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Since we're at it, I read a theory that Albanians may be the descendants of Dacians, from the Roman province: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Dacia https://

Since we're at it, I read a theory that Albanians may be the descendants of Dacians, from the Roman province: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Dacia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Dacia Their language is unique in Europe and probably originates in the Thrakian, Illyrian, and Dacian languages. With the important mention that one must not apply today's assumptions of a unified language when referring to something as "Dacian", think more of a situation like in today's Dagestan, where on a surface of 50,000 square kilometers, 3 million people speak no less than 40 languages. The theory is that during the Roman retreat from Dacia, the population (estimated to as low as 100,000 and as high of 500,000 people, so not exactly a Biblical exodus), migrated to south of Danube and eventually today's location. The toponymy is strangely Albanian, like even the name of the Romanian capital "Bucharest" means "beautiful is" in Albanian.

mathieuh 2y ago
Unique how? It's an Indo-European language, like many of the other languages spoken in Europe. There is also a proposal that Albanian is closely related to Greek and Armenian.
- etc-hosts 2y ago
  Albanian is unique because its the only surviving branch of a particular branch of proto-Indo-European languages . This is a pretty good explanation http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro.html http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro.html
ImageLonging 2y ago
Your post is sadly an example of the pop-sci history that circulates in Romania,* and it is out of sync with the considerable advances made in Albanian historical linguistics in recent decades. The evidence is overwhelming that Albanian originates from the Central Balkans. While Albanian does show signs of belonging to a Balkan Indo-European subgroup deep in prehistory, it is not closely related to Thracian – Matzinger’s 2012 paper “Zur herkunft des Albanischen: Argumente gegen die thrakische Hypothese” in the Ismajli Festschrift conveniently sets out why. While Romanian bucur ‘happy’ and Albanian bukur ‘beautiful’ are indeed regarded as shared lexicon of disputed etymology, București (Bucharest) does not mean ‘beautiful is’ in Albanian: -ești is a common toponym-forming suffix in Romanian. It’s certainly not related to the Albanian copula, which is âshtë with a nasal vowel both historically and in many dialects still today (standard Albanian është is based on the Tosk variety that lost nasal vowels a few centuries ago). * (For HN readers unaware of Balkan quarrels, a cornerstone of Romanian nationalism is the idea that the Romanians are descendants of a Romanized population in Dacia who remained behind when the province was lost to the Roman Empire. This would, crucially, allow the Romanians to have been in Transylvania before the Hungarians, longtime rivals for that land, arrived in 896 CE. That Romanian and Albanian share lexical material from the early first millennium is awkward for that view – many linguists internationally have concluded that the Romanian language was brought to modern day Romania from somewhere across the Danube. Romanian pop-sci, in order to save the Dacian continuity theory, therefore occasionally makes the claim that the Albanians came from the territory of Romania, or that the Albanian and Dacian languages were related.)
- ImageLongong 2y ago
  > many linguists internationally have concluded that That's some weaselly wording conflating "opinion" and "proof".
deleted 2y ago
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AdrianB1 2y ago
Legends. Not true. I was there, I heard the language, I spoke in Romanian to my Albanian colleagues and they spoke Albanian to me, I did not understand anything even if the sounding is quite similar. I was in a restaurant in Tirana with colleagues and I had the impression that I am in Bucharest based on the noise around me, but I was not able to understand the words. That's all the similarity. There are some words that are the same in Albanian and Romanian, but very few. The languages are very different, Romanian is mostly based on Latin with Turkish, Slavonic and Polish influences (some Ukrainian also in Bucovina), the Dacian part is really small and the Albanian seems to be based on Illyrian dialects.

mathieuh 2y ago

Unique how? It's an Indo-European language, like many of the other languages spoken in Europe. There is also a proposal that Albanian is closely related to Greek and Armenian.

etc-hosts 2y ago
Albanian is unique because its the only surviving branch of a particular branch of proto-Indo-European languages . This is a pretty good explanation http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro.html http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro.html

ImageLonging 2y ago

Your post is sadly an example of the pop-sci history that circulates in Romania,* and it is out of sync with the considerable advances made in Albanian historical linguistics in recent decades. The evidence is overwhelming that Albanian originates from the Central Balkans. While Albanian does show signs of belonging to a Balkan Indo-European subgroup deep in prehistory, it is not closely related to Thracian – Matzinger’s 2012 paper “Zur herkunft des Albanischen: Argumente gegen die thrakische Hypothese” in the Ismajli Festschrift conveniently sets out why. While Romanian bucur ‘happy’ and Albanian bukur ‘beautiful’ are indeed regarded as shared lexicon of disputed etymology, București (Bucharest) does not mean ‘beautiful is’ in Albanian: -ești is a common toponym-forming suffix in Romanian. It’s certainly not related to the Albanian copula, which is âshtë with a nasal vowel both historically and in many dialects still today (standard Albanian është is based on the Tosk variety that lost nasal vowels a few centuries ago). * (For HN readers unaware of Balkan quarrels, a cornerstone of Romanian nationalism is the idea that the Romanians are descendants of a Romanized population in Dacia who remained behind when the province was lost to the Roman Empire. This would, crucially, allow the Romanians to have been in Transylvania before the Hungarians, longtime rivals for that land, arrived in 896 CE. That Romanian and Albanian share lexical material from the early first millennium is awkward for that view – many linguists internationally have concluded that the Romanian language was brought to modern day Romania from somewhere across the Danube. Romanian pop-sci, in order to save the Dacian continuity theory, therefore occasionally makes the claim that the Albanians came from the territory of Romania, or that the Albanian and Dacian languages were related.)

ImageLongong 2y ago
> many linguists internationally have concluded that That's some weaselly wording conflating "opinion" and "proof".

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

AdrianB1 2y ago

Legends. Not true. I was there, I heard the language, I spoke in Romanian to my Albanian colleagues and they spoke Albanian to me, I did not understand anything even if the sounding is quite similar. I was in a restaurant in Tirana with colleagues and I had the impression that I am in Bucharest based on the noise around me, but I was not able to understand the words. That's all the similarity. There are some words that are the same in Albanian and Romanian, but very few. The languages are very different, Romanian is mostly based on Latin with Turkish, Slavonic and Polish influences (some Ukrainian also in Bucovina), the Dacian part is really small and the Albanian seems to be based on Illyrian dialects.