Albanoid or Albanic is a branch or subfamily of the
Indo-European languages, of which
Albanian language varieties are the only surviving representatives. Albanian is grouped in the same IE branch with
Messapic, an ancient
extinct language of Balkan provenance that is preserved in about six hundred inscriptions from Iron Age
Apulia.[1] This IE subfamily is alternatively referred to as 'Albanoid', 'Illyric', 'Illyrian complex', 'Western Paleo-Balkan', or 'Adriatic Indo-European'.[2] Concerning "
Illyrian" of
classical antiquity, it is not clear whether it is actually one language and not material from several languages, but if "Illyrian" is defined as the
ancient precursor to Albanian it is automatically included in this IE branch.[3] Albanoid is also used to explain pre-Romance features found in
Eastern Romance languages.[4]
Nomenclature
The IE subfamily that gave rise to
Albanian and
Messapic is alternatively referred to as 'Albanoid', 'Illyric', 'Illyrian complex', 'Western Palaeo-Balkan', or 'Adriatic Indo-European'.[2] 'Albanoid' is considered more appropriate as it refers to a specific ethnolinguistically pertinent and historically compact language group.[5] Concerning "
Illyrian" of
classical antiquity, it is not clear whether it is actually one language and not material from several languages.[3] However, if "Illyrian" is defined as the ancient precursor language to Albanian, for which there is some linguistic evidence,[6] and which is often supported for obvious geographic and historical reasons,[7] Illyrian is automatically included in the IE branch of Albanian.[3] 'Albanoid' is also used to explain pre-Romance features found in
Eastern Romance languages.[4]
The term 'Albanoid' for the IE subfamily of Albanian was firstly introduced by Indo-European historical linguist
Eric Pratt Hamp (1920 – 2019),[8] and thereafter adopted by a series of linguists.[9] A variant term is 'Albanic'.[10] The root ultimately originated from the name of the
Illyrian tribe Albanoi,[11] early generalized to all the Illyrian tribes speaking
the same idiom.[12] The process was similar to the spread of the name Illyrians from a small group of people on the
Adriatic coast, the Illyrioi.[13]
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".[17] 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.[18]
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.[19] The Albanoid speech was among the Indo-European languages that replaced the
pre-Indo-European languages of the Balkans,[20] which left traces of the Mediterranean-Balkan substratum.[21] 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.[22]
The Palaeo-Balkanic Indo-European branch based on the chapters "Albanian" (Hyllested & Joseph 2022) and "Armenian" (Olsen & Thorsø 2022) in Olander (ed.) The Indo-European Language Family
Classification
Recent IE phylogenetic studies group the Albanoid subfamily in the same IE branch with
Graeco-Phrygian and
Armenian, labelled '(Palaeo-)Balkanic Indo-European',[23] 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.[24][note 1] 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.[26]
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.[27]
^A remarkable common proto-form for "
goat" of non-Indo-European origin is exclusively shared between Albanian, Armenian, and Greek. It could have been borrowed at a pre-stage that was common to these languages from a pre-Indo-European substrate language that in turn had loaned the word from a third source, from which the pre-IE substrate of the proto-form that is shared between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian could also have borrowed it. Hence it can be viewed as an old cultural word, which was slowly transmitted to two different pre-Indo-European substrate languages, and then independently adopted by two groups of Indo-European speakers, reflecting a post-Proto-Indo-European linguistic and geographic separation between a Balkan group consisting of Albanian, Greek, and Armenian, and a group to the North of the Black Sea consisting of Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian.[25]
^The map does not imply that the Albanian language is the majority or the only spoken language in these areas.
Demiraj, Bardhyl (2013). Spiro, Aristotel (ed.). "Gjurmë të substratit mesdhetar-ballkanik në shqipe dhe greqishte: shq. rrush dhe gr. ῥώξ si rast studimi" [Traces of the Mediterranean-Balkan substratum in Albanian and Greek: Alb. rrush and Gr. ῥώξ as case study]. Albanohellenica (5). Albanian-Greek Philological Association: 23–40.
Friedman, Victor A. (2023). "The importance of Aromanian for the study of Balkan language contact in the context of Balkan-Caucasian parallels". In Aminian Jazi, Ioana; Kahl, Thede (eds.). Ethno-Cultural Diversity in the Balkans and the Caucasus. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 345–360.
doi:
10.2307/jj.3508401.16.
JSTORjj.3508401.16.
Hamp, Eric P. (2002). "On Serbo-Croatian's Historic Laterals". In Friedman, Victor A.; Dyer, Donald L. (eds.).
Of all the Slavs my favorites. Indiana Slavic studies. Vol. 12. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. pp. 243–250.
OCLC186020548.
Hyllested, Adam; Joseph, Brian D. (2022).
"Albanian". The Indo-European Language Family. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN9781108499798.
Ismajli, Rexhep (2013). "Diskutime për prejardhjen e gjuhës shqipe" [Discussions About the Origin of the Albanian Language]. In Bardh Rugova (ed.). Seminari XXXII Ndërkombëtar për Gjuhën, Letërsinë dhe Kulturën Shqiptare [The XXXII International Seminar on Albanian Language, Literature and Culture] (in Albanian). Prishtinë:
University of Prishtina.
Ismajli, Rexhep (2015). Eqrem Basha (ed.). Studime për historinë e shqipes në kontekst ballkanik [Studies on the History of Albanian in the Balkan context] (in Albanian). Prishtinë: Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts, special editions CLII, Section of Linguistics and Literature.
Koch, John T. (2020). Celto-Germanic, Later Prehistory and Post-Proto-Indo-European vocabulary in the North and West. University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.
ISBN9781907029325.
Kroonen, Guus (2012). "Non-Indo-European root nouns in Germanic: evidence in support of the Agricultural Substrate Hypothesis". In Riho Grünthal, Petri Kallio (ed.).
A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia = Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. Vol. 266. Société Finno-Ougrienne. pp. 239–260.
ISBN9789525667424.
ISSN0355-0230.
Majer, Marek (2019). "Parahistoria indoevropiane e fjalës shqipe për 'motrën'" [Indo-European Prehistory of the Albanian Word for 'Sister']. Seminari Ndërkombëtar për Gjuhën, Letërsinë dhe Kulturën Shqiptare [International Seminar for Albanian Language, Literature and Culture] (in Albanian). 1 (38).
University of Prishtina: 252–266.
ISSN2521-3687.
Mërkuri, Nexhip (2015). "Gjuhësia e përgjithshme dhe këndvështrimet bashkëkohore për Epirin dhe mesapët" [General Linguistics and Contemporary Perspectives on Epirus and the Messapians]. In Ibrahimi, Zeqirija (ed.).
Shaban Demiraj – figurë e shquar e albanologjisë dhe ballkanologjisë [Shaban Demiraj – prominent figure of Albanianology and Balkanology] (in Albanian). Instituti i Trashëgimisë Shpirtërore e Kulturore të Shqiptarëve – Shkup. p. 57.
ISBN9786084653240.
Olsen, Birgit Anette; Thorsø, Rasmus (2022).
"Armenian". In Olander, Thomas (ed.). The Indo-European Language Family : A Phylogenetic Perspective. Cambridge University Press. pp. 202–222.
doi:10.1017/9781108758666.012.
ISBN9781108758666.
Parpola, Asko (2012). "Formation of the Indo-European and Uralic (Finno-Ugric) language families in the light of archaeology: Revised and integrated 'total' correlations". In Riho Grünthal, Petri Kallio (ed.).
A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia / Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. Vol. 266. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne. pp. 119–184.
ISBN9789525667424.
ISSN0355-0230.
Trumper, John (2020). "The role of Albanoid groups (Albanian and Italoalbanian) in language transmission (Italy and Calabria as exemplum". In Iamajli, Rexhep (ed.). Studimet albanistike në Itali [Albanistic studies in Italy].
ASHAK. pp. 101–108.