Illyrian ancestry of the Albanians?

[Euklid]

My opinion is that they are descentants of Illyrians...as they do have some evidence supporting their case...like the tribal name Alvanoi and all the rest you guys have put forward...but i also ackowledge the fact that they might have some relation with the Caucasus people.

I honestly do not see why the first kills the second theory or vice versa.

Maybe they emigrated from one place to another during the centuries or they colonized Caucasus from Illyria and then with the Ottomans they came back and resettled the Balkans.

Truth be told, they have been mentioned in various censuses, byzantine and Ottoman...so they got to be from somewhere.

[HellenicPride]

Albanians are not related to Illyrians that is nothing but Albanian propaganda. They are trying to build a history for themselves just like the Skopjiani are by claiming that they are Macedonian. Only naive individuals and those who believe anything they read of the internet believe in such ridiculous theories. For some strange reason any Greek that I have met that supports that theory also tends to lean towards the left. Their is some connection their...

[Euklid]

LOL, that left thing you said is pretty amusing.

No such stereotype exists in this case, maybe for the MAcedonian, yes, but for the Illyrian ancestry, its the first time i hear about it.

Personally, i detest commies for many personal reasons, but anyway.

Even if they are not descendants of the Illyrians, we should let them be whatever they want to be, it shouldnt be in our concern, as we want the Skopians to leave our history for ourselves, we shouldnt mess with other peoples history.

Their case is a weird one...as not many evidence exist to support any of the theories that have been put on the table.

Currently the mainstream one is that they are..so until a new discovery comes along to verify or discredit this theory, i will personally accept it, and suggest to everybody else to do the same.

Bottom line, we should let them be...

[akritas]

Some more facts as about the language....

• Number of scholars believe that Illyrian was a centum language, though others disagree. If Illyrian was Centum, then it is unlikely that Albanian (which is Satem) is an Illyrian language.And we speak for a language(Illyrian) that the evidence(words, names,grammar) are very few.How can we connect these languages?
• Most Illyrian toponyms, hydronyms, names, and words have not been shown to be related to Albanian, and they do not indicate that Illyrians spoke a proto-Albanian language (opponents say that many of these toponyms, hydronyms and names are Hellenized and Romanized(Jirecek view). Whether the change in form is dramatic or not is hard to know in a number of cases). Ancient Illyrian toponyms (such as Skoder from the ancient Scodra,Romor from ancient Tomarus) were not directly inherited in Albanian, as their modern names do not correspond to the phonetic laws of Albanian.

[Leonatos]

Originally Posted by Orphic_Hymn

*. The most ancient loanwords from Latin in Albanian have the phonetic form of eastern Balkan Latin, i.e. of proto-Romanian, and not of western Balkan Latin, i.e. of old Dalmatian Latin. Albanian, therefore, did not take its borrowings from Vulgar Latin as spoken in Illyria.
(this is from another theory that proves your origin to be somewhere in Carpathia)

*. 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.

*. Another indication against local Albanian origin is the insignificant number of ancient Greek loanwords in Albanian. If the primitive home of the Albanians had been Albania itself, then the Albanian language would have to have many more ancient Greek loanwords.

*.The old home of the Albanians must have been near to that of the proto-Romanians. The oldest Latin elements in Albanian come from proto-Romanians, i.e. eastern Balkan Latin, and not from Dalmatian, western Balkan Latin that was spoken in Illyria. Cf. the phonetic development of the following words:
Vulgar Latin caballum 'horse' Rum. cal, Alb. kal
Vulgar Latin cubitum 'elbow' Rum. cot. Alb. kut
Vulgar Latin lucta 'struggle, fight' Rum. lupt, Arum. luft, Alb. luftλ

There is a certain amount of Albanian words (of non latin origin) similar to words that exist only in the Romanian language.How could one explain this weird thing?It just doesn't make sense unless there was an interaction and mutual influence between the ancestors of the Romanians and the ancestors of the Albanians.
1)That's why some linguists argued that the ancestors of the Albanians could have been Carpians from Carpathia.This is the first scenario
The truth is that a population of Carpians were transferred to the region of Pannonia by Diocletian.What happened to these people?The last thing that it is known about them is that they allied to the Goths and possibly followed them to their raids southwards.Is it pure coincidence that there are Gothic loanwords in the Albanian language?
The Carpians had made many raids in the roman territory when the romans were strong.When the Danube frontier collapsed it is possible that the carpians were pushed by other tribes(the Huns) and moved to the south together with the Goths.The Domino effect!
2)Another scenario is that the illyrians were mountainous illyrian clans and that the illyrian people on the plains were romanised.The common words of non latin origin in Albanian and Romanian could be explained by the similarity that could have existed between the illyrian and the thracian/dacian language.The common words of latin origin come from the interaction between the romanised illyrians and the mountainous clans.
But here there is a problem.The latin loans in the Albanian language are not related to the latin dialects spoken by the romanised Dalmatians/Illyrians(the Dalmatians were a group of Illyrians) but come from the latin dialects spoken by the latinised population of the eastern roman provinces in the Balkans!?!?!?

[Leonatos]

Originally Posted by Euklid

LOL, that left thing you said is pretty amusing.

No such stereotype exists in this case, maybe for the MAcedonian, yes, but for the Illyrian ancestry, its the first time i hear about it.

Personally, i detest commies for many personal reasons, but anyway.

Even if they are not descendants of the Illyrians, we should let them be whatever they want to be, it shouldnt be in our concern, as we want the Skopians to leave our history for ourselves, we shouldnt mess with other peoples history.

Their case is a weird one...as not many evidence exist to support any of the theories that have been put on the table.

Currently the mainstream one is that they are..so until a new discovery comes along to verify or discredit this theory, i will personally accept it, and suggest to everybody else to do the same.

Bottom line, we should let them be...

History as a science is not a toy to play with.What does this mean?"let them be what they want.."
Ok,everyone has a right to self-determination but history is history.
If i have understood well what you say,nobody should doubt their illyrian descent since their case has nothing to do with Greece.I disagree here. Objectivity should be the prime concern of all those who study HISTORY.
You say that the mainstream is that they are related to the illyrians.Since when?Their origin is still a controversial issue in history.Just goole "origin of Albanians"

[paniskos]

in the macedonia highlands under the hellenic sky

[Orphic_Hymn]

Originally Posted by paniskos

thats true indeed u can find several anthropological types in Albanians, blond with curly hair and occasionally red cheeks (those ones cant be from Caucasus, can they?), relatively tall and strong with long faces which remind me of Greeks from Epeirus I know, short with relatively short limbs who could resemble maybe certain "Russopontioi" figures I have in mind. (lets say that Eliades guy who won the gold in the Olympics)

Blond.. OK..
But you can find blonds in Turkey, Persia.. hell even Marroco and Egypt.. you can't simply judge a person's origin based on his hair but on anthropologic types .. and Hellas(as the entire Balkan peninsula) has had all of the Caucasian (meaning the so-called 'white race') racial types since antiquity..
As for Rossoponioi.. well thats a big chapter.. but as long as we're talking about the true Pontioi and not some Armenian, Azeri..etc that plagerized their name in order to get into Hellas.. I find no reason to even mention their appearence..

well ok for those toponyms and names but if they were the same stock of people I d expect that the vocabulary and the structure of their language to have considerable similarities, enough to find a much better composed set of similarities than a dozen of names

Well the basic problem here is that while the Caucasian languages are well recorded, Albanian is a reletively new language.. I mean that we have no written records of it prior to the 1600's when the first Albanian-Latin dictionary appeared.. A dictionary that was consisted of only some 5000 words..
I mean 5000?!? today any simple pocket dictionary of the English, French, German...etc language have over 80-100.000 and their first had ONLY 5000..hell, the Suda has over some 40.000 entries and it was written in the 10th cent(??)..
Anyway.. its interesting that the Albanian language was originally written in a mixture of Latin, Hellinic and Arabic (probably loaned from Ottoman).. which could again indicate a later formation of their script.. or support the theory of being enslaved and brought to Sicily and S.Italy by Arabs.. which is where Maniakes found them as noted in Attaliates' texts..

as for the anthropological when I ve got some time I ll have a look in that dienekes pontikos site, maybe he has something there about the albs

As I recall he's more into genetics.. but anyway .

so how can this support their coming from Caucasus?
...and why arent there any info describing their coming from Caucasus to western Balkans...

I had found some Armenian..etc texts.. but I'll have to look it up though.

I would assume that such movement wouldnt be unoticed (same from the coming from the region around Romania)
....and are u sure that the Romanian language has enough resemblance with the Albanian one?

Well there movement was noticed which is why I posted what Attaliates has recorded.. and that is their movement from S.Italy to their present location

As for Romanian.. well I'm neither a linguist nor do I speak either language.. I just quoted what linguists that do, have said about the issue...

much info btw OH I ll spend some time finishing reading them, I d appreciate some supporting the Illyrian theory in case u have as well (just to be objective)

Sorry but I don't have anything on that..

I m sure that if there was a moderate Albanian lad on that board he would provide tons of convincing arguments for his case

Well I must admit that some have tried.. but not successfully.. well I mean they didn't convince me personally.

-btw u didnt get my point, I just wrote the caucasian theory is mostly used to offend the Albs (same as the slavic one is used to offend us), it just doesnt sound serious enough

I see your point now.. but the difference here, is that all we have to do is pull out any simple genetics research and show that while have a small %.. we are not predominantly Slavic..
on the other hand.. the existance of some words is their only argument.. An argument that can also be applied to Slavs, since they too bear some words that resemble Illyrian ones..
Other than that neither have the traditions, customs nor historic memory to justify their claims..

So the million $ question remains... who's Illyrian ???

[Euklid]

Originally Posted by leonatos

History as a science is not a toy to play with.What does this mean?"let them be what they want.."
Ok,everyone has a right to self-determination but history is history.
If i have understood well what you say,nobody should doubt their illyrian descent since their case has nothing to do with Greece.I disagree here. Objectivity should be the prime concern of all those who study HISTORY.
You say that the mainstream is that they are related to the illyrians.Since when?Their origin is still a controversial issue in history.Just goole "origin of Albanians"

Another LOL, whatever man, nobody called you names, just chill.

Anyway, my opinion is the one you commented, if you get additional information on the Albanians i will be glad to read them.

[paniskos]

in the macedonia highlands under the hellenic sky