15-11-03 01:56, Abdullah Konushevci wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>> The identification of Illyrian with Proto-Albanian has no
>> factual basis -- it's just an exercise in wishful thinking.
>>
>> Piotr
> ************
> The non-identification of Illyrian with Proto-Albanian, as Radoslav
> Katichich claims, is just a scientific excursion.
I love scientific excursions and prefer them any day to wishul thinking.
Abdullah, I'm sure you realise I'm seriously interested in Albanian
and its history. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the Albanians when I
contest the theory of Albanian origins that is almost unanimously
favoured by scholars in you country as well as having much support
abroad. But no matter how many people believe in it, and no matter what
the intensity of their conviction, I simply find the evidence for an
Illyrian-Albanian connection flawed and insufficient (assuming that we
can agree what "Illyrian" means), while the similarity of reconstructed
Proto-Albanian to the Satem substrate in Romanian makes a connection
with Dacian likely, as far as I'm concerned.
Anyone who believes in historical continuity between Illyrian and
Albanian had better show how the scarce Illyrian material can be
interpreted in terms of Proto-Albanian, and how the well-known
counterarguments agains such interpretations can be answered. I've
presented some counterarguments myself on this list and haven't seen a
cogent reply to them. Insisting repeatedly that Albanians have always
been considered descendants of Illyrians ("agumentum ad verecundiam") or
that everybody knows them to be descendants of Illyrians ("argumentum ad
populum") are no substitute for a rational demonstration; nor is your
favourite "argumentum ab auctoritate" (quoting the bare opinion of
such-and-such an eminent scholar, not corroborated by any objective
evidence -- see your reply above).
Piotr