| Proto-Albanian | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | Albanian (dialects) |
| Region | Western Balkans |
| Era | c. 1000 BCE[1] – 600 CE[2] |
Reconstructed ancestors | Proto-Indo-European
|
| Lower-order reconstructions | |
| Notes | The only survivor of the Albanoid languages of the Paleo-Balkan group |
| Part of a series on |
| Indo-European topics |
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Proto-Albanian is the ancestral reconstructed language of Albanian, before the Gheg–Tosk dialectal diversification (before c. 600 CE).[2] Albanoid and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region.[3][4] Whether descendants or sister languages of what was called Illyrian by classical sources, Albanian and Messapic, on the basis of shared features and innovations, are grouped together in a common branch in the current phylogenetic classification of the Indo-European language family.[5] The precursor of Albanian can be considered a completely formed independent IE language since at least the first millennium BCE, with the beginning of the early Proto-Albanian phase.[1]
Proto-Albanian is reconstructed by way of the comparative method between the Tosk and Gheg dialects and between Albanian and other Indo-European languages, as well as through contact linguistics studying early loanwords from and into Albanian and structural and phonological convergences with other languages. Loanwords into Albanian treated through its phonetic evolution can be traced back as early as the first contacts with Doric Greek (West Greek) since the 7th century BCE, but the most important of which are those from Latin (dated by De Vaan to the period 167 BCE to 400 CE) and from Slavic (dated from 600 CE onward).[6] The evidence from loanwords allows linguists to construct in great detail the shape of native words at the points of major influxes of loans from well-attested languages.[7]
In historical linguistics Proto-Albanian is broken up into different stages which are usually delimited by the onset of contact with different well-attested languages.[6] Pre-Proto-Albanian is the early stage of the precursor of Albanian during the first millennium BCE, marked by contacts with Ancient Greek, but not yet by contacts with Latin. Proto-Albanian proper is dated to the period of contacts with Latin, starting from the 2nd century BCE after the Roman conquest of the Western Balkans, but the major Latin influence occurred since the first years of the common era when the Western Balkans were eventually incorporated into the Roman Empire. Common Albanian or its two dialects, Proto-Gheg and Proto-Tosk, experienced the earliest contacts with South Slavic languages since the Slavic migrations to the Balkans in the 6th–7th centuries CE. The rise of Tosk from Proto-Albanian was prompted before Slavic contacts circa 600 CE, as evidenced by the fact that Latin and ancient Greek loanwords are treated like native words with regard to taxonomical differences between Gheg and Tosk, but the same is not true of Slavic loans.[8][9][10][11]
- ^ a b Matzinger 2016, p. 6: "Folgende Lautwandel charakterisieren u.a. das Uralbanische (Protoalbanische) und grenzen es dadurch als eine eigenständige idg. Sprache von anderen idg. Sprachen ab. Diese Phase kann präzisiert als Frühuralbanisch bezeichnet werden. Da das Hethitische (im antiken Kleinasien) und das mykenische Griechische schon im 2. Jahrtausend v.Chr. als voll ausgebildete, d.h. individuelle Sprachen dokumentiert sind, kann auch die Vorstufe des Albanischen (das Frühuralbanische) mindestens ab dem ersten Jahrtausend v.Chr. als eine ebenso schon voll ausgebildete, d.h. individuelle Sprache angesetzt werden".
- ^ a b
- Demiraj 2020, p. 34: "All such changes took place prior to the contacts between Albanian and Balkan Slavonic, i.e. before the 7th century СЕ." p. 37: "Thus, mоkёrё 'millstone', from ancient Greek μᾱχανᾱ́ 'instrument', shows the effects of rhotacism, and mjek 'doctor', from Latin medicus, shows the effects of the loss of medial voiced stops, а change which inherited words also underwent ( e.g. еrё 'smell' < *od-ro-, cf. Latin odor); however, Slavic loanwords, coming after the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans in the 6th century, show the effects of neither change, and neither do Turkish loans, borrowed during the period of Ottoman rule."
- De Vaan 2018, p. 1732: "Internal comparison between the Tosk and Geg dialects allows us to reconstruct a Proto-Albanian stage (PAlb.; in German Uralbanisch; see Hock 2005; Klingenschmitt 1994: 221; Matzinger 2006: 23; B. Demiraj 1997: 41–67; Hamp 1992: 885–902). Additional external information on the development of the phonology is provided by different layers of loanwords, of which those from Slavic (from ca. 600 CE onward) and from Latin (ca. 167 BCE−400 CE) are the most important. Since the main phonological distinction between Tosk and Geg, viz. rhotacism of n, is found in only a few Slavic loanwords in Tosk (Ylli 1997: 317; Svane 1992: 292 f.), I assume that Proto-Albanian predated the influx of most of the Slavic loanwords.
- Matzinger 2006, p. 41: "Diese Zeitspanne von der Antike bis ca. 600 n.Chr. wird in der Geschichtsschreibung die uralbanische Zeit genannt." ["This period from ancient times to ca. 600 CE is called the Proto-Albanian period in historiography."]
- ^ Friedman 2022, pp. 189–231.
- ^ Lazaridis & Alpaslan-Roodenberg 2022, pp. 1, 10.
- ^ Hyllested & Joseph 2022, p. 235; Friedman 2020, p. 388; Majer 2019, p. 258; Trumper 2018, p. 385; Yntema 2017, p. 337; Ismajli 2015, p. 45; Demiraj 2004, pp. 58–59.
- ^ a b De Vaan 2018, p. 1732
- ^ Matasović 2019, p. 6
- ^ Fortson 2010, p. 392: "The dialectal split into Gheg and Tosk happened sometime after the region become Christianized in the fourth century AD; Christian Latin loanwords show Tosk rhotacism, such as Tosk murgu "monk" (Geg mungu) from Lat. monachus."
- ^ Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 9: "The Greek and Latin loans have undergone most of the far-reaching phonological changes which have so altered the shape of inherited words while Slavic and Turkish words do not show those changes. Thus Albanian must have acquired much of its present form by the time Slavs entered into Balkans in the fifth and sixth centuries AD"
- ^ Brown & Ogilvie 2008, p. 23: "In Tosk /a/ before a nasal has become a central vowel (shwa), and intervocalic /n/ has become /r/. These two sound changes have affected only the pre-Slav stratum of the Albanian lexicon, that is the native words and loanwords from Greek and Latin"
- ^ Vermeer 2008, p. 606: "As is well known, the rise of Tosk as a recognizable dialec-tal unit involves two innovations that have parallels in early Romanian: Romanian centralized its *a in nasal contexts and part of the dialects under-went the development of intervocalic -n- to -r-. Romanian also famously borrowed vatër 'hearth' with patently Tosk va- and proceeded to spread it to wherever Vlachs expanded subsequently. The shared Tosk-Romanian innovations obviously constitute the final stage of the crucial and well-publicized period of Albanian-Romanian convergence. Since these inno-vations are found either not at all or only marginally in the Slavic loans into Romanian and Albanian, it follows that the rise of Tosk preceded both the expansion of Romanian and the influx of Slavic Ioans."