Talk:Origin of the Albanians

Orel (2000)

Maleschreiber, here are the two relevant pages for more details on what Orel wrote:

• Page 261
• Page 262

This is the complete "4.2.1.0. Kinship terms" subsection. I have access to the full book; if you need any other page, don't hesitate to ping me. Demetrios1993 (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

New map

Proto-Albanian language in the 4th century CE

Oh boy. Here we go again. First of all, the map is WP:SYNTH, as it is based on a multitude of sources or so it is claimed. Second, for three of these, no page numbers are given, so impossible to verify. Third, the two Albanian language sources appear to be highly partisan. They are not peer-reviewed English language sources. Then there are obvious errors, for example, the area around the city of Apollonia and the city of Epidamnos were Greek-speaking, but are not shown as such in the map. In general, it has a very strong "we was autochthnous" whiff to it. This time, I will seek outside mediation, because the situation in these articles has generally gone out of control. Khirurg (talk) 02:33, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Apollonia was abandoned in the 4th century and Dyrrhatio was Latin-speaking. The sources used are all reliable. Shaban Demiraj is an acclaimed linguist who has written numerous entries in international publications. Eric Prendergast has written about what is a broad consensus about the approximate region Albanian was spoken.

There is, however, evidence that Albanian was spoken over a broader territory in the Balkans than the contemporary range of territory occupied by its speaker community today (Çabej 1971:41, Demiraj 2004:98, 104). A number of important toponyms in Macedonia, southern Serbia, and Kosovo show reflexes of Albanian phonological developments; e.g. Astibos > Albanian Shtip, Slavic Štip (in eastern Macedonia), Naissus > Albanian Nish, Slavic Niš (in southern Serbia) (Pulaha 1984:11). The toponym Dobreta, because of its greater distance as mentioned above places, the potential range of the predecessor to Albanian up to the banks of the Danube. This was also the range of significant Latin influence (north of the Jireček Line, which is recognized as the customary division of a northern zone of Latin language influence and from a southern zone of Greek language influence, [Jireček 1911, Friedman 2001b:29]) and corresponded to the area inhabited by pastoral speakers of Balkan Romance well into the Middle Ages. This fits well with a theory forwarded in particular by Hamp (1994) that Albanian is the result of an autochthonous Balkan language that has undergone partial Romanization, while Balkan Romance represents a full language shift, whereby the early form of this Balkan language (its “proto-Albanian” linguistic predecessor) was fully absorbed into Late Latin per Eric Prendergast Ahmet Q. (talk) 03:05, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

The quote from Prendergast has absolutely nothing to do with the map. Prendergast only mentions a few toponyms, he doesn't say these areas were proto-Albanian in the 4 century AD. And he says absolutely nothing about the southern area. He also mentions the Jirecek line, which your map ignores and contradicts, as it shows the Greek-speaking area far to the south of the Jirecek line. In any case, the map is contradicted by the (sourced) contents of the article. You are trying to prejudge the outcome of the Illyrian vs. Thracian debate, as well as the place of origin, by placing such a map in the lede, without even a qualifier. Btw can you translate into English the title of one of Demiraj's works: "Epiri, Pellazgët, Etruskët dhe Shqiptarët"? Thanks in advance. Khirurg (talk) 03:24, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Much of the sourced content of the article has been written by me, so I feel that I should say something about what is not "controversial" at all in linguistics in 2021, but "controversial" according to some users of wikipedia. @Ahmet Q.: Thank you for the interesting map. I'm sure that it took a lot of time, reading and effort to make.

The debates about the exact categorization of Albanian involve a very early period. Debates about Illyrians and Thracians are not related to it. They don't involve the 4th century AD. All contemporary reliable sources agree that in the 4th century AD, Proto-Albanian was spoken in Dardania, Praevalitana, Epirus Nova and western Macedonia. Prendergast refers to the area Proto-Albanian was spoken. I've written about most toponyms linked to Albanian Origin of the Albanians#Toponymy. Even for those which are under heavy discussion, the debate involves whether Albanian got a toponym like Durrës from a late antiquity form or if it evolved from Dyrrhachium. Regardless of where linguists stand on the debate, they all agree that by the 4th century, this had happened.

If editors want to get involved in a discussion, they should do the reading which the discussion requires. Khirurg mentioned a book by prof. Shaban Demiraj whose son Bardhyl Demiraj is a linguist and professor of Albanology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and asked Ahmet Q. to translate the title for him. The implication by Khirurg is that the title reveals something which should tell us something about prof. Demiraj. The title of the book is "Epirus, the Pelasgians, the Etruscans and Albanians". Khirurg who hasn't read the book because it is in Albanian and only a very poor non-OCR pdf file exists online, if he could read it, would learn that this is a book which dispels myths about the "Pelasgians" and resets the public and academic discussions about the pre-IE Balkans to a scientific foundation. The book has as a subject the opposite of what Khirurg tries to imply with his question. Prof. Demiraj is more than WP:RS. His work is part of the bibliography for all publications about the Albanian language.

The map is suitable for an approximate visualization of where Proto-Albanian was spoken in that era, it can be added to the article. Side comment: Individuals who want to know more about the conceptualization of the Jirecek line and its evolution - and why it has nothing to do with where any language was spoken - can go to p. 182 of Ismajli (2015). Thank you.--Maleschreiber (talk) 04:28, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Problem is, the map is anything but "approximate", in fact it shows clear, hard boundaries as if showing nation states. The other problem of course, is that it is impossible to verify (and good faith, especially with regards to the map maker's past behavior, is unfortunately in very short supply). The quote from Prendergast provided by Ahmet Q, for example, says nothing about where proto-Albanian was spoken. It is even debatable if there was a proto-Albanian that far back. Much of the area shown as "proto-Albanian" was in fact Romanized, but the map leads the reader to believe that this is not the case. Now, you could make a case for this map further down in the article, with the qualifcation "Proto-Albanian area in the 4th century BC according to Shaban Demiraj and the Kosovo Academy of Sciences", but for some reason I think you would reject such a qualifier. Wonder why. And regarding Demiraj, if you could share that book with us, that would be wonderful, but I remain skeptical of just how critical of those views it is. Where his son works is of no relevance to this discussion, so please don't bring that up again. WP:BRD applies. If you want you can start an RfC. But hardcore edit-warring will lead nowhere. Khirurg (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

It is even debatable if there was a proto-Albanian that far back. : All periodizations of the Albanian language presuppose that the phase called Proto-Albanian language#Periods of Proto-Albanian began long before the 4th century CE. It's common knowledge. RfCs presuppose that a debate exists in bibliography. I think that your belief about what is under debate has to do with how familiar you are with what bibliography discusses. We don't all have to be familiar with the same fields, but in this case there's no reason to go to RfC about a very basic approximation which isn't under debate. I'm telling you all of the above to help everybody involved avoid a very, very unnecessary procedure. Nobody thinks that Albanian wasn't spoken in the Mat river valley in the 4th century CE and they agree that Albanian was spoken as far south as Vlora in this era because if it didn't Albanian wouldn't have two toponyms (Geg/Tosk) which evolved in the pre-Slavic era for the same settlement. Side comment: This is under debate Dropull#Etymology, what Ahmet's map depicts is a rudimentary description of the basics about the Albanian language just before the end of late antiquity. --Maleschreiber (talk) 05:10, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

RfCs presuppose that a debate exists in bibliography? Can you quote from WP:RFC where it says that? No, RfCs are for when there is a dispute between users. Especially when there are users who use language such as Nobody thinks..., it's common knowledge, they agree, etc. Who agrees? Nothing is "common knowledge" as far as the contents of this article are concerned. There are no records, nothing. The language wasn't even mentioned in records until the 13th century. The fact that you describe an RfC as a "very very unnecessary procedure", speaks volumes. You sound very keen on avoiding it. And you have not responded to my criticism that the map is not approximate, but rather the exact opposite. Nor did you respond to my proposal regarding placement lower down in the article, with qualifiers (I presume you reject that out of hand). This is a controversial subject. We can't have maps like that, with crisp boundaries as in the 20th century, and especially not in the lede. Khirurg (talk) 05:21, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

We'll go to RfC, if no other solution is found. But I want to avoid RfC because I think that everybody's time and efforts can be well spent in many other things. Boundaries are not crisp in this map. It has large areas depicted as contact zones. The issue has to do with lack of familiarity with bibliography in this field. Vladimir Orel wrote two textbook publications about the periodization of Albanian, so we can't go to RfC to have a discussion about the existence of Proto-Albanian in the 4th century. I reply to you with such certainty because it is common knowledge in linguistics that Proto-Albanian did exist in this specific era and was spoken in the western Balkans between these points - north-south and west-east. How it expanded or contracted or where exactly it was spoken 5 centuries before the Proto-Albanian phase might be a subject of discussion, but it isn't related to the era of this map. Even for someone like Huld (1986), Accentual Stratification of Ancient Greek Loanwords in Albanian, - an outlier - there's no doubt that these general points were a common foundation: These place-names leave little doubt that the Albanian accent rules were observed over Macedonia, Epirus and Upper Moesia (see Map One). It is very probable that at least one of the non-Greek languages of ancient Makedonia was either the ancestor of Albanian or its very near relative(Map 1). It's better to move on and have a disagreement in a discussion where a disagreement can be based on a fundamental dispute.--Maleschreiber (talk) 06:00, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

It leaves no doubt that the specific map is deep into wp:POV, wp:SYNTH, wp:OR based on speculation and partial interpretation of specific quotes. It has not place in academic literature.Alexikoua (talk) 06:13, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

there was never such a thing as certainty of proto-albanian language being spoken in the balkans, it is merely a hypothesized theory that had not been proven and cannot be proven without evidence, in that very same way the Greek language can be said that is came from the proto greek dating back more than 9000 years ago. And that would be tied to actual archeology of the minoans who date back to 7000bce. So to say it is common knowledge that proto-albanian was spoken in a region 2000 years before albanians appear in history is absolutely unacceptable. 2001:1C00:F14:4900:6542:3FC0:4C7B:20BE (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Even for those which are under heavy discussion, the debate involves whether Albanian got a toponym like Durrës from a late antiquity form or if it evolved from Dyrrhachium. Regardless of where linguists stand on the debate, they all agree that by the 4th century, this had happened.

That's not correct though. Matzinger, who is cited in the article, doesn't support that by the 4th century this had happened. In fact, he describes it as a loan via two candidate intermediaries; Romance and Slavic (1, 2, 3). This points to a period between the 5th and 7th c.; Slavs first reached the area at around 600, and the first Slavic loans in Albanian are from the 7th century.

Nobody thinks that Albanian wasn't spoken in the Mat river valley in the 4th century CE and they agree that Albanian was spoken as far south as Vlora in this era because if it didn't Albanian wouldn't have two toponyms (Geg/Tosk) which evolved in the pre-Slavic era for the same settlement.

What was aforementioned also relates to Vlorë by the way, which is indeed pre-Slavic due to the Tosk-Gheg split predating Slavic contact, but this doesn't translate as 4th c. (300-400), it simply means sometime prior of the Slavic-Albanian contact in the 7th c.

Another issue is that the map implies that the Komani-Kruja culture existed during the 4th century and is associated with proto-Albanians, but it is only dated from the 6th c. and associated with a Latin-speaking population. The map also implies that there was no Greek-speaking or Latin-speaking presence within the "red zone", which is not correct.

Sidenote: Matzinger is currently leading a project that will shed more light on all these. Demetrios1993 (talk) 09:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Demetrios: That's a very strong point. By the way the most weird feature is the so-called reuse of Bronze Age tumuli by the Komani-Kruja (though out of the K-K indicated area) in a way that this might be connected with the use of proto-Albanian.Alexikoua (talk) 09:54, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Some scientific evidence reached until today in scholarship:

• Shaban Demiraj (2006): "It is the case of the evolution of stressed /a-/ and partly stressed /e-/ in front of a nasal consonant to /ë-/ in thee southern dialect. While the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant has involved the whole southern dialect, the evolution /e-/ > /-ë/ in the same phonetic conditions has not taken place in the northern part and partly in the eastern part of that dialect (...). This phonetic phenomenon has appeared earlier than rhotacism, as it is clearly evidenced in such examples as llanë > llërë, ranë > rërë etc., in which the evolution /a-/ > /ë-/ could not take place before /-r-/. Since this phonetic change has not appeared in the Slavic loanwords of Albanian, but has involved mainly the I.E. inherited words as well as the loans from Old Greek (compare mokënë > mokërë < māk^hanāʼ etc.) and from Latin (compare ranë > rërë > arena etc.), it has generally been acknowledged that it has taken place in the pre-Slavic period of Albanian. Its sporadic appearance in a very reduced number of Slavic loanwords is due to the action of analogy with similar cases of inherited or more ancient loans of Albanian. [...] such sporadic analogical cases do not reverse the generally acknowledged conclusion that this dialectal peculiarity as a phonetic process has appeared in pre-Slavic period of Albanian and is relatively more ancient than the rhotacism. It has most probably appeared not later than the V-VI centuries A.D. [...] And, as it was pointed out in §3, since the dialectal differentiations have appeared in a certain geographical area, one is entitled to draw the conclusion that the speakers of the northern and southern dialects have been present in their actual areas in the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic period of Albanian."
• Douglas Q. Adams (1997): The Greek and Latin loans have undergone most of the far-reaching phonological changes which have so altered the shape of inherited IE words while Slavic and Turkish words do not show these changes. Thus Albanian must have acquired much of its present form by the time Slavs entered into the Balkans in the fifth and sixth centuries AD [...] The loan words from Greek and Latin date back to before the Christian era [...] Even very common words such as mik ʻfriendʼ (< Lat amicus) or këndoj ʻI sing; readʼ (< Lat cantāre) come from Latin and attest to a widespread intermingling of pre-Albanian and Balkan Latin speakers during the Roman period, roughly from the second century BC to the fifth century AD.;
• Benjamin W. Fortson (2004): The dialectal split into Geg and Tosk happened sometime after the region become Christianized in the fourth century AD: Christian Latin loanwords show Tosk rhotacism, such as Tosk murgu ʻmonkʼ (Geg mungu) from Lat. monachus.
• Bardhyl Demiraj (2010): "Anche un fatto della storia esterna dell'albanese sostiene il parere sulla presenza degli abitanti albanesi durante l'Alto Medioevo a sud dell'attuale spazio compatto albanofono. Si tratta delle concordanze tra l'albanese ed il rumeno, le quali sono presenti a tutti i livelli ed in un numero maggiore nel dialetto tosco rispetto al ghego." and about Durrës: "Tale spiegazione è stata giustamente rifiutata di recente da Matzinger (...), il quale ricostruisce per l'albanese una forma intermedia romana */'duratso/ con la consonante affricata [-ts-] e con l'accento iniziale indigeno, ammettendo come limite della sua penetrazione in Albanese il sec. V d.C. [...] Almeno su un punto siamo certi: la divisione dialettale dell'area albanofona di quel tempo contraddice la tesi dell'immigrazione degli albanesi nel hinterland di Durazzo nei primi decenni del sec. IX d.C. La critica contro questa tesi è multilaterale, ma qui possiamo ricordare soltanto l'osservazione che la divisione dialettale di uno spazio linguistico è generalmente un prodotto di un numero di fenomeni linguistici con una considerevole durata temporale e presuppone un numero assai grande di parlanti naturali, rispettivamente uno spazio linguistico molto più esteso con uno o alcuni centri di irradiazione."
• Vladimir Orel (1999): "The Proto-Albanian migration to Illyria via the Eastern slopes of the Balkans must have taken place before (but not considerably earlier than) their contact with Romance speakers and the end of the Proto-Albanian period in the history of the Albanian language. [...] i.e. before the I - II centuries C.E.";
• Agnija Desnickaja (1973): "Turning our attention back to the Southern area we may note a striking contrast: On one side we can see an intense accumulation of the Slavic nomenclature in the Northern and in the Southeastern parts of the area, that is in the Toskery properly speaking. On the other side we remark a gradual decrease of the Slavic names going in the south-west direction. They are nearly lacking in the highlands of Labery (on the plateau of Kurvelesh) and also in the Ionian coast, where the Laberic-Albanian villages neighbour with the Greek speaking ones. [...] We can suppose that the flood of the Slavic expansion did not reach the highlands of Labery. The Lab mountaineers, like the mountaineers of Gheguery, continued their tribal life and did not mingle with the Slavonians as did the population of the northern and of the southeastern Toskery (the Toskery properly speaking)."
• Joachim Matzinger (2009): "Etnogjeneza e shqiptarëve e pavarur nga gjuha, duhet të ketë ndodhur sipas dëshmisë së emrit më të vjetër arbën/arbër dhe të emrit të vendit Arbëni në Shqipërinë veriore rreth shek. II e.s. prej fisit Ἀλβανοί që përmendet prej historiografit antik Ptolomeu bashkë me kryeqendrën e tyre Ἀλβανόπολις, ndërkohë që etnia e re që po formohej këtu e mori këtë emërtim, që në atë kohë ishte emërtim i vendit, për të quajtur me këtë vetveten. Fiedler, në artikullin "Schprahe" (...) e daton formimin e popullit shqiptar në shekullin V deri VI të e.s."

The map seems to be in agreement with current scholarship, but I think that the date should be changed to "around 5th–6th century A.D." and the statement "including the possibility of the presence of other languages (such as Latin and Greek)" should be added as well. – Βατο (talk) 11:25, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Also take into account that this discussion concerns the Post-Roman period of Albanian, hence the Jireček line and the various theories on the Pre-Roman ancestor of Albanian are unrelated. – Βατο (talk) 11:38, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Agree re 5-6th century AD. Also what Demetrios said about contact with Greek and Latin, and Komani-Kruja. The area south of the Shkumbin was Hellenized, and this part of the map should "Contact area between Proto-Albanian and Koine Greek". The area north of the Shkumbin was Romanized, and should be shown in the same color as the "Proto-Albanian and Eastern Balkan Latin contact zone". The caption should also be more hypothetical, e.g. "Possible location of Proto-Albanian in the 5th-6th centuries AD, prior to the Slavic invasions". Khirurg (talk) 12:56, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• Matzinger's argument concludes that Toponimi nuk mund tú jetë ndërmjetësuar shqiptarëve shumë më parë se shek. V e.s [The toponym can't have been transported to the Albanians much earlier than the 5th century] If in the map I adopted only one viewpoint, it would show Durrës as proto-Albanian speaking in the 4th century AD. It shows Durrës in the Balkan Latin area in the 4th century because I haven't adopted one or the other opinion. Komani-Kruja started in late antiquity. Nallbani (2017) Till 2009, we did not know the real nature of the Komani settlement, except the existence of its main cemetery,12 albeit without any topographical plan of the excavated burials. (..) We recognize a first structuring of the site in the late Roman period, probably around the 4th century. The ongoing excavations have identified terraces receiving walls which have shaped almost the entire western slope of Dalmace hill. More than 50 walls (see fig. 3) have been identified up to now, some of them materialized on structures, make the foundations and the ground-floor of several buildings, east-west and north-south directions and Winnifrith (2020) : (..) in these hills a Latin-Illyrian civilisation survived, as witness by the Komani-Kruja culture, to emerge as Albanians and Vlachs in the second millenium @Demetrios1993: As you can see, the map doesn't show something which adopts one viewpoint over another. The 4th century AD is correct for this geographical setting. Ahmet Q. (talk) 13:29, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Khirurg: agree about "Contact area between Proto-Albanian and Koine Greek" south of the Shkumbin. @Ahmet Q.: I proposed the change to "around 5th–6th century A.D." because it is the most certain date about the position of Albanian as depicted on the map, i.e. after the Roman-Period (after 4th century A.D.) but before the Slavic-Period (before 7th century A.D.). This dating is accepted by most scholars. – Βατο (talk) 13:50, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Bato: Nice job by providing those quotes but we simply cann't compose a map with the provided material. There is absolutely nothing about where this hypothetical language was spoken in geographic terms: especially the quotes you provided by Douglas Q. Adams (1997), Benjamin W. Fortson (2004), Vladimir Orel (1999) don't say a word about locations.Alexikoua (talk) 14:16, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alexikoua, read those quotes again. In current scholarship there is enough evidence for the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic location of Albanian, and the unquestionable fact is that already in Pre-Slavic times Gheg was spoken north of the Shkumbin and Tosk was spoken south of the river. Btw, there are also:

• Eric P. Hamp (1963): "Rosetti, however, mistakenly repeats the myth that some Tosk dialects show Geg characteristics, thus pointing, allegedly, to a more recent dialect split. The isogloss is clear in all dialects I have studied, which embrace nearly all types possible. It must be relatively old, that is, dating back into the post-Roman first millennium. As a guess, it seems possible that this isogloss reflects a spread of the speech area, after the settlement of the Albanians in roughly their present location, so that the speech area straddled the Jireček Line.";
• Harald Haarmann (2021): "Recent lexicostatistical studies (Holm 2009) show that the population groups involved in the emergence of the Albanian language and culture had already settled in the Balkan Adriatic contact area even before the start of the Common Era." – Βατο (talk) 15:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Ehhm, what makes you believe that the "Balkan Adriatic contact area" is specifially the Shkumbin river and its surroundings? Pardon me but if this is the best you can present that's far from unquestionable fact.Alexikoua (talk) 15:36, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I believe a change to 5th-7th c. is more inclusive, by also accounting for the Slavic possibility that Matzinger describes for Durrës. Then there is also the period of the Tosk-Gheg split for the case of Vlorë, that predates the 7th c. Slavic contact, but postdates the 4th c. Christianization of the region per Fortson (2004); meaning 400-700 (5th-7th c.).

As for Komani-Kruja, i just refreshed my memory. It was usually dated to the late 6th/early 7th c. lasting until the late 8th/early 9th c., but Nallbani had convincingly proposed a re-dating from the late 5th to the 9th c.; as Džino (2010) had written. I was unaware of the updated paper, but still, even that statement of Nallbani (We recognize a first structuring of the site in the late Roman period, probably around the 4th century.), doesn't support the shown boundaries of that culture during the 4th c.; it only pertains to the initial stage of the Komani type site, albeit "probably around" the 4th c. Furthermore, Nallbani also says the following:

• Scholars have proposed Komani as the station of a military garrison during the late Roman period (Curta 2006); as the site which housed refugees from the late Roman neighboring localities during the migrations of the 6th-7th (Wilkes 1992); or as the settlement of new Slavic incomers (Korosec 1953). I would think that Komani certainly has to be closely considered as part of the late Roman defensive system of the Drini Valley, and as an important post in the Roman economic network of Praevalitana and Dardania. Quite possibly a garrison reoccupied the hilltop during the Roman period, as part of the protective system, but the history of the settlement displays a much more complex evolution. The Drini valley turns out to have been densely occupied during the late Roman period. In consequence, several sites exhibit well organized living spaces after the end of the Roman period as important centers for local transactions and production.

Didn't read the whole paper, just the relevant chapter. John Wilkes also in his book "The Illyrians" accepts Popović's view that the populations of the Kruja-Komani culture were "Romanized", and that the ancestors of the Albanians during that time were still shepherds at higher altitudes who later began to settle slowly on the plateau of Mat. Then there is even Curta (2006) who considers an Avar association. Magdearu (2008) also wrote the following:

• As concerns the Komani-Kruje culture, the situation is more complicated than Albanian historians believe. Serbian archaeologist Vladislav Popović supposed that this culture was created by a Roman and urban population, which cannot be identified with the Proto-Albanians. According to him, this culture belonged to the Roman population living along the Via Egnatia. This area remained until the seventh century-eighth centuries under a strong Byzantine influence. The area of this culture is nearly the same as that where Latin was spoken in antiquity (defined on the basis of inscriptions). The region was Romanized. On the other hand, in the same area many present place-names of Latin origin are known. It is therefore possible that the Komani-Kruje culture was the archaeological expression of a Roman, not Proto-Albanian, population. This theory was of course rejected by the official Albanian archaeologists, but their arguments are not convincing. They cannot explain the large amount of Byzantine and Christian objects in the environment of this culture. A pastoral population like the Albanians was not able to create a culture of Byzantine urban fashion. The assertion that Albanians developed an urban civilization in the early Middle Ages and that they peopled the late Roman fortified settlements is fanciful. In 2002, the young Albanian archaeologist Etleva Nallbani received from the Sorbonne her PhD for a dissertation entitled “La civilization de Komani de l’antiquitè tardive au haut Moyen Age: etude du mobilier mètallique” (not yet published). The main ideas were summarized in two short studies (one of them published in a Croatian scientific journal). She has abandoned the traditional theory put forward by Albanian archaeology, that the Komani-Kruje culture is Proto-Albanian. Instead, she emphasizes the integration in the Byzantine civilization and the urban roots of this civilization. This new approach is shared by British archaeologist William Bowden, who concludes that the archaeological evidence does not support a single ethnic identification.

Last, as aforementioned, another thing that has to be fixed is the presence of Greek and Latin within the "red zone". For example, Curta (2006) writes:

• 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. Demetrios1993 (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

The Gheg-Tosk split started before the 7th century A.D. because the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant in Tosk occurred even earlier than rhotacism. And since Post-Roman is after the 4th century and Pre-Slavic is before the 7th century, I think "around 5th–6th century A.D." is more correct for Proto-Albanian as depicted on the map. About Durrës the Romance intermediary */'duratso/ proposed by Matzinger has been accepted by Bardhyl Demiraj (2010), anyway, this is less important since the hinterland of Durrës was already inhabited by Albanian-speakers (Mathis/Mat attested by Vibius Sequester). – Βατο (talk) 16:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi. I wrote a draft on the origin of the Albanian language some months ago, but never published it. To sump it up, no reliable map of the Proto-Albanian linguistic area can be drawn simply because there's no scholarly consensus. While the map is very roughly in line with current theories (despite some aberrations like this "Dalmatian–Albanian contact zone" – there's no Old Dalmatian influence on Albanian), it is mostly based on conjectures. Here are some conjectures that are generally agreed on in scholarship:

1. An early stage of Proto-Albanian (called 'pre-' or 'early') was most likely spoken in the Balkans, near (or not so far from) the Greek-speaking region, since the Albanian language contains an early layer of Archaic Greek (especially Doric) loanwords

2. Proto-Albanian was most likely spoken in inlands areas since (1) Albanian was not replaced by Latin like it happened in the Dalmatian-speaking coastlands and (2) it was at the same time heavily influenced by Latin, which went as far as replacing basic vocabulary like "uncle", "aunt", "niece", or "nephew".

3. While this doesn't mean that Proto-Albanian has never been spoken on the seacoast in ancient times, we know that (1) Albanian speakers were not the predominant population in coastal cities like Durrës, Shkodra or Vlora in 11–12th century AD – although Albanian-speaking communities did already exist at that time in those settlements (and others like Dubrovnik), and were possibly predominant further south on the coasts of Epirus (the historical region of Epirus in the wider sense, I'm not talking about the current Greek region) at that time (11th–12th c. AD) (2) nearly all lexemes related to seamanship in the Albanian language are loanwords, which is a strong (although not definitive) indication of an inland origin

4. Based on linguistic evidence, it is likely that (1) the distinction between Tosk and Gheg dialects already existed during the Latin influence (e.g. arena > ranë/rërë; vinum > venë/verë) (2) Slavic influence did not reach all Albanian dialects, and at any rate probably entered the region (they reached Durrës in 548 AD) after Tosk and Gheg had already diverged (the evolution of stressed /a/ to /ë/ in front of nasal consonants – such as in *alanā > llanë/llërë – is notably usually absent from Slavic loanwords).

5. From the 11–12th century AD onward, Albanian speakers became progressively predominant in both the coastal settlements and the inland areas of present-day Albania that had been 'colonised' by Slavs, following their expansion from an inland territory (see Principality of Arbanon). It is likely that part of the Albanian speakers had been previously 'pushed' towards mountainous areas during the Slavic invasion, where the Albanian language was able to survive the Slavic influence (unlike in most the Slavic-occupied Balkans). In the words of Shaban Demiraj, "the foreign conquerorsn by their organization and their armies, could more easily settle and dominate in the coastal and flat regions, but they could hardly penetrate into the deeply isolated mountainous areas." Alcaios (talk) 20:24, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993: The Komani-Kruja excavations happened after 2009, we should use sources which were published after the excavations. Nallbani is an archaeologist. She found in the stratigraphy that the layer of settlement begins in the Hellenistic era but development of what would be known as Komani-Kruja began in the 4th century CE. It's not a hypothesis, it's what happened in this material culture. The map depicts Komani-Kruja - as it should - because it is significant for early medieval Albanian history, but it doesn't propose or imply a specific theory. Readers can consult the relevant articles about complex questions.

• Curta discusses the finding of two hoards which contained artifacts with Greek inscriptions. They are two Avar-Bulgar hoards[1] which were buried in Albania. These were items which the Avars or the Bulgars took from a production center in the Byzantine Empire and during a retreat, they buried them in Albania. They are never discussed as evidence of any Greek presence in any of these regions. Now, if Ahmet Q. referred to all discussions about the language spoken south of the Proto-Albanian region, Latin would be placed in coastal Epirus: It is obviously no coincidence that Latin(ized) place names are far more common along the coastline of Epirus, which was vital to Rome thanks to proximity to Italy (Filos p.242)
• There is no Albanian-Greek contact zone in late antiquity, at least for the Albanian and Greek languages as they exist today. There are maybe 30 ancient Greek (Doric and Macedonian) loanwords in Albanian before medieval times and 8 proposed loanwords from Pre-Proto-Albanian to Doric Greek. Hence, there is no contact zone to depict. A hypothesis is that Albanian and Greek communities which had direct contact to each other were wiped out by the Slavs or that they retreated to other areas. It may be a plausible theory because Slavs were the dominant population in Epirus and Macedonia for many centuries.
• The north-south/west-east approximate position of Proto-Albanian is discussed in many publications which were cited. It's a geographical placement which corresponds to the linguistic data - broadly. I don't think that Ahmet Q. meant for it to be used like a modern linguistic map - even if they wanted to, such a thing for maps of antiquity is near impossible. Lithuanian - like Albanian - was not a written language until the middle ages. Its first grammar was published 30 years after the first grammar about Albanian (Lietuvos kalbų visuma) but the approximate position of the historical phases of Lithuanian is known. Albanian is not different from Lithuanian.
• @Khirurg: what Bato suggested is that the timeline be moved to the 5th-6th century. Such a move likely means the addition of Labëria which the Slavs found as a toponym in the region in the 7th century. The 4th century avoids all disputes which may emerge. Ahmet's map depicts only areas where Proto-Albanian had to have been spoken in late antiquity. It even treats all areas south of the Proto-Albanian-speaking area as unambiguously Greek-speaking which is not a proven hypothesis. Now, based on the discussion, I don't think that we have to discuss via RfC a map which depicts an approximate position for generally accepted locations.--Maleschreiber (talk) 21:15, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Read what Alcaios wrote. And read it well. There is a reason no such map exists in the literature. We are not going to make one up out of thin air in wikipedia to push an "autochthonous" POV. You are making wild conjectures based on single toponyms (Laberia), and then making implicit threats ("accept the current map or the next one will be even more POV"). And if you are thinking of ramming it through by force, the article will be tagged. You've already made a series of POV edits, this would be the lasr straw. Khirurg (talk) 21:57, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, i did read Nallbani, but the 4th c. only pertains to the type site of Komani; it doesn't pertain to all of the sites where the culture is identified (which by the way aren't limited to Albania). And even though i agree that we should use sources after 2009 for the archaeological aspect of the culture, this doesn't negate what earlier authors have written about its identity. We have sources after 2009 that cite exclusively pre-2009 texts. For example, Vroom (2017) (p. 345):

Albanian archaeologists often connect these early medieval cemeteries to the so-called 'Komani-Kruja culture', and associate them with one particular ethnic group (regularly described as 'Slavic'). Recently, however, this view has been criticized by other scholars, who prefer to situate the 'Komani-Kruja culture' in a regionalised Romano-Byzantine or Christian context of various ethnic and social groups, adopting additional foreign elements (Popović 1975: 455-457; Popović 1984: 214-243; Bowden 2003: 210-21; Curta 2006: 103-105).

Also, the statement that the current map "doesn't propose or imply a specific theory" (in terms of their identity), is wrong. The whole "red zone" implies that this region was inhabited by a majority proto-Albanian population, and includes the Komani-Kruja culture within it. It's not as if we remove the Komani-Kruja culture, the "red zone" will get smaller; this is simply a matter of relevance and WP:NPOV. By the way, Winnifrith (2020) that was cited above as supposedly supporting an association of the Komani-Kruja culture with Albanians, actually emphasizes that "[t]he language and the religion of this culture remains uncertain".

It's a geographical placement which corresponds to the linguistic data - broadly – That's not what the title of the map implies though; "Linguistic situation of the western Balkans in the 4th century CE (approximation)". It implies that the main language of this "red zone" (approximately) was proto-Albanian. It even encompasses Vlorë, simply because the toponym was adopted by Albanian speakers sometime between the 5th-6th c.; a toponym being adopted doesn't imply anything about the population of the broader region, let alone of the actual city. Also, the quote of Filos (2018) that you shared doesn't imply that the main language of coastal Epirus was Latin; he simply says that Latin influence was more common along the coastline, but not more than that of southern Illyria as he writes (citing Shpuza [2016]). Generally, Greek and Latin were used as lingua francas in the east and west of the Empire, respectively; i am not saying that the map has to be perfect, but certainly both Latin and Greek were used within this "red zone", especially in the urban centers of the region (which is also what was used to synthesize this map).

A dispute has already emerged due to the use of the 4th c. Also, how is Labëria going to be included for a map of the 5th-6th c. when it had no recorded boundaries during that time? This would be anachronistic. Even during the Late Middle Ages the only name/region that relates etymologically is the Principality of Arbanon, further north; which is where ancient Albanopolis is commonly believed to have been located as well, and likewise relates etymologically.

Last, what is the relevance of these tumuli outside the "red zone"? Demetrios1993 (talk) 07:55, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

There is no evidence that something close to Albanian was spoken around the Shkumbin in 4th-6th centuries. Wilkes states that during this period Shkumbin formed the border between the Greek-speaking and Latin speaking area, while Winnifrith adds that in the sixth century Epirus as far as Dyrrachium was Greek speaking. As such we need solid clear evidence not abstract theories.Alexikoua (talk) 08:28, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alexikoua those statements do not exclude the possibility of the presence of Albanian-speakers and Latin-speakers. The evidence of Albanian spoken around Shkumbin in the 5th-6th century is the fact that the dialectal split Gheg-Tosk occurred before Slavic arrival, and as stated by Bardhyl Demiraj (2010): "Anche un fatto della storia esterna dell'albanese sostiene il parere sulla presenza degli abitanti albanesi durante l'Alto Medioevo a sud dell'attuale spazio compatto albanofono. Si tratta delle concordanze tra l'albanese ed il rumeno, le quali sono presenti a tutti i livelli ed in un numero maggiore nel dialetto tosco rispetto al ghego. [...] la divisione dialettale di uno spazio linguistico è generalmente un prodotto di un numero di fenomeni linguistici con una considerevole durata temporale e presuppone un numero assai grande di parlanti naturali, rispettivamente uno spazio linguistico molto più esteso con uno o alcuni centri di irradiazione." ["Even a fact of the external history of the Albanian supports the opinion on the presence of the Albanian inhabitants during the Early Middle Ages to the south of the present compact Albanian-speaking space. These are the concordances between the Albanian and the Romanian, which are present to all the levels and in a greater number in the Tosk dialect than in Gheg. [...] the dialectal division of a linguistic space is generally a product of a number of linguistic phenomena with a considerable temporal duration and presupposes a very large number of natural speakers, respectively, a much larger linguistic space with one or a few irradiation centers."] Almost all current Albanologists (Matzinger, B. Demiraj, etc.) agree on the fact that in the 2nd-4th century AD Albanian-speakers already inhabited northern and central Albania (several toponyms and hydronyms of Albanian origin or through Albanian phonological evolution), as well as that after the Roman period (4th century AD) and before Salvic contacts (7th century onwards) the situation was similar to the contemporary one, with Tosk spoken on the south of Shkumbin and Gheg on the north. Some inscriptions in Greek and Latin in some urban centres do not indicate that all the pepoples of the region spoke those lingua francas. @Demetrios1993: I agree with the consideration that the situation was ethno-linguistically heterogeneous, that's why I firstly proposed to add the statement "including the possibility of the presence of other languages (such as Latin and Greek)". About Labëria, Desnickaja reported that Slavic influence is nearly lacking in this region, and in particular in the Kurveleshi highlands, and also in the Lab-speaaking villages and Greek-speaking ones on the Ionian coast, which provides evidence that Slavic expansion did not reach that area. Also Labëria deriving through Slavic metathesis of Albëria provides evidence that when Slavs settled on the lowlands surrounding this region considered its inhabitants to be Albanians, and the tribal system and customary law found in the area was similar to those of the northern Albanians. But I think further analysis from recent publications is needed for this specific topic. – Βατο (talk) 11:38, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Why are you using archaeological arguments about a map of the Proto-Albanian language? They are here to confirm the linguistic evidence, not the other way around; they have no intrinsic value in this discussion. How would you explain the linguistic situation of present-day France from the mid-1st millennium AD, with an original Gaulish-speaking population, a Latin superstrate, and a Frankish-speaking ruling elite, based on pottery? Alcaios (talk) 11:42, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Agree, the discussion should be focused on the linguistic evidence. – Βατο (talk) 11:56, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Actually, i spared some time to look better at the sources. First of all, this section of Demiraj (2006) shared above, is irrelevant to the evolution of Durrës and Vlorë. Furthermore, the issue of Tosk rhotacism with Vlorë is more complicated than what i initially thought; there is dispute among scholars. For example, Demiraj (2006) simply believes that this phonetic process should have ceased acting prior to the penetration of the Slavic loans into Albanian, essentially agreeing with Meyer-Lübke (1914) who first proposed it; i don't know when he dates them, but Curtis (2012) estimates that the earliest Slavic loans enter Albanian from around 700. Then as Demiraj explains, there are also scholars such as Jokl (1916, 1923) and Çabej (1964) who believe that rhotacism also appeared after the 10th c. More recently, Janson (1986), after a series of arguments pointed out that this Albanian phenomenon occurred approximately between 800 and 1000. See here. Janson is also cited by Michiel de Vaan (2018), here. Last, we have the aforementioned Fortson (2004), who claims that Tosk rhotacism postdates the 4th c. Christianization of the region; essentially providing us with a terminus post quem; but he does not bother to look for when exactly it happened. After the 4th c. we have 500, 700, 900 and 2021; therefore he does not contradict any of the aforementioned scholars. Essentially, Vlorë evolved sometime between the 5th and after (didn't check for more details) the 10th c.

Indeed, Slavic loans are considerably fewer in the region of Labëria, compared to other regions of southern Albania, but i don't see how this relates to the map we are discussing. Agnija Desnickaja (1973) makes a very general conjecture without providing any date. Demetrios1993 (talk) 15:30, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993, rhotacism was not the first dialectal divergence, because it occurred after the earliest evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant in Tosk (the phenomenon /a-/ > /ë/ couldn't have occurred in front of a /r/), and since the overwhelming majority of Slavic loans are not interested by those phonological phenomena, the split Gheg-Tosk occurred before intense Albanian-Slavic contacts (B. Demiraj (2010): the dialectal division of a linguistic space is generally a product of a number of linguistic phenomena with a considerable temporal duration and presupposes a very large number of natural speakers, respectively, a much larger linguistic space with one or a few irradiation centers.") Hence Proto-Albanian as depicted on the map, but for the period 5th-6th centuries, is a likely scenario. As for Vlora, it is relevant that the Gheg Vlonë indicates that this toponym was used by Albanian-speakers predating the Tosk rhotacism, also B. Demiraj (2010) states: "Per il momento la cosa più importante è il fatto che questo toponimo ha subito in albanese il fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo, che, come abbiamo già ricordato, è apparso in albanese nel corso dei secoli VI-IX d.C. La possibilità di una formazione analogica è da escludere senz'altro, se teniamo conto anche che nella zona circostante come pure in tutto lo spazio albanofono del sud manca un possibile modello. Al contrario, a sud-est della città di Vlora si erige il castello di Kanina il cui nome non mostra alcun segno del fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo e ciò è dovuto al fatto che questo centro fortificato è stato testimoniato con questo nome agli inizi del sec. XI d.C., cioè in un periodo in cui il fenomeno del rotacismo non era più attivo da tempo." ["For the moment, the most important thing is the fact that this toponym has undergone the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism in Albanian, which, as we have already mentioned, appeared in Albanian during the 6th-9th centuries AD. The possibility of an analogical formation is to be excluded without a doubt, if we also take into account that in the surrounding area as well as in the whole Albanian-speaking area of the south a possible model lacks. On the contrary, to the south-east of the city of Vlora the castle of Kanina stands, whose name does not show any sign of the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism and this is due to the fact that this fortified center has been documented with this name at the beginning of the 11th century A.D., that is, in a period in which the phenomenon of rhotacism was no longer active for some time."]

@Maleschreiber, @Khirurg, an Albanian-Greek contact zone should have been existed at least since the Early Middle Ages, Bardhyl Demiraj (2010) also states: L'influenza del mediogreco, rispettivamente della cultura greco-bizantina sull'abanese nell'Alto Medioevo non può essere affatto sottovalutata. Così per esempio basta ricordare il prestito tosco korë "icona" < gr. (εἰ)κόνα, con il fenomeno dialettale del rotacismo, che ci premette di pensare che la popolazione cristiana nel sud dello spazio compatto albanofono può e deve avere vissuto la cosiddetta "guerrra delle icone" tra la Chiesa d'Oriente e quella d'Occidente (secoli VIII-IX)." ["The influence of the Middle Greek, respectively of the Greek-Byzantine culture on Albanian in the Early Middle Ages cannot be underestimated at all. So for example just recall the Tosk loan korë "icon" < gr. (εἰ)κόνα, with the dialectal phenomenon of rhotacism, which allows us to think that the Christian population in the south of the compact Albanian-speaking space might and must have experienced the so-called "war on icons" between the Eastern and Western Churches (VIII-IX centuries). ]" – Βατο (talk) 16:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

About rhotacism, I would also add Elsie (2015), "The Early History of Albania", p.8: The rhotacism of southern Albanian is a very ancient development because it occurs in Latin loanwords, too, e.g. Lat. arena “sand” became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë; Lat. vinum “wine” became Gheg venë but Tosk verë. However, rhotacism does not usually occur in Slavic loanwords, that obviously entered the Albanian language after the Slavic invasion of the sixth century. As such, the sixth-century Ghegs and Tosks must have been geographically more or less where they are today. The earliest linguistic contacts with the Slavs are difficult to date. All we know is that a small group of around 20 Slavic loanwords entered the Albanian language quite early; they are generally related to political organization/justice, dwellings, agriculture, cattle-rearing, and also include some plant names. (Rusakov 2017, p. 557; Orel 2000, pp. 40–41; Wilkes 1992, p. 279). Alcaios (talk) 17:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Compared to Ahmet's map: double the area and as far south as south Western Macedonia, Proto-Albanian language in the 3rd century AD

• @Βατο: Ahmet's map is about the 4th century CE. We are discussing about this specific map. Demetrios1993 asked about Durrës and Ahmet Q. cited Matzinger: Toponimi nuk mund tú jetë ndërmjetësuar shqiptarëve shumë më parë se shek. V e.s [The toponym can't have been transported to the Albanians much earlier than the 5th century] For the level of detail the map seeks to depict (approximation), its bibliography and other sources were discussed. If this becomes a discussion at RfC, editors who oppose its inclusion as "controversial" need to explain why they !oppose inclusion of a map which depicts Proto-Albanian in the 4th century spoken near Durrës and Vlora, but don't oppose a map which depicts Proto-Albanian in the 3rd century spoken as far south as Greek Western Macedonia. --Maleschreiber (talk) 17:51, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Maleschreiber: A map published in 1941 raises serious issues in terms of wp:AGEMATTERS. I really doubt if we can seriously take such outdated data to draw something in agreement with modern scholarship.Alexikoua (talk) 20:45, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Who said nobody is opposed to this map too? This is obviously controversial to feature a map of Proto-Albanian spoken in Late Antiquity in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and most of Northern Macedonia only based on conjectures. It's a map from 1941 though, not a reliable source. At best you could draw a map of the various homelands proposed by scholars in the inner Balkans. See also those maps of the Proto-Greek homeland(s); although not perfect, they are clearly approximative, as they should be. Alcaios (talk) 20:54, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the map serves a two-fold POV purpose: To establish the Albanians as "autochthonous" to Kosovo and further north and east, and imply continuity with the Illyrians. This can also be seen in edits such as this [2] and this [3]. The Komani-Kruja culture in particular, is the favored vehicle for implying continuity. This is done by selectively quoting the literature, while removing literature criticizing these views as "outdated", as done here [4]. In talkpages, an air of inevitiability is used ("Nobody is opposed", "everybody knows", "contemporary bibliography", etc.). Community scrutiny is going to be increasingly necessary to maintain NPOV. Khirurg (talk) 23:41, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

If you want to discuss Komani-Kruja, you should discuss about it with sources which refer to excavations - they occurred after 2009-10. What is the POV in saying something so obvious about archaeology?--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:48, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alcaios: I'm not favoring this map, I'm saying out that the editors who are opposed to Ahmet's map because it shows Albanian spoken around Durrës in the 4th century AD (sources agree about that), do not oppose a map which shows Albanian in Kozani and Kastoria in the 3rd century AD. I think that Ahmet's map is as approximative as the Proto-Greek maps - about which very different scenarios exist.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:56, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

There is serious POV about using glass necklaces, brooches, and other knick-knacks to imply continuity. That's what's "obvious". Just like there is with using archeology to draw the map, as Alcaios told you. Btw, there were sources criticizing the Komani-Kruja hypothesis in the article, but you removed them in this edit [5] (e.g. Curts 2013, Wilkes 2013 stating there was massive depopulation in the western balkans, etc.). I'm a bit busy now, but no worries, they will be re-added soon. Khirurg (talk) 00:43, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I removed what was outdated. Sources published before 2009 discuss competing hypotheses which were based on 0 excavations. If there are post-2009 sources which discuss the excavation results which were published in 2014-2018, they can be added. If you want to learn more about Komani-Kruja start with the following quote from Nallbani (2017) Till 2009, we did not know the real nature of the Komani settlement, except the existence of its main cemetery,12 albeit without any topographical plan of the excavated burials And then read contemporary bibliography. glass necklaces and other knick-knacks are not what archaeology discusses. Everything written before 2009 about Komani-Kruja is outdated - one way or another - and I have divided the discussion in a pre-excavation vs. a post-excavation period. These are complex topics and require from editors who want to be involved to do a lot of reading and understand how bibliography has evolved.--Maleschreiber (talk) 01:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Those maps are not appropriate examples indeed. I was trying to find a map that displays different scholarly scenarii for a linguistic homeland, but couldn't find a good one. To go into concrete propositions, I would:

1.Improve the subsections /endonyms/ and /languages/ (which should be merged imo). If you find my draft interesting, you are all free to contribute and add content. When everybody is happy with the draft, we can merge it into the main article. This method has worked on controversial subjects like Germanic_peoples#Languages.

2.Once every major theory/conjecture is clearly explained in the body of the article, we can think about drawing a map that would summarise these proposed homelands. Not a WP:SYNTH, but rather different areas corresponding to different propositions. Demiraj has made a good work at describing the various theories that had been suggested before his own work. Alcaios (talk) 00:53, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alcaios: How would you change Ahmet's map? --Maleschreiber (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Instead of a synthesis of 4 articles, which may be misleadly interpreted by readers as a scholarly consensus, I would draw different areas, which may sometimes overlap, based on the major homeland hypothesis proposed in scholarship. Alcaios (talk) 01:16, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

But that's a different map subject. Ahmet's map depicts Albanian in the 4th century CE. It doesn't propose a homeland. Side comment: In your draft, you write that Albanians themselves changed their endonym from arbënesh to shqiptar in the 14th century The ethnonym shqiptar was first used as an ethnonym in the early 18th century.--Maleschreiber (talk) 01:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alcaios, I agree with your proposals, but it seems you are referring to the various Paleo-Balkan theories on Albanian. The map of this discussion postdates the settlement of Albanian-speakers in contemporary Albania, and even those scholars who support the immigration theory like Matzinger, regardless of who was the Pre-Roman ancestor of Albanian, state that proto-Albanians started their expansion from Northern Albania approximately in Late Antiquity. As for Gheg-Tosk situation in the 1st millennium AD, Matthew C. Curtis (2018) states: "The correspondence of T r with G n is perhaps the most salient phonological isogloss dividing Geg and Tosk... The isogloss for these variants runs quite close to the Shkumbin River...Based on the evidence of loanwords, the Tosk rhotacism definitely occurred after contact with Ancient Greek and Latin...while contact with Slavic and Italian in the second half of the first millennium CE gives very little solid evidence of the rhotacism...As an innovation from the middle of the 1st millennium CE limited to Tosk, this isogloss is not diachronically connected to similar developments in other IE branches...The variation between initial sequences of va- in Tosk and vo- in Geg...appears to come from the time of contact with Latin and to precede contact with Slavic." The main isoglosses separating Gheg and Tosk were already formed on the Shkumbin before Slavic contacts. – Βατο (talk) 01:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Maleschreiber: Well, any map of the Proto-Albanian language between roughly 2500 BC and 1500 AD displays, by definition, a linguistic homeland, that is the area where the proto-language was thought to be spoken before its daughter dialects are historically attested. Regarding the ethnonym shqiptar, that's indeed a typo for '16th century', I've clarified in the draft, thanks. This name is derived from the verb shqiptoj (‘to speak clearly’, earlier ‘to under- stand’; see B. Demiraj 2010); it was first registered in the 16th century (at the beginning in its adverbial form) and consolidated in the 18th century. The ethnic name change was triggered most likely by the Ottoman conquest (end of the 14th century–second half of the 15th century), which led to deep changes in the structure of the Albanian nation. (Rusakov, 2017, p. 555).

@Βατο: I agree with everything you said. The major issue is that scholars do not agree on the details. Matzinger writes that there is no Old Dalmatian influence on Albanian; he would disagree with such a "contact zone" displayed on the map. Some scholars explain the Albanian–Romanian correspondances through the movements of transhumant shepherds in the inner Balkans, not a contact zone. Some scholars like Cimochowski explain that Albanian was already spoken in a mountainous area, farther from the sea, during the Latin influence (which is a good argument for the absence of the Albanian language from historical records before the Middle Ages, contrary to other Paleo-Balkan languages which are at least mentioned by Greeks and Romans), while others think that they lived in plains before being relegated to mountainous areas during the Slavic invasions. The main question remains: if Proto-Albanian was spoken in such a wide area around 350 AD, close to coastline cities and Greek-speaking areas, why is it never mentioned by their literate neighbours? This map implies that (1) Latinization did not occur in the hinterlands of present-day Albania (2) Illyrian was literaly 'replaced' by Proto-Albanian by the 4th c. AD, but nobody ever mentions once that a new language (or a successor of Illyrian as it is implied) is spoken in the area until 1308! Do you really think this is possible? Alcaios (talk) 01:53, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I think that we should discuss what bibliography discusses. I suppose that you mentioned 1308 because you read in Elsie (1991) that The earliest references to the existence of the Albanian language per se occur around the beginning of the 14th century. Indeed we have four clear and unequivocal references between 1285 and 1332. Elsie writes per se because he refers to the mention of the language itself. Albanians are mentioned in the 11th century in the theme of Dyrrhachium and the language is mentioned indirectly in 1000-1018 There are twelve languages of half-believers: Alamanians, Franks, Magyars (Hungarians), Indians, Jacobites, Armenians, Saxons, Lechs (Poles), Arbanasi (Albanians), Croatians, Hizi, Germans Side comment: @Alcaios: If you have access to CUP journals, read Quanrud, John (2021). "The Albanoi in Michael Attaleiates' History: revisiting the Vranoussi-Ducellier debate". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. doi:10.1017/byz.2021.11. --Maleschreiber (talk) 02:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I'm talking about the earliest attestation of the Albanian language in the region, which is in 1308. Thanks for the reading, I've bookmarked it for later! Alcaios (talk) 08:34, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

To sum up, are there any published maps about areas of Proto-Albanian? So far we have a Romanian work from 1941, but I hardly believe that's something we can rely on.Alexikoua (talk) 07:29, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Βατο, i know rhotacism postdates the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant in the southern dialect (Tosk), per what Demiraj wrote; i am just emphasizing that this has nothing to do with the evolution of Vlorë as a name. Furthermore, i see that in this later publication even Demiraj (2010) retracted some of his earlier statements, by adopting a period of 6th-9th c. for the Tosk rhotacism (namely he considers a post-Slavic period as well); this means that all of the scholars shared above agree that it occurred after the 6th c. Tosk rhotacism is a dialectal phenomenon that occurred only in Tosk after the Gheg-Tosk split. This means that Tosks would have also used Vlonë, and sometime during the 6th and at least the 10th c., it was changed to Vlorë. The thing is that if we go by Janson's and Michiel de Vaan's 9th-10th c. rhotacism period, the name could have theoretically entered Albanian speech even from 799. That's why i think that the 5th-6th c. proposal is not that inclusive of other views as well; without rejecting an earlier adoption, a safer and more ideal period would be 599-799 (7th-8th c.). Then again, i also agree with the points and concerns put forward by @Alcaios.

@Alcaios, what Elsie writes doesn't affect the chronology of the aforementioned linguists. In fact, the example he gave (Lat. arena "sand" became Gheg ranë but Tosk rërë), is also mentioned by Michiel de Vaan (2018) who adopts Janson's date of 800-1000, here. De Vaan also mentions Lat. inimicus becoming Tosk armik. Some pages prior of the one that i shared, he dates the Latin loanwords between 167 BCE and 400 CE.

By the way, regarding the attestation of the endonym, i had addressed the subject in another thread further up. "Shqip" with the meaning of Albanian was first recorded by Gjon Buzuku in 1555; so yes, from the 16th century. Demetrios1993 (talk) 08:15, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, after the Gheg-Tosk split (and after even the evolution /a-/ > /ë/ in front of a nasal consonant), with the main isoglosses on the Shkumbin, hence Common Albanian predates 6th-9th century, i. e. Slavic contacts. While 5th-6th century does not give problems for a scenario like that depicted on the map, 7th century (i.e. until 700 AD) implies that Common Albanian was spoken also after Slavic contacts, and that the split followed it, which contrast with the mainstream views and with the clear phonological evidence. – Βατο (talk) 10:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Furthermore, the inclusion of the 7th century AD would depict a completely different situation, with the presence of speakers of ancient Slavic dialects as well, and this specific map is not intended for it. @Alcaios: I agree that there are some inaccuracies, in particular the contacts between Albanian and Balkan Latin. I think that they can be fixed according to mainstream views if a proper periodization is established. That's why I proposed the Post-Roman – Pre-Slavic period. – Βατο (talk) 11:55, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Apart from the absence of a proto-Albanian map in literature it appears that modern scholarship questions the uniformity of the (so-called) Komani-Kruja culture:

• Brandt, J. Rasmus; Ingvaldsen, HÎkon; Prusac, Marina (31 July 2014). Death and Changing Rituals: Function and meaning in ancient funerary practices. Oxbow Books. p. 351. ISBN 978-1-78297-639-4. (conclution about the Komani material):

One would be hard pushed to identify cultural norms within the cemeteries and indeed the communist period archaeologists of Albania only managed to create a coherent 'culture' by ignoring or downplaying significant areas of evidence. The 'southern Arber' culture, with its reuse of tumuli has relatively little in common with the main Komani graves, apart from the presence of certain types of material. Unfortunately the level of recording of most excavations is not sufficient for a reliable analysis of the cemeteries, but a few points can be highlighted regarding the wide variotion in burial practice.
It's also interesting that modern scholarship strongly refutes the view that the Komani-Kruja findings belong to a certain ethnic group. As such the depiction of such a map on the hypothesis that Proto-Albanian speakers were the bearers of K-K culture falls clearly into wp:OR.Alexikoua (talk) 11:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Alexikoua: I think that you should not cite whatever you find on the internet out of context. --Maleschreiber (talk) 11:40, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Even maps of the attested Principality of Arbanon are disputed: some scholars write that it didn't have sea access, others that it did. Sometimes the best answer is: "we don't know" or "we're not sure". Alcaios (talk) 13:33, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Βατο, Slavic contacts couldn't have began from the 6th century (500-600), because it is around 600 that Slavs settled in the area, and it is expected that contact began only after some generations; hence what Curtis (2012) writes for 700-1500 (citing Svane [1992]). So, we have an approximate date of 700 for the earliest Slavic loans; even though as @Alcaios wrote, the earliest linguistic contacts with the Slavs are difficult to date. At least the 7th century (600-700) though is justified. Thus, i would be ok with 5th-7th c. for the aforementioned reason and by taking into account the split that is considered pre-Slavic (in terms of contacts). You do have a point that the inclusion of the 7th c. would also require the presentation of some Slavic presence in the region, but this can't influence our discussion on proto-Albanian. The Slavic presence can also be omitted and instead we can use a small note saying that after 600 Slavs settled in the region. But regardless of all that, i must agree with other editors at this point; this discussion inevitably leads us to WP:SYNTHESIS. Demetrios1993 (talk) 13:48, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Proto-Albanian speakers didn't even live in the plains at the time of the Slavic invasion. Slavic topnyms are widespread in the region ; yet the Slavic influence on Albanian remained limited. My personal opinion (which of course has no value here, although it is shared by a number of scholars) is that Proto-Albanian was spoken in the 1st millennium AD in the mountainous/hilly regions roughly located between Lake Ohrid and the Drin river, along the Black Drin river, which, by the way, more or less corresponds to the area of the Principality of Arbanon. Alcaios (talk) 14:12, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

New genetic study on the origins of the Albanians

There is a new genetic study on the origins of Albanians concluding that they derive from ancient Illyrians. The study is still in preprint and can be found here (for anyone interested)

[6]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.05.543790v1.full Aigest (talk) 14:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Since it's in preprint, it's not of any academic value as of now (per WP:PREPRINT). StephenMacky1 (talk) 15:09, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it's a pre-print hence it can't be used but it's not a particularly academic study in any case. None of the authors have any relation to Albanology, social sciences or even Humanities.--Maleschreiber (talk) 18:02, 27 June 2023 (UTC)