Talk:Paleo-Balkan languages

Old discussion

Added Paionian since it was IE: as indicated by classical references that connect the language to various Anatolian languages; and as stated by such linguists as Ivan Duridanov: [1]. He shows some Paionian sound-changes from PIE (according to him, at least). Also, Pelasgian can certainly be considered Paleo-Balkan, though it's pre-IE, not IE (we assume). Alexander 007 20:46, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think Phrygian, and possibly Armenian, should be included, since they are related, never mind that they were no actually spoken in the Balkans. dab (ᛏ) 14:22, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Phrygian can be included, since it appears that they once lived in Thrace/Macedon before migrating to what became Phrygia, and also because the language was part of the Balkanic "mix". Yet Phrygian can also be left out, and classed as a language of Anatolia. Alexander 007 21:26, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No Greek?

Why is it that Greek isn't listed as one of the Paleo-Balkan languages? User:68.42.227.229

I'm not sure. Maybe Paleo-Balkan languages is reserved for extinct languages? Ancient Greek is not exactly extinct, because it survives in changed form as Modern Greek and Tsakonian, etc. Alexander 007 00:48, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This shouldn't matter. Would you remove Illyrian if it was unambiguous that Albanian is descended from it? The point is that Greek and Phrygian were exported from the Balkans, and are only attested after the speakers had left the region. I do still think that Phrygian and (early! Proto-) Greek should be included in the group. (modern Greek doesn't have too much in common with Mycenaean, so for all practical purposes, Mycenaean Greek is just as extinct asw Phrygian) dab (ᛏ) 15:02, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

You're right that a language being extinct or not is not a criterion. I really can't say why we should exclude Ancient Greek. Alexander 007 03:08, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Phrygian + Greek dialects should not be listed under proto-Greek, because Phrygian is not proto-Greek. The correct should be a Greco-Phrygian group where Greek dialects and Phrygian (and Mysian?) should be listed. fkitselis —Preceding undated comment added 10:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC).

Armenian

Since the issue of Armenian currently is turning into a rather silly edit war, could someone come up with comments on whether Armenian fits or not, or how to describe its position vis-a-vis the other proposed Paleo-Balkan languages, in a sufficient manner? Does the anonymous editor have a point, which he very sloppily imposes, or is it just some kind of personal agenda and/or ethnic pride? 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I readded info because it was removed without explanations, that shouldn't be done. As far as I know Armenians is considered related to Greek (probably through Phrygian as explained in article) so that would qualify it for this status of "Paleo-Balkan language", however I'm not a specialist in this field, actually my knowledge is very limited, but I want to explanations when info is removed from an article (especially when that comes from anon ip addresses or from new users) for further consideration: Graeco-Armenian hypothesis-- AdrianTM 18:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Now the edit explanation says: "Greeks migrated from Anatolia, and not the other way around, all major linguists agree" -- I never heard of this before, I doubt there's any consensus that Greeks migrated from Anatolia (at least not direct from there and not separate from other Balkanic people), if you read the link about Graeco-Armenian language you'll see that there is at least a theory that Armenian is related to Greek. -- AdrianTM 05:14, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, at least s/he finally managed to get rid of that sloppy sentence breach. What are the main scholarly viewpoints in the matter? 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, I don't know, in Graeco-Armenian language page there are references, but I have no idea what weight they have, however "Greeks migrated from Anatolia, and not the other way around, all major linguists agree" summary edit, make me doubt the accuracy of the edit. I will leave that for other, more knowledgeable people to decide. -- AdrianTM 13:20, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I't rather silly for me to respond to this so late and without being a logged in member. But to be blunt, there are significant holes in our understanding of the Indo-European language family when it comes to Europe. The Indo-European language family has a bunch of independent languages or branches in Europe and the Near East. Living examples include Greek, Armenian, and Albanian. Extinct examples include but are probably not limited to, Ligurian, Thracian, Dacian, Illyrian, Paeonian, Messapian, and Phrygian. So why is this a problem? It is a problem because Indo-European languages are universally recognized as being originally non-native to most of Europe. Therefore it would seem rather strange that the center of diversity of the Indo-European language family would be in Southern Europe. Hence to get around this problem various different branches of the Indo-European language family have been proposed over the years such as Italo-Celtic, Graeco-Phrygian, Graeco-Armenian, Daco-Thracian, and Thraco-Illyrian. So where does all of this speculation seem to be headed? Well on the surface it appears, to be going nowhere. As I stated below you need hard evidence when classifying languages and organizing them, and given that most of the languages we are talking about have been extinct for a long time such hard evidence is very difficult, if not impossible to come by. Below the surface however, it would appear to me that when taking into account all of the the hypothetical branches of the Indo-European family we come up with three basic ones: a Paleo-Balkan branch, a Graeco-Phrygian branch, and an Italo-Celtic branch. Are these scientific conclusions? Of course not, for I am not a trained linguist. But nevertheless it does not take a professional sailor to see which direction a boat in front of them is going. I can and will tell you why I came to these conclusions. Firstly a Paleo-Balkan branch. Currently the term "Paleo-Balkan languages" is a purely geographical term used to describe a bunch of mostly Indo-European ancient languages in the Balkans. The three most well known of these are Thracian, Illyrian and Dacian. Now it is believed that the modern language of Albanian descends from one of these three (with most people preferring Illyrian). However not only has Albanian been linked with all three of those languages by linguists, but many of those ancient languages have been linked with each other! Therefore it would not surprise me in the least if I were to learn that all four of those languages (among others) are related to one another and form there own branch of the Indo-European family. Let's move on to the Italo-Celtic branch. This hypothetical branch was created due to the fact that many of the unclassified Indo-European languages in western Europe appear to have features common to both the Italic branch and the Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family. Given that those two branches due have features shared with are unique to only them and given that some of those unclassified languages are out of place to merit language contact as a hypothesis some linguists (as shown by the page) propose an Italo-Celtic branch. Lastly a Graeco-Phrygian/Graeco-Armenian branch; so not only have Greek and Armenian been connected to each other, but Greek and Phrygian are also connected to each other and that is important because Armenian is often connected to Phrygian, hence the hypothesis that Greek, Phrygian and Armenian form there own branch together. But I digress, so what is my business here? Simply put, these various different hypothetical branches are important even if they are unproven due to the literal lack of hard evidence. They are important because of the fact which I mentioned above: it makes no sense for a language family to have it's greatest diversity in an area where it did not actually originate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.11.49 (talk) 01:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Speculative

The following implicit statements are too speculative to be used as a basis for an article:

• that there was a Thraco-Illyrian language group,
• that the Illyrians is an extant language group (Albanians ~?~ Illyrian),
• that the Thraco-Illyrian language group, if it existed, and if Dacian was part of it, is extinct (Albanians ~?~ Carpi/Free-Dacians).

... said: Rursus (bork²) 07:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Purpose for article?

What exactly is the purpose of this article? As it is written now it makes the impression that this is a branch of the IE language family, and when one looks at the edits been made there is discussions concerning the internal classification of this and that language within this so called subgroup. On other articles (I came here via one of them, but saw it on others) these languages are listed as members of the paleo-balkan subgroup of IE languages, which definitely not reflects the view in current IE scholarship. Moreover this article lists only one source, please read it everyone, because that source is an article on the tense relationship between the modern states of Greece and Macedonia and the very word "language" occurs only three times in the entire article! I don't know who put it there, but it is ridiculous. I would suggest that the entire article is deleted unless someone digs up a source, preferably by some historical linguist, that actually discusses this topic. Amilah (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

It is rather speculative. It started off, and technically still is, a geographical grouping of random Indo-European Languages. The reason why people have a tendency to treat it as an actual branch of the Indo-European Language family is because many of these languages have all been individually connected to one another at different times by a large number of linguists. Basically Albanian, which is universally recognized to be the only living language in this group, has been connected with all three of the other major Paleo-Balkan languages (Illyrian, Dacian, and Thracian) over the years and occasionally the extinct ones have been connected with each other. While a more conservative (used in a scientific context rather than a political context) and cautious linguists may retort that this is the result of language contact, they offer no explanation to how a bunch of random independent Indo-European languages ended up in an area where they weren't originally spoken. The reason why it is not commonly excepted among any linguists is because there isn't a whole lot of hard evidence for it (save for a bunch odd Romanian words that have cognates only in Albanian) since all of the Paleo-Balkan languages apart from Albanian (and according to some people, Armenian and Greek) are extinct and inadequately documented.

Due to Turkicization too?

That is a fine example of anachronism. When the early Turkic tribes such as Huns, Avars, Bulghars arrived in the Balkan Peninsula, so-called Paleo-Balkan languages had already been extinct for more than one thousand years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.223.25.36 (talk) 14:03, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be right. I've removed it. --JorisvS (talk) 16:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Confusion about this articles

This article is not very clear. At begin it says that Greek is a descendant of this branch, but then the article lists languages and there is not any mention to Greek or to the sometimes used Hellenic branch (That include Greek and Macedonian). But then Macedonian appears in the list with an (?).

If this article talk only about the ancient Balkan languages and modern Albanian, what is the relation with Greek/Hellenic that is considered a independent branch by most linguistics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Haitike (talk • contribs) 12:02, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

As mentioned in an above comment, this term "Paleo-Balkan" is currently a geographic term that refers to a bunch of living and extinct Indo-European languages from the Balkans that don't seem to fit into any branch of the Indo-European language family. Since Greek is spoken in the Balkans and doesn't fit in any IE branch it is often referred to as a Paleo-Balkan language in the geographic sense of the term. But whereas Albanian has been hypothesized as being related to more than one of the extinct Paleo-Balkan languages (which may logically suggest the existence of a Paleo-Balkan branch of the Indo-European language family), Greek is seen as being unrelated to any of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.34.237.112 (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

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Ancient Macedonian

This language was kept as a separate entity here not without my help. More, the 2 sources supporting the view it was a separate language were added by me. However, because its status is uncertain, there is a question mark at its end. Please, do not delete it. Jingiby (talk) 12:06, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Well done, Jingiby! You did well to revert the IP. All the languages in this section are languages which, except Daco-Thracian, are classified as belonging to families independent to each other. The Macedonian however is classified as part of the Hellenic group of languages and related to the Greek which is already mentioned in that section. If the question mark is to be removed from the end, then the entire Macedonian language will have to be removed from the list. No middle solutions such as keeping it in list without question mark will be tolerated.

I am urging all editors who are interested in Macedonia-related articles to keep their guard, as such IP disruptions may hike the coming days, as the Parliament in the Republic of (North) Macedonia is passing the final ammendments for the changes to its constituttional name this week. Take care. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 22:36, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Works about traditional healing

I wonder what makes this one [[2]] reliable per wp:HISTRS. 'Traditional style medicine and botanology' is an interesting topic, but irrelevant with linguistics and historical scholarship on the field [[3]].Alexikoua (talk) 11:27, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I did not add this. However, the names of plants -- specifically whether or not they are native -- are of critical importance in establishing a language's geographic history. They play a major role in discussion of Proto-Albanian, Proto-Slavic, Proto-Indo-European, and many other hypothetical scenarios.--Calthinus (talk) 16:49, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Where and how has it been used? I can't find it in the article? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:00, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I can't find it anywhere in this page's history either ...... mysterious....--Calthinus (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

It was added [4] by @Βατο: and then replaced by them with another source. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I guess we can all agree it wasn't a useable source. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:50, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Quiles ref

Who started citing that infamous Quiles ref ("Grammar of Modern Indo-European") again on this page? Has it still not become common knowledge among editors here that it's a sham? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:22, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise:, I do not have the time to check who added Quiles, but together with that source you also removed Wilkes. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:32, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, that was a mistake. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:35, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Curtis ref

To explain this [5] revert: I think there are multiple reasons why that sentence in the lead, and especially the footnote in that form, was unsatisfactory:

1. The whole sentence gives improper weight to the Albanian issue in the lead. The lead is supposed to be a summary, but the treatment of Albanian in the lead paragraph was now longer and more detailed than the actual "Albanian" section further down.
2. Curtis is a PhD thesis about a topic that is not centrally related to this article, and the passage cited is merely from a routine state-of-the-art report in its background section. Its value as a reliable source for our purposes is therefore limited. I'm not saying it's unuseable, but we ought to be able to do better.
3. The quoted passages are poorly selected and misleading. While it's true that he says on p.18 that there is simply insufficient evidence to connect Illyrian, Thracian, or Dacian with any language, including Albanian, he also says earlier (p.15) that It is generally accepted that Albanians continue one of the ancient languages of the Balkans – so he's not really challenging the Paleo-Balkan connection as such, but merely reiterates that it's unclear which of the candidates should be picked. (He also, on p.17, tentatively opines in favour of Illyrian: the negative stance towards Proto-Albanian’s connection to Illyrian and placement in the Western Balkans is likely unwarranted, given the linguistic evidence).
4. It's also extremely poor style to have those citations-within-a-citation in our quote (Fortson 2004: 390; Katičić 1976: 184–188; Fine 1983: 11), since we are not accounting for what those works actually say or even what works they are.
5. The second quoted passage (Although the Slavs’ migration to the Balkans brought them into contact with the native populations of the Balkans, including ancestors of the Albanians along with Greeks and Balkan Romance speakers) is quite off-topic (what does the time of the Slavic migrations have to do with anything here?), and it presents a sentence fragment as if it were an (ungrammatical) sentence.
6. The quoted passage was also wrongly cited: there are no quote marke around the word "remains" in the original.
7. Finally, nobody ever bothered to copy the actual bibliographic information into the references section, so the Harvard ref "Curtis 2012" was hanging in the air. (For the record, it's: Curtis, Matthew Cowan (2012) "Slavic-Albanian Language Contact, Convergence, and Coexistence". PhD dissertation, Ohio State University [6]).

This is what happens when people first cite Google snippets without digesting the actual literature and then start mechanically copying over alleged refs from one article to the other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise Okay this is well reasoned and I agree. But I still think we should find a way to include in the lede a sentence -- without mentioning Albanian in fact, so we don't unduly focus on it -- that internal relations between Thracian, Dacian, Illyrian etc are also unclear at the moment.--Calthinus (talk) 16:36, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense, no problem as far as I'm concerned. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:56, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Map

It seems like the colored areas on this map are unsourced and thus WP:OR. Another map should be made and this one should be removed. @Future Perfect at Sunrise: since you have edited this page multiple times and seem to have knowledge about the subject, maybe you could help out with making a new map? Ahmet Q. (talk) 00:45, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Philistine

Some argue that it is indo-european or maybe even related to Mycenaean Greek, was a connection to Paleo-Balkan established? Braganza (talk) 13:43, 19 August 2024 (UTC)