Why the world calls us Albania and the origin of the name Albania

2022-11-29 20:30:35Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Berat

Albanians are one of the few peoples of Europe, and we can also say of other continents, who have two national names, one with internal use, that is. the name by which they name their own people, the other the name by which they are known to the outside world.

By Eqrem Çabej*

The Albanian calls himself an Albanian, his country Albania, Shqipni, but the people are known in the world, as it is known, anciently as Albanais, Albanese, etc., and his country as Albanie, Albania. This dual designation has its own reasons. It is related to some ethnographic circumstances, which are specific to Albania and its historical past.

Starting from the facts, it is noted first of all that indeed in Albania itself as the national name of the people, Albanian is used everywhere today, and as the name of the country Albania, Shqipni, on the other hand, in the Albanian colonies located in Italy and Greece this name is not known. The Albanians of southern Italy and Sicily, descendants of emigrants from Albania mainly during the first wars with the Turks under the banner of Gjergj Kastrioti (Skënderbeu) in the 15th and 16th centuries, call themselves their own and generally the people of their old homeland of Arbër, and this homeland Arbër, Arbëri. These names are still used by the descendants of those Albanians who moved a little before, in the 14th and 15th centuries, from Albania to Greece, who also do not use the name they have today in Albania;

These data clearly show that today's Albanian name, Albania, Shqipni, at the time of Skanderbeg had not yet emerged, or at least had not been generalized, and that this is anyway younger than the first name. This means that the old national name of the country and the people was arbën, arbër, arbëresh, arbëresh. And since this name, as seen at first glance, is identical to Albania, Albanian, etc. that were mentioned above, from all this it results that the Albanians in the Middle Ages called themselves as they are called today by other peoples.

This ethnographic view is confirmed and supplemented on the one hand with some data - old and new - from Albania, on the other hand with the evidence of the languages ??of the peoples neighboring the Albanians, on the other hand with the names of Albania and Albanians in the various European sources of the Middle Ages.

As it has been noticed since half of the last century, the old name of the country, except in the Albanian colonies, which were recently occupied, has been preserved in Albania itself. A plain area of ??the western part of central Albania, which extends from Kurbini down to the plateaus of Durrës and Tirana, i.e. the plain between the rivers Mat and Erzen, is still called Arbën today, and mal and arbën are used there for "mountains and fields" ". A town to the west of Lake Shkodra is called Arbnesh, and Arbënesh is also the name of the Albanian linguistic island located near the city of Zara in Dalmatia, founded in the first half of the 18th century, by immigrants from the sides of the town in question. Arbane is a village near Tirana. On the other hand, in the southern part of the country, Arbër and Arbërí are different provinces of the Labëria mountainous region between the cities of Vlora and Gjirokastra and Delvina, and their inhabitants are Arbëreshe and Arbërora. In other parts of Albania, this same name, with different forms (arbën arbër, arbënesh arbëresh, arbnuer arbëror), is used in the people with an ethnic meaning, to mark the Albanian as opposed to the Aromanian or the member of any other Balkan population . As you can see, the ancient name, in the course of time, came to be covered by the new Albanian name, Albania, and has survived to this day in different regions of the country. to mark the Albanian as distinct from the Aromanian or from the member of any other Balkan population. As you can see, the ancient name, in the course of time, came to be covered by the new Albanian name, Albania, and has survived to this day in different regions of the country. to mark the Albanian as distinct from the Aromanian or from the member of any other Balkan population. As you can see, the ancient name, in the course of time, came to be covered by the new Albanian name, Albania, and has survived to this day in different regions of the country.

That it has been in use on a national scale, throughout the Albanian linguistic territory, this is proven, among other things, by folk verses such as Dalin zojat Arbëneshe from the parts of Kosovo. On the other hand, the country's historical sources complete this picture for the past as well. In the literary monuments of old Albanian, which come from the 16th and 17th centuries, the country appears regularly with the name Arbënë, the people with Arbënesh, Arbëruer, and its language with Albanian.

External sources agree with these internal data regarding the national name of Albania and its people, the evidence of the languages ??of other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. Even there, the presence of this name, which in the course of time radiated from Albania to those peoples, is marked. In the popular Serbo-Croatian, the Albanian is called arbanas, in the medieval documents of that language, arbanasin. Arbananu is also called in popular Bulgarian, arbanas in old Romanian, and among the Aromanians of Albania and Macedonia arbines, arbinesi, all reflexes of the Albanian arbënesh and its variants. Going up to the historical sources of the Middle Ages, in the documents written in Latin of the western countries of the time before the Anjou dynasty, which had political relations with some parts of Albania, the Albanians are called arbanenses,

Looking at these evidences, internal and external, with a summary view, it turns out that the early national name of the Albanian people and their country is arbën arbër with its variations, and that this prevailed in Albania until the first centuries of Ottoman rule.

This name, however, has its roots in ancient times.

As is well known, the astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria, Egypt, in the second century of the new era, on his world map notes the name of an Albanói tribe and the city of Albanópolis in a region of central Albania, approximately between Durrës and Dibra. today and east of Leshi.

Arbën Arbër i Albanian is regularly derived from this name, a proof, among other things, that the Albanians are native to today's settlements and that there is a continuity, a continuity of language at least since antiquity.

From Arbën, as it was said, the name of Albania and the Albanians among the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and other parts of Europe has emerged in the last analysis. Historically, this name, based on the joint evidence of Ptolemy, of medieval sources of different countries and of today's popular spread in Albania, most likely belonged to a third of a population of central Albania; it was then generalized as a national name throughout the country since the time before Skanderbeg.

Regarding the Albanian name, Albania, Shqipni, this as the name of the people and the country, as it results from what was elaborated above, took place during the Turkish rule, after the Albanian migration to Greece and Italy. Its spread as a national name and the disappearance of the old name as such is probably related to the ethnic and social movements of the people during the Middle Ages and the early Turkish era, with internal migrations, with the formation of new tribes in those historical periods. but the concrete impulses for such a replacement cannot be followed.

Only one thing can be said with great probability, that Albanian has always been the name of the language. As such, this has probably been in older use, perhaps parallel to the name arbën arbër as an ethnic name, and then it will have expanded the field of use, including the people of the country. It can thus be seen that the oldest known Albanian writer, Gjon Buzuku, from the year 1555, besides Arban "in Albania" has Albanian "in the Albanian language"; so did Pjeter Budi (1621) tell us Albanian, and Pjeter Bogdani (1683) a Latin and Albanian grammar. The ethnic use of this name took root around the year 1700, because in the Decisions of the Provincial Council of 1706, next to Arbëni "Albania" and Arbëneshi "Albanian" the language of the Albanians appears. The idea that the Albanian name has existed in northern Albania since the 14th century,

Finally, regarding the source of the two Arabic and Albanian names, it should be borne in mind that many names of the peoples, old and new, that are known from history, remain with unknown meaning and source. A necessary precondition in this field of research is the ascertainment of the primitive form of the corresponding name. In this regard, for the old national name of the Albanians, it can be said with certainty that from its two forms, arb- and alb-, the first is the literal form, as it appears from the local evidence together with the popular Balkan evidence that they sat down above. Therefore, the search for a root alb- with the alleged meaning "mountain", the comparison with the topical names Alba- of Italy and other countries, with the name of the Alps, etc., do not have any solid basis. On the contrary, starting from the form arb-, and from the meaning "field, plain", which is preserved in the mountain and arba mentioned above, we can bring this name closer to the Latin arvum "field, cultivated land, field", the old Greek aroura "field, bread land", with the Celtic word of Middle Irish arbor, plural arbanna "grain". The name of the island of Arbe in Dalmatia may have an old connection with the name of Arbë.

As far as the name Albanian, Albanian, Albania Shqipni, from which the verb alqiëroj, alqiëlloj "spiegoj, sqaraoj" of the popular language came from, this name remains highly doubtful.

Thoughts that it came from the name of the Albanian, since the Albanians had their name from this bird, as early as the time of Skënderbeu, putting this name in connection with the words of Plutarch, that Pyrrhus after the victory that he reaped over the Macedonians was celebrated with the epithet "eagle", it does not seem to withstand criticism, if we start from the forms of these two names.

In fact, among the old Albanian authors, Albanian, written in this form, is clearly distinguished from the name of the bird, which is regularly written Albanian, which shows that we are dealing with two different words. The approach to the word "miller of the grass" is also unconvincing, with the presumption (presupposition) of an early meaning "heap, people".

The other interpretations of this name remain doubtful, that one as "dweller of rocks, mountains" and that one as "gunner" from the New Greek skippetto(n) "rifle" (this one from the Italian schioppetto), a word that attests to the Greek first with the XVI-XVII century. Finally, the interpretation of the Albanian word from the Latin excipio remains unbelievable; The Latin word does not mean: "I understand", as they said, but "I get; set aside; exclude; accept". Thus, in conclusion, the work of the source of the Albanian word remains an open issue.

*Published in the magazine "New Albania", 1972/ Vox News

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