User talk:Slovenski Volk/Archive 5

Dacians = ? Balto-SLavs
Actualy, the closest living relative to Dacian is modern Baltic. Quite a few linguists have found that. THis doesn;t mean that Dacians were Balts, or vice-versa, ofcourse. But this has led some to propose that a dialectical-linguistic continuum extended right accross eastern EUrope, into the eastern Balkans from the northern forests Hxseek (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about Alinei theory? Aigest (talk) 08:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * To me this sounds like a very controversial theory, definitely not mainstream. Others clearly suggest Albanian as a living relative, while Romanian and Bulgarian are the only languages that I know of which have Dacian words in them. Give examples of Baltic words of Dacian origin please. And then there are the Thracian and Illyrian strong connections, none of which have anything to do with Baltic, and definitely not with the Slavic or a extended and forced Balto-Slavic grouping Nonetheless, this would never justify those changes to the map, as controversial linguistic affinities do not convert a distinct population, with a significantly different cultural background and at a far away location to the Balto-Slavic tribes. No way! Dacians are a distinct group, and historically had quite a large population that challenged Rome significantly. The Balto-Slavs were far away from Balkans at that time and no historical sources show any kind of interaction between Dacians and them, let alone describe them as relatives. But there is plenty of known Dacian interaction with Illyrians, Thracians, Celts, Sarmatians, Scythians, Romans, Greeks, Germanic tribes, with whom Dacians share more cultural and linguistic affinities. The map is completely removing this large and distinct group of people from history based on some strange theories, only 19 years after the war with Rome. This map should reflect Dacians as distinct until more significant evidence is brought to the table. To me all these theories and actions sound liked very political, forced justifications of early presence of Slavs in Balkans, politics which are very inconvenienced by the presence of a different, ancient group of people. They have no place on an encyclopedia.  --Codrin.B (talk) 14:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Dacian language collaboration
Hello from WikiProject Dacia!

Since there are so many religious wars going on at the moment around Dacians and their language, we are proposing to all involved to use their creativity, knowledge and energy in creating separate articles for different language affinities. Stop deleting and reverting and start creating!

Instead, expand or create the articles listed at the WikiProject Dacia's Current Collaboration, using as much academic evidence you can gather.

Once these separate articles went through a lot of scrutiny and have reached a good article status, we can discuss the addition of links to the various theories and potentially even add sections about them in the Dacian language and Dacian tribes articles.

Let the Daciada begin! Thanks for your support! --Codrin.B (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Dacian language as Balto-Slavic
Hi and a Happy New Year!

I need your help in a small dispute I'm having because of my newest Roman Empire map. I think you've seen I've labelled the Dacians as Balto-Slavic and this has caused the anxiety of 2 users: Codrinb and Daizus (see the discussion here: talk). Can you provide some references for the possible connection between Dacian and the Baltic languages and also for the existance of proto Balto-Slavic? Thank you in advance.

Andrei nacu (talk) 05:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
Dacian-Baltic connection Codrin.B (talk) 03:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Dacians etc
Hey, mate, how you going? A very happy 2011 to you. I wanted to thank you for the constructive comments you made in the Dacian/Baltic debate. Unfortunately, as you can see, we are up against a Daco-Roman continuity mafia who think they have a right to censor any article about Dacia/Romania to ensure what they call "neutrality" i.e. unswerving support for their own (discredited) theory. What do you think of the Roman Empire 125 map as improved by Andrei Nacu by applying computer-generated relief, Smashing, isn't it? It's by a huge stretch the best such map on the Net - if not off it. The best thing about it is how it presents a large amount of information without appearing cluttered. I'm really proud of it. It speaks volumes for the continuity-mafia's intellectual intolerance that they have removed the map from all articles on Dacia on the grounds that it does not show the Carpi/Costoboci as Dacian-speaking and that the probable language of the DACI themselves was Balto-Slavic: quite apart from the substantive arguments involved, this action demonstrates their astonishing arrogance.

Talking about this subject, I noticed that you supported showing a link between Dacian and the Baltic languages - but questioned whether this meant they were part of the Balto-Slavic group. Surely, they would be part of the group by definition, since are not all the Baltic languages descended from proto Balto-Slavic? EraNavigator (talk) 19:18, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * EraNavigator, my Italian friend, please do not use the word mafia again or I will have to report you. This is unacceptable! I don't know anyone here, I started all this alone. I happen to agree with Daizus pertinent comments, criticizing your original research and promotion of fringe theories. Being in agreement with someone you don't know, doesn't constitute a Mafia. I hope you can calm done and come to your senses. I gave you enough opportunity for collaboration and civility. Grazie mille.--Codrin.B (talk) 20:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

To all concerned RE: Balto-Slavic and Dacian
I would be more than happy to help clarify this situation, I already know the books required to provide vierifiable, non-POV views on this matter. This will take me a few days, so if all parties concerned can take some time out for now, that would be good.

To briefly outline my arguement will be along the following lines

(1) As we all know, the evidence for Dacian is frustratingly poor. Some scholars have seen particular affinity with Baltic, but this does not mean it is, or vice -versa

(2) The evidence for what languages the peoples known as Carpi, Costoboci, Veneti, basternae spoke is 'non-existent. I know that well-reputed and otherwise uniterested historians (eg Malcolm Todd - not a Slav or Romanian) have postulated various things, include a variety of 'mixture' scenarios. This might well warrant mention, however, it doe not overcome the previous point.

(3) We must also take heed of the fact that lingusitic affilitation does not imply any ethnic homonymy (although it does today). Eg the Carpi were NOT Dacians. Simply, because, when the Romans spoke of "Dacians", they referred to Decebalius (& his ancestors) and his men in what became Roman dacia. The (unsupported) idea that Carpi spoke Dacian has not come from any evidence, but from Romanian scholarship simply assuming that they "must have been" Dacian just because they lived in what is now modern Moldavia, or from following a few fragmentery lines of writing which suggests that some Dacians might have fled there after Roman defeat

(4) Nor, do I suppose that the Carpi were Slavs. Even if they spoke a language (eg a precursor, or relative) like Slavic, the Slavs first appear as a defined ethno-political group in the 6th century, so they could not have been Slavic either ! I think Era's efforts on the Carpi (and Andrei's maps) are commendable, and are not fringe - becuase if one looks at things fairly, all theories about them are FRINGE given the lack of any solid evidence !

(5) The only thing we do know is that they occasionaly raided Rome, and they lived in huts, used pottery and certain fibulae similar to other groups in the Moldavia & Ukraine region in Late Roman times. Hardly surprising

Hxseek (talk) 03:55, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi,


 * I decided to mark the Dacians as Uncertain on my map, but what do you think about classifying the Venedi and Aestii as Balto-Slavic? Daizus suggested to mark them too as Uncertain.


 * Andrei (talk) 16:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Say that to Daizus! Look at what he's doing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesti#Historical_sources (see the map description modified by him) and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vistula_Veneti#Inconsistent_map

I think he believes I'm on a crusade against Romania because I made the Daci Balto-Slavic and the Carpi and Costoboci as of Uncertain origin and now he's trying to discredit my map everywhere on Wikipedia. Also take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#File:Roman_Empire_125.png

Cheers, Andrei (talk) 11:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Stop lying, Andrei. I never said anything of you making the Costoboci or any other group uncertain, I actually encouraged you to do that. I only have issues with your Balto-Slavic theory (and actually most linguistic affiliations on your map in Eastern Europe). Daizus (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * About Jordanes' myth of Veneti as Slavs: . Leaving your map aside, that article has other serious problems by following Gołąb's narrative on early Slavs but ignoring more recent others such as Curta's. Daizus (talk) 14:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Notice
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Daizus, I'm deeply sorry I had to involve you in this dispute regarding the Wiki project Dacia. My issue is with Codrin, his Dacomanic beliefs and how he's running the wiki-project, not with you. I would be more than happy to see you head this project instead of the Dacian-biased Codrin. I appologize if you ever felt insulted in any way by me and I retract everything I said about you being paid by some organization.

Andrei (talk) 15:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

bbb

Notice
4 reverts? You really ought to know better by now. Reported here. Athenean (talk) 18:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

January 2011
You have been blocked from editing for a period of 72 hours for edit warring, as you did at Ancient Macedonians. Once the block has expired, you're welcome to make useful contributions. If you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the text, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   19:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC) During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection.

Discretionary sanctions
In accordance with WP:ARBMAC, I am hereby banning you from reverting any edit for any reason (with the sole exception of blatant vandalism) on Ancient Macedonians (0RR) and restricting you to one revert per article per 24 hour period on all other articles within the scope of the case. This restriction is in place indefinitely.

You may appeal this restriction to the relevant noticeboard, currently WP:AE, or to the Arbitration Committee. Violations of this restrictions will lead to blocks of increasing duration, up to the maximum one year allowed under the case. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   20:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Hxseek (talk) 01:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * First offence, you say? You can't challenge the discretionary sanctions in an unblock request. As I said above, you have to go through AE or ArbCom. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   01:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You only need on unblock up at a time. You can either wait until the block expires and go to WP:AE to appeal or you can email ArbCom at arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org, but it's not really affecting you at the minute—you can't reevert while you're blocked anyway. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You only need on unblock up at a time. You can either wait until the block expires and go to WP:AE to appeal or you can email ArbCom at arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org, but it's not really affecting you at the minute—you can't reevert while you're blocked anyway. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Slavic tribes map
Hxseek I started the article about the Sagudates and I'll continue by starting one regarding the Velegesites, which lived in Magnesia Prefecture i.e east of their region on your map about the Slavic tribes, so could you move them?.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 22:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There is much more available information about the Belegezites.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 19:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

The block
I am sorry that you had a block on that. I don't think that you deserve it. Anyway I came here for this

Your appeal
I have undone the changes you made to your appeal statement on WP:AE. Per WP:REDACT, you should not change statements to which others have responded. If you want to change your statement, please use strikethrough or placeholders, as recommended at WP:REDACT.  Sandstein  12:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Maps
I know that you have the capacity to hold yourself and I think that this ban will finish in three months,(hopefully:)) Returning to serious things, browsing through the books I see that black and white background representing only seashores lakes and rivers, is the preferred format for historical maps. Do you know where can we find such maps for similar purposes here in wiki? Regards Aigest (talk) 09:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah I was aware that you couldn't revert more than once except for vandalism(?), but knowing the area problematics to me it looked more like a ban:). Anyway now it is past and gone. Returning to populations origin I have a pdf version of Cambridge 1982 (THE CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY SECOND EDITION VOLUME III PART I The Prehistory of the Balkans; and the Middle East and the Aegean world,tenth to eighth centuries B.C.) if you are interested in that. Although I see there that Hammond (CHAPTER 15 ILLYRIS, EPIRUS AND MACEDONIA IN THE EARLY IRON AGE) does makes some unexpected jumps(?), as far as I saw the Macedonia, Epirus and South Illyrian basin (including Dardani area) had similar archaeological background. He conjectures a Brygi ruling class in Area which later left for Asia.(!) I am aware of the fact that in the last 30 years there is a new way of dealing with ethnicity in archeology but I think it is still worth a reading. If you are interested I can send you this chapter or all the book (although it is 74Mb so probably it should be chopped down) I have also THE CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY VOLUME II PART 2 (HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE AEGEAN REGION c. 1380-1000 B.C.) if you are interested on that. You said something about a book and the concept of ethnicity of Epirotes. Which book do you refer? As for the maps on Illyrians (also for every ancient Balkan population) I think that should be several of them each covering a certain period. There were too many population movements in that area, resulting in overlapping that's for sure. Regards Aigest (talk) 10:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah I agree with your opinion, I was more interested in the archaeological maps and findings in that book. Linguistic can help up to a certain point but given the scarcity of data everything is more a conjecture than real science and we also have to keep in mind that even linguistic methods and theories have changed with time. What was supposed to be called a sure thing 50 years ago from indo-europeanists now looks obsolete and full of mistakes. Aigest (talk) 11:27, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonian language
See also:
 * Anna Panayotou, "The position of the Macedonian dialect" in A. F. Christidis (ed.),  A History of Ancient Greek From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity (2007), p. 433-443 (Google Books; if there's any page you can't view, just mail me)
 * Miltiades Hatzopoulos, "The speech of the ancient Macedonians, in the light of recent epigraphic discoveries" (1999) (Macedonia-Evidence.org version, I know this is no RS, but apparently this a re-published paper; more checks are in order though: The Sixth International Symposium on Ancient Macedonia was apparently held in 1996, but the Proceedings were published in 1999, so Hatzopoulos could have updated his paper)
 * Miltiades Hatzopoulos, "‘L’histoire par les noms’ in Macedonia" in Elaine Matthews and Simon Hornblower (eds.) Greek Personal Names. Their value as evidence. (2000), p. 99-117 (Google Books; if you can't read all pages, mail me)

I don't have anything by Claude Brixhe about his "Brygian hypothesis" - but I have a nice volume by him on Phonétique et phonologie du grec ancien (1996).

It should be noted that all these scholars agree Macedonian speech was a Greek dialect in historical times but they all mention substratum as a possible/probable element in Macedonian, at least for the famous b, d and g. The details however are under debate - was it a influence in northern Thessaly/southern Macedonia (as Hatzopoulos argued), or was it a influence mainly in Macedonia (Brixhe and Panayotou)? Daizus (talk) 14:18, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what's the difference between I and II, but if II is thought something like a pidgin or a creole language, then I must say the little evidence we have rather supports version I - the language written in Macedonia in historical times is dialectal Greek. It's a "barbarized" (i.e. regional) Greek, not a "Hellenized non-Greek". And of course, some of the regional features of that dialect are due to neighbouring or assimilated non-Greek tribes. Let's just think that most of Thrace, Asia Minor, but also the socities of the remote Greek colonies and their hinterlands (e.g. in Crimea or in southern France) eventually learned and used Greek. Sure, as Macedon was expanding over Axios and Strymon, the conquered Paeonian and Thracian tribes did not switch suddenly to Greek, and perhaps for generations they maintained also other forms of speech (their own native language, pidgins, and so on). A more useful exercise is to search for non-Greek words in Greek, as some of them might be borrowed from these northern tribes. This may be the case of συρ- words (apparently built over a basic meaning of "tube, pipe"): σῦριγξ, συρίζω, συριστής etc. Daizus (talk) 10:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * On σῦρ- see also John A. C. Greppin's "The Etymology of Gr. σῦριγξ" in Historische Sprachforschung 103 (1990): 35-37, accepting the non-Greek origin of the word, but pointing out to Anatolian influences (see also about zurna here) Daizus (talk) 10:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

There's more about ancient Greek and Latin -based pidgins and creoles. A great reading is James Noel Adams' Bilingualism and the Latin language (2003), see chapter 1.IX "Pidgins and 'reduced' languages", pag. 93-106. Sometimes it is hard to separate a real creole from the imperfect second language aquisition, but the history of European colonialism shows convincingly that such forms of speech are likely to occur at the contact between the dominant languages and the indigenous languages, even though they may be more or less volatile. Mirena Slavova in "Inscriptions on Edonian coins (Kadmos 47/2008: 177-190) noticed a "Thracian genitive", which may hypothetically be associated to (low) varieties of Greek spoken in Thrace and Macedonia, having at least a simpler grammar.

I am not sure if the concept of dialect continuum is useful throughout the Balkans in 1st millenium BC. For example if we would have less language data from Thrace, we could suspect Thracians spoke a Greek dialect (relying on epichoric names which 'translate' the Greek ones, such as Diuzenus/Diuzenis for Diogenes; to be sure in this case *zen- might reflect a Thracian/satəm word, for other satəm evolutions see Albanian dhen < *dzen and the entry in Pokorny). But we have inscriptions we can't decipher with our knowledge of Greek. To be sure Phrygian looks a lot more like Greek than Thracian. Daizus (talk) 15:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I mailed you the two chapters via a RapidShare link. Let me know if you got them.


 * Think of Venice and Frankfurt, Sofia and Athens, Paris and Amsterdam, Helsinki and Stockholm. The vernaculars are too different to imagine a continuum for each case. I'd rather buy a dialect continuum between Greek and Phrygian (but I doubt there was one in the second half of the 1st millenium BC), sharing not only vocabulary, but also grammar. Check these two inscriptions. The 'bad' Greek of the Edonian coin inscriptions rather points out to language contact: a mixture of Greek and non-Greek idioms. If the non-Greek idioms were mostly Thracian, then they were quite different from the Greek ones, as the almost contemporary inscriptions from Kjolmen and Ezerovo prove.
 * On Myceneaen, I think it's widely accepted that most Greek dialects do not descend from Myceneaen, which means there were other Greek dialects (unrecorded in writing) which were spoken in Bronze Age Aegean. Their geographic distribution is simply unknown. Daizus (talk) 09:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Jan Paul Crielaard, "The Ionians in the Archaic period. Shifting identities in a changing world" in Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (eds.), Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity. The role of power and tradition. (2009): 37-84. Check out this passage (p. 45-6) on the languages spoken in another periphery of the Greek world: the Ionian coast in the first half of 1st millenium BC.
 * ‘Tongue differs from tongue among the men from many lands,’ Homer says in the Iliad about Troia’s Anatolian allies. Indeed, a variety of non-Greek peoples living in the interior of Asia Minor and in some coastal areas spoke Karian, Lydian, Phrygian and Lykian. Lydian and Lykian descended from the Indo-European ‘Anatolian’ languages of the Bronze Age and this is probably also true for the language of the Karians, although for Homer their speech was barbarophonos. Although compared to the above dialectal differences, the linguistic boundaries between Greek and non-Greek speaking populations will have been more solid, they were certainly not impermeable. A first indication of this is the use of script. From the 8th century onwards the Greek and non-Greek speaking populations of western Anatolia developed a writing system that was closely interrelated (the so-called ‘Greek’ alphabet). But there are more compelling indications to think that linguistic differences did not create ‘hard’ ethnic borderlines. Smyrna, for example, has yielded epigraphic evidence to suggest that during the 8th century and later, Karian and Lydian were used next to Greek, which could indicate that it accommodated a multilingual population on a temporal or permanent basis. Also the satiric poetry of Hipponax, who lived in Ephesos and Klazomenai during the late 6th century, shows that the poet and – presumably – his audience had quite a firm grasp of Lydian and even Phrygian. The many loanwords create the impression that the demotic vernacular current in the East Greek cities was not pure Greek. Hipponax’ poetry, combined with evidence from the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, even suggest that bilingualism may not have been uncommon in western Asia Minor.
 * Herodotos tells us that among the East Ionians four regional sub-dialects (charaktēres glōssēs) could be distinguished, but he fails to specify on what these differences were based. Although phonological differences are not very obvious in the epigraphic corpus, it is possible that the extant inscriptions render official Ionian, whereas dialectal variation would have been used in colloquial speech. There are indications that the sub-dialects Herodotos alludes to were tinged with a flavour of Karian, Lydian and Aiolian, respectively. Analysis of the available linguistic evidence leads one modern scholar to the conclusion that a ‘Western Anatolian Sprachbund’ existed among a number of cities in Ionia and Lydia. Daizus (talk) 14:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I think Pavel Serafimov's reading is dubious to say the least. I know two notes on that inscription I find somewhat methodic and thus the suggestions verosimile: Keith Andrew Massey's and Sorin Olteanu's. I don't agree with Massey's "Italic substratum", but with the fact that the sequence EA occurs 5 times in this short inscription, thus Thracian shows a long open vowel (which in Greek was rendered by A or E, see for example the Thracian name Σεύθης, Σεύθας). Many of the scholars reading this inscription started with Ρολιστενεας, a name. -στενεας is thus an epichoric (Thracian) variety of Greek -σθενης (as in Δημοσθένης, Καλλισθένης, etc) Daizus (talk) 11:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Maps
I've noticed your contibution on drawing maps and in fact a number of them are really good pieces. I've examined your recent half finished map about some Illyrian tribes and I believe we can create something very good by taking into account a number of sources. Just uploaded a similar version [] based on yours, which needs further work (some rough boundary lines might be also a good idea).Alexikoua (talk) 21:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I2a2a
Hi, Словенски Вълк! What do you think about this hypothesis? I2a2a-M423, or the so called Dinaric marker is the second Slavic marker alongside with R1a1a7? Ken Nordtvedt has split I2a2-M423 into Din-N and Din-S. Din-N is older than Din-S. N=north of the Danube and S=south of the Danube River. This I2a2-Dinaric subclade is defined by SNP M423. M423 was discovered in 2007 by Underhill, et al. M423 is downstream from SNP P37.2. The SNP M423 occurred before both of the branch lines to I2a1-Isles and I2a2-Dinaric separated. This was probably 10,000 years ago. The Dinaric founder was probably Din-N, i.e. he lived north of the Danube basin. The age of I2a2-Dinaric was estimated at 3600 years, then adjusted to 2550 years, now TMRCA ages are being recomputed. I2a2a is nearly absent in the old Greek colonies in the Mediterranean area, as well as in Southern and Central Italy and in Albania and Greece. This is probably a sign of a late migration (early Middle Ages) of this people from the area north of the Carpatians. My conclusion is that during the Antiquity this people did not live south of the Danube. The high concentration of I2a2 in north-east Romania, Moldova and central Ukraine reminds of the maximum spread of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. This could mean that the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture was a native European group of hunter-gatherers who adopted Farming after coming in contact with the Levantine farmers who settled in the Balkans (haplogroups E-V13 and J2b). How abouth this idea? Regards! Jingby (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

...Phylogenetic reconstructions show that Slovakia/Western Ukraine (more precise area is the region of Carpathian mountains and perhaps even region of the former "Great Moravia") is likely to be the place, where the "original population of I2a2-Din" lived prior to the Balkan migration... Check here: Family Tree DNA Y-Haplogroup I2a Project results. Jingby (talk) 18:00, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Being still pagans, the Slavs did not have their own letters, but read and communicated by means of tallies and sketches. After their baptism they were forced to use Roman and Greek letters in the transcription of their Slavic words but these were not suitable ... At last, God, in his love for mankind, sent them St. Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, a learned and upright man, who composed for them thirty-eight letters, some (24 of them) similar to the Greek, but some (14 of them) different, suitable to express Slavic sounds. Excerpt from An Account of Letters from Чрьноризьць Храбръ - Bulgarian monk, scholar and writer, who worked at the Preslav Literary School at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century. Curta is biased Romanian Slavophobe. 11:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a Ken's opinion. The citation above is a prove about the Slavic settlement on the Balkans. Jingby (talk) 12:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

The book of Curta was translated in Bulgarian in 2010 and I have it at home, but his view is very biased. By the way, all today Romanians and Moldovians used as administrative and church language Church Slavonic untill the beginning of 19th century. Here you can check it: Slavic superstratum in Romanian. Jingby (talk) 15:53, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah! Exactly. Jingby (talk) 17:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Both markers are in higher degree Slavic: R1a1a7a and I2a2a. Other mutations in R1a and I2a aren't probably Slavic and could by associated with other migrations. Especially for I2a2a there a three corelations: time of migration, place of origin and language. Regs. Jingby (talk) 05:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

What about this map showing different archeological cultures and their correlation with the Slavic migrations and haplotypes movements? Jingby (talk) 05:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

On your questions:

Who is Vasil Goldsmith ? I don't know.

Do you account why I2 is so high in Dalmatia, behind the Dinaric mountains?

Haplogroup I2a2a is commonly found in a high concentration in north-east Romania, Moldova and western Ukraine. According to Nordtvedt I2a2a arose 2500 years ago in Eastern Europe. Around 300 CE it has split into two clades - N (northern) and S (southern). N is older than S and arose north of the Danube River. In 2010 Nordtvedt suppoused that I2a2a is a result of a sudden expansion on the Balkans. He has presumed it was the Slavic expansion from the area north-east of the Carpathians since 500 CE. The Kiev culture, flourished from the 2nd–5th centuries on the territory of modern Ukraine, when it was overrun by the Huns. After Attila's death, his son Ellac became king of the Huns. However, at the Battle of Nedao in 454 he was defeated. This defeat and Ellac's death ended the European supremacy of the Huns. With the power vacuum created with the end of the Hunnic rule, Slavic tribes, possibly emerging from the remnants of the Kiev culture, began to expand over much of the territory that is now Ukraine during the 5th century, and beyond to the Balkans from the 6th century. At that time this place (today Dalmatia) was behind the borders of the Byzantine Empire and the Dinaric Alps in the east, behind the Danube and the Alps in the north, behind the Adriatic sea in the west and behind the massive mountainous area in the south, i.e. that was the most secure, free and naturally protected place on the Balkans. Look at the the map. Jingby (talk)

I have found a very interesting discussion here:. 07:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Вълчо, what aboth this maps: It seems that both R1a1a-M198 and I2a-P37 have a major barrier eastward in the Don river.Genes and Languages in the Caucasus UPDATE III. Jingby (talk) 12:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

genetics and stuff
Well, I have mainly just been keeping eye on Y DNA related subjects. Progress in this area is slow and steady. Some new structure to E1b1b was recently found for example which shows that E-M78 and E-M81 sit within slightly larger older families (E-V68 and E-V257) that still exist today, and are both present in parts of southern Europe. Concerning the tricky question of ethnic groups, I think the big change is coming from more and better autosomal DNA studies. I think these are starting to also give less "fairy tale" like conclusions and that is steadily going to make discussions less silly - hopefully. I think from a Wikipedia point of view these are starting to influence articles slowly but surely and do not seem to be creating too much silliness.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you mean Kenneth Nordtvedt. If you check his Wikipedia article you can see that he is not your average hobbyist. He has become the expert on I haplogroups, but concerning geographical origins I think his ideas are typically best described as "brain storming" and designed to get debate going rather than something he would want to publish. I have not been following this discussion you mention though. You could consider just mailing him, as he is generally quite approachable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No I think that would be beyond the bounds of what would be generally accepted because his most recognized expertise was not in genetics.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

"cradle" sentence in Kosovo
In this edit you were simplifying a sentence. But your new text makes a statement that is not supported by the sources. Indeed, four of the sources only say that Serbs believe that it's the cradle, and the remaining source directly say the opposite of your new text (that Kosovo is not the cradle, in spite of what Serbs might believe). (I'm citing the sources from memory, since I wrote that bit of text)

Please take care not to misrepresent accidentally the sources when rewriting sentences. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * 

page 243: "(...) so toward the end of the nineteenth century Serbs from the kingdom longed for the Old Serbia, which they perceived as their cradle.


 * The path of Serbian expansion toward its historical heart (Kosovo and Metohija, the Novi Pazar region, and Northern Macedonia) (...)


 * Also, from page xxiii, "A significant part of present-day Serbia including Kosovo and Metohija as far as Mt. Sar, the natural barrier in the south, came under Serbian rule even before the fall of Byzantium in 1204." I understand that the Serbs existed before conquering Kosovo.


 * Your source only says that Serbs perceive Kosovo as the cradle. For its historical heart, it lists other regions in addition to Kosovo. And there is a source directly saying that it's not the actual cradle. Again, you can't source an statement to a source that says the opposite.


 * Fix your edit to solve these problems, or give me permission to fix them. (P.D.: Maybe it would be enough to change "enshrined" to "enshrined by Serbs". Otherwise, it looks like it has been enshrined by historians in general. Maybe something like "due to its central location in Old Serbia, it was enshrined by Serbs"?) --Enric Naval (talk) 15:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, please do. I don't have as much time to edit wikipedia as before, and I'm trying to edit other articles, so I don't have the time to make all the corrections that I would like to do. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

New Study?
Hi, I've found this very interesting article. Can you take a look and tell me what you think of it? Bests Aigest (talk) 15:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was aware of its date, but honestly it was new to me:). I was reading this guy actually and he renewed my interest on the topic. How about the hypothesis that the Romanians are the descendants of Romanised ( either Illyrians, Thracians or Macedonians) autocthonous populations south of Danube which migrated North later. Maybe they are not connected to Dacians at all (exaggerating but you get the point this exaggeration). As far as I know from linguistics, this Dunay is right when he is speaking for an area in Macedonia regarding this Ballkan linguistics. Other authors have pointed out Ohrid as the center of this Balkan common linguistics and its not a case that Albanians, Vlachs, Bulgarians and Greeks are recorded alltogether in that area around 11th century AD. What do you think? Aigest (talk) 22:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'd say that as far as I can see we can not say for that the Albanians would not have been an identifiable group in Roman times. I think we just don't know.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. What got my intention in this study was this statement "A high share of the Anatolian/southern Balkan stratum in the male pool of the southern Romanians and as a consequence their close genetic affinity with the autochthonous Balkan populations testify to a significant gene flow from the southern/central Balkans and thus support the migration concept of the origin of the Romanians". Following this argument my interpretation was that if protoAlbanian populations migrated in Adriatic area from North Black Sea area in the same time (10th century AD) when Romanians (supposedly) migrated in Romania, there should have been some affinities with the current populations of North Black Sea area, just like the case of Romanians above. Am I right? Aigest (talk) 08:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Replying to SV: I still think we don't know. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. And ethnic groups can supposedly be that old, like the Greeks say they are. Of course they change enormously and can even change names, and this raises many questions about ethnicity to begin with, but that's the nature of the ethnicity beast.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:43, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Ahem
Your latest edit in Ancient Macedonians is a revert and hence a violation of your revert restriction. Please self-revert and take it to the talkpage. Otherwise I will be forced to request arbitration enforcement. Athenean (talk) 21:28, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

File:IAIllyria.svg
Hi, your file File:IAIllyria.svg isn't working because you included an internal bitmap layer but didn't properly embed it. It's just a link to a separate file on your own computer, which the Mediawiki software now obviously can't find. In Inkscape, you need to use the "embed images" function, which is found somewhere under "extensions". Btw, did you see File:Yugoslavia topographic base map.svg? Not sure if that would also serve as a good basis for what you were trying to do. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Good job
Heya SV,

Just wanted to stop by and say, good job on the Culture section of Ancient Macedonians. I know we have had our disagreements in the past, but this time I think you rose above and beyong and did an excellent job, and I wanted to express my appreciation of your work. Cheers, Athenean (talk) 01:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Mycenean dialects map
Nice idea, but see my concerns on the talkpage. Athenean (talk) 21:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Language and Genetics
Hi, could you please give an opinion here? Bests Aigest (talk) 09:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Centum-Satem division
I don't think Centum or Satem character should be used as arguments for the age of languages supposedly Indian and Armenian split early from PIE, though they are called Satem nowadays. To be honest I am not sure about this Satem-Centum division in IE languages. Armenian is as old as Greek in those studies, meaning it was detached from other PIE pretty much in the same time as Greek speakers. Many studies today due to their similarities put them in a bigger group called Greko-Armenian. Nowadays Armenian is Satem while Greek is Centum. I am not sure when this Satemisation process happened. Regarding Albanian language, apart from the controversies regarding its velars and Satem character of the language according to Albanologists "in Albanian the assibilation of the palatal stops was very late, in part not before the middle ages". So this "Satemisation spread"; when did this process happened, how much did it last and where did it reach the location of nowadays "Satem type" languages are good questions. It is curious that if we were to apply the nowadays Centum-Satem division criteria, in the period right before Middle Ages, Albanian should have been classified as Centum type language. That is a very interesting fact and difficult to explain by simplistic Centum-Satem division. In fact many linguists today don't rely very much in this kind of arguments as Renfrew noted in 1990 (p.66). Aigest (talk) 08:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I forgot to add that I've read a lot about these mathematical methods. I think they are interesting enough, although not mainstream. Anyway here another result. From what I've read the position of Albanian with PIE tree varies because many IE words are lost in its vocabulary, however, the results in most of these methods either put the distance of its split from PIE in the same time with Greek and Armenian, either before Greek and Armenian. In general they agree on an early split of Albanian from other languages. What is to be noted is that Albanian does not have much connections with Indian, meaning an early split of these languages. Greek and Armenian on the other hand are grouped together most of the time, meaning they detached from PIE in the same time. These questions have no answers yet. Anyhow I don't see how these data could fit in Gimbuta's theory. An eg If it was a Dorian invasion from the north, were Dorians (1000 BC) some non Greek speaking tribe who was later assimilated? Because Greek is attested in Mycenae in 1500 BC and supposedly Dorians during those times were in contact with other IE speaking populations in the North, hence no split. Aigest (talk) 10:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with you regarding Neolithic in Balkans, however I want to point out that you should have more faith in mathematic:) The methods used there try to give solutions for those type of questions you have stated an eg would be the variability of change. Linguists can not have an answer for that just guesses, the same do mathematicians, but their method is more scientific when it comes to probabilities. The same methods you see on those links (but there are others more) have been applied to biology specially in genetics where you have the same problems as in linguistic; you don't know how will they interact with each other or the rate of their diversification, mutation etc. but you can calculate them based on possibilities. Returning to linguistics it depends more in the database you use and criteria you put. Let's say that those calculations are another alternative method. In the end none knows exactly what the "supposed-guessed-probable" PIE sounded like. Probabilities for probabilities at least those guys know more mathematic:). Regarding the "satemisation process" I remain of the idea that that parameter can not be used for that type of conclusion. Take a look at Graeco-Aryan hypothesis (2500 BC), which a lot of linguistic support. Indian and Greek were separated from PIE at the same time, however Indian is Satem while Greek is Centum. They have the same "old age" but they are different. There is also the odd case of Albanian which was Satemized (alghough not completely) very late, I mean Middle Ages (look above) is quite close enough to nowadays in history. The same can be said about the strange character of Armenian (most scholars give for Armenian the same separation date as of Greek and many support a Greko-Armenian group). According to linguistic data satemization supposedly it didn't reached the Albanian language till Middle Ages (some old Albanian dialects still show centum type data) and even nowadays Albanian is a weird sister of Satem languages (some even doubt that classification, claiming that Albanian shows features from both types so it can not be classified) 1, 2. Moreover on Satem-Centum see Fortson 2009 "For a long time it was thought that the distinction between centum and satem languages reflected an old dialectal division within I, particularly since the two groups appeared not to overlap geographically; the Centum branches (Greek, Italic, Celtic, Germanic) are most westerley than most Satem branches (Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic; exceptional is Albanian if satem but see $19.9 However a closer look at the material and some recent discoveries complicate things.... In three satem branches or subbraches, there is evidence that the plain velars and labiovelars were stil distinct in some enviroments well into their late prehistories, meaning the eventual merger was a separate development in each: Indic, Armenian and especially Albanian. In a fourth, Balto-Slavic many words actually show centum developments. It is therefore more likely that each branch became centum or satem independently. although this view adds complications of its own." link. So that Centum-Satem argumentation is something outdated (since 80s) and wrong probably Aigest (talk) 14:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Language Spread
Interesting article here. I think the guy is right about speaker numbers. While here there is something interesting on phylogenetics Aigest (talk) 10:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, if you read Bellwood article you will realize that the examples brought by you can not support kurgan hypothesis. Roman Empire? Ok let's see. Organized state with bureaucracy and administrative apparatus (laws, contracts etc). How were these regions Romanised? Apart from State apparatus you had entire legions stationed in those areas. Those legion stations lasted for centuries and Latin speaking Roman soldiers later were given lands on those territories. Many of actual cities in Romance speaking countries actually descend from those legion stations where in the beginning small centers were created furnishing the legions with goods and later increasing in big cities. In fact these pattern can be seen throughout Europe except in England when Roman presence was not in sufficient number to defeat the barbarians. In fact England was not Romanised although southern cities may have been Romanised and quickly after the fall of Roman state apparatus these roman speaking communities were absorbed in the great mass of barbarians. You should also remember that even in the Balkans where Roman Empire lasted longer than in Europe, there were still Illyrian and Thracian speaking people (that mechanism is explained by Bellwood too) but they vanished when Slav tribes arrived in big numbers. British Empire case is somewhat similar, State apparatus and big numbers. In those places like USA Australia where there was a big influx of migrations you could see the results. This is not the case for India where Aborigine population was bigger than intruders and nowadays speak Indian not English as their primary English. You have also the case of Alexander the Great Empire. No sign of Greek remained in those areas, or also the cases of Greek colonies in foreign territories. They were small in numbers hence no Greek speaking areas outside Greece itself. But you have to remind also that in Neolithic and Bronze age there were no state apparatus and no assimilation policies, such as later cases. As Bellwood points out in the above linked article:


 * ''Over twenty years ago, historian Alfred W. Crosby (1986) pointed out how intensive European colonization in temperate locations with few indigenous inhabitants – Argentina, Uruguay, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia – led to the establishment of what he termed “Neo-Europes”. Over 50 million European emigrants between 1820 and 1930 founded predominantly European populations speaking European languages (Spanish or English in most of the above cases). European-introduced epidemic diseases with their “devastating scythe-like effects”, their domesticated crops and animals, tough weeds, and high levels of human population fecundity in new-found fertile lands led to a tragedy for the indigenous populations of absolutely unparalleled proportions.....European nations were unable to colonise very successfully in the Old World tropics, and once their empires had decayed, their languages faded from memory. Try speaking Dutch in Indonesia, French in Vietnam, or even English in many parts of India today. As Crosby (1986: 63) rather amusingly commented on the attempts of the Crusaders to conquer the Holy Land: “the conquerors, taken collectively, were like a lump of sugar presiding in a hot cup of tea.” In densely settled and culturally complex tropical regions, the boot was on the other foot. Here, the diseases hit the Europeans, not vice versa. European temperate crops would not produce well-filled ears of grain, pests abounded, and in most cases the European languages existed as little more than superficial lingua francas. It is true that some nations blessed with immense linguistic diversity have decided to adopt a European language as a national language since World War II, but even in cases such as Papua New Guinea, with English and Motu as parliamentary languages, we must ask if the total population will one day speak only English, having abandoned all its native vernaculars? I doubt it, just as I doubt that the total population of India, where only an educated elite that comprises 2-3% of the total population is able to use English fluently (Britto 2003), will one day speak English and no other language. The conclusion that can be drawn from the above is that single languages, when introduced into new territories, will normally only take hold on a permanent basis, as whole-population vernaculars, if they are imported in the mouths of substantial numbers of their native speakers. Native populations might undergo language shift, but only if the number of incoming speakers of the target language is sufficient to impose the required network of bilingualism for the shift to occur, or if they bring in potent diseases, as in Australasia and the New World, giving them the requisite demographic edge eventually to impose their language on the native population.''


 * He also points out that "Nicholas Ostler (2005) examines the history (or, in his words, the diachronic sociolinguistics) of the written languages of the world, from Egyptian and Akkadian of 2500 BC onwards to recent times. His conclusions, after 577 pages of detailed case studies, are that the languages of imperial administrations, and trader lingua francas, did not survive for very long after the systems that nourished them went into decline, unless there were implantations of very large numbers of native speakers of the imported languages concerned, or only a low density of aboriginal populations. As he observes (2005:275): The cases where serious language change failed to follow on from conquests expose the hollowness of much military glory – the conquests in western Europe by Franks, Vandals and Visigoths, even the conquests in Britain by Romans and Normans. The examples of long term indigenous linguistic continuity that Ostler discusses underpin huge portions of world history in their own right. He discusses the rather timid spreads of a number of conquest-spread languages, including Ancient Egyptian outside Egypt, Aramaic (Persian Empire), Greek in Asia, Latin beyond the Romancespeaking areas (where there was substantial colonization by Latin speakers, since land was granted to Latin-speaking veterans), Germanic languages across post-Roman continental Europe, Arabic, Mongol (Genghis Khan spread lots of genes, but rather little linguistic heritage!), Norman French, and many more. Most of these examples fit the above quotation like a glove. Military conquest occurred, as history makes clear in no uncertain terms, but language spread only occurred, in general, in rough proportion to the degree of permanent population movement into the conquered areas."


 * The only grow in population numbers in Europe was during Neolithic. In Bronze age we don't see any sign of extermination of local population and IMO it is very extreme view to expect a language shift in a huge territory from Russia to Portugal. Why should Neolithic population which was in much more greater numbers than a supposed Kurgan populations, shift to the language of some herders? If we compare food collection possibilities and area, we see that Neolithic originated populations had both advantages They were extended over a vast territory (whole Europe vs part of Ukraine) and were more numerous per km/square than the supposed incoming IE populations. Were the incoming population an elite? Did they impose their language through rule? Well, no signs of that. First they had no superstructure (I mean state-like organization) to impose that and secondly; Bulgar and Norman case of elite dominance are clear examples that if numbers are not sufficient enough the elite shift the language to the aboriginal population and not vice-versa. Aigest (talk) 10:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * P.S. I read the article of Ringe and it poses the same basic idea of those who support an earlier movement of IE in Neolithic. You can not have a language shift without sufficient numbers. This is what Bellwood says too. Ironically all agree that the supposed newcomers were lesser in numbers than the existing populations in Euroasia hence the mechanism proposed by Ringe (and all classical IE linguists btw) which I find unconvincing for the reasons explained by Bellwood and others. Migrants who became ruling class in all Euroasia form Portugal to India and forced the local population to change their native language!! Unless they were some very advanced UFO with laser pistols proclaiming themselves Gods:)) I think that is very far fetched explanation. Aigest (talk) 11:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that we can not apply later models to older ones if the conditions are not the same. eg you mentioned Epirotes (I might add Macedonians also:)), while they were called barbarians up to 4th century BC (supposedly) they were latter Hellenised. IMO this can not be taken as an example for the case with IE tribes. Please notice that the process of Hellenisation began in those populations with the rise of political states and related structures. Kings who in need of legitimation of their power invented heroic genealogies, went for studies in Greece, acquired their script and language etc etc. Before this "state entities" were created they were considered (and archaeology proves this) non Greeks. Accordingly, this process is related with the state structure, as you can see that they were for supposedly 1000 years close to greeks but these tribes didn't change their language, while they did it in the moment they created their own states (Hence earlier writers call them barbarians up to 4th century when their states began to emerge while the later historians call them greeks). Since this is not the case of political organization of Early IE tribes and the supposed non IE speaking population during this "Kurgan Invasion" the above mentioned examples do not fit the conditions for a comparison. A better comparison is at "Diversity vs. Uniformity: Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages – A comparison with prehistoric Australia" by Robert Mailhammer but the genetic studies he mentioned are contradicted by later ones such as "A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages"  Balaresque et al 2010 here citing "Previous observations of the east–west clinal distribution of the common Western European hgR1b1b2 (or its equivalent) [7],[8] considered it to be part of a Paleolithic substrate into which farmers from the Near East had diffused. Later analyses have also considered variance, and have conformed to the Paleolithic explanation [14],[15]. Here, we concur that the cline results from demic diffusion, but our evidence supports a different interpretation: that R1b1b2 was carried as a rapidly expanding lineage from the Near East via Anatolia to the western fringe of Europe during the Neolithic......Our interpretation of the history of hgR1b1b2 now makes Europe a prime example of how expansion of a Y-chromosomal lineage tends to accompany technological and cultural change. Other lineages also show evidence of European Neolithic expansion, hgE1b1b1 (E-M35) and hgJ, in particular [12]. Indeed, hgI is the only major lineage for which a Paleolithic origin is generally accepted, but it comprises only 18% of European Y chromosomes [13]. The Basques contain only 8%–20% of this lineage, but 75%–87% hgR1b1b2 (Table S1); our findings therefore challenge their traditional “Mesolithic relict” status, and in particular, their use as a proxy for a Paleolithic parental population in admixture modelling of European Y-chromosomal prehistory". What we see now is that only 18% of European Y-chromosomes are from Paleolithic and the rest of the Y-lines are generated in Anatolia and entered Europe in Neolithic. Neolithic Demic diffusion and Renfrew hypothesis certainly has gained a boost by this study. Please note that one of the arguments of the above Mailhammer was that "As indicated in sections 2 and 3 above, the genetic and archaeological data do not support a massive influx of genetically different people after the Palaeolithic period, despite some noticeable migration in the Neolithic..... In addition, as pointed out in 2.3 above, the demic impact of the Neolithic newcomers was all but negligible, which may indicate that they lacked the power necessary to turn the exiting toponymy upside down." Actually he is wrong on that (at least in numbers). Neolithic population which came from Anatolia did was genetically different and did had the numbers for that, citing Balaresque et al 2010 "The relative contributions to modern European populations of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers from the Near East have been intensely debated. Haplogroup R1b1b2 (R-M269) is the commonest European Y-chromosomal lineage, increasing in frequency from east to west, and carried by 110 million European men. Previous studies suggested a Paleolithic origin, but here we show that the geographical distribution of its microsatellite diversity is best explained by spread from a single source in the Near East via Anatolia during the Neolithic. Taken with evidence on the origins of other haplogroups, this indicates that most European Y chromosomes originate in the Neolithic expansion. This reinterpretation makes Europe a prime example of how technological and cultural change is linked with the expansion of a Y-chromosomal lineage, and the contrast of this pattern with that shown by maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA suggests a unique role for males in the transition." Anyway it is better to wait for other studies, but Renfrew and Bellwood are better supported by archaeology, genetics and phylogenetics (Gray et al etc). Aigest (talk) 09:50, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello to both of you!
 * I've read also the paper by Bellwood and I must say I find it unconvincing. He cherry-picks the data, for instance, can he argue all the Spanish and Portuguese spread in South and Central America was caused by massive waves of "conquerors" from Spain and Portugal, overcoming natives by sheer numbers?
 * He's also demonstrably wrong in some of his assertions, e.g. Greek was widely spread in Anatolia and it survived there until our times. Even if we accept his terminus ante quem 1453, "why did Greek die so quickly?" is a misleading rhetoric: the first Greek colonies on the Anatolian coasts were founded in the first half of 1st millenium BC! He notes that Greek didn't survive in Central Asia, but he fails to explain why Greek survived in so many other regions, along the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, in Anatolia also in regions further away from the coast. "Tongue differs from tongue among the men from many lands" Homer said in Iliad about Trojan allies, and Bellwood doesn't explain how the Anatolian linguistic diversity (IE and non-IE) from 2nd millenium BC disappeared during the 1st millenium BC. Epigraphic and literary evidence suggests that in Anatolian cities like Smyrna, in ~8th-5th century BC, besides Greek, languages like Karyan and Lydian were also used, but such cities eventually became Greek cities. Even the Turkic language shift in Anatolia did not mean a population replacement.
 * He indeed points out that language shift occurs at a smaller scale, but the tribal IE and non-IE speaking communities were relatively small, much like the Papuan, Magyar and other examples he uses. His discussion on scale is confusing, apparently the author makes no difference between a relatively small linguistic spread in - let's say - 2000 BC Europe or Central Asia, and the spread of IE languages today.
 * The proto-languages reconstructed by linguists are quite similar around 2000 BC. The Neolithic IE language spread supported by Bellwood (and Renfrew at al) fails to explain how for four prehistoric millenia the IE languages evolved so little, but in the next four historic millenia the IE languages evolved so much, reaching the diversity known today. This is why most historical linguists argue for PIE splits starting in 3500-4500 BC. It should be pointed out that Peter Bellwood is an archaeologist. Here you can find a discussion on several misconceptions of archaeologists and other non-linguists when it comes to the history of languages and their evolution.
 * Regards, Daizus (talk) 09:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Following a remark by SV below, I also should add that I find the PIE chronologies by Gray, Atkinson et al utterly unconvincing (and to my knowledge many historical linguists were unpersuaded by their arguments).
 * They argue they don't do glottochronology, however they are not doing something entirely different. They assume there's a variable rate of change and they use sophisticated models which eventually assume the changes evolve following certain patterns, deemed as "most likely". However I've seen no proof such mathematical devices work on actual linguistic evolutions.
 * Strangely enough, they didn't validate their methods on known language splits, such as Romance languages evolving out of Latin.
 * Their trees have some weird branches and groupings. In their famous 2003 paper published in Nature, Gray and Atkinson grouped Romanian, Vlach and Ladin(!) in a sub-group, placed Catalan in a "Iberian" subgroup with Spanish and Portuguese and Provençal in a "French" subgroup with French, Walloon and French creoles (and this mistake is repeated in most subsequent papers). Also the suggestion that some of these Romance subgroups started to diverge significantly later is rather absurd. Most Romance languages have the same "age" (dialects evolving from Vulgar Latin varieties), the rates of change were different. Their estimation models (they published few other papers trying to address some criticisms) wrongly interpreted these variations as relatively uniformly distributed time-splits. Moving to other sub-groups, suggesting that Iranic languages started to diverge in ~500 BC is crazy, considering Scythian and Persian must have been different languages by that time, as we know from contemporary inscriptions and literary sources. Some of these errors were corrected in subsequent papers by constraining some tree nodes, changing the estimation methods or even datasets - this doesn't look kosher to me. I'd rather want to see it explained why a particular model fails to predict the time-depth of a certain node or a certain known grouping, and why should we trust the time-depth estimation of the initial PIE split. Daizus (talk) 23:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Of course. You cannot reduce the complexity of human behaviour, thus langaugae change, to a neat mathematical algorithm. It is utterly artificial. That simple Slovenski Volk (talk) 04:04, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but meanwhile genetic and archaeological evidence (see latest Caspian horse dating case in Iran) point to Anatolian. Also most scholars agree that what is one of the main weaknesses of classical Kurgan hypothesis, is the social mechanism of language spreading. Meanwhile the case for Nostratic is getting stronger (linguistically and genetically see West Asian components in North Africa) and that goes in favor of Anatolian hypothesis. An interesting article on a related issue. IE in Euphrat area. We can say that the recent publications in genetics and archeology point to Anatolian hypothesis and if Nostratic gets more linguistic support, than Kurgan hypothesis will remain one of the many theories of the past. Aigest (talk) 09:46, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Genetics and archaeology do not study languages. See Heggarty's paper above with linguistics for dummies, oops, archaeologists :)
 * The so-called Kurgan hypothesis is based on language shift, what's controversial about it? Daizus (talk) 09:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. Arhcaeology and genetics can almost never prove langauge spread (unless the pots themsleves had PIE writing on them!). As Ive always maintained, the three are not in any direct, linear relationship. Aigest, archaeology tells us about social systems - the materials, way of life, social structure, afterlife belief, etc. It cannot directly tell us about what language was being spread or how it spread. Similarly, genetics tell us about population growth. A population can grow after a language has spread, and needn't have any correlation. Archaeological data proves that the Balkan population grew mostly from Neolithic through to Bronze and Iron Age. That is how the current distribution of E3b, I2a2, etc were created. Slovenski Volk (talk) 10:12, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I also agree with you guys on the issue that genetics and archeology do not point to linguistic affiliation. However they tell us the spread of the population and the demographic processes related to them. What genetic and archaeological data tell us is that Anatolian farmers entered Balkan and from that area spread into Europe. I think we all agree on that. Moreover these data tell us that the population in Europe (but not only you have to consider India also) was much larger that some tribes in Kurgan. Not only but even the density of population in Europe and India was much larger than the supposed kurgan population could ever offer. Also Kurgan culture is absent in great part of Europe. Language shift is a mechanism of language spreading, yes, none is denying it. But what were the social processes which made it happen. The Kurgan tribes were not superior in number, did not have an advanced form of organization, neither had a superior culture to existing Europeans, Anatolians, Persians or Indians (I am speaking of geographical locations), so why should these overhelming populations change their language to some so-speaking "barbarians"? Why should the existing population make effort to learn new language? What was the profit for them? Social status? No - they were not more socially organized than the existing population. Cultural superiority? Farmers vs herders, I don't think so. Sheer numbers? Were they in an ocean of other speakers? Numbers don't tell so. Language shift yes, but not in two continents, c'mon, it's not so logical. At least Bellwood has a better mechanism on that issue. Aigest (talk) 10:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * All very valid points. I do not imagine that Europe was Indo-Europeanized by Kurgans; for the effect of this was limited to northern Bulgaria and Hungary, archaeologically speaking. All I can say is that from the Neolithic, Europe was drawn into more and more, closer and closer contact within itself, the Near East, and the steppe. And all the 'hard evidence" that we do have is that, as a terminus ante quam, Mycenaean was spoken in central & southern Greece by 1600 BC, Italic & Celtic by (say) 500 BC, Germanic by 100BC, Slavic by 500 AD, etc. This raises the possibility that millenia of contact could make languages converge into a family. But Bellwood is right in that this doesn;t explain its appearance in Iran and India. Here, we must invoke an invasion scenario Slovenski Volk (talk) 15:04, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Georgiev position
I think there is a widespread misunderstanding of Georgiev position here in wiki. What he actually proposed was that some Dacian tribes moved in the first millenium AD to Illyria and Albanians descend from those tribes (he actually links Illyrian Dalmatia name with Alb. Delm - "sheep" and Illyrian Ulkinon with Alb. Ulk - "wolf" but he thinks these are originally Dacian names preserved in Albanian). Here in wiki people keep mixing another hypothesis (Carpi tribes pushed by Slavs entered Albania in Byzantine times) with Georgiev linguistic arguments which point to other direction and timeframe. What is more interesting in all this story is that we actually don't know what language Carpi would possibly have spoken neither what ethnicity they were. IMHO from what i know from linguistics I can say just two quick arguments (there are more but I prefer not to extend this topic):
 * 1) For Carpi? What we know for sure about them is that Carpi were neighbors of Sarmatians and Bastarnae. If Carpi were not themselves such tribes (Persian of Gothic) their language should have been (heavily or lightly) influenced by them (Archaeologically speaking, culture mixing is a proven fact in that area) but Albanian language shows no such signs.
 * 2) Thracian and Dacian (if they are not a big Thracian family) placenames ends in Para or in Dava usually accepted as a Thracian or Dacian name for a city, town or fortress. The structure here is the same as in many European languages: thus the 'town of Peter' can be called Peterborough, Petrograd, Petersburg, Pierreville, and so on. But the crucial fact is that this structure is impossible in Albanian, which can only say 'Qytet i Pjetrit', not 'Pjeterqytet'. If para were the Albanian for 'ford', then the place-name would have to be 'Para e Besseve'; this might be reduced in time to something like 'Parabessa', but it could never become 'Bessapara'. The same arguments stands for dava word. And what is at stake here is not some superficial feature of the language, which might easily change over time, but a profound structural principle of Albanian. (I might add that nameplaces in Albanian are usually compounded by a single word eg Tirana, Kruja etc)

Returning to Georgiev (but even other tables), what I think is that only when linguistic will correlate with archeology, genetics and possible documented history, only then we can have a clear picture. Linguistic is a strong tool, but it is in continuous evolution. As far as I have seen linguistic progression, what is thought for sure now in 20 years will become obsolete. In the end what we can describe as linguistic rules are just words which we think that should have changed in a certain way, (linguists forgive me:)) but I don't think that can be called science (ok I am exaggerating but you got my idea). In the other hand archeology and genetics are much more solid and science like tools and if you read the above Ringe 2007 you could see that mathematical formulas can be used in linguistics also. For the moment to me Renfrew hypothesis makes much more sense to what data we have in archeology, genetics and phylogenetics. The only resistance comes from classical linguistic scholars. We don't know how this will evolve in the future but there is a big difference in time between Renfrew and Kurgan hypothesis and that changes totally the framework of old balkan especially, since Balkan is essential in Renfrew model. Aigest (talk) 09:46, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Aigest, on modern Albanian vs ancient toponymy, I disgree with these arguments you presented.
 * Languages change in time. Several millenia ago Albanian was a PIE dialect, in which compound nouns and names were common (like we have attested in the most ancient IE languages - Sanskrit, Greek, Hittite). There's no evidence whatsoever that Proto-Albanian, whether Thracian, Illyrian or another language did not have compound nouns or names. Basically we do not know when all these changes happened, however many scholars concluded that Albanian changed a lot in the past 2000 years (this change also includes a massive influence from Latin/Romance languages), so it may be possible that some of these changes happened 500-1500 years ago.
 * Not all Dacian and Moesian toponyms (to address Georgiev's Daco-Moesian hypothesis) are compound names. Let's think of Moesian or Dacian placenames like Dierna (+variants), Drubeta (+variants), etc. The latter name may be related to some woodlands (cf. modern Albanian dru), and even the -at-/-et- ending (in the same region we also have Egeta, Taliata, Gerulata, etc) may suggest a relation with the definite plural from modern Albanian. A quite interesting case is that of Denseleti/Danthaletai (+variants), a Thracian tribe. On CIL 13 8308 we can read about the soldier T(itus) Flavius Bassus Mucalae f(ilius) Dansala. If Dansala is the ethnicon, it may well be that Dansala is a member of that Thracian tribe and -et- is a (definite) plural marker, similar with the one from the modern Albanian. Anyway, as Dacian and Moesian toponymy includes both simple (sometimes suffixed) names and compound names, it may be that modern Albanian inherited the former naming practice, but not the latter. Daizus (talk) 11:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree especially with the issue of language change, in general. Some calculations based on languages as of when they appear first are a priori presumed to 'ancient features which just as easily could represent recent developments during a relatively dynamic and less regulated period of linguistic development; another reason for the often over-estimated age of IE lanaguages Slovenski Volk (talk) 13:37, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Daizus, sorry but I find your arguments a little bit flawed.
 * Para and Dava were typical in compound placenames in Thracian and Dacian. It is the main argument of Georgiev in classifying those languages as separate. Even nowadays placenames with dava or para are used in identifying either Dacian or Thracian sites. The existence of other placenames not ending with dava or para is not relevant in this case. What we know for sure is that this feature (deva or para) was certainly used and I think that scholars generally agree that they show a Thracian or Dacian name for a city, town or fortress. As I have already said the structure here is the same as in some other European languages: thus the 'town of Peter' can be called Peterborough, Petrograd, Petersburg, Pierreville, and so on. The existence of other placenames without para or dava does not exclude the fact that this composed form was in use in Dacian and Thracian thus the Thracians and Dacians formed composed town names like some other nowadays Inedoeuropean languages. Peterburg, Hamburg, Cherbourg with "burg" or Volgograd, Beograd with "grad" or those formed with "ville" form etc.


 * Georgiev clearly states that Dacian names are both simple (Einstämmige) and compound (Zweistämmige). Also Georgiev doesn't say only the -dava/-para/whatever names are characteristic or relevant, he only uses those names to draw isoglosses. There are many enough other Dacian placenames not ending in -dava, well accepted by scholars. However the actual point here is that Albanian is IE language, thus in some earlier stage certainly it had compound names like all the ancient IE languages. Daizus (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I was not saying that the Albanian can not form compound names, only that if it had to form them, the Albanian would have behaved differently in those times. My point is that in Roman times compound names in Dacian cities ended with Dava while Thracians with Para. While this was not the case in Albanian. According to Eric Hamp Comparative Studies in Albanian ISBN 978-9951-413-62-6, (2007) Addendum to the book page 1 "(We can say that) because Pri-zren (Recherches Albanologiques 2, 1985, 57-8) and Pri-shtinë (<*setin-a gur/plural gurë +collectiv/collected) teach us that they are formed with *prit- from PIE *prt-(engl. Ford, kymr. Rhyd "va"), a word with the vocalism ri, that linguistically can be only Albanian, and which was replaced by the Latin uadum(>today va). It is clear that the Albanian language was spoken in Kosovo before Emperor Trajan brought in Dacia his latin and roman company (G.B. Pellegrini Avviamento alla linguistica Albanese, Rende, 1998, 200-1, 4, 5-9) with such words like (Pellegrini 1998, 214-227) qytet (city), fshat (village), fqin (neighbour), mik (friend), mbret (king), gjyq (court), shoq (society), sharrë (saw), luftë (war), troftë (trout), pemë (tree), tërmet (earthquake) and va (ford). For the ethnografik role of IE *prt- see E.P.Hamp, Parasession, Chicago Linguistic Society 1982, 63-5" (my translation). As you can see here in Roman times, before Romans entered into Dacia, compounded names in Albanian were made according to Albanian grammar (just like I said above) thus IE *Prt- < (Alb) Pri (ford) was placed in the beginning of the compound placename not in the end, eg Pri-shtina and Pri-zren. From the same IE "*prt-" <(Thracian) para formed their own placenames but putting it in the end of the compound name thus Bessa-para. This is what I was talking about.
 * I don't see how the quotes above address the issue of compound names in Proto-Albanian (before the contact with Latin). It would be circular reasoning if anything, because Proto-Albanian is not attested. Scholars have to rely on the scarcely attested Thracian, Dacian, Illyrian or unattested languages. To my knowledge all the ancient onomastics in Balkans shows compound names like the Dacian and Thracian ones (e.g. see Illyrian personal names such as Skerdilaidas). Daizus (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You have to ask Hamp on that, however as far as I understand him he states clearly that the IE form *prt- in Albanian has given prit- because vocalism r<ri is an Albanian form, and from that we have the form of Pri-stina or Pri-zren. As you can see these stand in the same line with Albanian grammar rules of compounded names (name+surname) which were different at that time from Thracian, which at the same time used the IE *prt- giving Thracian para- but only in the end of the compound name. eg Albanian form Pri-stina, Thracian form should give Stina-para. Is it clear?
 * Hamp doesn't state those place-names were inherited from Proto-Albanian (he only discusses some words), actually he doesn't claim anything about Proto-Albanian compound nouns and names. Daizus (talk) 09:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I want to point out that this argument regarding compound names was done by linguists specialized in Albanian not by me. I can assume many things on that issue but this is the state of art for the moment for that linguistic argument AFAIK.


 * My arguments also come from linguists, including from Georgiev himself. They do not take seriously the claims that Albanian can't evolve from Thracian, Dacian or whatever language, based on the onomastics attested in modern Albanian. The actual language which needs to analysed is Proto-Albanian, that is the ancestor of Albanian. I know of no evidence whatsoever that there were no compound names in Proto-Albanian. To address your specific example, 'Qytet i Pjetrit' certainly didn't exist in Proto-Albanian because a) qytet is a borrowing from Latin/Romance, and b) Pjetrit is a Christian name. If you can bring evidence from Proto-Albanian, then we might have something to talk about. Daizus (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * See above. I want to add that I can not understand your point that "Qytet i Pjetrit" is to be excluded because it is christian?! It was just an example from "Peterburg" which in Albanian would have been "Pjeterqytet" just like I was saying tha Bessa-para should have been Para-bessa or more correctly Pri-bessa. Of course qytet is a latin borrowing and Pjeter is a Christian name but that example should have not taken literally and extrapolated in historical times. It does not make sense. It is just an example showing an Albanian grammar feature. Aigest (talk) 18:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Qytet i Pjetrit" should be excluded because both terms did not exist in the ancestor of Albanian language before the contact with Latin, therefore it's a parallel of no use. More to the point, since qytet did not exist in the language back then, I fail to see why pri- should have been existed, or para- should have not. You're using modern Albanian in your arguments, but languages change. Perhaps before borrowing word such as qytet, the ancestors of the Albanians called their settlements dava or para. We don't know, but there are no grounds to exclude this possibility. Saying Albanian cannot continue Thracian or Dacian or a similar language is more or less like saying French or Italian do not continue Latin, invoking some differences in syntax, morphology, onomastics and so on (because there are plenty). Daizus (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am surprised you insist on that "christian" issue. Please don't take it literally. It was just an example. It is like saying that Stone-henge in Albanian should have been Henge-stone. According to Albanologists (see above) this feature was in use among proto-Albanians, before Romans entered Dacia thus first century AD. Citing your "I fail to see why pri- should have been existed, or para- should have not." I should remind you that
 * 1. This discussion is not about the form pri or para, but where was the place of this form in the compound names. Proto-Albanian did put it in the beginning of the compound names, Thracian put in in the end of compound names, that simple.
 * 2. AFAIK Proto-Albanian could have not derived para >*prt- but prit- > *prt because IE *r < ri in Albanian. See IE literature on that. Aigest (talk) 08:41, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Regarding PIE *prt- > Alb. *prit-, Hamp says the meaning is "ford", not "settlement" (however other scholars argue that names like Prishtina are Slavic) and adds nothing about how such names would have been in Proto-Albanian. However Georgiev holds that Proto-Albanian was Daco-Mysian, thus we should discuss the -dava names if anything. Daizus (talk) 09:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought we were talking about a specific feature. It doesn't matter if IE *prt means ford, settlement, base...whatever. What you can see there argued by Hamp is the form Pri-stina (but even Pri-zren) meaning ford made of stones or smth (if I am not wrong) thus in Proto Albanian the form is Ford-Stone not Stone-Ford which was the form in Thracian and even Dacian. Dava or Para doesn't matter, if this feature has been putted in the end of the compound name in these languages, this was not the case in Proto-Albanian. Eg it should have not been Daci-dava but Dava-Daci in Proto-Albanian. Hope I was clear.Aigest (talk) 09:23, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hamp argues about the modern Albanian names Prishtinë and Prizren, not about some Proto-Albanian names! He only claims Albanian *prit- comes from PIE *prt-, he adds nothing about the names themselves being ancient! And his opinion is fringe, most other scholars would have them derived from Slavic languages. Daizus (talk) 09:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know how he came to that conclusion. He mentions references in his claims but I have no access on them. All I can say that he is one one the most well known Indoeuropeanists and Albanologists. Aigest (talk) 10:14, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Not so related but since you brought that Thracian soldier case I would like you to read on Thracian and Albanian Hamp 1974 Thracian biso "I have recently studied the name Biso ; cf. Actes du XIe congrès international des sciences onomastigy.es (Sofia), 1, 367—9(1974). There I tried to make the point that Thracian was excluded from being identified with Proto-Albanian because what we see reflected in Bino ...." link it has to do with some kind of different satemization processes in Albanian and Thracian. Aigest (talk) 16:49, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I find Georgiev's 'classification' of Thracian vs Dacian rather simplistic. One cannot seriously imagine that the complexity of Thracian/ Dacian is summarized neatly by the distribution of para vs dava. This is just one set of isoglosses. From what I can understand, AIgest, are you saying that Albanian cannot be Thracian or Dacian becuase of sturtural differences ? If so, then I think, Dazius, your arguement that just becuase the examples A used post-date proto-Albanian doesn;t make the exercise entirely fruitless. Even if the words were borrowed, the structure rule is the same; and structure is more conservative than lexis Slovenski Volk (talk) 09:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes SV, you got my point. I am speaking about structural differences. This is the opinion of Albanologist. The case names of Pri-stina and Pri-zren (used by Hamp above) show this feature of Proto-Albanian before Romans entered into Dacia (according to Hamp) thus at least in first century AD. Just note that Hamp was one of the proponents of Albanian-Illyrian connection in 1950-60' later in 1970-1990' of Dacian-Albanian and now after 2000' again Albanian-Illyrian (this argument is as of 2007). So it is a linguist who does not stand blindly in a "fortified" position but moves according to the evidence on the ground. Anyway there are other linguistic arguments but this is not the case or the place for them. Even this it's getting longer than expected:). Aigest (talk) 10:04, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure, but is this 'proto-Albanian' structure actually attested from Roman /pre-Roman times ? Slovenski Volk (talk) 10:15, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

This so-called "structure" certainly changed, because Albanian, like Thracian, Dacian, Greek, Armenian, Sanskrit are all IE languages, and regardless of their subsequent history, some millenia ago they had a very similar (if not nearly identical) grammar, morphology, syntax, etc. Saying Proto-Albanian was essentially modern Albanian (with some different words) is a "fortified position" as Aigest put it. Daizus (talk) 10:18, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Daizus, you are missing the point here. As SV noted above, the structure of a language is more resistant to change. What Hamp is claiming is that this feature (Name+adj) was attested in Proto-Albanian while in the same time in Dacian and in Thracian it was different (Adj+name) thus Proto-Albanian on one side and Dacian and Thracian on the other had structural differences. P.S. Albanian language has two types of adj. pre-articulated adjectives and adjectives without article. In pre-articulated adjectives, the prepositive definite article is an integral part of them; it expresses the agreement of the adjective with the head noun in gender and number. In fact, the article surfaces as i when the adjective modifies a masculine noun, it surfaces as e when the adjective modifies a feminine noun and it surfaces as të when the modified noun is plural. Pre-articulated adjectives in Albanian began to appear before the first Slavic loans,(Demiraj 1986) thus is quite natural that the structure name+adj was in use in Proto-Albanian  Aigest (talk) 11:03, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The point about "structure" is moot, Albanian changed it.

Hamp doesnt claim anything about onomastic (or syntactic) features in Proto-Albanian, but that Albanian prit < PIE *prt. Whether Proto-Albanian names were Pritblabla or Blablaprit (or both), we don't know, and names like Prishtina (if Hamp's etymology would be correct) are of no use in our debate, because they reflect the current state of things. Daizus (talk) 11:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Daizus, do you realize that you are arguing with Demiraj and Hamp on that issue? Both are well known Albanologists and used as main references by other linguists when they want to deal with Albanian language. This is what they claim and I brought it here. Aigest (talk) 11:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

From Vl. Orel's A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian language (Brill 2000), p. XI: "Not all important features of the Proto-Albanian structure can be revealed and properly described today. Our knowledge is still very insufficient, especially in the field of Proto-Albanian morphology. The study of Proto-Albanian syntax remains in its infancy."

Re noun and adjective syntax (correct me if I'm wrong): In modern Albanian adjectives can stay both in pre and postnominal position. When the adjective is in prenominal position, the adjective is in definite form, the noun indefinite. (: shkrimtari më i vjetër vs më i vjetri shkrimtar). The syntax of the modern language is flexible enough to allow both forms. I don't know what can be said about definiteness in Proto-Albanian, or if it can be better argued as a Balkan Sprachbund feature or simply later borrowing. But I fail to see why determiner (adjective) + noun would be such a taboo in Proto-Albanian. Daizus (talk) 11:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That is exceptional in Albanian and occur in different environment (sentences when you want to stress smth out over the name itself) and it has nothing to do with compound names. General rule in Albanian is otherwise (nam+adj) and you can see it even in nowadays compound names eg Kryegjate (Alb)Krye - (Eng)Head while (Alb)gjate - (Eng) Long->nameplace Long-head, or Vithkuq (Alb) Vith- (Eng) Butt, while (Alb) kuq - (Eng) red -> nameplace Red-but. The same is for personal names eg Kryemadhi. We have krye-head, madh-big so Bighead but note in Albanian the form is Head-big or Syziu, sy-eye and ziu-black so blackeyed but not in albanian eyeblack etc. Look Daizus, it is better if we don't mess this discussion with our personal interpretations. You have to read Hamp, Demiraj and Gjinali on that issue. They are linguists and know these things better than us. Aigest (talk) 13:30, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand quite well the situation in Albanian because it occurs also in my native Romanian and other Balkan languages (e.g. in Romanian "great man" is usually omul mare or un om mare, but it also can be marele om). It is related to compound names and nouns, and actually you brought it up when you started lecturing on Albanian "structures" in a post-scriptum.
 * All your examples come from modern Albanian, not from Proto-Albanian whatever language it was. I can add some etymologies such as the one Orel provided for thënukël = "dogberry", from earlier *thënubël < PAlb. *tsunu-abōla, cf. Lith. šúnobuolas, Dacian kinouboila (= "dog's apple").
 * In what you've quoted so far, Hamp made no claims on Proto-Albanian compound nouns (or names) or syntax. Please provide relevant bibliography, otherwise I don't see why should we be dismissive of other scholars' theories. Orel, Georgiev and many others are also linguists. Daizus (talk) 15:58, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Dazius, again "(We can say that) because Pri-zren (Recherches Albanologiques 2, 1985, 57-8) and Pri-shtinë (<*setin-a gur/plural gurë +collectiv/collected) teach us that they are formed with *prit- from PIE *prt-(engl. Ford, kymr. Rhyd "va"), a word with the vocalism ri, that linguistically can be only Albanian, and which was replaced by the Latin uadum(>today va). It is clear that the Albanian language was spoken in Kosovo before Emperor Trajan brought in Dacia his latin and roman company.. " he has already made this clear. He explains that Pri-shtinë is composed from Pri(ford) and shtine(stone) and the period he is speaking about is first century AD (before Trajan entered Dacia) thus Proto-Albanian. Duh, that's obvious, unless you don't want to see it. Aigest (talk) 07:45, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Mycenean
I've read that article. However I've doubts about these kind of reasoning. We know that the rate of change is different in different languages. Iceland for eg. it has been separated for more than a millennium from Old Norse but retains 95% of its vocabulary, it mean practically unchanged for a millenia. With this rate even after let's say 3000 years still it will be to close to Old Norse. Of course the isolation etc had played a role, but this illustration means that we can not simplify things and make similar deductions. There are some who theorize that more wider the area of speakers and less innovations in language, others who say the contrary. As I've commented above in the end these linguists should frist find a consensus between them regarding some principles in linguistic (an eg but not so related look here, a dominant theory in linguistic is falling apart) and later correlate data from what we know from other fields of researching in human history (Arch, gen). IMO we can use linguistic but with caution and its data should make sense and be in compliance with what we know from other fields, archeology, genetics etc. What results show now is that the major population boom in Europe happened in Neolithic. Let's say that what we are today is 18% from Old Europe(Hg I) and 82% from Anatolia(other Hg). I mean after all these movements of people mainly from the North and Northeast of the continent documented in history, we still remain (genetically speaking) the descendants of those first Anatolian farmers landed first in Balkan area and since the Neolithic the dominant population in Europe. In archeology we can see that Kurgan culture had its influence in mostly in Romania and Bulgaria but not so much in Northern Europe (corded ware) less in Western Europe (most scholars say nothing). Archaeologically speaking these supposed IE people are unnoticed in most of Europe. How did it come that they imposed their language but not their culture in most of Europe?! From actual linguistic framework this does not make so much sense. We know they were fewer in numbers than the existing population, they didn't had a more superior social structure and they are not archaeologically traceable in most of Europe. We know that it was like that because these are hard data. How does language spreading, fit in this scheme that we have, should be the right question for linguists. Aigest (talk) 08:11, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Map
Do you refer to this map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serb_lands04.png If so, main source that I used for that map is this: Istorijski atlas, Geokarta, Beograd, 1999. Description in that atlas say that these are borders of Serbian lands in the middle of the 9th century. Here you have similar map from Serbian government web site, although not in very high resolution: http://www.rgz.gov.rs/kart-proizvodi/artikli%5C050610.jpg Anyway, the atlas that I used as a source is written by several professors and if they say that these borders are from the middle of the 9th century I have no reason not to trust them. Map in that atlas also contains name Rascia, not as a name of Serbia, but as a name of one part of Serbia. As for Pannonian Croatia, there are several names that are used by the historians for this state and none of such names is a priori wrong - all such names are recognized by scholars and all are valid. If you think that your sources are "better" than mine, you are free to draw your own map that will illustrate this subject. PANONIAN 13:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

"please provide a single source from the 9th century which says the names Rascia and Pannonian Croatia"

Ok. Here they are: 1. single source for Rascia: Istorijski atlas, Geokarta, Beograd, 1999, page 35, and 2. single source for Pannonian Croatia: Rade Mihaljčić, Istorija za 6. razred osnovne škole, Beograd - Novi Sad, 1992, page 38. Satisfied? These are academic sources used in Serbian educational system and I have no any reason not to trust them. As for your hand made maps, they are far from accurate and they look like examples of original research - I never saw maps with similar borders and I have more than 30,000 various maps in my computer. So, please rather try to make your own maps accurate. My maps are supported by academic sources and their accuracy is not a problem. PANONIAN 07:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, you actually accused me that my maps are unsourced, while they clearly list their sources. All in all, I think that you misunderstood the way in which sources are used in Wikipedia. We are not here to examine primary sources in the archives and to present our own research based on such sources. In fact, Wikipedia policy is against such original research. So, when we edit articles or create maps, we use research results of reliable scholars. I used works of scholars who are credible enough that their work is officially used in Serbian educational system and that is completely in accordance with Wikipedia policies. I am not obligated to examine primary sources from the 9th century to see are these scholars right or wrong. PANONIAN  09:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

On torna, torna episode
Hi,

I reverted your edit in Origin of Romanians article. You added "however it could also merely represent 'the survival of a few formulaic phrases in military commands'" using the ref Greece Old and New. T Winniforth, P Murray. MacMillan Press, 1983. ISBN 0 333 27836 4. Pg 89. But this is not what the book holds. "By the middle of 7th century all what is left of the Latin heritage of Byzantium is the survival of a few formulaic phrases in military commands." But this episode occured in the 6th century! Winniforth and Murray also discuss the torna episode at page 91: "... the words used by the muleteer torna, torna, fratre suggest though they do not prove, the existence of Latin speakers in this area."

The article is perhaps a bit confusing on this point, the mainstream scholarly interpretation is that "torna, torna" was used as a colloquial advice (the sources mention it was the native tongue of the speakers), but misunderstood by the other soldiers as a military command, "torna", still in use in the multi-lingual Byzantine army of the 6th century. Daizus (talk) 16:03, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Via Egnatia ran through mostly Greek-speaking territories (especially from Edessa eastwards). It's hard to describe accurately the Latin/Greek language predominance in the mountains in today north-western Greece and Albania, because much of the epigraphic evidence (which can be used for such 'statistical conclusions') comes from larger settlements, not small, mountain villages. See also Jireček Line. Daizus (talk) 06:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that epigraphic evidence provides no actual proof, but is the best we've got. All the rest is speculation.

I don't think I've read that paper by Leonid Gindin, though I'm not sure what is that -don suffix you mentioned. Daizus (talk) 21:29, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonians
Hello,

Is this you? Don't lie. Athenean (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You do realize that if I go to SPI and it is confirmed, the consequences will be dire (much more so than if you were to own up to it). Athenean (talk) 04:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Blocked

 * This is also for violating your 0RR restriction. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 19:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

{{unblock reviewed | 1=There are inconstistencies/ falsities with Athenians accusations. His main perogative is not to uphold Wikipedian policy and conde of conduct, but to eliminate an editor who maintains a NPOV in an article otherwise dominate by a block of Greek editors who clearly engage in meat-puppetry, not only the Ancient Macedonians article (something I had already raised earlier, but anything relating to Greece, and Athenean and the other user in question have often been accused of collusion by other editors, for but one example here , nor is his reverting record exactly banal..

Secondly, the previous instance of "sock-puppeting" Athenean refers to in 2007 was when I first started contributing in Wiki; it was an innocent case of typo error {I had mistakenly created two accounts, one Hxseek and one Hxseeker. I was soon exhonorated by an Admin who pointed out the ban was ludicrous and unwarranted.

My topic revert ban, after my appeal as per was for 3-6 months, and this occurred in January 2011.

Finally, Athenean seems it unbelievable that another user from Australia would edit the article. Whist I acknowledge the timing issue, there is nothing unlikely that an editor in Australia would have contributed to the article, especially given the fact that Australian cities like Sydney and Melbourne have a huge diaspora of citizens with a Balkan heritage. He has attempted to pin the ananymous IP edit to me, falsely. I have never entertained/engaged in sock-puppetry, why would I start now (over a relatively trivial iisue, knowing that the article itself is closely monitored by Admins and editors alike) ? In fact, suspicious annymous IP contributions suddenly appearing in the article has been occurring for some time, immediately after Alexikou's edits? This is highly suspect. Why has this not been investigated ? | decline=The appeal of your 0RR was declined here. The closing invited your to possibly file another appeal in 3-6 months; I'm not sure why you felt that it "expired". I don't see any rational reason you would have assumed this. Indeed, editing as an IP appears to indicate an intent to deceive knowing that this restriction was still in place. If there's some information I'm missing, please feel free to point it out. Note that I couldn't care less about your content dispute. Kuru  (talk)  02:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)}}

Map
I really don't understand the meaning of this map, seems that everything is moved south: Proto-Phrygian together with Pelagonia has moved to Western Macedonia, Greece, while they belong to the modern Republic of Macedonia. Also the Proto Greek region reached southern Thessaly and the Corinthian gulf, 'penetreting' the Achelous-Pineius line.Alexikoua (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I just saw your email. I respect that you finally admit that the map you created has serious incostistencies. About the common Proto-Greek-Phrygian-Macedonian area Georgiev says clearly that this was during the 4th mil. BC [], on the other hand the map I draw is based on the detailed description of the same author about 3rd mil. BC common Proto-Greek(-Macedonian) region.Alexikoua (talk) 08:47, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonians
Hello Sir Slovenski.

This is to inform you that [IP] No. 94 is a bit insistent on having the terms "native" and "imported" in the lead paragraph. I implemented, for the second time, a wording "compromissum" (or compromise) in order to preserve the quality of the entry's "Stable Version". I think you did right by opening the topic in the discussion page and hope that [IP] No. 94 can explain his good faith edit contributions there while continuing to make good faith edit contributions.

Have a splendid day friend. :-) No. 108 (talk) 16:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC)