIE nókʷts - MKD nokj - BLG nosht. Although it seems to be accepted that Macedonian 'kj' derived from Church Slavonic/Old Macedonian 'sht' (in some cases Macedonian does use 'sht' instead of 'kj', even for the same words in different dialects), it also suggests that the change actually reverted the sound closer to an earlier form, which presents a peculiar case.

Was Church Slavonic/Old Macedonian the most common Macedonian dialect in Macedonia? Was it a specifically Macedonian dialect? Or, was it essentially a Macedonian dialect that allowed for some flexibility in vocabulary, grammar, etc to serve as a lingua franca among all Slavic-speaking peoples, and effectively continue in the role previously filled by Common Slavic during the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries? Did the local vernaculars of Slavic-speaking peoples continue to be spoken alongside Church Slavonic/Old Macedonian? A document written in the Macedonian dialect of Kostur from the 16th century would appear to suggest this, but older sources are needed to obtain an even better picture.

[Soldier of Macedon]

As can be noticed, I am using this thread to build up reference material so I would like to continue having it kept in context. If anybody wishes to discuss any of the information I have cited here, please feel free to either raise it on another thread or start up a new thread with a specific topic. Carrying on, here are some excerpts from the below source, which has information relating to the characteristics of Proto Slavic and Church Slavonic/Old Macedonian.

http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut...o/problems.pdf

Page 17:

Proto-Slavic, like all satem languages and also insular Celtic (with the exception of */gw/) and probably Phrygian (if it was a centum language), simplified the clusters of a velar plus */w/, the so-called labiovelar stops.5 This does not hold for the clusters with a palatovelar as the first component. These yielded */Ćw/ (*/Ć/ standing for the initial outcome of the satemization). This means that the satemization took place before the simplification of */Kw/ clusters, a relative chronology that is well in line with the idea that the latter process was a reaction to the former. As the original velars were fricativized, or more probably affricated, their old phonetic slot was occupied by the complex */Kw/ (as has happened in French).

PIE */kwoyn-/: OCS cěna ‘price’, cp. Lith. káina, Gk. poin» ‘id.’
PIE */kweyt-/: OCS svitati ‘to dawn’, cp. Lith šviẽsti ‘to shine’, OE hwít ‘white’
PIE */begw-/: OCS běgati ‘run’, cp. Lith. bėgti ‘id.’, Gk. fšbomai ‘I flee’
PIE */snoyghwo-/: OCS sněgъ ‘snow’, cp. Lith. sniẽgas ‘id.’, Goth. snaiws ‘id.’
PIE */ghwēr-/: OCS zvěrь ‘beast’, cp. Lith. žvėrìs ‘id.’, Gk. q»r ‘id.’

Page 26:

The Balto-Slavic case system is nearly identical to that of Indo-Aryan, with the exception that it has no genitive-ablative dichotomy in any declensional type. This system most likely goes back at least to the “dialectal period” of PIE, but whether it was inherited by all of IE and later greatly simplified in nearly all dialects is questionable.......it may be assumed that PIE proper, before the “dialectal period”, had about five formal case distinctions in the singular, viz. the nominative, the accusative, the vocative, the genitive, the dative, and three in the plural, viz. the nominative, the accusative and the genitive .....

Page 27:

The OCS noun is inflected in three numbers, viz. the singular, the dual, and the plural. Reconstructing the proto-morphology of the dual, both in the noun and the verb, is made difficult by the poor survival rate of that number in IE languages (see, e.g., Shields 1987, Sihler 1995:255-256, Malzahn 1999), but the Indo-Aryan, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Greek, and Celtic evidence makes it clear that the category existed in their common ancestor. It is absent from Anatolian, which probably indicates its rise in post-Proto-Indo-Hittite times.

Page 60:

bogъ ‘god’, cp. Skt. bhágah ‘wealth, food, god’, Gk. f£goj ‘glutton’, all from */bhag-o-/. The original root */bhag-/ seems to have referred to ‘eating’, ‘food’, ‘wealth’, hence to the provider or sharer of food and wealth, i.e. ‘god’. Cp. OCS u·bogъ ‘poor’ (‘unwealthy’), bog-atъ ‘rich’, Skt. pres. 3rd sg. bhájati ‘share, divide’, bhágavant - ‘bounteous’. For the semantic development, see Jucquois (1965). It is sometimes claimed on semantic grounds that bogъ is an Iranian borrowing, e.g. Schlerath (2001). This is an unnecessary assumption.

Page 78:

By far the largest group of neuters consists of desubstantival and deadjectival abstract nouns in -ьstvo. The history of the suffix is not clear, but the -v- may be a former stem element */-u-/ to which a theme vowel */-o-/ has been attached (as in the case of drěvo ‘tree’, see 4.2.). The suffix-initial -ь- is probably a mere prop-vowel preventing sound changes at the morpheme boundary. This is suggested by běstvo ‘escape’ in which -stvo has been added directly to the verbal root běg- ‘to run, escape’. The -s- may have been abstracted from a root, in which case the actual suffix would be */-t-u-/. If this analysis is correct, the class is morphologically to be identified with the deverbative type represented by Goth. wahstus ‘growth’ ← wahsjan ‘to grow’, OIr. mess ‘judgment’ (*/med-t-u-/) ← midithir ‘to judge’, Lat. gressus ‘step’ ← gradī ‘to walk’, and Gk. klitÚj ‘slope’ ← kl…nein ‘to incline’. In the subclass with -ьje, the suffix has been extended with */-i-y-o-/. The deadjectival nouns are synonymous with the feminines in -ostь (4.1.2.), e.g. mądrьstvo ‘wisdom, wit’, mądrostь ‘id.’ ← mądrъ ‘wise’, and -ota (4.6.3.3.), e.g. veličьstvo ‘greatness’, velikota ‘id.’ ← velikъ ‘great’, and also to the neuters in -ьje (4.5.2.3.5.2.), e.g. blaženьstvo ‘bliss’, blaženьje ‘id.’ ← blaženъ ‘blessed’.

[Pelister]

SoM, this is really good work. I am no linguist and most of this is beyond me, but your comparisons of ancient words across different countries, is very effective in highlighting just how deep our roots go and how different we have always been from the 'Greek'. The cross comparisons with Thracian are also very, very effective, I think you are onto something here, because it hasn't been done before, and because it reveals so much about our ancient balkan roots. Thats probably why your attracting these Greek professors (I'm guessing thats who AT is).