# Albanian and Old Persian



## CyrusSH

There are some similar sound changes in Albanian and Old Persian, like *ḱ>θ and *ǵ>ð, does it there was a relation between them?


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## Borin3

How similar are Persian and Armenian?


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## CyrusSH

Borin3 said:


> How similar are Persian and Armenian?



Sound changes in Armenian are more similar to Eastern Iranian and Germanic than Persian, of course there are numerous Persian and Parthian words in Armenian.


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## ahvalj

What does "a relation" mean?


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## ahvalj

By the way, Iranic, Dacian and Thracian were spoken in contiguous areas during many centuries, e. g.: Scythia Minor - Wikipedia


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## Stoggler

Borin3 said:


> How similar are Persian and Armenian?



What's this got to do with the OP?  I can't see any connection?  Shouldn't you start a new thread if you want to discuss similarities between Persian and Armenian?


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## desi4life

CyrusSH said:


> There are some similar sound changes in Albanian and Old Persian, like *ḱ>θ and *ǵ>ð, does it there was a relation between them?



I don't think there was any particularly close relationship, but it appears some Old Persian (or other Old Iranian) words made their way into Albanian. For example, Albanian *vatër* 'fireplace' is probably a loanword from Iranian **ātar-* 'fire'.


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## CyrusSH

ahvalj said:


> What does "a relation" mean?



I actually meant that these similar sound changes were under influence of another language or not.


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## CyrusSH

ahvalj said:


> By the way, Iranic, Dacian and Thracian were spoken in contiguous areas during many centuries, e. g.: Scythia Minor - Wikipedia



What do we know about original Dacian and Thracian languages? Is it possible that for example Old Persian _datha_ "ten", _draya_ " sea", ... were loanwords from them?


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## danielstan

About Dacian language we have very few words attested, usually by Greek historians (using Greek alphabet which might not match perfectly the sounds in Dacian): many toponims and anthroponims, 47 plant names recorded by a doctor Dioscoride, and an extremely limited number of inscriptions.
Romanian communist authorities financed archeological works for more than 50 years with the intent to discover something significant about Dacians - seems that Dacians did not write too much (or their writings were lost).

From another hand, during last 100+ years Romanian linguists are studying relevant (modern) languages that might have been in contact with Dacian and produced a list of 150-200 Romanian words with cognates in Albanian which are believed (of course, hypothetical) to be of Dacian origin.

I am convinced that Romanian linguists have studied Osetian (supposedly related with the Iranic populations attested in antiquity on Dacian territory) or other Iranic languages in order to detect similarities with Romanian, then inferring cognates that might prove a influence between Dacian and Persian. Nothing came out of these researches.

There are enough words in Romanian dictionary with "unknown etymology" - and they are twisted by Romanian nationalists wich discover resemblences with Lituanian or other languages.


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## Borin3

Stoggler said:


> What's this go to do with the OP? I can't see any connection? Shouldn't you start a new thread if you want to discuss similarities between Persian and Armenian?


No, i'm just trying to find a connection because i have some clues


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## Borin3

desi4life said:


> I don't think there was any particularly close relationship, but it appears some Old Persian (or other Old Iranian) words made their way into Albanian. For example, Albanian *vatër* 'fireplace' is probably a loanword from Iranian **ātar-* 'fire'.


You didn't consider the fact that Serbian has _vatra_ for fire. Analyzing Albanian for some time i figured out there are lots of words which pull origin from Slavic in this case Serbian, lots of words from Latin and Turkish as well. Analyzing toponyms in Albania is a special story. It was almost impossible for me to find a name of a location in Albania, i could declare to be Albanian for sure.


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## Borin3

danielstan said:


> a list of 150-200 Romanian words with cognates in Albanian which are believed (of course, hypothetical) to be of Dacian origin.


Can you please provide me with a list of those words. Thanks


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## Borin3

CyrusSH said:


> like *ḱ>θ and *ǵ>ð


Can you provide some examples?


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## Stoggler

Borin3 said:


> No, i'm just trying to find a connection because i have some clues



Connection between what?  This thread is about Albanian and Persian - I'm not sure why you're asking about Armenian, it's a totally different subject.


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## danielstan

Borin3 said:


> Can you please provide me with a list of those words. Thanks



List of Romanian words of possible Dacian origin - Wikipedia

List of Romanian words of possible Dacian origin - Wikipedia

Is worth mentioning that very few of these words are verified by more than 2 sources (Romanian and Albanian, usually with different meanings) or (ancient sources of Dacian toponims + Albanian, but not Romanian).
Some of them have presumed Latin etymology (but not convincing), very few are attested in a corrupted form by ancient sources and are in similar forms in Albanian and Romanian.

About toponims - they are useless for reconstruction of a language without correlation with other sources, because often a name of a river or a city was transmitted by one population to another one during time.
Example: antic river name Oescus - modern Bulgarian Iskar. Does not sound Slavic, could be Thracic, but what is its meaning?


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## Borin3

Stoggler said:


> Connection between what?  This thread is about Albanian and Persian - I'm not sure why you're asking about Armenian, it's a totally different subject.


If Albanian would call human being as njeri and in Old Armenian it would be called yeres, or Albanian word for grass is kullot and Armenian khot, Albanians would call stone as "guri" and Armenians call it koriz while in Hamshen Armenian the same is called goriz. If Albanians call water uje and Armenians call it jur, or for example lake would be called liqen in Albanian while in Armenian it is lich and old Armenians had lik. Rock in Albanian is shkrep and in Armenian karap. I really can't believe these are coincidental, so i guess there must be a connection. 
When you figure out what languages one particular language developed with then you can maybe find out more about it.


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## danielstan

Borin3 said:


> You didn't consider the fact that Serbian has _vatra_ for fire. Analyzing Albanian for some time i figured out there are lots of words which pull origin from Slavic in this case Serbian, lots of words from Latin and Turkish as well. Analyzing toponyms in Albania is a special story. It was almost impossible for me to find a name of a location in Albania, i could declare to be Albanian for sure.


Add to this Romanian _vatră_ with Albanian etymology (according to Romanian linguists) and a meaning related to fire: its the place where one makes fire under a oven: 
dexonline (Romanian)
vatră - Wiktionary (English)


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## CyrusSH

Borin3 said:


> Can you provide some examples?



For example from proto-IE *_ǵʰes-_ "hand", there are proto-Albanian *_dāsrā_: dorë - Wiktionary and Old Persian _dasta_: Wiktionary, the free dictionary


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## danielstan

Borin3 said:


> Rock in Albanian is shkrep and in Armenian karap.


'Rocky' in Albanian is karpë - Wiktionary   (see Carpathians etymology, also), which seems closer to Armenian _karap_.


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## ahvalj

The major problem with Albanian in this context is the far-reaching phonetic evolution at the stages it is attested. For example, even Latin words, borrowed two millennia ago, may look like this (examples from _Orel VE · 2000 · A concise historical grammar of the Albanian language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian_):

_abiēgnum>vgje_
_accipiter>qift_
_admissārius>harmëshor_
_aestimāre>çmoj_
_augustus>gusht_
_baptizāre>pagëzoj_
_benedīcere>bekoj_
_christiānus>kështër_
_ecclēsia>kishë_
_evangelium>ungjill_
_monachus>murg_
_parentem>prind_
_presbyter>prift_
_quādrāgēsima>kreshmë_
_saburra>zhur_
_sanguisūga>shushunjë_
_sōlānus>shullë_
_timōrem>tmerr_
In this connection, trusting to Albanian Indo-European etymologies becomes a kind of chiromancy. When posting a couple of times about Albanian, I spent most of the time finding words that looked more or less plausible.


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## desi4life

Borin3 said:


> You didn't consider the fact that Serbian has _vatra_ for fire. Analyzing Albanian for some time i figured out there are lots of words which pull origin from Slavic in this case Serbian, lots of words from Latin and Turkish as well. Analyzing toponyms in Albania is a special story. It was almost impossible for me to find a name of a location in Albania, i could declare to be Albanian for sure.



The Serbian and Romanian words are likely to be loanwords from Albanian because no other cognates exist in Romance or Slavic languages outside the Balkans. The Albanian word in turn looks like a borrowing from Old Iranian **ātar-* 'fire'.


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## desi4life

My assessment about the Albanian word being a loan from Iranian is based on what I've read. Maybe @fdb can confirm whether that's likely the case.


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## Borin3

desi4life said:


> The Serbian and Romanian words are likely to be loanwords from Albanian because no other cognates exist in Romance or Slavic languages outside the Balkans. The Albanian word in turn looks like a borrowing from Old Iranian **ātar-* 'fire'.


I already wrote about all five elements in Serbian in another thread but i'll write again.
Vatra-fire
Voda-water
Vetar-wind
Vazduh-air
Svet-world (must have meant soil before)
Furthermore:
Vasiona- space
Svemir- space

The beginning of every of these words starts with VAS/SAV SVE/VSE VES/SEV which all in turn mean all/whole. And so vazduh(air), vasiona(space) and svemir(space) all retained its first and original shape. Thus the deepest meanings of these are easy to explain. Vas(whole)+duh（ghost）=air (dah is also breath and dusha is soul); Vas+ona（she）=space/kosmos； Sve(whole)+mir(either peace which it means in modern Serbian or world which it means in for example Russian)=Space
Vetar which must have lost phoneme S is most likely the one that tears. *Vestar or *Svetar must have been the original word. Tar is a root in words meaning to tear. Tarati>trati. *Svatra or *Vastra might be the originals of word which is today Vatra and this one might also be the that which tare（tears）tears, or that leaves trag(trace) or that needs other tri(three) elements for it's existance　soil,air,wind.
I don't know about Old Iranian *atar or if they are related, but i can not make myself consider this word to be a loan in Serbian following the logic of all other elements.


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## ahvalj

desi4life said:


> The Serbian and Romanian words are likely to be loanwords from Albanian because no other cognates exist in Romance or Slavic languages outside the Balkans. The Albanian word in turn looks like a borrowing from Old Iranian **ātar-* 'fire'.


Actually, _vatra_ exists also in Old Czech, Polish dialects, Ukrainian, perhaps in Russian (in _vatruška_). The problem with all these words is the initial _v-:_ while it may be prothetic in Slavic, Bulgarian usually retains _a-_ without adding _j-_ or _v-._ Otherwise, _**atra_ would be the regular Slavic continuation of the same Proto-Indo-European word as the Iranic _ātar-~āϑr-._ In Albanian, we find _vatrë_~_votrë,_ the latter form may be inherited as _*ā>o_ is regular (_*mātēr>motër_ "sister"), though again, where does _v-_ come from? On the other hand, _orphanus>varfër~vorfën,_ so it may be an in-Albanian prothetic _*w>v, _and hence the (probably) inherited Albanian word spread to the other Balkanic languages (Slavic and Romanian) and then to some other Slavic dialects. And, of course, this word may have come from one of the Palaeo-Balkanic languages, which we'll never know.


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## Borin3

Let's suppose it is a loan. If we suppose it is, how can vetar(wind) be explained? Albanian doesn't have V as an initial but it is also very similar Alb. erë (wind). Also Vatra is hearth/fireplace in Albanian, not the fire itself.


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## Borin3

danielstan said:


> About toponims - they are useless for reconstruction of a language without correlation with other sources, because often a name of a river or a city was transmitted by one population to another one during time.
> Example: antic river name Oescus - modern Bulgarian Iskar. Does not sound Slavic, could be Thracic, but what is its meaning?





danielstan said:


> 'Rocky' in Albanian is karpë - Wiktionary (see Carpathians etymology, also), which seems closer to Armenian _karap_.


I just mentioned the similarity of those words to let you understand how close they are, the structure and sound. Concerning carpi and karap it wouldn't be weird Carpathians are named after this source. But it is a PIE word that Slavic has plenty examples of as well.
Anyway we have all of these examples as well.
Start with "gora" which means mountain/hill. Crna Gora in Serbian or Montenegro in English which comes from Latin source is literally translated as black(crna) mountain (gora). You have hilly lands of Krbava which are located in modern Croatia. Or for example Grbavica (which is a hill in city of Sarajevo). Grba on the other hand means either a small hill or someone who is bumpy（grbav）, kriv-crooked/not straight. For underwater cliffs we have a word "hrid", and for those above the water there is a word "greben", which also has a verb "grebati"-to scratch. Furthermore krsh for rocky, an example would be a place in central Bosnia called Kremesh, which is rocky. Krshiti- to break/crash. Type of a stone called “granit” which is the same as English example for granite. Also gore for up, and gornji upper, krov for roof(which is up). Root of of these words should be g(a/o)r and are all connected to stone/soil formations/locations but also to words for burning. And so goreti means to burn. Gar is soot, garav is glossy black， gara-glossy black haired girl. Ugalj(r>lj)-coal, ugarak for piece of coal. Gorivo-all types of burning oil, generally fuel. Gorak-bitter (over burnt food is bitter). In some other Slavic languages Gora for forest. Is it because forest is the most dense on the mountains, or because burning forest at the time when there was too much of it was the best way of clearing it and creating new agricultural lands as the population increased. Burning forest was an advanced agricultural discovery by wich you create soil even richer in minerals and even more fertile then it would be. Also gora(forest) is very easily set aflame. G(o)rad/Gorod for town and g(o)raditi- to build (since gor or the same root with any other sound change in Slavic refers to soil and up)　Graditi can easily come from gore-up(which might have been a word to express lifting as well) or just because it is done with soil. If i'd have to analyze Iskar following Slavic lexicon it reminds me the most of "Iskra" which means sparkle. Iskra seems like a compound of two words. Iz-from and gra-burn (word gra appears without vowel O, which is natural since there are so many words that are related but you can't expect that they are completely the same, just as they are not the same in different Slavic languages). Following the same pattern river "Iskar" would be iz-from g(o/a)r-hill/mountain/above where vowels Z and G opposed each other and formed sk. It is not impossible that a word for a place has "from" preposition in itself especially if we suppose it's very very old.Furthermore Judas Iscariot was a man who most likely comes from Kariot. Anyway that is my attempt from Serbian since i can't speak for other Slavic languages. There are more examples in Serbian, but i'm sure in other Slavic languages as well.


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## Borin3

CyrusSH said:


> For example from proto-IE *_ǵʰes-_ "hand", there are proto-Albanian *_dāsrā_: dorë - Wiktionary and Old Persian _dasta_: Wiktionary, the free dictionary


They are actually reconstructing Albanian all the way to proto-Albanian and pre-Albanian which is a term i really don't understand. It is a complete reconstruction of two languages one after another. As the official history officially guesses that Albanian is a descendent of Illyrian they are trying to find Illyrian words by doing these. 

I guess the sound change was made by a direct contact of Iranian and Shqipetarian where Iranian influenced the other one..if the reconstructions are correct. Since all of this must have happened in B.C.E that can be the only possible case.


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## ahvalj

Continuing the_ vatrë~votrë_ story: I have found the following additional evidence in Orel's book (pp. 36–37):

_orbus>verber~verb
opera>vepër_

_oleum>vaj~voj
oleaster>voshtër_

Also the word for "egg" is _*ō->ve~vo,_ whether it is inherited or taken from Latin.

Thus, it seems that the word-initial _o_ developed the prothetic _*w>v_ in Albanian sometime during the 1st millennium. Since, as I had mentioned, _*ā>o_ in Albanian (_motër_), it seems quite probable that _*ātr-,_ either inherited or borrowed from Iranic or from elsewhere in the region, became Proto-Albanian _*otr-,_ which then acquired _*w->v-_ like in the above examples. If so, the Romanian and Slavic words would be Albanian loans.


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## danielstan

I noticed this article which says what you said above, with similar argumentation: vatră - Wiktionary

Few ideas on this topic from _Rosetti - Istoria limbii române - page 255_: Al-Rosetti-Istoria-Limbii-Romane-1986.pdf

In Albanian Gheg dialect: _votër_  / Tosk dialect: _vatrë
_
Daco-Romanian _vatră_ is present also in Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian (_vatrâ_).

So, I think Proto-Romanian (common Romanian before dialects separated) imported this word from Albanian, before X century when is believed that Daco-Romanian was separated from Aromanian.
We are in agreement that Albanian acquired the initial v- in first millenium.

It is quite amazing this word is also present in Czech, Slovak (_vatra_), Polish (_watra_), but seems reasonable that it was propagated from Albanian -> South Slavic languages -> other Slavic languages.

---------------------------
Rosetti wrote a chapter (same book, pages 241-244) where he explores the possibility that Romanian words with cognates in Albanian could have been imported from that language.
Method: Analysis of the phonetic changes of Albanian sounds in Romanian words
Conclusion: there is no regular correspondance between Albanian and Romanian sounds from these words.

Example: the Albanian sound _th_ has 4 different sounds in Romanian:
Alb. _th_ -> Rom._ s_: Alb. _thumbullë_ / Rom. _sâmbure_, Alb. _hurthë_ / Rom. _cursă_
Alb. _th_ -> Rom. _ț _[ts]: Alb. _thep_ / Rom. _țeapă_
Alb. _th_ -> Rom. _č_ [t̠ʃ]: Alb. _thump_ / Rom. _ciump_
Alb. _th _-> Rom. _f_: Alb. _thërrimë_ / Rom. _fărâmă_

Rosetti concludes:
Many Romanian words cannot be explained as direct loans from Albanian, because of irregular phonetic changes.
Most reasonable hypothesis (with our current knowledge on ancient Albanian and Romanian, i.e. not many attested words) is that a large number of the common words of Romanian and Albanian have been inherited as sub-stratum in Romanian from a Paleo-Balcanic language, ancestor of both Albanian and Dacian: probably Thracian.


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## ahvalj

The Albanian scenario has the advantage that the entire development from PIE to the modern _vatr-_ may be explained through demonstrable sound laws of one attested language.


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## Borin3

The five elements pattern is also attested in Serbian, but you maybe doubt the pattern itself.

The people we are referring to as Albanians today were first mentioned by Greeks around 11th century as Arbanon and we have notes about them only after 11th century. Serbian has 3 names of Albanians: Arbanas(just like Greek Arbanon), Shiptar (since they call themselvs Shqipe) and Albanac(after what everyone else calls them) Where were they before 11th century? Does anyone talk about Albanians before 11th century? What does Albanoi mean in Greek and what would be the closest meaning in Albanian? Is it possible their name comes just from a guess that they are the ones who lived in what Greeks mentioned Albanopolis?

If we follow that type of speculation we can easily say that tribe which was noted as Grabei by Latins, that lived around Skadar lake(Skadar is the border between what is today Albania and Montenegro) are Crnogorci(Montenegrins) to whose name adjective crn which means black was added later. Or we can say that this was a location abundant with grab (hornbeam tree) which is a Slavic word related to all other words i mentioned already. Following the same logic i can say that Serbs lived in ancient Sirbin which was renamed to Xanthos by Greeks and is called Kinik by Turks today.


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## CyrusSH

Albanian linguists believe that there are more than 30,000 Persian words in Albanian language: بیش از 30 هزار واژه فارسی در زبان آلبانی وجود دارد


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> Albanian linguists believe that there are more than 30,000 Persian words in Albanian language: بیش از 30 هزار واژه فارسی در زبان آلبانی وجود دارد


That might or might not be true (sounds exaggerated; that the name of the city Tiranë should be of Persian origin is a daring hypothesis, to say it mildly) but hasn't much to with the question of this thread. The bulk of Persian loans into Albanian would have arrived after Islamisation.


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## Borin3

ahvalj said:


> The Albanian scenario has the advantage that the entire development from PIE to the modern _vatr-_ may be explained through demonstrable sound laws of one attested language.


Vesta (mythology) - Wikipedia
Wikipedia talks about "originally" Roman Goddess. We know Romans mostly copied others' Gods and who was the closest to Romans? Etruscans. Etruscans Latinised term for people who actually called themselves *Ras*eni. 
How to define the name of this "Roman" Goddess i wonder Spes - Wikipedia


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## danielstan

CyrusSH said:


> Albanian linguists believe that there are more than 30,000 Persian words in Albanian language: بیش از 30 هزار واژه فارسی در زبان آلبانی وجود دارد


I read this article with Google Translate - it presents the opinion of an Albanian journalist (not linguist) who says that daring claim, without mentioning his sources.

Albanian language - Wikipedia - many linguists including Kopitar, Meyer-Lübke, have noticed the big number of Latin loadwords in Albanian.

Meyer-Lübke observed:
"_Endlich spielt auch in der Wortbildung das Lateinische eine so grosse Rolle, dass man das Albanesische nicht mit Unrecht als eine halb romanische Mischsprache bezeichnet ha_"
("Finally, Latin plays such an important role in the formation of words that the Albanian language was not wrongly called a half Romanized mixed language")

From a nationalistic point of view, Albanian is one of the few languages which survived Romanization (along with Greek, Basque and few others), after so many centuries of Roman presence in ancient Albania.
But "30,000 Persian loanwords in Albanian" is at least a mistake.


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