The tendency among Balkan nations to establish claims of autochthony in their
present territories—and to assert ancestral connections to ancient peoples who
once inhabited these lands—is a well-known phenomenon. The greatest example
today are the modern "Macedonians" who claim linear connection to the ancient
Macedonians. West of the "Macedonians", there is the Albanian people, who
reasonably attempt to trace their ancestors, but as expected, they stress a
supposed direct origin from the indigenous people that inhabited today's
Albania, the Illyrians. In the past years, the Albanian nationalist narrative
used to "Albanize" other ancient Balkan peoples such as Epirotes, Macedonians,
Pelasgians along with the Illyrians (read more
here). Now that the aforementioned ancient ethnic groups have been studied more in
depth and their ethnological profiles are almost certain, they have nearly been
abandoned by Albanian pseudo-history.
The ancient Illyrians remained the most popular putative Paleo-Balkanic
ancestors of the Albanians, who also speak an undoubtedly Paleo-Balkanic
language. The insufficient attestation of Illyrian language and the absence of
Albanian texts in antiquity, have led experts to examine the linguistic
relation between Albanian and Illyrian. What is certainly known, is that
Albanians are not native to today's Albania (historically known as Illyria
Græca or Epirus Vetus) neither to Old Epirus (which is often claimed to be
inhabited by Illyrians/'ancient Albanians' in antiquity). From a linguistic
perspective, this is evident because of the weak contact of the Albanian
language with Greek during antiquity. Already at the time of Strabo, southern
Illyrians, who were in direct contact with the Greek-speaking Macedonians and
Epirotes, were bilingual:
«the regions about Lyncus, Pelagonia, Orestias, and Elimeia, used to be called Upper Macedonia, though later on they were by some also called Free Macedonia. But some go so far as to call the whole of the country Macedonia, as far as Corcyra, at the same time stating as their reason that in tonsure, language, short cloak, and other things of the kind, the usages of the inhabitants are similar, although, they add, some speak both languages» ¹.
The heavy influence of Hellenic culture on the Illyrian people is also
concluded through archaeological evidence:
«A number of grave goods found on the sites in Albania and the neighboring countries strongly suggest contact with Byzantium, possibly even the presence of speakers of Greek: belt buckles common for the Mediterranean area, both East and West, earrings with perforated pendants showing peacocks on either side of a tree; disc- and cross- broches; finger-rings with dedicatory inscriptions in Greek. More over, two hoards of Byzantine drinking and washing silver vessels with Greek inscriptions, gold church candlesticks, and silver belt fitting were found in the vicinity of Dyrrachium, at Vrap and Erseke» ².
If Albanians were indeed the Illyrian neighbours of the Greeks, someone would
expect the Albanian language to be heavily influenced by ancient Greek,
something that is not true. This is the one important problem concerning the
"autochthony" of the Albanians, as Albanologist linguist Joachim Matzinger
highlights.
Translation:
"If the area where the Albanian language developed were identical to the area where Albanian is spoken today—more or less modern Albania, or the so-called third Latinized area along the Via Egnatia—there should be a stronger influence of Ancient Greek on Proto-Albanian, which, however, does not exist" ³.
Vladimir Orel, one of the leading authorities in Albanian
linguistics, also notes the scarce presence of Ancient Greek influences in
the Albanian vocabulary:
It is clear that the cradle of the Proto-Albanians should be searched north of
the Greek influence zones, i.e. north of the so-called Jireček line which
separates Greek and Latin influences in the Balkans.
Not surprisingly, the linguistic ancestors of Albanians lived for sure north
of this line, being heavily influenced by Latin. In fact, the Albanian
language contains 636 Latin loanwords which make around 40% of the Albanian
language, with some scholars raising the percentage to 60% ⁴.
Joachim Matzinger uses this too as a counter-argument against the
autochthony of Albanians, adding that Proto-Albanian religious
(Christian) terminology is entirely Latin .
Translation:
«Therefore, the territory of the Proto-Albanian people could not have been located near the compact Greek-speaking area in the south of the Balkan Peninsula. In this context, great importance must also be given to the fact that the Christianization of the Albanians took place under Roman-Western influence, as clearly evidenced by the basic Christian vocabulary of the Albanian language, for example:
kryq 'cross' ← Latin crux, -cis (cf. Greek σταυρός),
ancient Gheg (i) shëjntë 'saint' ← Latin sanctus (cf. Greek ἅγιος), etc. » ².
If anyone compares the minor influence of ancient Greek to the massive Latin
influence in Albanian, can easily realise that Ancient Albanians did not
inhabit the region of modern Albania, which by the way was known as "Greek
Illyria" and "New Epirus" for an obvious reason. In fact, the inhabitantants
of Old and New Epirus in the 6th century were known as "Epirotes" and
"Hellenes" (Greeks) as Medieval Greek historian Procopius confirms:
«But north of the gulf the first inhabitants are Greeks, called Epirotes, as far as the city of Epidamnus [today's Durrës], which is situated on the sea» ⁵.
Tom Winnifrith adds:
«There is no reason to disbelieve Justinian's historian Procopius when he says that in the sixth century Epirus as far as Dyrrhachium was Greek» ⁶.
This is the second big problem of the autochthonist scenario, which points
at the cradle of the Ancient Albanians outside of Southern Illyris.
Here is a well-written summary of what was discussed until now:
The linguistic proof of the non-indigenousness of Albanians in today's Albania does not stop here. While examining the surviving Paleo-Balkanic substratum of the Romanian language, linguists have observed links to Proto-Albanian. Matzinger points out the following:
"An extremely important topic concerns the fact that Albanian and Romanian share two specific lexical layers. One layer consists primarily of terms related to small livestock and transhumance (e.g., Albanian thark and Romanian țarc, meaning ‘enclosed area with a hedge, pen’ for livestock), which Romanian linguistics has traditionally attributed to a Balkan substrate from which both Proto-Albanian and Balkan Latin (that is, Proto-Romanian) would have inherited this terminology. However, there is no need for an almost mythical Balkan substrate to explain these words; rather, an in-depth, unbiased linguistic analysis reveals that these are indeed Proto-Albanian words transferred into Proto-Romanian during an intensive period of coexistence between Proto-Albanians and Proto-Romanians as transhumant shepherds. The other lexical layer connecting Albanian with Romanian involves a group of Latin lexemes common to both Romanian and Albanian but absent from Western Romance languages (for example, Albanian mbret ‘king’ and Romanian împărat ‘emperor, king’ from Latin imperator). These terms were preserved as popular expressions only in Eastern Romance areas, whereas in Western Romance languages, the Italian imperatore, French empereur, and Spanish emperador represent a learned term." ³.
The same opinion is shared with absolute certainty by another honored Albanologist and linguist, Eric Hamp, who writes:
"I am convinced that Romanian is a descendant of a Latinization of an autochthonous population which earlier spoke an Albanoid Indo-European language -- where as Albanian represents the continuation of kindred dialects which, though accepting many loans and cultural influences, escaped Latinization" ⁷.
In other words, the ancestors of the Albanians and the Romanians both spoke the same common language before the Latinization of the latter and even continued to coexist during late Roman antiquity:
The last, but most important, linguistic counterargument against Albanian autochthony is the fact the non-Albanian etymology of the ancient toponyms of today's Albania and their later (based on phonology) borrowing into Albanian. An example is the phonological history of the toponyms Shkodër, Durrës, Shkumbi and Osum. Here follows an analysis by Joachim Matzinger³:
«The perhaps strongest, if not decisive, argument against the hypothesis of the autochthony of the Albanians is the evidence provided by the toponymy of Albanian territory. It has long been recognized that ancient Albanian place names on Albanian territory reflect linguistic developments that, chronologically, do not belong to the oldest phase of the Albanian language’s history. Instead, they show developments from more recent phases in the history of the Albanian language, specifically from periods after Latin influence. To better illustrate this argument, we will briefly examine the phonological evolution of the ancient toponym Scodra (Italian Scutari), which appears in Albanian in the indefinite form Shkodër (with the definite article postfixed as Shkodra). Its phonological form clearly indicates a late adaptation into Albanian because it reveals the regular substitution of the Latin cluster sc /sk/ with Albanian sh and of ó with Albanian o < Proto-Albanian */ɔ/, a phoneme that developed only after the first contacts with Latin. The Albanian form Shkodër thus suggests that the Proto-Albanians became acquainted with it at a time when they had also acquired the majority of Latin words, and that this Albanian name for the city—perhaps the most important of the ancient Illyrians—does not belong to the inherited Albanian lexicon. The historical phonology of Shkodër thus excludes the hypothesis of the formation of the Albanian ethnos from Illyrian and the development of Illyrian into Albanian, as proposed by the theory of autochthony. According to this theory, the Albanian form of the ancient name Scodra should exhibit older phonological developments, specifically those of inherited words: sk > Albanian h and ó > Albanian . Like the name of this urban center, other ancient toponyms (e.g., Durrës, Italian Durazzo, from ancient Dyrrhachium) also show recent developments in Albanian. This also applies to the hydronyms of Albanian territory, aside from the simple fact that many river names are obviously Slavic borrowings. In this context, it is interesting to consider the Albanian names of two rivers that ran through the territory of the ancient Via Egnatia, namely, the Scampinus River, in Albanian (Gheg) Shkumbî, and Assamus, in Albanian Osum. Without delving into the details of historical phonology, it is evident, as SCHRAMM (1999: 33) reiterated, that both Albanian names are also Slavic borrowings and therefore belong to an even more recent layer of Albanian, meaning they are not part of the inherited layer. This is another strong argument against the presence of Proto-Albanians in the Via Egnatia territory already in antiquity»
Linguist Vladimir Orel, in the beginning of his "Albanian Etymological Dictionary", sums up:
Now that extensive linguistic evidence was presented, let us see a more historical perspective of the issue. As mentioned before, the territory of modern Albania was known as Epirus Nova (New Epirus) or Illyria Græca (Greek Illyria), due to the obvious fact that the region was Hellenized and settled by Greeks.
Until the 6th century, as confirmed by Procopius ⁵ , the region of Epirus Vetus and Epirus Nova (see map) was ethnically, or at least linguistically, Greek. The Greek and Hellenized population of the two provinces continued being dominant until the 11th and 12 centuries. By that time, Albanians constituted only a minority in the extreme north of Epirus Nova. After Constantinople fell to the hands of the Latins in 1204, the first migration of Albanians occured:
It took several years for the newly arrived Albanians to form a majority in what later became Albania and there were no noticeable Albanian communities in the cities of the Albanian coast throughout the Middle Ages. In fact, Durrës in Northern Albania was inhabited by Venetians, Greeks, Jews and Slavs; Shkodra by Venetians and Slavs and Vlora by Greeks ⁸. This is evident by primary records of travellers such as Simon Fitzsimons, whose account indicates that in 1332 Albanians did not yet constitute a majority element in Dyrrhachium (Durrës) in northern Albania, and they are listed last after various ethnicities and are characterized as barbaric:
Indeed, Alain Ducellier, French Historian specialized in Byzantine studies found out that in 1350 the population of Vlore was largely Greek with some Slavs, whereas at Dyrrachium, there was a mixed population of Greeks, Slavs, Latins and Albanians ⁹. Tim Winnifrith concludes that till this time Hellenism prevailed in Southern Albania continuously since the times of Molossian Royalty ⁹.
Two centuries later, an anonymous writer provides a description of Albania in 1570, stating that the Greek language is (still) spoken from Ulcinj down to Vallona (Vlora):
It should be added to the above that, in many later works, Albania was considered a geographical Province of "Greece" ¹⁰ and the term itself was a synonym for Epirus (Nova), due to its strong Byzantine past. An example is the "Latin-Illyrian dictionary" (Dizionario Latino-Ilirico) by Ardelio della Bella in 1728:
If anyone studies the history of the region of Albania from antiquity until today, he/she will realise that the territory of today's Albania had historically very little to do with the Albanian people. Robert Elsie, German Albanologist, whose work about Albanian history and culture is honoured and appreciated in modern Albania, had come to the same conclusion. According to him, Albania became ethnically Albanian only during Ottoman times, while the history of Albania for many centuries had little or nothing to do with the Albanians ¹¹:
Taking into consideration everything that was presented until now, we can safely realise that Albanians are in no way autochthonous in today's Albania. Linguistic evidence points to the cradle of ancient Albanian language outside and north of Southern Illyria. History in turn proves that Albania has always been at the crossroads of various empires and civilizations. The Illyrians that inhabited this territory in Antiquity, were eventually integrated in the Greek linguistic and cultural world, their land was renamed to Illyria Graeca and Epirus Nova and continued being under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was only in the 13th century that Albanian speaking populations penetrated the Byzantine Greek territory of Epirus and started expanding and assimilating the natives. Mid-15th century marks the end of this process ⁸ and Albanians finally form the ethnic majority in their current lands of residence during Ottoman times ¹¹. As Robert Elsie wrote ¹¹, Albanians are just one stone in this great mosaic of the History of Albania.
____________________
References:
¹ Strabo, 7.7.8
² Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages 500-1250 (CAH,2006), p. 104
³ Joachim Matzinger, "L'elemento latino della lingua albanese — un impatto
della Via Egnatia?"
⁴ Irena Sawicka, "A Crossroad Between West, East and Orient–The Case of
Albanian Culture." Colloquia Humanistica, No. 2, Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej
Akademii Nauk, 2013, p. 97
⁵ Procopius, Gothic Wars, Book I, 15.24
⁶ Tom Winnifrith, Badlands, Borderlands: A History of Northern Epirus/Southern
Albania, p.169
⁷ Eric Hamp in: Bono Homini Donum: Essays in Historical Linguistics in Memory of J. Alexander Kerns, p.103
⁸ Robert Elsie, Historical Dictionary of Albania, p. liv
⁹ Tom Winnifrith, Badlands, Borderlands: A History of Northern Epirus/Southern Albania, p. 95
¹⁰ Greece=usually what Ottomans defined as "Roman Lands"
¹¹ Robert Elsie, The Early History of Albania
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