# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Four questions for those who still believe in prehistoric Slavs and other fairy tales

## Milan

Link to the article 
https://www.academia.edu/25069525/Fo...er_fairy_tales

In one of the most popular fairy tales of Slovenia, Veronika of Mali Grad in Kamnik is turned into a snake as a punishment for having refused to give money for the building of a church. As a snake, she lives underground guarding treasures, and occasionally appears as a beautiful maiden on quarter evenings, when ghosts have power and haunt places. In some variants of the tale, only an honest young man, who is capable ›(answering correctly her many questions, can save her-a Slovenian variant of the Sphinx riddle motif. Far from being a treasure worth guarding, the current research on the early Slavs and the Slavic ethnogenesis is riddled with misconceptions and wishful thinking. Like the snake in the tale, they lurk in the underground of supposedly respectable scholarship and stick out their ugly heads only at the time when the ghosts of nationalism gain power and begin haunting scholars. Despite several signs that the traditional version of the story about how the Slavs came into being is little more than a scholarly fantasy, old habits die hard, and the orthodoxy is repeated _ad nauseam,_ as if repetitioin can replace confidence. There are by now many holes visible in the story, all which must be exposed. The best way to do so is to raise questions about the key elements of the old fairy tale. Having offered an alternative view for some time, let me now attract attention to a few snags arising in consequence of the traditional interpretation of the historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence, which, at any rate, will have to be explained before one restores any credit to discredited theories.
*1. If the Slavic ethnicity is about language, how can people speak Slavic without being Slavs?
*Much of the current debate surrounding the Slavic ethnogenesis may be attributed to the stubborn conviction held in many circles—among historians, as well as archaeologists—that language is the essential element of (any) ethnic identity. This idea goes back to Johann Gott- fried Herder (1744-1803) and constitutes a fundamental assumption of modern nationalism. However, modern studies have constantly shown that there is in fact no one- to-one correlation between ethnic groups and languages'.
In the case of the early Slavs, the problem is complicated by the fact that the language they supposedly spoke, which is known as Common Slavic, is not a “real” language, but an artificial, scholarly construct not attested by any piece of hard evidence'. That the people mentioned in the written sources as Sclavenes or Antes spoke what we now take to be a Slavic language is just an assumption, and a very weak at that’. Andrej Pleterski believes that the Slavic self-awareness is reflected in the very name of those people for “Slavs” supposedly derives from the Slavic term for “word.” The Slavs were therefore the people who spoke the same language, as opposed to Nemtsi, who spoke a language one could not understand’. However, the earliest ethnic name attested in the written sources for those whom modern historians call “Slavs” was not Slav, but Sclavene (Sklavenos , Sclavenes), and that is also how the name was rendered in the first Old Church Slavonic sources [Slovéne). The suffix “-ene” (-éne) is either possessive or locative and some have gone so far as to derive the name of the people from place name.Even if one accept Slavic etymology emphasizing membership in language group,the term could not have possible been created in contrast with speakers of others languages,since Nemtsi is only documented at much later time and in different cultural and political environment.
At stake,however is a different question.Assuming for the moment that the early Slavs spoke (common) Slavic,do all people speaking Slavic therefore have to be Slavs? Was language then,as Andrej Pleterski together with Soviet ethnographers would have it “precondition for the rise of ethnic communities” ? Judging from the existing evidence the answer to both questions must be negative,sixth and seventh century written sources mention individuals describe as Antes and Sclavenes who use more than one language.The phoney Chilbudius was able to claim successfully,that of a Roman general,because although of Antian origin he could speak Latin fluently.Perboundos the king of the Rynchines in souther Macedonia had a thorough command of Greek.But there are people not describe as Antes or Sclavenes but speak Slavic (or the language of Sclavenes whatever it was) fluently.During Priscus 593 campaign in Walachia,one of the captives turned out to be a Gepid,who was very close to the Sclavene king Musocius,with whom he communicated in the king language.Formerly a Christian he betrayed his leader and cooperated with Priscus,presumably using Latin as language of communication (much like phoney Chilbudius before him),for no mention is made of a translator.The Avars had no problem communicating with Sclavenes and Antes in whatever language(s) they may have used.The “Huns” who according to Fredegar slept with the wifes and daughters of the Wends(Slavs) must have been able to communicate with them in their of language or otherwise the Slavic woman knew the language of the Avars.In about 560 as the Avars made their entrance in the steppe lands north of the Black sea,the Antes sent envoy named Mezamer to ransom some of his fellow tribesman taken prisoners by Avars in recent raids,The envoy was killed by the order of the qagan but not before speaking.The qagan was able to understand what Mezamer was saying apparently without assistance of interpreter.Shortly before 578 ,the same qagan sent an embassy to the Sclavenes led by a chieftain named Dauritas asking them to accept Avar suzerainty and to pay tribute.The Avar envoys must have been able to speak the language of Dauritas,or he theirs.When in 592 ,the qagan of the Avars ordered the Sclavenes to build boats for his troops to cross the river Danube,they must have been able to understand his words.In the early seventh century Sclavene warriors fought under direct command of the qagan under the walls of both Thesalonika and Constantinople.The apocryphal life of st Pancritius written in the late seventh or early eighth century mention a group of Avars prisoners in Sicily,with whom communicaton was possible only trough a translator from the Slavic community near Syracuse.
What then was the ethnic identity of those bi-or,possibly,multilingual individuals?should one count phoney Chilbudius out of ethnic group of the Antes because of him speaking Latin?Were the Avars brought to Sicily Slavs given that they could speak Slavic? Was Dauritas an Avar because he communicated with the Avar envoys in a language they all knew?
*2.If the urheimat of the Slavs,at that time when they were still undifferentiated ethnic group,was in the region of Eastern Europe with the most archaic Slavic origin,why are there separate archeological cultures in that region?*
There is currently no agreement as to exact location of the urheimat of the Slavs,if there was one.
Linguists have already expressed their distrust of the research based on river names,primarily because of the difficulties of proving etymologies of words that do not have meanings,in adition to difficulties in identifying specifically Slavic roots in a general Indo-European milieu.
Moreover, there is no agreement between advocates of the idea of looking for the Slavic origins by means of river names as to where exactly were the oldest names of supposedly Slavic origin. While the Soviet linguists place the Urheimat in Right -Bank Ukraine around Zhytomyr.Jurgen Udolph has pointed to an area of Subcarpathian Ukraine, farther to the southwest, in Bukovina and Galicia. Recently, Johanna Nichols has placed the locus for Slavic on the map "in the vicinity of the western Danube plain, which is the evident center of cultural influence from which the spread of Slavic speech emanated, combined with Avar political and ideological institutions'.Few scholars would now believe that there is a direct link between language and archaeological culture, but a certain degree of correlation between their developments is assumed when there is clear evidence of continuity.Andrej Pleterski is apparently convinced that the Zarubyntsi culture dated between the third century BC and the first century AD is the archaeological correlate of the proto-Slavic ethnicity (and language). If so, what happened to the proto-Slavs and their language after the complete disappearance of that culture, supposedly destroyed by Sarmatians"? A considerable gap of about 200 years separates the Zarubyntsi from the Kiev culture (dated between the third and the fourth century). which is attributed to The Kiev culture also ends with the abandonment of most sites. At least another century then separates the Kiev culture from the earliest assemblages of the Prague culture, which is autibuted to the early Slays.Where did the proto-Slavs go after the first century, and whence could they return, two centuries later, to the same region from which their ancestors had left? How did they then turn into the Slavs of the Prague culture, the earliest remains of which are documented archaeologically much farther to the southwest, in Bukovina and Galicia? Why did the migration of the Slavs in the direction of the Lower Danube and the Balkans leave no
remains of the Prague on the territory of present-day Romania, the region which Andrej Pleterski calls "alleged area of the Slavic culture'"?Was (Common) Slavic the language used for communication between the third century B.C. and the third century AD.in settlements attributed to the Zarubyntsi and Kiev culture? There is absolutely no shred of evidence of any language spoken on any of those sites in a region,which was too far away from the Roman world to be on the radar of the written sources. There is therefore no way to associate the material culture discovered on Zarubyntsi and Kiev sites either with an ethnic name known from the sources, or with a linguistic group. Moreover. the obvious cultural discontinuity in the region raises serious doubts about any attempts to write the history of the prehistoric Slavs as one of the continuous occupation of one and the same region between the late Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. Nor is any evidence of material remains of the Zarubyntsi. Kiev, or Prague culture in the southern and southwestern direction of the presumed migration of the ethnos Slavs towards the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire. Pleterski uses maps to show the distribution of archaeological cultures in Eastern Europe during the first to second and third to fourth century, respectively. The arrows indicating migration on those maps point to the northeast and northeast and north, respectively, exactly the opposite of direction of the-movement that would have brought the Slavs into the territories of the Prague and Pen'kivka cultures". If the Slavs were a fully-fledged ethnos since prehistoric times, why are there so many archaeological cultures attributed to them appearing in areas that are not known from the written sources to have been later inhabited either by Sclavenes or by Antes?
*3. Why is there no archaeological evidence of a Slavic migration to the western Balkans?*
A fundamental proposition of historical anthropology is that human genes, language, and culture represent distinct systems of inheritance. The three systems are distinct
and have no necessary relationship because each bears a different relation to population history. For migration so be responsible for cultural change, four conditions have to be met. First, a constellation of new traits has to appear suddenly, and without local prototypes, in a given area. Second. the products of the migrant group should reflect elements of the destination area. Third, it should be possible to identify an area in which constellation of new traits is the normal pattern. Finally, expression of the "at home" and displaced traits should occur simultaneously
or in a sequence in the homeland and the destination area.

Where cultural changes are due so population movement. the pattern of cultural change is one where a new complex appears as a package on new sites. One should also observe a decline in homeland population that takes place over decades rather than all at once. Finally, one should be able to identify permanent, long-distance movement associated with the abandonment of sites, and an accelerating pace and scale of abandonment over time. If the migration of the Slavs began in the area of the Prague culture in Western Ukraine. it is remarkable that, instead of a rarefied
settlement network in that region, there are many more late sixth- to late seventh -century settlements than in the whole of the Balkan Peninsula. The supposed migration did not thin out the population of the supposed Urheimat.
The number of settlements in the homeland is in fact larger than that of the fifth century, and that number continued to grow throughout the seventh and eighth centuries. if as it seems likely, conditions in the supposed urheimat were 
favorable to a population growth, why would anyone want to leave it for the distant lands in Slovenia and Croatia? So far, advocates of the migrationist model, from Valentin V. Sedov to Andrej Pleterski. has offered no answer to this question. The latter imagined the Slavs coming to the western Balkans directly from western Ukraine, across the northern and western parts of the Carpathian Basin". But the material culture attributed to the early Slavs in Slovenia and Croatia has nothing to do with that of the sites in northwestern Romania and northeastern Hungary, the region through which the Slays, according to Pleterski's model, must have gone in order to reach southern Pannonia and, from there, the western Balkans. There are no sunken -floored building of rectangular plan with stone or clay ovens, no clay rolls and lumps ("breadcakes") inside the ovens, no clay trays. and no pottery decorated with crosses incised on the vessel's shoulder". If, as Pleterski now claims, the Slavs settled in the Eastern Alpine area at the end of the 6" century, it is remarkable that the expression of the displaced traits does not appear either si-multaneously or in a sequence with that of the traits in the supposed homeland". Conversely, traits identified in eastern Slovenia and northern Croatia on such sites as reflected in any corresponding elements in the homeland.For example, there are no oval sunken -floored buildings without fireplaces in the northeastern region of the Carpathian Basin or in western Ukraine, such as found in Slovenia and Croatia".By contrast, there are very good matches between traits in the cremation cemetery from Regensburg and those from a number of similar sites in the western part of the Very similar urn cremations have been found on a number of sites in southwestern Hungary between the Zala and the Mura rivers. The earliest cremation burial of this group are dated to the early 735 century, and are therefore of the same age as those in Regensburg. To the same direction point some of the finds associated with cremations in Regensburg-Groflprufening , such as the trapeze -shaped" and the double -spiral bronze pendants". The urns have also good analogies among the handmade pots found in Pokaszepetk". Whether or not those who buried their dead in Regensburg-Groflprufening were Slavs, the cremation cemetery discovered there may be interpreted, at the most, as an indication of a relatively short -distance migration from the Carpathian Basin, and not of the movement of population from western Ukraine (or farther to the east) into the upper Danube region.
*4. If the early Slavs in the northwestern Balkans had specific forms of social organization (e.g., the zupa). why is there no evidence of that in the Urheimat
in Eastern Europe, either before or after the presumed migration?*
The idea that the supposedly rapid Slavicization of Eastern, Southeastern and East Central Europe in the early Middle Ages was the result of a specifically Slavic mode of life and society is rooted in nineteenth-century nationalist views. Procopius of Caesarea's account of the Slavic "democracy" became a favorite historiographic theme in the days of the Slavic Congress in Prague (1848). Both
Frantisek Palacky (1798-1876) and Pavel Josef Sararik (1795-1861) interpreted Procopius' text as referring to a distinctive quality of "Slavdom" as opposed to the aggres- siveness and brutality of the Germane'. To Niederle, the Slavic "democracy" was a pristine form of ancestral. Indo-European social structure based on social equality and cooperation between large families. He imagined these families as identical to the Balkan zadruga "discovered" by Western ethnographers in the late nineteenth century. Like Niederle, many still argue that the peculiar social organization of the early Slavs prevented centralization of economic and political power, despite clear evidence that the zadruga was a much later phenomenon'. During the first half of the twentieth century, it was also assumed that the migration of the early Slavs had resulted in a number of tribes settling in the newly conquered territories. Each tribe was made up of several zadrugas and the territory assigned to them was called a zupe" was thus a common Slavic institution, brought from the Urheimat to the new lands. Ever since Josip Mal (1884-1978), the zupa has been regarded in Slovenian historiography as the foundation of medieval Slavic society". Andrej Pleterski has embraced this concept with great enthusiasm. Like Niederle, he does not hesitate to use nineteenth-century oral history accounts as evidence for the migration of the Slavs in the late sixth century". According to him, the
zupa was the building block of Slavdom". Without any fear of anachronism, Pleterski engages boldly in comparing the Zupa with the polis in ancient Greece, the civitas in ancient Rome,the Gau in the Germanic world,and the opidum among Celts all being small units of spatial organization.
According to him, if one uses "the right key," the outlines of the older field division of any 
may come to light. The basic premise is, of course, that the arable land divisions of the early medieval villages established by the early Slays have been preserved intact to this day". Pleterski thinks that the date for the establishment of a village (Zasip) may be derived from that of the graves excavated in a nearby cemetery (Zale), and is confident that a hoard of iron tools and weapons (Sebenje) can show, in and by itself, that the arable land, as well as the farming tools were taken by the Slavs from the native Vlachs in the region". Between 1050 and 1065, a certain Winrih left to the Diocese of Brixen his hereditary,estate in a place called "Summitas campi id eat a 
felde situm".
From that, Pleterski draws the conclusion that the place in question was "at the upper field." All villages in the Gorje area of the Bled zupa inclusion of comparative material available on other (Zgomje Gorje, Poljiica. and Vigelnica) are "at the upper field ," but "the closest corresponding Slovene toponym is Gorje" This is the basis for Pleterski deciding that Spodne-Gorje must be Winrih's estates' This data manipulation is nothing but pure phantasmagoria, with sheer disregard for both logic and consistency. The only purpose of such carefully constructed aberration is a overwhelming desireto prove that the as a territorial unit, survived in-tact through the centuries following the arrival of the early Slavs on Slovenian soil. To be sure, Pleterski is not alone in such endeavors. A historian critical of the nationalist tendencies of Slovene historians still believes that through
"the inclusion of comparative material available on other(especially South Slavs) and backward deduction based on later periods in Slovene history," one can conclude that the Slavic ancestors of the Slovenes were familiar with the zupa system" already at the time of their settlement".What is the evidence of the zupa system in the region of central or western Ukraine from which the early Slavs supposedly migrated? During the Soviet regime, much
effort has been put into writing social history of Marxist inspiration, and the period
of the early Slays (fifth to seventh century) was particularly emphasized for such
approaches'°. Archaeologists looked at settlement layouts for clues about the social organization of the early Slavs. The concept of village community as put forward by Boris 0. Timoshchuk has absolutely nothing in common with the
zupa ,although it is believed to apply to the earliest form of social organization of the early Slavs'. Nor did the new preoccupation with the intrasire organization of
sixth- to seventh -century settlements attributed to the early Slavs reveal anything remotely rhyming with the zupa system, an envisioned by Andrej Pleterski.




If no evidence exists of the zupa system either in the East European Urheimat Or in other areas inhabited by
Slavs in the Middle Ages (e.g., Bulgaria or Poland), how did the system emerge in the northwestern Balkans? Why was it so prominent in Slovenia and Croatia in the central and High Middle Ages?
Most variants of the Slovenian folk tale mentioned in the beginning of this paper have the young man failing to answer correctly Veronika's questions. The bewitched girl is doomed to wait for her savior in the cradle, a man not yet born or not yet grown. The four questions addressed above at those who still believe in prehistoric Slavs and other such fairy tales raise similar concerns. Is any one out
there capable of answering them in a meaningful way, instead of clinging to outdated historical models? Or should one wait for the birth of another man capable of answering them correctly and returning the snake -like monster to its natural state of a human beig?

Florin CURTA
Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology
Department of History
202 Flint Hall, P.O. Box 117320
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7320
E-mail: [email protected]

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## LeBrok

Are you saying that Slavs were always there in Western Balkans, but somehow Roman and Greek historians completely missed them?

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## Taranis

Florin Curta is always good for a joke, now isn't he?  :Laughing: 




> Are you saying that Slavs were always there in Western Balkans, but somehow Roman and Greek historians completely missed them?


That is the key problem, in a nutshell even, with Florin Curta's hypothesis. Its not like we have any form of linguistic evidence from the western Balkans from the 1st through 5th centuries in terms of place names, personal names, deity names. He pretends that all this data doesn't exist and the Slavic peoples have been hiding in blind sight all this time, only to miraculously surface after the demise of the Roman Empire.

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## Milan

> Florin Curta is always good for a joke, now isn't he? 
> 
> 
> 
> That is the key problem, in a nutshell even, with Florin Curta's hypothesis. Its not like we have any form of linguistic evidence from the western Balkans from the 1st through 5th centuries in terms of place names, personal names, deity names. He pretends that all this data doesn't exist and the Slavic peoples have been hiding in blind sight all this time, only to miraculously surface after the demise of the Roman Empire.


He is profesor of medieval history and archeology and his books researching on Slavs were awarded,his books are taken to be studied by many young generations as a start,do you think that is about what you should get a laugh?

You are free to answer his question if you can?
But if you use more dedication you will see that Curta say that even language has nothing to do with ones "ethnic identity" so please answer them if you are profesional like him in the field so we all can get a laugh.



> Much of the current debate surrounding the Slavic ethnogenesis may be attributed to the stubborn conviction held in many circles—among historians, as well as archaeologists—that language is the essential element of (any) ethnic identity. This idea goes back to Johann Gott- fried Herder (1744-1803) and constitutes a fundamental assumption of modern nationalism. However, modern studies have constantly shown that there is in fact no one- to-one correlation between ethnic groups and languages

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## Milan

> Are you saying that Slavs were always there in Western Balkans, but somehow Roman and Greek historians completely missed them?


Those that we call Slavs(Sclavenes) were in the Danube basin to be clear not in Ukraine,Poland or anything like that, placing them in different places is ones own imagination.

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## Taranis

> He is profesor of medieval history and archeology and his books researching on Slavs were awarded,his books are taken to be studied by many young generations as a start,do you think that is about what you should get a laugh?
> You are free to answer his question if you can?
> But if you use more deducation you will see that Curta say that even language has nothing to do with ones "ethnic identity" so please answer them if you are profesional like him in the field so we all can get a laugh.


Just because someone is a published author and has a degree in his field does not prevent anyone from publishing about shallow, poorly-supported ideas that can be readily debunked, and that does not prevent them either from clinging to the same idea for years and years on. To mention a few other authors in that cathegory: Paul Wexler, Quentin D. Atkinson, Theo Vennemann and Mario Alinei.

It is exactly like I said, Florin Curta pretends that we have no linguistic evidence whatsoever about the pre-Roman languages of the Balkans (the western Balkans in particular), and that we have no knowledge about the internal evidence from the Slavic language family itself. If we pretend these do not exist, you can readily follow Curta's route and pretend that the Slavic homeland was in the Danubian basin or on the Western Balkans, and the Proto-Slavs were living "in blind sight" of the Greek and Roman authors. Florin Curta published his ideas first well over a decade ago, they are still as wrong today as they were five or ten years ago, why should I not be amused that he still publishes them in 2016?

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## Milan

> Just because someone is a published author and has a degree in his field does not prevet anyone from publishing about shallow, poorly-supported ideas that can be readily debunked, and that does not prevent them either from clinging to the same idea for years and years on. To mention a few other authors in that cathegory: Paul Wexler, Quentin D. Atkinson, Theo Vennemann and Mario Alinei.
> 
> It is exactly like I said, Florin Curta pretends that we have no linguistic evidence whatsoever about the pre-Roman languages of the Balkans (the western Balkans in particular), and that we have no knowledge about the internal evidence from the Slavic language family itself. If we pretend these do not exist, you can readily follow Curta's route and pretend that the Slavic homeland was in the Danubian basin or on the Western Balkans, and the Proto-Slavs were living "in blind sight" of the Greek and Roman authors. Florin Curta published his ideas first well over a decade ago, they are still as wrong today as they were five or ten years ago, why should I not be amused that he still publishes them in 2016?


They were awarded instead debunked,can you make a difference there?
I doubt you can discredit all those authors and don't know why you put him in "that category" his is archeologist and historian for medieval time, i know but a few of those you mention but are linguists.
I doubt that you are familiar with all his work or what you understood out of that? judging by your comment.
We can all discredit anyone,that's the easiest thing to do
Discrediting someone without answering his questions just show that you just can't get a laugh on him.

The idea some might clinge for is around from 19th century and nothing is answered,is that about a laugh? i guess it is much more.

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## Taranis

> They were awarded instead debunked,can you make a difference there?
> I doubt you can discredit all those authors and don't know why you put him in "that category" his is archeologist and historian for medieval time, i know but a few of those you mention but are linguists.
> I doubt that you are familiar with all his work or what you understood out of that? judging by your comment.
> We can all discredit anyone,that's the easiest thing to do
> Discrediting someone without answering his questions just show that you just can't get a laugh on him.


That is my point exactly though: if Florin Curta was a linguist he would realize his blunder, namely that he places his Slavic homeland into an area where we have clear evidence that the speakers of Proto-Slavic were not there. Curta goes ahead and accuses those that place the Slavic homeland outside of the Roman empire as (I'm now quoting now) "adhering to an outdated model", but doesn't realize that his own model is the one that actually has the far greater problems.

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## Milan

> That is my point exactly though: if Florin Curta was a linguist he would realize his blunder, namely that he places his Slavic homeland into an area where we have clear evidence that the speakers of Proto-Slavic were not there. Curta goes ahead and accuses those that place the Slavic homeland outside of the Roman empire as (I'm now quoting now) "adhering to an outdated model", but doesn't realize that his own model is the one that actually has the far greater problems.


Let me name few linguist now,what about Johanna Nichols then placing it in the Danube plain?she is also Slavic linguist,Johanna perhaps is still alive,so was Oleg Trubachov a good Slavic linguist,there is others.. but let that alone.

His Curta's own model rely on archeology and history.
We can't speak of migration in terms of archeology if there is no signs of that.

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## Taranis

> Let me name few linguist now,what about Johanna Nichols than placing it in the Danube plain?she is also Slavic linguist,Johanna perhaps is still alive,so was Oleg Trubachov a good Slavic linguist.
> His Curta's own model rely on archeology and history.
> We can't speak of migration in terms of archeology if there is no since of that.


If you're so sure about this, show me your Proto-Slavic place names, personal names in Greek and Roman sources. Good luck.

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## Milan

> If you're so sure about this, show me your Proto-Slavic place names, personal names in Greek and Roman sources. Good luck.


Well i posted this if someone might be interested to read the article or to answer the questions not to search for "Slavic place names" in Greek or Roman sources.

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## Taranis

> Well i posted this if someone might be interested to read the article or to answer the questions not to search for "Slavic place names" in Greek or Roman sources.


One factor that you have to consider is the following: the Slavic languages are clearly part of the greater Indo-European language family, their position inside Indo-European is fairly obvious (most closely related with the Baltic languages), and there is plenty of evidence of its internal history. It should be obvious that _someone_ at earlier points of history had to speak the language, it is impossible to have come out of thin air. Proto-Slavic was not a conlang (like Klingon or Quenya  :Laughing:  ) that people in the 500-600s invented.

Also, the migration period happened. How else would you explain that southern Bavaria, the Rhineland and large parts Switzerland speak German when they should be Romance? How else do you explain that a large wedge of modern eastern Germany spoke Slavic at the start of the Middle Ages when it was clearly Germanic a few centuries earlier? If being Slavic is not about the Slavic languages (which Curtin essentially argues there, and yet the word "Slavic" actually comes from the Slavic word for "speech" or "word", see Polish "słowo"), where do the Slavic languages come form?

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## Milan

[QUOTE=Taranis;479773]


> One factor that you have to consider is the following: the Slavic languages are clearly part of the greater Indo-European language family, their position inside Indo-European is fairly obvious (most closely related with the Baltic languages), and there is plenty of evidence of its internal history. It should be obvious that _someone_ at earlier points of history had to speak the language, it is impossible to have come out of thin air. Proto-Slavic was not a conlang (like Klingon or Quenya  ) that people in the 500-600s invented.


All that is true nevertheless the research remain,whether for Indo-European or the Slavic language,to remind that nothing is established from this,what you mean that Slavic is invented and calling it conlang,i do not understand as someone claim this?




> Also, the migration period happened. How else would you explain that southern Bavaria, the Rhineland and large parts Switzerland speak German when they should be Romance? How else do you explain that a large wedge of modern eastern Germany spoke Slavic at the start of the Middle Ages when it was clearly Germanic a few centuries earlier? If being Slavic is not about the Slavic languages (which Curtin essentially argues there, and yet the word "Slavic" actually comes from the Slavic word for "speech" or "word", see Polish "słowo"), where do the Slavic languages come form?


Firstly "Slovene" is attested in Old Church Slavonic (dialect around Thesalonika at the time) in the South much before there was any Poland to speak of.
Yes perhaps is coming from "Slovo" but as he said it is probably.
It's up to linguist to make their research and tell us where the language/languages came from.
And if the language is connected so much to ethnic groups,perhaps Romanians are mostly Romans instead local Balkanic? most probably Curta refer to this,many such other examples.

He is asking question actualy,if Slavic ethnicity is about language,what about other ethnic groups attested by other names spoke Slavic which were not called Sclavenes ? are they also Slavs?



> *1. If the Slavic ethnicity is about language, how can people speak Slavic without being Slavs?*





> What then was the ethnic identity of those bi-or,possibly,multilingual individuals?should one count phoney Chilbudius out of ethnic group of the Antes because of him speaking Latin?Were the Avars brought to Sicily Slavs given that they could speak Slavic? Was Dauritas(Sclavene) an Avar because he communicated with the Avar envoys in a language they all knew?

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## arvistro

Ok, there is some merit in discussion.
i.e. are Irish Germanic?

on other hand Slavic, Indo-European, Greek, Germanic, etc are by definition linguistic terms. You can't find much genetic similarity bw Indian and Dutch person. And you can find a lot of genetic similarity between Estonian and Latvian person. Culture can't help you too. Otherwise we would have to say that with Christianization came ethnicity change, because changes in culture are evident. So, only language can help to define ethnicity.

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## Milan

> Ok, there is some merit in discussion.
> i.e. are Irish Germanic?
> 
> on other hand Slavic, Indo-European, Greek, Germanic, etc are by definition linguistic terms. You can't find much genetic similarity bw Indian and Dutch person. And you can find a lot of genetic similarity between Estonian and Latvian person. Culture can't help you too. Otherwise we would have to say that with Christianization came ethnicity change, because changes in culture are evident. So, only language can help to define ethnicity.


Yes language probably play the biggest role in defining ethnicity,but then again we have nation states.
For example take a look at Balkans.Serbian share a lot with Macedonian,Bulgarian etc in term of culture,habits,myths etc the language is almost same,but we have nation-states,which again is nothing but imagined community which people proudly embrace,this is the case with many different people,if you add Romanian here culturally they are perhaps almost same too,but not linguistically,so it's all up to our fundamental believes as people.
And i do not think that ancient people view the language as we does today,it help just as today to communicate among us,while as Curta pointed out perhaps today constitute the fundametal assumption of modern nationalism.
But then again even Herodotus mention that Hellene is one that speak share the same Hellenic language.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> Florin Curta is always good for a joke, now isn't he? 
> 
> 
> 
> That is the key problem, in a nutshell even, with Florin Curta's hypothesis. Its not like we have any form of linguistic evidence from the western Balkans from the 1st through 5th centuries in terms of place names, personal names, deity names. He pretends that all this data doesn't exist and the Slavic peoples have been hiding in blind sight all this time, only to miraculously surface after the demise of the Roman Empire.


Where was the 'homeland' of Proto-Slavs in your opinion?

----------


## LeBrok

> Let me name few linguist now,what about Johanna Nichols then placing it in the Danube plain?she is also Slavic linguist,Johanna perhaps is still alive,so was Oleg Trubachov a good Slavic linguist,there is others.. but let that alone.
> 
> His Curta's own model rely on archeology and history.
> We can't speak of migration in terms of archeology if there is no signs of that.


 Insanity. Don't believe in it. Archeology points to depopulation of Balkans and Central Europe in 500s, afterwords new, materialy simpler, culture showed up. It also goes well, in timeline and geographic distribution, with Slavic Expansion during Dark Ages. Byzantium historical records are obvious about Slavic conquering Balkans. Linguistics points to origin of all Slavs from one place. Genetics points to affiliation of Slavs with R1a mostly, which was missing in Balkans in Neolithic and Bronze Age. 
Granted there is no one big proof so far, but there are so many little clues, which complement each others, creating one big coherent picture. Slavs showed up in Balkans during Dark Ages from NW direction.

----------


## Milan

> Insanity. Don't believe in it. Archeology points to depopulation of Balkans and Central Europe in 500s, afterwords new, materialy simpler, culture showed up. It also goes well, in timeline and geographic distribution, with Slavic Expansion during Dark Ages. Byzantium historical records are obvious about Slavic conquering Balkans. Linguistics points to origin of all Slavs from one place. Genetics points to affiliation of Slavs with R1a mostly, which was missing in Balkans in Neolithic and Bronze Age. 
> Granted there is no one big proof so far, but there are so many little clues, which complement each others, creating one big coherent picture. Slavs showed up in Balkans during Dark Ages from NW direction.


This is pure anachronism,i have read much on the subject,nowhere such things are written but is wishful thinking on many indeed.
R1a is not "Slavic" you have much more in Scandinavia of it than in Balkans,yet they aren't Slavs,in Balkan differenate subclade dominate,and better check how many of I2a you can find north where we find Slavs.

----------


## LeBrok

> This is pure anachronism,i have read much on the subject,nowhere such things are written but is wishful thinking on many indeed.
> R1a is not "Slavic" you have much more in Scandinavia of it than in Balkans,yet they aren't Slavs,in Balkan differenate subclade dominate,and better check how many of I2a you can find north where we find Slavs.


Who said all subclades match Slavic marker?
M458 matches Slavic Expansion almost perfectly:


And Balto-Slavic M558



If you can read clues and can't see the big picture, you will be always lost. I'm suspecting that your nationalistic/romantic feelings are misleading your logic. It feels nice if Slavic Homeland was located somewhere in borders of Yugoslavia, isn't it? You are a Slav and Slavs were always there. What a perfect validation of your inherited rights to this part of the world. This idea gives you a nice and cosy feeling and you really want it to be true. As nice as it feels, it has a powerful misleading effect. 75 years ago most Germans believed that they were descendants of Aryans, the best warriors ever. Was it the truth? No. But it felt so good and powerful.


I remember there was another, or maybe two more, Yugoslavians, years back on Eupedia who subscribed to the same hypothesis. Interestingly, nobody else did, just few ppl from former Yugoslavia territory. It confirms my suspicions that it is based more in nationalistic and romantic feelings than on facts.

----------


## Milan

> Who said all subclades match Slavic marker?
> M458 matches Slavic Expansion almost perfectly:
> 
> 
> And Balto-Slavic M558
> 
> 
> 
> If you can read clues and can't see the big picture, you will be always lost. I'm suspecting that your nationalistic/romantic feelings are misleading your logic. It feels nice if Slavic Homeland was located somewhere in borders of Yugoslavia, isn't it? You are a Slav and Slavs were always there. What a perfect validation of your inherited rights to this part of the world. This idea gives you a nice and cosy feeling and you really want it to be true. As nice as it feels, it has a powerful misleading effect. 75 years ago most Germans believed that they were descendants of Aryans, the best warriors ever. Was it the truth? No. But it felt so good and powerful.
> ...


Say the same now but for you as Polish or other Northern Slavs with same Romanticist ideas from where all of the above originate or otherwise we wouldn't have such articles and call it fairy tale, you just posted the same instead to call other nationalists,after all you hold this ideas but be sure will fall cause are against common sense.You are likewise welcome to collaborate and answer the questions?

----------


## LeBrok

I've found one of the others. It is actually your other account:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...d-ethnogenesis

What makes you think that reposting same ideas second time will convince us to your "truth" about Slavic ethnogenesis. I'm sorry, but it had no substance back then and has no substance now.

----------


## LeBrok

> Say the same now but for you as Polish or other Northern Slavs with same Romanticist ideas from where all of the above originate or otherwise we wouldn't have such articles and call it fairy tale, you just posted the same instead to call other nationalists,after all you hold this ideas but be sure will fall cause are against common sense.


Nope, I'm from Poland but I believe that Slavs originated farther East. I believe that we took someone else's land. I believe that probably my R1b haplogroup has nothing to do with Slavs. How is that for nationalist?!!! I'm a "nationalist" who emigrated and calls himself Citizen of the World, lol.
*Once again you don't get the clues, which are in front of you, right!*

----------


## Milan

I do not post anything to convince you,why should I? Is incredible how angry all of you get if one don't speak your truth hah,yet call other a nationalist.

----------


## LeBrok

> I do not post anything to convince you,why should I? Is incredible how angry all of you get if one don't speak your truth hah,yet call other a nationalist.


Wrong, I'm not angry. Again you extrapolated your feelings on the world and you think it must be so. Your feelings are just yours! It has nothing to do how the world works, and what is truth or not. *Read the clues, listen to others, stop relying on your feelings.*

----------


## Milan

> Who said all subclades match Slavic marker?
> M458 matches Slavic Expansion almost perfectly:
> 
> 
> And Balto-Slavic M558
> 
> 
> 
> If you can read clues and can't see the big picture, you will be always lost. I'm suspecting that your nationalistic/romantic feelings are misleading your logic. It feels nice if Slavic Homeland was located somewhere in borders of Yugoslavia, isn't it? You are a Slav and Slavs were always there. What a perfect validation of your inherited rights to this part of the world. This idea gives you a nice and cosy feeling and you really want it to be true. As nice as it feels, it has a powerful misleading effect. 75 years ago most Germans believed that they were descendants of Aryans, the best warriors ever. Was it the truth? No. But it felt so good and powerful.
> ...





> Wrong, I'm not angry. Again you extrapolated your feelings on the world and you think it must be so. Your feelings are just yours! It has nothing to do how the world works, and what is truth or not. *Read the clues, listen to others, stop relying on your feelings.*


Lol how you like to spin the topic,collaborate instead trying to be a psychologist,I listen the others would you like or any other on this forum to answer the questions,instead insulting others, I posted this for that not for anything else,I am asking the same for third time,this should be debunked with knowlodge not with insults.Stay on topic.

----------


## Taranis

> Where was the 'homeland' of Proto-Slavs in your opinion?


There was a similar thread, which also touched on Curta's position, around nine months ago, but I would like to pinpoint you to the following post of myself in particular:




> You have to understand the chronology of sound shifts. In Proto-Balto-Slavic PIE *o merged to *a. Later on, Proto-Slavic did the reverse by shifting Proto-Balto-Slavic *a to *o. In contrast, the *a in modern Slavic derives from earlier Balto-Slavic long *ā. And as I said, the *a > *o sound shift in Balto-Slavic happened during the Migration Period. Latin loanwords, as I mentioned, are subject to the latter sound change. "asellus" (donkey) > "osel", "acetum" (vinegar) > "otset". The same applies to /a/ found in Germanic loanwords (in contrast, the Germanic *ō was generally rendered as *ū into Proto-Slavic ("u" in modern Slavic), whence *bōk- 'beech' yielded Slavic *buk). I might add that, to my knowledge, there's no evidence really old language contact between speakers of Proto-Slavic and Greek, which - for example - very much exists for Albanian with Greek (e.g. "mēlo" or "μηλο" > "mollë"). Now Thrace was a region that was thoroughly hellenized already from fairly early, if Proto-Slavic speakers were really present there, we should see an ancient stratum of Greek loanwords.
> 
> The same definitely did not happen in Phrygian or Thracian, as these languages preserved Proto-Indo-European /a/ and /o/ as distinct vowels. This is why neither Phrygian nor Thracian, despite being Satem languages, were supposedly close related with Balto-Slavic.
> 
> What I would like to add is that there can be no doubt is that during the classical Antiquity, the speakers of Proto-Slavic would have to be located outside of the Roman Empire. If there was, we should see place names, personal names, etc. from the Roman period in Roman sources. We don't, and Curta for one should have been aware of this, which is why his proposal is so absurd, and why its more sensible to place the Proto-Slavic homeland outside of the Roman Empire (which takes us back to Chernoles or Milograd as the most likely choices).


http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post460632

----------


## LeBrok

> Lol how you like to spin the topic,collaborate instead trying to be a psychologist,I listen the others would you like or any other on this forum to answer the questions,instead insulting others, I posted this for that not for anything else,I am asking the same for third time,this should be debunked with knowlodge not with insults.Stay on topic.


Sadly it is not the case, because you ignore the knowledge others present, and go with hypotheses that fit your agenda. The problem here is psychological in nature, precisely nationalistic romanticism, which blinds you. 
Did you explore ideas and facts presented by others here? Did you at least posted your doubts about and weak points of Curta hypothesis. No to both. In this case we know that you don't want to explore the subject, go on exploratory journey with others, but only convince others that you are right. As such, we can't talk ethnological, archeological or genetical science here, but psychology.
Discussion with you, about Curta being wrong, is like exploring possibility of God's non-existence with devoted believer. It won't work and it is not fun for anyone.

----------


## Sile

IIRC , he states 

1 - Slavic came out of the baltic language and not the other way around.............so slavic is a "dialect" of baltic

2 - Slavic origin/homeland is the modern borders of belarus and ukraine

3 - eastern slav and south slav are younger than west slav ( west-slav origin of which formed in the area as per #2 )

4- bulgars entered the balkans not speaking slav but became slavs in the Balkan

there are others , 

There is no one tribe that can be found to say ...........this tribe where the first slavs

----------


## mihaitzateo

So Mario Alinei published a book in which he tells Hungary is entitled to take Transilvania from Romania.
Because Romanians came there after Hungarians.
That is against NATO and UE rules.
Letting aside the fact that Romanians are in Romania from a lot of years (more than 2000 years,for sure) and their is no discrimination against Hungarians in Romania.
You can not invoke the idea that some people came on some land 2000 years ago,or 1000 to tell that should be removed by force from there. Or that their land should be given to another country,because of that.
Is against the rules from European Union and NATO.
It is against human rights.
Just letting you know the truth about Mario Alinei.

Now Taranis and LeBrok,I beg you,let Milan alone and talk civilized to him.

EDIT:
I am not complaining to any OECD or anti-discrimination office from Belgium.
I was just a little upset.
But,I would do something more (_more meaning what I have written below and my further posts__)_:
Taranis,you are a German.
LeBrok you are from Canada.
Maciamo,you are from Belgium.
Germany bombed together with Belgium and Canada Belgrade,some years ago.
They had as justification what inhuman acts other Serbians were doing against Kosovar Albanians.
While I do not agree with doing unhuman acts against Kosovar Albanians,bombing civilian objectives in Belgrade
is against human rights.
Now that passed. Everyone know what happened in Belgium,recently and what Germany has to suffer,because of same reason.

Now,did any Serbian came to do terrorist attacks in Germany or Belgium or Canada because of the bombings of their countries to Belgrade?
So,you are extremely wise all of you ; give whole Balkans and half of Romania to Turkey (with Transylvania to Hungary) ,see how fast people here will get brainwashed and put to go attack European Union and turn it in 2nd Ottoman Empire.

And Tesla,which brought the electrical current in your homes ,was Slav,Serbian actually. So you can use the current to call us untermenschen,diabolical,invaders and I do not know how. 
Well,please show me when did some Slavs bomb your capitals and killing civilians in it,as your great states did in Serbia ?
So,who is actually unhuman ?
Who is believing you that Slavs did came and killed civilians and "invaded" in 600 AD,when Serbians did not even try to avenge,after the bombing of Belgrade?

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## arvistro

Taranis' racism???
He is the only guy here who knows a thing or two about linguistics, sound changes and stuff. It is close to exact science, how these sound rules work. It is like calling mathematician or physician racist :)

----------


## mihaitzateo

Taranis have banned me in the past because I have denied South Slavs migration.
I did not complained anywhere because he banned me.
I accidentally came here and I got upset to see how Florin Curta book,which is published at an University from US,gets ridiculed.
And Florin Curta attacked and called a joke.
Taranis is an admin and he knows very well the rule that according to the forum rules,you are not allowed to attack a person.
Please Taranis,go first visit South Slavic countries and after,come and we talk again.
European Union is like a large state and very soon Montenegro and Serbia will also be in European Union.
Also,Serbia and Montenegro will also be in NATO.
And when Slovakia,Bulgaria and Croatia joined UE and NATO they got their territorial integrity guaranteed.
See that Kosovo flag got forbidden in Sweden , at Eurovision from this year (together with the flag of Crimeea state).
So,just telling you,these discussions with "the evil Slavs came and invaded Balkans and killed natives 1400 years ago,so let us just give Serbia,Slovakia,Croatia,Bosnia,Macedonia to some other country " are useless anyway.
This has the same logic as telling "let us exile all white people from Canada and US back to Europe, Africans to Africa and give back after to natives US and Canada".

----------


## Taranis

> Taranis have banned me in the past because I have denied South Slavs migration.
> I did not complained anywhere because he banned me.
> I accidentally came here and I got upset to see how Florin Curta book,which is published at an University from US,gets ridiculed.
> And Florin Curta attacked and called a joke.
> Taranis is an admin and he knows very well the rule that according to the forum rules,you are not allowed to attack a person.
> Please Taranis,go first visit South Slavic countries and after,come and we talk again.
> European Union is like a large state and very soon Montenegro and Serbia will also be in European Union.
> Also,Serbia and Montenegro will also be in NATO.
> And when Slovakia,Bulgaria and Croatia joined UE and NATO they got their territorial integrity guaranteed.
> ...


Sorry, but with all respect, I did not ban you (four years ago, that is - no offense - a pretty long time to hold a grudge) for denying south slavic migration. I banned you for real life threatening the site owner, Maciamo. I think everybody can see what is wrong with that.

I'm not a racist (and before you ask, I have no problem with Slavs, Albanians or anyone), I'm merely arguing hard facts. And if Florin Curta in 2016 makes a case for something that was wrong 10 or 15 years ago and can be easily debunked (and could be debunked back then), yes, I call it that a joke.

----------


## mihaitzateo

If you are going to bomb countries because of the unhuman acts done against minorities how about you start with Turkey ?
Is there any secret what Turkish government is doing against Kurdish minority ?
And Turkey is a base member in NATO.
Turks came and conquered that area in about 1452.
However,no one ever here mentions that.
They de-nationalized the area,they did genocide against armenians, in 1900 or so.
However,no one mentions that.
Because these rules are applied when is about Slavs,but do not apply to Turks,which are,I guess "superior race".
EDIT:
Oh really,I threatened the life of Maciamo ?
I found out who Maciamo is ,only recently and as you can notice,I did not even messaged him,because as you can also see,I have not even came to this site from a lot of time ago.
As for filling a complaint to OECD or anti-discrimination office,I have better things to do in my time and I am not a revengeful person.
Besides,I do not think in imposing someone something with force.
I am not a supporter of Roman Empire,which was using this method.
Please see my post above,dear Taranis.
In which I proved with logical arguments the racial discrimination of NATO states,against South Slavs,when they bombed Belgrade.
Because Turkey is also doing far worse things against the Kurdish minority,than what some Serbians did against Albanian Kosovars and they do not even get a warning,for that.

----------


## Milan

[email protected] Why don't you start debunking now question by question,is one of the reason I post this,and if you or Lebrok can debunk Curta please sent me link to read couple of articles of yours or to buy some book online,whether or not they will be full with insults like right now.Book with awards debunked by Taranis or Lebrok will be interesting read.

----------


## Milan

> Sadly it is not the case, because you ignore the knowledge others present, and go with hypotheses that fit your agenda. The problem here is psychological in nature, precisely nationalistic romanticism, which blinds you. 
> Did you explore ideas and facts presented by others here? Did you at least posted your doubts about and weak points of Curta hypothesis. No to both. In this case we know that you don't want to explore the subject, go on exploratory journey with others, but only convince others that you are right. As such, we can't talk ethnological, archeological or genetical science here, but psychology.
> Discussion with you, about Curta being wrong, is like exploring possibility of God's non-existence with devoted believer. It won't work and it is not fun for anyone.


Now we switch to Theology and Philosophy a bit,I have no agenda read the thread once more,go to general topic and questions.

----------


## LeBrok

> If you are going to bomb countries because of the unhuman acts done against minorities how about you start with Turkey ?
> Is there any secret what Turkish government is doing against Kurdish minority ?
> And Turkey is a base member in NATO.
> Turks came and conquered that area in about 1452.
> However,no one ever here mentions that.
> They de-nationalized the area,they did genocide against armenians, in 1900 or so.
> However,no one mentions that.
> Because these rules are applied when is about Slavs,but do not apply to Turks,which are,I guess "superior race".
> EDIT:
> ...


You got infractions from all the moderators. It should tell you something... 
All moderators are bad and you are the poor victim. ;) 

To be honest. Nobody of us can explain stuff so patiently like Taranis, over and over again if needed. He is nice, tactful and tolerant to everyone.
I don't remember what you said to Maciamo, but he was the only person who didn't give you infraction. Must be another tolerant dude.

----------


## LeBrok

> Now we switch to Theology and Philosophy a bit,*I have no agenda* read the thread once more,go to general topic and questions.


 And could you point the one person on this forum who agrees with you, and is not a Slav from Balkans?

----------


## Milan

> And could you point the one person on this forum who agrees with you, and is not a Slav from Balkans?


Yeah Curta is Romanian-American he also have South Slavic conspiracy just like me, and could you point anyone that agree with you without being friend of your or admin,and could you please stop spinning the subject of the thread if you can't collaborate and go on general questions, is here someone on this forum, if is Maciamo please tell something to this admin of yours this is beyond ridiculous what are they doing from this forum,while trying to tell me they debunk serious scholars.

----------


## mihaitzateo

Florin Curta is not a Slav from Balkans ,he is Romanian.
The book is published at Cambridge University.
Florin Curta is teacher at University of Florida.
http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples...1/00052915.pdf

I hardly doubt you can publish a non-sense book,at Cambridge.

----------


## Yetos

well i do not know about West balkans which area Curta means

but the case of Karadanians (caradania-*carnuntum*) as also the start of writing down slavic language start around *Great Moravia*,
both above are facts that not a member of Forum can deny,
But i can not accept that *Great Moravia* is Balkans, 

*so Curta possibly believes that Slavs as Carantanians prexisted at balkans much before*  :Thinking: 
the known case of Carantanians is about 800 AD surely and probably they be there earlier,
but that is expands of balkans, out of balkans and i believe very late even if was 700 AD


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carantania


*so we know about Alpine Slavs from 551 AD, (for some at 451) but that is outside west Balkans, although much west than can someone imagine.*


I think Curta is trying to revive the old theory that Illyrians were nearly to Slavs and not to Celts

the story of emperror Valens to be from Alpine Slavs,  is the most closest to Curta believes, but I believe that is a myth,
although many consider Sirmium as Slavic metropolis (motherplace-birthplace)


*SO THE EXINSTANCE OF SLAVS at 5th century WEST and NORTH OF BALKANS IS NOT TO BE ARQUED,
although there is not a previous mention, by none.
*

----------


## Milan

The thing is that the author never said that Slavs migrated from Balkans to north or that speech spread that way anywhere in his researchers,he just trace the people known as Sclavenes from the sources from 500 to 700 AD,other is story building by the admins to discredit people but use little dedication on the subject, much was written from him,to be short he use history and archeology and not language since he isn't linguist and deny the migration cause there is simple no proof of it, call into question the migrations model as a whole which date from 19th century let me remind never established as scientific truth,for language I believe he support hypothesis of Danube basin on which he rely on other linguists.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> There was a similar thread, which also touched on Curta's position, around nine months ago, but I would like to pinpoint you to the following post of myself in particular:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post460632


What are the sources for all those? 
1) The sounds shifts in Proto-Slavic
2) Old language contact between Albanian and Greek
3) Thracian and Phrygian especially being 'Satem'?
4) Who examined the place names, personal names etc, let's say in Northwestern Balkans?

I also thought that he meant that the origin of Proto-Slavic is located in Western Balkans (?) but probably I am wrong. I read it in a hurry. I don't disagree (or agree) with you because I don't know much about it. And I am not very interested but I at least want to see the sources you accept as accurate. Or the names of the scholars.

----------


## Sile

> Florin Curta is not a Slav from Balkans ,he is Romanian.
> The book is published at Cambridge University.
> Florin Curta is teacher at University of Florida.
> http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples...1/00052915.pdf
> 
> I hardly doubt you can publish a non-sense book,at Cambridge.


As it states in your link..........Jordanes is giving the slavs a WRONG track to follow.............this error is the cause of all the issues.

He is also wrong in the vistula basin............the basin ( both side of the Vistula ) had gothic tribes.............the Venedi bordered the Goths on the Nogat river.

He is also wrong in taking for granted anything Tacitus states about languages in the area...........Tacitus never went any near where the baltic , he is unreliable in reagrds to languages.

----------


## Milan

Anyone interested in history or archeology of the lower Danube from 500-700 AD where the Sclavenes were located for first time.
http://www.limesromanus.org/sites/al...he%20Slavs.pdf

Rough geography of lower danube river.

----------


## mihaitzateo

Well I am sorry I have scared Taranis and LeBrok away from this thread with my exaggerated reaction.

----------


## Taranis

Mihaitzateo, I am sorry that I did not get around to write a reply earlier. But I also have a life and a job and because of this, am not around here as often as I would wish to.  :Good Job: 




> What are the sources for all those? 
> 1) The sounds shifts in Proto-Slavic
> 2) Old language contact between Albanian and Greek
> 3) Thracian and Phrygian especially being 'Satem'?
> 4) Who examined the place names, personal names etc, let's say in Northwestern Balkans?
> 
> 
> I also thought that he meant that the origin of Proto-Slavic is located in Western Balkans (?) but probably I am wrong. I read it in a hurry. I don't disagree (or agree) with you because I don't know much about it. And I am not very interested but I at least want to see the sources you accept as accurate. Or the names of the scholars.


In short:

1) I can generally recommend texts by Ranko Matasovic (who's at the same time also a decent Celtologist, by the way, notably he wrote an etymological dictionary for Proto-Celtic ). For an abridged summary of the evolution of Proto-Slavic readily found online, I recommend this summary by the Dutch Indo-Europeanist Frederik Kortlandt - with the caveat that I would like to amend that he's an adherent of the Glottalic theory.

2) I recommend that you read up on the concepts of sound laws of respectively Greek and Albanian, as well as the concept of sound laws and sound correspondences in general. 

3) Look at the corpus of attested Thracian and Phrygian words (also, see below). If you have a different interpretation of the material, go ahead. Though I would suggest that you should start a separate thread.

4) There's an entire subfield of linguistics that concerns the study of proper names, called onomastics (this includes place names). Relevant to this, in his work, Florin Curta mentions the Roman fortifications along the Danube, including two places called "_Noviodunum_" (a _Celtic_ name) and "_Sucidava_" (a _Dacian_ name). In my opinion, it should be self-evident that this shows how the Slavic languages are a later addition to the Danube region (the lower Danube in this case).

----------


## Milan

> 3) Look at the corpus of attested Thracian and Phrygian words (also, see below). If you have a different interpretation of the material, go ahead. Though I would suggest that you should start a separate thread.
> 
> 4) There's an entire subfield of linguistics that concerns the study of proper names, called onomastics (this includes place names). Relevant to this, in his work, Florin Curta mentions the Roman fortifications along the Danube, including two places called "_Noviodunum_" (a _Celtic_ name) and "_Sucidava_" (a _Dacian_ name). In my opinion, it should be self-evident that this shows how the Slavic languages are a later addition to the Danube region (the lower Danube in this case).


Taranis he in no way connects the Slavic language to Dacian or Thracian as i have seen his "linguistic remarks" although this is not his field.
What we should understand is,he work with archeology and history,so he trace the very people called Sclavenes,and if you think that field of archeology should be dismissed or should follow some language hypothesis of "most archaic river names" in my opinion is very wrong,archeology so far at least to me show up as more exact science.Migration to be proved we need archeology.

Linguists can do their job whether language shift occur or whatever.

So far Alinei have hypothesis of Slavic and Thracian being same and don't know how exactly Anatolian hypothesis interpret the issue.But ok you do not take them seriously.

The relevance to toponyms the Dava/Deva ending in Daco-Moesian region,dava

(often used as a suffix) name for a Dacian city, town, fortress, or other settlement; usually appended to another element to form the name of a settlement,so far was explained by Thracologist-Ivan Duridanov DAVA is derived from Indo-European dheua.He connects it with the Bulgarian verb дявам (djavam) – I put, I set and Homeric Greek τοωκος – sit 
Would like to add verb "*deva*m" - to put,to settle.See also Russian Verb деть • ‎(detʹ) pf ‎imperfective дева́ть(*Deva*t)-to put, place.
So the Dava/Deva isn't best examples in my opinion.
For the Celtic "Dunum" we find but couple in the Balkan peninsula.

The problem with migration so far is that since today we have many more fields than in 19th century,i will ask very simple question;
If the South Slavs are immigrants in their lands,the genetic studies have shown that Balkan population resemble one another in genetics,so either we should label immigrants Romanians,Northern Greeks etc too,or we should call them Slavic? or maybe other way around? as per genetics they resemble their neighbors.This is absurd.
Florin Curta relevant to this have very good opinion which should stay that way 



> A fundamental proposition of historical anthropology is that human genes, language, and culture represent distinct systems of inheritance. The three systems are distinct
> and have no necessary relationship because each bears a different relation to population history.



We in no way should associate the language as beginning and end,NOT.Maybe tomorrow we gonna speak other language as we speak English now,but im not no English man.
Each of this fields can work their respective job-Archeology,Genetics should not be prisoners of language hypothesis.

----------


## Taranis

> Taranis he in no way connects the Slavic language to Dacian or Thracian as i have seen his "linguistic remarks" although this is not his field.


I didn't say Florin Curta did (though Mario Alinei does), but this is a question that came up in that past thread about the origin of the Slavs. In a way, this is a logical question to ask: if you place the Slavic homeland onto the Balkans, it would make sense looking for a historic candidate language that matches up with this - hence Dacian and Thracian. Alinei who has this theory of extreme language immobility and he likewise places the origin of the Slavic languages onto the Balkans. The problem why this makes no sense is twofold: first, the internal history of the Slavic languages does not favour on origin on the Balkans, second, you have a close relationship with the Baltic languages. Or let me word it differently: Proto-Slavic was one of the Balto-Slavic languages. Which in turn it is sensible to propose that the original homeland of the Slavic languages was in vicinity of the Baltic language area. Now Dacian in turn left a tremendous impact on the Romanian language, however.




> What we should understand is,he work with archeology and history,so he trace the very people called Sclavenes,and if you think that field of archeology should be dismissed or should follow some language hypothesis of "most archaic river names" in my opinion is very wrong,archeology so far at least to me show up as more exact science.Migration to be proved we need archeology.


No, the 'most archaic river names' points to an area for the original Slavic homeland, where we find two archaeological cultures that - in the right time and right space - are viable as potential homelands: the Milograd and Zarubintsy cultures. I elaborated on that extensively in the other thread.




> Linguists can do their job whether language shift occur or whatever.
> 
> So far Alinei have hypothesis of Slavic and Thracian being same and don't know how exactly Anatolian hypothesis interpret the issue.But ok you do not take them seriously.


I do not take Alinei seriously because he makes proposals that can be easily dismissed (bear in mind that he has not only theories regarding Indo-European but also Etruscan, Uralic and Basque, notably for him, Etruscan is part of the Uralic languages  :Confused:  ).




> The relevance to toponyms the Dava/Deva ending in Daco-Moesian region,dava
> 
> (often used as a suffix) name for a Dacian city, town, fortress, or other settlement; usually appended to another element to form the name of a settlement,so far was explained by Thracologist-Ivan Duridanov DAVA is derived from Indo-European dheua.He connects it with the Bulgarian verb дявам (djavam) – I put, I set and Homeric Greek τοωκος – sit 
> Would like to add verb "*deva*m" - to put,to settle.See also Russian Verb деть • ‎(detʹ) pf ‎imperfective дева́ть(*Deva*t)-to put, place.
> So the Dava/Deva isn't best examples in my opinion.




You're missing my point here entirely: the suffix "-dava" is clearly connected to Dacian place names. 




> For the Celtic "Dunum" we find but couple in the Balkan peninsula.




This is correct. But this, along with Dacian, demonstrates us something: the linguistic makeup of the Balkan peninsula s (north of Greece, I should say) was a very different one 2000 years ago. I do not think that archaeology should be dismissed, but archaeology delivers us plenty of linguistic data from the ancient Balkans. This is why for me, the scenario "Slavs lived on the Balkans in blindsight of Greek and Roman authors all along" doesn't work out. By the same logic you would have to argue that the West Slavic-speaking peoples lived in blindsight of Roman authors in Germania all along (modern eastern Germany, western Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia). Actually, these lands were mostly Germanic-speaking 2000 years ago, plus some areas that were vestigially Celtic.




> The problem with migration so far is that since today we have many more fields than in 19th century,i will ask very simple question;
> If the South Slavs are immigrants in their lands,the genetic studies have shown that Balkan population resemble one another in genetics,so either we should label immigrants Romanians,Northern Greeks etc too,or we should call them Slavic? or maybe other way around? as per genetics they resemble their neighbors.This is absurd.
> Florin Curta relevant to this have very good opinion which should stay that way




What you're doing is adhering to a logical fallacy: the first point is that if you compare the modern West Slavic, South Slavic and East Slavic countries in their genetic makeup, it becomes apparent that *there is no such thing as a 'genetic Slav'*. Nor should we expect such a thing to exist in the first place, since Slavic is above all else a linguistic classification. As regards the South Slavs and the genetic similarity to the other ethnic groups of the Balkans, the solution is obvious: for the greater part, the inhabitants of the South Slavic countries (and the Balkans in general) today are actually Pre-Slavic in their genetic makeup. You can make a similar case about the modern Hungarians (who are mostly pre-Magyar), who are in their genetic makeup little different from neighbours - yet Hungarian (an Uralic language) is a clear newcomer to the region - later in fact than the Slavic languages.


Florin Curta is Romanian, and he has a very Balkano-centric / South-Slavic-centric view of the Slavs. There are however three branches of the Slavic languages as a whole, the West Slavic and the East Slavic languages in addition to South Slavic. Florin Curta's model pretends to be completely ignorant of the existence of the West Slavic and East Slavic peoples, and that is why I dismiss him. Since the Central European homeland is just as implausible as the Balkans homeland (because we have linguistic data there too), we have to assume that the Slavs were hiding 'in blind sight'. Which doesn't mean that the pre-Slavic population of these areas didn't contribute to Slavic ethnogenesis. I actually think the opposite, that remnants of the Germanic tribes in these areas contributed substantially to the genesis of the new West Slavic tribes, which is also reflected in the fact that Proto-Slavic has a large amount of Germanic loanwords in it.





> We in no way should associate the language as beginning and end,NOT.Maybe tomorrow we gonna speak other language as we speak English now,but im not no English man.
> Each of this fields can work their respective job-Archeology,Genetics should not be prisoners of language hypothesis.


Good luck hunting your genetic South Slavs, who 2000 years ago probably would have been Dacians, Illyrians, Thracians, a few Celts, the occasional Greeks and Sarmatians for good measure...  :Laughing:

----------


## Milan

[QUOTE=Taranis;480058]


> I didn't say Florin Curta did (though Mario Alinei does), but this is a question that came up in that past thread about the origin of the Slavs. In a way, this is a logical question to ask: if you place the Slavic homeland onto the Balkans, it would make sense looking for a historic candidate language that matches up with this - hence Dacian and Thracian. Alinei who has this theory of extreme language immobility and he likewise places the origin of the Slavic languages onto the Balkans. The problem why this makes no sense is twofold: first, the internal history of the Slavic languages does not favour on origin on the Balkans, second, you have a close relationship with the Baltic languages. Or let me word it differently: Proto-Slavic was one of the Balto-Slavic languages. Which in turn it is sensible to propose that the original homeland of the Slavic languages was in vicinity of the Baltic language area. Now Dacian in turn left a tremendous impact on the Romanian language, however.


You make your point,and this is to be expected,language is more difficult to explain,any before attested in my opinion.
Let me say that so far from what i have read he make the most sense to me, and i think that his questions are reasonable at least to me,and not because i have agenda,wishful thinking or whatever,will try to explain more further.Different people have different opinions regardless their place of origin.
By his words on the Sclavenes-As community elites rose to prominence, they came to "embody a collective interest and responsibility" for the group. "If that group identity can be called ethnicity, and if that ethnicity can be called Slavic, then it certainly formed in the shadow of Justinian's forts, not in the Pripet marshes.
So tracing them he is merely using historiography and archeology which for me is right.
He is also saying that Sclavenes is name Byzantines gave to this people to make sense politically.Even if used by themselves for language community but not more than this,since there is no proofs.
That they(Sklaveni) were located what is today Romania is not invented but is simply how it is.





> No, the 'most archaic river names' points to an area for the original Slavic homeland, where we find two archaeological cultures that - in the right time and right space - are viable as potential homelands: the Milograd and Zarubintsy cultures. I elaborated on that extensively in the other thread.


He is saying that the material culture is not the same from those cultures and where Sclavenes were located and have considerable gap;
"Moreover the obvious cultural discontinuity in the region raises serious doubts about any attempts to write the history of the prehistoric Slavs as one of the continuous occupation of one and the same region between the late Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. Nor is any evidence of material remains of the Zarubyntsi. Kiev, or Prague culture in the southern and southwestern direction of the presumed migration of the ethnos Slavs towards the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire".




> You're missing my point here entirely: the suffix "-dava" is clearly connected to Dacian place names.


Just said it cause is explainable trough some Slavic dialects.



> I do not think that archaeology should be dismissed, but archaeology delivers us plenty of linguistic data from the ancient Balkans. This is why for me, the scenario "Slavs lived on the Balkans in blindsight of Greek and Roman authors all along" doesn't work out. By the same logic you would have to argue that the West Slavic-speaking peoples lived in blindsight of Roman authors in Germania all along (modern eastern Germany, western Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia).


That is perhaps true and from historical sources the name Sclavene itself is new,which make much more difficulties for researches,after all is where the name Slav itself is coming.
But in that sense if in the Balkans can be spread without making genetic change,what make it difficult the same to happen in other areas?





> What you're doing is adhering to a logical fallacy: the first point is that if you compare the modern West Slavic, South Slavic and East Slavic countries in their genetic makeup, it becomes apparent that *there is no such thing as a 'genetic Slav'*. Nor should we expect such a thing to exist in the first place, since Slavic is above all else a linguistic classification. As regards the South Slavs and the genetic similarity to the other ethnic groups of the Balkans, the solution is obvious: for the greater part, the inhabitants of the South Slavic countries (and the Balkans in general) today are actually Pre-Slavic in their genetic makeup. You can make a similar case about the modern Hungarians (who are mostly pre-Magyar), who are in their genetic makeup little different from neighbours - yet Hungarian (an Uralic language) is a clear newcomer to the region - later in fact than the Slavic languages.
> 
> 
> Florin Curta is Romanian, and he has a very Balkano-centric / South-Slavic-centric view of the Slavs. There are however three branches of the Slavic languages as a whole, the West Slavic and the East Slavic languages in addition to South Slavic. Florin Curta's model pretends to be completely ignorant of the existence of the West Slavic and East Slavic peoples, and that is why I dismiss him. Since the Central European homeland is just as implausible as the Balkans homeland (because we have linguistic data there too), we have to assume that the Slavs were hiding 'in blind sight'. Which doesn't mean that the pre-Slavic population of these areas didn't contribute to Slavic ethnogenesis. I actually think the opposite, that remnants of the Germanic tribes in these areas contributed substantially to the genesis of the new West Slavic tribes, which is also reflected in the fact that Proto-Slavic has a large amount of Germanic loanwords in it.


It is lingusitic group,but historically some interpret it as a ethnic.
I asked that kind of question because majority of people are not interested in history,they often learn it in school just the basics.
I can give you example about Yugoslavia;The history was made up on Pan-Slavism,in short made all man to understand and have collective unity,the Slavic ethnos all Yugoslavs came in 6th and 7th century from behind the Carphatians as one ethnos,we had common past and in turn common future,
How much this is true?
I don't think Curta has Balkano-centric views,he didn't choose this people to be there,and if in Soviet time he publish such book and if he was in Romania who know how will end up,simple they have their history with which their hegemony should be explained,likewise in Yugoslavia will ruin their political establishment.
So from the above i think history=politics for good part. 





> Good luck hunting your genetic South Slavs, who 2000 years ago probably would have been Dacians, Illyrians, Thracians, a few Celts, the occasional Greeks and Sarmatians for good measure...


Well most of the above are exonyms,if that will be the cause and if the Thracians were called from the base of θράσσω ‎(thrássō, “to trouble, stir”) by the Greeks, by contrast i will call them friends  :Laughing:

----------


## LeBrok

> I didn't say Florin Curta did (though Mario Alinei does), but this is a question that came up in that past thread about the origin of the Slavs. In a way, this is a logical question to ask: if you place the Slavic homeland onto the Balkans, it would make sense looking for a historic candidate language that matches up with this - hence Dacian and Thracian. Alinei who has this theory of extreme language immobility and he likewise places the origin of the Slavic languages onto the Balkans. The problem why this makes no sense is twofold: first, the internal history of the Slavic languages does not favour on origin on the Balkans, second, you have a close relationship with the Baltic languages. Or let me word it differently: Proto-Slavic was one of the Balto-Slavic languages. Which in turn it is sensible to propose that the original homeland of the Slavic languages was in vicinity of the Baltic language area. Now Dacian in turn left a tremendous impact on the Romanian language, however.
> 
> 
> 
> No, the 'most archaic river names' points to an area for the original Slavic homeland, where we find two archaeological cultures that - in the right time and right space - are viable as potential homelands: the Milograd and Zarubintsy cultures. I elaborated on that extensively in the other thread.
> 
> 
> 
> I do not take Alinei seriously because he makes proposals that can be easily dismissed (bear in mind that he has not only theories regarding Indo-European but also Etruscan, Uralic and Basque, notably for him, Etruscan is part of the Uralic languages  ).
> ...


A great summary Taranis. Nobody could have expressed it better.

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## Taranis

Milan, the problem really is: you claim that Curta _isn't_ South Slavic centric, but I will ask you: does his model explain - or predict - in any shape way or form where the West Slavic and East Slavic language areas come from? I give Curta credit in so far as that for the South Slavic peoples, his model of elite prominence is somewhat compelling, it also goes along relatively well with the linguistic backdrop (Romance substrate on the Balkans). However, his model does not address (nor predict) the existence of the West Slavic and East Slavic peoples. Where are the Obodrites and the Ilmen Slavs, to pick two examples, in this view (hint: "Making of the Slavs" doesn't mention them with a single word)? As long as that is unaddressed, I cannot take him (fully) seriously, and I have to dismiss him as having a clearly limited, South Slavic centric view of the Slavic origin.

I for one do not believe that Proto-Slavic was a "conlang" (akin to Klingon or Sindarin  :Laughing:  ) that was invented in the 500s, nor do I believe that the Proto-Slavic elite (if we again follow Curta's idea of elite dominance) were invaders from the steppe: you can make this case very clearly for the Magyars, since the Uralic languages that Hungarian is most closely related with (Khanty and Mansi) are spoken today in the Urals region of Russia. But the closest relatives of the Slavic languages are the Baltic languages.

The Dacian language is not explainable as a "Slavic dialect" because, even though it was a "Satem" language, it had a more conservative vowel system than the Balto-Slavic languages.

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## grumpy nihilist

People still care about this BS?




> However, the earliest ethnic name attested in the written sources for those whom modern historians call “Slavs” was not Slav


Perhaps because _Slav_ is an English term. A corruption of _Sloven_, which comes from slovo, "word".

Only Slovenes and Slovaks are Slavs in the truest sense. Both ethnonyms are regional variants of _Sloven_.

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## Milan

> People still care about this BS?
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps because _Slav_ is an English term. A corruption of _Sloven_, which comes from slovo, "word".
> 
> Only Slovenes and Slovaks are Slavs in the truest sense. Both ethnonyms are regional variants of _Sloven_.


Nobody make issue of that,this is perhaps addressed for historical accuracy,the term Greeks themselves were using before being corrupted.
I agree you are true Slavs.
But again i will ask for historical accuracy cause i'm interested, why in that area in and around Slovakia we find Principality of Nitra in the 8th century,together with neighboring Moravia.
Why did not bear the true name back then?
And in Slovenia the ancestors of Slovenes located in present-day Carinthia formed the independent duchy of Carantania?

Was this consciousness _Sloven_ brought by Cyril and Methodius from the south or was by popular etymology later on?

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## MOESAN

always a competition between panethnic names and local tribes names of the same great ethnic group without speaking of later renamings
Celt or Welsh, Walhsk (Volques)? Pritani (? Brittoni Bretanni) or Combri, Domnonii, Cornovii???
Germanics had no common name kown by us, 'germani' was almost certainly a celtic term adressing some Belgae tribes.
Hard to construct or deconstruct ethnic affinities basing ourselves only upon tribes or regions names, endonyms as well as exonyms, I think. We need more (ancient and today languages, archeology, witnesses...)
I personally don't put in too big doubt the classical theory of the Pripet bassin as possible (late enough) cradle of the future Slavs by osmosis of a Balto-Slavic proto-group and local post-Tripolye groups including an heavy pre-Neolithic Y-I2a1 component... But my light knowledge doesn't allow me to be too affirmative.
Concerning Slavonic, its first southern localization could very well be caused by its links with christianization of Slavs beginning in South after contacts with East Roman Empire (remnants)?

----------


## grumpy nihilist

> Nobody make issue of that,this is perhaps addressed for historical accuracy,the term Greeks themselves were using before being corrupted.
> I agree you are true Slavs.
> But again i will ask for historical accuracy cause i'm interested, why in that area in and around Slovakia we find Principality of Nitra in the 8th century,together with neighboring Moravia.
> Why did not bear the true name back then?
> And in Slovenia the ancestors of Slovenes located in present-day Carinthia formed the independent duchy of Carantania?
> 
> Was this consciousness _Sloven_ brought by Cyril and Methodius from the south or was by popular etymology later on?


What I meant that only Slovaks and Slovenes didn't abandon the ethnonym Slav. Both countries' names mean "slovenic region". 
Nationalism virtually didn't exist back then, political entities usually drew their name from older regional names, or from seats of power, or from the dynasty that held the power.
Nitra, for example, was called so presumably after the castle and town of Nitra, seat of the ruling dynasty. We are talking about the dark ages, almost nothing is known about central Europe in this period, most of the time we can only take an educated guess (aside from a few proven facts).

I'm not sure what do you mean by mentioning Cyril and Methodius. But their importance for our region has been greatly exaggerated by romantic nationalist historiography. We don't use their alphabet, orthodox christian sect was never dominant here and their stay in Moravia was very short (their disciples were exiled). They weren't even the first promoters of the christian religion to come here, monks from Bavaria and British Isles had come much earlier, as had Roman colonists and soldiers before them

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## LeBrok

> I'm not sure what do you mean by mentioning Cyril and Methodius. But their importance for our region has been greatly exaggerated by romantic nationalist historiography. We don't use their alphabet, orthodox christian sect was never dominant here and their stay in Moravia was very short (their disciples were exiled). They weren't even the first promoters of the christian religion to come here, monks from Bavaria and British Isles had come much earlier, as had Roman colonists and soldiers before them


Exactly. Balkan Slavs forget that Christianity was mediated via Holy Roman Empire to Western Slavs.

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## Yetos

I think you are all wrong,

first at that times there was not Orthodox, neither Catholic,
we speak about before the Schisma,
then read the stories, and why Cyrilic Alphabet was created,
then make your conclusions,
*
same thing happened few centuries later with reformation,


*

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## Milan

> always a competition between panethnic names and local tribes names of the same great ethnic group without speaking of later renamings
> Celt or Welsh, Walhsk (Volques)? Pritani (? Brittoni Bretanni) or Combri, Domnonii, Cornovii???
> Germanics had no common name kown by us, 'germani' was almost certainly a celtic term adressing some Belgae tribes.
> Hard to construct or deconstruct ethnic affinities basing ourselves only upon tribes or regions names, endonyms as well as exonyms, I think. We need more (ancient and today languages, archeology, witnesses...)
> I personally don't put in too big doubt the classical theory of the Pripet bassin as possible (late enough) cradle of the future Slavs by osmosis of a Balto-Slavic proto-group and local post-Tripolye groups including an heavy pre-Neolithic Y-I2a1 component... But my light knowledge doesn't allow me to be too affirmative.
> Concerning Slavonic, its first southern localization could very well be caused by its links with christianization of Slavs beginning in South after contacts with East Roman Empire (remnants)?


This "ethnonym" however is one of the major confusions in researching anything about Slavs.

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## Milan

> What I meant that only Slovaks and Slovenes didn't abandon the ethnonym Slav. Both countries' names mean "slovenic region". 
> Nationalism virtually didn't exist back then, political entities usually drew their name from older regional names, or from seats of power, or from the dynasty that held the power.
> Nitra, for example, was called so presumably after the castle and town of Nitra, seat of the ruling dynasty. We are talking about the dark ages, almost nothing is known about central Europe in this period, most of the time we can only take an educated guess (aside from a few proven facts).
> 
> They weren't even the first promoters of the christian religion to come here, monks from Bavaria and British Isles had come much earlier, as had Roman colonists and soldiers before them


You did not abandoned it but rather adopt it.
Historiography is quite clear about this who were the Sclavenes?
The Sclaveni (in Latin) or Sklavenoi (in Greek) were early South Slavic tribes that raided, invaded and settled the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages. They were mentioned by early Byzantine chroniclers as barbarians at the Byzantine borders. The Sclaveni were differentiated from the Antes (East Slavs) and Wends (West Slavs).West Slavs were called Wends prior to be called Sclavenes (Slavs)
Is this hard for you to accept?



> I'm not sure what do you mean by mentioning Cyril and Methodius. But their importance for our region has been greatly exaggerated by romantic nationalist historiography. We don't use their alphabet, orthodox christian sect was never dominant here and their stay in Moravia was very short (their disciples were exiled).


Yes indeed national romaniticist made big deal out of wishful thinking,just like it was addressed prior.

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## Sile

> You did not abandoned it but rather adopt it.
> Historiography is quite clear about this who were the Sclavenes?
> The Sclaveni (in Latin) or Sklavenoi (in Greek) were early South Slavic tribes that raided, invaded and settled the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages. They were mentioned by early Byzantine chroniclers as barbarians at the Byzantine borders. The Sclaveni were differentiated from the Antes (East Slavs) and Wends (West Slavs).West Slavs were called Wends prior to be called Sclavenes (Slavs)
> Is this hard for you to accept?
> 
> Yes indeed national romaniticist made big deal out of wishful thinking,just like it was addressed prior.


Wends terminology was first used ~700AD in reference to the Veleti tribe of modern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, ......and, was not sclavenes older or young than the year 700AD ??
*The Veleti (German: Wieleten; Polish: Wieleci) or Wilzi(ans) (also Wiltzes; German: Wilzen) were a group of medieval Lechites tribes within the territory of modern northeastern Germany; see Polabian Slavs. In common with other Slavic groups between the Elbe and Oder Rivers, they were often described by Germanic sources as Wends. 

*Where are you getting these fantasy stories from?

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## Milan

> Wends terminology was first used ~700AD in reference to the Veleti tribe of modern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, ......and, was not sclavenes older or young than the year 700AD ??
> *The Veleti (German: Wieleten; Polish: Wieleci) or Wilzi(ans) (also Wiltzes; German: Wilzen) were a group of medieval Lechites tribes within the territory of modern northeastern Germany; see Polabian Slavs. In common with other Slavic groups between the Elbe and Oder Rivers, they were often described by Germanic sources as Wends. 
> 
> *Where are you getting these fantasy stories from?


*Wends* (Old English: _Winedas_, Old Norse: _Vindr_, German: _Wenden, Winden_, Danish: _vendere_, Swedish: _vender_, Polish: _Wendowie_) is a historical name for Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used.
In the Middle Ages the term "Wends" often referred to Western Slavs living within the Holy Roman Empire, though not always. Mieszko I, the first historical ruler of Poland, also appeared as "Dagome, King of the Wends" (Old Norse: _Vindakonungr_). The name has possibly survived in Finnic languages (Finnish: _Venäjä_, Estonian: _Vene_, Karelian: _Veneä_) denoting Russia.

You can read Chronicle of Fredegar from 7th century or go in the Making of the Slavs you can find all references to them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_Fredegar

This are not fantasies as i do not write history myself but historicaly written sources and when did the ethnonym Slav appear prior or later?
Do you have any evidence of the ethnonym Slav prior than this being used there? if you have please send me.

----------


## Sile

> *Wends* (Old English: _Winedas_, Old Norse: _Vindr_, German: _Wenden, Winden_, Danish: _vendere_, Swedish: _vender_, Polish: _Wendowie_) is a historical name for Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used.
> In the Middle Ages the term "Wends" often referred to Western Slavs living within the Holy Roman Empire, though not always. Mieszko I, the first historical ruler of Poland, also appeared as "Dagome, King of the Wends" (Old Norse: _Vindakonungr_). The name has possibly survived in Finnic languages (Finnish: _Venäjä_, Estonian: _Vene_, Karelian: _Veneä_) denoting Russia.
> 
> You can read Chronicle of Fredegar from 7th century or go in the Making of the Slavs you can find all references to them
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_Fredegar
> 
> This are not fantasies as i do not write history myself but historicaly written sources and when did the ethnonym Slav appear prior or later?


don't associate Poland with wends as only 10% of Poland was in the Holy Roman Empire, so clearly the term wends does not refer to west-slav poles , does it!

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## Milan

> don't associate Poland with wends as only 10% of Poland was in the Holy Roman Empire, so clearly the term wends does not refer to west-slav poles , does it!


I do not know,seems how Germanic and other people use to call their Slavic neighbors,maybe someone from those areas can help better.
We was called also Illyrians,Moesians etc,this exonyms won't help however.
Perhaps historians group them this way Antes (East Slavs) and Wends (West Slavs) Sclavenes(South Slavs) because of Jordanes.

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## Milan

> Milan, the problem really is: you claim that Curta _isn't_ South Slavic centric, but I will ask you: does his model explain - or predict - in any shape way or form where the West Slavic and East Slavic language areas come from? I give Curta credit in so far as that for the South Slavic peoples, his model of elite prominence is somewhat compelling, it also goes along relatively well with the linguistic backdrop (Romance substrate on the Balkans). However, his model does not address (nor predict) the existence of the West Slavic and East Slavic peoples. Where are the Obodrites and the Ilmen Slavs, to pick two examples, in this view (hint: "Making of the Slavs" doesn't mention them with a single word)? As long as that is unaddressed, I cannot take him (fully) seriously, and I have to dismiss him as having a clearly limited, South Slavic centric view of the Slavic origin.
> 
> I for one do not believe that Proto-Slavic was a "conlang" (akin to Klingon or Sindarin  ) that was invented in the 500s, nor do I believe that the Proto-Slavic elite (if we again follow Curta's idea of elite dominance) were invaders from the steppe: you can make this case very clearly for the Magyars, since the Uralic languages that Hungarian is most closely related with (Khanty and Mansi) are spoken today in the Urals region of Russia. But the closest relatives of the Slavic languages are the Baltic languages.
> 
> The Dacian language is not explainable as a "Slavic dialect" because, even though it was a "Satem" language, it had a more conservative vowel system than the Balto-Slavic languages.


He use every relevant source addressing Slavs there,from Byzantine to Frankish/Germanic sources.
In the Fredegar chronicles for example have much about West Slavs which is to be found there.

Taranis neither i want to convince you in something or similar,i do read multiple sources but the "great migration" never made sense to me,which in fact turned up that no "great migration" took place.No great population replacement,which also archeology doesn't show signs.
It is not that what he talk is holy scripture.
Since you are interested in languages,this is what he say about Bohemia,short quote from him;

All places and river names mention in ninth or tenth century are pre-Slavic.By contrast all dukes and princes have typical Slavic names ending in -_Slav_ an indication of political authority in question.Judging by this evidence which of course have it's own problems,Slavic was in use especially among members of the elite.
How much outrage i can recieve now from someone for saying this?  :Disappointed:

----------


## Taranis

> He use every relevant source addressing Slavs there,from Byzantine to Frankish/Germanic sources.
> In the Fredegar chronicles for example have much about West Slavs which is to be found there.
> 
> Taranis neither i want to convince you in something or similar,i do read multiple sources but the "great migration" never made sense to me,which in fact turned up that no "great migration" took place.No great population replacement,which also archeology doesn't show signs.
> It is not that what he talk is holy scripture.
> Since you are interested in languages,this is what he say about Bohemia,short quote from him;
> 
> All places and river names mention in ninth or tenth century are pre-Slavic.By contrast all dukes and princes have typical Slavic names ending in -_Slav_ an indication of political authority in question.Judging by this evidence which of course have it's own problems,Slavic was in use especially among members of the elite.
> How much outrage i can recieve now from someone for saying this?


From my perspective, the migration scenario is a logical _necessity_ that makes a lot of sense: if in the same areas where South Slavic and West Slavic were spoken by the Middle Ages were previously demonstrably non-Slavic in the Roman period, then the Slavic languages must have been introduced new to these areas from somewhere else. Even if you're vehemently opposed to the concept of a "migration", you still have to talk about an _expansion_. An expansion has to come from somewhere. Curta traces the Byzantine "Sklavenoi", but its very clear that at best, his acculturation could only account for the South Slavic speakers.

The West Slavic peoples were never orthodox (the Church of the Byzantine Empire), as LeBrok mentioned, they adopted Catholicism from the Holy Roman Empire. Before that, and this is an important point to make, they were polytheistic. If you disregard the South Slavic speakers, we're talking about a language area that is basically entirely outside the borders of the former Roman Empire. This is why this Byzantine-centric point-of-view and Balkans-centric approach to Slavic ethnogenesis that Curta favours makes absolutely no sense.

If you compare these two maps (the first shows the distribution of the Slavic languages, including former and extinct ones, while the second shows the Roman Empire around the height of its expansion in the 2nd century AD), the problem becomes very apparent:

----------


## Milan

> From my perspective, the migration scenario is a logical _necessity_ that makes a lot of sense: if in the same areas where South Slavic and West Slavic were spoken by the Middle Ages were previously demonstrably non-Slavic in the Roman period, then the Slavic languages must have been introduced new to these areas from somewhere else. Even if you're vehemently opposed to the concept of a "migration", you still have to talk about an _expansion_. An expansion has to come from somewhere. Curta traces the Byzantine "Sklavenoi", but its very clear that at best, his acculturation could only account for the South Slavic speakers.
> 
> The West Slavic peoples were never orthodox (the Church of the Byzantine Empire), as LeBrok mentioned, they adopted Catholicism from the Holy Roman Empire. Before that, and this is an important point to make, they were polytheistic. If you disregard the South Slavic speakers, we're talking about a language area that is basically entirely outside the borders of the former Roman Empire. This is why this Byzantine-centric point-of-view and Balkans-centric approach to Slavic ethnogenesis that Curta favours makes absolutely no sense.
> 
> If you compare these two maps (the first shows the distribution of the Slavic languages, including former and extinct ones, while the second shows the Roman Empire around the height of its expansion in the 2nd century AD), the problem becomes very apparent:


I'm affraid we are in a bit of shism here West vs East,Byzantine(Roman) vs Frankish,this should not concern historiography or to attack a person ethnicity.
Migration scenario make sense because otherwise you could not explain the change that took place in Europe and also in the Roman empire.What i think you forget is the Avar kingdom,that for good time had hegemony over parts of Central Europe for example,where Sklavenoi played role in fact,also that Slavic language was established in the same khaganate over time,whoever they might be Turkic or Iranic or whatever priorly.Some linguist like Horace Lunt ,Omeljan Pritsak,then take Johanna Nichols were looking for some clues here,however..
Now if we are to post maps from the early middle ages of course you wouldn't see countries like they are today,likewise the spread of languages.

This is Europe at the Death of Charlemagne,note that Croatia and Slovenia are in the Frankish empire,the vast steppe were yet Turkic.

Some accepted misions some did not,but i think even in the Catholic West some countries were allowed to hold mass in the Slavic language,i'm not familiar much with this church issues,some might help better,but Slavic language after it's recognition gained more importantance,which for example the Rus followed suit.

This is for example Bulgarian empire under Simeon I (893-927) under whom the Slavic literacy flourished.



The Slavic tribes,classified as West,East,South.


Of course all this has it's own problems,but the migration scenario also have it's problem's which are addressed in the thread at the begining.

----------


## Korbyn

> Are you saying that Slavs were always there in Western Balkans, but somehow Roman and Greek historians completely missed them?


Methinks these Slavic people are Dacians and Thracians! The Western Slavs were taken by Sarmatians (Indo-Iranian/Scythians et al.), which is why R1a peaks around 60% in Poles and Sorbs.

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## Korbyn

> Are you saying that Slavs were always there in Western Balkans, but somehow Roman and Greek historians completely missed them?


What if I told you the Albanians may have come from Anatolia, and were actually Phyrgians or related? Maybe the Slavs are actually Dacians and Thracians? And the Illyrians were merely Celts like Greek mythology seems to say: 

If Greeks and Romans can document the Scythians, Persians, Celts and Germans. Why did they not document the Slavs and Albanians? But the Phyrgians and Thracians magically disappeared...while the Slavs arrived out of nowhere. There is a flaw in logic here..

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## Milan

> If Greeks and Romans can document the Scythians, Persians, Celts and Germans. Why did they not document the Slavs and Albanians? But the Phyrgians and Thracians magically disappeared...while the Slavs arrived out of nowhere. There is a flaw in logic here..


The name Slav(Sclavene),wasn't applied by Romans in the sense we today use.Today constitute all the Slavonic speakers at the begining however group of people was labeled as such by the early authors.
I have stated what Theohylact had to say about this people and their earlier name,he is one of the earliest authors on the Slavs,he say they were previously called Getae,Thracians.This was questioned by some historians but many just want to close their eyes in front of his two quotes about Sclavenes-Getae.
Good to mention that many times the Greeks north of them described everything as Thracian, people who were similar in customs and alike.
Herodotus "father of history" as we call him mention them as most numerous people in Europe the Thracians and second in the world only outnumbered by Indians.
Pliny the Elder say that "it is reckoned Thracians are most powerful people in Europe.
We all want to close our eyes in front of this,while we label the Thracians to the small province of Thrace as Romanized peasants,there is many questions,which need to be answered.
Since we have a historical legacy from the 19th century,scholarly endeavor based on nationalism and forging national identities.

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## Taranis

> What if I told you the Albanians may have come from Anatolia, and were actually Phyrgians or related? Maybe the Slavs are actually Dacians and Thracians? And the Illyrians were merely Celts like Greek mythology seems to say:
> 
> If Greeks and Romans can document the Scythians, Persians, Celts and Germans. Why did they not document the Slavs and Albanians? But the Phyrgians and Thracians magically disappeared...while the Slavs arrived out of nowhere. There is a flaw in logic here..


From a linguistic perspective, all of these claims are absurd. For sure, even though they are Satem languages, neither Dacian nor Thracian was the ancestor of the modern Slavic languages. The Illyrian language_s_ were likewise distinct from the Celtic languages. On the other hand, Dacian (or some of the Illyrian languages) may be related with Albanian, but the data is too scant on the issue to say this for sure. Furthermore, you talk about 'flawed logic' and invoke Greek mythology as a viable source for ethnography, seriously?

Also, the Phrygians did not 'magically disappear'. They were hellenized first and absorbed into the general population of Byzantine Anatolia. Later on, Anatolia was turkicized.

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## Korbyn

> From a linguistic perspective, all of these claims are absurd. For sure, even though they are Satem languages, neither Dacian nor Thracian was the ancestor of the modern Slavic languages. The Illyrian language_s_ were likewise distinct from the Celtic languages. On the other hand, Dacian (or some of the Illyrian languages) may be related with Albanian, but the data is too scant on the issue to say this for sure. Furthermore, you talk about 'flawed logic' and invoke Greek mythology as a viable source for ethnography, seriously?
> 
> Also, the Phrygians did not 'magically disappear'. They were hellenized first and absorbed into the general population of Byzantine Anatolia. Later on, Anatolia was turkicized.


Occam's razor would say that I am closer to correct. What is your explanation for the Slavic people? How do you explain the Y-DNA differences in Balkanic South Slavs and with Sorbian and Polish (Western Slavs)? Sorbs/Polish are abundant in R1a (almost 60%) while in South Slavs Dinaric I2 is almost 60-70%. In the Polish and Sorbians it is at least less than 6% on average. 

Also, I don't think I remember saying Phrygians magically disappeared. I wanted an explanation why they disappeared. To say they were Hellenized is only ONE easy answer. They could have easily assimilated or even evolved into Albanians quite easily; or even assimilated into Southern Slavs. Which, if that is the case, it shows evidently why there is small correlation with Southern Slavs and Albanians, rather than the rest of Europe.

And, also, as I stated before, in another thread; 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyri...nal_influences

Why do supposed archaic Illyrian names have more Celtic borrowings than Thracian or even Greek? Why are there no documented words in Albanian of Celtic origin? We can find Turkic words from the Ottomans, even in Serbian; but Celtic is very low. There even traces of Celtic borrowings in Hungarian. So why none or almost none in Albanian? While Illyrian external influences seem to show the most Celtic names.

"Invading Celts" could just be as relevant as "invading Gauls". 

*"Furthermore, you talk about 'flawed logic' and invoke Greek mythology as a viable source for ethnography, seriously?"

*No. Are you serious? The Greeks and mythology could be clues or a metaphor. Why is it not, in any way, a viable source? 

And, there is loads of proof that Hungarians, Western Slavs and even Balts, may be Indo-Iranians. (most of them Scythians)

Here is an ancient language spoken in Hungary related to Ossetian:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jassic_dialect

You seem to be the one who is not able to understand the reality, here.

Also, do you realize the first Bulgarians spoke a Turkic language? The Slavic language was not taken until recently. Bulgarians were actually European Turks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bulgarian_Empire

Language:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgar_language

Until replaced by Old Church Slavonic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Church_Slavonic

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## Korbyn

> From a linguistic perspective, all of these claims are absurd. For sure, even though they are Satem languages, neither Dacian nor Thracian was the ancestor of the modern Slavic languages. The Illyrian language_s_ were likewise distinct from the Celtic languages. On the other hand, Dacian (or some of the Illyrian languages) may be related with Albanian, but the data is too scant on the issue to say this for sure. Furthermore, you talk about 'flawed logic' and invoke Greek mythology as a viable source for ethnography, seriously?
> 
> Also, the Phrygians did not 'magically disappear'. They were hellenized first and absorbed into the general population of Byzantine Anatolia. Later on, Anatolia was turkicized.


I'm not really arguing for, or against.

Attachment 7847

As we can observe here quite clearly the Sarmatians already penetrating into Ukraine and gradually settling around the Carpathians. We also encounter Dacians on the map, interestingly. "Balto-Slavs" is non-existent. Scythians and Indo-Iranians as well as Indo-Aryans were believed to carry the highest amount of R1a. No doubt in my mind that Western Slavs are Indo-Iranians on the paternal side. Perhaps even Balts. How these Indo-Iranians took these languages, is a mystery. Hungarian isn't even native to the Carpathians or even Indo-European, and neither is Turkic. But we find the Jassic dialect of Alanian (modern Ossetian) right there in Hungary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jassic_dialect

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## LeBrok

> What if I told you the Albanians may have come from Anatolia, and were actually Phyrgians or related? Maybe the Slavs are actually Dacians and Thracians? And the Illyrians were merely Celts like Greek mythology seems to say:


There are few Dacian and Thracian words existing in old scripts. They are not Slavic.




> If Greeks and Romans can document the Scythians, Persians, Celts and Germans. Why did they not document the Slavs and Albanians?


Perhaps they knew them earlier by an exonym? Perhaps they have spread rather late from relatively small area beyond Roman Empire? I'm sure Roman and Greek historians didn't wander around to find every ethnic group in vast NW forests.





> But the Phyrgians and Thracians magically disappeared...while the Slavs arrived out of nowhere. There is a flaw in logic here..


Same as magically Romans, Anatolians, Vandals, Aquitanians, Goals disappeared. There are many examples of cultures and languages going extinct. Most people of these cultures survive and take part in new cultures and speak new languages. You are a student of history, you should know that.

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## Milan

> From a linguistic perspective, all of these claims are absurd. For sure, even though they are Satem languages, neither Dacian nor Thracian was the ancestor of the modern Slavic languages.


We can not speak here of ancestor of modern Slavic languages,but you obviosly deny the close similarities between them,if you find and read a Germanic language from 5.B.C or even place names with perhaps much earlier dates,of course you can find cognates with other languages(just as we does today) even though will be most close to Germanic,however we can always find a way to dismiss that.
This is what Duridanov had to write,since both Illyrian and Thracian were disscused here;

2.9. Thracian and Illyrian


The old notion of a supposedly close relation between Thracian and Illyrian has been already overcome. The new studies (Vl. Georgiev) showed that the differences between these languages are significant and that they cannot be put together in a common 'Thraco-Illyrian' group.

The number of Thraco-Baltic (resp. Thraco-Balto-Slavic) parallels is impressive. Some isoglosses show Thracian was also related to German, on one hand, and to Indo-Iranian, on the other hand. Similar relations to "Pelasgian" (pre-Greek) can be only supposed on the basis of phonetic similarities.
*in earlier times – probably in the III-th millennium BC, and before the realisation of the aforementioned sound shifts, – the Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic (resp. Balto-Slavic), the Dacian and the "Pelasgian" languages. More distant were its relations with the other Indo-European languages, and especially with Greek, the Italic and Celtic languages, which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities with Thracian; the Tokharian and the Hittite were also distant.

*There will be much more studies in future,archeology as well give us many new names and understandings from the Thracian language recently.

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## A. Papadimitriou

Great Moravia by the way, was south of Hungary, in modern-day Serbia according to Constantine VII, unless Pannonia was in South Poland and Lusatia or something.
And the term 'Great' is misleading. The Greek term means also big. So, there might have been a (relatively) Big Moravia in the South and a smaller one in Czech Republic.
I believe that South-Slavic-centrism is far less common than its opposite.

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## Taranis

> We can not speak here of ancestor of modern Slavic languages,but you obviosly deny the close similarities between them,if you find and read a Germanic language from 5.B.C or even place names with perhaps much earlier dates,of course you can find cognates with other languages(just as we does today) even though will be most close to Germanic,however we can always find a way to dismiss that.
> This is what Duridanov had to write,since both Illyrian and Thracian were disscused here;


Here's your problem: there's a strong agreement that within the Indo-European languages as a whole, the Slavic and Baltic languages are most closely related. There's a lot of common sound laws that these two have in common, which is why we speak of Balto-Slavic languages. Apart from being an Indo-European language, and a Satem language too, Thracian does not share any of these sound changes. Notably, Thracian did not make the merger *o > *a (which is an areal feature that Balto-Slavic shares with Germanic, by the way). In my opinion, the relationship of Thracian (and/or Dacian) with Balto-Slavic is not any closer than the relationship of Balto-Slavic with Armenian or Indo-Iranic. What close similarity is there, phonologically speaking? 

The Proto-Balto-Slavic homeland would have been a continuous area, and as far as I know, the Baltic languages are unattested outside of the area of the Baltic. In my opinion, the Slavic homeland must have been located in relative vicinity of the Baltic language area. We would not expect it anywhere near the southern Balkans.

The alternative (if you genuinely want to argue that Thracian and Slavic are somehow more closely related) is that you somehow invoke a (non-existent) migration from the Balkans into the Baltic. Good luck finding that.




> 2.9. Thracian and Illyrian
> 
> The old notion of a supposedly close relation between Thracian and Illyrian has been already overcome. The new studies (Vl. Georgiev) showed that the differences between these languages are significant and that they cannot be put together in a common 'Thraco-Illyrian' group.
> 
> The number of Thraco-Baltic (resp. Thraco-Balto-Slavic) parallels is impressive. Some isoglosses show Thracian was also related to German, on one hand, and to Indo-Iranian, on the other hand. Similar relations to "Pelasgian" (pre-Greek) can be only supposed on the basis of phonetic similarities.
> in earlier times – probably in the III-th millennium BC, and before the realisation of the aforementioned sound shifts, – the Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic (resp. Balto-Slavic), the Dacian and the "Pelasgian" languages. More distant were its relations with the other Indo-European languages, and especially with Greek, the Italic and Celtic languages, which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities with Thracian; the Tokharian and the Hittite were also distant.
> 
> There will be much more studies in future,archeology as well give us many new names and understandings from the Thracian language recently.


I was not making the connection between Illyrian languages (plural) and Dacian, I made the connection (of whatever nature, note that I do not necessarily mean a genetic relationship) between modern Albanian and Dacian. Big difference. There was no single Illyrian language, and the Liburnian language (northern Illyria) for sure was a Centum language related with the Italic languages.

Also, _Pelasgian_, really?  :Rolleyes:  Unless you're talking about substrate languages that contributed to Greek, Pelasgian is complete nonsense. If you claim that there's a single Pelasgian language you're automatically moving yourself into fairytale country.

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## Milan

> Here's your problem: there's a strong agreement that within the Indo-European languages as a whole, the Slavic and Baltic languages are most closely related. There's a lot of common sound laws that these two have in common, which is why we speak of Balto-Slavic languages.


And who deny this? 



> Apart from being an Indo-European language, and a Satem language too, Thracian does not share any of these sound changes. Notably, Thracian did not make the merger *o > *a (which is an areal feature that Balto-Slavic shares with Germanic, by the way). In my opinion, the relationship of Thracian (and/or Dacian) with Balto-Slavic is not any closer than the relationship of Balto-Slavic with Armenian or Indo-Iranic. What close similarity is there, phonologically speaking?


If you compare the similarity of Thracian with Balto-Slavic in same way with Armenian even? or Indo-Iranic i must say you know very little about the language itself,I quoted you Thracologist Ivan Duridanov just now and Vladimir Georgiev you can read them thought and see what do they share.




> The Proto-Balto-Slavic homeland would have been a continuous area, and as far as I know, the Baltic languages are unattested outside of the area of the Baltic. In my opinion, the Slavic homeland must have been located in relative vicinity of the Baltic language area. We would not expect it anywhere near the southern Balkans.
> 
> The alternative is that you somehow invoke a (non-existent) migration from the Balkans into the Baltic. Good luck finding that.
> 
> 
> 
> I was not making the connection between Illyrian languages (plural) and Dacian, I made the connection (of whatever nature, note that I do not necessarily mean a genetic relationship) between modern Albanian and Dacian. Big difference. There was no single Illyrian language, and the Liburnian language (northern Illyria) for sure was a Centum language related with the Italic languages.
> 
> Also, _Pelasgian_, really?  Unless you're talking about substrate languages that contributed to Greek, Pelasgian is complete nonsense. If you claim that there's a single Pelasgian language you're automatically moving yourself into fairytale country.


I am not invoking any migration,and don't know why you speak migrations all the time?
That was Duridanov and he wrote "Pelasgian" languages,he took place names and compare them with Thracian,here for example;
*2. Lexical similarities 2.1. Thracian and "Pelasgian" (pre Greek)
There are many phonetical similarities between Thracian and pre Greek but, still, almost no lexical analogies between them were found. The proposed parallels include:
– the Thracian river name Asamus and the Pelasgian asáminthos 'a (stone) bath' from the stem asam- 'of stone' < IE *ak'am.
– the Thracian tribal name Astai (in Strandzha) and country name Astik and the pre Greek ásty 'a town', but there are also similar Messapian vastei (dat.) 'a town', the Old Indian 'vástu-' 'a house', etc. words.
– the Thracian tribal name Apsinthioi, Apsynthioi (north of Thracian Chersones), the river and village name Apsynthos, and the botanical name apsínthion 'a wormwood, a mugwort', but there is also another etymology proposed for the Thracian Apsynthos.


*I guess you create your own picture and think you know everything and the most not only from Florin Curta(archeology) itself but also even from Thracologist.

----------


## Taranis

> And who deny this? 
> 
> If you compare the similarity of Thracian with Balto-Slavic with Armenian even? or Indo-Iranic i must say you know very little about the language itself,I quoted you Thracologist Ivan Duridanov just now and Vladimir Georgiev you can read them thought and see what do they share.
> 
> 
> I am not invoking any migration,and don't know why you speak migrations all the time?
> That was Duridanov and he wrote "Pelasgian" languages,he took place names and compare them with Thracian 
> 2. Lexical similarities 2.1. Thracian and "Pelasgian" (pre Greek)
> There are many phonetical similarities between Thracian and pre Greek but, still, almost no lexical analogies between them were found. The proposed parallels include:
> ...


In that case (bolded part) you would have a sound change common between Thracian and Greek, by which earlier *w > Ø. However, this was not the case in Mycenaean Greek (or some archaic dialects of classical Greek), which preserved *w. Either way, this, q.e.d., does not put Thracian close to Balto-Slavic.




> I guess you create your own picture and think you know everything and the most not only from Florin Curta(archeology) itself but also even from Thracologist,damn,interesting.


Sorry Milan, you should at least have read my post more thoroughly before disliking it. ;) If you're of the opinion that Thracian material is closer to Balto-Slavic than anything else, be our guest and post it here.

As for Pelasgian, this doesn't belong here at all. Languages that could be called "Pelasgian" would be the following:
- Minoan (the language of Linear A), and (possibly its descendant), Eteocypriot.
- Lemnian (the Etruscan-ish language from the island of Lemnos in the Aegaean).
- Anatolian languages (there's a fair share of Anatolian loanwords in Greek).
- a Semitic language (Semitic loanwords in Greek, but this may be also explained to trade contact from the Bronze Age).

With exception of Anatolian, these languages / language families are all non-Indo-European, and entirely in the Mediterranean.

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## A. Papadimitriou

No language can be called Pelasgian. Basically it's wrong to assume that all or most people labeled 'Pelasgians' spoke non-Greek languages. 'Barbarian' when used for a language didn't mean non-greek necessarily but incomprehensible. They didn't check genetic relationship. So, Aeolic was a barbarian language for someone who spoke Attic, for example, because these languages were significantly different. 

'Eteocretan' is supposed by some to be descendant of 'Minoan'. That's extremely speculative because it isn't even certain if Homer's Eteocretans spoke that language. So the guy who coined the name was a joke scientist. The term 'Eteocypriot' is similarly and even more flawed, because they can't prove if the people who spoke that particular non-Greek language were there before Greek speakers. Arcadocypriot is more 'Eteocypriot'.

The mainstream scholars use the term 'pre-Greek', which has it's problems but it's overall better.

The language(s) of Linear A were Indo-European according to Georgiev (Greek and Anatolian). I personally believe they are unclassifiable and they should remain so like Eteocretan. The number of proposals which have been made proves how speculative some of these things are.

It's amazing how scholars can build whole theories on no evidence.

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## Taranis

> No language can be called Pelasgian. Basically it's wrong to assume that all or most people labeled 'Pelasgians' spoke non-Greek languages. 'Barbarian' when used for a language didn't mean non-greek necessarily but incomprehensible. They didn't check genetic relationship. So, Aeolic was a barbarian language for someone who spoke Attic, for example, because these languages were significantly different. 
> 
> 'Eteocretan' is supposed by some to be descendant of 'Minoan'. That's extremely speculative because it isn't even certain if Homer's Eteocretans spoke that language. So the guy who coined the name was a joke scientist. The term 'Eteocypriot' is similarly and even more flawed, because they can't prove if the people who spoke that particular non-Greek language were there before Greek speakers. Arcadocypriot is more 'Eteocypriot'.
> 
> The mainstream scholars use the term 'pre-Greek', which has it's problems but it's overall better.
> 
> The language(s) of Linear A were Indo-European according to Georgiev (Greek and Anatolian). I personally believe they are unclassifiable and they should remain so like Eteocretan. The number of proposals which have been made proves how speculative some of these things are.
> 
> It's amazing how scholars can build whole theories on no evidence.


I would actually agree that the term '_pre-Greek_' as a whole is better (and I would also agree with your point that the labelings of "Eteocretan" and "Eteocypriot" are fairly arbitrary, but then again, note how technically the names "_Hittite_" and "_Tocharian_" are just as arbitrary), but that proves my point: there was no homogenous pre-Greek language.

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## Yetos

> I would actually agree that the term '_pre-Greek_' as a whole is better (and I would also agree with your point that the labelings of "Eteocretan" and "Eteocypriot" are fairly arbitrary, but then again, note how technically the names "_Hittite_" and "_Tocharian_" are just as arbitrary), but that proves my point: there was no homogenous pre-Greek language.


Greek is not a language, 
but a linguistic family,

so according the 'era' you can find another Greek as primary,
but that does not mean that the other 'family members' did not exist,

so we know that Mycenean was a kind of proto-Greek,
but we also know that Greek started to be spoken away from Mycenae, at today NW parts of Greece,
considering that lake Lychnis Λυχνις which today is not in Greece, (Ochrida, Ohrid Ωχρις) was a an area of proto-Greek spoken,
and also adding that Arcadians might originate from Arzawa-Assuwa, you can understand how evolution of language happened,
just think that Aeolians had aspirations that today is found in other IE languages,
anyway, by understanding the earlier form Διας-ος, compare with Brygian Tios, and then with attic Θεος,
but Makedonians kept the older Δια, although with koine, the word stabilize to Θεος,
so by seeing Greek as only one language, you will have wrong results,
but by understanding that Greek was a linguistic family that at North was close to Brygian, and at south evolute to Mycenean, and also add the unknown, yet easy to find some Pelasgian, and the Arzawa/Assuwa adds/mix
then you have we know about Greek language,
for example from Homer till Herodotus how many centuries?
and from Herodotus till Xenophon which is a typical pure South Greek writer, how many? 
in 3 centuries we have Homer to Herodotus, and 3 centuries from Herodotus to Xenophon, and we loose numbers, cases, voices, aparemphat, etc
and yet in Makedonia 8 centuries after Homer kept a primitive Greek dialect,
and 3000 years after Homer we found that Pontic Greek original uses +1 aparemphat than Homer, and older syntax of dative case than koine, when rest Greek have only 1 aparemphat and 4 cases today,
my grand mother still say, να σοι δωσου μιά σ'ην κεβαλή, as ancient Makedonians, not κεφαλη which is accepted 2500 years now,
a pontic Greek will say διγω σε εναν σ'ο κιφαλ',
a Cretan will say να σου δωκω μια στην κεφαλη
α modern one να σε/σου δωσω μια στο κεφαλι
and at koine would be, σοι δωσω μιαν εις την κεφαλην
so some older styles still remained milleniums

it is like comparing Norwegian with Austrian, and say I am not sure there was a homogenous Germanic language

----------


## Taranis

> Greek is not a language, 
> but a linguistic family,
> 
> so according the 'era' you can find another Greek as primary,
> but that does not mean that the other 'family members' did not exist,
> 
> so we know that Mycenean was a kind of proto-Greek,
> but we also know that Greek started to be spoken away from Mycenae, at today NW parts of Greece,
> considering that lake Lychnis Λυχνις which today is not in Greece, (Ochrida, Ohrid Ωχρις) was a an area of proto-Greek spoken,
> ...


Sorry to say this Yetos, but you've been getting me completely wrong here. I was explicitly talking about "pre-Greek" languages (plural), or substrate influences in Greek. Milan quoted Duridanov and his proposal that "Pelasgian", just like Thracian, was a Balto-Slavic language. I made the point that there that considering that it can be demonstrated easily that there was more than one source for non-Greek elements in Greek, which takes Duridanov's proposal _ad absurdum_.

----------


## Nik

Milan, perhaps u fail to understand/accept the fact that languages and ethnicities do not spread in the same pattern. 

Just because u fail to see the possibility of a massive migration from the "Slavic homeland" to the Balkans does not mean that the language was always spoken there. There happened many migrations during that period in the Balkans, but most of them were simply movements of tribes within the Roman Empire or its immediate neighbors (not Slavs) crossing the Danube to possibly escape the actual migrations. That said, these events caused a southward movement of many Carpathian I2a tribes (Dacians, Bastarnae, Scythians, u name it) which would eventually be later assimilated (and not as fast as it is thought). 

So we could be dealing with a normal southward shift of Balkanic and Carpathian tribes first and Slavicization later. 

As for the relation of Thracian to Pelasgian, ur finding a few similar words and calling 2 entire languages (I'm being generous with 2) related. It could be that Pre-Greeks and Pre-Thracians shared many common words or where related languages, therefore the Hellenic and Thracian new arrivals coincidentally adopted the same ones in some cases or simply didn't rename some rivers or place names even better.

----------


## Yetos

@ milan

if we accept that Pelasgian = Tracian then pre-Greeks=Polish,
do you find this correct?

----------


## Milan

> Sorry to say this Yetos, but you've been getting me completely wrong here. I was explicitly talking about "pre-Greek" languages (plural), or substrate influences in Greek. Milan quoted Duridanov and his proposal that "Pelasgian", just like Thracian, was a Balto-Slavic language. I made the point that there that considering that it can be demonstrated easily that there was more than one source for non-Greek elements in Greek, which takes Duridanov's proposal _ad absurdum_.


Taranis the problem with conversation with you is that you twist words in order to discredit people,multiple times i noticed this,i will post the same and tell me where does he say Thracian is Pelasgian; and where he use that "Pelasgian" is one and same language? he apply (pre Greek) *plus is just a quote not entire book of his research.*

The number of Thraco-Baltic (resp. Thraco-Balto-Slavic) parallels is impressive. Some isoglosses show Thracian was also related to German, on one hand, and to Indo-Iranian, on the other hand. *Similar relations to "Pelasgian" (pre-Greek) can be only supposed on the basis of phonetic similarities.*
in earlier times – probably in the III-th millennium BC, and before the realisation of the aforementioned sound shifts, – the Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic (resp. Balto-Slavic), the Dacian and the "Pelasgian" languages. More distant were its relations with the other Indo-European languages, and especially with Greek, the Italic and Celtic languages, which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities with Thracian; the Tokharian and the Hittite were also distant.

He speak of III-th millennium BC,*also perhaps we should find out what and which region he have in mind when talk about "pre Greek" (Pelasgian) and those place names because he sure don't apply that to Lemnian or something similar*.I am however not interested in that subject.

This is like saying for example; the Greek language formed close union with Indo-Aryan,Armenian ... some isoglosses show close relation to Italic-Celtic,more distant to it's relation were Balto-Slavic,the Thracian languages which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities and so on..

----------


## Milan

> @ milan
> 
> if we accept that Pelasgian = Tracian then pre-Greeks=Polish,
> do you find this correct?


In order to accept this perhaps you follow what Taranis have to say instead Duridanov,and perhaps you even know Duridanov and Georgiev better than me.

----------


## Volat

Lowest quality of information on Slavic history and ethnogenesis I've encountered for quite sometime .

----------


## Milan

> If you're of the opinion that Thracian material is closer to Balto-Slavic than anything else, be our guest and post it here.


Quick link with googling can brought you here;
*The Language of the Thracians,* Ivan Duridanov*IX. The place of the Thracian among the Indo-European languages*

*1. Phonetical similarities:**Phonetical features*
*Thrac*.
*Dacian*
*Alban*.
*Balto*-*Slavic*
"*Pelasg*."
*German*
*Indo*-*Iranian*
*Greek*
*Phryg*.
*Armen*.
*Italic*
*Celtic*
*Hittite*
*Tokhar*.

 *IE* o>a
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
A + 
B –

*IE*, > ur(or), 
ul (ol); ir, il
+
(+)
(+)
+
+
(+)
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–

*IE*, >um(om), 
un (on); im, in
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–

*IE* k, g, gh > 
k, g (k), g
+
+
+
+
+
–
Ind. ± 
Iran. ±
–
–
–
–
–
–
–

*IE* k', g', g'h > 
s (þ), z (d)
+
+
+
+
+
–
Ind. s,j,h 
Iran. +
–
+
+
–
–
–
–

*IE* p, t, k > 
, , 
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
+

*IE* b, d, g > 
p, t, k
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
+

*IE* bh, dh, gh > 
b, d, g
+
+
+
+
+
+
Ind. – 
Iran. +
–
+
–
–
+
+
+

*IE* sr > str
+
+
+
+ 
(Lith. –)
?
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
?
–

*IE* tt, dt > st
+
–
?
+
?
–
Ind. – 
Iran. +
+
?
?
–
–
?
?


_ 2.3. Thracian and Baltic_
There are many Thraco-Baltic lexical parallels with similarities both in the stems and in the suffixes which impress greatly [See *Thracisch-dakische Studien. I. Teil: Die thrakisch- und dakisch-baltischen Sprachbeziehungen*. _Balkansko ezikoznanie_, XIII, 2, Sofia, 1969]. Here are some examples:
(VN - village name; PN - personal name; PlN - place name; RN - river name; FM - family name)
*Thracian*
*Baltic*

VN *Batkúnion*
_Lith._ VN *Batkunai*

VN *Clasus*
_Latv._ PlN *Kalsi*, *Kals*-*strauts*

VN *Kýpsela*
_Lith_. VN *Kupšēliai* 
from *kupsēlis* 'a hillock'

VN *Rumbo*-*dona*
_Old-Pruss_. PlN *Rumbow* (a ford), 
_Latv_. *rum**̃ba* 'river rapids'

VN *Sártē*
_Lith_. RN *Sar**̃**tė* 
from *sar**̃**tas* 'bright-red'

VN *Scretisca*
_Lith_. VN *Skrētiškė*

VN *Strambai*
_Old-Pruss_. *strambo* 'a stubble-field' 
_Latv_. VN *Strũobas*

PN *Sautes*
_Old-Latv_. FN *Sautte* 
_Latv_. *sautis* 'a lazy man'

PN *Skilas*
_Lith_. PN *Skyle*

PN *Sparkē*
_Old-Pruss_. PN *Sparke*

*midne* 'a village'
_Latv_. *mītne* 'a place of stay'

*zibythides* 'the noble Thracians'
_Lith_. *žibùtė* 'light; something shining'

VN *Zburulus*
_Lith_. *žiburỹs* 'light'



His opinion however was that Thracian is firstly most close to Baltic languages so i won't post other language cognates there;

Something from Thracian mytholgy for comparison; one of the most freuquent epithets of the Thracian rider god is "Perkon"
Perun (Slavic sky god) Perkunas (Baltic sky god)in South-Slavic root-per,perk-meaning "to hit"

Duridanov again;
The epithet Pyrumērulas (variants: Pyrmērulas, Pyrymērylas, Pirmerulas), which occurs as an epithet of the Thracian deity of Heros, is obviously a two-component word. The first component is linked to the Greek pӯrós ‘maize, corn’ from the IE *pūro-, compare also to the Lith. pūrai ‘winter maize’, the Latv. puri ‘maize’, the Church Slavonic pəiro ‘spelt’, etc.; the second component is an extension of the stem of the IE verb *mēr- ‘big, great’ in Slavic personal names, ending in -mērə (Vladimer)


Everyone know that "Mir/Mer" is one of the most frequent component in Slavic names i guess "Gothic" too.

Another deity common to Thracians and Phrygians was Semelē, a goddess of the earth, Dionysus’s mother. The name is related to the Phrygian zemelō ‘mother-earth’, related to the Old-Bulg. zemlja, the Russ. zemlja ‘land’, the Lith. zeme, the Latv. zeme, etc., and its initial form must have been *zeml’a with an epenthetic l, as the Slavic word from the IE *g’h(d)ma.


South Slavic goddess Dodola 
Also spelled Doda,Dudulica, Dudulya and Didilya D. Decev compared the word "dodola" (also dudula, dudulica, etc.) with Thracian anthroponyms (personal names) and toponyms (place names), such as Doidalsos, Doidalses, Dydalsos, Dudis, Doudoupes.
While Paliga say the custom is Thracian,is found among Romanians,as far in Poland as Dzidzileya.
They connect it to Lithunian-dundulis (thunder)

"Ktistai" the Thracians that live in celibacy,monks,South Slavic-"čisti" meaning clean/pure, both physically and spiritually,Greek alphabet has no "č" so we encounter "kt".

This doesn't belong here in this thread.

----------


## Milan

[email protected]
For all this separate thread need to be open or send this in another thread i guess Garrick has one "Thracians spoke Balto-Slavic"
Here is the four general questions on Slavic ethnogenesis for which i recieved for now only insults and emotionaly attacks from nationalists instead of answers,while i was accused being one;
And do not move that discussion with Volat in other thread please so people can see how i am attacked cause i doesn't agree with their ideas,i am "traitor" non Slav and everything else if i don't embrace their opinion,more of ideology;
This is Volat post from Belorusia about me,you can repost mine also,and is general opinion on ordinary people there on history(North Slavs) but he somehow opened his heart to speak,which is good,so is good to be here,cause we also talked about biases and objectivity here;



> I am not trying to be rude, but you don't strike me as a Slav after having read your numerous comments. In all likelihood, you are an indigenous person of the Balkans, such as Albanians, whom our Slavic ancestors had done full frontal lobotomy reversal , so they began to speak a Slavic language. You eat non-Slavic cuisine having Turkish names. You wear non-Slavic clothes. You don't have Slavic physical appearance and genetics as 80% of the Slavs. Even your intellect is that of a typical person living in the Balkans.


Here is the thread;
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...locked-thread)

----------


## Nik

Milan, do u realize that all u have been doing is stating again after many decades of proof that IE languages are related to each other and that's why they're grouped together in the first place? So according to ur logic, if Thracian has cognates with Baltic, and Baltic is closely related to Slavic, therefore Thracian = Slavic? Ur pride forbids u to admit that ur assimilated, doesn't it? 

And +1 to Volat's post, he's got it right although it's obvious he despises Albanians.

----------


## Yetos

> In order to accept this perhaps you follow what Taranis have to say instead Duridanov,and perhaps you even know Duridanov and Georgiev better than me.


Duridanov although has done a good work with original thracian vocabulary,
he is stacked in the idea of Baltic as homeland of European IE languages,
tha is why mainly he is using baltic synonyms, in words that passed in modern Greek and used only by Greeks today.
even in his work, that is obvious,
for example the Greek word polis (πολις πολιτεια) comes from baltic poljie,
the word kalamindar which in modern Greek is straw of rivers/lakes anc Gr (συριγγα) modern καλαμις-ια, and also the emptiest bone of the feet, Greek κνημη, alternative modern καλαμι)
he is claiming that it was a tree like the elm Gr Ιτια.
that is why Duridanov is strange and pecculiar,

or you prefer Thracian muca (male children, boys of a wider family) which Duridanov connects it with Armenian, but not with Scottish Mac,

----------


## Milan

> Milan, do u realize that all u have been doing is stating again after many decades of proof that IE languages are related to each other and that's why they're grouped together in the first place? So according to ur logic, if Thracian has cognates with Baltic, and Baltic is closely related to Slavic, therefore Thracian = Slavic? Ur pride forbids u to admit that ur assimilated, doesn't it? 
> 
> And +1 to Volat's post, he's got it right although it's obvious he despises Albanians.


Another expert to tell me who i am,thanks for your effort guys  :Laughing: 
Both of you seem to be more obscure about your own origins than myself obviously.You are what you think you are,it is very simple,certainly i am not Russian neither Albanian.
No,not all languages were related the same way,with time some become much more distant to eachother,even though they have same root.
Have nothing to do with my pride,i started totaly different thread but obviously some people draged it this way,assimilated mean what? let's start from our first ancestors and see who they where,what language they spoke,with whom they mixed,who assimilated them and opposite,with whom they join in tribes,all this is absurd,to the final question,however there is reason why a Russian,Albanian and German will always agree with this theory,even if i get infraction i couldn't care less.

And no our scholars mainstream never said that Thracians spoke a Slavic or even Balto-Slavic,in contrary for example in Albania entire school system is based that you are Illyrians,but again no proves for such claims,so can you compare that?

The first to challenge so called migration movement was therefore not South-Slav but Romanian,Florin Curta recently,the one that wrote the article.
There is only one non biased person in this thread and that is A.Papadimitriou,not because he agree with me,i do not see that he does,but he is objective person and apply critical thinking at least.

----------


## Volat

I am not trying to portray myself as a Slav who knows everything about original Slavs. In this topic, several people are far-fetched from what our leading scholars wrote about Slavic origins, language, culture, physical appearance, genetics.


In a nutshell, Slavic homeland considered in every Slavic country - in every school of Slavic country - is what is present day north-western Ukraine, south-eastern Poland, south-western-Belarus. Scholars came to the conclusion after analysing hydronyms, archaeolgocial cultures, historic records, languages of Slavs and Balts and other things.

----------


## Milan

> I am not trying to portray myself as a Slav who knows everything about original Slavs. In this topic, several people are far-fetched from what our leading scholars wrote about Slavic origins, language, culture, physical appearance, genetics.
> 
> 
> In a nutshell, Slavic homeland considered in every Slavic country - in every school of Slavic country - is what is present day north-western Ukraine, south-eastern Poland, south-western-Belarus. Scholars came to the conclusion after analysing hydronyms, archaeolgocial cultures, historic records, languages of Slavs and Balts and other things.


There is no Slavic physical appearance,those that claim that are pseudo scientists,however there is description how Sclavenes looked by early authors;
1. Procopius of Caesarea (6th century):


- "(...) Valerian chose one of the Sklaveni who are men of mighty stature. (...)"


- "(...) Nay further, they do not differ at all from one another in appearance. For they are all exceptionally tall and stalwart men, *while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or very blonde, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are slightly ruddy in color.* (...)"


2. Theophilact Simokatta (describing events from year 595):


"(...) The Emperor was with great curiosity listening to stories about this tribe, he has welcomed these newcomers from the land of barbarians, and after being amazed by their height and mighty stature, he sent these men to Heraclea. (...)"


3. Theophanes the Confessor (describing the same event from year 595):


"(...) The Emperor was admiring their beauty and their stalwart stature. (...)


As you can see that they weren't "blonde" as most nordicist(north Slavs) lovers will say today and were tall of mighty stature and stalwart,perfect description of a South-Slav and Danube basin dweller where they stem from,Belorusians,Russians and all other Slavs are much shorter than South-Slavs,neither is there genetic Slav,when some will test some of the "Sclavenes" we can say this,rest all are nationalist claims.
Well Nords were your leaders,Nestor say East Slavs were leaderless until they came yet they had power to make war with Roman empire and make lobotomy reversal on Thracians,Illyrian,Greeks,logic?

----------


## Volat

You have little to with the Slavs - genetically, anthropologically, culturally. Take a look at you cuisines. Take a look at your traditional clothing. Take a closer look at your anthropology and genetics. All you know is our language.

----------


## Milan

> You have little to with the Slavs - genetically, anthropologically, culturally. Take a look at you cuisines. Take a look at your traditional clothing. Take a closer look at your anthropology and genetics. All you know is our language.


Why you edited your comment prior calling me Mongrel? is it admin here around to check?
Again there is no Slavic culture,neither genetics(R1a in your case?),neither appearance,there is only some that are prevalent among certain groups in our case Slavs R1a and I2 with other haplogroups among them,that's it.Central Europe dances resemble eachother,Balkan dances resemble eachother regardless ethnicities,language groups,take your pseudo claims back home.Why don't you take a look at yours first,what is wrong with our traditional clothing,what's wrong with our cuisine? what a pitty there is people like you yet around.
There is Slavic language!
Slavic ethnogenesis to certain extend and again when one test those we know in historical sources as Sclavenes first,we can say their haplogroups.

----------


## Volat

> Why you edited your comment prior calling me Mongrel? is it admin here around to check?
> Again there is no Slavic culture,neither genetics,neither appearance,there is only some that are prevalent among certain groups,that's it.Central Europe dances resemble eachother,Balkan dances resemble eachother regardless ethnicities,language groups,take your pseudo claims back home.Why don't you take a look at yours first,what is wrong with our traditional clothing?
> There is Slavic language!
> Slavic ethnogenesis to certain extend.


I am calling you mongrel, because you are one in the eyes of many Slavic and non-Slavic people -- Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Balts, Germans, Scandinavians. Even English are genetically more similar to us than certain southern Slavs such as yourself. We'd have accepted you if you wanted to be part of us. But you are talking about Thracians and Dacians about whose languages we only know from toponyms. You are definitely a confused mongrel . I am telling you this as a Belarusian -- buzz off, mongrel, with your Thracian and Dacian agenda.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

The Slavs of the Greek sources (Sclavenes, Sthlavenes, which is the equivalent of Slovenes) appear to be more similar to Adriatic Slavs, Western Balkan Slavs in terms of appearance. I won't say that the Proto-Slavs were like that but placing the homeland in a certain place is more of a political choice in reality.

There are assimilated people in every country. North Slavs have assimilated different Uralic, Tatar, Baltic, Germanic groups.

Tacitus Veneti were in 'Germania', that means at least West of Vistula, and they were unlike 'Sarmatians' in every respect. They had permanent settlements, they didn't live in wagons. Greeks, Romans, Germanics and the Veneti apparently had permanent settlements. They weren't 'Sarmatian'-like.

I'm not interested on who is more Proto-Slav, so I won't comment on that, though.

----------


## Nik

> Another expert to tell me who i am,thanks for your effort guys 
> Both of you seem to be more obscure about your own origins than myself obviously.You are what you think you are,it is very simple,certainly i am not Russian neither Albanian.
> No,not all languages were related the same way,with time some become much more distant to eachother,even though they have same root.
> Have nothing to do with my pride,i started totaly different thread but obviously some people draged it this way,assimilated mean what? let's start from our first ancestors and see who they where,what language they spoke,with whom they mixed,who assimilated them and opposite,with whom they join in tribes,all this is absurd,to the final question,however there is reason why a Russian,Albanian and German will always agree with this theory,even if i get infraction i couldn't care less.


I wasn't trying to tell u who u r ethnicity wise as u r what u want to be. Thousands of ethnic groups disappeared or arouse in the course of history, so the question is who you were, and that I dont know nor I do care. Im talking about genetics, and Serbs are clearly a Central-Northern Balkan people without a doubt. 




> And no our scholars mainstream never said that Thracians spoke a Slavic or even Balto-Slavic,in contrary for example in Albania entire school system is based that you are Illyrians,but again no proves for such claims,so can you compare that?


What ur saying is true, our scholars do claim that we are Illyrians when back then they didnt even have much proof, but luckily/coincidentally for them not only Anthropology but also modern genetics proved that that's the only thing we can be. The Illyrians were E-V13, I2a, J2b, R1b, J2a, R1a, G, etc. and thats what we are as well ;) 

With regards to the ancient description of Slavs, I believe u r right in thinking that they resembled modern day South Slavs and those are indeed very interesting, but do not hold much weight as scientific proof. 

Ancient authors described the ancient Thracians as red-haired and blue eyed people, but now we know they were Dinaric-Mediterraneans. Ancient authors described the Vikings as giants but unfortunately now we know that they're average height was around 170cm. Ancient authors described a Scythian as a very educated, well mannered and very well dressed man with a perfect Greek speech, but since they had the chance to ask him about this strange case they added that he was actually an ethnic Greek taken hostage from them who later married a wealthy Scythian women and chose to be a Scythian rather than a Roman/Greek as he had a way better life. 

Similar accounts are reported several times for the Goths, Slavs, etc. that living among them was better than under the rule of Rome, and Slavs particularly were known for peacefully absorbing into their society many hostages or tribes who joined them voluntarily to plunder the Roman territories. That said, we can never know who was what but only under which banner he served at the time. 

The reason why your theory confuses me is that I cannot see a possible scenario of having 2 completely separate Slavs, those "non-Slavic" blonde Baltids of the North and the very tall darker Slavs of Dacia and Thrace. 

Do u mean that these 2 different groups used to be neighbours initially but were then cut off by the Bastarnae, Scythians and Sarmatians? 

Or u actually believe that the Southern ones are the only real Slavs? But then who assimilated the ones in the North? 

To avoid unnecessary future posts, are u familiar with the physical anthopology of the Western Balkans? Are u at least aware that the modern people living there share the same characteristics of the ancient ones (pre-Slavs and pre-Illyrians)? Im just saying this in case ur theory is that these very tall darker Slavs came to Western Balkans and replaced an entire population which looked nothing like them.

----------


## Angela

> Nik: The Illyrians were E-V13, I2a, J2b, R1b, J2a, R1a, G, etc. and thats what we are as well ;)


 

According to which ancient samples?

----------


## Volat

I received infarctions from Taranis and LeBrok for making genuine comments in this topic. 

Since I have been on this forum, I noticed, there are more active moderators than regular members. I am having a laugh at some moderators and their comments. Do I have to write something nasty to help them to ban me permanently? Taranis and Lebrok! Both of you are dick-heads. Taranis! You are a Nazi ****. Ban me permanently. LOL. This will help you to explain other moderators why you banned a certain member.

----------


## LeBrok

> *I received infarctions from Taranis and LeBrok for making genuine comments in this topic.* 
> 
> Since I have been on this forum, I noticed, there are more active moderators than regular members. I am having a laugh at some moderators and their comments. Do I have to write something nasty to help them to ban me permanently? Taranis and Lebrok! Both of you are dick-heads. Taranis! You are a Nazi ****. Ban me permanently. LOL. This will help you to explain other moderators why you banned a certain member.


Nope, you got infractions are banned now because you are antisocial ass.

----------


## Angela

Lest there be any doubt, I would have issued an infraction for calling someone a mongrel as well had I seen it. You just don't get to insult people that way on this forum, whether or not your other arguments are sound.

----------


## LABERIA

> Nope, you got infractions are banned now because you are antisocial ass.


He forgot that this is an european forum and not some agricultural cooperative of Lukashenko.

----------


## Yetos

Ok guys

I think we go back to stupidity,

*1rst*  *do not compare south Slavs with West Slavs and other Slavs,*

*2nd* *Russians and Ruthinians, Ruthinians were not Slavs, neither Ukrainians are,*

3rd, *before Slavs enter blakans or pass the Danube South to create what we say today South Slavs, which is not an ethnicity but a linguistic term, must read that Slavs were at Today Austria west of Great Moravia canturies before enter East Roman empire, (Carantanians) 

4rth Slovenes came from Austria, Serbo-Croats or Croato-Serbs as ever you like, came from Poland and East Germany, Severi (Slavs of Bulgaria) came from Ukraine with Balgurs,
so South Slavs are not an ethnicity,

5th according to many Linguists OCS is closer to protoSlavic so South Slavic is closer linguistic to proto forms,
*
Illyrians and Illyrians Slavs etc etc is just a ....., that suits some agendas

----------


## Nik

> According to which ancient samples?
> [/COLOR]


those r almost all the Balkan haplogroups present there for at least 2000 years, hence my sarcastic answer. 

Can u disprove the presence of any of those haplogroups in Balkans 2000 years back?

so long as there's no data dismissing the presence of these major haplogroups, Albanians remain in the vast majority to be called locals and not Caucasians/Anatolians or whatever other laughable theories.

----------


## Yetos

> those r almost all the Balkan haplogroups present there for at least 2000 years, hence my sarcastic answer. 
> 
> Can u disprove the presence of any of those haplogroups in Balkans 2000 years back?
> 
> so long as there's no data dismissing the presence of these major haplogroups, Albanians remain in the vast majority to be called locals and not Caucasians/Anatolians or whatever other laughable theories.


except that their language is not local,

----------


## Angela

[QUOTE=Nik;491126]those r almost all the Balkan haplogroups present there for at least 2000 years, hence my sarcastic answer. 

Can u disprove the presence of any of those haplogroups in Balkans 2000 years back?

so long as there's no data dismissing the presence of these major haplogroups, Albanians remain in the vast majority to be called locals and not Caucasians/Anatolians or whatever other laughable theories.[/QUOTE

That may be one of the most nonsensical statements I've ever read on this board. Is this your idea of logical deduction?

1. We are the descendants of the Illyrians because I think so or that's our mythos

2. We have the following haplogroups

3. Therefore, the Illyrians had those haplogroups.

Really? You think that's the way it works? Not in science it doesn't. Not on this Board it doesn't. I don't have to prove a negative. You're the one making a definitive statement about the haplogroups of the Illyrians. If you're going to say the Illyrians had any haplogroup whatsoever, you need proof, i.e. ancient dna. If you don't have it, your belief is meaningless, and not worth of discussion. Period.

----------


## Taranis

Milan, before I get to why Thracian cannot be a Balto-Slavic language, I would like to address why exactly I dismiss Curta's original questions:

1) I find the reversal more interesting to ask: can people be Slavic without speaking a Slavic language?


2) Why should there be no separate archaeological cultures?


3) If there is no archaeological evidence for a Slavic migration to the western Balkans, as Curta asserts, then either Slavic languages spread there through acculturation and not through to demic movement, or Slavic languages have been present since before the Migration Period. Since there is no evidence for Slavic languages being spoken in the Western Balkans in Roman times (this is an archaeological fact that I do not see as contestable), the only sensible conclusion is that the Slavic languages (by whatever means) arrived later.


4) Why does the Zupa system have to be a key feature Proto-Slavic society?


The way I see, and this goes back to what I said before, Curta has a Balkans-centric view of the origin of the Slavs which I find dismissable. You cannot, in my opinion, talk about Slavs if you do not address all three branches. And I will say what I said before: I do not believe that it is possible, based on the internal history of the Slavic languages, that Proto-Slavic was a conlang that was invented in the 500s and spread amongst the Avar Khanate. Nor do I believe that the Proto-Slavs were nomadic invaders from the steppe. Nor do I believe that Slavic language family is much older, and West Slavic and South Slavic speakers have been "hiding" in blind sight of Greek and Roman authors on the Balkans and amongst the Germanic peoples in Central Europe, without them recording a single Slavic word (the latter is essentially the consequence of Curta's proposals).

----------


## Nik

[QUOTE=Angela;491134]


> those r almost all the Balkan haplogroups present there for at least 2000 years, hence my sarcastic answer. 
> 
> Can u disprove the presence of any of those haplogroups in Balkans 2000 years back?
> 
> so long as there's no data dismissing the presence of these major haplogroups, Albanians remain in the vast majority to be called locals and not Caucasians/Anatolians or whatever other laughable theories.[/QUOTE
> 
> That may be one of the most nonsensical statements I've ever read on this board. Is this your idea of logical deduction?
> 
> 1. We are the descendants of the Illyrians because I think so or that's our mythos
> ...


Perhaps u were having a rough day, so I'll post again in order to make myself clear as I feel like you're answering to someone else and not my post. 

Illyrians were a group of tribes living in the Western Balkans and we dont know if all of them were indeed related to each or to what extent they were, so therefore when anybody with basic logic and knowledge uses the word Illyrian from a geographical point of view, like saying Balkanites, or European. 

Having read in Eupedia about all of the aforementioned haplgroups, I do not remember any scientific post dismissing their presence in the Balkans or even Western Balkans 2000 years ago, therefore what came to be known as Illyrians were obviously a mix of all those relatively local haplogroups altogether and not a single one or two as u appear to be suggesting (although I've seen how u debate and I dont think u stand at that level). 

If u wanna talk about the original Illyrians as Indo-Europeans, well nobody knows that so anyone like Yetos claiming that Albanian is not the language of the locals is just a hater with wishful thinking as his country's territorial interest are at stake, therefore he's inclined to believe and begs God that someone in the future finally proves that Albanian is indeed a Northern Balkan language so that they can freely claim Epirus and up until Shkodra in the North, while the Serbs can claim the rest.

So long story short, Illyrians came as Nobody knows (probably R1b, R1a, or whatever, who cares?!) and mixed with the locals and gave birth to the real Illyrians that we know of, not the pre-historic ones that nobody knows of, just like the pre-historic Hellens (yes Yetos, Hellenic is indeed a "non-local" language too according to you), pre-historic Latins, Celts, Germanics, and so on. Period.

----------


## Milan

> 1) I find the reversal more interesting to ask: can people be Slavic without speaking a Slavic language?


In present day is well established what a Slav mean,it mean a Slavic speaker,however we talk about 6th and 7th century when the name wasn't apply in that way,do you realise that?
We speak of Sclavenes and Antes as Slavs today,how are "Antes" Slavs? they are not Sclavenes but Antes historians atributed them to East Slavs.Do you realise that those were multilingual societies speaking more then one language,what is your evidence to count them as Slavs? if they were Slavs assuming because spoke Slavic,so were then also Avars Slavs because they too spoke a language they all understood-supposedly Slavic,do you realise the question? you do not apply a 21th century meaning in the 6th century without proof,but just because you think it is true.
We do not look in history that way,Curta question is very right therefore.




> 2) Why should there be no separate archaeological cultures?


Sclavenes were located in the Danube basin,precisely in today Romania,there is no single evidence they brought material culture from the north,or they came from there,cherry picking cultures without evidence or because we believe so...we can easy claim a culture in Spain as Slavic that way.




> 3) If there is no archaeological evidence for a Slavic migration to the western Balkans, as Curta asserts, then either Slavic languages spread there through acculturation and not through to demic movement, or Slavic languages have been present since before the Migration Period. Since there is no evidence for Slavic languages being spoken in the Western Balkans in Roman times (this is an archaeological fact that I do not see as contestable), the only sensible conclusion is that the Slavic languages (by whatever means) arrived later.


Acculturation or whatever Curta does not go in languages,he is archeologist and historian,the Slavic history in the 19th century was written on supposedly most archaic river names of Slavic origin located in western Ukraine,hence the urheimat was there,so from there they were migrating all over the place,without archeological proves or anything like that! Archeology was working according to that idea.
Linguistic violation on archeology,languages fundamental assumption of modern nationalism.




> 4) Why does the Zupa system have to be a key feature Proto-Slavic society?


You should ask this question to those that propose a migrationist model not to Curta,since they assert that Zupa system was brought from the urheimat in Croatia and Slovenia,but such system never in history existed there,nor in other Slavic country! especialy the one they claim as homeland,can you imagine the blunder.
So why does exist in Croatia and Slovenia then?




> The way I see, and this goes back to what I said before, Curta has a Balkans-centric view of the origin of the Slavs which I find dismissable. You cannot, in my opinion, talk about Slavs if you do not address all three branches. And I will say what I said before: I do not believe that it is possible, based on the internal history of the Slavic languages, that Proto-Slavic was a conlang that was invented in the 500s and spread amongst the Avar Khanate. Nor do I believe that the Proto-Slavs were nomadic invaders from the steppe. Nor do I believe that Slavic language family is much older, and West Slavic and South Slavic speakers have been "hiding" in blind sight of Greek and Roman authors on the Balkans and amongst the Germanic peoples in Central Europe, without them recording a single Slavic word (the latter is essentially the consequence of Curta's proposals).


Curta does not choose the "Slavs" to be or appear in Romania and just because they were there and more north of them live Slavs today as well doesn't mean they came from there or this must be atributed to them,there is entire field of history dedicated to them Wends (North Slavs) in Fredegar chronicle i guess in his book.
As for those language spread amongst Avar khaganate etc is again work on linguists such is Omeljan Pritsak and so on..

----------


## kosmonomad

The Philistine Inscription 4.5 from Ashkelon (Israel)
http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperIn...?PaperID=69428
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples
1200 b.c.

*IUDI PADI PA WEDIMI 

My suggestion:
IUDI - jews, not people "liudi"
PADI - podoydi|padi (with reduced features or syllables) a dialect, similar to GreatRussian or BeloRussian, voicing "a" instead of "o"
PA - once again, written as "po", pronounced "pa"
WEDIMI - the modern form is ot|po-vedayte, or rather, learn or taste. The "-me" at the end is reasonable in the context of the old forms.

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## Nik

> The Philistine Inscription 4.5 from Ashkelon (Israel)
> http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperIn...?PaperID=69428
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples
> 1200 b.c.
> 
> *IUDI PADI PA WEDIMI 
> 
> My suggestion:
> IUDI - jews, not people "liudi"
> ...


U got me excited about this article and disappointed knowing they based a conclusion on 4 words that barely match. Then I thought to myself this can be Albanian easier than Slavic as u can play with 4 words however u want. 

Padi - could mean to 'sue' someone, or it could mean 'ignorance'
Pa - mean 'without', or 'he saw', or smth similar to 'therefore' or 'hence' 
Wedimi - similar to vetimi could mean smth like 'wrath' of people, sign of revolt or promise to join a cause or declare war. Or 'vendimi' which means 'decision'. 

Now let's publish a book and spread the word.

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## Milan

Also Taranis i would like to know which tribes you count a Germanic in Central Europe,cause some are counted as such with little or no evidence,i believe that people in Central Europe too,are largely homogeneous.

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## Taranis

> In present day is well established what a Slav mean,it mean a Slavic speaker,however we talk about 6th and 7th century when the name wasn't apply in that way,do you realise that?We speak of Sclavenes and Antes as Slavs today,how are "Antes" Slavs? they are not Sclavenes but Antes historians atributed them to East Slavs.Do you realise that those were multilingual societies speaking more then one language,what is your evidence to count them as Slavs? if they were Slavs assuming because spoke Slavic,so were then also Avars Slavs because they too spoke a language they all understood-supposedly Slavic,do you realise the question? you do not apply a 21th century meaning in the 6th century without proof,but just because you think it is true.We do not look in history that way,Curta question is very right therefore.


Here is your fallacy: I do not take a 21st century meaning and apply it to the 6th century without proof, I apply it with proof. I just think that the same rules apply all the time. If for example, I take the language families of Western and Central Europe, that question is very clear from the linguistic side:

"who is Celtic?"> someone who speaks a Celtic language.

"who is Germanic?"> someone who speaks a Germanic language.

"who is Basque?"> someone who speaks a Vasconic language.

For the Celtic languages, we have extensive evidence for much of Central and Western Europe in the Antiquity (including some written texts). For the Germanic languages, we also have a fair bit of evidence in Central Europe in Antiquity. For Basque the situation is a lot weaker, we have the Aquitanian (Old Basque) place names and personal names from Antiquity. Basically, *why should this approach be different for Slavic languages?* Because Slavic languages are special snowflakes for which the rules of linguistics do not apply? Hardly. So in my opinion, someone cannot be a Slav without speaking a Slavic language. Were the Sclavenes and Antes were thus Slavic? They were the earliest recorded people to be unanimously identifiable as Slavic. And when Curta makes the (condescending) statement that Prehistoric Slavs are 'fairytales', he does not solve anything with it. The Slavic languages have to come from somewhere. In my opinion, the question "who is a Slav" (read: who speaks a Slavic language) is just as valid in the 21st century as it is in the 6th century or the 1st century. Only that we do not know with certainty who were the Slavic speakers in the 1st century (unless you follow Curta's fallacious postulates to the end and make the ridiculous claim that no one spoke Slavic in the 1st century because it was an invented conlang). 


> Sclavenes were located in the Danube basin,precisely in today Romania,there is no single evidence they brought material culture from the north,or they came from there,cherry picking cultures without evidence or because we believe so...we can easy claim a culture in Spain as Slavic that way.


Well, that is an obviously silly (but in my opinion educative) example that you pick Spain for the Slavic homeland: we cannot just claim that. But we have evidence to disprove that idea, because we have several lines of evidence: first, we have place names and ethnic names from the Antiquity (the Roman period), and we have no evidence for Slavic place names there (we do have Celtic, Iberian, Punic and Greek names attested for Spain, in approximately that order of frequency from most numerous to least numerous). The other line of evidence comes from the modern Slavic languages themselves (see loanwords, comparative method and internal reconstruction for further reference), not to mention the fact that the most closely related languages inside the greater Indo-European family are the Baltic languages, which places the language family firmly into eastern Europe.


> Acculturation or whatever Curta does not go in languages,he is archeologist and historian,the Slavic history in the 19th century was written on supposedly most archaic river names of Slavic origin located in western Ukraine,hence the urheimat was there,so from there they were migrating all over the place,without archeological proves or anything like that! Archeology was working according to that idea.Linguistic violation on archeology,languages fundamental assumption of modern nationalism.


The reconstructed homeland based on river names is still valid in my opinion (and not easily overturned), because the error is not in the methodology. What other explanation do you have that the most archaic Slavic river names are found precisely there? According to Curta's ideas, they shouldn't be there. To me, asking these questions is not tied with 'modern nationalism' in any way. Linguistics do not violate archaeology. Archaeology has to be interpreted differently to be compatible with the linguistic evidence.


> You should ask this question to those that propose a migrationist model not to Curta,since they assert that Zupa system was brought from the urheimat in Croatia and Slovenia,but such system never in history existed there,nor in other Slavic country! especialy the one they claim as homeland,can you imagine the blunder.So why does exist in Croatia and Slovenia then?


In my opinion, it would be more sensible to assume that it is a feature that developed in-situ on the western Balkans.


> Curta does not choose the "Slavs" to be or appear in Romania and just because they were there and more north of them live Slavs today as well doesn't mean they came from there or this must be atributed to them,there is entire field of history dedicated to them Wends (North Slavs) in Fredegar chronicle i guess in his book.As for those language spread amongst Avar khaganate etc is again work on linguists such is Omeljan Pritsak and so on..


My problem is that Curta does not explain anything. He basically declares (and its a declaration, and a fairly arbitrary one) that linguistics has it all wrong, but I do not see any reason to assume so. If the methodology works for any other language or language family, why should it not work for Slavic? The error is not in the methods (see above), the error is not in the data (see above). In science, if you want to replace an existing model, you need to come up with a better model that incorporates the existing evidence and explains it in a more satisfying, more accurate fashion. When you say (like Curta seems to imply) "existing evidence is worthless", that is not coming up with a better model, that is dogmatism.


> Also Taranis i would like to know which tribes you count a Germanic in Central Europe,cause some are counted as such with little or no evidence,i believe that people in Central Europe too,are largely homogeneous.


Little evidence: yes. No evidence: that would be wrong. Here's a (non-exhaustive) list of tribes (somewhat anachronistic):

- Alemanni
- Anglii
- Angrivarii
- Bructeri
- Burgundi
- Caninefates
- Chamavii
- Chauci
- Chatti
- Cherusci
- Cugerni
- Frisii
- Frugundians
- Goths/Gotones
- Hermunduri
- Langobardi
- Marcomanni
- Quadi
- Rugians
- Suebi
- Vandals

These are complemented with place names that have the endings "-burg-" and "-furd-" in them.The critical point here is those tribes in the eastern parts that inhabited areas that became Slavic-speaking following the Migration Period.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

What are those river names?

Strabo thought that the name 'Germani' was an exonym and that it pretty much meant something like 'Genuine Celts'




> Now the parts beyond the Rhenus, immediately after the country of the Celti, slope towards the east and are occupied by the Germans, who, though they vary slightly from the Celtic stock in that they are wilder, taller, and have yellower hair, are in all other respects similar, for in build, habits, and modes of life they are such as I have said9 the Celti are. And I also think that it was for this reason that the Romans assigned to them the name “Germani,” as though they wished to indicate thereby that they were “genuine” Galatae, for in the language of the Romans “germani” means “genuine".




Even if tribe is labeled Germanic by an ancient source it doesn't mean that it was. It might have been Celtic or even Slavic. Tacitus classifies Veneti as Germanic. It was more of a term used for inhabitants of a certain region with a more or less similar way of life than anything else.

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## Milan

> Here is your fallacy: I do not take a 21st century meaning and apply it to the 6th century without proof, I apply it with proof. I just think that the same rules apply all the time. If for example, I take the language families of Western and Central Europe, that question is very clear from the linguistic side:


You are making a fallacy right in the begining,let me point you where;
The Sclavenes weren't called Sclavenes because they spoke Slavic,the authors tell as they spoke a barbarous language without giving as name,so yes clearly you apply modern linguistic term on a historical name that in the written records had no such meaning.If Antes spoke Slavic and is linguistic term why would they have been called Antes,or the Wends-Wends?the name had no linguistic connotation in historical sources,therefore we should't twist it
You however can apply the term in modern linguistic sense today,but in anyway you can no describe people that weren't called Sclavenes as such due to historical accuracy.



> Were the Sclavenes and Antes were thus Slavic? They were the earliest recorded people to be unanimously identifiable as Slavic. And when Curta makes the (condescending) statement that Prehistoric Slavs are 'fairytales', he does not solve anything with it. The Slavic languages have to come from somewhere. In my opinion, the question "who is a Slav" (read: who speaks a Slavic language) is just as valid in the 21st century as it is in the 6th century or the 1st century.


No it is not valid due to it's conotation and no they weren't both "Slavs" Sclavenes see the obvious names,the Avars then can be called Slavs too because with time they becomend Slavic speakers according to most linguists,about origin of the Antes some propose earlier Iranic origin,so i really don't see difference between them and Avars and their supposed "Slavicity".
As for the conglang claim you are just again twisting words.



> example that you pick Spain for the Slavic homeland: we cannot just claim that. But we have evidence to disprove that idea, because we have several lines of evidence: first, we have place names and ethnic names from the Antiquity (the Roman period), and we have no evidence for Slavic place names there (we do have Celtic, Iberian, Punic and Greek names attested for Spain, in approximately that order of frequency from most numerous to least numerous).


It is just as silly as to imagine a "homeland" without archeological/historical proof that they were migrating from Ukraine to Czech republic then come back later to Romania then to the Balkans.That answer was in consequence to adherents to that "theory". 


> In science, if you want to replace an existing model, you need to come up with a better model that incorporates the existing evidence and explains it in a more satisfying, more accurate fashion. When you say (like Curta seems to imply) "existing evidence is worthless", that is not coming up with a better model, that is dogmatism.Little evidence: yes. No evidence: that would be wrong. Here's a (non-exhaustive) list of tribes (somewhat anachronistic):


He so far explained that;
1.No great flood of "Slavs" occured in the Balkans or Central Europe,something that your own theory you follow was embracing,with which you seem to agree with him,so obviosly good job.
2.He pointed that the name Sclavenes arose in the Danube basin and not anywhere else,or where our wishes want the name to be.You seem not to agree but on his side are historical and archeological sources,to the contrary on your is imagination and supposedly "most archaic river names" to which different linguists or Slavists had different things to say but the name you will never find there.
3. He done great job on the collapse of the Danube limes(Roman tactical withdrawal)
Finaly he recieved an award on his researches about early Slavs,the emotionaly attacks on him are irrelevant.

And question to you,do you have a reason to drag the origin of the Marcomanni in northern Europe if they were located in Central Europe,why Sclavenes should be dragged from Romania (Danube basin) to Ukraine or Belorusia?

----------


## kosmonomad

> U got me excited about this article and disappointed knowing they based a conclusion on 4 words that barely match. Then I thought to myself this can be Albanian easier than Slavic as u can play with 4 words however u want. 
> 
> Padi - could mean to 'sue' someone, or it could mean 'ignorance'
> Pa - mean 'without', or 'he saw', or smth similar to 'therefore' or 'hence' 
> Wedimi - similar to vetimi could mean smth like 'wrath' of people, sign of revolt or promise to join a cause or declare war. Or 'vendimi' which means 'decision'. 
> 
> Now let's publish a book and spread the word.


Write a scientific article. 
At least this attempt made it readable.
EDIT: And i have seen an example when a supposedly turkic right-to-left writing turned out to be slavic left-to-right.

----------


## Yetos

[QUOTE=Nik;491160]


> Perhaps u were having a rough day, so I'll post again in order to make myself clear as I feel like you're answering to someone else and not my post. 
> 
> Illyrians were a group of tribes living in the Western Balkans and we dont know if all of them were indeed related to each or to what extent they were, so therefore when anybody with basic logic and knowledge uses the word Illyrian from a geographical point of view, like saying Balkanites, or European. 
> 
> Having read in Eupedia about all of the aforementioned haplgroups, I do not remember any scientific post dismissing their presence in the Balkans or even Western Balkans 2000 years ago, therefore what came to be known as Illyrians were obviously a mix of all those relatively local haplogroups altogether and not a single one or two as u appear to be suggesting (although I've seen how u debate and I dont think u stand at that level). 
> 
> If u wanna talk about the original Illyrians as Indo-Europeans, well nobody knows that so anyone like Yetos claiming that Albanian is not the language of the locals is just a hater with wishful thinking as his country's territorial interest are at stake, therefore he's inclined to believe and begs God that someone in the future finally proves that Albanian is indeed a Northern Balkan language so that they can freely claim Epirus and up until Shkodra in the North, while the Serbs can claim the rest.
> 
> So long story short, Illyrians came as Nobody knows (probably R1b, R1a, or whatever, who cares?!) and mixed with the locals and gave birth to the real Illyrians that we know of, not the pre-historic ones that nobody knows of, just like the pre-historic Hellens (yes Yetos, Hellenic is indeed a "non-local" language too according to you), pre-historic Latins, Celts, Germanics, and so on. Period.


*which Illyrians we know of?
and which Illyrians we do not know of?

*I still do not get your point,
you claim the term Illyrian cause you live in the lands of ex-Illyria proprie?
so you are, but you do not descent from ancient ones?
cause from your post that is what I understand.

Is it Albanic a local Aimos peninsula language?

----------


## Nik

> *which Illyrians we know of?
> and which Illyrians we do not know of?
> 
> *I still do not get your point,
> you claim the term Illyrian cause you live in the lands of ex-Illyria proprie?
> so you are, but you do not descent from ancient ones?
> cause from your post that is what I understand.
> 
> Is it Albanic a local Aimos peninsula language?


No offense mate but I've read some of ur posts with the theories u support and I'm not interested in arguing/debating with u. 

Try to read my post again if u really care and if u still don't get it then well that's ur problem.

Cheers.

----------


## Taranis

> You are making a fallacy right in the begining,let me point you where;
> The Sclavenes weren't called Sclavenes because they spoke Slavic,the authors tell as they spoke a barbarous language without giving as name,so yes clearly you apply modern linguistic term on a historical name that in the written records had no such meaning.


You've getting me completely wrong here, beause I'm not making a fallacy at all. I did not imply that the Sclavenes were called Sclavenes _because they spoke_ Slavic - that would be circular logic. I did imply that the Sclavenes were Slavic because they are the first ethnic group where Slavic names _are recorded_. Big difference.




> If Antes spoke Slavic and is linguistic term why would they have been called Antes,or the Wends-Wends?the name had no linguistic connotation in historical sources,therefore we should't twist it
> You however can apply the term in modern linguistic sense today,but in anyway *you can no describe people that weren't called Sclavenes as such due to historical accuracy.*


I can very well do that, because ethnicity and linguistic affiliation are distinct concepts. If I can do that - determine the linguistic affiliation - for Celtic or Germanic ethnic groups, why should I be forbidden from doing this for a clearly (or probably, or possibly) Slavic ethnic group?




> No it is not valid due to it's conotation and no they weren't both "Slavs" Sclavenes see the obvious names,the Avars then can be called Slavs too because with time they becomend Slavic speakers according to most linguists,about origin of the Antes some propose earlier Iranic origin,so i really don't see difference between them and Avars and their supposed "Slavicity".
> As for the conglang claim you are just again twisting words.


I'm not twisting words, I'm just pointing out the consequence of Curta's theories: he says, and I'm quoting the title, he says "prehistoric Slavs" are "fairytales". The consequence is that he asserts that everything that linguistics (with validity, mind you) have to say about prehistoric Slavs are basically nonsense (i.e. "fairytales"). If that was the case, then you have to assume that Proto-Slavic was a conlang invented ad-hoc in the 500s in the Danubian basin. At that point, I cease to take Curta seriously.




> It is just as silly as to imagine a "homeland" and some people supposedly "Slavs" without archeological/historical proof that they were migrating from Ukraine to Czech republic then come back later to Romania then to the Balkans.That answer was in consequence to adherents to that "theory". 
> He so far explained that;
> 1.No great flood of "Slavs" occured in the Balkans or Central Europe,something that your own theory you follow was embracing,with which you seem to agree with him,so obviosly good job.
> 2.He pointed that the name Sclavenes arose in the Danube basin and not anywhere else,or where our wishes want the name to be.You seem not to agree but on his side are historical and archeological sources,to the contrary on your is imagination and supposedly "most archaic river names" to which different linguists or Slavists had different things to say but the name you will never find there.
> 3. He done great job on the collapse of the Danube limes(Roman tactical withdrawal)


One point I do see is that we have a clear discontinuity / shift of language in a large part of Europe during the Migration Period. If you say such a migration did not happen, you have to come up with other ways to explain why, and where all of a sudden the Slavic languages came from. Curta's model essentially says "migration did not happen, Slavs do not have a prehistory", but it doesn't explain the situation in any way. 




> Finaly he recieved an award on his researches about early Slavs,the emotionaly attacks on him are irrelevant.


I'm not being emotional about it, but I've ceased to take him seriously years ago. At the start of this thread, I've made parallels between Florin Curta and folks like Paul Wexler, Quentin D. Atkinson, Theo Vennemann or Mario Alinei who adhere to ideas "out there".




> And question to you,do you have a reason to drag the origin of the Marcomanni in northern Europe if they were located in Central Europe,


I never said that the Marcomanni came from northern Europe. The Marcomanni (before their conquest of Bohemia) were definitely in Central Europe, in my opinion somewhere in Central Germany (Mittelgebirge region).




> why Sclavenes should be dragged from Romania (Danube basin) to Ukraine or Belorusia?


That's precisely the question I have directed at anybody who thinks that the Danube basin was the Slavic homeland.




> What are those river names?


I'll get back to that.




> Strabo thought that the name 'Germani' was an exonym and that it pretty much meant something like 'Genuine Celts'
> 
> Even if tribe is labeled Germanic by an ancient source it doesn't mean that it was. It might have been Celtic or even Slavic. Tacitus classifies Veneti as Germanic. It was more of a term used for inhabitants of a certain region with a more or less similar way of life than anything else.[/FONT][/COLOR]


Here's the issue (this is going somewhat off-topic): I do not take the statements of ancient authors for gospel with regards for ethnic/linguistic affiliation - it is more useful to read between what they say. Many of the allegedly "Germanic" tribes along/near the Rhine (Eburones, Nemetes, Tribocci, Treveri, Tungri, etc.) have overtly Celtic names associated with them. In my opinion, the name "Germani" is indeed Celtic in origin, but can be thought better of as "Near Ones".

With the Veneti (*Baltic Veneti, that is), _if_ we follow Tacitus, he says that the Bastarnae speak Germanic, the other discussed tribes (Veneti, Fenni) do not, but the Veneti have a sedentary lifestyle as opposed to the nomadic Sarmatae. My personal hunch is that given the position (Gdansk Bay? Masuria?) they indeed were Balto-Slavic, but given the scarcity of data, it is impossible to tell beyond that. Wether they were the same ethnic group was the later "Wends" (Polabian Slavs) or wether this is merely the case of a (Germanic?) exonym drifting (see "Wallach", "Walloon", "Welsh") is impossible to tell from the data.

----------


## LeBrok

> Here is your fallacy: I do not take a 21st century meaning and apply it to the 6th century without proof, I apply it with proof. I just think that the same rules apply all the time. If for example, I take the language families of Western and Central Europe, that question is very clear from the linguistic side:
> 
> "who is Celtic?"> someone who speaks a Celtic language.
> 
> "who is Germanic?"> someone who speaks a Germanic language.
> 
> "who is Basque?"> someone who speaks a Vasconic language.
> 
> For the Celtic languages, we have extensive evidence for much of Central and Western Europe in the Antiquity (including some written texts). For the Germanic languages, we also have a fair bit of evidence in Central Europe in Antiquity. For Basque the situation is a lot weaker, we have the Aquitanian (Old Basque) place names and personal names from Antiquity. Basically, *why should this approach be different for Slavic languages?* Because Slavic languages are special snowflakes for which the rules of linguistics do not apply? Hardly. So in my opinion, someone cannot be a Slav without speaking a Slavic language. Were the Sclavenes and Antes were thus Slavic? They were the earliest recorded people to be unanimously identifiable as Slavic. And when Curta makes the (condescending) statement that Prehistoric Slavs are 'fairytales', he does not solve anything with it. The Slavic languages have to come from somewhere. In my opinion, the question "who is a Slav" (read: who speaks a Slavic language) is just as valid in the 21st century as it is in the 6th century or the 1st century. Only that we do not know with certainty who were the Slavic speakers in the 1st century (unless you follow Curta's fallacious postulates to the end and make the ridiculous claim that no one spoke Slavic in the 1st century because it was an invented conlang). Well, that is an obviously silly (but in my opinion educative) example that you pick Spain for the Slavic homeland: we cannot just claim that. But we have evidence to disprove that idea, because we have several lines of evidence: first, we have place names and ethnic names from the Antiquity (the Roman period), and we have no evidence for Slavic place names there (we do have Celtic, Iberian, Punic and Greek names attested for Spain, in approximately that order of frequency from most numerous to least numerous). The other line of evidence comes from the modern Slavic languages themselves (see loanwords, comparative method and internal reconstruction for further reference), not to mention the fact that the most closely related languages inside the greater Indo-European family are the Baltic languages, which places the language family firmly into eastern Europe.The reconstructed homeland based on river names is still valid in my opinion (and not easily overturned), because the error is not in the methodology. What other explanation do you have that the most archaic Slavic river names are found precisely there? According to Curta's ideas, they shouldn't be there. To me, asking these questions is not tied with 'modern nationalism' in any way. Linguistics do not violate archaeology. Archaeology has to be interpreted differently to be compatible with the linguistic evidence.In my opinion, it would be more sensible to assume that it is a feature that developed in-situ on the western Balkans.My problem is that Curta does not explain anything. He basically declares (and its a declaration, and a fairly arbitrary one) that linguistics has it all wrong, but I do not see any reason to assume so. If the methodology works for any other language or language family, why should it not work for Slavic? The error is not in the methods (see above), the error is not in the data (see above). In science, if you want to replace an existing model, you need to come up with a better model that incorporates the existing evidence and explains it in a more satisfying, more accurate fashion. When you say (like Curta seems to imply) "existing evidence is worthless", that is not coming up with a better model, that is dogmatism.Little evidence: yes. No evidence: that would be wrong. Here's a (non-exhaustive) list of tribes (somewhat anachronistic):


Beautifully said. 1-0 for Taranis.

----------


## Milan

> You've getting me completely wrong here, beause I'm not making a fallacy at all. I did not imply that the Sclavenes were called Sclavenes _because they spoke_ Slavic - that would be circular logic. I did imply that the Sclavenes were Slavic because they are the first ethnic group where Slavic names _are recorded_. Big difference.






> I can very well do that, because ethnicity and linguistic affiliation are distinct concepts. If I can do that - determine the linguistic affiliation - for Celtic or Germanic ethnic groups, why should I be forbidden from doing this for a clearly (or probably, or possibly) Slavic ethnic group?


You can call them Slavic in linguistic sense if there is proof for it,but in historical context Sclavenes are Sclavenes,Wends are Wends and Antes are Antes,their histories,place of dwelling not the same.
The name Slav come from Sclavene.





> I'm not twisting words, I'm just pointing out the consequence of Curta's theories: he says, and I'm quoting the title, he says "prehistoric Slavs" are "fairytales". The consequence is that he asserts that everything that linguistics (with validity, mind you) have to say about prehistoric Slavs are basically nonsense (i.e. "fairytales"). If that was the case, then you have to assume that Proto-Slavic was a conlang invented ad-hoc in the 500s in the Danubian basin. At that point, I cease to take Curta seriously.


You don't understand corectly there,the name Sclavene appear in the 6th century on the border with Roman empire-Danube basin,Romania and simultaneosly on Balkans,not in Ukraine,Belorusia,yes it is fairytale if you want to point otherwise,you have no proofs for such claims but imagination and twisting of written data.





> One point I do see is that we have a clear discontinuity / shift of language in a large part of Europe during the Migration Period. If you say such a migration did not happen, you have to come up with other ways to explain why, and where all of a sudden the Slavic languages came from. Curta's model essentially says "migration did not happen, Slavs do not have a prehistory", but it doesn't explain the situation in any way.


Again the name Sclavene(Slav) appear in 6th century for whatever circumstances in the Danube basin,yes the name itself is not pre-historic,you can not find data about it prior,and you can not make or construct pre-history out of it,despite that you want to tell that the name itself was applied or used by the people even in Milograd culture 7 B.C to 1.A.D? hence they migrated into Danube basin with that name,no that is fallacy.




> I'm not being emotional about it, but I've ceased to take him seriously years ago. At the start of this thread, I've made parallels between Florin Curta and folks like Paul Wexler, Quentin D. Atkinson, Theo Vennemann or Mario Alinei who adhere to ideas "out there".


Mario Alinei generaly the theory of Slavs is much better than the laughable one from the 19th century.
Also Quntin Atkinson have his own models,haven't heard about the rest.



> I never said that the Marcomanni came from northern Europe. The Marcomanni (before their conquest of Bohemia) were definitely in Central Europe, in my opinion somewhere in Central Germany (Mittelgebirge region).
> 
> That's precisely the question I have directed at anybody who thinks that the Danube basin was the Slavic homeland.


Then why you push the Sclavenes to have migrated in the Danube basin from current Ukraine,despite the name was never recorded there,nor you have proves that they migrated from there.
That is one big misconception.
I can claim the same way that Marcomanni came from Scandinavia or elsewhere "just because we find there the most archaic river names of Germanic origin",whether is true or not,despite we know them from central Europe,just as we does know the Sclavenes in the Danube basin.

----------


## Nik

> You can call them Slavic in linguistic sense if there is proof for it,but in historical context Sclavenes are Sclavenes,Wends are Wends and Antes are Antes,their histories,place of dwelling not the same.
> The name Slav come from Sclavene.
> 
> You don't understand corectly there,the name Sclavene appear in the 6th century on the border with Roman empire-Danube basin,Romania and simultaneosly on Balkans,not in Ukraine,Belorusia,yes it is fairytale if you want to point otherwise,you have no proofs for such claims but imagination and twisting of written data.
> 
> Again the name Sclavene(Slav) appear in 6th century for whatever circumstances in the Danube basin,yes the name itself is not pre-historic,you can not find data about it prior,and you can not make or construct pre-history out of it,despite that you want to tell that the name itself was applied or used by the people even in Milograd culture 7 B.C to 1.A.D? hence they migrated into Danube basin with that name,no that is fallacy.


So similarly we can conclude that because the Romans came into contact first with a group of people they called Graeci in Southern Italy, that means they are the only true Graeci despite the fact that the Hellenes spoke the same language, therefore either the Graeci and Hellenes are different people or the Hellenes came from Magna Graecia. 

Before trying to monopolize the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, perhaps u can take a minute to reflect and consider the fact that ancient authors applied the name of the first tribe they encountered to all the other related/similar tribes beyond them, although they knew of Antes and Wends. 

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, you can't really argue on the true ethnicity of the Sclavenes as they absorbed many people into their society. Personally, I believe that in the Balkans the absorption was rather voluntarily as we know from various cases that many subjects of the Roman Empire during this era were not really happy with it and would rather join the "cause" of the Goths (recorded proof) and Slavs (based on the proof they were joined voluntarily in many). 

What comes to mind is the Slavic tribe of Rhynchinoi, sometimes referred to as Vlachorhynchinoi and the fact that in many Ragusan and Venetian sources mention Vlachs in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lika (Croatia), Montenegro, Albania, and not because of the usual story where Serbs were called Vlachs cause of Orthodoxy, as they clearly mentioned both and knew the difference. Similarly, haplogroup I2a-Din peaks among many Vlachs from Albania and could be attributed to the southern migration of the Vlachs in Epirus and Thessaly, places were Slavs were recorded to have settled as well. So why is it that the Slavs disappeared due to Hellenization/Albanization in these areas and the Vlachs didnt?

----------


## Taranis

> You can call them Slavic in linguistic sense if there is proof for it,but in historical context Sclavenes are Sclavenes,Wends are Wends and Antes are Antes,their histories,place of dwelling not the same.
> The name Slav come from Sclavene.


So you're forbidding me to call them "Slavic" (even if, in a linguistic sense) because I am in a historic context?




> You don't understand corectly there,the name Sclavene appear in the 6th century on the border with Roman empire-Danube basin,Romania and simultaneosly on Balkans,not in Ukraine,Belorusia,yes it is fairytale if you want to point otherwise,you have no proofs for such claims but imagination and twisting of written data.


You are talking about the name Sclavene. I wouldn't disagree with that. But I am talking, and have been talking all the time, about speakers of Slavic languages. The earliest recorded _Slavic_ names are amongst the Sclavenes. And what you are saying, in consequence is, because Slavic languages are not recorded before (because as you say, I have no proofs, and it must be a fairytale), Slavic languages did not exist before. Which goes back to what I said before: the consequence of this insistence on the Sclavenes in the Danube region as the first and only real Slavs, and your denial of any kind of movement into the region is that the Slavic languages were a conlang invented in the 500s.




> Again the name Sclavene(Slav) appear in 6th century for whatever circumstances in the Danube basin,yes the name itself is not pre-historic,you can not find data about it prior,*and you can not make or construct pre-history out of it,despite that you want to tell that the name itself was applied or used by the people even in Milograd culture 7 B.C to 1.A.D?*


I can very much construct a prehistory out of it. The name appears in the 6th century, and I never said that it was used by people of the Milograd culture. I said in the past that the Milograd culture is one of the cultures that are suitable as possible candidates for speaking early Proto-Slavic. If that hypothesis is correct, then I can verymuch call them "Slavs" (in a linguistic sense, and I insist on that). I do not see any necessity to assume that they have called themselves "Slavs"/Sclavenes. But due to the associated methods (internal reconstruction, comparative method and the Proto-Slavic loanwords), I have to assume that such a prehistory exists.




> hence they migrated into Danube basin with that name,no that is fallacy.


I did not say that (and you complain about me twisting words?). I'm not ruling out that the name "Sclavenes" (detached from the Slavic languages, big distinction) is a new identity that arose in the Danubian basin. That part I could buy. But it is clear, from a linguistic perspective, because we have data from the previous centuries in the Danubian basin, that the Slavic languages were not present in the area (something I have written several times over in this thread). And this is not a fallacy, but a fact. The consequence is that the Slavic languages were introduced from somewhere else (or invented as a conlang, and I don't need to tell you how nonsensical that is).




> Mario Alinei generaly the theory of Slavs is much better than the laughable one from the 19th century.
> Also Quntin Atkinson have his own models,haven't heard about the rest.


Mario Alinei's ideas of extreme language immobility (and PIE as a Paleolithic language) are laughable. Aktinson's proposals for when languages split up are completely unrealistic, and his map of the PIE expansion is completely counterfactual. The other authors have not written about Slavic languages (which would explain why you haven't heard of them), but are cranks in similar ways to the others. I mentioned them for the sake of completeness because Curta is in good company with his assertion that prehistoric Slavs are a "fairytale".




> Then why you push the Sclavenes to have migrated in the Danube basin from current Ukraine,despite the name was never recorded there,nor you have proves that they migrated from there.
> That is one big misconception.
> I can claim the same way that Marcomanni came from Scandinavia or elsewhere "just because we find there the most archaic river names of Germanic origin",whether is true or not,despite we know them from central Europe,just as we does know the Sclavenes in the Danube basin.


Again, I did not say that the Sclavenes migrated to the Danube from the area of the Ukraine (or Belarus). I said that the Slavic _languages_ were most probably introduced from that area. If you say that they were not introduced through people migrating (Curta's postulate), you have to explain why and how they were introduced by another mechanism (cultural diffusion?). To me the question of the Sclavene identity (or not) is at the end of the day completely irrelevant in this.

----------


## Milan

> So similarly we can conclude that because the Romans came into contact first with a group of people they called Graeci in Southern Italy, that means they are the only true Graeci despite the fact that the Hellenes spoke the same language, therefore either the Graeci and Hellenes are different people or the Hellenes came from Magna Graecia.Before trying to monopolize the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, perhaps u can take a minute to reflect and consider the fact that ancient authors applied the name of the first tribe they encountered to all the other related/similar tribes beyond them, although they knew of Antes and Wends.


There is no true Graeci or true Slavs,there is just Graeci and Slavs,both of them are true,it doesn't matter to what "haplogroup" they belong or where do they dwell.
Graeci is totaly different term,of different origin and different historical circumstances and both come to be synonymous with Hellen or denoting Greek speaker whatever.Antes and Sclavenes if i understood you correct can not be the same with your example>>Antes were Roman allies most of the time,Sclavenes were Roman enemies,they were engaging in wars between eachother,Antes siege to exist as polity,the Sclavene name survived to this day.
You obviosly failed to understand what i was implying and that is the importance of their location,the people of historical sources we consider to be Slavs-Sclavenes,Antes,Wends.
Slav in later times came to represent a much broader term.

Or you want to say that all of them called themselves Sclavenes(Slavs) but the historians atributed them somehow different names?
Maybe but we have no such data,moreover the name appeared not to be used in ethnic context,more of linguistic or religious kin as some propose.



> As I've mentioned before in previous posts, you can't really argue on the true ethnicity of the Sclavenes as they absorbed many people into their society. Personally, I believe that in the Balkans the absorption was rather voluntarily as we know from various cases that many subjects of the Roman Empire during this era were not really happy with it and would rather join the "cause" of the Goths (recorded proof) and Slavs (based on the proof they were joined voluntarily in many). 
> 
> What comes to mind is the Slavic tribe of Rhynchinoi, sometimes referred to as Vlachorhynchinoi and the fact that in many Ragusan and Venetian sources mention Vlachs in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lika (Croatia), Montenegro, Albania, and not because of the usual story where Serbs were called Vlachs cause of Orthodoxy, as they clearly mentioned both and knew the difference. Similarly, haplogroup I2a-Din peaks among many Vlachs from Albania and could be attributed to the southern migration of the Vlachs in Epirus and Thessaly, places were Slavs were recorded to have settled as well. So why is it that the Slavs disappeared due to Hellenization/Albanization in these areas and the Vlachs didnt?


This belong in other thread ;)

----------


## Nik

> There is no true Graeci or true Slavs,there is just Graeci and Slavs,both of them are true,it doesn't matter to what "haplogroup" they belong or where do they dwell.
> Graeci is totaly different term,of different origin and different historical circumstances and both come to be synonymous with Hellen or denoting Greek speaker whatever.Antes and Sclavenes if i understood you correct can not be the same with your example>>Antes were Roman allies most of the time,Sclavenes were Roman enemies,they were engaging in wars between eachother,Antes siege to exist as polity,the Sclavene name survived to this day.
> You obviosly failed to understand what i was implying and that is the importance of their location,the people of historical sources we consider to be Slavs-Sclavenes,Antes,Wends.
> Slav in later times came to represent a much broader term.
> 
> Or you want to say that all of them called themselves Sclavenes(Slavs) but the historians atributed them somehow different names?
> We have no such data,moreover the name appeared not to be used in ethnic context,more of linguistic or religious kin as some propose.


I don't intend to play games by being sarcastic all the time but ur reasoning that because the Antes were Roman allies and Sclavenes enemies, therefore they're not the same people, is like saying that Rhodians were not Greeks because they were allies with Rome. 

I didnt say they all called themselves Sclaveni as I even consider the possibility that maybe even the Sclaveni didn't call themselves as such and most probably were identified by the subtribes they belonged to. Sclaveni could have been a non ethic term comprised of various ethnicities that used what we call nowadays Slavic as a lingua franca, just like what happened with all the other barbarians that pillaged Rome at the time (eg Huns). 

All I was saying was that probably the Romans first came into contact with these new people in Danube basic whom they called Sclaveni and due to their similarity with the Antes and Wends, they decided to group them altogether under the same name of the Sclaveni again. 

To simplify it, let's call all 3 tribes as Slavs and when u read Taranis posts about the homeland theories, think of the Slavs and not only their off-shot the Sclaveni. 

I am trying to understand ur last sentence but I wanna make sure I got it right. Are u saying that the Sclaveni, Antes and Wends were ethnically different but linguistically the same? If yes, who is the first bearer of the Proto-Slavic language then?

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## Milan

[QUOTE]


> I don't intend to play games by being sarcastic all the time but ur reasoning that because the Antes were Roman allies and Sclavenes enemies, therefore they're not the same people, is like saying that Rhodians were not Greeks because they were allies with Rome


Same people mean what to you,speaking same language? being in one and same polity,using the same name? you are not sarcastic but your comparisons are out of context,time and place.



> I didnt say they all called themselves Sclaveni as I even consider the possibility that maybe even the Sclaveni didn't call themselves as such and most probably were identified by the subtribes they belonged to. Sclaveni could have been a non ethic term comprised of various ethnicities that used what we call nowadays Slavic as a lingua franca, just like what happened with all the other barbarians that pillaged Rome at the time (eg Huns).


............



> All I was saying was that probably the Romans first came into contact with these new people in Danube basic whom they called Sclaveni and due to their similarity with the Antes and Wends, they decided to group them altogether under the same name of the Sclaveni again.


Well generally the term Sclavene replaced other terms.
Wend name as well survive to this day probably exonym,see Finish-Venaja(Russia)




> To simplify it, let's call all 3 tribes as Slavs and when u read Taranis posts about the homeland theories, think of the Slavs and not only their off-shot the Sclaveni.


I am not imagining thought,i am myself more realist.




> I am trying to understand ur last sentence but I wanna make sure I got it right. Are u saying that the Sclaveni, Antes and Wends were ethnically different but linguistically the same? If yes, who is the first bearer of the Proto-Slavic language then?


I can't say who is proto-slavic,but obviosly their polities were different as well places of dwelling etc.

----------


## Milan

> So you're forbidding me to call them "Slavic" (even if, in a linguistic sense) because I am in a historic context?


No i just meant to point out on their early history and geography how it looked in historic context of people we consider Slavs,before we have the picture of Slavs as we have now which sometimes is misleading,especialy given the theories of migration.



> You are talking about the name Sclavene. I wouldn't disagree with that. But I am talking, and have been talking all the time, about speakers of Slavic languages. The earliest recorded _Slavic_ names are amongst the Sclavenes. And what you are saying, in consequence is, because Slavic languages are not recorded before (because as you say, I have no proofs, and it must be a fairytale), Slavic languages did not exist before. Which goes back to what I said before: the consequence of this insistence on the Sclavenes in the Danube region as the first and only real Slavs, and your denial of any kind of movement into the region is that the Slavic languages were a conlang invented in the 500s.
> 
> 
> 
> I can very much construct a prehistory out of it. The name appears in the 6th century, and I never said that it was used by people of the Milograd culture. I said in the past that the Milograd culture is one of the cultures that are suitable as possible candidates for speaking early Proto-Slavic. If that hypothesis is correct, then I can verymuch call them "Slavs" (in a linguistic sense, and I insist on that). I do not see any necessity to assume that they have called themselves "Slavs"/Sclavenes. But due to the associated methods (internal reconstruction, comparative method and the Proto-Slavic loanwords), I have to assume that such a prehistory exists.
> 
> 
> 
> I did not say that (and you complain about me twisting words?). I'm not ruling out that the name "Sclavenes" (detached from the Slavic languages, big distinction) is a new identity that arose in the Danubian basin. That part I could buy. But it is clear, from a linguistic perspective, because we have data from the previous centuries in the Danubian basin, that the Slavic languages were not present in the area (something I have written several times over in this thread). And this is not a fallacy, but a fact. The consequence is that the Slavic languages were introduced from somewhere else (or invented as a conlang, and I don't need to tell you how nonsensical that is).
> ...


Taranis we exchausted this thread,you have your arguments with which i doesn't disagree,i am not that kind of expert in the field so to answer them,obviosly much better haven't answered them yet..
We have many hypothesis,among them the general Indo-European hypothesis,so why not Slavic hypothesis.
What i like about Curta is not because i think he is always right,or got it all right,because he have critical thinking and he challenge some previous theories,especialy if are build out of wishful thinking(romanticism),even thought as i said, i do not consider that holy scripture,generally he has knowledge about medieval South-East Europe.

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## Nik

So basically u support Curta's theory because it fits ur interest (nations pride) and u will never accept that ur just a victim of assimilation like all we humans are. Not only ure special in this sense, but u end up counter attacking and claiming that it's u south Slavs who assimilated the northern wannabes. Interesting and unique. 

So far I only knew Serbs proud of Mother Russia or proud Illyrians. Now I know indigenous Daco-Thracians that assimilated the numerous Scythians, Sarmatians, Germanics and Balts. And before u say anything, I know in ur last post u puzzled on the real Proto-Slavic speakers but u have made it clear what u really believe/want to believe and won't change it no matter what. 

Well in that case there's no arguing with u as ure here to impose theories and not debate or learn.

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## Taranis

> There is no true Graeci or true Slavs,there is just Graeci and Slavs,both of them are true,it doesn't matter to what "haplogroup" they belong or where do they dwell.
> Graeci is totaly different term,of different origin and different historical circumstances and both come to be synonymous with Hellen or denoting Greek speaker whatever.Antes and Sclavenes if i understood you correct can not be the same with your example>>


I'd like to note that we have Greek (in various stages) attested from the 15th century BC, and if we disregard the Greek dark age (ca. 1200 BC to about 800 BC), this record is continuous.




> Antes were Roman allies most of the time,Sclavenes were Roman enemies,they were engaging in wars between eachother,Antes siege to exist as polity,the Sclavene name survived to this day.
> You obviosly failed to understand what i was implying and that is the importance of their location,the people of historical sources we consider to be Slavs-Sclavenes,Antes,Wends.
> Slav in later times came to represent a much broader term.
> 
> Or you want to say that all of them called themselves Sclavenes(Slavs) but the historians atributed them somehow different names?
> Maybe but we have no such data,moreover the name appeared not to be used in ethnic context,more of linguistic or religious kin as some propose.
> 
> This belong in other thread ;)


I'd like to note that it is not relevant what they called themselves (even if I concede that the "speaker" versus "mute" dichotomy is quite suggestive). But what is pivotal _that they spoke early Slavic_. As for your claim that "there is no such data": if you had read my posts more thoroughly about the various methods of linguistics, even if the ancient (prehistoric) Slavs were iliterate, we do have such data.




> No i just meant to point out on their early history and geography how it looked in historic context of people we consider Slavs,before we have the picture of Slavs as we have now which sometimes is misleading,especialy given the theories of migration.
> 
> Taranis we exchausted this thread,you have your arguments with which i doesn't disagree,i am not that kind of expert in the field so to answer them,obviosly much better haven't answered them yet..
> We have many hypothesis,among them the general Indo-European hypothesis,so why not Slavic hypothesis.
> What i like about Curta is not because i think he is always right,or got it all right,because he have critical thinking and he challenge some previous theories,especialy if are build out of wishful thinking(romanticism),even thought as i said, i do not consider that holy scripture,generally he has knowledge about medieval South-East Europe.


We can agree to disagree, but I'd like to note that I am not driven by any form of "romanticism" (not to 19th century ideas) or ethnocentrism on the field. The only concept that I am attached to is that I believe that the same methods by which we judge languages should apply everywhere. My problem with Curta's position is that he appears to live in denial (a denial which I find reckless) about the linguistic data we have about the centuries before the _Σκλαβηνοι_ appear on the stage of history.

Lastly, there's one question which you haven't answered yet: if Slavic languages, as a sub-branch of the greater Indo-European family, did not originate in the forest zone of Eastern Europe (which I still see as the most sensible option), where did they come from?

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> I can very much construct a prehistory out of it. The name appears in the 6th century, and I never said that it was used by people of the Milograd culture. I said in the past that the Milograd culture is one of the cultures that are suitable as possible candidates for speaking early Proto-Slavic. If that hypothesis is correct, then I can verymuch call them "Slavs" (in a linguistic sense, and I insist on that). I do not see any necessity to assume that they have called themselves "Slavs"/Sclavenes. But due to the associated methods (internal reconstruction, comparative method and the Proto-Slavic loanwords), I have to assume that such a prehistory exists.


I don't believe the loanwords can prove anything. If a loanword is attested in OCS it could have been a loan in that particular South Slavic dialect alone.

----------


## Taranis

> I don't believe the loanwords can prove anything. If a loanword is attested in OCS it could have been a loan in that particular South Slavic dialect alone.


Well, what you do not know, if you believe that, is that loanwords are subject to sound laws, and borrowed words cannot be retroactively subject to sound laws in the past, before the borrowing took place. If you have words that are apparently related in two languages but cannot be derived through the languages' respective sound laws, then you have a very clear evidence for a borrowing.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> Well, what you do not know, if you believe that, is that loanwords are subject to sound laws, and borrowed words cannot be retroactively subject to sound laws in the past, before the borrowing took place. If you have words that are apparently related in two languages but cannot be derived through the languages' respective sound laws, then you have a very clear evidence for a borrowing.


Ι believe you didn't understand. The loans in the link are mostly loans found in OCS. I don't believe that you can prove that these loanwords existed in other unattested contemporaneous Slavic dialects or in earlier dialects or in 'Proto-Slavic'.
If you can, I would like to learn how it's done.

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## Taranis

> Ι believe you didn't understand. The loans in the link are mostly loans found in OCS. I don't believe that you can prove that these loanwords existed in other unattested contemporaneous Slavic dialects or in earlier dialects or in 'Proto-Slavic'.
> If you can, I would like to learn how it's done.


I very well understand. I'm aware that in the link, they use Old Church Slavic mostly for sample cognates because it is the oldest attested Slavic language for which there is extensive literature (it thus occupies a somewhat similar position as Old Irish has for the Celtic languages, or maybe Gothic for the Germanic languages). However, these loans can be generally found in all branches of Slavic (in particular because OCS is a South Slavic language, it is not the ancestor of the West Slavic and East Slavic languages). Even if we had OCS completely unattested, thanks to the comparative method we could reconstruct that these words would have been 1) part of the common vocabulary 2) borrowed from elsewhere, in particular if you compare the "native" vocabulary of Slavic (the vocabulary the language family has inherited from from earlier Balto-Slavic and earlier common IE). It can be demonstrated that way that these loanwords must have existed in the past (or more accurately, entered the lexicon of the language in the past).

For example, one word listed there is the word for 'bridge' (e.g. modern Polish "most"), cognate with the English "mast" and German "Mast" (which both have a somewhat different meaning, i.e. the pole of a ship). The Proto-Slavic language made a sound shift by which earlier (short) _*a_ regularly became _*o_, and by that we can conclude that the word for bridge was borrowed _before_ the shift took place. Another example are Latin loanwords, such as the words for 'donkey' and 'cat' (Polish "osioł" and "kot" versus Latin "asellus" and "cattus" - and note that the former entered via a Germanic mediation, because the *e > *i shift did not happen in Slavic, while it was a regular sound change in Late Proto-Germanic). Had these words been borrowed after the sound shift had taken place, they could not become retroactively shifted from *a to *o. Instead, the *a would have been preserved An example for this would be the word for 'copper' in Serbo-Croatian ("_bakar_"), which was borrowed from Ottoman Turkish (compare modern Turkish "_bakır_"). Another aspect in the Slavic languages that are useful for a relative chronology are the different stages of palatalization that took place.

As you can see, its not black magic nor hocus pocus.

----------


## Tomenable

This is very interesting:

http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperIn...?PaperID=69428

http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AA_2016080315161595.pdf

----------


## Nik

> This is very interesting:
> 
> http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperIn...?PaperID=69428
> 
> http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AA_2016080315161595.pdf


A conclusion drawn from 3 words and 1 ethnonym.

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## Milan

> I very well understand. I'm aware that in the link, they use Old Church Slavic mostly for sample cognates because it is the oldest attested Slavic language for which there is extensive literature (it thus occupies a somewhat similar position as Old Irish has for the Celtic languages, or maybe Gothic for the Germanic languages). However, these loans can be generally found in all branches of Slavic (in particular because OCS is a South Slavic language, it is not the ancestor of the West Slavic and East Slavic languages). Even if we had OCS completely unattested, thanks to the comparative method we could reconstruct that these words would have been 1) part of the common vocabulary 2) borrowed from elsewhere, in particular if you compare the "native" vocabulary of Slavic (the vocabulary the language family has inherited from from earlier Balto-Slavic and earlier common IE). It can be demonstrated that way that these loanwords must have existed in the past (or more accurately, entered the lexicon of the language in the past).
> 
> For example, one word listed there is the word for 'bridge' (e.g. modern Polish "most"), cognate with the English "mast" and German "Mast" (which both have a somewhat different meaning, i.e. the pole of a ship). The Proto-Slavic language made a sound shift by which earlier (short) _*a_ regularly became _*o_, and by that we can conclude that the word for bridge was borrowed _before_ the shift took place. Another example are Latin loanwords, such as the words for 'donkey' and 'cat' (Polish "osioł" and "kot" versus Latin "asellus" and "cattus" - and note that the former entered via a Germanic mediation, because the *e > *i shift did not happen in Slavic, while it was a regular sound change in Late Proto-Germanic). Had these words been borrowed after the sound shift had taken place, they could not become retroactively shifted from *a to *o. Instead, the *a would have been preserved An example for this would be the word for 'copper' in Serbo-Croatian ("_bakar_"), which was borrowed from Ottoman Turkish (compare modern Turkish "_bakır_"). Another aspect in the Slavic languages that are useful for a relative chronology are the different stages of palatalization that took place.
> 
> As you can see, its not black magic nor hocus pocus.


I meant to leave this thread for a while,but apparently you raised other questions,so before i answer them and ask questions to you,let me comment on this.
You completely disregard the speakers of South-Slavic and some of the West Slavic languages by concluding that this is "Proto-Slavic" borrowing.
Take your example for cat.The word for cat is "mačka" (machka) in South-Slavic including some of the West-Slavic languages (Slovak) and Lower Sorbian,itself surely non borrowed word.Interestingly "matse" is found in Albanian too for cat.
OSЬ̀LЪ (donkey).OCS in church usage the word come from Latin via Gothic? However the word for donkey that is used is Magare/magarac(donkey) in South-Slavic are shared or borrowed words from some other Balkan languages(Romanian,Albanian).Does this tell us that at the time this "borrowings" occured speakers of this languages were located in different areas? 
I guess this has to do with linguistic zones. 
I can give a number of examples that some linguists will count as borrowings from other languages but in reality are found only in few modern Slavic languages.
One such example is "sobaka" a dog in Russian an Iranian borrowing supposedly Schythian,but such word is not attested anywhere else.
Such things are forced even upon mythology supposedly "Svarog" or Hors found among East Slavs has cognates among Indo-Iranian language or were borrowings,but i can not accept this "gods" as part of South-Slavs since were never attested among us.
The word for "god" - bogъ is counted by some for Iranian borrowing see Sanskrit bhaga,we find such theonym in Phrygian "baga" so why this can't be supposedly "borrowing" from some other southern-language instead Iranic?
Bakar for copper was disscused among some Yugoslav linguists however is another matter.

For your supposed borrowing for "bridge" from Germanic this is what wiktionary give me;
*Etymology*


From earlier _*mosstъ < *mozdtъ, from Proto-Indo-European masd-to-s ‎(“aggregate of timbers/boards”), from *masd- + *tos ‎(“collective”). Morphologically *mos- +‎ *-tъ.Cognate with Latin mālus ‎(“mast, pole”) (< *masdos and l < d), Old Irish maide ‎(“mast, stick”) (< *masdyos), Proto-Germanic *mastaz (> English mast)_

_From earlier *mottъ ‎(“something what is dropped, thrown over”), from *mesti ‎(“to throw, to drop”)_

----------


## Milan

> I'd like to note that it is not relevant what they called themselves (even if I concede that the "speaker" versus "mute" dichotomy is quite suggestive). But what is pivotal _that they spoke early Slavic_. As for your claim that "there is no such data": if you had read my posts more thoroughly about the various methods of linguistics, even if the ancient (prehistoric) Slavs were iliterate, we do have such data.


However i want to ask a couple questions;
1.Do you speak of a hypothesis in any way or a well established and final conclusion about Slavic languages?
2.I want to see your data on which you are so sure,i.e river names or whatever arguments you have about the Proto-Slavic homeland? since you are the one that you insist on that.



> We can agree to disagree, but I'd like to note that I am not driven by any form of "romanticism" (not to 19th century ideas) or ethnocentrism on the field. The only concept that I am attached to is that I believe that the same methods by which we judge languages should apply everywhere. My problem with Curta's position is that he appears to live in denial (a denial which I find reckless) about the linguistic data we have about the centuries before the _Σκλαβηνοι_ appear on the stage of history.


Again please bring the arguments you have about the Proto-Slavic homeland since you insist on that.



> Lastly, there's one question which you haven't answered yet: if Slavic languages, as a sub-branch of the greater Indo-European family, did not originate in the forest zone of Eastern Europe (which I still see as the most sensible option), where did they come from?


As i said i can not be conclusive in this and in anyway i will not bring such conclusion,however the Slavic languages are tight to the greater Indo-European family so it all depends..

What cought my attention was this so shouldn't be left unanswered.



> I can very much construct a prehistory out of it. The name appears in the 6th century, and I never said that it was used by people of the Milograd culture. I said in the past that the Milograd culture is one of the cultures that are suitable as possible candidates for speaking early Proto-Slavic. *If that hypothesis is correct, then I can verymuch call them "Slavs" (in a linguistic sense, and I insist on that).*


A fundamental proposition of historical anthropology is that human genes, language, and culture represent distinct systems of inheritance. The three systems are distinct and have no necessary relationship because each bears a different relation to population history.

If you think that you can write a history on linguistic hypothesis,including migrations,then please you or other linguist that insist on that,wrote a Indo-European history,so all of us Indo-Europeans can have a common history at least we gonna have something in common and then to all other according to our respective languages.

Which hypothesis you are going to use?

After all everything starts and ends with a language.

----------


## kosmonomad

> This is very interesting:
> 
> http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperIn...?PaperID=69428
> 
> http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AA_2016080315161595.pdf


Posted slightly earlier
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post491218

----------


## kosmonomad

> A conclusion drawn from 3 words and 1 ethnonym.


And readable for the first time.
Still waiting for a scientific analysis from you with a good alternative. Pleeaase.

----------


## Taranis

> I meant to leave this thread for a while,but apparently you raised other questions,so before i answer them and ask questions to you,let me comment on this.
> You completely disregard the speakers of South-Slavic and some of the West Slavic languages by concluding that this is "Proto-Slavic" borrowing.
> Take your example for cat.The word for cat is "mačka" (machka) in South-Slavic including some of the West-Slavic languages (Slovak) and Lower Sorbian,itself surely non borrowed word.Interestingly "matse" is found in Albanian too for cat.
> OSЬ̀LЪ (donkey).OCS in church usage the word come from Latin via Gothic? However the word for donkey that is used is Magare/magarac(donkey) in South-Slavic are shared or borrowed words from some other Balkan languages(Romanian,Albanian).Does this tell us that at the time this "borrowings" occured speakers of this languages were located in different areas? 
> I guess this has to do with linguistic zones.


You're missing my point: I picked the word "kot" because it is 1) derived from Latin and 2) entered the lexicon before the *a > *o shift. Further on, "kot" is attested in all branches of Slavic (West Slavic, East Slavic and South Slavic). The same applies for the word for 'donkey' (unless Slovenian isn't a South Slavic language). As regards "marage", you have a cognate in Albanian and Romanian, this is true, but its also clear that this is a younger word (not shifted from *a > *o) that entered the lexicon afterwards.




> I can give a number of examples that some linguists will count as borrowings from other languages but in reality are found only in few modern Slavic languages.
> One such example is "sobaka" a dog in Russian an Iranian borrowing supposedly Schythian,but such word is not attested anywhere else.
> Such things are forced even upon mythology supposedly "Svarog" or Hors found among East Slavs has cognates among Indo-Iranian language or were borrowings,but i can not accept this "gods" as part of South-Slavs since were never attested among us.
> The word for "god" - bogъ is counted by some for Iranian borrowing see Sanskrit bhaga,we find such theonym in Phrygian "baga" so why this can't be supposedly "borrowing" from some other southern-language instead Iranic?
> Bakar for copper was disscused among some Yugoslav linguists however is another matter.


It is true that some words can only be found in certain languages, but the phonology enforces that it must have entered the language at a certain point (i.e. before a sound change came into effect).




> For your supposed borrowing for "bridge" from Germanic this is what wiktionary give me;
> *Etymology*
> 
> 
> From earlier _*mosstъ < *mozdtъ, from Proto-Indo-European masd-to-s ‎(“aggregate of timbers/boards”), from *masd- + *tos ‎(“collective”). Morphologically *mos- +‎ *-tъ.Cognate with Latin mālus ‎(“mast, pole”) (< *masdos and l < d), Old Irish maide ‎(“mast, stick”) (< *masdyos), Proto-Germanic *mastaz (> English mast)_
> 
> _From earlier *mottъ ‎(“something what is dropped, thrown over”), from *mesti ‎(“to throw, to drop”)_


I have a possible counterargument: if the word is supposedly a shared inheritance from PIE, where are the cognates in the Baltic languages?

----------


## Taranis

> However i want to ask a couple questions;
> 1.Do you speak of a hypothesis in any way or a well established and final conclusion about Slavic languages?
> 2.I want to see your data on which you are so sure,i.e river names or whatever arguments you have about the Proto-Slavic homeland? since you are the one that you insist on that.


I do not see how you would come to a different conclusion. The data mainly comes from the lexicon and the phonetic evolution of the Slavic languages.




> Again please bring the arguments you have about the Proto-Slavic homeland since you insist on that.


First, you had Balto-Slavic linguistic unity at some point (in the iron age, e.g. metallurgical terminology). You have common lexicon, common phonology. More importantly, Proto-Slavic before the Germanic loanwords entered the stock is very close to to reconstructed Proto-Balto-Slavic. You also had language contact between early Balto-Slavic and speakers of Uralic languages, more precisely the Finnic branch, because Finnic borrowed some terminology from Balto-Slavic.

Second, there's the terminology for the environment: Slavic borrowed the word for 'beech' (buk) from Germanic (the Slavic words adhere to Grimm's Law, and the Germanic *ō was rendered as *ū into Proto-Slavic), which suggests that Slavic speakers originated in an area were this type of tree did not grow, and entered at a later point into a (Germanic-speaking) area where it grew. In contrast, you have a common Balto-Slavic word for 'birch' (shared actually with Germanic, again note how the Germanic word adheres to Grimm's Law while the Balto-Slavic words are palatalized), which does grow in northeastern Europe, but does not grow in the steppe.

Another key issue that I see is the fact that the early Slavs were polytheistic, and that again, you can tie up strong links and parallels with the Balts.




> As i said i can not be conclusive in this and in anyway i will not bring such conclusion,however the Slavic languages are tight to the greater Indo-European family so it all depends..
> 
> What cought my attention was this so shouldn't be left unanswered.


If I'd follow your ideas (Slavic languages originate on the Balkans), I would not expect such a close relationship between Baltic and Slavic (Slavic should be closer with Albanian or maybe even Greek - at least from areal contact - than with Baltic). I would expect unanimously Slavic place names, personal names and deity names from the Roman period. I would expect Latin loanwords to be much more extensive (as is the case in Albanian), and I would expect older and earlier Greek loanwords (and not just Church related terminology from medieval Greek - which again, is the case in Albanian). Since none of this is the case (all of that taken together accounts for a solid, testable hypothesis), I can only conclude that Slavic languages originally were far away from the Balkans and arrived there only during the Migration Period.




> A fundamental proposition of historical anthropology is that human genes, language, and culture represent distinct systems of inheritance. The three systems are distinct and have no necessary relationship because each bears a different relation to population history.
> 
> If you think that you can write a history on linguistic hypothesis,including migrations,then please you or other linguist that insist on that,wrote a Indo-European history,so all of us Indo-Europeans can have a common history at least we gonna have something in common and then to all other according to our respective languages.
> 
> Which hypothesis you are going to use?
> 
> After all everything starts and ends with a language.


Like I said before, some form of movement is necessary to explain the situation: either you argue for a movement of peoples (aka demic diffusion), or you can argue for cultural diffusion. What you can't do, in my opinion, is ad-hoc argue "migration period never existed" and leave it altogether unexplained where the Slavic languages come from or why we do not have a record of them from the Balkans in the Roman period.

----------


## Milan

> You're missing my point: I picked the word "kot" because it is 1) derived from Latin and 2) entered the lexicon before the *a > *o shift. Further on, "kot" is attested in all branches of Slavic (West Slavic, East Slavic and South Slavic). The same applies for the word for 'donkey' (unless Slovenian isn't a South Slavic language). As regards "marage", you have a cognate in Albanian and Romanian, this is true, but its also clear that this is a younger word (not shifted from *a > *o) that entered the lexicon afterwards.


Kot is found only in standard Bulgarian language among South Slavic,as i said you can see a split for the word "cat" in the Slavic world,Almost all South-Slavs and nearly half West Slavs use "machka" instead,it is not a Proto-Slavic loandword clearly,furthermore it is considered Afro-Asiatic borrowing into Latin and then into Slavic and Germanic.





> It is true that some words can only be found in certain languages, but the phonology enforces that it must have entered the language at a certain point (i.e. before a sound change came into effect).


It doesn't matter if you speak of Proto-Slavic borrowings the said words should be found in all or nearly all Slavic languages.




> I have a possible counterargument: if the word is supposedly a shared inheritance from PIE, where are the cognates in the Baltic languages?


Not for all words cognates can be found in Balto-Slavic,as i said some are found due to linguistic zones,take the word "teuta" for people exist in Italo-Celtic,Germanic and Baltic but is missing in Slavic,geographically confined to the west and center of IE world,there is number of words that aren't shared between Baltic and Slavic,this doesn't mean were borrowings,some can not be find in any other IE language with possible cognates.

----------


## Taranis

> Kot is found only in standard Bulgarian language among South Slavic,as i said you can see a split for the word "cat" in the Slavic world,Almost all South-Slavs and nearly half West Slavs use "machka" instead,it is not a Proto-Slavic loandword clearly,furthermore it is considered Afro-Asiatic borrowing into Latin and then into Slavic and Germanic.
> 
> It doesn't matter if you speak of Proto-Slavic borrowings the said words *should be found in all or nearly all Slavic languages*.


This isn't necessarily the case. If the phonological evolution suggests otherwise (bear in mind: sound laws have no exceptions, and words cannot retroactively adhere to sound changes of the past). "Kot" is a word that entered at the Proto-Slavic stage. I'd like to make a similar point: the German cognate, "Katze", adheres to the Upper German consonant shift *t > *ts, while the cognate in English (cat) does not. Neither words, compared to the parent word, adheres to Grimm's Law. This means the word entered Germanic after Grimm's Law took effect but before the Upper German consonant shift.




> Not for all words cognates can be found in Balto-Slavic,as i said some are found due to linguistic zones i believe,take the word "Teuta" for people exist in Italo-Celtic,Germanic and Baltic but is missing in Slavic,geographically confined to the west and center of IE world,there is number of words that aren't shared between Balto-Slavic,this doesn't mean were borrowings,some can not be find in any other IE language with possible cognates.


What do you mean by "Linguistic zones"?

----------


## Nik

The Albanian word for newborn cats is 'kotele' if it helps. Like Milan said the word of cat is mace (matse), machi, and for male cats is daci (datsi) or machok :P

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## Nik

> And readable for the first time.
> Still waiting for a scientific analysis from you with a good alternative. Pleeaase.


Ur seriously waiting for a scientific analysis from me? Hahaha 

If u want commercial and residential real estate investment analysis I can help u though. 

For linguistic stuff consult Taranis. He's the only knowledgeable and sane person posting in this topic.

----------


## Milan

> Second, there's the terminology for the environment: Slavic borrowed the word for 'beech' (buk) from Germanic (the Slavic words adhere to Grimm's Law, and the Germanic *ō was rendered as *ū into Proto-Slavic), which suggests that Slavic speakers originated in an area were this type of tree did not grow, and entered at a later point into a (Germanic-speaking) area where it grew. In contrast, you have a common Balto-Slavic word for 'birch' (shared actually with Germanic, again note how the Germanic word adheres to Grimm's Law while the Balto-Slavic words are palatalized), which does grow in northeastern Europe, but does not grow in the steppe.


Interestingly and i knew that you gonna brought this idea ;)
Exactly according to this theory Proto-Slavic homeland was solved plus some of the most "archaic" river names was added,if you have them please post them.
This hardly can be borrowing,such PIE word exist in Slavic terminology,from the same root we named two trees not just the beech.
The elder tree-from Proto-Slavic *bъzъ,bez from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos or bhaugos,bhugo however was reconstructed,common inheritance from PIE,then we have "buk"(beech) which come from the same root,this is generaly PIE problem and not the Slavic one.If we accept such terminology that this is borrowing from a Germanic language *then we should accept the fact that,the Proto-Slavs were firstly living south of the beech-line ,they had the IE terminology from where this tree comes,then they migrated north where there is no beeches but only elder tree so they lost it naturaly,hence they returned south where they found beech again and Germanic speakers and this time recieved the word but from Germanic source.
*
I suggest Milan Budimir-the problem of the beech and proto-Slavic homeland.








> I do not see how you would come to a different conclusion. The data mainly comes from the lexicon and the phonetic evolution of the Slavic languages.


Then why so many linguists will express their distrust?

----------


## Taranis

> Interestingly and i knew that you gonna brought this idea ;)
> Exactly according to this theory Proto-Slavic homeland was solved plus some of the most "archaic" river names was added,if you have them please post them.
> This hardly can be borrowing in my opinion,such PIE word exist in Slavic terminology,from the same root we named two trees not just the beech.
> The elder tree-from Proto-Slavic *bъzъ,bez from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos or bhaugos,bhugo however was reconstructed,common inheritance from PIE,then we have "buk"(beech) which come from the same root,this is generaly PIE problem and not the Slavic one.If we accept such terminology that this is borrowing from a Germanic language then we should accept the fact that,the Proto-Slavs were firstly living south of the beech-line ,they had the IE terminology from where this tree comes,then they migrated north where there is no beeches but only elder tree,hence they returned south where they found beech again and Germanic speakers and this time recieved the word but from Germanic source.


There's only one problem with your idea: there's no way you get *eH2 (or Late PIE *ā) regularly to *u in Proto-Slavic (the only way to get there is via Germanic mediation, because *ā became *ō in Proto-Germanic, and the latter was reflected as *ū into Slavic during borrowings). There's no way that _buz_ is regularly in Slavic from the same source. The expected regular reflex of *bheH2ǵos is something akin to _*baz_, because Late PIE long *ā regularly was preserved in Slavic, as opposed to short *a (which, I've mentioned before, regularly became *o). The fact that there should be an *ā or *eH2 in the word is certain because you have Proto-Germanic *ō, Gaulish and Latin *ā (*bāgo-, "fāgus") and Greek *ē (phēgos).

In my opinion your proposed migration forth and back for the Slavs is redundant. As I said, you have to assume a Baltic and Slavic linguistic unity at one point. I don't see how you can avoid that.




> I suggest you to read Milan Budimir-the problem of the beech and proto-Slavic homeland.I will leave this for later...


And I suggest you should memorize my postulates about what Proto-Slavic should look like if it developed indeed on the Balkans. I should add, funnily, that the Albanian language fulfills virtually all of these conditions.

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## Dagne

[QUOTE

_From earlier *mottъ ‎(“something what is dropped, thrown over”), from *mesti ‎(“to throw, to drop)_

I have a possible counterargument: if the word is supposedly a shared inheritance from PIE, where are the cognates in the Baltic languages?[/QUOTE]

In Lith language we have mesti - to throw or "matas" - measure which related to 
indoeuropean *_mē-_, *_m-e-t-_ ‘to mark, to measure

----------


## Milan

> There's only one problem with your idea: there's no way you get *eH2 (or Late PIE *ā) regularly to *u in Proto-Slavic (the only way to get there is via Germanic mediation, because *ā became *ō in Proto-Germanic, and the latter was reflected as *ū into Slavic during borrowings). There's no way that _buz_ is regularly in Slavic from the same source. The expected regular reflex of *bheH2ǵos is something akin to _*baz_, because Late PIE long *ā regularly was preserved in Slavic, as opposed to short *a (which, I've mentioned before, regularly became *o). The fact that there should be an *ā or *eH2 in the word is certain because you have Proto-Germanic *ō, Gaulish and Latin *ā (*bāgo-, "fāgus") and Greek *ē (phēgos).


I will again suggest him you can find other such satem terminologies,anatolian,mysian,kurdish.
And is not "buz" but "bъz" the /ъ/ could have come from previous a,e etc ;) so could have been baz,bez, at one stage.



> In my opinion your proposed migration forth and back for the Slavs is redundant. As I said, you have to assume a Baltic and Slavic linguistic unity at one point. I don't see how you can avoid that.


You haven't answered why so many linguist expressed already their distrust about the theory you are so sure of,are they not aware of this facts you speak of? or all of them are just bogus?
Plus where will be the river names.
I do not propose migrations back and forth but that's how suppose to look like,if the word was borrowed from Germanic.



> And I suggest you should memorize my postulates about what Proto-Slavic should look like if it developed indeed on the Balkans. I should add, funnily, that the Albanian language fulfills virtually all of these conditions.


I won't answer on this,but you must be right.

----------


## Taranis

> I will again suggest him you can find other such satem terminologies,anatolian,mysian,kurdish.
> And is not "buz" but "bъz" the /ъ/ could have come from previous a,e etc ;) so could have been baz,bez, at one stage.


It couldn't be 'at one stage' if you would understand how sound laws work.




> You haven't answered why so many linguist expressed already their distrust about the theory you are so sure of,are they not aware of this facts you speak of? or all of them are just bogus?


From what I have seen from you, you're basically only relying on Curta (who is an archaeologist who really has no clue on linguistics). So yes, from a linguistic perspective, Curta's ideas are just bogus, and that's what I have been trying to tell you from the start of this thread.

----------


## Milan

> It couldn't be 'at one stage' if you would understand how sound laws work.


For bъzъ is generaly reconstructed by him as bhaugo/bhugo(bhāuĝo / bhūĝo) or _*bʰAuǵ-._  by others i can find,i have picked that on the internet that is connected to *bʰeh₂ǵos,however he connect both bъzъ and buk to bhaugo/bhugo and not to a Germanic borrowing.
Will have come to mean red,shining.

SUMMARIUM


Nomen fagi silvaticae summi est momenti in sedibus protoindo-europaeis necnon protoslavicis investigandis. Qua de causa slav. bukь et buky non ad Gothonum dialectos referuntur, sed cum lyd. baukoV »ruber, delicatus«, comparatur, quia baukideV idem valent atque kokkideV. Unde phytonymi protoslavici onomiasiologiam ad medullae fagi silvaticae colorem rubrum (cf. germ. Rotbuche) pertinere colligitur. Quantum ad heteroclisin spectat, stirpes slavicae bukь et buky inprimis cum lat. fagus et fagutalis conferuntur. Termini igitur habitaculorum protoslavicorum meridionales cum terminis fagi silvaticae septentrionalibus non exaequantur.

If you understand,because i don't.

We can continue this later,plus if you have the river names post them.



> From what I have seen from you, you're basically only relying on Curta (who is an archaeologist who really has no clue on linguistics). So yes, from a linguistic perspective, Curta's ideas are just bogus, and that's what I have been trying to tell you from the start of this thread.


That is not true ;)

----------


## Taranis

> For bъzъ is generaly reconstructed by him as bhaugo/bhugo( and also most other i can find,i have picked that on the internet that is connected to the *bʰeh₂ǵos,however he connect both bъzъ and buk to bhaugo/bhugo and not to a Germanic borrowing.
> Will have come to mean red,shining.
> 
> What is the meaning of *bʰeh₂ǵos? is it the same?
> SUMMARIUM
> 
> Nomen fagi silvaticae summi est momenti in sedibus protoindo-europaeis necnon protoslavicis investigandis. Qua de causa slav. bukь et buky non ad Gothonum dialectos referuntur, sed cum lyd. baukoV »ruber, delicatus«, comparatur, quia baukideV idem valent atque kokkideV. Unde phytonymi protoslavici onomiasiologiam ad medullae fagi silvaticae colorem rubrum (cf. germ. Rotbuche) pertinere colligitur. Quantum ad heteroclisin spectat, stirpes slavicae bukь et buky inprimis cum lat. fagus et fagutalis conferuntur. Termini igitur habitaculorum protoslavicorum meridionales cum terminis fagi silvaticae septentrionalibus non exaequantur.
> 
> We can continue this later,plus if you have the river names post them.


Sorry, this just demonstrates that you have no idea of how sound laws work. There's no way how PIE (even if you're assuming a form _*bhaugos_, hypothetically) would regularly yield *k in Slavic. In contrast, the shift *g > *k is part of Grimm's Law. I might add that here you're starting to sound - no offense - a bit like Paul Wexler (the linguist who has the idea that Yiddish isn't Germanic but a "relexified" Turkic language), who's fishing for really flimsy and illogical because he somehow cannot accept that Yiddish is basically just a dialect of German. No offense, but to me it sounds that you have the foregone conclusion that (because you're South Slavic yourself?) Slavic languages are autochthonous and every fact must be twisted (or ignored) to fit that idea. Which is not scientific methodology.

In conclusion, I do not see any error in the model: It is very clear for me that the Slavic languages originated in the forest zone, clearly outside of the Roman Empire and close to the Baltic-speaking areas. You had a common Balto-Slavic language stage. Early Proto-Slavic was heavily influenced by Germanic languages. If Proto-Slavic spread through demic or cultural diffusion is a secondary question, what is principally important is that you had a rapid expansion of the Slavic languages into new (previously non-Slavic) areas then had a breakdown of Slavic linguistic unity (which resulted in the formation of the Slavic language family). 




> That is not true ;)


Its absolutely true. This is why I already stopped about 15 years ago to take Curta seriously. The linguistic model that would match Curta's ideas, and I have mentioned this multiple times in this thread, is that Proto-Slavic was a conlang invented on the Balkans in the 500s. Good luck finding evidence for that.

----------


## arvistro

> _For your supposed borrowing for "bridge" from Germanic this is what wiktionary give me;_
> *Etymology
> 
> 
> 
> From earlier *mosstъ < *mozdtъ, from Proto-Indo-European masd-to-s ‎(“aggregate of timbers/boards”), from *masd- + *tos‎(“collective”). Morphologically *mos- +‎ *-tъ.Cognate with Latin mālus ‎(“mast, pole”) (< *masdos and l < d), Old Irish maide ‎(“mast, stick”) (< *masdyos), Proto-Germanic *mastaz (> English mast)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We have 'mesti' in Baltic languages (mesti - LT, mest - LV) that still means "to throw". For bridge we use 'tilts' - from different etymology.

Edit: sorry, noticed Dagne already mentioned this.

----------


## Milan

[QUOTE]


> Sorry, this just demonstrates that you have no idea of how sound laws work. There's no way how PIE (even if you're assuming a form _*bhaugos_, hypothetically) would regularly yield *k in Slavic.
> In contrast, the shift *g > *k is part of Grimm's Law. I might add that here you're starting to sound - no offense - a bit like Paul Wexler (the linguist who has the idea that Yiddish isn't Germanic but a "relexified" Turkic language), who's fishing for really flimsy and illogical because he somehow cannot accept that Yiddish is basically just a dialect of German.


There you go....
I am posting you other people reconstractions,all i can find about the word itself and if anything doesn't agree with you,or your theory become to week you begin just to attack,just come down a bit..
You don't even know the letter /ъ/ in Slavic mistaking it for /u/ and somehow you are lecturing about Slavic languages?

What you don't understand is yes in Slavic the letter /g/ become /z/ and yes the final /g/ will be pronounced as /k/
That is how it was written in Church Slavic "bouk" and on the other side you have "bъz" yes the /g/ become /z/ anything unclear here?



> No offense, but to me it sounds that you have the foregone conclusion that (because you're South Slavic yourself?) Slavic languages are autochthonous and every fact must be twisted (or ignored) to fit that idea. Which is not scientific methodology.


Damn.. what you have against that then,if i even think that way?




> In conclusion, I do not see any error in the model: It is very clear for me that the Slavic languages originated in the forest zone, clearly outside of the Roman Empire and close to the Baltic-speaking areas. You had a common Balto-Slavic language stage. Early Proto-Slavic was heavily influenced by Germanic languages. If Proto-Slavic spread through demic or cultural diffusion is a secondary question, what is principally important is that you had a rapid expansion of the Slavic languages into new (previously non-Slavic) areas then had a breakdown of Slavic linguistic unity (which resulted in the formation of the Slavic language family).


Your emotionaly attacks doesn't do anything here...




> Its absolutely true. This is why I already stopped about 15 years ago to take Curta seriously. The linguistic model that would match Curta's ideas, and I have mentioned this multiple times in this thread, is that Proto-Slavic was a conlang invented on the Balkans in the 500s. Good luck finding evidence for that.


Hardly you can offend Curta or any other linguist i relly on here..
I say again,if you think that way why do you waste your time here on this thread?

----------


## Taranis

[QUOTE=Milan;491552]


> There you go....
> I am posting you other people reconstractions and if anything doesn't agree with you,or your theory become to week you begin just to attack,just come down a bit..
> You don't even know the letter /ъ/ in Slavic mistaking it for /u/ and somehow you are lecturing about Slavic languages?




I don't mistake it for /u/. In Old Church Slavic, the letters ъ and ь represented short /u/ and /i/ respectively, and they correspond to earlier Proto-Slavic short /u/ and /i/, respectively.




> What you don't understand is yes in Slavic the letter /g/ become /z/ and yes the final /g/ will be pronounced as /k/
> That is how it was written in Church Slavic "bouk" and on the other side you have "bъz" yes the /g/ become /z/ anything unclear here?


I disagree that this is of relevance here. As you said /z/ is an outcome of palatalization. Therefore, as I said, the expected Slavic outcome of bheH2gos is _*baz_, not the attested _buk_. This goes back to what I said from the getgo, the word is a Germanic loanword. Don't forget that you also have the Germanic word for 'book' (including its English cognate), which also found its way into Slavic as the word for 'letter', e.g. Russian "bukva" (буква).




> You emotionaly attacks doesn't do anything here...


I'm not being emotional. I've just analyzed your position.




> I say again,if you think that way why do you waste your time here on this thread?


Has it crossed your mind that I actually might enjoy hanging out on Eupedia, and that there are people who actually enjoy reading this?  :Good Job:

----------


## Milan

> I disagree that this is of relevance here. As you said /z/ is an outcome of palatalization. Therefore, as I said, the expected Slavic outcome of bheH2gos is _*baz_, not the attested _buk_. This goes back to what I said from the getgo, the word is a Germanic loanword. Don't forget that you also have the Germanic word for 'book' (including its English cognate), which also found its way into Slavic as the word for 'letter', e.g. Russian "bukva" (буква).


No it is not,bouk might not even come from there,it is attested in "elder tree" and well as "beech",from where then the Slavic word for "elder tree' will come from,Slavs were iliterate of trees,better even not to comment on the loanwords that you posted "grad"-encolosure being borrowed from Germanic instead PIE shared words almost among all IE's,pure ethnocentrism.
It is not from bheH2gos you,yourself demostrated that in the previous comment?
It is coming from (bhāuĝo / bhūĝo) according to what i follow.


Church Slavic-bukva (letter) etc all being connected to beech,yes,people wrote on that.





> Has it crossed your mind that I actually might enjoy hanging out on Eupedia, and that there are people who actually enjoy reading this?


Good for us then.

----------


## LABERIA

The church terminology in Albanian is from Latin.

----------


## Taranis

> better even not to comment on the loanwords that you posted "grad"-encolosure being borrowed from Germanic instead PIE shared words almost among all IE's,pure ethnocentrism.


How can it be "ethnocentrism" if the cognates in Celtic (Old Irish 'gort') and Italic (Latin 'horta') are both with *t? It is impossible to explain as having derived from PIE because the *d is wholly unexpected (it should be regularly with a *t in Slavic, just as in Celtic and Italic). In Germanic, however, from the cumulative effect of Grimm's Law and Verner's Law, you get *d (see English "garden").




> It is not from bheH2gos you,yourself demostrated that in the previous comment?
> It is coming from (bhāuĝo / bhūĝo) according to what i follow.
> 
> Church Slavic-bukva (letter) etc all being connected to beech,yes,people wrote on that.


"buk" ("beech") is indeed derived from _bheH2ǵos_, but it is a Germanic loanword.

Good for us then.[/QUOTE]

----------


## Nik

> I won't answer on this,but you must be right.


Did u just admit or at least considered as true the idea of Albanian being a Balkan language? Wow. 

Now what comes to mind is that Albanian is either an Illyrian or Daco-Thracian. 

But it can't be Illyrian because you Serbs know it and it's not possible for whatever reason. But in the same time it can't be Daco-Thracian (like some fellow Serbs claim in this forum) because according to you they're Proto-Slavic languages, therefore Albanian=Slavic.

----------


## Milan

Taranis @ so far..
You didn't knew that Slavic /g/ can become /z/ (see above)
You mistaken the Slavic /ъ/ for /u/ (see above) after reading on wikipedia told me that is a short *u which is knowhere near the same.
You was the one claiming that *o to *a Balto-Slavic share only with Germanic
*1. Phonetical similarities:*
*Phonetical features*
*Thrac*.
*Dacian*
*Alban*.
*Balto*-*Slavic*
"*Pelasg*."
*German*
*Indo*-*Iranian*
*Greek*
*Phryg*.
*Armen*.
*Italic*
*Celtic*
*Hittite*
*Tokhar*.

*IE* o>a
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
A + 



Completely ignoring the problem of the beech and Proto-Slavic homeland,completely ignoring proffesional linguists,any counter argument you don't see and even dare call someone dogmastic.
Completely ignoring linguist proffesionalists and their distrust of something you want to tell me that is absolute truth.
Completely ignoring proffesional archeologist and historians.
I asked a river names from you,you showed nothing apart some links from wikipedia.
You relly on Wikipedia.
Apart that you know about Grimm's law,Verner's law and sound shifts,which can be learned for couple of days...
So far you showed that you know very little about Indo-European languages in general making and next to nothing about Slavic.
You showed only stubborness so far.
I think disscusion like this is useless.



> "buk" ("beech") is indeed derived from _bheH2ǵos, but it is a Germanic loanword.
> _


Call it "bouk" at least like in Church Slavic.




> How can it be "ethnocentrism" if the cognates in Celtic (Old Irish 'gort') and Italic (Latin 'horta') are both with *t? It is impossible to explain as having derived from PIE because the *d is wholly unexpected (it should be regularly with a *t in Slavic, just as in Celtic and Italic). In Germanic, however, from the cumulative effect of Grimm's Law and Verner's Law, you get *d (see English "garden").


Not to extend the disscusion a quick link from wikitionary not only wikipedia can help you here.

----------


## Taranis

> Taranis @ so far..
> You didn't knew that Slavic /g/ can become /z/ (see above)
> You mistaken the Slavic /ъ/ for /u/ (see above) after reading on wikipedia told me that is a short *u which is knowhere near the same.



Now you're intentionally misquoting me.




> You was the one claiming that *o to *a Balto-Slavic share only with Germanic
> *1. Phonetical similarities:*
> *Phonetical features*
> *Thrac*.
> *Dacian*
> *Alban*.
> *Balto*-*Slavic*
> "*Pelasg*."
> *German*
> ...


I don't completely ignore the "problem" of the beech, I pinpointed you to it (it wasn't part of this thread until I mentioned it, you can go back and read the thread from the start): the Slavic word for beech is of Germanic origin. Deal with it.

As for you showing that table again, I've made my point about Pelasgian before: its a canard. There is no "Pelasgian" language, you're tracing a phantom. Yes, Indo-Iranic merge *e,o > *a, and so does Hittite mere *o > *a, but do you really think that's a common (read: linked) sound change with Slavic?




> ,completely ignoring proffesional linguists,any counter argument you don't see and even dare call someone dogmastic.
> Completely ignoring linguist proffesionists and their distrust of something you want to tell me that is absolute truth.
> Completely ignoring proffesional archeologist and historians.


I'm not ignoring them, but I disagree with them when they spout nonsense, such as Curta.




> I asked a river names from you,you showed nothing apart some links from wikipedia.


I didn't get around to that yet. Blame me.




> You relly on Wikipedia.
> Apart that you know about Grimm's law,Verner's law and sound shifts,which can be learned for couple of days...
> So far you showed that you know very little about Indo-European languages in general making this fallacies and next to nothing about Slavic.


I'm not the one who relies on Wikipedia.




> You showed only stubborness so far.
> I think disscusion like this is useless.


I like you too, Milan.




> Not to extend the disscusion a quick link from wikitionary not only wikipedia can help you here.


If I were you, I would not rely on wiktionary (I for one don't).

----------


## Milan

> Now you're intentionally misquoting me.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't completely ignore the "problem" of the beech, I pinpointed you to it (it wasn't part of this thread until I mentioned it, you can go back and read the thread from the start): the Slavic word for beech is of Germanic origin. Deal with it.


Maybe other way around,even apart that hypothetical "Gothic" sorry if it hurts invented ;)



> As for you showing that table again, I've made my point about Pelasgian before: its a canard. There is no "Pelasgian" language, you're tracing a phantom. Yes, Indo-Iranic merge *e,o > *a, and so does Hittite mere *o > *a, but do you really think that's a common (read: linked) sound change with Slavic?


It was about *o to *a sound change you said such thing doesn't exist in Thracian but only Balto-Slavic and Germanic share it,scroll your comments,Pelasgian is totaly irrelavant here.




> I'm not ignoring them, but I disagree with them when they spout nonsense, such as Curta.


He is right if he annoys you,i feel that  :Laughing:  





> If I were you, I would not rely on wiktionary (I for one don't).


Still you can see PIE is with *d,above all you can read many such toponyms from ancient times with *d instead.
All Germanic borrowings.

----------


## Taranis

> Maybe other way around,even apart that hypothetical "Gothic" sorry if it hurts is invented ;)


Biblical Gothic is not an invented language (just like Old Church Slavic, yeah?), the assertation alone is silly. Nor are the names of East Germanic tribal leaders from the Migration Period (or earlier recorded Germanic names) invented. Again, if you had an understanding of sound laws and how they work (notably, the Neogrammarian hypothesis and the concept that sound laws are 'exceptionless'), you would come to the same conclusion as I do. There is a general agreement that Proto-Slavic borrowed heavily from Germanic over a greater period of time, notably before the *a > *o shift occured.




> It was about *o to *a sound change you said such thing doesn't exist in Thracian but only Balto-Slavic and Germanic share it,scroll your comments,Pelasgian is totaly irrelavant here.


Is it? The fact that the author you're citing, Duridanov, does take it into account as a valid Indo-European language is a reason for me not to take him seriously.




> He is right if he annoys you,i feel that


I'll be honest: he _entertains_ me in the same way that Vennemann or Wrexler entertain me.




> Still you can see PIE is with *d,above all you can read many such toponyms from ancient times with *d instead.


I don't get what you're saying there.

----------


## LeBrok

> Has it crossed your mind that I actually might enjoy hanging out on Eupedia, and that there are people who actually enjoy reading this?


I do, I do.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> Biblical Gothic is not an invented language (just like Old Church Slavic, yeah?), the assertation alone is silly. Nor are the names of East Germanic tribal leaders from the Migration Period (or earlier recorded Germanic names) invented. Again, if you had an understanding of sound laws and how they work (notably, the Neogrammarian hypothesis and the concept that sound laws are 'exceptionless'), you would come to the same conclusion as I do. There is a general agreement that Proto-Slavic borrowed heavily from Germanic over a greater period of time, notably before the *a > *o shift occured..


Is the name Wulfilas attested anywhere?

----------


## Taranis

> Is the name Wulfilas attested anywhere?


Is the name "Jesus of Nazareth" attested in then-contemporary sources? I find the idea that Gothic was an invented "romantic" language invented by German nobility in the 1600s, and I'm actually quoting Milan right now, its all pretty ridiculous:




> There were two at least Bulgarian historians i know about Asen Chilingirov and Julija Dimitrova,writing on Getae and Goths recently.
> 
> According to Julija,haven't read the book entirely a Longobardic runes are used in the "Biblcal Gothic",Chilingirov say that the paper is altogether a forgery of 16th,17th century,see Gothicism among Germanic nobility,this is Codex Argentus,Biblical Gothic;


If you and Milan are going into the direction of the "history is a lie" vibe, I have two addresses for you: Heribert Illig and Anatoly Fomenko. Pick whichever of the two you like, but don't be surprised that the two have radically divergent ideas.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> Is the name "Jesus of Nazareth" attested in then-contemporary sources?


Why do you change subject? The names attested are Ulfilas, Orfilas etc. 
That's one example of weird Germanic etymology and was the result of romantic nationalism.
Βesides, 'Little Wolf' isn't a very appropriate name for a bishop.

----------


## Taranis

> Why do you change subject? The names attested are Ulfilas, Orfilas etc. 
> That's one example of weird Germanic etymology and was the result of romantic nationalism.
> Βesides, 'Little Wolf' isn't a very appropriate name for a bishop.


I didn't change the subject. I just made the point that such a general suspicion is pointless. "Little Wolf" is just as much a viable etymology as the _Saint Martin_ "Martinus" (pertaining to _Mars_ - a really strange name for a Christian bishop of Tours, isn't it?). Besides, if not from Germanic, where is the name else supposed to come from? The presence of an /f/ narrows it down, because Slavic languages do not have a native phoneme /f/. In the East and South Slavic languages, most words with "f" are actually derived from medieval Greek Phi (Φφ) and Theta (Θθ).

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> I didn't change the subject. I just made the point that such a general suspicion is pointless. "Little Wolf" is just as much a viable etymology as the _Saint Martin_ "Martinus" (pertaining to _Mars_ - a really strange name for a Christian bishop of Tours, isn't it?). Besides, if not from Germanic, where is the name else supposed to come from? The presence of an /f/ narrows it down, because Slavic languages do not have a native phoneme /f/. In the East and South Slavic languages, most words with "f" are actually derived from medieval Greek Phi (Φφ) and Theta (Θθ).


He was from Cappadocia, so even from an unattested Anatolian language. Where does 'w' come from?

I have one other example of a weird Germanic etymology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper_Rapids
Greek text:_ Varu'foros_
Germanic etymology: _Bárufors

__The Greek text would have used 'μπ' if the placename started from 'b'
_
All of them are weird, for me but I shouldn't bother.

I should add only that Γελανδρι is a Sclavenic term in the text, and they give to that a Germanic etymology too.

----------


## Taranis

> He was from Cappadocia, so even from an unattested Anatolian language. Where does 'w' come from?
> 
> I have one other example of a weird Germanic etymology:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper_Rapids
> Greek text:_ Varu'foros_
> Germanic etymology: _Bárufors
> 
> __The Greek text would have used 'μπ' if the placename started from 'b'
> _
> All of them are weird, for me but I shouldn't bother.


Here, you are assuming that the orthographic conventions of modern Greek would have automatically applied in medieval Greek. Instead, medieval Greek just substituted /b/ with /v/ (spelled with β).




> I should add only that Γελανδρι is a Sclavenic term in the text, and they give to that a Germanic etymology too.


Gelandri is a related with English "to _yell_" and Dutch "_gillen_" ('to shout').

As regards Cappadocia, I'm pretty certain that Anatolian (Luwic) languages were extinct in Ulfilas' time.

----------


## Milan

> He was from Cappadocia, so even from an unattested Anatolian language. Where does 'w' come from?


I'll tell you about the "w" cause Taranis don't want,one word- imagination as many things discussed in this thread.Time of "poetry"..Orphila seem more to me like dialectal variant of Orpheus if i include imagination,religious leader- orphaned,at least such names could be found,how is Wulfila derived,what is the suffix there? Why we add "w"? To be a wolf.

----------


## Taranis

> I'll tell you about the "w" cause Taranis don't want,one word- imagination as many things discussed in this thread.Time of "poetry"..Orphila seem more to me like dialectal variant of Orpheus if i include imagination,religious leader- orphaned,at least such names could be found,how is Wulfila derived,what is the suffix there? Why we add "w"? To be a wolf.


Even if you have the pre-composed opinion that the name Ulfilas/Wulfilas somehow cannot be Germanic and that the etymology is bogus for you, it doesn't change the fact that Biblical Gothic is an authentic Germanic language that could not have been 'forged' by romanticists in the 1600s (which was your assertation). Like I said before, it is not that people in previous ages (before the 20th century) did not produce constructed languages, because they very much did (Hildegard von Bingen's 12th century _Lingua Ignota_ comes to my mind). But to actually _construct_ Gothic would have required a background in linguistics (which as a science wasn't developed at that point in time). Please bear in mind that the people who, for example, well-known, elaborate constructed languages such Klingon and Quenya were invented by actual linguists (Mark Okrand and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively), and in both cases we are talking about clearly _fictional_ languages. 

So stop pretending that Gothic is an invented language. If it is, your fabled 16th century German romanticists were centuries ahead in their linguistic expertise, and they were so gifted that it happens that only the thorough analysis by South Slavic nationalists who are not blinded by Germanic romanticism can pinpoint the truth!

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> Here, you are assuming that the orthographic conventions of modern Greek would have automatically applied in medieval Greek. Instead, medieval Greek just substituted /b/ with /v/ (spelled with β).
> 
> 
> 
> Gelandri is a related with English "to _yell_" and Dutch "_gillen_" ('to shout').
> 
> As regards Cappadocia, I'm pretty certain that Anatolian (Luwic) languages were extinct in Ulfilas' time.


I am not assuming it. I know it and it is a well known fact. It is evident from the Sclavenic names. For example Οστροβουνιπραχ /οstrovuniprax/, 'v' written with 'β'. 
'b' written with 'μπ' is not at all a modern convention.

Γελανδρι /jelanðri/ is a 'Sclavenic' term in the text and means ήχος φραγμού, not a term used by Rus, so even if you want to propose a Germanic etymology (I recognize that it's easy to do it) it has nothing to do with the Rus.
It would have been a Germanic term used by Slavs and nothing more than that.

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## Milan

> Even if you have the pre-composed opinion that the name Ulfilas/Wulfilas somehow cannot be Germanic and that the etymology is bogus for you, it doesn't change the fact that Biblical Gothic is an authentic Germanic language that could not have been 'forged' by romanticists in the 1600s (which was your assertation). Like I said before, it is not that people in previous ages (before the 20th century) did not produce constructed languages, because they very much did (Hildegard von Bingen's 12th century _Lingua Ignota_ comes to my mind). But to actually _construct_ Gothic would have required a background in linguistics (which as a science wasn't developed at that point in time). Please bear in mind that the people who, for example, well-known, elaborate constructed languages such Klingon and Quenya were invented by actual linguists (Mark Okrand and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively), and in both cases we are talking about clearly _fictional_ languages. 
> 
> So stop pretending that Gothic is an invented language. If it is, your fabled 16th century German romanticists were centuries ahead in their linguistic expertise, and they were so gifted that it happens that only the thorough analysis by South Slavic nationalists who are not blinded by Germanic romanticism can pinpoint the truth!


What I wrote then was what other claim and I haven't even read them,that much I am interested in that,maybe if I does one day can say their arguments, for my claim sorry if I was being provocative, so are you.What I can bring in question or know more for example about origin of South Slavs written in Dioclea by priest in 12th century or bit later,for some reason the book he call is the book about Goths or known in Latin as regnum Sclavorum and he don't make difference between them,written in Latin,whether is true or not,he wrote a bit extensive history which doesn't agree with what we know.

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## Taranis

> I am not assuming it. I know it and it is a well known fact. It is evident from the Sclavenic names. For example Οστροβουνιπραχ /οstrovuniprax/, 'v' written with 'β'. 
> 'b' written with 'μπ' is not at all a modern convention.


I disagree. As I said, the letter Beta (Ββ) was indeed pronounced as /v/ in the Middle Ages, but in spelling convention, people would just substitute /b/ as "v" (β). The convention to spell /b/ as 'mp' (μπ) is a modern convention. One example that comes to my mind, even if it is from (very) early Byzantine Greek, would be Procopius (in his Gothic War, book 1, chapter 15), who spells Ravenna as _Rabenna_ (_Ραβεννα_) and Benavente as _Benebenton_ (_Βενεβεντον_). For the latter, it would be intuitive (from the perspective of modern Greek) to render both _Betas_ as "v", but in the name Benavente, the first Beta clearly represents a /b/, and the second represents a /v/. If you find one example where a /b/ in a foreign name is rendered /mp/ in medieval Greek (closer in time to the Volga route), please show us.




> Γελανδρι /jelanðri/ is a 'Sclavenic' term in the text and means ήχος φραγμού, not a term used by Rus, so even if you want to propose a Germanic etymology (I recognize that it's easy to do it) it has nothing to do with the Rus.
> It would have been a Germanic term used by Slavs and nothing more than that.


And here I thought we were talking about Varangians (i.e. Norse). Also, stop applying the phonology of modern Greek (Gamma as /j/) retroactively to medieval Greek. It doesn't work that way.

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## Milan

Why the Catholic church called our Glagolitic script a "heretic gothic script".
The Roman Catholic church in it's fight against Slavic language in church usage, Dalmatia gathering of bishops 1059;

*They said that the Gothic letters were invented by some heretic Methodius, who in this very Slavic language wrote** many false things against the teachings of the Catholic faith; because of this, they say, he was God's judgment punished with demise.
*


In the South with our supposed "Christianization" that is coming in the Orthodox faith new alphabet was invented,that is the Cyrillic one derived from Greek generaly,with couple letters from other alphabets,and the Glagolitic one fail out of usage.
There is no generaly agreement who invented this alphabet or on what is based? however Methodius and Cyril are credited with it's invention whether or not why will their disciples only one generation after them invent a Cyrillic alphabet?
By Croatian legend even St.Jerome used to write with it,which is dismissed today.

The "heretic" script from a church in Zagreb,Croatia.

Early examples;



I hope i can learn this alphabet one day,good for the Croatian and Czech churches, if im not mistaken there is still used.

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## Milan

Goths and Getae who were they?
The early authors;
Jordanes,Isidore of Seville, Orosius, Philostorgius, Procopius,Yeronim Claudius etc thought that this people are the same,their name is variation of one and the same;
Jordanes who was Goth himself give them Getae (Thracian) history.

Even much later authors about creation of Gothic alphabet;
According to 17th century scholar Carolus Lundius (sv) Ulfilas created the Gothic alphabet based on the Getae's alphabet, with minor alterations. Carolus is quoting Bonaventura Vulcanius' book, De literis et lingua Getarum sive Gothorum, (Lyon, 1597) and Johannes Magnus, Gothus, Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus, Roma, 1554, a book in which it has been published, for the first time, both the Getic alphabet, and the laws of the Getae legislator Zamolxis.

Zalmoxis bear in mind a Getae god mentioned since Herodotus.

Let's quote now Theophylact Simocatta,one of the first authors that had contact with Sclavenes;
*As for the Getae, that is to say the herds of Sclavenes, they were fiercly ravaging the regions of Thrace.
*These, therefore, encountered six hundred Sclavenes who were escorting a great haul of Romans, for they had ravaged Zaldapa, Aquis, and Scopi, and were herding back these unfortunates as plunder; a large number of wagons held the possessions they had looted. When the barbarians observed the Romans approaching, and were then likewise observed, they turned to the slaughter of the captives. Then the adult male captives from youth upwards were killed. Since the barbarians could not avoid an encounter, they collected the wagons and placed them round as a barricade, depositing the women and youth in the middle of the defence.*The Romans drew near to the Getae (for this is the older name for the barbarians)

The earliest history written about South Slavs by a priest in Dioclea(12th century) starts this way;

*Since you ask me, my beloved brothers in Christ and respected priests of the Archdiocese of Dioclean church, and several of the gentlemen, and most young people in our city, who enjoy not only listening to and reading about the wars, and of the wars themselves, as it is already the custom for young people the booklet on the Goths, which is called in Latin Regnum Sclavorum, in which are described all their acts and wars, recompile from Slavic alphabet to Latin, forcing my own age, and driven by fraternal love, I have tried to oblige your request. Still not even one reader should think that I wrote anything other than what I have heard from our fathers and ancient lords that is transmitted as a true saying.*


Why in ancient times there was so much "confusing" and miss understadings,while we in more modern times came to understand everything about "our" ancestors?*

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## Milan

That is to say a religious wars-oppression,for no reason the bishop's wasn't captured by Narentine pirates in Dalmatia;
known for their piracy, so they are today known as the Neretva pirates.

Already by the middle of the 7th century – in 642 – the Sclavenes dispatched from the Dalmatian coast towards Italy and invaded Siponto at the Gulf of Monte Gargano. Afterwards, raids in the Adriatic increased rapidly, until Sclavenes became the most fearsome threat to safe travelling.
By the second half of the 9th century the Narentines had long been trying change their lifestyle from piracy completely. *Despite that, the Narentines kidnapped the Roman Bishop's emissaries that were returning from the Ecclesiastical Council in Constantinople* in the middle of March 870,until Eastern Roman Emperor Basil I of the Macedonian dynasty finally pacified them with a naval military attempt, after which he reunified the whole of Dalmatia under Imperial Byzantine rule.

These Narentani defeated a Venetian fleet in 887, and for more than a century exacted tribute from Venice itself. In 998 they were finally crushed by the doge Pietro Orseolo II., who assumed the title duke of Dalmatia, though without prejudice to Byzantine suzerainty.— Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911

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## Taranis

> Goths and Getae who were they?
> The early authors;
> Jordanes,Isidore of Seville, Orosius, Philostorgius, Procopius,Yeronim Claudius etc thought that this people are the same,their name is variation of one and the same;
> Jordanes who was Goth himself give them Getae (Thracian) history.



The amusing issue is that the earlier authors (Strabo, Ptolemy, Tacitus, Pliny) think of them as two distinct people. For Strabo (book 7, chapter 3), Getai (Γεται) and Dakoi (Δακοι) are synonyms. The same is the case with Pliny (Natural History, book 4, chapter 80). The Getae were a (clearly non-Germanic) people living near the mouth of the Danube, while the Goths/Gotones were a Germanic people living somewhere in the farthest east of Germania, east from the Lugians (Strabo's Geograhy, book 7, chapter 3 and Tacitus' Germania, section 44).




> Even much later authors about creation of Gothic alphabet;
> According to 17th century scholar Carolus Lundius (sv) Ulfilas created the Gothic alphabet based on the Getae's alphabet, with minor alterations.


Where is your archaeological/epigraphic evidence for the very existence of this 'Getic' alphabet? It is very clear that the Gothic alphabet was a new creation based of Latin, Greek and Runic. I wouldn't take Carolus Lundius' word for gospel without further evidence.




> Zalmoxis bear in mind a Getae god mentioned since Herodotus.


Note how the name "Zalmoxis" is decisively not Germanic, and neither are the place names around the lower Danube (think of the typical Dacian _-dava_ ending). It should be clear that Dacian and Biblical Gothic are two altogether different languages.


> Why in ancient times there was so much "confusing" and miss understadings,while we in more modern times came to understand everything about "our" ancestors?


Because the later authors were confused about it and projected into the past what they knew?

There is *no* evidence that would support this idea that there's a direct linguistic continuity from the Getae to the Goths to the medieval South Slavs. We're talking about three different linguistic groups.

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## Milan

> The amusing issue is that the earlier authors (Strabo, Ptolemy, Tacitus, Pliny) think of them as two distinct people. For Strabo (book 7, chapter 3), Getai (Γεται) and Dakoi (Δακοι) are synonyms. The same is the case with Pliny (Natural History, book 4, chapter 80). The Getae were a (clearly non-Germanic) people living near the mouth of the Danube, while the Goths/Gotones were a Germanic people living somewhere in the farthest east of Germania, east from the Lugians (Strabo's Geograhy, book 7, chapter 3 and Tacitus' Germania, section 44).



Please tell me how Gothi become Goutones (Strabo),Gutones (Pliny) Gotones(Ptolemy),to me this two names arent's synonyms,even Getai and Gothi aren't but they are equoted all of the time as one and same,can you tell me which ancient author equote Gothi and Gotones by contrast?
Plus does anyone mention migration of the Gotones in lower Danube,Moesia or Thrace?
Getae by contrast are indegenous in lower Danube,they weren't migrating from anywhere.





> Where is your archaeological/epigraphic evidence for the very existence of this 'Getic' alphabet? It is very clear that the Gothic alphabet was a new creation based of Latin, Greek and Runic. I wouldn't take Carolus Lundius' word for gospel without further evidence.


 I have no such proof,can you find a Gothic language inscribed on stone or church in places settled by them,as i find for Glagolitic or Cyrilic for example in place settled by Sclavenes?





> Note how the name "Zalmoxis" is decisively not Germanic, and neither are the place names around the lower Danube (think of the typical Dacian _-dava_ ending). It should be clear that Dacian and Biblical Gothic are two altogether different languages.


Indeed but Zalmoxis is mentioned by Jordanes,the same author a Goth himself,just as first mythical homeland of Scandza a Getic not Gothic homeland is mentioned by him which somehow we "equote" with Scandinavia,why we take that to literate then?
By the way since when name Scandinavia is used as such in literary sources?



> There is *no* evidence that would support this idea that there's a direct linguistic continuity from the Getae to the Goths to the medieval South Slavs. We're talking about three different linguistic groups.


I won't disagree there apart from equoting in ancient sources,im just questioning.

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## A. Papadimitriou

> I disagree. As I said, the letter Beta (Ββ) was indeed pronounced as /v/ in the Middle Ages, but in spelling convention, people would just substitute /b/ as "v" (β). The convention to spell /b/ as 'mp' (μπ) is a modern convention. One example that comes to my mind, even if it is from (very) early Byzantine Greek, would be Procopius (in his Gothic War, book 1, chapter 15), who spells Ravenna as _Rabenna_ (_Ραβεννα_) and Benavente as _Benebenton_ (_Βενεβεντον_). For the latter, it would be intuitive (from the perspective of modern Greek) to render both _Betas_ as "v", but in the name Benavente, the first Beta clearly represents a /b/, and the second represents a /v/. If you find one example where a /b/ in a foreign name is rendered /mp/ in medieval Greek (closer in time to the Volga route), please show us.
> 
> 
> 
> And here I thought we were talking about Varangians (i.e. Norse). Also, stop applying the phonology of modern Greek (Gamma as /j/) retroactively to medieval Greek. It doesn't work that way.


I have to say that you are *right* in the sense that 'b' could have been used for both 'v' and 'b' in a foreign word (but only 'v' for the rest, and using μπ for b wasn't a modern convention so what I said was partly wrong). In that particular text there is 'γγ' for 'g' (presumably) though (Iγγώρ) and if we accept the Germanic etymologies there is ντ for 'nd'. In the text there is one "ὁ ∆αυὶδ ὁ Μάμπαλις" but Ι am not sure what sound it represents because it can be a Caucasian (?) word.


The word 'Γελανδρί' in the text is supposed to be a 'sclavenic' word and they included it in Rus' words. But they didn't accept doing that but instead decided to twist what the text says. What was the pronunciation of Γ? In modern greek it's γ before a,o,u and j before e, i. Was it γ? Ι guess you can say that it was also used for g and ɟ in foreign names (and maybe even ʑ I would add) but there is one example of γγ for g in that particular text.

In the Introduction of the _Russian Primary Chronicle_ translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor they write (p. 42):




> The third is named only in Rus' as Γελανδρί with the remark that it is translated in to Slavic as ήχος φραγμού


That's not true. He doesn't give a Rus word and then translate it to Slavic but he gives a Slavic word (a word from that particular dialect)

And they didn't do only this, they change another passage too. 'Μεγάλη λίμνην αποτελεί' became 'Μεγάλη δίνην αποτελεί'. Τhe big _lake_ became big _wave_, because that appeared to them better for something named 'wave rapid'.

And of course the names of the Rus' were 'normalised'.

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## Milan

> I'd like to note that it is not relevant what they called themselves (even if I concede that the "speaker" versus "mute" dichotomy is quite suggestive).


I won't agree with this,cause word "nem" (mute,dumb) could as well come from the Germanic tribe "Nemetes",it is how Germanic people are called "Nemtsi",because of given no clear cognates in IE languages i think is of folk etymology,just as in western language the word "slave" is.Nemeto however come to be a Celtic sacred place.Also we do use other words for such things.
For instance "dumb"-glup from gluh (deaf) and so on.. has Baltic cognate.

By contrast "slovo" is always translated as "logos" in church usage as in Greek,"slovo" might had the similar connotation with Greek logos.
I have good comparisons;
Take the words for blessing; 
Greek;
Eulogos 
from εὖ ‎(eû, “good”) + λόγος ‎(lógos, “utterance, narrative”)
Slavic;
Blagoslov
from Blago(good)+slovo("word" or utterance)
Greek
Astrologist ‎(ástron, “star, planet, or constellation”) +λόγος ‎(lógos)

Slavic
Zvezdoslovac attested in 17th century south-slavic zvezda(star)+ slovo the same.
Slovo bozije is equivalent to Logos of god again.

Apart from that as Curta noted both of them arose in different political and historical circumstances,to compare they arose by contrast is not so convincing just guesing,and is not good to take a guess for truth.

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## Nik

Since u mentioned Nemtsi from nem, the Albanian word for a mute person is memeci (memetsi).

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## Marcipanko

I'm not surprised that such claims are supported by someone identifying himself as Yugoslav. It is a artificial identity made up by communist party in order to repress nationalism. Nota bene, only 5% of population identified as Yugoslav. Yugoslavia in that form ceased to exist in 1991. I'm saying this as ethnic Slav, Croat (Croatia was part of Yugoslavia). Also Slavic language doesn't exist. The one he is speaking is either Slovenian or more probably Serbian (not enough words were given)

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