Re: [tied] Re: Albanian: length of time in the Balkans

Thank you. You are right in everything you say. I did not want to become controversial; I just wanted to know what light linguistics shed on the debate. I am learning some Albanian, and there are some unusual features of the language!!

-----Original Message-----
From: cybalist@yahoogroups.com [mailto:cybalist@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of pielewe
Sent: 02 May 2005 18:29
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tied] Re: Albanian: length of time in the Balkans

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "David Webb" <djwebb2002@...> wrote:
> Dear all, we know that there is no hard proof that Albanian is
descended
> from Illyrian, but it would make sense in other ways. The fact that
some
> Latin loan words are present in Albanian in heavily disguised form,
does
> that add to the proof that the Albanians have been in the Balkans
for a long
> time? I am thinking of words like njëqind, related to centum. Is
there any
> linguistic proof of the length of time Albanians have been in the
Balkans?



The Latin loans of Albanian prove that the speakers of the language
that was to evolve into Albanian lived inside the Roman Empire for a
significant period, notably in the second half of the fourth century
AD, when Christianity became the state religion. Earlier phases of
the language are more difficult to reconstruct, for lack of pertinent
information.



> I
> suppose everyone knows that many Serbs argue that they came to the
Balkans
> only in the 11th century, and they also try to argue for a
connection
> between Albania and the (unrelated) Kingdom of Albania in the
Caucasus.


I'm sorry, but that is completely unfounded (even apart from being
politically irresponsible). The Latin loans show that Albanian was
spoken in a predominantly Latin-speaking part of the Roman empire.
That excludes the Caucasus or Asia Minor just about as reliably as
anything in historical linguistics. 


> I
> think linguistics could shed some light on the surprising emergence
of
> Albanians in the 11th century after many centuries during which the
> Illyrians were not mentioned.



It is not surprising at all. Very little information is available
about conditions on the Balkans between the sixth and the eleventh
century. Such information as is available tends to concern groups
that were of military or diplomatic importance to Byzantium, such as
Avars, Slavs or Bulgars. Lowly pastoralists were not among those
groups. That is why we hear nothing about Albanians or, for that
matter, about the speakers of the Latin dialect that evolved into
Romanian.

As for the Illyrians, it is important to note that all ethnic groups
that are reported at one time or other in Europe in Classical
Antiquity lost whatever ethnic identity they may have had in the
first millennium and ultimately acquired different identities, with
the (very partial) exception of the Greeks, whose identity was
supported by a state that kept functioning miraculously even in the
seventh and eighth centuries. French are not Romans, but something
new. Similarly Czechs and Russians are no longer in any meaningful
sense ethnically Slavs, but something new, generations of propaganda
notwithstanding. Even if it could be proved somehow that Albanian
continued the language of some group that could be referred to as
Illyrians, what significance would that have? Like French, Russians,
Czechs and all those others, Albanians were created by the middle
ages and going beyond that is cognitive kitsch, suitable for
ambitious schoolteachers and second-rate politicians and the type of
scholars who if they are Serbs blithely tell you that the Albanians
somehow came from the Caucasus in the eleventh century.


Willem