Pan-Illyrian theories
Encyclopedia
Pan-Illyrian theories were proposed in the first half the twentieth century by philologists who thought that traces of Illyrian languages
could be found in several parts of Europe, outside the Balkan area.
and the linguists for the Old European water names. First, the French pressed for the Ligurs and Celts but then the German prehistorians and linguists, beginning with Gustaf Kossinna
, and following Julius Pokorny
, and Hans Krahe
, linked the Illyrians with the Lusatian culture
and Old European hydronyms. Kossinna divided the primitive Indo-Europeans into two groups, North and South Indo-Europeans; he conjectured that the ancestors of Celtic, Illyrian
, Greek
and Italic
people, who belonged to the first group, inhabited north Germany in the Stone Age
and Early Bronze Age
and were driven out by Germanic people advancing from Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland about 1800–1700 BC "the first Germans in Germany". Kossinna also stated that at the time of Hallstatt culture
which succeeded the Bronze Age of Central Europe, the Illyrian civilization of the valley of the middle Danube was superior to that prevailing among the Celts established in the southern portion of the Germany and elements of the Illyrian civilization found their way not only into the Celtic cradle of the south Germany but also to the territory of the east Germany occupied by Germanic tribes. The earliest use of iron in Central Europe was to be attributed to Illyrians
and not to the Celts.
Julius Pokorny located the Urheimat
between the Weser and the Vistula
and east from that region where migration began around 2400 BC. Pokorny suggested that Illyrian elements were to be found in much of the continental Europe and also in the British Isles
.
Pokorny's Illyromania derived in part from archaeological Germanomania and was supported by contemporary place-name specialists such as Max Vasmer
and Hans Krahe.
, known from hundreds of inscriptions as an Illyrian language, which forms the separate Illyrian branch of the Indo-European language family with the Messapian
of southern Italy and the Illyrian spoken in the Balkans. Krahe thought that only the name of the Illyrian and Adriatic Enetos peoples were the same. Homer
mentions a people in Asia Minor
, the Paphlagonians, as coming from the Enetai province, and a few hundred years later Herodotus refers to the Enetos people twice, once as Illyrian and again as the occupants of the Adriatic sea. Krahe thought that the name of the Illyrian and Adriatic Enetos peoples are the same and if Adriatic Enetos were Venets
and Venets were the Veneds mentioned in other sources then Illyrian and Veneds were the same people. The basis of this theory is the similarity of the proper nouns and place names, but most of all in the water names of the Baltic and the Adriatic (Odra, Drava, Drama, Drweca, Opawa, Notec, etc.). Having the model of Illyrian in mind, he assumed that together these elements represented the remnant of one archaic language.
The problem was that the name of Venets
and Veneds is scattered over a huge territory. From British Isles to Baltic Sea and from Northern Italy to the Southern Balkans. Since no trace of Illyrians remains in the Northern zone, the Venets (or Veneds) became the transmitter of the Illyrian place-names and by the end of World War II
, the Illyrians had become a vast conspiracy of Indo-European place names, now spreading from Gaul to the Balkan Peninsula.
By 1950, many of the onomastic irregularities once dubbed Illyrian had now become Old European
. First, Krahe presented the view that the Veneti language
forms a separate branch in itself. He noticed that the Illyrian language was made now of some Messapic Inscriptions and a great number of places and proper nouns. From this small item of linguistic material, he concludes that Illyrian is a Centum language and its relationship with German
, Italic
and Celtic languages
lies in that territory of the Urheimat of this language correlates solely with the Lusatian culture
. In Krahe's words: "All of them the Illyrians, the Italic, and the Venet have...clear connections to the Germans, that is they came from the north...and later moved to the south." This meant that the people of the Lusatian culture advanced to the eastern part of the Alps
to the historical territory of the Illyrians around 1200 BC.
Following Krahe's work, János Harmatta
placed Illyrians in South Germany and the Alpine region. Tribes living there would have spoken Illyrian which deferred from Latin, German and Venetic. Around 1300 BC, the people of the Barrow-mound
culture, the Illyrians, moved eastwards and then southwards along the Danube (the first Illyr migration) and in 750 BC the people of the Hallstatt C culture
expanded toward western Hungary (the second Illyr migration) which gathered Pannonian tribes to itself. 1000 BC is considered the beginning of the historical peoples we call the Illyrians.
In his later work, Krahe substituted Pokorny theory with that of Old European hydronymy
, a network of names of water courses dating back to the Bronze Age
and to a time before Indo-European languages had developed in central, northern and western Europe. He examined the layers of European water names and did so using two theses. The first thesis was that the oldest layer will always be the one that can not be explained with the language of the people who currently live on the banks or shores of the given water, and/or consist of a monosyllabic stem carrying a meaning (at times derived or conjugated monosyllabic words). He found that these monosyllabic water names give a system which he called Alteuropäisch (Old European). The network of old European water names comprises waters from Scandinavia to lower Italy, and from the British Isles to the Baltic. It denotes the period of development of the common Indo-European language which was finished by the second millennium BC. Krahe claimed that by that time the Western languages (Germanic, Celtic, Illyrian, the so-called Italic group – the Latin-Faliscus, the Oscan-Umbrian along with Venetic-Baltic and to some extent Slavic though they still constituted a uniform Old European language and further divided later) had already dissociated from the ancient Indo-European language. The similarities in European hydronyms resulted from the radiation of this old European system, and not from the resemblance of the common words in the later separate languages.
, Vladimir I. Georgiev
etc.). One of them, Georgiev, claimed that "the Pelasg that is the people before the Hellas Greeks, were Illyrian . Their language would have been Indo-Germanic, a dialect of the Illyrian-Thracian language, and Etruskan was a later dialect of the latter. The Thracians and Illyrians would have been the link between the central (Italic, Greek, Aryan) and the southern (Pelasg, Luwiy, Hittite) Indo-Germanic groups". Georgiev's theory however, received a lot of criticism and was not widely accepted.
for his Vasconic theory), a fact which Krahe dismisses.
The Pan-Illyrian theory began with archaeological findings also its end coincided with it. As Katičić
linguistically restricted what is to be considered Illyrian, newer archeological investigations made by Alojz Benać and B. Čović, archaeologists from Sarajevo, demonstrated that there was unbroken continuation of cultural development between Bronze and Iron Age archeological material, therefore ethnical continuation too and this created the autochthonous Illyrian theory, by which Illyrian culture was formed in the same place (Western Balkans) from older Bronze Age
cultures. According to Benać, the Urnfield culture
bearers and proto-Illyrians were different people. Moreover, he claimed that the Urnfield culture migration might have caused several other population movements (e.g. Dorian migration
). This theory was supported by Albanian archaeologists and Aleksandar Stipčević
which says that the most convincing theory for the genesis of the Illyrians was the one given by Benać, but pointing to Liburnians and their pre-Indo-European and Mediterranean phases in development Stipčević
claims that there was no equal processing of Illyrian origin in the different areas of the Western Balkans.
Illyrian languages
The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by groups identified as Illyrians: Ardiaei, Delmatae, Pannonii, Autariates, Taulanti...
could be found in several parts of Europe, outside the Balkan area.
First attempt
Pan-Illyrism had both archaeological and linguistic components. Archaeologists were looking for an ethnicity for the Lusatian cultureLusatian culture
The Lusatian culture existed in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age in most of today's Poland, parts of Czech Republic and Slovakia, parts of eastern Germany and parts of Ukraine...
and the linguists for the Old European water names. First, the French pressed for the Ligurs and Celts but then the German prehistorians and linguists, beginning with Gustaf Kossinna
Gustaf Kossinna
Gustaf Kossinna was a linguist and professor of German archaeology at the University of Berlin...
, and following Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny was an Austrian linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly Irish, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian and German universities.-Life:...
, and Hans Krahe
Hans Krahe
Hans Krahe was a German philologist and linguist, specializing over many decades in the Illyrian languages. He was born at Gelsenkirchen....
, linked the Illyrians with the Lusatian culture
Lusatian culture
The Lusatian culture existed in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age in most of today's Poland, parts of Czech Republic and Slovakia, parts of eastern Germany and parts of Ukraine...
and Old European hydronyms. Kossinna divided the primitive Indo-Europeans into two groups, North and South Indo-Europeans; he conjectured that the ancestors of Celtic, Illyrian
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of tribes who inhabited part of the western Balkans in antiquity and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula...
, Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Italic
Ancient Italic peoples
Ancient people of Italy are all those people that lived in Italy before the Roman domination.Not all of these various people are linguistically or ethnically closely related...
people, who belonged to the first group, inhabited north Germany in the Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
and Early Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
and were driven out by Germanic people advancing from Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland about 1800–1700 BC "the first Germans in Germany". Kossinna also stated that at the time of Hallstatt culture
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.By the 6th century BC, the Hallstatt culture extended for some...
which succeeded the Bronze Age of Central Europe, the Illyrian civilization of the valley of the middle Danube was superior to that prevailing among the Celts established in the southern portion of the Germany and elements of the Illyrian civilization found their way not only into the Celtic cradle of the south Germany but also to the territory of the east Germany occupied by Germanic tribes. The earliest use of iron in Central Europe was to be attributed to Illyrians
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of tribes who inhabited part of the western Balkans in antiquity and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula...
and not to the Celts.
Julius Pokorny located the Urheimat
Urheimat
Urheimat is a linguistic term denoting the original homeland of the speakers of a proto-language...
between the Weser and the Vistula
Vistula
The Vistula is the longest and the most important river in Poland, at 1,047 km in length. The watershed area of the Vistula is , of which lies within Poland ....
and east from that region where migration began around 2400 BC. Pokorny suggested that Illyrian elements were to be found in much of the continental Europe and also in the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
.
Pokorny's Illyromania derived in part from archaeological Germanomania and was supported by contemporary place-name specialists such as Max Vasmer
Max Vasmer
Max Vasmer was a Russian-born German linguist who studied problems of etymology of Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages and worked on history of Slavic, Baltic, Iranian, and Finno-Ugric peoples....
and Hans Krahe.
Krahe's version
In his 1937 work, Krahe discussed the Venetic languageVenetic language
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the North East of Italy and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps....
, known from hundreds of inscriptions as an Illyrian language, which forms the separate Illyrian branch of the Indo-European language family with the Messapian
Messapian language
Messapian is an extinct Indo-European language of South-eastern Italy, once spoken in the region of Apulia. It was spoken by the three Iapygian tribes of the region: the Messapians, the Dauni and the Peucetii....
of southern Italy and the Illyrian spoken in the Balkans. Krahe thought that only the name of the Illyrian and Adriatic Enetos peoples were the same. Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
mentions a people in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, the Paphlagonians, as coming from the Enetai province, and a few hundred years later Herodotus refers to the Enetos people twice, once as Illyrian and again as the occupants of the Adriatic sea. Krahe thought that the name of the Illyrian and Adriatic Enetos peoples are the same and if Adriatic Enetos were Venets
Adriatic Veneti
The Veneti were an ancient people who inhabited north-eastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of the Veneto....
and Venets were the Veneds mentioned in other sources then Illyrian and Veneds were the same people. The basis of this theory is the similarity of the proper nouns and place names, but most of all in the water names of the Baltic and the Adriatic (Odra, Drava, Drama, Drweca, Opawa, Notec, etc.). Having the model of Illyrian in mind, he assumed that together these elements represented the remnant of one archaic language.
The problem was that the name of Venets
Adriatic Veneti
The Veneti were an ancient people who inhabited north-eastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of the Veneto....
and Veneds is scattered over a huge territory. From British Isles to Baltic Sea and from Northern Italy to the Southern Balkans. Since no trace of Illyrians remains in the Northern zone, the Venets (or Veneds) became the transmitter of the Illyrian place-names and by the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Illyrians had become a vast conspiracy of Indo-European place names, now spreading from Gaul to the Balkan Peninsula.
By 1950, many of the onomastic irregularities once dubbed Illyrian had now become Old European
Old European
*as used in archaeology, Neolithic Europe, Old European culture *as used in linguistics, Old European hydronymy...
. First, Krahe presented the view that the Veneti language
Venetic language
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the North East of Italy and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps....
forms a separate branch in itself. He noticed that the Illyrian language was made now of some Messapic Inscriptions and a great number of places and proper nouns. From this small item of linguistic material, he concludes that Illyrian is a Centum language and its relationship with German
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, Italic
Italic languages
The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin.In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed...
and Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
lies in that territory of the Urheimat of this language correlates solely with the Lusatian culture
Lusatian culture
The Lusatian culture existed in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age in most of today's Poland, parts of Czech Republic and Slovakia, parts of eastern Germany and parts of Ukraine...
. In Krahe's words: "All of them the Illyrians, the Italic, and the Venet have...clear connections to the Germans, that is they came from the north...and later moved to the south." This meant that the people of the Lusatian culture advanced to the eastern part of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
to the historical territory of the Illyrians around 1200 BC.
Following Krahe's work, János Harmatta
János Harmatta
János Harmatta was a Hungarian linguist.He taught as a professor at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.- Literary works :* Harmatta János : Forrástanulmányok Herodotos Skythika-jához = Quellenstudien zu den Skythika des Herodot / irta Harmatta János - References :* Harmatta János :...
placed Illyrians in South Germany and the Alpine region. Tribes living there would have spoken Illyrian which deferred from Latin, German and Venetic. Around 1300 BC, the people of the Barrow-mound
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
culture, the Illyrians, moved eastwards and then southwards along the Danube (the first Illyr migration) and in 750 BC the people of the Hallstatt C culture
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.By the 6th century BC, the Hallstatt culture extended for some...
expanded toward western Hungary (the second Illyr migration) which gathered Pannonian tribes to itself. 1000 BC is considered the beginning of the historical peoples we call the Illyrians.
In his later work, Krahe substituted Pokorny theory with that of Old European hydronymy
Old European hydronymy
Old European is the term used by Hans Krahe for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy in Central and Western Europe...
, a network of names of water courses dating back to the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
and to a time before Indo-European languages had developed in central, northern and western Europe. He examined the layers of European water names and did so using two theses. The first thesis was that the oldest layer will always be the one that can not be explained with the language of the people who currently live on the banks or shores of the given water, and/or consist of a monosyllabic stem carrying a meaning (at times derived or conjugated monosyllabic words). He found that these monosyllabic water names give a system which he called Alteuropäisch (Old European). The network of old European water names comprises waters from Scandinavia to lower Italy, and from the British Isles to the Baltic. It denotes the period of development of the common Indo-European language which was finished by the second millennium BC. Krahe claimed that by that time the Western languages (Germanic, Celtic, Illyrian, the so-called Italic group – the Latin-Faliscus, the Oscan-Umbrian along with Venetic-Baltic and to some extent Slavic though they still constituted a uniform Old European language and further divided later) had already dissociated from the ancient Indo-European language. The similarities in European hydronyms resulted from the radiation of this old European system, and not from the resemblance of the common words in the later separate languages.
Other versions
While many scholars placed Illyrian in North Europe other scholars extended the territory of the Illyrian people in the south too (Giuliano BonfanteGiuliano Bonfante
Giuliano Bonfante was an Italian linguistics scholar and expert on the language of the Etruscans and other Italic peoples. He was professor of linguistics at the University of Turin.Bonfante was born in Milan...
, Vladimir I. Georgiev
Vladimir I. Georgiev
Vladimir Ivanov Georgiev was a prominent Bulgarian linguist, philologist, and educational administrator. He made multiple contributions to the field of Thracology, including a linguistic interpretation of an inscription discovered at the village of Kyolmen in the Shoumen district of northeastern...
etc.). One of them, Georgiev, claimed that "the Pelasg that is the people before the Hellas Greeks, were Illyrian . Their language would have been Indo-Germanic, a dialect of the Illyrian-Thracian language, and Etruskan was a later dialect of the latter. The Thracians and Illyrians would have been the link between the central (Italic, Greek, Aryan) and the southern (Pelasg, Luwiy, Hittite) Indo-Germanic groups". Georgiev's theory however, received a lot of criticism and was not widely accepted.
Criticism
The Pan-Illyrian theory received much criticism, and one of the many critics was that of Antonio Tovar who demonstrated that the majority of hydronyms in the north of Europe have a non-Indo-European origin, (later this was used by Theo VennemannTheo Vennemann
Theo Vennemann is a German linguist known best for his work on historical linguistics, especially for his disputed theories of a Vasconic substratum and an Atlantic superstratum of European languages. He also suggests that the High German consonant shift was already completed in the early 1st...
for his Vasconic theory), a fact which Krahe dismisses.
The Pan-Illyrian theory began with archaeological findings also its end coincided with it. As Katičić
Radoslav Katicic
Radoslav Katičić is a Croatian linguist, classical philologist, Indo-Europeanist, Slavist and Indologist, one of the most prominent Croatian scholars in the field of humanities.-Biography:...
linguistically restricted what is to be considered Illyrian, newer archeological investigations made by Alojz Benać and B. Čović, archaeologists from Sarajevo, demonstrated that there was unbroken continuation of cultural development between Bronze and Iron Age archeological material, therefore ethnical continuation too and this created the autochthonous Illyrian theory, by which Illyrian culture was formed in the same place (Western Balkans) from older Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
cultures. According to Benać, the Urnfield culture
Urnfield culture
The Urnfield culture was a late Bronze Age culture of central Europe. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields...
bearers and proto-Illyrians were different people. Moreover, he claimed that the Urnfield culture migration might have caused several other population movements (e.g. Dorian migration
Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...
). This theory was supported by Albanian archaeologists and Aleksandar Stipčević
Aleksandar Stipčević
Aleksandar Stipčević Ph.D. is a Croatian historian that specialised in the study of Illyrians. Most of his findings are published in his 1974 book called Illyrians that besides English is also translated into Italian and Albanian.- Origin and work :Aleksandar Stipčević was born in the village of...
which says that the most convincing theory for the genesis of the Illyrians was the one given by Benać, but pointing to Liburnians and their pre-Indo-European and Mediterranean phases in development Stipčević
Aleksandar Stipčević
Aleksandar Stipčević Ph.D. is a Croatian historian that specialised in the study of Illyrians. Most of his findings are published in his 1974 book called Illyrians that besides English is also translated into Italian and Albanian.- Origin and work :Aleksandar Stipčević was born in the village of...
claims that there was no equal processing of Illyrian origin in the different areas of the Western Balkans.