Albanians

[byz]

Oh, thank you, labi! That throws some light on the subject for me. May I ask what's your opinion about the historical origins of the Albanian language?

[labi]

so far i think alb language is probably dencended from moesian. 2nd choice would be dardanian dialect of illyrians, third choice dacian north of danube river.
either way doesnt matter much since theres no concrete evidence, theres no point worshiping hypothetical ancestors.

regarding south albania, as you pointed out along the coast where many urban areas existed(in greece too) many old populations survived. in south albania similarities between greek epirots and south albanians exist mainly along the coast from vlore to the border. the inland area has a strong penetration of archaic alb element. you can see this in vlora between native city folks who look more alpinid and the mountain villagers with archaic alb surnames who have an albanian look. and east of vjosa river, begins strong slavic influence.
i would say the people in gjirokaster district are the south albies that share the most similarities with greek epirots, in looks too. gjirokaster district is a transition zone.

along the mountainous coast toponyms and the names are mixed. some toponyms are greek, some alb, many surnames are alb, but theres also some greek and very much influenced by the orthodox church. the region of himara is made of 7 villages today(more villages were part of it before. here 3 of these villages identify themselves as greek and the other 4 mostly side with albanian. other adjacent villages that were part of this confederacy are almost identical in looks and manners however they become more and more albanian in character and looks as one ventures inland. look at the greek himariots, half of them look like stereotypical albanians.......



here are people from gjirokaster district(note the southern part of this district is mainly inhabited by greeks, while the north has no greeks, all albs with few vlach here and there).......
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=3761
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=3757
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=3762
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=3764
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=3044
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=979
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=986
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=987
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=978
www.keshilliministrave.al/foto/foto.asp?id=988

[byz]

Ahh - I see. And what's the deal with "preveza"? It's a Greek coastal city, but the name doesn't sound Greek to me.

[labi]

byz said:

Ahh - I see. And what's the deal with "preveza"? It's a Greek coastal city, but the name doesn't sound Greek to me.

it means nothing in albanian. maybe the way its pronounced its inflounced by albanian. in greek epirus the alb element was established in the western part, the inland area along the coast(thats where tsams and suliot lived). ionnina area stayed greek. however major towns always had strong greek component, preveza was half in in early 1800s, parga almost all greek, etc...
tsams probably absorbed some native epirot element when they established themselves, some villages more some less, some none. in any case when tsams became muslim they brought in greeks from the inland(eastern part of greek epirus) areas to work the land, so the epirot element re-expanded back at least in greek epirus.

ps i modified my previous post.

[byz]

That's a really interesting pattern of settlement - do you know of anyone who has written extensively about it?

This is my grandmother - her father was an Epirote, her mother from Ios:

[Dean]

BYZ, your grandmother looks Mediterranean. Her face is Gracilized. She looks like she could pass for an Italian. I saw a woman the other day with the opposite features of your grandmother. This woman, with a German surname, had a very square face. She looked kind of masculine. She had a very Paleolithic look.

I saw pictures of author Nicholas Gage's (Gatzoyiannis) Epirotic female relatives, and they had a different look; they were roundheaded with low foreheads. Gage was light-featured as a youth and claimed, without modern knowledge of population genetics and anthropology, that ancient Greeks were light pigmented with prominent brows and straight noses. He claimed that his family was not influenced by invaders, because they lived in inaccessible mountains. Perhaps there is some truth in his statements about the sub-racial "purity" about his relatives. Maybe Greeks from such northern extremes of the Greek world were lighter pigmented. There is a mosaic done by a person named Gnosis that shows Greek blondness. Perhaps just like modern times, Greeks are lighter pigmented the further north you go in the Balkans.

BTW, there appears to me to also be a western European influence in Arcadia, Greece. Some people look like they can pass for French or Austrian.

Again, I will try and post the picture of my Arcadian relative with the Slavic surname and the seemingly non-Slavic (on the whole) features.

[labi]

byz said:

That's a really interesting pattern of settlement - do you know of anyone who has written extensively about it?

This is my grandmother - her father was an Epirote, her mother from Ios:

i dont know if extensive studies have be done on it but people have writen about it. even some arvaniti communities kept the social structure. my uncle went to the ancestor village 3 years ago and taped his journey. i was expecting to see the village you see on TV. it was very decentralised, devided in "neighborhoods" each noighborhood represting different clans. each neighborhood had about 6-15 houses though not attached to eachother, each had some space and around them(the neighborhood) a radius of 1 mile of land. each neighborhood was that way.
the only part of the village that was centralised was the part contructed in communist days when a landslide destroyed part of the village, so new houses were built.

neighborhoods are usually named after the clan name, sometimes after an ancestor who supposedly started the clan.
my origins are from south albania, and this is the pattern of tradtional settlements.

ps your grandma doesnt look south albanian.

[byz]

dean said:

BYZ, your grandmother looks Mediterranean. Her face is Gracilized. She looks like she could pass for an Italian. I saw a woman the other day with the opposite features of your grandmother. This woman, with a German surname, had a very square face. She looked kind of masculine. She had a very Paleolithic look.

I saw pictures of author Nicholas Gage's (Gatzoyiannis) Epirotic female relatives, and they had a different look; they were roundheaded with low foreheads. Gage was light-featured as a youth and claimed, without modern knowledge of population genetics and anthropology, that ancient Greeks were light pigmented with prominent brows and straight noses. He claimed that his family was not influenced by invaders, because they lived in inaccessible mountains. Perhaps there is some truth in his statements about the sub-racial "purity" about his relatives. Maybe Greeks from such northern extremes of the Greek world were lighter pigmented. There is a mosaic done by a person named Gnosis that shows Greek blondness. Perhaps just like modern times, Greeks are lighter pigmented the further north you go in the Balkans.

BTW, there appears to me to also be a western European influence in Arcadia, Greece. Some people look like they can pass for French or Austrian.

Again, I will try and post the picture of my Arcadian relative with the Slavic surname and the seemingly non-Slavic (on the whole) features.

An ancient southern Greek writer actually made a comment (more like an insult, lol) about the Greek tribe of the Chaones from Epirus - he said something to the effect that they had heads as round as mushrooms, and that because of this they didn't need to wear hats to protect themselves from the sun. I don't really believe that the ancient southern Greeks were of lighter pigmentation (but there must have been, and still is, a fair amount of regional variation)- but I do think the Dorians would have looked fairly Alpine. Ancient sources (wish I could remember which ones) seem to say that the Athenians were fairly dark in appearance, and Greek art seems to corroborate this (mind you, the Athenians were said to be the least Hellenised people on the mainland, which I reckon is pretty ironic).

Labi - may I ask which part of Southern Albania your family is from?

[Salvador]

I think that most parts of the Balkans have been influened by the Illyrians. The Albanians the most. That simple.

[labi]

byz said:

Labi - may I ask which part of Southern Albania your family is from?

the red area

[attis]

Many want to connect Albanian to a number of ancient Indo-European languages in the area, but it is also very likely that it is just in its own branch. Unless something more substantial is found in Illyrian or Dacian, we will never know. What makes it so difficult is that all of the languages are related anyway. lol

[Dean]

Byz, the guy in the middle of this picture is the man with the Slavic-based surname (Borovas) but with Gracilized features. What is your opinion of his phenotype? He is actually related to me through my maternal grandmother's side. The woman is my maternal grandfather's sister, his wife (nee Alimisis). The other guy on the right is her brother, my grandfather's brother, who appears more northern European.

[byz]

Hey Dean - the man in the centre with the name Borovas looks very Greek to me - Med with gracile features. The other two looks like Alpine-Med mixes with Alpine predominating. I really can't see a strong or obvious Slavic admixture. It only really takes one ancestor to impart a surname. R1a - that Y chromosome marker found in high percentages in Slavic speaking populations is overall quite low in Greece. He looks like a native Greek - and if there was a Slav ancestor somewhere along the line, it looks like his progeny were completely assimilated by the natives of the region. He actually resembles my grand-father a great deal - I posted this pic before, and Dienekes put it on the Greek Anthropology site - my grand-father from Corinth is named Periandros. Incidentally, an ancient tyrant of Corinth was also named Periandros, and my grandfather looks scarily similar to this representation of him -

[australoserbicus]

labi said:

arthas said:

penetratorx said:

I dont know why people think that there is something great to be the descents of Illyrians, they lived in shadow of old greeks and romans and their lands were conolized by slavs ;D. Most of studies about balkan peoples and languages say that albanians are descents of Thraco-Illyrians that were not slavizaded or latinizided.
Here is a very ineresting site about some old languages
www.lhhpaleo.religionstatistics.net/LHH%20balkan%20ellas.html

exactly, i run into same difficulty with most albs. they this fascination with illyirans as if they did something great. illyrians were nothing, just warriors who made war with their neighbors. i also find it pointless why albs spent so much time identifying with, and studying illyrians. im not even sure albanian language decends from illyrians. than again does it matter? if theres no real proof why waste time. offcial alb history to me starts in 1043 AD when albs are first mentioned, and focus from there to the present.

This is a pretty recent phenomenon in which Albanians are trying to stake their claim on alot of land that Serbia currently controls. They figure by jumping on the "we are descendats of Illyrians" platform they have ultimate rights to the land that Serbia "occupies" since Serbs are Slavic invaders who came after the Illyrians on the Balkan peninsula.

What alot do not realize is that both Serbia & Croatia jumped on the same bandwagon a 100 or so years ago but gave up on the idea, as it distanced them from Slavic Russia who, in Serbia's case anyway was a powerful ally.

In reality, both have about an equal stake in being Illyrian descendants. In the Serbs case however they took on the Slavic language which gives most the impression that they are purely Slavic. With Albanians, it is assumed that since their language is somewhat unique, it must mean it is of Illyrian dialect.

The reason i say both are almost equally "Illyrian" is that if we assume that Albanians are Illyrian descendants, then Serbs too should be given that both are primarily of the Dinaric sub-race (According to Albo-Illyrian studies, most Illyrian people were also Dinaric...I say thats possible but i'm not 100%) .

It just shits me sometimes when Albanians start naming their kids ancient Illyrian names & then use it in their 'We are Illyrian argument' as proof... Its only been the last 50 or so years they have started naming their kids this to help further their "Illyrian" agenda.

At the end of the day both Albanians & Serbs are closer racially then most of them are comfortable with & if either one is an Illyrian descendant, then so is the other.

Thats my 2 cents.

[labi]

^ i agree, excpet few points. albs dont name their kids ilir or such to claim land from serbs. youre making it sound like a big conspiracy against serbians. you dont think serbs gave their kids some slavic names not known to serbs but did just because theyre proud of their slavic heritage? same way these albanians are proud of their illyrian heritage(even if its artificially created).

and were not claiming lands from serbs. albs lived in kosovo since the borders were created. europe wants to make everyone happy at the expense of albanians. we will always stand up for ourselves.
if a big bully bothered you at school violeting your rights, wouldnt you stand up for yourself? even if hes bigger than you?