Albanoid languages

History

Albanoid and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region.

Indo-European diversification and dispersal

Although research is ongoing, in current phylogenetic tree models of the Indo-European language family, the IE dialect that gave rise to Albanian splits from "Post-Tocharian Indo-European", that is the residual Indo-European unity ("Core Indo-European") which remained after Tocharian's splitting from "Post-Anatolian Indo-European". The transition between the Basal IE and Core IE speech communities appears to have been marked by an economic shift from a mainly non-agricultural economy to a mixed agro-pastoral economy. The lack of evidence for agricultural practices in early, eastern Yamnaya of the Don-Volga steppe does not offer a perfect archaeological proxy for the Core IE language community, rather western Yamnaya groups around or to the west of the Dnieper River better reflect that archaeological proxy. The common stage between the Late Proto-Indo-European dialects of Pre-Albanian, Pre-Armenian, and Pre-Greek, is considered to have occurred in the Late Yamnaya period after the westward migrations of Early Yamnaya across the Pontic–Caspian steppe, also remaining in the western steppe for a prolonged period of time separated from the Proto-Indo-European dialects that later gave rise in Europe to the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures.

Yamnaya steppe pastoralists apparently migrated into the Balkans about 3000 to 2500 BCE, and they soon admixed with the local populations, which resulted in a tapestry of various ancestry from which speakers of the Albanian and other Paleo-Balkan languages emerged. The Albanoid speech was among the Indo-European languages that replaced the pre-Indo-European languages of the Balkans, which left traces of the Mediterranean-Balkan substratum. On the other hand, Baltic and Slavic, together with Germanic, as well as possibly Celtic and Italic, apparently emerged on the territory of the Corded Ware archaeological horizon of the late 4th and the 3rd millennium BCE. The distinction between the southern European languages (in particular Albanian and Greek) and the northern and western European languages (Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, and Italic) is further reflected by the frequently shared lexical items of northwest pre-Indo-European substratum among the latter languages.

Classification

Recent IE phylogenetic studies group the Albanoid subfamily in the same IE branch with Graeco-Phrygian and Armenian, labelled '(Palaeo-)Balkanic Indo-European', based on shared Indo-European morphological, lexical, and phonetic innovations, archaisms, as well as shared lexical proto-forms from a common pre-Indo-European substratum. Innovative creations of agricultural terms shared only between Albanian and Greek were formed from non-agricultural PIE roots through semantic changes to adapt them for agriculture. Since they are limited only to Albanian and Greek, they could be traced back with certainty only to their last common IE ancestor, and not projected back into Proto-Indo-European.

Shortly after they had diverged from one another, Pre-Albanian, Pre-Greek, and Pre-Armenian undoubtedly also underwent a longer period of contact, as shown by common correspondences that are irregular for other IE languages. Furthermore, intense Greek–Albanian contacts certainly have occurred thereafter.

Family tree

• Albanoid
  • Proto-Albanian
    • Common Albanian
      • Gheg Albanian (Northern Albanian dialect)
        • Northern Gheg
          • Northwestern Gheg
            • Malsia e Madhe (in the region of Malësia)
            • Shkodra and Lezha (in the regions of Shkodër and Lezhë)
            • Arbanasi (in Zadar, Croatia)
            • Istrian Albanian (extinct)
          • Northeastern Gheg (in northeast Albania and most of Kosovo)
        • Central-Southern Gheg
          • Central Gheg
            • Upper Reka
          • Southern Gheg (includes the capital Tirana)
            • Transitional Gheg
              • Southern Elbasan
              • Southern Peqin
              • Northwestern Gramsh
      • Tosk Albanian (Southern Albanian dialect)
        • Northern Tosk (basis of Standard Modern Albanian but not identical)
          • Northeastern Tosk
            • Mandritsa Tosk (in far southeast Bulgaria)
            • Ukrainian Tosk (in Ukraine)
            • Western Thracian Tosk (in Western Thrace)
        • Southern Tosk
          • Lab
          • Cham
            • Suliot (extinct)
          • Arbëresh (in Southern Italy)
            • Puglia Arbëresh / Apulo-Arbëresh
            • Molise Arbëresh / Molisan-Arbëresh
            • Campania Arbëresh / Campano-Arbëresh
            • Basilicata Arbëresh / Basilicatan-Arbëresh
            • Calabria Arbëresh / Calabro-Arbëresh
            • Sicilia Arbëresh / Siculo-Arbëresh
          • Arvanitika (in Greece)
            • Northwestern Arvanitika
            • Southcentral Arvanitika
              • Southern Arvanitika
  • Messapic (extinct)
  • Illyrian (extinct) (?) (if sibling and not precursor of Albanian)
  • Pre-Eastern Romance (extinct) (?) (the Albanian-like features in Eastern Romance)