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OT (?) Balkan Sprachbund (was: Relative clauses)

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 28, 2006, 18:09
Eldin Raigmore wrote:

> Naturally. Modern Greek is in that [Balkan] Sprachbund, but before the > fall of the > Roman Empire that Sprachbund wouldn't have existed, at least not in its > present form. >
An interesting question: What is really known about the ethnic makeup of the Balkans prior to the Slavic influx-- aside from a few vague names "Dalmatians, Illyrians, Dacians, Macedonians" et al.-- and, I gather, some inscriptions difficult to interpret. (The Romanians and the occasional Albanian on Cybalist get very excited about these questions :-)) ). Were even the Albanians indigenous to the area, or later arrivals (late Roman period, or even later, Byzantine?). Apparently the pre-Slavic population of Bulgaria was Turkic (Central Asian?) in origin (leftovers from the Hunnic invasions? Who was there before that?). One statement in Toynbee really surprised me (assuming he's correct)-- viz., that the present-day population of Greece is something like 50% Slavic in origin. (There was, according to him, a period when Greece or at least the Peloponnese, became severely depopulated; Slavic immigrants moved in.) I wonder if modern DNA analysis bears this out in any way? In any case the Slavic movement into the entire area must have been massive, no?

Replies

R A Brown <ray@...>OT (?) Balkan Sprachbund
R A Brown <ray@...>OT (?) Balkan Sprachbund
Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>