User:Antidiskriminator/Drafts of articles/Albania (Balkans)

This page is about the name of a region in the Balkans. For other uses, see Albania (disambiguation).

Albania as the name of a region in the Balkans attested in Medieval Latin. It may derive from an ethnonym, Albanoi, the name of an Illyrian tribe. Some linguists propose a derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root *albho-, which meant 'white'; referring perhaps to the snow-capped mountains of Albania. Others think the source may be a non-Indo-European root *alb-, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in alp "mountain pasture".

Arbon

The toponym Arbon (Greek: Ἄρβων or Ἀρβών) or Arbo (Greek: Άρβωνα) is mentioned by Polybius in the History of the World (second century BC). It was perhaps an island in Liburnia or another location within Illyria. Stephanus of Byzantium centuries later, cites Polybius, saying it was a city in Illyria and gives an ethnic name for its inhabitants.

Albanoi

Albanoi first occurs in extant written sources in a work of Ptolemy dating back to 150 AD. "Albanopolis of the Albanoi" appears on a map of Ptolemy, a place located in what is now North central Albania.

The Albanoi were Illyrians, but whether the modern Albanians have an ethnic continuity with the Illyrian Albanoi is disputed (see Origin of Albanians), and the ethnonym may have been transferred to an unrelated people. The Albanoi are also named on a Roman-era family epitaph at Scupi, which has been identified with the Zgërdhesh hill-fort near Kruja in northern Albania.

Albania

In the 12th to 13th centuries, Byzantine writers use the words Arbanon (Greek: Άρβανον) for a principality in the region of Kruja.

We first learn of the ancestors of the modern Albanians in their native land as the Arbanites of Arbanon in Anna Comnena's account (Alexiad, IV) of the troubles in that region caused in the reign of her father Alexius I Comneus (1081–1118) by the Normans. In the History written in 1079-1080, Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates was first to refer to the Albanoi as having taken part in a revolt against Constantinople in 1043 and to the Arbanitai as subjects of the duke of Dyrrachium.

Their descendants in Greece and Italy have been called in different ways with the passing of the years: Arbërór (in Arvanitic) or more commonly Arvanites (in Greek), Arbënuer, Arbënor, Arbëneshë, Arbëreshë.

Arbanon

Arbanon may have been the name of a district, rather than a particular place. The plain of the Mat has been suggested.

The mediaeval ethnonyms Arbanitai and Arbanios and the corresponding modern ethnonyms Arvanite, Arber, and Arbëreshë are considered by many linguists to have the same etymology as Albania, being derived from the stem Alb- by way of a rhotacism, Alb- → Arb-. Compare the rhotacism of alb- into arv- in the Neapolitan dialect of Italy.

Some linguists have argued that Arbanitai derives from the place, or river, called Arbanon, and Greek linguist Georgios Babiniotis states that Arvanite, Arber, and Arbëreshë do not derive from Albania or Albanoi.

However, the ethnonym Albanians may itself derive from Arbanon.