Re: [tied] Re: Your historical timeline

george knysh wrote:

> *****GK: Dear Alex, I take it you appreciate the
> difference between preferring the witness of ancient
> sources to modern speculations where there is a
> choice. Now where there are no ancient sources the
> situation is different.

absolutely.

> IF the theory that modern
> Albanian developed from ancient Dacian is correct,
> then we must try to explain how the proto-Albanians
> arrived in Albania, given that the language of the
> land in recorded Roman times was not Dacian but
> Illyrian.

Here is the question. Illyria was a big geographic surface in Roman times
and this is one of the problem. We remember about the mention in the ancient
sources where the writer says "the true illyrians" and other which inhabited
too the space called administratively Illyria. Why was this mention made? Of
course not for fun. A possiblity should be the writter was aware about a
region, a folk which have been indeed the illyrians and the rest of the
Folkerschaften there being just living there but not being illyrians. On a
such ecuation, it is hard to say the language spoken in Illyria ( as
administrative name in Roman times) , was illyric. One thing is sure and
here you are right. The language of the true illyrians has not been Dacian
and _maybe_ between all the folks there, there has been spoken Dacian as
well.

> So in that context there is hardly anything
> untoward in offering the hypothesis that the
> proto-Albanians arrived at some point between Roman
> times and whenever the historical Albanians become
> known (11th century?).

So far I remember, yes that has been the XI century.

> This would not deny the
> possibility of prior infiltrations. And it would not
> deny that the new arrivals mixed with the older
> population and in time (when they became more
> numerous) imposed their language on them. That's just
> one scenario of course.

Yeap. A scenario based on the hypotesis Albanian should be Dacian language.
And these who developed this hypothesis are hard at work since, missing
historical records, they must proove it due the linguistic arguments. Are
you aware of the linguistic arguments? Me, honestly, not too much. There are
already years since I want to hear them too.

Alex