To return to the original question. Is Albanian the modern descendant of a
pre-Roman language of Illyria?
I think there are basically two possibilities. Albanian indeed continues a
pre-Roman language of Illyricum/Dalmatia, or Albanian continues a pre-Roman
language of Moesia Superior. The provinces of Thrace and Macedonia [which
included modern Albania and Kosovo] can be excluded because they were
"Greek". Dacia (north of the Danube) can be excluded because it was in
Roman hands for a short while only.
Linking Albanian to Moesia has several advantages. Since Moesian can in
all probability be linked to the satem group composed of Dacian, Getic and
Thracian, the satem nature of Albanian is explained without much ado.
Linking Albanian to Illyrian, on the other hand, requires explaining away
the evidence for Messapic and some of the Illyrian glosses being centum.
Given that Romanian and Albanian seem to share a common substrate, the
identification of this substrate as Moesian also simplifies the Eastern
Romance dialectal picture: the Latin of Illyricum develops into Dalmatian,
the Latin of Moesia into Romanian.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...