Extent of the Greek language around 550 AD

According to this map, the current Bulgaria was split in two. I would assume that the situation was more complicated than either of the two maps suggest, as other languages, like Illyrian, Thracian and Dacian were probably still alive, at least it seems like Albanian descends from one of those, a mix of them or some related language.


Bgiusca_Jirecek_Line.jpg
 
There is also another part of the map that might be wrong. It is disputed how long the history of the Romanian language in Romania is. I am presently reading a book about Kosovo, called Kosovo: A short history, bye Noel Malcolm. He discusses various groups that have had a connection with the Kosovo area, among them the Albanians and the Vlachs (Romanians). On page 40 he writes: "It is, therefore, in the uplands of the Kosovo area (particularly, but not only, on the western side, including parts of Montenegro) that this Albanian-Vlach symbiosis probably developed. All the evidence comes together at this point. What it suggests is that the Kosovo region, together with at least part of northern Albania, was the crucial focus of two distinct, but interlinked ethnic histories: The surival of the Albanians, and the emergence of the Romanians and Vlachs. One large group of Vlachs seem to have broken away and moved southwards by the ninth or tenth centuries, The proto-Romanians stayed in contact with the Albanians significantly longer, before drifting north-eastwards and crossing the Danube in the twelfth century".
 
Illyrian was most likely extinct by 550 AD. Most records show that the Illyrians were romanized or hellenized during this time. Thracian & Dacian were endangered languages around this time. Probably spoken only in very remote areas. There are no records of Albanian until the 11 century.
 
I notice that they use the term"chamitic" for Berber, Coptic and Ethiopian language. As far as I understand they are all afroasiatic languages, but are they closer to each other than they are to semitic languages?

It is French for Hamitic which is a sub language group of Afroasiatic, and so is Semitic. Hamitic and Semitic are the two parts of Afroasiatic otherwise known as Hamito-Semitic. I'm not sure of the differences and similarities between the two, but I assume there are enough to warrant a separate sub grouping, but not enough to warrant an entirely separate language group.

No serious linguist sees "Hamitic" as a legitimate subgrouping anymore. The preferred label now is "Afroasiatic" (or "Afrasian") in which the four or five major groups that were lumped into "Hamitic" are not regarded as forming a unit opposed to Semitic.

Correct, Afroasiatic is the preferred term, introduced by Joseph Greenberg in his 1963 classification of the languages of Africa. I'm not an Africanist, so I'm not sure what the current consensus is, but last I heard it's thought that Omotic (spoken in a remote area of southwestern Ethiopia) followed by Cushitic (the dominant language family of the Horn of Africa) are the most remote Afroasiatic branches, with some sort of closer unity among Chadic (the only branch in equatorial West Africa, that includes Hausa), Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic.
 
Correct, Afroasiatic is the preferred term, introduced by Joseph Greenberg in his 1963 classification of the languages of Africa. I'm not an Africanist, so I'm not sure what the current consensus is, but last I heard it's thought that Omotic (spoken in a remote area of southwestern Ethiopia) followed by Cushitic (the dominant language family of the Horn of Africa) are the most remote Afroasiatic branches, with some sort of closer unity among Chadic (the only branch in equatorial West Africa, that includes Hausa), Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic.

This is more or less correct, although there is a lot of controversy on the details.
In general, IIRC, it is roughly agreed that "Berber", Egyptian and Semitic are somewhat more closely related, and that Chadic has features in common with "Berber" and to a lesser extent Egyptian, corroborating a primary branching as the one you describe.
Omotic is an unholy mess, partly because the documentation of the relevant languages is much less than desirable. Most think that Omotic is a separate branch and that it is somewhat more closely related to Cushitic, but the genetic unity of Cushitic itself is not entirely sure.
Semitic shares features with everyone in varying degrees, and primarily with the northern subgroups. Basically, it is a very complex and confusing situation, and the set of skills needed to sort it out are currently either lacking or employed elsewhere (and honestly, who really cares?).
[I am supposed to teach this stuff, although only as an introduction].
 
Illyrian was most likely extinct by 550 AD. Most records show that the Illyrians were romanized or hellenized during this time. Thracian & Dacian were endangered languages around this time. Probably spoken only in very remote areas. There are no records of Albanian until the 11 century.

According to Malcolm (Kosovo: a short history: s 37-38) "the origins of the Albanians must be sought ... on the Illyrian side ... particularly in the mountains around Kosovo, in the Malësi and in the tangle of mountains stretching north from there through Montenegro". I just quote his conclusion here, for those interested in reading more about his argument, I refer to hos book. His argument is largely based on linguistics. He finds that Albanian has more traits of Illyrian than Daco-Thracian. Personally I have no knowledge of the grammar of those languages, so I cannot really come to any conclusion, but as far as I understand it is generally agreed that Albanian descends from either Illyrian or Daco-Thracian. Among those, Malcolm argues that Albanian seems to have more traits from Illyrian.
 
Correct, Afroasiatic is the preferred term, introduced by Joseph Greenberg in his 1963 classification of the languages of Africa. I'm not an Africanist, so I'm not sure what the current consensus is, but last I heard it's thought that Omotic (spoken in a remote area of southwestern Ethiopia) followed by Cushitic (the dominant language family of the Horn of Africa) are the most remote Afroasiatic branches, with some sort of closer unity among Chadic (the only branch in equatorial West Africa, that includes Hausa), Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic.
For some reason, the term "chamito-sémitique" is still much more common in French than English. I remember that my high school atlas used it too, along with "altaïque", another mostly discredited classification.
 
This is more or less correct, although there is a lot of controversy on the details.
In general, IIRC, it is roughly agreed that "Berber", Egyptian and Semitic are somewhat more closely related, and that Chadic has features in common with "Berber" and to a lesser extent Egyptian, corroborating a primary branching as the one you describe.
Omotic is an unholy mess, partly because the documentation of the relevant languages is much less than desirable. Most think that Omotic is a separate branch and that it is somewhat more closely related to Cushitic, but the genetic unity of Cushitic itself is not entirely sure.
Semitic shares features with everyone in varying degrees, and primarily with the northern subgroups. Basically, it is a very complex and confusing situation, and the set of skills needed to sort it out are currently either lacking or employed elsewhere (and honestly, who really cares?).
[I am supposed to teach this stuff, although only as an introduction].

Hey, @Falecius, are you a linguist? :D
 
According to Malcolm (Kosovo: a short history: s 37-38) "the origins of the Albanians must be sought ... on the Illyrian side ... particularly in the mountains around Kosovo, in the Malësi and in the tangle of mountains stretching north from there through Montenegro". I just quote his conclusion here, for those interested in reading more about his argument, I refer to hos book. His argument is largely based on linguistics. He finds that Albanian has more traits of Illyrian than Daco-Thracian. Personally I have no knowledge of the grammar of those languages, so I cannot really come to any conclusion, but as far as I understand it is generally agreed that Albanian descends from either Illyrian or Daco-Thracian. Among those, Malcolm argues that Albanian seems to have more traits from Illyrian.

Here is an alternate opinion about the Illyrian origin of the Albanian language. Stumbled upon it today. You may find it interesting as I did.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/austrian-scholars-leave-albania-lost-for-words/
 
Quick question, wasn't Greek the language of trade and the elites for quite a long time due to 1. Alexander and 2. Greek being ascendant in eastern Rome? And if that is the case, just how far widespread was greek?
 
No, I think. It suggests, probably correctly, that they share a common ancestor (below IE I mean) and of course they have a long shared history.

By the way, do you know which language family is closest related to Germanic? I asked the same question on another forum and a guy there meant that it was the Latin/Romance language family. I would have guessed Slavic. Is it possible to say which Indoeuropean language families are more or less related to each other? As far as I understand, the language family closest to Slavic is Baltic. I think I also read somewhere that Celtic is closest to Greek.
 
By the way, do you know which language family is closest related to Germanic? I asked the same question on another forum and a guy there meant that it was the Latin/Romance language family. I would have guessed Slavic. Is it possible to say which Indoeuropean language families are more or less related to each other? As far as I understand, the language family closest to Slavic is Baltic. I think I also read somewhere that Celtic is closest to Greek.

It possible, but things get very messy very quicky when you try to bring some order into it, since some major isoglosses form different bundles. Not unlike the situation of Afro-Asiatic, really, just worse. It is near-universally agreed upon that Slavic is more closely related to Baltic, and, with some less clarity, that Italic is close to Celtic (and likely Venetic, for those who don't see it as Italic - note however that not everyone is sure bout Italic being a unitary family). Both Greek and Balto-Slavic share features with Indo-Iranian, but these are different sets of features. Some are also found in Armenian, but not all.
The position of Germanic seems to be sorta similar in that it partakes of some Balto-Slavic features (though most may be retentions) while showing some innovations AND some retentions in common with Italo-Celtic (especially if you count Venetic in it). Albanian and the older branches (Tokharian and Anatolian) complicate matters further, and Greek poses... problems. Most agree that Anatolian branched off first, followed by Tokharian, then probably Italo-Celtic, then it gets rather convoluted but
perhaps Greek, Germanic and Balto-Slavic branched off about this time (not necessarily in this order) but the split my have not been complete for Balto-Slavic. The suggestion that Armenian may be be closer to Greek would fit nicely here, weren't for the Kentum/Satem isogloss squarely in the way. Late Proto Indo European at this point was probably a dialect continuum in which it is difficult to see clean splits after the first two or three.
 
Pre-Abbasid period at least there was likely a large percentage of South Arabian languages in Yemen as well in Oman and to a certain extent Iranian spoken in areas of Oman especially in the northern coast. However this is a difficult subject as the early Arab sources mainly within the Quran do not notably mention a difference of language between the Arabs of Yemen and the Hijaz/Nejd. Which in my opinion likely points to perhaps a close relation between the two which is more similar than say Arabic to Syriac or Hebrew. This information is what makes some linguists place Arabic within southern Semitic, with languages such as Himyarite, Sabaite, etc being very similar to Arabic and the modern unintelligible (with Arabic only) such as Mehri being the outlining differences. This could also be the case that at an unknown time, due to certain forces (that I am unkown to) caused Yemen to be an Arabic speaking, but highly influenced by Southern Arab Semitic, society. I postulate this because the Yemeni tribes that migrated to Iraq and Syria and Egypt were all Arabic speaking communities, if South Arab semitic was still popular then it would've spread with the Yemeni tribes, as I doubt the Abbasids were effective enough at spreading Arabic to the Arab tribes to erase these langugaes so quickly.
 
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