Talk:Origin of the Albanians

Rewriting of the first part

Hi, I've been working on a rewriting of the first part of the article (corresponding to the sections /linguistic evidence/ and /primary sources/) with the precious help of Βατο. It's not finished yet, as I didn't import all the reliable sources used here to the new version. So if you want to contribute, feel free to edit the draft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Azerty82/Albanian. Best regards, Azerty82 (talk) 08:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Pelasgian

@Maleschreiber:@N.Hoxha:@Alexikoua: I think that that content is best placed somewhere else. No doubt it has a place on Albanian language, though you could probably find a place in another section of this article too. Ktrimi991 (talk) 15:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

In the linguistic sense, Pelasgian is now best just avoided. Too much association with 19th century nationalism, Georgiev, etc. We instead speak simply of pre-Indo-European substrata.--Calthinus (talk) 16:06, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree with your position, Calthinus. Thank you for your input. Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Demiraj (2006) says that Pelasgian is indeed a nonsense term that hinders research about the Pre-Indo-European substratum.--Maleschreiber (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Indeed -- and he's far from alone. --Calthinus (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

None of this stuff belongs here. It belongs at Albanian language. Khirurg (talk) 18:01, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Therefore we are going to limit the discussion of this issue to the western areas of the Balkan peninsula, where the Albanian people have been living since many centuries ago. These areas, too, thanks to their geographical position, should have been inhabited since long before the immigration of the I.E. tribes, who are usually called Illyrians. The ancient presence of Pre-I.E. people(s) in this areas has been proved inter alia, by the archaeological discoveries at Maliq, Vashtëmi, Burimas, Podgorie, Barç and Dërsnik of Coritza district, as well as at Kamnik of Cologna district, at Blaz and Nezir of Mati district, at Kolsh of Kukës district, at Rashtan of Librazhd etc. Just don't mess up articles and bibliography to which you have no access, Khirurg.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:43, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Substrate vocab is relevant to any linguistic perspective on the ethnogenesis and prehistory of a group speaking that language. This is true for Romanians, and true for Greeks, and no one disputes it. It is true for Albanians too. It is even true of Australian English. If we are to talk about how Anglo-Australians emerged as a group, then concepts and names for animals, plants etc they borrowed from those they replaced (Aborigines) are... relevant. How is this even remotely controversial to include relevant data that may shed light on who the ancestors of the Albanians conquered and either replaced or assimilated? --Calthinus (talk) 16:45, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

This is not a linguistics article. The information belongs in Albanian language, not here. This article deals with the Albanian ethnogensis, which took place in the medieval period. The pre-IE stuff predates it by thousands of years. It has nothing to do with ethnogenesis, so it doesn't matter how many sources Maleschreiber finds, the material is simply not relevant. And no, we will not hide from our readers that the Pelasgian "theory" is obsolete with complicated verbiage. Khirurg (talk) 23:17, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Albanian ethnogenesis didn't happen in the Middle Ages and as written records about Albanians are very scarce most studies about Albanian ethnogenesis are done in the field of linguistics (until the advent of DNA research in recent years). Language is a field via which the ethnogenesis of every nation is usually discussed. And since the bibliography does consider it important to discuss Albanian ethnogenesis via pre-Indo-European elements in the Albanian language, it's really not something that can become the subject of discussion in wikipedia. --Maleschreiber (talk) 23:24, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

The Albanians are mentioned for the first time in the historical record in 1079 AD. I know, it may be hard to accept, but these are the facts, sorry. The material you added is off-topic, since it has nothing to do with the ethnogenesis of the Albanians, but rather with things that happened thousands of years ago. Khirurg (talk) 23:56, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

"Ethnogenesis" does not mean "when the first documents in a zone that during the time period has very few surviving documents mention a group". It doesn't even mean when the group is first mentioned at all. --Calthinus (talk) 03:53, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There are plenty of records from the Greek and Roman period, and none of them mention "Albanians". So yeah, it ends there. I know very well what ethnogenesis means, and the Albanian ethnogenesis took place millennia after the irrelevant pre-IE stuff was added. This whole thing reeks of Pelasgianist crackpottery. And since you seem unwilling or unable to edit collaboratively, and have turned the article into a POV walled garden, a POV tag is more than due. And cut out the ridicule and insults, it will get you nowhere and only make things worse for you. Khirurg (talk) 04:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that Calthinus ever insulted anyone, but as with Ktrimi, go to AE if you feel he did so. The POV tag can't be used without any reference to policy or bibliography or an actual content dispute. There's a section which is based on bibliography, which you repeatedly tried to delete via edit-warring. After that didn't work, you tried to claim that it's off-topic, but what is on- or off- topic isn't really decided by you or I, but by bibliography. After that didn't work, you went for the POV tag, but POV isn't a catch-all tool to be used every time an editor doesn't get their way.--Maleschreiber (talk) 07:29, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There are plenty of records from the Greek and Roman period, and none of them mention "Albanians". So yeah, it ends there. Nobody in bibliography has done any research in that way or considers ethnogenesis to be a process which begins with the first explicit written record. Your conceptualization is not shared by bibliography.--Maleschreiber (talk) 07:58, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

And the bibliography does not ascribe the ethnogenesis thousands of years before it actually occurred, based on three possible pre-IE...words. You are deep in WP:FRINGE and WP:OR territory. Khirurg (talk) 15:23, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

It is a severe FRINGE claim to say that a few indirectly taken loanwords can explain some kind of ethnogenesis. As I see Demiraj doesn't even claim something close to this, i.e pre-IndoEuropeans contributed to the ethnogenesis of Albanians. In fact Demiraj rejects this extraordinary claim (see De Rapper about the Pelasgian claim).Alexikoua (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Also imagine that the Greek language has plenty of direct pre-IndoEuropean loanwords. As such it would be wrong to claim that this is a straight contribution to the Greek ethnogenesis.Alexikoua (talk) 17:34, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

The Pre-IE substratum section doesn't say anything about "Pelasgians" - which is just a collective name that was mistakenly used in 19th century literature as a reference to Pre-IE people. The origin of Albanians is also related to Pre-IE elements which are visible in the language, in customs and thanks to Y-DNA research we know that this is also very visible in Y-DNA lineages. The same is true about other ethnic/subethnic groups (Scandinavian I1 in Norwegians, Dnieper I2 in South Slavs, J2a in Cretan Greeks). Albanians are not extraordinary in regards to that aspect of the research about their origins. And also, just so we don't get out of scope in our discussion: I am referring to ethnogenesis in terms of origins, but you seem to be referring to the process by which modern nation(-states) emerged. But this article is about origins of Albanians, it's not about the very narrow subtopic to which you are referring to. --Maleschreiber (talk) 17:52, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@MSchreiber: can you offer the precise quote of Demiraj, since so far I see nothing that connects pre-IE contribution to Albanian ethnogenesis/origin. In general 'elements' and sporadic loanwords mean nothing about origin, they are just loans from third parties.Alexikoua (talk) 18:09, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Therefore we are going to limit the discussion of this issue to the western areas of the Balkan peninsula, where the Albanian people have been living since many centuries ago. These areas, too, thanks to their geographical position, should have been inhabited since long before the immigration of the I.E. tribes, who are usually called Illyrians. The ancient presence of Pre-I.E. people(s) in this areas has been proved inter alia, by the archaeological discoveries at Maliq, Vashtëmi, Burimas, Podgorie, Barç and Dërsnik of Coritza district, as well as at Kamnik of Cologna district, at Blaz and Nezir of Mati district, at Kolsh of Kukës district, at Rashtan of Librazhd etc. m the Illyrian language at our disposal. Under such circumstances we are obliged to concentrate our efforts upon investigation about the Albanian language hoping to find out whether there is any relic of a linguistic type of non-IE origin. Such a relic according to Jokl (see Cabej), Baric etc. should be sought in the numeration system of Albanian, where [..] there are also remnants of the vigesimal system [..] which is widepsread in the non-IE language of the Basques [..] and relics are also preserved in French [..] and Danish. It is worth emphasizing that Albanian is the only Balkan language, in which such vigesimal numerals as njëzet, dyzet etc. have been preserved. then he expands on some of the words that are also found in the article and closes the chapter with At any rate, in this case, as in other similar cases, one should take into account that the previous populations during the process of assimilation by the immigrating IE tribes have played an important part in the formation of the various ethnic groups generated by their long symbiosis. Consequently, the IE languages developed in the Balkan Peninsula, in addition to their natural evolution, have also undergone a certain impact by the idioms of the assimilated Pre-IE peoples.--Maleschreiber (talk) 18:52, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Maleschreiber imo -- the vigesimal thing shouldn't really be here. It's getting too deep, and the role of lexical effects in language contact is pretty clear but the same is not true of structural effects.--Calthinus (talk) 19:10, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't mind if we trim and move it over to Albanian language.--Maleschreiber (talk)

Yeah, that's for the best.--Calthinus (talk) 19:14, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@MS: Thanks for the quote. Unfortunately there is no mention of any possible ancestral link between pre-IE and Albanians. Demiraj concludes that 'all' IE Balkan languages received a certain impact by pre-IE idioms. It's definitely a severe case of SYNTH & OR to claim that this is connected with some kind of ethnic origins.Alexikoua (talk) 21:10, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

The full quote basically says that here is a pre-IE component in Albanian language, nothing SYNTH or POV about that in the article.N.Hoxha (talk) 22:58, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Nice catch ('all Balkan languages have pre-IE elements' per quote), unfortunately this conclusion does not belong to an article about ethnic origins.Alexikoua (talk) 09:54, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

80% of this article is about the origins of the Albanian language because that has been the main field in which the origin of Albanians have been investigated until the advent of Y-DNA research. Arguing that the pre-IE substratum in particular doesn't belong to this article is a form preferential editorializing. I can change the heading of the section to make it clear that it's a linguistic investigation but you can't ask for more than what the sources say.--Maleschreiber (talk) 14:12, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

• People, do not have Wiki fights over tags. Btw, this article is "Origin of the Albanians", not "Ethnogenesis of the Albanians". Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Substrate words are used to determine the location where proto/pre-Albanian was spoken – this has nothing to do with the Pelasgian theory. See User:Alcaios/Albanian for a summary of the linguistic evidence that have been proposed to resolve the question of the origin of Albanians. As always with subjects related to the Balkans, this debate went down into chaos. Alcaios (talk) 00:08, 10 September 2020 (UTC)