Re: Albanian origins and much more

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

> I found an interesting (if somewhat awkwardly
> translated) interview with the Albanian scholar K.
> Resuli-Burovich. Cf.
> http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/art-cafe/Week-of-Mon-

20030324/001530.html

>
> Any comments from our Albanologists?

I may not be much of an Albanologist, but I can see that the text is
full of absurdities. It also calls for funny questions. How about
this -

> I discovered that not
> only
> the Albanians are not autochthonous people, but they are also not
> related in any way to the Pelasgians or the Illyrians.

Would it make the Albanians autochthonous if Albanian is the
continuation of the language that produced some IE loanwords in
Greek? Autochthonous of what territory? Failing that, are they not
autochthonous of *any* territory?

> I discovered that by chance, studying the Albanian
> language, which, all agree, is of the type SATEM. According to that
> global
> division of languages, researching the Illyrian language I

discovered

> that it is of the type KENTUM. The most elementary logic was

saying to

> me that one SATEM language can not be a direct descendant, not

even a

> kind of derivative of some KENTUM language, without a change of
> its substrate. Since the Albanian language does not have any

changes in

> its substrate, that means that the Albanians can¹t be, under any
> circumstance, genealogical descendants of the Illyrians.

How can it even be considered a possibility that a language changes
its substratum? A substratum is a thing of the past - the past can't
change. This line of thinking is not an option. I appreciate that
the answer is in the negative, but the whole question is unsettling.

If, however, the common origin of Albanian and Illyrian had all
three velar series, the branch could easily be subdivided into one
that gets to look like a normal Kentum language while the other
develops the way Albanian has.

I can't make head and tail of these arguments.

By the way, what are the main pieces of evidence that made you
diagnose Illyrian as assuredly Kentum?


Jens