Albanian dialects Gheg, Tosk. Communities of Arbëreshë- and Arvanitika-speakers

Albanian is spoken by over 8 million people primarily in Albania, Kosovo, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but also by smaller numbers of ethnic Albanians in other parts of the Balkans, along the eastern coast of Italy and in Sicily, as well other emigrant groups.

The Albanian language has no living close relatives among the modern IE languages. There is no consensus over its origin and dialectal classification, although some scholars derive it from Illyrian, and others claim that it derives from Thracian.

While it is considered established that the Albanians originated in the Balkans, the exact location from which they spread out is hard to pinpoint. Despite varied claims, the Albanians probably came from farther north and inland than would suggest the present borders of Albania, with a homeland concentrated in the mountains.

NOTE. Given the overwhelming amount of shepherding and mountaineering vocabulary as well as the extensive influence of Latin, it is more likely the Albanians come from north of the Jireček line, on the Latin-speaking side, perhaps in part from the late Roman province of Dardania from the western Balkans. However, archaeology has more convincingly pointed to the early Byzantine province of Praevitana (modern northern Albania) which shows an area where a primarily shepherding, transhumance population of Illyrians retained their culture.

The period in which Proto-Albanian and Latin interacted was protracted and drawn out over six centuries, 1^st c. AD to 6^th or 7^th c. AD. This is born out into roughly three layers of borrowings, the largest number belonging to the second layer. The first, with the fewest borrowings, was a time of less important interaction. The final period, probably preceding the Slavic or Germanic invasions, also has a notably smaller amount of borrowings. Each layer is characterized by a different treatment of most vowels, the first layer having several that follow the evolution of Early Proto-Albanian into Albanian; later layers reflect vowel changes endemic to Late Latin and presumably Proto-Romance. Other formative changes include the syncretism of several noun case endings, especially in the plural, as well as a large scale palatalization.

A brief period followed, between 7^th c. AD and 9^th c. AD, that was marked by heavy borrowings from Southern Slavic, some of which predate the o→a shift common to the modern forms of this language group. Starting in the latter 9^th c. AD, a period followed of protracted contact with the Proto-Romanians, or Vlachs, though lexical borrowing seems to have been mostly one sided – from Albanian into Romanian. Such a borrowing indicates that the Romanians migrated from an area where the majority was Slavic (i.e. Middle Bulgarian) to an area with a majority of Albanian speakers, i.e. Dardania, where Vlachs are recorded in the 10^th c. AD. This fact places the Albanians at a rather early date in the Western or Central Balkans, most likely in the region of Kosovo and Northern Albania.

References to the existence of Albanian as a distinct language survive from 14^th c. AD, but without recording any specific words. The oldest surviving documents written in Albanian are the Formula e Pagëzimit (Baptismal formula), Un’te paghesont’ pr’emenit t’Atit e t’Birit e t’Spirit Senit, “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit”, recorded by Pal Engjelli, Bishop of Durres in 1462 in the Gheg dialect, and some New Testament verses from that period.

A. Phrygian

The Phrygian language was the IE language spoken by the Phrygians, a people that settled in Asia Minor during the Bronze Age. It survived probably into the 6^th century AD, when it was replaced by Greek

Phrygian region and expanded Kingdom.

Ancient historians and myths sometimes did associate Phrygian with Thracian and maybe even Armenian, on grounds of classical sources. Herodotus recorded the Macedonian account that Phrygians migrated into Asia Minor from Thrace (7.73). Later in the text (7.73), Herodotus states that the Armenians were colonists of the Phrygians, still considered the same in the time of Xerxes I. The earliest mention of Phrygian in Greek sources, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, depicts it as different from Trojan: in the hymn, Aphrodite, disguising herself as a mortal to seduce the Trojan prince Anchises, tells him:

“Otreus of famous name is my father, if so be you have heard of him, and he reigns over all Phrygia rich in fortresses. But I know your speech well beside my own, for a Trojan nurse brought me up at home”. Of Trojan, unfortunately, nothing is known.

Phrygian is attested by two corpora, one, Palaeo-Phrygian, from around 800 BC and later, and another after a period of several centuries, Neo-Phrygian, from around the beginning of the Common Era. The Palaeo-Phrygian corpus is further divided geographically into inscriptions of Midas-city, Gordion, Central, Bithynia, Pteria, Tyana, Daskyleion, Bayindir, and “various” (documents divers). The Mysian inscriptions show a language classified as a separate Phrygian dialect, written in an alphabet with an additional letter, the “Mysian s”. We can reconstruct some words with the help of some inscriptions written with a script similar to the Greek one.

Phrygian inscription in Midas City.

Ancient historians and myths sometimes did associate Phrygian with Thracian and maybe even Armenian, on grounds of classical sources. Herodotus recorded the Macedonian account that Phrygians migrated into Asia Minor from Thrace (7.73). Later in the text (7.73), Herodotus states that the Armenians were colonists of the Phrygians, still considered the same in the time of Xerxes I. The earliest mention of Phrygian in Greek sources, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, depicts it as different from Trojan: in the hymn, Aphrodite, disguising herself as a mortal to seduce the Trojan prince Anchises, tells him

“Otreus of famous name is my father, if so be you have heard of him, and he reigns over all Phrygia rich in fortresses. But I know your speech well beside my own, for a Trojan nurse brought me up at home”. Of Trojan, unfortunately, nothing is known.

Its structure, what can be recovered from it, was typically Indo-European, with nouns declined for case (at least four), gender (three) and number (singular and plural), while the verbs are conjugated for tense, voice, mood, person and number.

Phrygian seems to exhibit an augment, like Greek and Armenian, as in Phryg. eberet, probably corresponding to PIE *é-b^her-e-t (cf. Gk. epheret).

A sizable body of Phrygian words are theoretically known; however, the meaning and etymologies and even correct forms of many Phrygian words (mostly extracted from inscriptions) are still being debated.

Phrygian words with possible PIE origin and Graeco-Armenian cognates include:

·  Phryg. bekos, “bread”, from PIE *b^heh₃g-; cf. Gk. p^hōgō, “to roast”.

·  Phryg. bedu, “water”, from PIE *wed-; cf. Arm. get, “river”.

·  Phryg. anar, “husband”, “man”, PIE *h₂ner-, “man”; cf. Gk. aner-, “man, husband”.

·  Phryg. belte, “swamp”, from PIE root *b^hel-, “to gleam”; cf. Gk. baltos, “swamp”.

·  Phryg. brater, “brother”, from PIE *b^hreh₂ter-; cf. Gk. p^hrāter-.

·  Phryg. ad-daket, “does, causes”, from PIE stem *d^hē-k-; cf. Gk. et^hēka.

·  Phryg. germe, “warm”, from PIE *g^wher-mo-; cf. Gk. t^hermos.

·  Phryg. gdan, “earth”, from PIE *d^hg^hom-; cf. Gk. k^ht^hōn.

NOTE. For more information on similarities between Greek and Phrygian, see Neumann Phrygisch und Griechisch (1988).

B. Illyrian

The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by ethnic groups identified as Illyrians: Delmatae, Pannoni, Illyrioi, Autariates, Taulanti.

Roman provinces in the Balkans, 2nd century AD: A. Spalatum (Split); 1. Raetia; 2. Noricum; 3. Pannonia; 4. Illyricum; 5. Dacia; 6. Moesia; 7. Tracia.

The main source of authoritative information about the Illyrian language consists of a handful of Illyrian words cited in classical sources, and numerous examples of Illyrian anthroponyms, ethnonyms, toponyms and hydronyms. Some sound-changes and other language features are deduced from what remains of the Illyrian languages, but because no writings in Illyrian are known, there is not sufficient evidence to clarify its place within the Indo-European language family aside from its probable Centum nature.

NOTE. A grouping of Illyrian with the Messapian language has been proposed for about a century, but remains an unproven hypothesis. The theory is based on classical sources, archaeology, as well as onomastic considerations. Messapian material culture bears a number of similarities to Illyrian material culture. Some Messapian anthroponyms have close Illyrian equivalents. A relation to the Venetic language and Liburnian language, once spoken in northeastern Italy and Liburnia respectively, is also proposed. A grouping of Illyrian with the Thracian and Dacian language in a “Thraco-Illyrian” group or branch, an idea popular in the first half of the 20^th century, is now generally rejected due to a lack of sustaining evidence, and due to what may be evidence to the contrary. Also, the hypothesis that the modern Albanian language is a surviving Illyrian language remains very controversial among linguists.

B. Thracian

Excluding Dacian, whose status as a Thracian language is disputed, Thracian was spoken in what is now southern Bulgaria, parts of Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia, Northern Greece – especially prior to Ancient Macedonian expansion –, throughout Thrace (including European Turkey) and in parts of Bithynia (North-Western Asiatic Turkey). Most of the Thracians were eventually Hellenized (in the province of Thrace) or Romanized (in Moesia, Dacia, etc.), with the last remnants surviving in remote areas until the 5^th century AD.

NOTE. As an extinct language with only a few short inscriptions attributed to it (v.i.), there is little known about the Thracian language, but a number of features are agreed upon. A number of probable Thracian words are found in inscriptions – most of them written with Greek script – on buildings, coins, and other artifacts. Some Greek lexical elements may derive from Thracian, such as balios, “dappled” (< PIE *b^hel-, “to shine”, Pokorny also cites Illyrian as possible source), bounos, “hill, mound”, etc.

C. Dacian

The Dacian language was an Indo-European language spoken by the ancient people of Dacia. It is often considered to have been either a northern variant of the Thracian language, or closely related to it.

There are almost no written documents in Dacian. Dacian used to be one of the major languages of South-Eastern Europe, stretching from what is now Eastern Hungary to the Black Sea shore. Based on archaeological findings, the origins of the Dacian culture are believed to be in Moldavia, being identified as an evolution of the Iron Age Basarabi culture.

Theoretical scenario: the Albanians as a migrant Dacian people

It is unclear exactly when the Dacian language became extinct, or even whether it has a living descendant. The initial Roman conquest of part of Dacia did not put an end to the language, as free Dacian tribes such as the Carpi may have continued to speak Dacian in Moldavia and adjacent regions as late as the 6^th or 7^th century AD, still capable of leaving some influences in the forming of Slavic languages.

According to the hypothesis of Hasdeu (1901), a branch of Dacian continued as the Albanian language. A refined version of that hypothesis considers Albanian to be a Daco-Moesian Dialect that split off before 300 BC, and that Dacian became extinct.

NOTE. The arguments for this early split before 300 BC include:

o Inherited Albanian words (e.g. PIE *mātēr → Alb. motër) shows the evolution PIE *ā → Alb. o, but all the Latin loans in Albanian having an ā (<PIE *ā) shows Lat. ā → Alb. a. Therefore, the transformation happened and ended before the Roman arrival in the Balkans.

o Romanian substratum words shared with Albanian show a Rom. a that corresponds to Alb. o when the source for both sounds is an original common ā (cf. mazãre/modhull<*mādzula, “pea”; raţã/rosë<*rātja: “duck”); therefore, when these words had the same common form in Pre-Romanian and Proto-Albanian the transformation PIE *ā → Alb. o had not started yet.

The correlation between these two facts could indicate that the split between Pre-Romanian (the Dacians later Romanized) and Proto-Albanian happened before the Roman arrival in the Balkans.

E. Paionian

The Paionian language is the poorly attested language of the ancient Paionians, whose kingdom once stretched north of Macedon into Dardania and in earlier times into southwestern Thrace.

Classical sources usually considered the Paionians distinct from Thracians or Illyrians, comprising their own ethnicity and language. Athenaeus seemingly connected the Paionian tongue to the Mysian language, itself barely attested. If correct, this could mean that Paionian was an Anatolian language. On the other hand, the Paionians were sometimes regarded as descendants of Phrygians, which may put Paionian on the same linguistic branch as the Phrygian language.

NOTE. Modern linguists are uncertain on the classification of Paionian, due to the extreme scarcity of materials we have on this language. However, it seems that Paionian was an independent IE dialect. It shows a/o distinction and does not appear to have undergone Satemization. The Indo-European voiced aspirates became plain voiced consonants, i.e. *b^h→b, *d^h→d, *g^h→g, *g^wh→g^w; as in Illyrian, Thracian, Macedonian and Phrygian (but unlike Greek).

F. Ancient Macedonian

The Ancient Macedonian language was the tongue of the Ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in Macedon during the 1^st millennium BC. Marginalized from the 5^th century BC, it was gradually replaced by the common Greek dialect of the Hellenistic Era. It was probably spoken predominantly in the inland regions away from the coast. It is as yet undetermined whether the language was a dialect of Greek, a sibling language to Greek, or an Indo-European language which is a close cousin to Greek and also related to Thracian and Phrygian languages.

Knowledge of the language is very limited because there are no surviving texts that are indisputably written in the language, though a body of authentic Macedonian words has been assembled from ancient sources, mainly from coin inscriptions, and from the 5^th century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria, amounting to about 150 words and 200 proper names. Most of these are confidently identifiable as Greek, but some of them are not easily reconciled with standard Greek phonology. The 6,000 surviving Macedonian inscriptions are in the Greek Attic dialect.

The Pella curse tablet, a text written in a distinct Doric Greek idiom, found in Pella in 1986, dated to between mid to early 4^th century BC, has been forwarded as an argument that the Ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of North-Western Greek. Before the discovery it was proposed that the Macedonian dialect was an early form of Greek, spoken alongside Doric proper at that time.

The Pella katadesmos, is a katadesmos (a curse, or magic spell) inscribed on a lead scroll, probably dating to between 380 and 350 BC. It was found in Pella in 1986

NOTE. Olivier Masson thinks that “in contrast with earlier views which made of it an Aeolic dialect (O.Hoffmann compared Thessalian) we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). This view is supported by the recent discovery at Pella of a curse tablet which may well be the first ‘Macedonian’ text attested (...); the text includes an adverb “opoka” which is not Thessalian”. Also, James L. O’Neil states that the “curse tablet from Pella shows word forms which are clearly Doric, but a different form of Doric from any of the west Greek dialects of areas adjoining Macedon. Three other, very brief, fourth century inscriptions are also indubitably Doric. These show that a Doric dialect was spoken in Macedon, as we would expect from the West Greek forms of Greek names found in Macedon. And yet later Macedonian inscriptions are in Koine avoiding both Doric forms and the Macedonian voicing of consonants. The native Macedonian dialect had become unsuitable for written documents.”

From the few words that survive, a notable sound-law may be ascertained, that PIE voiced aspirates *d^h, *b^h, *g^h, appear as δ (=d[^h]), β (=b[^h]), γ (=g[^h]), in contrast to Greek dialects, which unvoiced them to θ (=t^h), φ (=p^h), χ (=k^h).

NOTE. Since these languages are all known via the Greek alphabet, which has no signs for voiced aspirates, it is unclear whether de-aspiration had really taken place, or whether the supposed voiced stops β, δ, γ were just picked as the closest matches to express voiced aspirates PIE *b^h, *d^h, *g^h. As to Macedonian β, δ, γ = Greek φ, θ, χ, Claude Brixhe[ (1996) suggests that it may have been a later development: The letters may already have designated not voiced stops, i.e. [b, d, g], but voiced fricatives, i.e. [β, δ, γ], due to a voicing of the voiceless fricatives [φ, θ, x] (= Classical Attic [p^h, t^h, k^h]). Brian Joseph (2001) sums up that “The slender evidence is open to different interpretations, so that no definitive answer is really possible”, but cautions that “most likely, Ancient Macedonian was not simply an Ancient Greek dialect on a par with Attic or Aeolic”. In this sense, some authors also call it a “deviant Greek dialect”.

·  PIE *d^henh₂-, “to leave”, → A.Mac. δανός (δanós), “death”; cf. Attic θάνατος (t^hánatos). PIE *h₂aid^h- → A.Mac.*ἄδραια (aδraia), ‘bright weather’, Attic αἰθρία (ait^hría).

·  PIE *b^hasko- → A.Mac. βάσκιοι (βáskioi), “fasces”. Compare also for A.Mac. ἀϐροῦτες (aβroûtes) or ἀϐροῦϝες (aβroûwes), Attic ὀφρῦς (op^hrûs), “eyebrows”; for Mac. Βερενίκη (Βereníkē), Attic Φερενίκη (P^hereníkē), “bearing victory”.

o  According to Herodotus (ca. 440 BC), the Macedonians claimed that the Phryges were called Brygoi (<PIE *b^hrugo-) before they migrated from Thrace to Anatolia ca. 1200 BC.

o  In Aristophanes’ The Birds, the form κεϐλήπυρις (keβlēpyris), “red-cap bird”, shows a voiced stop instead of a standard Greek unvoiced aspirate, i.e. Macedonian κεϐ(α)λή (keβalē) vs. Greek κεφαλή (kep^halē), “head”.

·  If A.Mac. γοτάν (γotán), “pig”, is related to PIE *g^wou-, “cow”, this would indicate that the labiovelars were either intact (hence *g^wotán), or merged with the velars, unlike the usual Gk. βοῦς (boûs).

NOTE. Such deviations, however, are not unknown within Greek dialects; compare Dor. γλεπ- (glep-) for common Gk. βλεπ- (blep-), as well as Dor. γλάχων (gláchōn) and Ion. γλήχων (glēchōn) for Gk. βλήχων (blēchōn).

·  Examples suggest that voiced velar stops were devoiced, especially word-initially: PIE *genu- → A.Mac. κάναδοι (kánadoi), “jaws”; PIE *gomb^h- → A.Mac. κόμϐους (kómbous), “molars”.

o  Compared to Greek words, there is A.Mac. ἀρκόν (arkón) vs. Attic ἀργός (argós); the Macedonian toponym Akesamenai, from the Pierian name Akesamenos – if Akesa- is cognate to Greek agassomai, agamai, “to astonish”; cf. also the Thracian name Agassamenos.