Albanian Origins

[Wabango]

I have a relatively decent understanding of linguistics and of Albanian history - with that in mind, I am curious about where exactly the Albanian language and cultural identity sprang up.

My Understandings:

• Albanians are genetically similar to Greco-Anatolians (Greeks, Anatolians, Israelis).
  
• The Albanian Language is an isolate within the Indo-European language family - although it has been proposed there is a relation to Greek.
  
• "Albania" as a geographic-cultural location was first mentioned by Byzantines in the 11th Century - in reference to one of the many tribes of "Illyria".

Would anyone with more knowledge care to clear some of this up to me?

 

[Kyriakos]

Look to Austria-Hungary circa 1913

 

[sophie]

I have a relatively decent understanding of linguistics and of Albanian history - with that in mind, I am curious about where exactly the Albanian language and cultural identity sprang up.

My Understandings:

• Albanians are genetically similar to Greco-Anatolians (Greeks, Anatolians, Israelis).
  
• The Albanian Language is an isolate within the Indo-European language family - although it has been proposed there is a relation to Greek.
  
• "Albania" as a geographic-cultural location was first mentioned by Byzantines in the 11th Century - in reference to one of the many tribes of "Illyria".

Would anyone with more knowledge care to clear some of this up to me?

"I have a decent understanding of linguistics"
[...]
"Albanians are genetically similar to..."

That's problem number one right there^

 

[Tee Kay]

The first references to Albanian being a language comes from the later Middle Ages. Keep in mind though the different dialects with various degrees of mutual intelligibility (or unintelligibility as it were)

As for national identity, that came much later. Albanians were (are?) intensely tribal/clannish, as well as separated by religion (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and later Islam). The Ottomans recognised the Albanians as a distinct people, but paradoxically because Albania was extraordinarily fragmented and lawless. The country was only united in 1912 because the alternative was partition between Serbia and Greece, and even then it could be argued that Albanians didn't really have a national identity until one was forced upon them by Enver Hoxha.

 

[Pangur Bán]

The Albanians were a favoured people under the Ottomans. So they were as loved in post-Ottoman Balkans as the Tutsi in post-Belgian Rwanda.

 

[Wabango]

The first references to Albanian... forced upon them by Enver Hoxha.

Thank you very much, this is pretty insightful. I had not realized the si
significance of the Tosk-Gheg divide.