Albanian Discussion Thread

[Kelmendasi]

The two most diverse Albanian clades are under R-PF7563 and J-L283 and there's not a single E-V13 clade which comes close to the diversity of these clades. At best, the oldest in-group Albanian E-V13 MRCA we have right now is close to 500 BCE. This is fine and it doesn't make Albanian E-V13 clades less Albanian today. The problem only exists when someone tries to make E-V13 *the* Proto-Albanian haplogroup, when in fact E-V13 clades which weren't living in the west-central Balkans in the Iron Age by definition can't be even remotely Proto-Albanian.

Building on this point, there appears to be a tendency to lump all E-V13 in an Albanian context together into one category as if each and every branch has the same history and played the same exact role in the early formation of Proto-Albanian. This is certainly not the case as there are branches which clearly did not play such a role and appear to have entered at later dates from different sources (the same applies to some branches of J2b-L283 and other haplogroups). On the contrary branches such as E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 among others have undoubtedly played a vital and pivotal role. As such, it would be most pertinent to analyse these branches in order to get a better grasp on the role of E-V13 clades in early Proto-Albanian genetic history.

[corrigendum]

The two most diverse Albanian clades are under R-PF7563 and J-L283 and there's not a single E-V13 clade which comes close to the diversity of these clades. At best, the oldest in-group Albanian E-V13 MRCA we have right now is close to 500 BCE. This is fine and it doesn't make Albanian E-V13 clades less Albanian today. The problem only exists when someone tries to make E-V13 *the* Proto-Albanian haplogroup, when in fact E-V13 clades which weren't living in the west-central Balkans in the Iron Age by definition can't be even remotely Proto-Albanian.

Building on this point, there appears to be a tendency to lump all E-V13 in an Albanian context together into one category as if each and every branch has the same history and played the same exact role in the early formation of Proto-Albanian. This is certainly not the case as there are branches which clearly did not play such a role and appear to have entered at later dates from different sources (the same applies to some branches of J2b-L283 and other haplogroups). On the contrary branches such as E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 among others have undoubtedly played a vital and pivotal role. As such, it would be most pertinent to analyse these branches in order to get a better grasp on the role of E-V13 clades in early Proto-Albanian genetic history.

Thracian proper E-BY5022 found from IA Bulgaria to Roman Serbia (east) is just 0.23% of Albanian lineages and J-Z38240 (BA Dalmatia) is 0.11% of Albanian lineages. The main takeaway is that Albanian didn't develop in areas where these two lineages played a significant role.

The closest language to Albanian is Messapic: J-L283 + R-Z2103 ( >CTS1450 - unpublished) + I-M223>P78 + R-PF7562 (likely result, unpublished)

Wherever we find a combination of these haplogroups, we find populations related to Albanians. Finding just E-V13 somewhere is irrelevant to Proto-Albanian - just as irrelevant as finding any of the aforementioned haplogroups without the others.

Additional comment: Finding a combination of relevant clades in the combination of relevant haplogroups will strongly suggest the location of Proto-Albanian. 

As we move to the Late Proto-Albanian (LPA) of the Roman era some other haplogroups become equally important for LPA:
https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC12816/ 
https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y177580/

And as we move to the Old Albanian (OA) era (7th century onward), finding the area of OA includes clades like:
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y133367/ and others

[Moeca]

The Dacian and Thracian theories have been dismissed for a while now and are not positions held by mainstream academics specialising in Albanian linguistics or studies. The current consensus is that Albanian branched from the same linguistic ancestor as Messapic, with linguists then formulating their own paradigms from this basis and common ground. Matzinger currently argues that Proto-Messapic branched from its common ancestor with Proto-Albanian in the southern Balkans (roughly corresponding to Armenochori) and expanded northwards into Dalmatia, intermixing and merging with the local Proto-Illyrian population by ca. 1700 BCE or so before expanding across the Adriatic into Iapygia (modern Apulia). Proto-Albanian also expanded northwards at some point, apparently becoming entrenched somewhere around Dardania, before becoming established in Albania by late antiquity. On the other hand, linguists such as Hyllested and Joseph classify Albanian and Messapic as Illyric languages that developed in the western Balkans. Arguing that Albanians linguistically descend from resettled Dacians or Thracians is a fruitless endeavour. That is not to say however that there were no contacts and intermixing between the Proto-Albanians and Daco-Thracian groups, there certainly were.

What we know with a pretty high degree of confidence based on the current evidence is that (Proto-)Albanian was spoken in Albania by late antiquity at the latest with the terminus post quem being ca. 300-400 CE. This article from the Arbanology substack provides a good overview of the linguistic evidence for this.

Do they have anything about BC times ...........messapic arrived in salento peninsula italy circa 650BC , same time as Argos greeks took Taranto italy across the peninsula ................both overran the indigenous italic tribes in the area

Daunians where in Italy from 1000BC and where basically turned into their neighbours the Samnites in the first 250 years

[Dreneu]

The two most diverse Albanian clades are under R-PF7563 and J-L283 and there's not a single E-V13 clade which comes close to the diversity of these clades. At best, the oldest in-group Albanian E-V13 MRCA we have right now is close to 500 BCE. This is fine and it doesn't make Albanian E-V13 clades less Albanian today. The problem only exists when someone tries to make E-V13 *the* Proto-Albanian haplogroup, when in fact E-V13 clades which weren't living in the west-central Balkans in the Iron Age by definition can't be even remotely Proto-Albanian.

Building on this point, there appears to be a tendency to lump all E-V13 in an Albanian context together into one category as if each and every branch has the same history and played the same exact role in the early formation of Proto-Albanian. This is certainly not the case as there are branches which clearly did not play such a role and appear to have entered at later dates from different sources (the same applies to some branches of J2b-L283 and other haplogroups). On the contrary branches such as E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 among others have undoubtedly played a vital and pivotal role. As such, it would be most pertinent to analyse these branches in order to get a better grasp on the role of E-V13 clades in early Proto-Albanian genetic history.

When talking about E-V13 this encapsulates all branches of E-V13 necessarily.

The arguments all stem from this roundabout and disingenous game of running interference whereby the association with Thracoid or channelled ware , etc ,and E-V13, which does seem to be showing up again and again for the last few years, is constantly downplayed in a dishonest and obfuscatory way. 

Nobody from the E-V13 camp argues against branches here or there having had possibilities of being Illyrianised, Riverman, and me also, have constantly remarked on the plausibility of this.given that if channelled ware was associated with the expansion and spread of E-V13, it should be expected to show up in Albania since there were incursions into Albania from channelled ware.

What debases the debate and atmosphere are the manipulatory spins and deflections aimed at hiding this connection.

For example, E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 you mention as having played pivotal roles and thus I'm assuming you claim them asi Illyrian by extension of your position that Albanian is from Illyrian, but what were these branches speaking before they spoke Illyrian in your model?

Why is it that I never hear any hypotheses uttered aloud? Do you believe their parent branches were speaking non-indo european languages until they were Illyrianised? Or were they speaking a Thracoid dialect? 

Why is it so difficult to get a straight answer about the chronology here? It is clear that the base of E-V13 spread and had its expansion as an Indo-European group, which group was that do you think? The group that must not be named?

[corrigendum]

Why is it so difficult to get a straight answer about the chronology here? It is clear that the base of E-V13 spread and had its expansion as an Indo-European group, which group was that do you think? The group that must not be named?

You can provide any answer you want to about E-V13 and we can agree or disagree about it. We can't (yet) know from where E-V13 first moved because there's no data, but also in the context of Albanian the spread of E-V13 as whole is irrelevant.

Only a part of E-V13 is related to Albanians and that part mostly includes MRCAs not earlier than the MIA. Of course, I believe that these lineages will provide some older MRCAs via aDNA or new samples and will align with our most diverse clades. 

But the main point remains the same:

The two most diverse Albanian clades are under R-PF7563 and J-L283 and there's not a single E-V13 clade which comes close to the diversity of these clades. At best, the oldest in-group Albanian E-V13 MRCA we have right now is close to 500 BCE. This is fine and it doesn't make Albanian E-V13 clades less Albanian today. The problem only exists when someone tries to make E-V13 *the* Proto-Albanian haplogroup, when in fact E-V13 clades which weren't living in the west-central Balkans in the Iron Age by definition can't be even remotely Proto-Albanian.

The closest language to Albanian is Messapic: J-L283 + R-Z2103 ( >CTS1450 - unpublished) + I-M223>P78 + R-PF7562 (likely result, unpublished)

Wherever we find a combination of these haplogroups, we find populations related to Albanians. Finding just E-V13 somewhere is irrelevant to Proto-Albanian - just as irrelevant as finding any of the aforementioned haplogroups without the others.

https://twitter.com/AlbHistory/status/17...8816649590

Since you're quoting me, at least quote my comment properly. I didn't write that E-V13 isn't "even remotely Proto-Albanian", I wrote that E-V13 clades which didn't live in the west-central Balkans during the IA can't be Proto-Albanian in the sense of the earliest west Balkan dialect which we would recognize today as Albanian. They can definitely be "Late Proto-Albanian" if they became part of this group between 0-400 CE or they can be "Old Albanian" if they did so in the early medieval era.

This doesn't make them less Albanian. If a lineage spreads for 1500-2000 years with a specific group, it's part of it. But this doesn't mean that all lineages under that haplogroup are related to this group and doesn't mean that wherever we find E-V13, we find Albanians. A key lineage of proper Thrace: E-BY5022 is not Proto-Albanian and it's 0.23% of all Albanians.

Last point: There aren't two "camps". There's an overwhelming consensus in academia about the location of Proto-Albanian in the western Balkans and it having no relation to Thracian/Dacian. Twitter posts and forum debates aren't part of any debate.

[corrigendum]

For example, E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 you mention as having played pivotal roles and thus I'm assuming you claim them asi Illyrian by extension of your position that Albanian is from Illyrian, but what were these branches speaking before they spoke Illyrian in your model?

We'll know where they were when we get data, but in terms of the location of Proto-Albanian, their location in the IA doesn't have much to offer because their MRCAs among Albanians are in Roman antiquity, not earlier.

E-Y146086 has two downstream Albanian subclades, but no upstream Albanian subclades. The downstream ones have MRCAs in 900 CE and 1050 CE.

E-BY4465 has an MRCA around 150 CE.

E-Y173822 has an MRCA around 600 CE.

I'm interested to know where these clades were located, but their location doesn't impact the location of Proto-Albanian because they start to spread in later antiquity, not earlier.

They're important Albanian clades just like J-FGC12816 is an important Albanian clade, but neither has any answer to offer to the question "where was Proto-Albanian spoken during the Iron Age".

This shouldn't be a problem. It only becomes a problem when people conflate Y-DNA with identity and fetishize it. In the context of actual historical identity, all Y-DNA clades which spread with Albanians since 600-700 CE took part in the same exact processes which created historical Albanian identity, not events which occurred 2000 years earlier.

[Dreneu]

Why is it so difficult to get a straight answer about the chronology here? It is clear that the base of E-V13 spread and had its expansion as an Indo-European group, which group was that do you think? The group that must not be named?

You can provide any answer you want to about E-V13 and we can agree or disagree about it. We can't (yet) know from where E-V13 first moved because there's no data, but also in the context of Albanian the spread of E-V13 as whole is irrelevant.

That is an interesting way to be incorrect entirely, I'll give you that.

E-V13 is the demographic majority of Albanian haplogroups, and Albanians, most likely to fall under this haplogroup, most probably find it relevant to know where their haplogroup came from.

Trying to impose an embargo of "relevancy" past the point where they diverge from Illyrian groups is absurd and futile, this should be self evident even on basic common sense grounds, its an uphill battle against the demographic majority whose curiosity will determine the relevancy. They will want to know what the parent branches of even Illyrianised E-V13 branches spoke.

[Dreneu]

For example, E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 you mention as having played pivotal roles and thus I'm assuming you claim them asi Illyrian by extension of your position that Albanian is from Illyrian, but what were these branches speaking before they spoke Illyrian in your model?

We'll know where they were when we get data, but in terms of the location of Proto-Albanian, their location in the IA doesn't have much to offer because their MRCAs among Albanians are in Roman antiquity, not earlier.

E-Y146086 has two downstream Albanian subclades, but no upstream Albanian subclades. The downstream ones have MRCAs in 900 CE and 1050 CE.

E-BY4465 has an MRCA around 150 CE.

E-Y173822 has an MRCA around 600 CE.

I'm interested to know where these clades were located, but their location doesn't impact the location of Proto-Albanian because they start to spread in later antiquity, not earlier.

They're important Albanian clades just like J-FGC12816 is an important Albanian clade, but neither has any answer to offer to the question "where was Proto-Albanian spoken during the Iron Age".

Even if E-V13 was just entirely major late add ons with founder effects, it is still clearly relevant to the question of Proto-Albanian and Albanian what language these people spoke before they spoke proto-Albanian.

I.e. did proto-Albanians absorb some chinese speaking E-Y173822? Did they add any new loanwords?

[Southpaw]

Meantime they will continue writing articles in Rrenjet or substack about J1-BY32817 extreme diversity among 0.00000001% of Albanian population and how important it was to formation of Proto-Albanians.

Some twisted Boolean logic over there, Shaman tricks which only them can deduce.

[Beast]

There is not a single E-V13 even in IA Macedonia. And I don't see how the Dardani had E-V13.

[Dreneu]

For example, E-BY4465, E-Y173822, E-Y146086 you mention as having played pivotal roles and thus I'm assuming you claim them asi Illyrian by extension of your position that Albanian is from Illyrian, but what were these branches speaking before they spoke Illyrian in your model?

We'll know where they were when we get data, but in terms of the location of Proto-Albanian, their location in the IA doesn't have much to offer because their MRCAs among Albanians are in Roman antiquity, not earlier.

E-Y146086 has two downstream Albanian subclades, but no upstream Albanian subclades. The downstream ones have MRCAs in 900 CE and 1050 CE.

E-BY4465 has an MRCA around 150 CE.

E-Y173822 has an MRCA around 600 CE.

I'm interested to know where these clades were located, but their location doesn't impact the location of Proto-Albanian because they start to spread in later antiquity, not earlier.

They're important Albanian clades just like J-FGC12816 is an important Albanian clade, but neither has any answer to offer to the question "where was Proto-Albanian spoken during the Iron Age".

Even if E-V13 was just entirely major late add ons with founder effects, it is still clearly relevant to the question of Proto-Albanian and Albanian what language these people spoke before they spoke proto-Albanian.

I.e. did proto-Albanians absorb some chinese speaking E-Y173822? Did they add any new loanwords?

Linguist Radu Craciun points out that the ratio of Thracian : Illyrian material in Albanian is 2.5 : 1, meaning 2.5 more Thracian than Illyrian, favouring a Thracian origin for Albanian.



But hold up, this is so puzzling, because we have no possible candidate for Thracian in Albanian haplogroups according to the champions of Illyria here.

[Southpaw]

We have 1 sample from Idomenae which happens to be an Ancient Macedonian site E-L618 in modern borders of North Macedonia( South of it), Late Iron Age. Sample has not been deeply tested so we can very likely talk about an E-V13 sample.

[corrigendum]

Linguist Radu Craciun points out that the ratio of Thracian : Illyrian material in Albanian is 2.5 : 1, meaning 2.5 more Thracian than Illyrian, favouring a Thracian origin for Albanian.

Cherry-picking fringe sources, doesn't change the academic consensus. Nobody - even Matzinger - considers Albanian to be related to Thracian.

That is an interesting way to be incorrect entirely, I'll give you that.

E-V13 is the demographic majority of Albanian haplogroups, and Albanians, most likely to fall under this haplogroup, most probably find it relevant to know where their haplogroup came from.

E-V13 is 25-30%. It's not the majority and it's clear that not all E-V13 clades among Albanians have the same trajectory. Haplogroups which were part of the west Balkan populations make about 35% and they're the ones which have the highest diversity. Some E-V13 clades will probably join them, but not all.

The "demographic majority" in terms of diversity means nothing if the percentage can't be correlated to diversity.

The majority of modern Greeks from mainland Greece (not just 25%) come mainly from lineages which weren't present in ancient Greece, but this doesn't make Greek language unrelated to ancient Greeks.

Almost half of modern Romanians come from Slavic lineages, but this doesn't make Romanian a Slavic language.

Why would it be any different for Albanians even if all 25-30% of E-V13 didn't come from Proto-Albanian sources? I think that most of it will come from area the west-central Balkans and it will be embedded in Illyrian/Dardanian populations, but it wouldn't matter in any case.

The entire problem lies in the idea that E-V13 is **the** Proto-Albanian haplogroup when in fact most E-V13 clades are irrelevant for Albanians because Albanians don't carry them. Over half of Albanian E-V13 is entirely under E-S2979 and almost 1/3 under CTS9320.

Trying to impose an embargo of "relevancy" past the point where they diverge from Illyrian groups is absurd and futile, this should be self evident even on basic common sense grounds, its an uphill battle against the demographic majority whose curiosity will determine the relevancy. They will want to know what the parent branches of even Illyrianised E-V13 branches spoke.

Relevancy for Proto-Albanian is not determined by curiosity.

If a lineage spreads with a group past X point in time, this won't change because of "curiosity".

And a lineage doesn't have to spread with Proto-Albanian since 800 BCE to be relevant for LPA/Old/medieval/modern Albanians.

All Albanian lineages are interesting and all have relevancy from a certain context onward.

[corrigendum]

I.e. did proto-Albanians absorb some chinese speaking E-Y173822? Did they add any new loanwords?

You need to learn more about MRCA.

"They" didn't add new loanwords, because "they" didn't exist. The fact that E-Y173822 has an MRCA around 600 CE means that during this period just one Y173822 is the ancestor of all Albanian Y173822.

The point is that the MRCA means that - based on current data - this is an Old Albanian (early medieval) lineage which spread with Albanians via a single common ancestor. As such, there is no linguistically relevant question for Proto-Albanian or the Albanian language in general. It's just one person and in fact most Y173822 are not his direct descendants but descendants of someone who lived around 800 CE.

This might change as we get more samples or it might stay the same. I believe that it will change and that this lineage likely will end up with more in-group Allbanian diversity.

[Dreneu]

Linguist Radu Craciun points out that the ratio of Thracian : Illyrian material in Albanian is 2.5 : 1, meaning 2.5 more Thracian than Illyrian, favouring a Thracian origin for Albanian.

Cherry-picking fringe sources, doesn't change the academic consensus. Nobody - even Matzinger - considers Albanian to be related to Thracian.
.

Amusing, here is Çabej on the undeniable Thracian component in Albanian:

“Në gjuhën shqipe sot kemi edhe gjurmë të ilirishtes, edhe të trakishtes, por më të shumta janë ato të ilirishtes. 

Pra gjuha shqipe është bijë e një dialekti të ilirishtes, por ngërthen në vete edhe disa komponentë të trakishtes.”

Even under such stalinist coniditions whete the state line was that Albanian had to be autochtonous he had to concede that there was a Thracian component in Albanian, whereas you are over and above even the stalinists of the 20th century in your position.

If Albanian in the best case scenario for Illyrianists is an Illyrian language with a Thracian component, then which is the most probable source of this Thracian component in the Albanian haolo branches? Could it be J2b-L283? Maybe it is I1? Hmm