--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> From: mbikqyres
> > Albanian history books make Albanians the last survivors of
Illyrian people. As far as I know this is still what the major part
of historicians and linguists think. The problem with the Illyrian
language is the same as with the Dacian, Thracian etc, there is a
little left behind. This produces a lot of new theories. Personally I
don't mind if the ancestors of Albanians were Illyrians, Thracians,
Dacians or any other old people of Balkan as long as this little
Balkan is the place of our origin. So they would not be
called "immigrants" as like, among others, our slav neighbours, as
Serb nationalists, even academists, call the Albanians of Kosovo,
producing an excuse to expell the entire Albanian population, of this
Balkans region, because it is occupying "their heart".
>
> Hi, Alvin,
>
> Perhaps you won't like what I'm going to say, but I find this "as
long as" condition alarming. A scientific hypothesis should be
evaluated according to scientific criteria, not according to whether
it's psychologically comforting or politically advantageous.
Hi Piotr !
I think it is because, like I have written above, the idea of
Albanians as Illyrian descendants is still the most dominant (not
only in Albania).
Some times ago I was asking a German Albanologist´s mind about you
ideas and his answer was very similar to one of your answers about a
similar topic:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/12696
"...we forget how easily "primitive" people become bilingual or
polyglot without any schools or foreign language courses. "
He also mentioned the case of French language, once of Germanic
family, and those of Latin-Americans.
He was sure Albanians were of Illyrian origin though the language
might have experienced drastical changes.
Of course there is no evidence to speak about a massmovement of
(proto-)Albanians.
I personally think you still have to deal with the sea :)
I think proto-Albanians were introduced very early to the sea, as
early as PIE word *dHeubeto- 'the deep' was still in use, producing
later on the Modern Albanian <det> for 'sea'.
Now, if the proto-Albanians would have come in a later phase to those
regions Modern Albanian word for 'sea' would have been <thellësi>,
because the ancient word <debët> is disappeared. Or better, Albanians
would have called it "mar-" borrowing the Latin word, as in many
other cases. Is anything wrong with this logic ?
> Do you mean that you _would_ mind an argument, no matter how
reasonable, if it implied that the Albanians were immigrants from
some more distant location?
No, it is clear that Albanians are one of the most ancient peoples of
Balkan and have habited this area long before the Slav arrival. I
would mind if somebody would try to produce history in order to reach
it´s goals.
Everytime the status of Kosovo is in question, our Slav neighbours
would come with a lot of theories to show that Albanians (who make
the major population) have no right to this land because they have
migrated to Kosovo after the Slav Serbs, sometimes from the Albanian
mountains and sometimes from Caucasus, making Kosovo an empty region
before the arrival of the Serbs.
In fact there is a strategy: if you are not able to deal with the
present, bring the future forehead.
>Is it a bad thing to be an immigrant people?
Only if this gives another people the right to burn down you house.
> "Great Serbian" chauvinism has inflicted enough damage, criminal as
well as intellectual, but the best response to it is rational
thought, objectivity and general civility, not a similar (even if
toned down) attitude on the other side.
Every action has it´s reaction ! Moreover if it is a case of
survival.
>Drei-no- and Dri-l-on- pattern with other hydronyms in *dr-, like
Drava and Drama (< *drowos, *dromos), so *drei- is perhaps an
extension of the root *der- 'run, flow swiftly' (alongside *dreu-,
*drem-).
I understand, it is the Albanian <derdh>.
How about <dredh> 'to spin', 'to curl'.
> But names in Shk- = Lat. Sc- cannot be Proto-Albanian, since PAlb.
*sk- > h-. They represent originally _non-Albanian_ forms borrowed
after the change of inherited *sk- > h-.
What about names in Shp- like the case of <shpatë> 'sword'.
> > An other exemple would be the city of Kruja, in central Albania,
once the capital of Arbëresh-ë, as Albanians were called at that
time. The name of the city is said to derive from the one of these
forms 'kro' or 'kru'. Both of them 'kru-a' and 'kro' are the Albanian
names for 'water source'. Also it was the water source which brought
the people there and made them build around it.
>
> OK, but how old is the _name_ Croia/Krujë? Is there any evidence of
it before the 12th century?
I am afraid I cann´t answer that question right now. I will keep it
in mind.
>
> <krua> itself seems to me to be an archaic loan from Doric Greek
(krá:na: 'spring, fountain-head' [Att. kré:ne:] -> *kron- > krua,
with regular diphthongisation before a historical nasal). The example
of <mokën/-ër> 'millstone' < ma:kHaná: shows that such Doric loans
were absorbed before the change of a: > o.
You are talking about a contact with the Doric Greeks.
> PAlb. *u does not produce modern <e>. I have no etymological
dictionary of Albanian to hand, but the most likely derivation of
Alb. derë seems to be < PAlb. *dvör- < PIE *dHwo:r 'gate, door'.
Dyrrhachium (<durrakHion>) is not directly related to that. The zero
grade *dHur- does not occur in Albanian, and its presence in Illyrian
(assuming that the Romans adapted a local name that contained it when
renaming Epidamnus) would prove nothing about Illyrian-Albanian
connections, since it occurs in several other branches of IE (OE
duru, Gk. tHura, etc.).
>
> Piotr
I don´t think there is any etymological dictionary of Albanian. If so
I would be interested to buy one myself.
According to my sources Illyrian King Glaucias reigned over the city
of Durrës from 312 B.C to 229 B.C . So there should be of no surprise
if the city took the name Dyrrhachium at that time.
What made me think of the word 'door' <der-> is the strange pluralis
<dyer> and because I think I have heard some dialectic phrases of the
kind 'i dul m´dur' (i doli më derë), 'i erdh n´dur' (i erdhi në derë).
The problem here is that there might have been the case of the word
<dorë> 'hand' as well.
Alvin