![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to the Balkans or Eastern Europe, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
|
||||||||||
This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present. |
Maleschreiber, here are the two relevant pages for more details on what Orel wrote:
This is the complete "4.2.1.0. Kinship terms" subsection. I have access to the full book; if you need any other page, don't hesitate to ping me. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 23:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Oh boy. Here we go again. First of all, the map is WP:SYNTH, as it is based on a multitude of sources or so it is claimed. Second, for three of these, no page numbers are given, so impossible to verify. Third, the two Albanian language sources appear to be highly partisan. They are not peer-reviewed English language sources. Then there are obvious errors, for example, the area around the city of Apollonia and the city of Epidamnos were Greek-speaking, but are not shown as such in the map. In general, it has a very strong "we was autochthnous" whiff to it. This time, I will seek outside mediation, because the situation in these articles has generally gone out of control. Khirurg ( talk) 02:33, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
There is, however, evidence that Albanian was spoken over a broader territory in the Balkans than the contemporary range of territory occupied by its speaker community today (Çabej 1971:41, Demiraj 2004:98, 104). A number of important toponyms in Macedonia, southern Serbia, and Kosovo show reflexes of Albanian phonological developments; e.g. Astibos > Albanian Shtip, Slavic Štip (in eastern Macedonia), Naissus > Albanian Nish, Slavic Niš (in southern Serbia) (Pulaha 1984:11). The toponym Dobreta, because of its greater distance as mentioned above places, the potential range of the predecessor to Albanian up to the banks of the Danube. This was also the range of significant Latin influence (north of the Jireček Line, which is recognized as the customary division of a northern zone of Latin language influence and from a southern zone of Greek language influence, [Jireček 1911, Friedman 2001b:29]) and corresponded to the area inhabited by pastoral speakers of Balkan Romance well into the Middle Ages. This fits well with a theory forwarded in particular by Hamp (1994) that Albanian is the result of an autochthonous Balkan language that has undergone partial Romanization, while Balkan Romance represents a full language shift, whereby the early form of this Balkan language (its “proto-Albanian” linguistic predecessor) was fully absorbed into Late Latin per Eric PrendergastAhmet Q. ( talk) 03:05, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
It is even debatable if there was a proto-Albanian that far back.: All periodizations of the Albanian language presuppose that the phase called Proto-Albanian language#Periods of Proto-Albanian began long before the 4th century CE. It's common knowledge. RfCs presuppose that a debate exists in bibliography. I think that your belief about what is under debate has to do with how familiar you are with what bibliography discusses. We don't all have to be familiar with the same fields, but in this case there's no reason to go to RfC about a very basic approximation which isn't under debate. I'm telling you all of the above to help everybody involved avoid a very, very unnecessary procedure. Nobody thinks that Albanian wasn't spoken in the Mat river valley in the 4th century CE and they agree that Albanian was spoken as far south as Vlora in this era because if it didn't Albanian wouldn't have two toponyms (Geg/Tosk) which evolved in the pre-Slavic era for the same settlement. Side comment: This is under debate Dropull#Etymology, what Ahmet's map depicts is a rudimentary description of the basics about the Albanian language just before the end of late antiquity. -- Maleschreiber ( talk) 05:10, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
RfCs presuppose that a debate exists in bibliography? Can you quote from WP:RFC where it says that? No, RfCs are for when there is a dispute between users. Especially when there are users who use language such as
Nobody thinks...,
it's common knowledge,
they agree, etc. Who agrees? Nothing is "common knowledge" as far as the contents of this article are concerned. There are no records, nothing. The language wasn't even mentioned in records until the 13th century. The fact that you describe an RfC as a "very very unnecessary procedure", speaks volumes. You sound very keen on avoiding it. And you have not responded to my criticism that the map is not approximate, but rather the exact opposite. Nor did you respond to my proposal regarding placement lower down in the article, with qualifiers (I presume you reject that out of hand). This is a controversial subject. We can't have maps like that, with crisp boundaries as in the 20th century, and especially not in the lede. Khirurg ( talk) 05:21, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
common knowledgein linguistics that Proto-Albanian did exist in this specific era and was spoken in the western Balkans between these points - north-south and west-east. How it expanded or contracted or where exactly it was spoken 5 centuries before the Proto-Albanian phase might be a subject of discussion, but it isn't related to the era of this map. Even for someone like Huld (1986), Accentual Stratification of Ancient Greek Loanwords in Albanian, - an outlier - there's no doubt that these general points were a common foundation:
These place-names leave little doubt that the Albanian accent rules were observed over Macedonia, Epirus and Upper Moesia (see Map One). It is very probable that at least one of the non-Greek languages of ancient Makedonia was either the ancestor of Albanian or its very near relative( Map 1). It's better to move on and have a disagreement in a discussion where a disagreement can be based on a fundamental dispute.-- Maleschreiber ( talk) 06:00, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Even for those which are under heavy discussion, the debate involves whether Albanian got a toponym like Durrës from a late antiquity form or if it evolved from Dyrrhachium. Regardless of where linguists stand on the debate, they all agree that by the 4th century, this had happened.
That's not correct though. Matzinger, who is cited in the article, doesn't support that by the 4th century this had happened. In fact, he describes it as a loan via two candidate intermediaries; Romance and Slavic ( 1, 2, 3). This points to a period between the 5th and 7th c.; Slavs first reached the area at around 600, and the first Slavic loans in Albanian are from the 7th century.
Nobody thinks that Albanian wasn't spoken in the Mat river valley in the 4th century CE and they agree that Albanian was spoken as far south as Vlora in this era because if it didn't Albanian wouldn't have two toponyms (Geg/Tosk) which evolved in the pre-Slavic era for the same settlement.
What was aforementioned also relates to Vlorë by the way, which is indeed pre-Slavic due to the Tosk-Gheg split predating Slavic contact, but this doesn't translate as 4th c. (300-400), it simply means sometime prior of the Slavic-Albanian contact in the 7th c.
Another issue is that the map implies that the Komani-Kruja culture existed during the 4th century and is associated with proto-Albanians, but it is only dated from the 6th c. and associated with a Latin-speaking population. The map also implies that there was no Greek-speaking or Latin-speaking presence within the "red zone", which is not correct.
Sidenote: Matzinger is currently leading a project that will shed more light on all these. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 09:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
"It is the case of the evolution of stressed /a-/ and partly stressed /e-/ in front of a nasal consonant to /ë-/ in thee southern dialect. While the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant has involved the whole southern dialect, the evolution /e-/ > /-ë/ in the same phonetic conditions has not taken place in the northern part and partly in the eastern part of that dialect (...). This phonetic phenomenon has appeared earlier than rhotacism, as it is clearly evidenced in such examples as llanë > llërë, ranë > rërë etc., in which the evolution /a-/ > /ë-/ could not take place before /-r-/. Since this phonetic change has not appeared in the Slavic loanwords of Albanian, but has involved mainly the I.E. inherited words as well as the loans from Old Greek (compare mokënë > mokërë < mākhanāʼ etc.) and from Latin (compare ranë > rërë > arena etc.), it has generally been acknowledged that it has taken place in the pre-Slavic period of Albanian. Its sporadic appearance in a very reduced number of Slavic loanwords is due to the action of analogy with similar cases of inherited or more ancient loans of Albanian. [...] such sporadic analogical cases do not reverse the generally acknowledged conclusion that this dialectal peculiarity as a phonetic process has appeared in pre-Slavic period of Albanian and is relatively more ancient than the rhotacism. It has most probably appeared not later than the V-VI centuries A.D. [...] And, as it was pointed out in §3, since the dialectal differentiations have appeared in a certain geographical area, one is entitled to draw the conclusion that the speakers of the northern and southern dialects have been present in their actual areas in the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic period of Albanian."
The Greek and Latin loans have undergone most of the far-reaching phonological changes which have so altered the shape of inherited IE words while Slavic and Turkish words do not show these changes. Thus Albanian must have acquired much of its present form by the time Slavs entered into the Balkans in the fifth and sixth centuries AD [...] The loan words from Greek and Latin date back to before the Christian era [...] Even very common words such as mik ʻfriendʼ (< Lat amicus) or këndoj ʻI sing; readʼ (< Lat cantāre) come from Latin and attest to a widespread intermingling of pre-Albanian and Balkan Latin speakers during the Roman period, roughly from the second century BC to the fifth century AD.;
The dialectal split into Geg and Tosk happened sometime after the region become Christianized in the fourth century AD: Christian Latin loanwords show Tosk rhotacism, such as Tosk murgu ʻmonkʼ (Geg mungu) from Lat. monachus.
"Anche un fatto della storia esterna dell'albanese sostiene il parere sulla presenza degli abitanti albanesi durante l'Alto Medioevo a sud dell'attuale spazio compatto albanofono. Si tratta delle concordanze tra l'albanese ed il rumeno, le quali sono presenti a tutti i livelli ed in un numero maggiore nel dialetto tosco rispetto al ghego."and about Durrës:
"Tale spiegazione è stata giustamente rifiutata di recente da Matzinger (...), il quale ricostruisce per l'albanese una forma intermedia romana */'duratso/ con la consonante affricata [-ts-] e con l'accento iniziale indigeno, ammettendo come limite della sua penetrazione in Albanese il sec. V d.C. [...] Almeno su un punto siamo certi: la divisione dialettale dell'area albanofona di quel tempo contraddice la tesi dell'immigrazione degli albanesi nel hinterland di Durazzo nei primi decenni del sec. IX d.C. La critica contro questa tesi è multilaterale, ma qui possiamo ricordare soltanto l'osservazione che la divisione dialettale di uno spazio linguistico è generalmente un prodotto di un numero di fenomeni linguistici con una considerevole durata temporale e presuppone un numero assai grande di parlanti naturali, rispettivamente uno spazio linguistico molto più esteso con uno o alcuni centri di irradiazione."
"The Proto-Albanian migration to Illyria via the Eastern slopes of the Balkans must have taken place before (but not considerably earlier than) their contact with Romance speakers and the end of the Proto-Albanian period in the history of the Albanian language. [...] i.e. before the I - II centuries C.E.";
"Turning our attention back to the Southern area we may note a striking contrast: On one side we can see an intense accumulation of the Slavic nomenclature in the Northern and in the Southeastern parts of the area, that is in the Toskery properly speaking. On the other side we remark a gradual decrease of the Slavic names going in the south-west direction. They are nearly lacking in the highlands of Labery (on the plateau of Kurvelesh) and also in the Ionian coast, where the Laberic-Albanian villages neighbour with the Greek speaking ones. [...] We can suppose that the flood of the Slavic expansion did not reach the highlands of Labery. The Lab mountaineers, like the mountaineers of Gheguery, continued their tribal life and did not mingle with the Slavonians as did the population of the northern and of the southeastern Toskery (the Toskery properly speaking)."
"Etnogjeneza e shqiptarëve e pavarur nga gjuha, duhet të ketë ndodhur sipas dëshmisë së emrit më të vjetër arbën/arbër dhe të emrit të vendit Arbëni në Shqipërinë veriore rreth shek. II e.s. prej fisit Ἀλβανοί që përmendet prej historiografit antik Ptolomeu bashkë me kryeqendrën e tyre Ἀλβανόπολις, ndërkohë që etnia e re që po formohej këtu e mori këtë emërtim, që në atë kohë ishte emërtim i vendit, për të quajtur me këtë vetveten. Fiedler, në artikullin "Schprahe" (...) e daton formimin e popullit shqiptar në shekullin V deri VI të e.s."
Toponimi nuk mund tú jetë ndërmjetësuar shqiptarëve shumë më parë se shek. V e.s[The toponym can't have been transported to the Albanians much earlier than the 5th century] If in the map I adopted only one viewpoint, it would show Durrës as proto-Albanian speaking in the 4th century AD. It shows Durrës in the Balkan Latin area in the 4th century because I haven't adopted one or the other opinion. Komani-Kruja started in late antiquity. Nallbani (2017)
Till 2009, we did not know the real nature of the Komani settlement, except the existence of its main cemetery,12 albeit without any topographical plan of the excavated burials. (..) We recognize a first structuring of the site in the late Roman period, probably around the 4th century. The ongoing excavations have identified terraces receiving walls which have shaped almost the entire western slope of Dalmace hill. More than 50 walls (see fig. 3) have been identified up to now, some of them materialized on structures, make the foundations and the ground-floor of several buildings, east-west and north-south directionsand Winnifrith (2020) :
(..) in these hills a Latin-Illyrian civilisation survived, as witness by the Komani-Kruja culture, to emerge as Albanians and Vlachs in the second millenium@ Demetrios1993: As you can see, the map doesn't show something which adopts one viewpoint over another. The 4th century AD is correct for this geographical setting. Ahmet Q. ( talk) 13:29, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
"Rosetti, however, mistakenly repeats the myth that some Tosk dialects show Geg characteristics, thus pointing, allegedly, to a more recent dialect split. The isogloss is clear in all dialects I have studied, which embrace nearly all types possible. It must be relatively old, that is, dating back into the post-Roman first millennium. As a guess, it seems possible that this isogloss reflects a spread of the speech area, after the settlement of the Albanians in roughly their present location, so that the speech area straddled the Jireček Line.";
"Recent lexicostatistical studies (Holm 2009) show that the population groups involved in the emergence of the Albanian language and culture had already settled in the Balkan Adriatic contact area even before the start of the Common Era."– Βατο ( talk) 15:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
I believe a change to 5th-7th c. is more inclusive, by also accounting for the Slavic possibility that Matzinger describes for Durrës. Then there is also the period of the Tosk-Gheg split for the case of Vlorë, that predates the 7th c. Slavic contact, but postdates the 4th c. Christianization of the region per Fortson (2004); meaning 400-700 (5th-7th c.).
As for Komani-Kruja, i just refreshed my memory. It was usually dated to the late 6th/early 7th c. lasting until the late 8th/early 9th c., but Nallbani had convincingly proposed a re-dating from the late 5th to the 9th c.; as Džino (2010) had written. I was unaware of the updated paper, but still, even that statement of Nallbani (We recognize a first structuring of the site in the late Roman period, probably around the 4th century.), doesn't support the shown boundaries of that culture during the 4th c.; it only pertains to the initial stage of the Komani type site, albeit "probably around" the 4th c. Furthermore, Nallbani also says the following:
Scholars have proposed Komani as the station of a military garrison during the late Roman period (Curta 2006); as the site which housed refugees from the late Roman neighboring localities during the migrations of the 6th-7th (Wilkes 1992); or as the settlement of new Slavic incomers (Korosec 1953). I would think that Komani certainly has to be closely considered as part of the late Roman defensive system of the Drini Valley, and as an important post in the Roman economic network of Praevalitana and Dardania. Quite possibly a garrison reoccupied the hilltop during the Roman period, as part of the protective system, but the history of the settlement displays a much more complex evolution. The Drini valley turns out to have been densely occupied during the late Roman period. In consequence, several sites exhibit well organized living spaces after the end of the Roman period as important centers for local transactions and production.
Didn't read the whole paper, just the relevant chapter. John Wilkes also in his book "The Illyrians" accepts Popović's view that the populations of the Kruja-Komani culture were "Romanized", and that the ancestors of the Albanians during that time were still shepherds at higher altitudes who later began to settle slowly on the plateau of Mat. Then there is even Curta (2006) who considers an Avar association. Magdearu (2008) also wrote the following:
As concerns the Komani-Kruje culture, the situation is more complicated than Albanian historians believe. Serbian archaeologist Vladislav Popović supposed that this culture was created by a Roman and urban population, which cannot be identified with the Proto-Albanians. According to him, this culture belonged to the Roman population living along the Via Egnatia. This area remained until the seventh century-eighth centuries under a strong Byzantine influence. The area of this culture is nearly the same as that where Latin was spoken in antiquity (defined on the basis of inscriptions). The region was Romanized. On the other hand, in the same area many present place-names of Latin origin are known. It is therefore possible that the Komani-Kruje culture was the archaeological expression of a Roman, not Proto-Albanian, population. This theory was of course rejected by the official Albanian archaeologists, but their arguments are not convincing. They cannot explain the large amount of Byzantine and Christian objects in the environment of this culture. A pastoral population like the Albanians was not able to create a culture of Byzantine urban fashion. The assertion that Albanians developed an urban civilization in the early Middle Ages and that they peopled the late Roman fortified settlements is fanciful. In 2002, the young Albanian archaeologist Etleva Nallbani received from the Sorbonne her PhD for a dissertation entitled “La civilization de Komani de l’antiquitè tardive au haut Moyen Age: etude du mobilier mètallique” (not yet published). The main ideas were summarized in two short studies (one of them published in a Croatian scientific journal). She has abandoned the traditional theory put forward by Albanian archaeology, that the Komani-Kruje culture is Proto-Albanian. Instead, she emphasizes the integration in the Byzantine civilization and the urban roots of this civilization. This new approach is shared by British archaeologist William Bowden, who concludes that the archaeological evidence does not support a single ethnic identification.
Last, as aforementioned, another thing that has to be fixed is the presence of Greek and Latin within the "red zone". For example, Curta (2006) writes:
A number of grave goods found on the sites in Albania and the neighboring countries strongly suggest contact with Byzantium, possibly even the presence of speakers of Greek: belt buckles common for the Mediterranean area, both East and West, earrings with perforated pendants showing peacocks on either side of a tree; disc- and cross- broches; finger-rings with dedicatory inscriptions in Greek. More over, two hoards of Byzantine drinking and washing silver vessels with Greek inscriptions, gold church candlesticks, and silver belt fitting were found in the vicinity of Dyrrachium, at Vrap and Erseke.Demetrios1993 ( talk) 15:52, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Hi. I wrote a draft on the origin of the Albanian language some months ago, but never published it. To sump it up, no reliable map of the Proto-Albanian linguistic area can be drawn simply because there's no scholarly consensus. While the map is very roughly in line with current theories (despite some aberrations like this "Dalmatian–Albanian contact zone" – there's no Old Dalmatian influence on Albanian), it is mostly based on conjectures. Here are some conjectures that are generally agreed on in scholarship:
It is obviously no coincidence that Latin(ized) place names are far more common along the coastline of Epirus, which was vital to Rome thanks to proximity to Italy( Filos p.242)
there is no contact zoneto depict. A hypothesis is that Albanian and Greek communities which had direct contact to each other were wiped out by the Slavs or that they retreated to other areas. It may be a plausible theory because Slavs were the dominant population in Epirus and Macedonia for many centuries.
Albanian archaeologists often connect these early medieval cemeteries to the so-called 'Komani-Kruja culture', and associate them with one particular ethnic group (regularly described as 'Slavic'). Recently, however, this view has been criticized by other scholars, who prefer to situate the 'Komani-Kruja culture' in a regionalised Romano-Byzantine or Christian context of various ethnic and social groups, adopting additional foreign elements (Popović 1975: 455-457; Popović 1984: 214-243; Bowden 2003: 210-21; Curta 2006: 103-105).
It's a geographical placement which corresponds to the linguistic data - broadly– That's not what the title of the map implies though; "Linguistic situation of the western Balkans in the 4th century CE (approximation)". It implies that the main language of this "red zone" (approximately) was proto-Albanian. It even encompasses Vlorë, simply because the toponym was adopted by Albanian speakers sometime between the 5th-6th c.; a toponym being adopted doesn't imply anything about the population of the broader region, let alone of the actual city. Also, the quote of Filos (2018) that you shared doesn't imply that the main language of coastal Epirus was Latin; he simply says that Latin influence was more common along the coastline, but not more than that of southern Illyria as he writes (citing Shpuza [2016]). Generally, Greek and Latin were used as lingua francas in the east and west of the Empire, respectively; i am not saying that the map has to be perfect, but certainly both Latin and Greek were used within this "red zone", especially in the urban centers of the region (which is also what was used to synthesize this map).
"Anche un fatto della storia esterna dell'albanese sostiene il parere sulla presenza degli abitanti albanesi durante l'Alto Medioevo a sud dell'attuale spazio compatto albanofono. Si tratta delle concordanze tra l'albanese ed il rumeno, le quali sono presenti a tutti i livelli ed in un numero maggiore nel dialetto tosco rispetto al ghego. [...] la divisione dialettale di uno spazio linguistico è generalmente un prodotto di un numero di fenomeni linguistici con una considerevole durata temporale e presuppone un numero assai grande di parlanti naturali, rispettivamente uno spazio linguistico molto più esteso con uno o alcuni centri di irradiazione." ["Even a fact of the external history of the Albanian supports the opinion on the presence of the Albanian inhabitants during the Early Middle Ages to the south of the present compact Albanian-speaking space. These are the concordances between the Albanian and the Romanian, which are present to all the levels and in a greater number in the Tosk dialect than in Gheg. [...] the dialectal division of a linguistic space is generally a product of a number of linguistic phenomena with a considerable temporal duration and presupposes a very large number of natural speakers, respectively, a much larger linguistic space with one or a few irradiation centers."]Almost all current Albanologists (Matzinger, B. Demiraj, etc.) agree on the fact that in the 2nd-4th century AD Albanian-speakers already inhabited northern and central Albania (several toponyms and hydronyms of Albanian origin or through Albanian phonological evolution), as well as that after the Roman period (4th century AD) and before Salvic contacts (7th century onwards) the situation was similar to the contemporary one, with Tosk spoken on the south of Shkumbin and Gheg on the north. Some inscriptions in Greek and Latin in some urban centres do not indicate that all the pepoples of the region spoke those lingua francas. @ Demetrios1993: I agree with the consideration that the situation was ethno-linguistically heterogeneous, that's why I firstly proposed to add the statement "including the possibility of the presence of other languages (such as Latin and Greek)". About Labëria, Desnickaja reported that Slavic influence is nearly lacking in this region, and in particular in the Kurveleshi highlands, and also in the Lab-speaaking villages and Greek-speaking ones on the Ionian coast, which provides evidence that Slavic expansion did not reach that area. Also Labëria deriving through Slavic metathesis of Albëria provides evidence that when Slavs settled on the lowlands surrounding this region considered its inhabitants to be Albanians, and the tribal system and customary law found in the area was similar to those of the northern Albanians. But I think further analysis from recent publications is needed for this specific topic. – Βατο ( talk) 11:38, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
the dialectal division of a linguistic space is generally a product of a number of linguistic phenomena with a considerable temporal duration and presupposes a very large number of natural speakers, respectively, a much larger linguistic space with one or a few irradiation centers.") Hence Proto-Albanian as depicted on the map, but for the period 5th-6th centuries, is a likely scenario. As for Vlora, it is relevant that the Gheg Vlonë indicates that this toponym was used by Albanian-speakers predating the Tosk rhotacism, also B. Demiraj (2010) states:
"Per il momento la cosa più importante è il fatto che questo toponimo ha subito in albanese il fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo, che, come abbiamo già ricordato, è apparso in albanese nel corso dei secoli VI-IX d.C. La possibilità di una formazione analogica è da escludere senz'altro, se teniamo conto anche che nella zona circostante come pure in tutto lo spazio albanofono del sud manca un possibile modello. Al contrario, a sud-est della città di Vlora si erige il castello di Kanina il cui nome non mostra alcun segno del fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo e ciò è dovuto al fatto che questo centro fortificato è stato testimoniato con questo nome agli inizi del sec. XI d.C., cioè in un periodo in cui il fenomeno del rotacismo non era più attivo da tempo." ["For the moment, the most important thing is the fact that this toponym has undergone the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism in Albanian, which, as we have already mentioned, appeared in Albanian during the 6th-9th centuries AD. The possibility of an analogical formation is to be excluded without a doubt, if we also take into account that in the surrounding area as well as in the whole Albanian-speaking area of the south a possible model lacks. On the contrary, to the south-east of the city of Vlora the castle of Kanina stands, whose name does not show any sign of the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism and this is due to the fact that this fortified center has been documented with this name at the beginning of the 11th century A.D., that is, in a period in which the phenomenon of rhotacism was no longer active for some time."]
L'influenza del mediogreco, rispettivamente della cultura greco-bizantina sull'abanese nell'Alto Medioevo non può essere affatto sottovalutata. Così per esempio basta ricordare il prestito tosco korë "icona" < gr. (εἰ)κόνα, con il fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo, che ci premette di pensare che la popolazione cristiana nel sud dello spazio compatto albanofono può e deve avere vissuto la cosiddetta "guerrra delle icone" tra la Chiesa d'Oriente e quella d'Occidente (secoli VIII-IX)." ["The influence of the Middle Greek, respectively of the Greek-Byzantine culture on Albanian in the Early Middle Ages cannot be underestimated at all. So for example just recall the Tosk loan korë "icon" < gr. (εἰ)κόνα, with the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism, which allows us to think that the Christian population in the south of the compact Albanian-speaking space might and must have experienced the so-called " war on icons" between the Eastern and Western Churches (VIII-IX centuries). ]"– Βατο ( talk) 16:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
The rhotacism of southern Albanian is a very ancient development because it occurs in Latin loanwords, too, e.g. Lat. arena “sand” became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë; Lat. vinum “wine” became Gheg venë but Tosk verë. However, rhotacism does not usually occur in Slavic loanwords, that obviously entered the Albanian language after the Slavic invasion of the sixth century. As such, the sixth-century Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today.The earliest linguistic contacts with the Slavs are difficult to date. All we know is that a small group of around 20 Slavic loanwords entered the Albanian language quite early; they are generally related to political organization/justice, dwellings, agriculture, cattle-rearing, and also include some plant names. (Rusakov 2017, p. 557; Orel 2000, pp. 40–41; Wilkes 1992, p. 279). Alcaios ( talk) 17:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Toponimi nuk mund tú jetë ndërmjetësuar shqiptarëve shumë më parë se shek. V e.s[The toponym can't have been transported to the Albanians much earlier than the 5th century] For the level of detail the map seeks to depict (
approximation), its bibliography and other sources were discussed. If this becomes a discussion at RfC, editors who oppose its inclusion as "controversial" need to explain why they !oppose inclusion of a map which depicts Proto-Albanian in the 4th century spoken near Durrës and Vlora, but don't oppose a map which depicts Proto-Albanian in the 3rd century spoken as far south as Greek Western Macedonia. -- Maleschreiber ( talk) 17:51, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Till 2009, we did not know the real nature of the Komani settlement, except the existence of its main cemetery,12 albeit without any topographical plan of the excavated burialsAnd then read contemporary bibliography.
glass necklaces and other knick-knacksare not what archaeology discusses. Everything written before 2009 about Komani-Kruja is outdated - one way or another - and I have divided the discussion in a pre-excavation vs. a post-excavation period. These are complex topics and require from editors who want to be involved to do a lot of reading and understand how bibliography has evolved.-- Maleschreiber ( talk) 01:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Albanians themselves changed their endonym from arbënesh to shqiptar in the 14th centuryThe ethnonym shqiptar was first used as an ethnonym in the early 18th century.-- Maleschreiber ( talk) 01:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
"The correspondence of T r with G n is perhaps the most salient phonological isogloss dividing Geg and Tosk... The isogloss for these variants runs quite close to the Shkumbin River...Based on the evidence of loanwords, the Tosk rhotacism definitely occurred after contact with Ancient Greek and Latin...while contact with Slavic and Italian in the second half of the first millennium CE gives very little solid evidence of the rhotacism...As an innovation from the middle of the 1st millennium CE limited to Tosk, this isogloss is not diachronically connected to similar developments in other IE branches...The variation between initial sequences of va- in Tosk and vo- in Geg...appears to come from the time of contact with Latin and to precede contact with Slavic."The main isoglosses separating Gheg and Tosk were already formed on the Shkumbin before Slavic contacts. – Βατο ( talk) 01:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
This name is derived from the verb shqiptoj (‘to speak clearly’, earlier ‘to under- stand’; see B. Demiraj 2010); it was first registered in the 16th century (at the beginning in its adverbial form) and consolidated in the 18th century. The ethnic name change was triggered most likely by the Ottoman conquest (end of the 14th century–second half of the 15th century), which led to deep changes in the structure of the Albanian nation.(Rusakov, 2017, p. 555).
The earliest references to the existence of the Albanian language per se occur around the beginning of the 14th century. Indeed we have four clear and unequivocal references between 1285 and 1332. Elsie writes per se because he refers to the mention of the language itself. Albanians are mentioned in the 11th century in the theme of Dyrrhachium and the language is mentioned indirectly in 1000-1018
There are twelve languages of half-believers: Alamanians, Franks, Magyars (Hungarians), Indians, Jacobites, Armenians, Saxons, Lechs (Poles), Arbanasi (Albanians), Croatians, Hizi, GermansSide comment: @ Alcaios: If you have access to CUP journals, read Quanrud, John (2021). "The Albanoi in Michael Attaleiates' History: revisiting the Vranoussi-Ducellier debate". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. doi: 10.1017/byz.2021.11. -- Maleschreiber ( talk) 02:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
@Βατο, i know rhotacism postdates the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant in the southern dialect (Tosk), per what Demiraj wrote; i am just emphasizing that this has nothing to do with the evolution of Vlorë as a name. Furthermore, i see that in this later publication even Demiraj (2010) retracted some of his earlier statements, by adopting a period of 6th-9th c. for the Tosk rhotacism (namely he considers a post-Slavic period as well); this means that all of the scholars shared above agree that it occurred after the 6th c. Tosk rhotacism is a dialectal phenomenon that occurred only in Tosk after the Gheg-Tosk split. This means that Tosks would have also used Vlonë, and sometime during the 6th and at least the 10th c., it was changed to Vlorë. The thing is that if we go by Janson's and Michiel de Vaan's 9th-10th c. rhotacism period, the name could have theoretically entered Albanian speech even from 799. That's why i think that the 5th-6th c. proposal is not that inclusive of other views as well; without rejecting an earlier adoption, a safer and more ideal period would be 599-799 (7th-8th c.). Then again, i also agree with the points and concerns put forward by @Alcaios.
@Alcaios, what Elsie writes doesn't affect the chronology of the aforementioned linguists. In fact, the example he gave (Lat. arena "sand" became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë), is also mentioned by Michiel de Vaan (2018) who adopts Janson's date of 800-1000, here. De Vaan also mentions Lat. inimicus becoming Tosk armik. Some pages prior of the one that i shared, he dates the Latin loanwords between 167 BCE and 400 CE.
By the way, regarding the attestation of the endonym, i had addressed the subject in another thread further up. "Shqip" with the meaning of Albanian was first recorded by Gjon Buzuku in 1555; so yes, from the 16th century. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 08:15, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
One would be hard pushed to identify cultural norms within the cemeteries and indeed the communist period archaeologists of Albania only managed to create a coherent 'culture' by ignoring or downplaying significant areas of evidence. The 'southern Arber' culture, with its reuse of tumuli has relatively little in common with the main Komani graves, apart from the presence of certain types of material. Unfortunately the level of recording of most excavations is not sufficient for a reliable analysis of the cemeteries, but a few points can be highlighted regarding the wide variotion in burial practice.
It's also interesting that modern scholarship strongly refutes the view that the Komani-Kruja findings belong to a certain ethnic group. As such the depiction of such a map on the hypothesis that Proto-Albanian speakers were the bearers of K-K culture falls clearly into wp:OR.
Alexikoua (
talk)
11:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
There is a new genetic study on the origins of Albanians concluding that they derive from ancient Illyrians. The study is still in preprint and can be found here (for anyone interested)
[6] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1.full Aigest ( talk) 14:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to the Balkans or Eastern Europe, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
|
||||||||||
This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present. |
Maleschreiber, here are the two relevant pages for more details on what Orel wrote:
This is the complete "4.2.1.0. Kinship terms" subsection. I have access to the full book; if you need any other page, don't hesitate to ping me. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 23:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Oh boy. Here we go again. First of all, the map is WP:SYNTH, as it is based on a multitude of sources or so it is claimed. Second, for three of these, no page numbers are given, so impossible to verify. Third, the two Albanian language sources appear to be highly partisan. They are not peer-reviewed English language sources. Then there are obvious errors, for example, the area around the city of Apollonia and the city of Epidamnos were Greek-speaking, but are not shown as such in the map. In general, it has a very strong "we was autochthnous" whiff to it. This time, I will seek outside mediation, because the situation in these articles has generally gone out of control. Khirurg ( talk) 02:33, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
There is, however, evidence that Albanian was spoken over a broader territory in the Balkans than the contemporary range of territory occupied by its speaker community today (Çabej 1971:41, Demiraj 2004:98, 104). A number of important toponyms in Macedonia, southern Serbia, and Kosovo show reflexes of Albanian phonological developments; e.g. Astibos > Albanian Shtip, Slavic Štip (in eastern Macedonia), Naissus > Albanian Nish, Slavic Niš (in southern Serbia) (Pulaha 1984:11). The toponym Dobreta, because of its greater distance as mentioned above places, the potential range of the predecessor to Albanian up to the banks of the Danube. This was also the range of significant Latin influence (north of the Jireček Line, which is recognized as the customary division of a northern zone of Latin language influence and from a southern zone of Greek language influence, [Jireček 1911, Friedman 2001b:29]) and corresponded to the area inhabited by pastoral speakers of Balkan Romance well into the Middle Ages. This fits well with a theory forwarded in particular by Hamp (1994) that Albanian is the result of an autochthonous Balkan language that has undergone partial Romanization, while Balkan Romance represents a full language shift, whereby the early form of this Balkan language (its “proto-Albanian” linguistic predecessor) was fully absorbed into Late Latin per Eric PrendergastAhmet Q. ( talk) 03:05, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
It is even debatable if there was a proto-Albanian that far back.: All periodizations of the Albanian language presuppose that the phase called Proto-Albanian language#Periods of Proto-Albanian began long before the 4th century CE. It's common knowledge. RfCs presuppose that a debate exists in bibliography. I think that your belief about what is under debate has to do with how familiar you are with what bibliography discusses. We don't all have to be familiar with the same fields, but in this case there's no reason to go to RfC about a very basic approximation which isn't under debate. I'm telling you all of the above to help everybody involved avoid a very, very unnecessary procedure. Nobody thinks that Albanian wasn't spoken in the Mat river valley in the 4th century CE and they agree that Albanian was spoken as far south as Vlora in this era because if it didn't Albanian wouldn't have two toponyms (Geg/Tosk) which evolved in the pre-Slavic era for the same settlement. Side comment: This is under debate Dropull#Etymology, what Ahmet's map depicts is a rudimentary description of the basics about the Albanian language just before the end of late antiquity. -- Maleschreiber ( talk) 05:10, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
RfCs presuppose that a debate exists in bibliography? Can you quote from WP:RFC where it says that? No, RfCs are for when there is a dispute between users. Especially when there are users who use language such as
Nobody thinks...,
it's common knowledge,
they agree, etc. Who agrees? Nothing is "common knowledge" as far as the contents of this article are concerned. There are no records, nothing. The language wasn't even mentioned in records until the 13th century. The fact that you describe an RfC as a "very very unnecessary procedure", speaks volumes. You sound very keen on avoiding it. And you have not responded to my criticism that the map is not approximate, but rather the exact opposite. Nor did you respond to my proposal regarding placement lower down in the article, with qualifiers (I presume you reject that out of hand). This is a controversial subject. We can't have maps like that, with crisp boundaries as in the 20th century, and especially not in the lede. Khirurg ( talk) 05:21, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
common knowledgein linguistics that Proto-Albanian did exist in this specific era and was spoken in the western Balkans between these points - north-south and west-east. How it expanded or contracted or where exactly it was spoken 5 centuries before the Proto-Albanian phase might be a subject of discussion, but it isn't related to the era of this map. Even for someone like Huld (1986), Accentual Stratification of Ancient Greek Loanwords in Albanian, - an outlier - there's no doubt that these general points were a common foundation:
These place-names leave little doubt that the Albanian accent rules were observed over Macedonia, Epirus and Upper Moesia (see Map One). It is very probable that at least one of the non-Greek languages of ancient Makedonia was either the ancestor of Albanian or its very near relative( Map 1). It's better to move on and have a disagreement in a discussion where a disagreement can be based on a fundamental dispute.-- Maleschreiber ( talk) 06:00, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Even for those which are under heavy discussion, the debate involves whether Albanian got a toponym like Durrës from a late antiquity form or if it evolved from Dyrrhachium. Regardless of where linguists stand on the debate, they all agree that by the 4th century, this had happened.
That's not correct though. Matzinger, who is cited in the article, doesn't support that by the 4th century this had happened. In fact, he describes it as a loan via two candidate intermediaries; Romance and Slavic ( 1, 2, 3). This points to a period between the 5th and 7th c.; Slavs first reached the area at around 600, and the first Slavic loans in Albanian are from the 7th century.
Nobody thinks that Albanian wasn't spoken in the Mat river valley in the 4th century CE and they agree that Albanian was spoken as far south as Vlora in this era because if it didn't Albanian wouldn't have two toponyms (Geg/Tosk) which evolved in the pre-Slavic era for the same settlement.
What was aforementioned also relates to Vlorë by the way, which is indeed pre-Slavic due to the Tosk-Gheg split predating Slavic contact, but this doesn't translate as 4th c. (300-400), it simply means sometime prior of the Slavic-Albanian contact in the 7th c.
Another issue is that the map implies that the Komani-Kruja culture existed during the 4th century and is associated with proto-Albanians, but it is only dated from the 6th c. and associated with a Latin-speaking population. The map also implies that there was no Greek-speaking or Latin-speaking presence within the "red zone", which is not correct.
Sidenote: Matzinger is currently leading a project that will shed more light on all these. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 09:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
"It is the case of the evolution of stressed /a-/ and partly stressed /e-/ in front of a nasal consonant to /ë-/ in thee southern dialect. While the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant has involved the whole southern dialect, the evolution /e-/ > /-ë/ in the same phonetic conditions has not taken place in the northern part and partly in the eastern part of that dialect (...). This phonetic phenomenon has appeared earlier than rhotacism, as it is clearly evidenced in such examples as llanë > llërë, ranë > rërë etc., in which the evolution /a-/ > /ë-/ could not take place before /-r-/. Since this phonetic change has not appeared in the Slavic loanwords of Albanian, but has involved mainly the I.E. inherited words as well as the loans from Old Greek (compare mokënë > mokërë < mākhanāʼ etc.) and from Latin (compare ranë > rërë > arena etc.), it has generally been acknowledged that it has taken place in the pre-Slavic period of Albanian. Its sporadic appearance in a very reduced number of Slavic loanwords is due to the action of analogy with similar cases of inherited or more ancient loans of Albanian. [...] such sporadic analogical cases do not reverse the generally acknowledged conclusion that this dialectal peculiarity as a phonetic process has appeared in pre-Slavic period of Albanian and is relatively more ancient than the rhotacism. It has most probably appeared not later than the V-VI centuries A.D. [...] And, as it was pointed out in §3, since the dialectal differentiations have appeared in a certain geographical area, one is entitled to draw the conclusion that the speakers of the northern and southern dialects have been present in their actual areas in the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic period of Albanian."
The Greek and Latin loans have undergone most of the far-reaching phonological changes which have so altered the shape of inherited IE words while Slavic and Turkish words do not show these changes. Thus Albanian must have acquired much of its present form by the time Slavs entered into the Balkans in the fifth and sixth centuries AD [...] The loan words from Greek and Latin date back to before the Christian era [...] Even very common words such as mik ʻfriendʼ (< Lat amicus) or këndoj ʻI sing; readʼ (< Lat cantāre) come from Latin and attest to a widespread intermingling of pre-Albanian and Balkan Latin speakers during the Roman period, roughly from the second century BC to the fifth century AD.;
The dialectal split into Geg and Tosk happened sometime after the region become Christianized in the fourth century AD: Christian Latin loanwords show Tosk rhotacism, such as Tosk murgu ʻmonkʼ (Geg mungu) from Lat. monachus.
"Anche un fatto della storia esterna dell'albanese sostiene il parere sulla presenza degli abitanti albanesi durante l'Alto Medioevo a sud dell'attuale spazio compatto albanofono. Si tratta delle concordanze tra l'albanese ed il rumeno, le quali sono presenti a tutti i livelli ed in un numero maggiore nel dialetto tosco rispetto al ghego."and about Durrës:
"Tale spiegazione è stata giustamente rifiutata di recente da Matzinger (...), il quale ricostruisce per l'albanese una forma intermedia romana */'duratso/ con la consonante affricata [-ts-] e con l'accento iniziale indigeno, ammettendo come limite della sua penetrazione in Albanese il sec. V d.C. [...] Almeno su un punto siamo certi: la divisione dialettale dell'area albanofona di quel tempo contraddice la tesi dell'immigrazione degli albanesi nel hinterland di Durazzo nei primi decenni del sec. IX d.C. La critica contro questa tesi è multilaterale, ma qui possiamo ricordare soltanto l'osservazione che la divisione dialettale di uno spazio linguistico è generalmente un prodotto di un numero di fenomeni linguistici con una considerevole durata temporale e presuppone un numero assai grande di parlanti naturali, rispettivamente uno spazio linguistico molto più esteso con uno o alcuni centri di irradiazione."
"The Proto-Albanian migration to Illyria via the Eastern slopes of the Balkans must have taken place before (but not considerably earlier than) their contact with Romance speakers and the end of the Proto-Albanian period in the history of the Albanian language. [...] i.e. before the I - II centuries C.E.";
"Turning our attention back to the Southern area we may note a striking contrast: On one side we can see an intense accumulation of the Slavic nomenclature in the Northern and in the Southeastern parts of the area, that is in the Toskery properly speaking. On the other side we remark a gradual decrease of the Slavic names going in the south-west direction. They are nearly lacking in the highlands of Labery (on the plateau of Kurvelesh) and also in the Ionian coast, where the Laberic-Albanian villages neighbour with the Greek speaking ones. [...] We can suppose that the flood of the Slavic expansion did not reach the highlands of Labery. The Lab mountaineers, like the mountaineers of Gheguery, continued their tribal life and did not mingle with the Slavonians as did the population of the northern and of the southeastern Toskery (the Toskery properly speaking)."
"Etnogjeneza e shqiptarëve e pavarur nga gjuha, duhet të ketë ndodhur sipas dëshmisë së emrit më të vjetër arbën/arbër dhe të emrit të vendit Arbëni në Shqipërinë veriore rreth shek. II e.s. prej fisit Ἀλβανοί që përmendet prej historiografit antik Ptolomeu bashkë me kryeqendrën e tyre Ἀλβανόπολις, ndërkohë që etnia e re që po formohej këtu e mori këtë emërtim, që në atë kohë ishte emërtim i vendit, për të quajtur me këtë vetveten. Fiedler, në artikullin "Schprahe" (...) e daton formimin e popullit shqiptar në shekullin V deri VI të e.s."
Toponimi nuk mund tú jetë ndërmjetësuar shqiptarëve shumë më parë se shek. V e.s[The toponym can't have been transported to the Albanians much earlier than the 5th century] If in the map I adopted only one viewpoint, it would show Durrës as proto-Albanian speaking in the 4th century AD. It shows Durrës in the Balkan Latin area in the 4th century because I haven't adopted one or the other opinion. Komani-Kruja started in late antiquity. Nallbani (2017)
Till 2009, we did not know the real nature of the Komani settlement, except the existence of its main cemetery,12 albeit without any topographical plan of the excavated burials. (..) We recognize a first structuring of the site in the late Roman period, probably around the 4th century. The ongoing excavations have identified terraces receiving walls which have shaped almost the entire western slope of Dalmace hill. More than 50 walls (see fig. 3) have been identified up to now, some of them materialized on structures, make the foundations and the ground-floor of several buildings, east-west and north-south directionsand Winnifrith (2020) :
(..) in these hills a Latin-Illyrian civilisation survived, as witness by the Komani-Kruja culture, to emerge as Albanians and Vlachs in the second millenium@ Demetrios1993: As you can see, the map doesn't show something which adopts one viewpoint over another. The 4th century AD is correct for this geographical setting. Ahmet Q. ( talk) 13:29, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
"Rosetti, however, mistakenly repeats the myth that some Tosk dialects show Geg characteristics, thus pointing, allegedly, to a more recent dialect split. The isogloss is clear in all dialects I have studied, which embrace nearly all types possible. It must be relatively old, that is, dating back into the post-Roman first millennium. As a guess, it seems possible that this isogloss reflects a spread of the speech area, after the settlement of the Albanians in roughly their present location, so that the speech area straddled the Jireček Line.";
"Recent lexicostatistical studies (Holm 2009) show that the population groups involved in the emergence of the Albanian language and culture had already settled in the Balkan Adriatic contact area even before the start of the Common Era."– Βατο ( talk) 15:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
I believe a change to 5th-7th c. is more inclusive, by also accounting for the Slavic possibility that Matzinger describes for Durrës. Then there is also the period of the Tosk-Gheg split for the case of Vlorë, that predates the 7th c. Slavic contact, but postdates the 4th c. Christianization of the region per Fortson (2004); meaning 400-700 (5th-7th c.).
As for Komani-Kruja, i just refreshed my memory. It was usually dated to the late 6th/early 7th c. lasting until the late 8th/early 9th c., but Nallbani had convincingly proposed a re-dating from the late 5th to the 9th c.; as Džino (2010) had written. I was unaware of the updated paper, but still, even that statement of Nallbani (We recognize a first structuring of the site in the late Roman period, probably around the 4th century.), doesn't support the shown boundaries of that culture during the 4th c.; it only pertains to the initial stage of the Komani type site, albeit "probably around" the 4th c. Furthermore, Nallbani also says the following:
Scholars have proposed Komani as the station of a military garrison during the late Roman period (Curta 2006); as the site which housed refugees from the late Roman neighboring localities during the migrations of the 6th-7th (Wilkes 1992); or as the settlement of new Slavic incomers (Korosec 1953). I would think that Komani certainly has to be closely considered as part of the late Roman defensive system of the Drini Valley, and as an important post in the Roman economic network of Praevalitana and Dardania. Quite possibly a garrison reoccupied the hilltop during the Roman period, as part of the protective system, but the history of the settlement displays a much more complex evolution. The Drini valley turns out to have been densely occupied during the late Roman period. In consequence, several sites exhibit well organized living spaces after the end of the Roman period as important centers for local transactions and production.
Didn't read the whole paper, just the relevant chapter. John Wilkes also in his book "The Illyrians" accepts Popović's view that the populations of the Kruja-Komani culture were "Romanized", and that the ancestors of the Albanians during that time were still shepherds at higher altitudes who later began to settle slowly on the plateau of Mat. Then there is even Curta (2006) who considers an Avar association. Magdearu (2008) also wrote the following:
As concerns the Komani-Kruje culture, the situation is more complicated than Albanian historians believe. Serbian archaeologist Vladislav Popović supposed that this culture was created by a Roman and urban population, which cannot be identified with the Proto-Albanians. According to him, this culture belonged to the Roman population living along the Via Egnatia. This area remained until the seventh century-eighth centuries under a strong Byzantine influence. The area of this culture is nearly the same as that where Latin was spoken in antiquity (defined on the basis of inscriptions). The region was Romanized. On the other hand, in the same area many present place-names of Latin origin are known. It is therefore possible that the Komani-Kruje culture was the archaeological expression of a Roman, not Proto-Albanian, population. This theory was of course rejected by the official Albanian archaeologists, but their arguments are not convincing. They cannot explain the large amount of Byzantine and Christian objects in the environment of this culture. A pastoral population like the Albanians was not able to create a culture of Byzantine urban fashion. The assertion that Albanians developed an urban civilization in the early Middle Ages and that they peopled the late Roman fortified settlements is fanciful. In 2002, the young Albanian archaeologist Etleva Nallbani received from the Sorbonne her PhD for a dissertation entitled “La civilization de Komani de l’antiquitè tardive au haut Moyen Age: etude du mobilier mètallique” (not yet published). The main ideas were summarized in two short studies (one of them published in a Croatian scientific journal). She has abandoned the traditional theory put forward by Albanian archaeology, that the Komani-Kruje culture is Proto-Albanian. Instead, she emphasizes the integration in the Byzantine civilization and the urban roots of this civilization. This new approach is shared by British archaeologist William Bowden, who concludes that the archaeological evidence does not support a single ethnic identification.
Last, as aforementioned, another thing that has to be fixed is the presence of Greek and Latin within the "red zone". For example, Curta (2006) writes:
A number of grave goods found on the sites in Albania and the neighboring countries strongly suggest contact with Byzantium, possibly even the presence of speakers of Greek: belt buckles common for the Mediterranean area, both East and West, earrings with perforated pendants showing peacocks on either side of a tree; disc- and cross- broches; finger-rings with dedicatory inscriptions in Greek. More over, two hoards of Byzantine drinking and washing silver vessels with Greek inscriptions, gold church candlesticks, and silver belt fitting were found in the vicinity of Dyrrachium, at Vrap and Erseke.Demetrios1993 ( talk) 15:52, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Hi. I wrote a draft on the origin of the Albanian language some months ago, but never published it. To sump it up, no reliable map of the Proto-Albanian linguistic area can be drawn simply because there's no scholarly consensus. While the map is very roughly in line with current theories (despite some aberrations like this "Dalmatian–Albanian contact zone" – there's no Old Dalmatian influence on Albanian), it is mostly based on conjectures. Here are some conjectures that are generally agreed on in scholarship:
It is obviously no coincidence that Latin(ized) place names are far more common along the coastline of Epirus, which was vital to Rome thanks to proximity to Italy( Filos p.242)
there is no contact zoneto depict. A hypothesis is that Albanian and Greek communities which had direct contact to each other were wiped out by the Slavs or that they retreated to other areas. It may be a plausible theory because Slavs were the dominant population in Epirus and Macedonia for many centuries.
Albanian archaeologists often connect these early medieval cemeteries to the so-called 'Komani-Kruja culture', and associate them with one particular ethnic group (regularly described as 'Slavic'). Recently, however, this view has been criticized by other scholars, who prefer to situate the 'Komani-Kruja culture' in a regionalised Romano-Byzantine or Christian context of various ethnic and social groups, adopting additional foreign elements (Popović 1975: 455-457; Popović 1984: 214-243; Bowden 2003: 210-21; Curta 2006: 103-105).
It's a geographical placement which corresponds to the linguistic data - broadly– That's not what the title of the map implies though; "Linguistic situation of the western Balkans in the 4th century CE (approximation)". It implies that the main language of this "red zone" (approximately) was proto-Albanian. It even encompasses Vlorë, simply because the toponym was adopted by Albanian speakers sometime between the 5th-6th c.; a toponym being adopted doesn't imply anything about the population of the broader region, let alone of the actual city. Also, the quote of Filos (2018) that you shared doesn't imply that the main language of coastal Epirus was Latin; he simply says that Latin influence was more common along the coastline, but not more than that of southern Illyria as he writes (citing Shpuza [2016]). Generally, Greek and Latin were used as lingua francas in the east and west of the Empire, respectively; i am not saying that the map has to be perfect, but certainly both Latin and Greek were used within this "red zone", especially in the urban centers of the region (which is also what was used to synthesize this map).
"Anche un fatto della storia esterna dell'albanese sostiene il parere sulla presenza degli abitanti albanesi durante l'Alto Medioevo a sud dell'attuale spazio compatto albanofono. Si tratta delle concordanze tra l'albanese ed il rumeno, le quali sono presenti a tutti i livelli ed in un numero maggiore nel dialetto tosco rispetto al ghego. [...] la divisione dialettale di uno spazio linguistico è generalmente un prodotto di un numero di fenomeni linguistici con una considerevole durata temporale e presuppone un numero assai grande di parlanti naturali, rispettivamente uno spazio linguistico molto più esteso con uno o alcuni centri di irradiazione." ["Even a fact of the external history of the Albanian supports the opinion on the presence of the Albanian inhabitants during the Early Middle Ages to the south of the present compact Albanian-speaking space. These are the concordances between the Albanian and the Romanian, which are present to all the levels and in a greater number in the Tosk dialect than in Gheg. [...] the dialectal division of a linguistic space is generally a product of a number of linguistic phenomena with a considerable temporal duration and presupposes a very large number of natural speakers, respectively, a much larger linguistic space with one or a few irradiation centers."]Almost all current Albanologists (Matzinger, B. Demiraj, etc.) agree on the fact that in the 2nd-4th century AD Albanian-speakers already inhabited northern and central Albania (several toponyms and hydronyms of Albanian origin or through Albanian phonological evolution), as well as that after the Roman period (4th century AD) and before Salvic contacts (7th century onwards) the situation was similar to the contemporary one, with Tosk spoken on the south of Shkumbin and Gheg on the north. Some inscriptions in Greek and Latin in some urban centres do not indicate that all the pepoples of the region spoke those lingua francas. @ Demetrios1993: I agree with the consideration that the situation was ethno-linguistically heterogeneous, that's why I firstly proposed to add the statement "including the possibility of the presence of other languages (such as Latin and Greek)". About Labëria, Desnickaja reported that Slavic influence is nearly lacking in this region, and in particular in the Kurveleshi highlands, and also in the Lab-speaaking villages and Greek-speaking ones on the Ionian coast, which provides evidence that Slavic expansion did not reach that area. Also Labëria deriving through Slavic metathesis of Albëria provides evidence that when Slavs settled on the lowlands surrounding this region considered its inhabitants to be Albanians, and the tribal system and customary law found in the area was similar to those of the northern Albanians. But I think further analysis from recent publications is needed for this specific topic. – Βατο ( talk) 11:38, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
the dialectal division of a linguistic space is generally a product of a number of linguistic phenomena with a considerable temporal duration and presupposes a very large number of natural speakers, respectively, a much larger linguistic space with one or a few irradiation centers.") Hence Proto-Albanian as depicted on the map, but for the period 5th-6th centuries, is a likely scenario. As for Vlora, it is relevant that the Gheg Vlonë indicates that this toponym was used by Albanian-speakers predating the Tosk rhotacism, also B. Demiraj (2010) states:
"Per il momento la cosa più importante è il fatto che questo toponimo ha subito in albanese il fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo, che, come abbiamo già ricordato, è apparso in albanese nel corso dei secoli VI-IX d.C. La possibilità di una formazione analogica è da escludere senz'altro, se teniamo conto anche che nella zona circostante come pure in tutto lo spazio albanofono del sud manca un possibile modello. Al contrario, a sud-est della città di Vlora si erige il castello di Kanina il cui nome non mostra alcun segno del fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo e ciò è dovuto al fatto che questo centro fortificato è stato testimoniato con questo nome agli inizi del sec. XI d.C., cioè in un periodo in cui il fenomeno del rotacismo non era più attivo da tempo." ["For the moment, the most important thing is the fact that this toponym has undergone the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism in Albanian, which, as we have already mentioned, appeared in Albanian during the 6th-9th centuries AD. The possibility of an analogical formation is to be excluded without a doubt, if we also take into account that in the surrounding area as well as in the whole Albanian-speaking area of the south a possible model lacks. On the contrary, to the south-east of the city of Vlora the castle of Kanina stands, whose name does not show any sign of the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism and this is due to the fact that this fortified center has been documented with this name at the beginning of the 11th century A.D., that is, in a period in which the phenomenon of rhotacism was no longer active for some time."]
L'influenza del mediogreco, rispettivamente della cultura greco-bizantina sull'abanese nell'Alto Medioevo non può essere affatto sottovalutata. Così per esempio basta ricordare il prestito tosco korë "icona" < gr. (εἰ)κόνα, con il fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo, che ci premette di pensare che la popolazione cristiana nel sud dello spazio compatto albanofono può e deve avere vissuto la cosiddetta "guerrra delle icone" tra la Chiesa d'Oriente e quella d'Occidente (secoli VIII-IX)." ["The influence of the Middle Greek, respectively of the Greek-Byzantine culture on Albanian in the Early Middle Ages cannot be underestimated at all. So for example just recall the Tosk loan korë "icon" < gr. (εἰ)κόνα, with the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism, which allows us to think that the Christian population in the south of the compact Albanian-speaking space might and must have experienced the so-called " war on icons" between the Eastern and Western Churches (VIII-IX centuries). ]"– Βατο ( talk) 16:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
The rhotacism of southern Albanian is a very ancient development because it occurs in Latin loanwords, too, e.g. Lat. arena “sand” became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë; Lat. vinum “wine” became Gheg venë but Tosk verë. However, rhotacism does not usually occur in Slavic loanwords, that obviously entered the Albanian language after the Slavic invasion of the sixth century. As such, the sixth-century Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today.The earliest linguistic contacts with the Slavs are difficult to date. All we know is that a small group of around 20 Slavic loanwords entered the Albanian language quite early; they are generally related to political organization/justice, dwellings, agriculture, cattle-rearing, and also include some plant names. (Rusakov 2017, p. 557; Orel 2000, pp. 40–41; Wilkes 1992, p. 279). Alcaios ( talk) 17:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Toponimi nuk mund tú jetë ndërmjetësuar shqiptarëve shumë më parë se shek. V e.s[The toponym can't have been transported to the Albanians much earlier than the 5th century] For the level of detail the map seeks to depict (
approximation), its bibliography and other sources were discussed. If this becomes a discussion at RfC, editors who oppose its inclusion as "controversial" need to explain why they !oppose inclusion of a map which depicts Proto-Albanian in the 4th century spoken near Durrës and Vlora, but don't oppose a map which depicts Proto-Albanian in the 3rd century spoken as far south as Greek Western Macedonia. -- Maleschreiber ( talk) 17:51, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Till 2009, we did not know the real nature of the Komani settlement, except the existence of its main cemetery,12 albeit without any topographical plan of the excavated burialsAnd then read contemporary bibliography.
glass necklaces and other knick-knacksare not what archaeology discusses. Everything written before 2009 about Komani-Kruja is outdated - one way or another - and I have divided the discussion in a pre-excavation vs. a post-excavation period. These are complex topics and require from editors who want to be involved to do a lot of reading and understand how bibliography has evolved.-- Maleschreiber ( talk) 01:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Albanians themselves changed their endonym from arbënesh to shqiptar in the 14th centuryThe ethnonym shqiptar was first used as an ethnonym in the early 18th century.-- Maleschreiber ( talk) 01:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
"The correspondence of T r with G n is perhaps the most salient phonological isogloss dividing Geg and Tosk... The isogloss for these variants runs quite close to the Shkumbin River...Based on the evidence of loanwords, the Tosk rhotacism definitely occurred after contact with Ancient Greek and Latin...while contact with Slavic and Italian in the second half of the first millennium CE gives very little solid evidence of the rhotacism...As an innovation from the middle of the 1st millennium CE limited to Tosk, this isogloss is not diachronically connected to similar developments in other IE branches...The variation between initial sequences of va- in Tosk and vo- in Geg...appears to come from the time of contact with Latin and to precede contact with Slavic."The main isoglosses separating Gheg and Tosk were already formed on the Shkumbin before Slavic contacts. – Βατο ( talk) 01:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
This name is derived from the verb shqiptoj (‘to speak clearly’, earlier ‘to under- stand’; see B. Demiraj 2010); it was first registered in the 16th century (at the beginning in its adverbial form) and consolidated in the 18th century. The ethnic name change was triggered most likely by the Ottoman conquest (end of the 14th century–second half of the 15th century), which led to deep changes in the structure of the Albanian nation.(Rusakov, 2017, p. 555).
The earliest references to the existence of the Albanian language per se occur around the beginning of the 14th century. Indeed we have four clear and unequivocal references between 1285 and 1332. Elsie writes per se because he refers to the mention of the language itself. Albanians are mentioned in the 11th century in the theme of Dyrrhachium and the language is mentioned indirectly in 1000-1018
There are twelve languages of half-believers: Alamanians, Franks, Magyars (Hungarians), Indians, Jacobites, Armenians, Saxons, Lechs (Poles), Arbanasi (Albanians), Croatians, Hizi, GermansSide comment: @ Alcaios: If you have access to CUP journals, read Quanrud, John (2021). "The Albanoi in Michael Attaleiates' History: revisiting the Vranoussi-Ducellier debate". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. doi: 10.1017/byz.2021.11. -- Maleschreiber ( talk) 02:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
@Βατο, i know rhotacism postdates the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant in the southern dialect (Tosk), per what Demiraj wrote; i am just emphasizing that this has nothing to do with the evolution of Vlorë as a name. Furthermore, i see that in this later publication even Demiraj (2010) retracted some of his earlier statements, by adopting a period of 6th-9th c. for the Tosk rhotacism (namely he considers a post-Slavic period as well); this means that all of the scholars shared above agree that it occurred after the 6th c. Tosk rhotacism is a dialectal phenomenon that occurred only in Tosk after the Gheg-Tosk split. This means that Tosks would have also used Vlonë, and sometime during the 6th and at least the 10th c., it was changed to Vlorë. The thing is that if we go by Janson's and Michiel de Vaan's 9th-10th c. rhotacism period, the name could have theoretically entered Albanian speech even from 799. That's why i think that the 5th-6th c. proposal is not that inclusive of other views as well; without rejecting an earlier adoption, a safer and more ideal period would be 599-799 (7th-8th c.). Then again, i also agree with the points and concerns put forward by @Alcaios.
@Alcaios, what Elsie writes doesn't affect the chronology of the aforementioned linguists. In fact, the example he gave (Lat. arena "sand" became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë), is also mentioned by Michiel de Vaan (2018) who adopts Janson's date of 800-1000, here. De Vaan also mentions Lat. inimicus becoming Tosk armik. Some pages prior of the one that i shared, he dates the Latin loanwords between 167 BCE and 400 CE.
By the way, regarding the attestation of the endonym, i had addressed the subject in another thread further up. "Shqip" with the meaning of Albanian was first recorded by Gjon Buzuku in 1555; so yes, from the 16th century. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 08:15, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
One would be hard pushed to identify cultural norms within the cemeteries and indeed the communist period archaeologists of Albania only managed to create a coherent 'culture' by ignoring or downplaying significant areas of evidence. The 'southern Arber' culture, with its reuse of tumuli has relatively little in common with the main Komani graves, apart from the presence of certain types of material. Unfortunately the level of recording of most excavations is not sufficient for a reliable analysis of the cemeteries, but a few points can be highlighted regarding the wide variotion in burial practice.
It's also interesting that modern scholarship strongly refutes the view that the Komani-Kruja findings belong to a certain ethnic group. As such the depiction of such a map on the hypothesis that Proto-Albanian speakers were the bearers of K-K culture falls clearly into wp:OR.
Alexikoua (
talk)
11:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
There is a new genetic study on the origins of Albanians concluding that they derive from ancient Illyrians. The study is still in preprint and can be found here (for anyone interested)
[6] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1.full Aigest ( talk) 14:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)