Kosova should be Albanian culture

[yerm]

I do not consider them inferior. And while its true that a lot of different peoples have come through greece and have left a mark ,the ones that stayed through time ,through conquest , through german ,slavic and turkish migrations are the greek people .Of course we arent the exact same as the ancient greeks. But we are their direct descendants ,through dna , through language , through culture and all the things that give a singular name to a group of people

But that's just it. You can claim descent, and have it be true, but not by DNA. Modern Greek is a mix of many different groups, and even classical Greeks were a blend and not a direct descent from ancient Greece; the Spartans and Athenians claimed different external lineages! Don't let your Greek pride get in the way of the reality that Greek today is a blend, because, frankly, there's nothing wrong with mixed DNA ancestry and in fact it's very "Greek" to be mixed in the first place.

 

[Elros23]

the Spartans and Athenians claimed different external lineages

Ehm if you mean that Spartans came from Doreians and Athenians from ionians , i am afraid that they both were greek tribes (Doreians , Ionians ) .But indeed the words i used were a bit on the ''sentimental patriotic'' side

 

[staycool.]

If you read what I typed, you'd see where I explained why the Latin borrowings had to come from the period of the Roman Empire. These words do not show Venetian or Italian forms, nor do they show a borrowing from Medieval literary Latin. Rather, they they possess Latin features not present in the Romance languages which could have loaned them later, and they also share many characteristically Albanian sound changes. What does this mean? That they were borrowed before Latin became the Romance languages, and that there has been enough time for many Albanian-specific sound changes to occur. It's similar to, say, the word "church" in English. It isn't native Germanic, but it doesn't look like a later Greek or Latin borrowing. The reason is that it was borrowed back in the early Middle Ages, and so has undergone the same sound changes that every other English word has during the same period. Similar things are observed with Albanian words.

You don't have to rely on my word - every respectable linguist will tell you that Albanian has been in the Balkans for millenia. It IS a descendant of some Paleo-Balkan language. Maybe it wasn't from where Albanian is found now - maybe it was in what we now call Bulgaria, or Romania, or Serbia. But it was there. Where else did it come from? When? Do you have any alternative theories as to where Albanian came form? We have a pretty good idea of every major migration into the Balkans in the historical period, hell, even before the historical period. Did Albanians show up with the gypsies? Did they come in with one of the nomad peoples coming off of the Pontic steppe (well, I mean of course they came in with the early Indo-European waves, but I mean after that)?

The truth value of this stands aside from any BS claims about "Greater Albania" by idiots who think that they should rule the entire Balkans because hurr we wur da furst here!!1!. They would be idiots even if Albania had formerly been a glorious Balkan-spanning Illyrian empire, because the entire peninsula is now a diverse region with plenty of peoples with their own countries, with equal rights to self-determination.

Wikipedia said that, not you. Also, if you read what i said you would understand that basing your arugment on the fact that they use K instead of C or similar in pronouncination of latin words is a flimsy argument at best.

You compleately ignore the fact that there are no archeological findings, historical records or anything else that confirms your theory. Basically you think that there was a small mountian population that got influlenced by the Romans, got compleately unnoticed to any records up to 11th century, -still- holds tribal characteristics in it's social structure and only expanded in numbers and territory AFTER islamisation and support by the ottoman empire that settled them in their modern region after previous inhabitants left it.

Best part, when i said that Albanian has no ancient greek words, you justified it by saying they were isolated from the greeks, yet somehow, they were not isolated from the romans? do you not see the falacy in that line of thought. Be as it may, even if you are right, lingustics is not enough to support your claim.

I knew I'd get a few good chuckles out of Serb nationalists. Great thread!

1st, i'm not a nationalist, 2nd, i quoted an Albanian, who happens to hold a phd in Albananology and has made quite a name for himself. If i said that in 1444 Albania may as well have a non albanian culture it is because most of the country (in the borders it is in EUIV) wasn't even populated by albanians at the time.

 

[Outrider]

1st, i'm not a nationalist, 2nd, i quoted an Albanian, who happens to hold a phd in Albananology and has made quite a name for himself. If i said that in 1444 Albania may as well have a non albanian culture it is because most of the country (in the borders it is in EUIV) wasn't even populated by albanians at the time.

1) Yes, yes you are.
2) And? Is that supposed to make it some sort of admission? I could probably find a Jewish holocaust denier. His ethnicity is irrelevant, only the persuasiveness of his evidence. I don't read Serbian or Albanian, and if his works have been translated into English, Italian, or French I can't locate them, so someone else will have to determine whether he's a decent scholar or a crazy.

 

[staycool.]

1) Yes, yes you are.
2) And? Is that supposed to make it some sort of admission? I could probably find a Jewish holocaust denier. His ethnicity is irrelevant, only the persuasiveness of his evidence. I don't read Serbian or Albanian, and if his works have been translated into English, Italian, or French I can't locate them, so someone else will have to determine whether he's a decent scholar or a crazy.

Again, here is the link for his entire interview, read it, and determine for yourself if he is a crazy or not: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1120887/posts

Reason why i quoted him is because he said something i also firmly believe in: "One needs to be objective and tell the truth, not because of the truth itself, but because it will contribute toward overcoming of the many problems on the Balkan".

Using nationalism, or mythomania is a way to instrumentalize a nation.
In Croatian and Serbian cases, it was "sons of a thousand year culture, return to the old golden ages of the "empire", we are above the other one".
In Bosnian and Albanian case, you have two nations that didn't form a national state untill 20th century (Albanians) or were not even recognised as a seperate nation (Bosnian muslims), so they resorted to fabricating history. It is the same case with Macedonians who claim to be decenants of Alexander the great. When you light the fire of nationalism you get what is called yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

To make it more simple for you:
Serbs: they are all serbian with different religions, it's our clay.
Croats: they are all inferior to our great croatedom, and possibly croats of a different religion, it's our clay.
Bosnians: they have always oppresed us, and they inhabit our rightful clay.
Albanians: we are Illyrians, this has always been our clay, they are intruders or assimilated Albanians.
Macedonians: We are the TRUE macedonians, let's build statues in our capital to Alexander the great, emperor Samuilo was not Bulgarian, he was Macedon.

Problem with the Balkans is that during the time of national unification, like the ones that happened in Italy, Germany, and other places, Balkans was either occupied by Ottomans, Habsburgs, or had very small national states that couldn't pull off unification becaue of the mentioned great powers. Yugoslavia was formed too late to accomplish it.

So when i say, there is Albanian mythomania that is wrong, i will also say that there is also Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian etc mythomanias that are equally absurd and self destructive.

 

[talilu]

Ugh, Dacians had enough distance between them and Greeks to not get influenced. A Dacian-Related Language migrating from north Romania to Albania in 10th or whatever century would not have Greek words right? Greeks never influenced that far;

Jireček Line - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I agree that they are not Illyrians but Albanians aren't alien to Balkans. Well this arguement is based on the Daco-Thracian theory so if you don't think it's something logical you won't agree with me either. Take a look if you want;

Origin of the Albanians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Wikipedia said that, not you. Also, if you read what i said you would understand that basing your arugment on the fact that they use K instead of C or similar in pronouncination of latin words is a flimsy argument at best.

I suppose you don't know linguistics, but there is simply no way for the Albanian words to look as they do unless they were borrowed in Roman times or shortly thereafter. Certainly not from after 1000. Unless you can come up with another explanation, that's the only one available.

You compleately ignore the fact that there are no archeological findings, historical records or anything else that confirms your theory. Basically you think that there was a small mountian population that got influlenced by the Romans, got compleately unnoticed to any records up to 11th century, -still- holds tribal characteristics in it's social structure

Are we supposed to have remains from Albanopolis*, with inscriptions in Proto-Albo-Illyrian? How the hell would we know if any given archaeological find was related to proto-Albanians? They could be descendend from any Paleo-Balkan culture, be they Illyrians, Dacians, Thracians, or some other that we either don't know of, or which ancient authors lumped in with the other three incorrectly.

Albanians having tribal remnants of their society is no big deal - there's actually still remnants of that in parts of Greece, and still common all over the Middle East despite it being over a millenium since the tribal Arabs conquered it all.

There are potentially earlier attestations of Albanians, going back at least to the 600s. But assuming that Albanians were politically irrelevant throughout this period, and possibly located inland away from the Greeks (who are the only Europeans not to become illiterate outside of monasteries for a few hundred years around that time) it isn't surprising that references should be so sparse from this period.

and only expanded in numbers and territory AFTER islamisation and support by the ottoman empire that settled them in their modern region after previous inhabitants left it.

Again - where did they come from, if not the Balkans? If we can't find records of Albanians in the Balkans, then surely we should find records of them somewhere else. And don't say Caucasian Albania, there's no record of any Albanian-like language there, period, and there would have been no way for Albanian to acquire its old stratum of Latin loans from there.

Best part, when i said that Albanian has no ancient greek words, you justified it by saying they were isolated from the greeks, yet somehow, they were not isolated from the romans? do you not see the falacy in that line of thought. Be as it may, even if you are right, lingustics is not enough to support your claim.

I could have sworn I linked to the article about the Jirecek line. Basically, there's a line in the Balkans, north of which most inscriptions are found in Roman, and south of which, most inscriptions are found in Greek. If Proto-Albanians lived north of the line (i.e. north of the line which marks the northward boundary of Greek cultural and political influence in the Balkans), but still within the bounds of the Roman Empire - then they would have a large amount of Latin loanwords, and few from Greek.


*Actually, apparently this is a real place, inhabited by an Illyrian group in ancient times. I won't use this as an argument in favor of Illyro-Albanians, given than it could just be a coincidence... but it is pretty odd to find this out after just making it up as a ridiculous example.

 

[Anatur]

You seem horribly fixated on the idea of albanians being some special romano-illyrian remenants.

How about another theory for the linguistic dilema.

What if the albanians came to their current region,found some small roman rememnants and simply swallowed them along with a bunch of their words.

Hell croatian today has a huge amount of german and turkish loan words despite the fact croats have next to zero genetic relation to either germans or turks.

So while its possible albanians might have simply assimilated some people that used the language the albanians themselfes arent illyrians.

As to the tribal side of things,would those greek tribal areas happen to be albanian?
As for the middle east the whole place is tribal and the arabs in general lack any sort of national identity so its no justification for the albanians being tribalish.

The type of social structure that was dominant across the balkans was regional ties,people from the same region considering themselfes a part of it.
Things like tribes didnt exist because in a given region,lets say the krajina for diversity,serbs and croats both saw themselfes as people from the same region with the same goals and desires,mainly not being impaled up the rear by the turks,tribalism wasnt an issue.

Even in ottoman territories muslims from the same region would join christians in revolts against government oppression,religion and ethnic identity as well as family ties usually took a back seat.

 

[EldarPanic]

Ugh, Dacians had enough distance between them and Greeks to not get influenced. A Dacian-Related Language migrating from north Romania to Albania in 10th or whatever century would not have Greek words right? Greeks never influenced that far;

Jireček Line - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I agree that they are not Illyrians but Albanians aren't alien to Balkans. Well this arguement is based on the Daco-Thracian theory so if you don't think it's something logical you won't agree with me either. Take a look if you want;

Origin of the Albanians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By that logic it would mean that albanians are related to romanians and I dont see any similarities with our people.