Еци пеци пец, денес добив кец... Татко ми го избриша и ми пиша пет...
In the I Century AD,
Pliny the Elder mentions an Illyrian tribe named
Olbonenses.
The first century Anno Domini - five centuries before the Serbs' arrival.
Replace the letter 'o' with 'a' and you'll get (*surprise* *surprise*)
Albonenses or Albanenses!!! And finally;
In the II Century BC, in the History of the World, written by
Polybius,
there is mention of a city named Arbon in present day central Albania. The
people who lived there were called Arbanios and Arbanitai.
This mention of us is in the IIth century BC - 8 centuries before the
arrival of the Serbs. I It doesn't end there though;
Our first mentioning is in the 2th century AD, four centuries before the
Serb arrival in the Balkans. It's from that Illyrian tribe (the Albanoi) we
received our ethnonym. They were mentioned by the Greek geographer
Ptolemy
Claudius of Alexandria, in his work Geographia, as situated near the modern
capital Tirana;
Our own medieval term for ourselves wasn't Albanian with the letter 'l', but
Arberesh or Arberor or Arban, with 'r', from whence the Slav term 'Arbanas'
and Greek term 'Arvanites' came from, when they referred to us. This name
stems also from the Illyrian era;
А? Немало а ?
Ај и ова... Нека бега нешто од фирмата...
Our earliest mentioning is in the 200 Anno Domini - 4 centuries before the
arrival of the Serbs. They are mentioned as Albanoi, which is thought to
mean 'white' - ironically, the Illyrian name for the tribe was parthini, and
the first part -parth resembles our modern word -bardh, meaning precisely
white, whereas the suffix -ini resembles our suffix -inj, defining the word
as smth plural, i.e. Parthians, Parthinj.
That we're an autochtonous nation in the Balkans is not even disputed among
prominent Serb intellectuals and historians. The only dispute is whether
we're Illyrian or Thracian, which in relation to our autochtony in Kosova
(ancient Dardania) is irrelevant, since ancient Kosova was home to both
Illyrians as well as Thracians, as is confirmed by ancient toponyms. But
whilst Serb and Bulgarian historians have advocated a Thracian or/and Dacian
origins of our people, most others have supported the Illyrian thesis, to
the point where now only Serbs seem to favor the Thracian alternative. The
Croat historian and Illyrologist
Aleksandar Stipcevic formulates himself
rather well when he states following;
Quote:
The result achieved by workers in different disciplines in recent decades
have reduced the importance of the work that relied on now obsolete
linguistc evidence, and have made the autochthony of the Albanians, i.e.
increasingly indisputable.
And this ...
Quote:
Nevertheless, the number of researchers still today refusing to take into
consideration the many arguments supplied by different academic disciplines
has shrunk, or, more accurately, absolutely the only researchers who deny
the theory of Albanian autochthony are Serbian.
Source
Here's one Serbian document mentioning us in the 12th century, an extract
from the Dusanova Zakonik;
Quote:
A brawl between villages, fifty perpers, (one perper was worth six gold
francs); but between Vlachs and Albanians, one hundred perpers
Еве и за јазикот од Германски и Австриски научници
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/print/16452
http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/public_relations/press/pv200805-en.html
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/old-albanian-living-legacy-dead-language-16452.html
(Old) Albanian - Living legacy of a dead language?
According to the central hypothesis of a project undertaken by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Old Albanian had a significant influence on the development of many Balkan languages. Intensive research now aims to confirm this theory. This little-known language is being researched using all available texts before a comparison with other Balkan languages is carried out. The outcome of this work will include the compilation of a lexicon providing an overview of all Old Albanian verbs.
Different languages in the same geographical area often reveal certain similarities, despite there being no evidence of a common origin. This phenomenon, known as "Sprachbund", is also evident in the Balkan region where the Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Romanian languages display common words and structures. The question is whether these languages have influenced one another, or whether one specific language has been decisive in shaping the evolution of the others?
A project by the Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna aims to prove that (Old) Albanian was a major influence on the other Balkan languages. Linguist Dr. Stefan Schumacher and his colleague Dr. Joachim Matzinger are undertaking pioneering research in two key areas. The initial stage involves an in-depth examination of Old Albanian, as research into this language is extremely scarce in comparison to modern Albanian. This includes an analysis of the Old Albanian verbal system using all available written sources - the first study of its kind. In the second stage, the results are compared with the verbal systems of the other Balkan languages to establish where similarities occur.
Influences from Albania
As project leader Dr. Schumacher explains, the research is already bearing fruit: "So far, our work has shown that Old Albanian contained numerous modal levels that allowed the speaker to express a particular stance to what was being said. Compared to the existing knowledge and literature, these modal levels are actually more extensive and more nuanced than previously thought. We have also discovered a great many verbal forms that are now obsolete or have been lost through restructuring - until now, these forms have barely even been recognized or, at best, have been classified incorrectly." These verbal forms are crucial to explaining the linguistic history of Albanian and its internal usage.
However, they can also shed light on the reciprocal relationship between Albanian and its neighbouring languages. The researchers are following various leads which suggest that Albanian played a key role in the Balkan Sprachbund. For example, it is likely that Albanian is the source of the suffixed definite article in Romanian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, as this has been a feature of Albanian since ancient times.
Literature
This project is based on the entire body of available Old Albanian literature dating from between the 16th and 18th centuries. This will prove a real challenge for the researchers as it comprises 1,500 pages of text, each of which must be analysed extremely carefully. Dr. Matzinger comments: "Until now, very little research has been carried out on these texts, as we are dealing almost exclusively with Catholic religious literature that was first forgotten and then became taboo, particularly during the Communist era. Following the fall of Communism, this literature has once again emerged from the shadows, but, so far, there has been a lack of money and of background knowledge about Catholicism."
Due to their role in the FWF project, these old texts are receiving a new lease of life and taking their place as part of Austria's rich tradition of research into this area - indeed, the Austrian professor Norbert Jokl, who was killed by the Nazis, is known as the "father of Albanology". Jokl would no doubt have been proud to witness the first complete representation of the Old Albanian verbal system in the form of the lexicon that is to be produced at the conclusion of the research. This will provide a foundation for all future investigations into the verbal system of Albanian and will also prove invaluable to Indo-European studies and linguistics as a whole.
