Re: [tied] Albanian connection

----- Original Message -----

From: a96_aeu@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 12:01 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Albanian connection

> ...But do you know how <i lirë> was called in old Albanian dialects ?

 

I don't. But deriving ancient <Illuroi> or <Illiri> from a modern noun phrase can hardly be taken seriously.

> That is why I was mentioning that "the", "tha" doesn´t ocurr to me to be found in Italian. It must be a pure ancient Albanian word. You didn´t comment the suggestion (also not mine) that <the>, <tha> (e thëna = spoken word, á thán = is said) is to be found in <Athene> as God of Speech.

 

Same as above. This is a clear example of folk etymology based on accidental phonetic similarity. The sheer time gap between Ancient Greek and Modern Albanian militates against such connections. Albanian <th> doesn't systematically correspond to Greek <th> (incidentally, Ancient Greek <th> was an aspirated stop -- something that Albanian <th> has never been).

> As what regards Latin there is at least one form I personaly think it should have been borrowed from ancient Albanian, which is <prince>, <principe>, <principel> all connected to leading <prij>(alb.).

No chance. Latin princeps has a perfectly clear etymology (from contracted primus-capio). I am not sure what the etymology of <prij> is, but it seems likely that it's ultimately related to Latin primus via PIE *p(e)r-. This, however, would be distant family relationship, not the result of borrowing.

> The connenction with <(h)yll> (aslo this is not my thesis) was in the words HILLIR, HILLIRIA, HILLIRICOS, HILLIRICUM having the root <HILL> which might have taken the form <HYLL>.

 

Again, non-systematic phonetic similarity proves nothing, especially if the vowels don't match (Albanian <y> in <(h)yll> is from older *u) and there's no suggestion what the -ir- "suffix" might be.

> Another connetcion of the Illyrian to Albanian is said to be the name of Illyrian King Bardhylis = Bardhë (H)Ylli (the White Star). Now, the word <bardhë>(alb.)=<white> is said to be a Thracian one.

 

There are as many etymologies of obscure Illyrian names as there are scholars who discuss them. The name is not glossed and the meaning "white star" is just a wild guess. There are a few Illyrian names with the element <leuk-> -- perhaps a better candidate for carrying the meaning 'white'.

 

> ... the most important thing is the connection of Albanian to Thracian. I don´t know if Thracians lived at the same time as Illyrians. This might be something you would give a better answer then me. Another question is: Was Thracian an Illirian dialect as some people suggest?

Thracian, like Albanian, Armenian, Dacian, Indo-Iranian, Baltic and Slavic was a Satem language. It was probably closer to Albanian than to Illyrian in the IE family tree. The problem with Thracian is the same as with Illyrian -- very little attestation, mainly in the form of placenames and personal names, recorded (and often hopelessly distorted) by foreigners.

> What regards the comparison of <Thoth> to <Thotë>, as I have mentioned, is not done by me, but by the Italian linguist Giovanni Catapano in his book "Thoth parlava albanese", which was the result of 40 years of study.

 

Had it taken him sixty years, it would still be absurd :)

> Then you cannot have any idea how the etymology of "Teuta" is. You can not also say that you know that "Illyrian" doesn´t have to do with <i lirë> or <(h)ylli> or with old Albanian at all.

I can't have 100% certainty, but the case for <teut-> being the same as elsewhere, given its form and distribution in names, is very strong. Some IE roots are so common and so readily recognisable that one can identify them quite safely even in a very poorly known language. So names like Teuta, Teutaia, Teutaros, Teuticus, Triteuta, etc. are easily etymologisable, while the <i lirë> and <(h)ylli> hypotheses are (1) highly speculative, (2) mutually exclusive (obviously, they can't both be right).

> I still think Albanian gives etymologists a good chance to deciphre -- with the help of logic - so called dead languages as Illyrians, Etruscian or even old Greek.

 

Without Illyrian texts neither Albanian nor logic will help. Etruscan, being non-IE, is not related to Albanian, and we can read Old Greek very well as it is.

> Didn´t you bring in this forum a post written in some journal about the affinity of Etruscian to Albanian?

 

Not me, definitely. There's no such affinity.

Best regards,

 

Piotr