Re: [tied] Re: Albanian = Illyrian (1)

17-11-03 10:15, Abdullah Konushevci wrote:

> I think that the best way to prove that Albanians are descendents of
> Illyrians should be place names, used as by Weigand, as by his
> imitators to deny autochthony of Albanians in today's territories.
> I will prefer to start with first letter of the alphabet:
>
> Arkthos, attested form, today Arta. Dropping of the stops and
> evolution kt:ht:t, noticed also by Paul Kretschmer is only Albanian
> characteristic.
>
> Astibos, today Shtip could be explained only through Albanian
> soundlaw: aphaeresis of unstressed /a/ and evolution of cluster /st/
>> /sht/ (cf. aphaeresis of unstressed /a/ in: Lat. amicus > Alb.
> mik 'friend', Lat. angustus > Alb. (i,e) ngushtë; cf. evolution of
> cluster /st/ > /sht/ in: castellum > kështjel (Buzuku), kështjellë,
> Lat. statura > shtat, also mentioned angustuse above etc.).
>
> Avlona, today Vlora, attested in Geg Vlona, vlonjat 'inhabitant of
> the Vlora' through aphaeresis of /a/, etc.

Would the names be any different if the Albanians borrowed them from a
local variety of Late Latin? As you show yourself, both vowel loss and
st > sht occur regularly in loans from Latin, which meant that while
those "soundlaws" are indeed Albanian, their date is post-Roman.
Actually, if ancient Auló:na were an authentic Proto-Albanian name, it
would have developed into something like *alé~na > *lênë/*lërë. The
modern form shows that it was borrowed rather late as [awlona] or
[avlona] with an entirely non-Albanian reflex of initial /au/. As for
Arkthos, -rkt- > -rt- is not uniquely Albanian. Such a reduction of a
triconsonantal cluster is a trivial phenomenon; even many
English-speakers pronounce <arctic> as "artic". This pronunciation could
in fact be regarded as historically justified, cf. Gk. arktikos --> Late
Latin articus > Old French artique --> Middle English artik (the modern
word is a learned refashioning thereof). I'm quoting these forms to show
that the simplification may just as well be Latin/Romance.

Piotr