Origins of Albanian language and ethnos

[Soldier of Macedon]

The story has many gaps, but it might just be a glorified version of the truth. The best way to determine Albanian origins is to study the Albanian language and figure out how it came to be. At the moment, nationalism and politics has closed some doors worthy of exploration, that is why each time the origin of a word hasn't yet been deciphered it is considered 'Illyrian', a very un-scientific process.

[Valmir]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

Many of the Macedonian or Slavonic loans in Albanian appear to be in relation to verbs. Here is a list of some words that are likely loans:

English-Albanian-Macedonian
Pick - Zgjedh - Zgodi or Godi
Ready - Gati - Gotov
Queue - Radhe - Red
Record - Shenim - Snima
Delete - Prish - Brishi
Walk - Shetitje - Shetaj
Run - Tirazh - Trcha
Row - Vozit - Vozi (ride)
Kick = Goditje; Godi or Pogodi (pelt)

Male - Mashkull - Mashko

Nothing - Hich - Ich
Stream - Rreke - Reka (river)
Fire - Zjarr - Zhar

Many Wrong things there!

For exemple:
English - Albanian
pick - MARR not zgjedh
ready - GATI but in Macedonian Gotov means END or Finish and not Ready!
Queue - Radhe - But in Macedonian it is дното not Red!
Record - (Shenim) is like Writing and not Record!
Delete - Fshi and not Prish! (Prish means Destroy)
Walk - EC and not Shetitje!
Run - Vrapon and not Tirazh(I dont understand what is Tirazh)
Row - RRESHT! not Vozit.
Kick - Shkelm!


There are similar words beetwen Albanian language and Slavic language but these similarities can be found only at Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia and not at Albanians from Albania,And all this because of assimilation that happend under Serbian and Macedonian Regime!

[Valmir]

Pledge/Word - Besa - Beseda (OCS)
Oath - Betim - Veti
Oral - Gojor - Govor
Spoke - Rreze - Reche
Custom - Zakon - Zakon (law)
Fun - Zbavites - Zabava

Pledge in Albanian is PENG, Besa is completly something else!
Betim - Veti I can't see any similar thing here!
Gojor - Govor - There are no similarities here,Goj - Mouth! and Gov something else idk what....
Spoke - FOLA,FLAS and not Rreze!
In Albanian RREZE means Beam!
Custom - In Albanian is DOKE or ADET!, Zakon can be found at Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia.
Fun - in Albanian is QEJF!
Zbavitese means something that is Funny.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Valmir

Many Wrong things there!

I don't think so. Perhaps the semantical meaning of some aren't the same, but that doesn't mean they aren't loanwords. By the way, all of the words were obtained from a dictionary written by one of your people.

There are similar words beetwen Albanian language and Slavic language but these similarities can be found only at Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia and not at Albanians from Albania.....

Only in Kosovo and Macedonia? You don't know much about your people and language.

And all this because of assimilation that happend under Serbian and Macedonian Regime!

Mate, don't push your garbage agenda here, instead, try accepting the truth.

[Valmir]

I don't think so. Perhaps the semantical meaning of some aren't the same, but that doesn't mean they aren't loanwords. By the way, all of the words were obtained from a dictionary written by one of your people.

Not semantical meaning but Every singel verb that you got for example had completly other meaning!

Only in Kosovo and Macedonia? You don't know much about your people and language.

Only at "ALBANIANS FROM" Kosovo and Macedonia you can find words like Zakon or Vozit! And especially at Older Generation (60-70 years old ppls)
The new generations speak clear Albanian because they are learning in Albanian schools!

Mate, don't push your garbage agenda here, instead, try accepting the truth.

Which truth?
Because im not seeing any Conclusion from Macedonians for Albanians!

[Soldier of Macedon]

I don't think you know much about your language, you're just another one of these deluded internet Albanians who parrot "pure" Illyrians at every turn, and try to dispute any logical argument that doesn't suit their agenda with some re-interpreted fiction. To be honest, some of your sentences are near incoherent. What did you mean with your last line? What conclusions are you talking about? Try reading this whole thread from the beginning, you will see that some of your silly suggestions have already been addressed.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

I have also seen a connection proposed to the word for 'sword' in Albanian, which I will just highlight that, from the dictionaries I have seen, it is not "shpete" in Albanian, but "shpate". It is an interesting example, and it does seem possible. However, let's look at some other similarly formed words to compare. The word "shpate" looks very close to the English word 'spade', and if we look at the Albanian word for 'spade', it is a borrowing from either Macedonian, Serbian or another related language (as most Slavic langauges have a similar word for spade or shovel):

Lopata (Macedonian)
Lopate (Albanian for spade)
Shpate (Albanian for sword)

Important also is the fact that items that resemble a 'spade' have been used as weapons. If 'shpate' is an Albanian word, yet looks similar to and shares the same word ending as 'lopate', which is not an Albanian word (by origin), then how did 'shpate' come about?

Here is some more information regarding the word 'shpate':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatha

The word comes from the Latin spatha,[1] which derives from Greek σπάθη (spáthē), "any broad blade, of wood or metal" but also "broad blade of a sword".[2]

The Greek word σπάθη was used in the middle Archaic period for various types of Iron Age swords. The word is not Homeric, but is mentioned in the works of Alcaeus of Mytilene (6th century BC) [3] and Theophrastus (4th century BC).[4]

It is likely that spatha is the romanization of the Doric Greek *σπάθα (spáthā), considering the Doric acc. plural "σπάθας" (spáthās).[5] The word survives in Modern Greek as σπάθη, fem. and σπαθί, neut. The Latin word became the French épée, Catalan espasa, Portuguese and Spanish espada, Italian spada, Romanian spadă and Albanian shpata, all meaning "sword". The English word spatula is from Latin spat(h)ula, the diminutive of spatha. English spade, from Old English spadu, spædu fem., is the Germanic cognate, from a Common Germanic *spadō, ultimately from a PIE stem *sph2-dh-.

The spatha was introduced to the Roman Army in the early imperial period by Celtic cavalry auxiliaries who continued to wear their Celtic long swords, with blade lengths of 60 to 85 cm, in Roman service. The earlier gladius type was gradually replaced by the spatha over the period of the late 2nd to the 3rd century CE. From the early 3rd century CE, legionaries and cavalrymen began to wear the sword on the left side, perhaps because of the abandonment of the scutum and the adoption of the longer spatha.[6]

[Soldier of Macedon]

I have merged some related threads into the one, just in case some people were wondering where they disappeared to.

Something with regard to the Venetian influence in Albania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Albania

Venetian Albania (Italian: Albania Veneta) was the name for the possessions of the Venetian Republic in southern Dalmatia that existed from 1420 to 1797. It originally covered the coastal area of what is now northern Albania and the coast of Montenegro, but the Albanian and southern Montenegrin parts were lost to the Ottomans in 1571.[1]

The word "Venetian" in the name of the region was used to differentiate the area from the Ottoman Albania, an area stretching from Kosovo to southern Albania.[2]

Venetian Albania were Venetian possessions that stretched from the southern borders of the Republic of Ragusa to Durrës in coastal Albania. The Venetian territories usually reached only 20 km from the Adriatic Sea. After 1573 the southern limit was moved to the village of Kufin near Budva, because of the Ottoman conquests of Bar, Ulcinj, Shkodër, and Durrës. The Venetian territory was then centered around the area of the Bay of Kotor, and included the towns of Kotor, Risan, Perast, Tivat, Herceg Novi, Budva, and Sutomore.

Venice periodically controlled the small southern Dalmatian villages around in the 10th century, but did not permanently assume control until 1420. The Venetians assimilated the Dalmatian language into the Venetian dialect quickly. The Venetian territories around Kotor lasted from 1420 to 1797 and were called Venetian Albania, a province of the Venetian Republic.[3]

In the early years of the Renaissance the territories under Venetian control included areas from actual coastal Montenegro to northern Albania until Durrës: Venetians retained this city after a siege by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1466 but it fell to Ottoman forces in 1501.

In those years Venetian Albania was relatively rich (by Balkan standards) and the area around the city of Cattaro enjoyed a huge cultural and artistic development.

When the Ottoman Empire started to conquer the Balkans in 15th century, the population of Christian Slavs in Dalmatia increased greatly. As a consequence of this, by the end of 17th century the Romance speaking population of the historical Venetian Albania was a minority, according to Oscar Randi in his book Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni.[4]

After the French Republic conquered and dissolved the Venetian Republic in 1797, the area of Venetian Albania became part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy,[5] and then in 1809 it was included in the French Illyrian Provinces, and then the Illyrian Provinces. In 1814 it was included in the Austrian Empire.

Albanians lived in the south of the Venetian Albania around Ulcigno and Durazzo. The area around Cattaro was populated by Croats and Romance-speakers and was fully Catholic.[6] Many klans from Albania Veneta had immigrated to Italy, Korfu and Constantinople: Klanlarets in Istanbul is an example of Venetian Albanians today.

According to the Italian historian Luigi Paulucci the population of the Venetian Albania, during the centuries of the Venetian Republic, was mainly Venetian (Italian) speaking in the urban areas (Kotor, Perast, Budva, ecc..) around the Bay of Kotor. But in the inland areas more than half of the population was Serbo-Croatian-speaking, after the beginning of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, near the border with Albania there were big communities of Albanian speaking people: Ulcinj was half Albanian, one quarter Venetian and one quarter Slav speaking.

There have been notable Italian writers in the 15th to the 18th century who originated from Venetian Albania, notably Giovanni Bona Boliris, Cristoforo Ivanovich and Ludovico Pasquali.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Here is a good article relating to plant names used by Albanians.

http://www.elsie.de/pdf/articles/A1998DendronEngl.pdf

The often expressed hypothesis that loanwords predominate for lowland, especially deciduous trees whereas native terms predominate for highland, especially coniferous trees cannot be confirmed by the present study to any measurable extent. While Latin terms are indeed common for lowland trees, Slavic loans are noticeably common for highland trees, in particular for pines. Remarkable is also the fact that Turkish loans are particularly common for fruit trees, an indication that some of them may have been imported during the centuries of Ottoman occupation. All that can be stated statistically is that, broadly speaking, about half the major Albanian terms for trees and shrubs are of foreign origin (principally Latin, Slavic, Turkish and Greek) and the other half are of native origin. This is yet another indication of the exceptionally strong influence foreign languages and cultures, in particular Latin and Slavic, have exercised upon the historical development of the Albanian lexicon and the Albanian language in general.

[George S.]

Som if i can ask you what is your view of the albanians coming from asia in 6/7 century.There was a place of albania there.What is your view on this?