Albanian Language and the connection with the Q-Celtic /Keltoi languages !!

Albanian Language and the connection with the Q-Celtic /Keltoi languages !!

The first historical evidence of Celts/ KELTS is to be found in the writings of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, who distinguished the Celts as a separate people speaking a distinctive language.
We must take in consideration that when scholars talk about Celts, they are not talking about a particular "race", or about natives of specific regions now associated with the Celts, or about adherents of any particular religion. Nor are they making arbitrary terminological distinctions, they are talking about Celtic language speakers and their cultures.
Celts were a diverse group of independent, indigenous tribal societies.
While similarities in language, artefacts, religion and social structures are known, each culture had its own language and traditions. The Celts rarely used their written language, passing along beliefs, knowledge, and wisdom through oral traditions, in the same way as the Illyrians/ Albanians did.

Proto-Celtic culture formed in the Early Iron Age in Central Europe (Hallstatt period). By the later Iron Age (La Tène period), Celts had expanded over wide range of lands from Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula in the west, to Balkans and Galatia (central Anatolia) in the east.
The Hallstatt culture is commonly linked to Proto-Celtic and Celtic populations in its western zone and with (pre-)Illyrians in its eastern zone. Archaeologists associate the Illyrians (that are the ancestors of the Albanians) with the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age people noted for production of iron and bronze swords with winged-shaped handles and for domestication of horses. The Illyrians occupied lands extending from the Danube, Sava, and Morava rivers to the Adriatic and Jonian Sea and the Sar Mountains. At various times, groups of Illyrians migrated over land and sea into Italy.
The Illyrians were Indo-European tribesmen who appeared in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula in a period coinciding with the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age
Reference:
“ Kipfer, p. 251- . "...Illyria extended from the Danube River southward to the Adriatic Sea and from there eastward to the Sar Mountains. “The Illyrians, descendants of the hallstatt culture, were divided into tribes, each a self-governing community with a council of elders and a chosen leader."
• Kohl and Fawcett, p. 134. "They were emphatically developed by S.P. Tolstov (1946; 1947b), whose original contribution was to include the Thracian-Illyrian population (the Hallstatt culture)..."
• Kuhn, p. 455. "...of the Middle Danube Urnfield group persisted in the eastern Alpine and the north and east Adriatic area where the Illyrian Hallstatt culture arose in the following centuries best known through its celebrated Hallstatt cemetery and the situla art."
• Crystal, p. 217. "...908 History Early Iron-Age settlement at Hallstatt; later Illyrian settlers driven out by the Celts; part of Roman Empire until 5th-c, then occupied by Germanic tribes, most significantly Bavarians;..."
• Kipfer, p. 526. "...(syn. Sopot Lengyel) Sopron: Early Iron Age cemetery of the Hallstatt C period in western Hungary. Cremation burials under barrows were...human figures. “Artifacts from the area indicate Neolithic, Bronze Age, Illyrian, and Celtic settlements before the town's becoming the Roman municipium of Scarabantia. sorghum: A cereal grain plant, probably originating in..."
Kipfer, p. 591. "Venus figurine Veneti: An Illyrian people who came from the east and took possession of...the Golasecca, Villanovan, and Etruscan cultures and with the transalpine Hallstatt culture."


Genetic, history, and archaeological researcher and writer Stephen Oppenheimer suggests the Celts were a Mediterranean people first established in what is now southern France by the end of the last glacial maxium, around 11,000BC.

Celtic groups began a south-eastern movements into the Balkan peninsula from the fourth century BCE. From their new bases in northern Illyria and Pannonia, the celtic Gallic invasions climaxed in the early third century BCE, with the invasions of Macedonia, Thrace and Greece.
According to legends, 300 000 Celts moved into Italy and Illyria (“The Celts: A history” by Daithi O Hogain). By the III century, the native inhabitants of Pannonia were almost completely Celticized (Pannonia and Upper Moesia. A History of the Middle Danube Provinces of the Roman Empire. A Mocsy, S Frere).

One of the most influential tribes of the Balkans, the Scordiskoi, had established their capital at Singidunum in 3rd century BC. Taking into consideration the Cletic tribe Skordiskoi, so much present in Dardania (modern Kosova) from the 3 century BC and its …ending “-oi”, common on both tribe names, we may guess that we have to deal, like on the case of Japodes, a mixing Celto-Illyrian tribe, with Dardanian- Celtic symbiosis of two tribes.

Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic" and are part of the Indo-European family of languages just as English and Albanian are, but they belong to an entirely different branch of this family ( the Celtic Branch) and are more different from English than German or French.
Also note that the Celtic languages should not be viewed in the same manner as the Germanic or as the Slavic groups whose members are closely related to each other, but rather as a supergroup whose members are considerably distinct.

The Celtic languages have unusual features within the Indo-European family, which may be due to greater influence from the non-Indo European languages they displaced and/or to greater retention of archaic forms of Indo-European.
The languages spoken by the early Celts of Europe are collectively known as Continental Celtic. Some of the forms of Continental Celtic have been partially reconstructed, including Gaulish, Celtiberian and Lepontic. Evidence for these languages includes inscriptions such as the Druidic Coligny Calendar.

Insular Celtic (insular = of the islands), which is further split into the "more modern":
-Goidelic (Q-Celtic) include Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Manx.
-Brythonic (P-Celtic) including Welsh, Breton, and Cornish
The differences between P and Q Celtic Languages are most easily seen in the word for “son”, “mac” in Q (hard K sound) and map in P languages. P-languages have a slightly simpler structure and are younger than the Q-languages which are more old. The label Q-Celtic stems from the differences between this early Celtic tongue and the latter formed P-Celtic.

Interesting to note that ancient Scotland was also called ALBANIA or ALBANY, and the island of Britain itself was called ALBION. The Latin word ALBA [meaning white] mustn’t be confused with the more widespread indo-european word meaning “mountain”, because both words have entered the English language: “Alpine” and “Albino”. All these names mean "white cliffs" or "white mountains", which is how they look when one approaches them from the sea. The celtic Picts were a confederation of tribes in what was later to become eastern and northern Scotland from Roman times until the 10th century. They lived to the north of the Forth and Clyde valley and have been the descendants of the Caledonii and other tribes named by Roman historians or found on the world map of Ptolemy. Pictland, also known as Pictavia, became the Kingdom of Alba also known as 'Albania', during the 10th century and the Picts became the Fir Albainn, the men of Alba.
Is possible that the British Isles were populated by members of the Mediterranian sub-branch of the white family, who were themselves akin to the ancient Iberian, Balkan and Mediterranean peoples.
Indeed, Celtic origin myths recorded in Medieval Scotland and Ireland suggest a possible beginning in Anatolia and then to Iberia via Egypt. There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283-246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC.

Apparently, of all the world languages, Albanian is particularly closely related to Q-Celtic, such as Irish. The relationship seems more or less evident, and it wouldn't be too difficult to find some completely regular correspondences [they are pretty close]. Surely enough, all lexemes are within the basic lexics.
Also note that neither Welsh nor Breton are particularly close to Irish, therefore including Albanian into the Celtic group might in fact be reasonable.
The words are most in dialect taken from Isidore Dyen's IE database from the 60s.

NOT
Albanian NUK
Irish NI

WE
Albanian NE
Breton NI
Irish INN, SINN
- The /n/-root is present only in Italic, Welsh, Breton and Albanian. Others have /m-/ or /w-/ or similar.
PIE had *wei for nominative, *n.s-me- in other cases. The *n.s part occurs in Hittite (anz-), Germanic (uns-), and OCS (ny, nasU, namU).
Also Italic, Celtic and Albanian, where by analogy it's also used in the nominative.


ONE
Albanian NJI
Breton UNAN
Irish AON

TWO
Albanian DY
Irish DO

THREE
Albanian TRE/ TRI (dialect form)
Irish TRI

WATER
(Note this rather unique coincidence in "water")
Albanian UJ
Irish UISGE

FATHER
Albanian AT
Irish ATHAIR (Irish exhibits the Celtic loss of Indo-European p. Athair is related
to pater and father)

MAN
Albanian BURRI
Irish FEAR (The Irish is from PIE *wi:ros, and cognate with Welsh _gwr_)

-Albanian “burrë” is:
*wirH1-os. Alb. burrë 'ruler, warrior, husband, man; distinguished/brave/courageous person' from
*wH3r.H1-no with laryngeal hardening of *w to *b, *-r.H1- > -ur- (cf. *gWr.H1-u >
Alb gur, Watkins)
and *-rn-> -rr as regular outcome, if we assume reduced o-grade form *woiH1-'to pursue with vigor, desire' related to *wiH1-ro …(cf. also Dacian royal name Bure-bista and maybe tribe name Li-burnoi, cf. Alb li-gjëroj 'to discourse, orate, cf. Latin ser-mo < *ser-) Dalmatian place name Burnum): OIr fer 'man, husband', Lat vir 'man, husband', OE wer 'man, husband' (NE werewolf), Lith vyras 'man, husband': Av vi:ra-'man; person', Skt vi:rá- 'hero; (eminent) man, husband'.

Alb i ri: 'young' from *uriH1-os (*os > ) with long stressed /í:/ due to laryngeal and proverbial aphaeresis of unstressed initial syllable; trim 'dare-devil, berserker; brave, lion-hearted' from prefixed and suffixed form t-ri-m: Toch A wir 'young, fresh' (Mallory-Adams wiHxros 203.)


GRASS
Albanian BARI
Irish FEAR

It has the same law /f/ : /b/
Barí= shepherd, as collective noun from *pH2ar−i, Bareshë= shepherdess (cf. Latin “pastor” , Armenian “hoviv” ) and Bari=grass, herbage with stress in first syllable from *pH2a−ru. It must be not confused with bari=drug, medicine.
-eshë is a usual suffix for feminine gender in Albanian (bukuroshe= pretty girl /from pretty/, perëndeshë = goddess.
Friday = E premte is the sacred day of the ' Old Illyrian Godess of Love ' ) References: See Albanian Inherited Lexicon in PIEML.
This voicing of bilabial stop seems to belong to different chronological layer and is a result of metathesis of laryngeal.
It is attested in many derivatives (see below). This impact of laryngeals in Albanian makes quite clear that Albanian Language was one of the first languages that was separated from the PIE tree, whence its devilishly hard character for different linguists.


EYE
Albanian SYNI / SY
Irish SUIL (Long ú, “súil”. The other word for eye is “rocs”)
Note that this a unique Irish-Albanian isogloss not found in any other IELs / Institute of English Language Studies.


FOUR
(Note the /k-/ : /c-/ correspondence)
Albanian KATER
Irish CEATHAIR (Irish “C” is always pronounced as “K” )

The '/k-/ : /c-/' correspondence reflects derivation from PIE *kW. Welsh language _pedwar_ as well. Well-nigh universal in Indo-European. Welsh /pedwar/, Germanic /fidwor/ sound like a far cry from /ceathair/.
That's why is Q-Celtic, not P-Celtic.

FOOT, LEG
Albanian KAMBA/ KAMA / KOFSH
Irish COS

BARK (of tree)
Albanian KUJA
Irish COIRT

WHEN
Albanian KUR
Irish CATHAIN
"Cathain" is interrogative, as "WHEN" and as "KUR".

WHO
Albanian KUSH
Irish CIA
(Where and Who are 'wh- words' - the initial consonant descends from PIE *kW, as in English. Cé, actually, in modern Irish. Cia is probably Classical Irish. )

WHERE
Albanian KU / CKA/ CA (dialect form)
Irish CA
Cá, actually, and it does not mean just "where", but also "what" or "which", in some of the dialects.

WORM
Albanian KRYM / KRIMB (standard)
Irish CRUIMH (PEIST) (Cruimh, crumhóg, péist. Note: /d-/ : /cr-/)

TREE / WOOD
Albanian DRUNI / DRUJA
Irish CRANN
Celtic DRUID

But /cran/ and /druni, druja/ seem to be a particularly close match. The Celtic priests worshiped the tree as a God and so is that the word “dru” became "druid".

EARTH
Albanian DHEU
Irish CRE (Cré means earth as in clay. There are also the words talamh and ithir.)

BURN
Albanian DJEG
Irish DOGHADH (Dóghadh, or in new orthography dó)

Cf. Breton /devin/, Latin /foveo/, Wakhi /thau/, they're all different to some extent.
Only Lith. /degti/ is sufficiently close. Tocharian /tsak/ is also close, but Tocharian seems related to the Italo-Celtic (or a broader) group in several ways, so there's a good reason for it to be close.

DRY
Albanian THAT
Irish TIRIM

FISH
Albanian PESHKU (dialect= PISK)
Breton PESK
Irish IASC

Note /d-/ : /d-/ : /l-/ (Albanian : Breton : Irish)
Only Italic and Germanic languages have */pesk/.
Indo-Iranian had */masi/ while Balto-Slavic had */zuvis/ which effectively excludes both of them, since */pesk/ is an innovation limited to Western Europe.
Irish "iasc" exhibits the Celtic loss of "p-", and it is of course related to piscis and fish. The Breton word is a loan from Latin.


HAND
Albanian DORA
Breton DORN
Irish LAMH

TALK/ SPEECH
Albanian LLAFOS
Welsh LLAFAR (utterance, speech)
Irish LABHAIR (to speak)
Breton LAVAR (word, utterance)



DAY
Albanian DITA
Welsh DYDD
Irish LA
- Lá: However, weekdays begin with the old word dé: Dé Luain = Monday, Dé Máirt = Tuesday, Dé Céadaoin = Wednesday, Déardaoin = Thursday, Dé hAoine = Friday, Dé Sathairn = Saturday, Dé Domhnaigh = Sunday.

WIFE
Albanian GRUJA
Breton GWREG

NAME
(Note the loss of PIE /n-/)
Albanian EMAN
Irish AINM

COLD
Albanian FTOFT
Irish FUAR

DOG
Albanian KJENI/QENI (GEN)
Breton KI
Irish GADHAR (Dillon-Ó Cróinín's )
-The other literary Irish word for "dog" is "Cú", which is related to Breton "ki", Welsh "ci", and Latin "canis". "Madadh" and "madra" are the preferred words further north - "gadhar" is above all Munster Irish.
…Only /k-/ instances count here that leaves us with the "Kentum" languages which are bound to Western Europe.

LOUSE
Irish MIOL
Albanian MORR

NOSE
Breton NOZ
Albanian NATA
Irish OIDHCHE

STAR
Albanian YLL
Irish REALT

WHITE
Albanian BARDH
Irish BAN

BELLY
Albanian BARK / BEL
Irish BOLG
PIE (pre indo-european) *bHelg^H.
Old High German BALG
Old Norse BELGR (the “-r” is the nominative singular ending)
One can pinpoint the isogloss as Albanian-Irish by noticing a nearly complete coincidence in the second syllable /-rkV/ : /-lg/.


Albanian is not close to any group in the East. It is a "Kentum"-type language located somewhere within the Western European habitat and language.
Also, there seems to be roughly the same distance in Irish-Albanian-Welsh (and possibly Latin) rows, while other European Kentum languages like Germanic and ancient Greek stand a little aside. Because we have (once again):…

uisce- uit (alb)- dwr- *unda (Umbran "uttor")
athar- ati (alb)- tad- pater
suil- syni/suni (alb)- llygad- oculis
croidhe- zamber (alb)- calon- cordis
teanga- gjuxena (alb)- tafod- lengua
ceathair- kater (alb)- pedwor- quattur
ainm- ember (alb)- enw- nomen

On this basis, Albanian seems to go either into the Celtic and into Latin/Italo-Celtic supergroup.
And, such innovations as uisce/uit < *uidwr(?) and suil/suni < *ocsulis (?), morr/miol (louse), ainm/ember/enw < *onomen, seem to brand Albanian and Irish (and possibly Welsh) as a group which apparently had a single source at one time.

al -sy=fr-sjy
al-vjeter=fr -vjey
al-per=fr-pur
al-uj=fr-lu
al-plot=fr-ple
al-qiell=fr-ciel
al-nat=fr-nui
al-VErej=fr-vua
al-fLAs=fr-parLE
al-mar=fr-pro
al-dhash(dhen)=fr-don
al-le=fr-les
al-eja(vjen)=fr-vje
al-ik=fr-parKTI
al-ben( kjo bon)=fr-bon
al-leviz=fr-lev
al-frut=fr-frui
al-sonte=fr-suar etj etj kaq per sot,nese dikush e shikon te arsyeshme ti kthej dhe ne anglisht, per te repektuar linjen e forumit.

Although Albanian and Q-Celtic are both Indo-European, I always felt that Albanian and Q-Celtic were closely related. I think an Albanian-Celtic sub-branch is a good possibility and a good theory to work on. With the non-linguistic evidence, a pure Irishman and a pure Albanian look identical anyway.