Albania_(name) - by SriLankaNewsWeb.com

The toponym Albania may indicate several different geographical regions: a country in the Balkans; an ancient land in the Caucasus; as well as Scotland, Albania being a Latinization of a Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba. This article will cover etymology, as well as trace the usage of the toponyms and related toponyms and ethnonyms from their earliest known occurrence down to present times.

Caucasian Albania

Albania (Balkans)

Albania as the name of a region in the Balkans attested in Medieval Latin. It may derive from an ethnonym, Albanoi, the name of an Illyrian tribe. Some linguists⁸ propose a derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root *albho-⁹, which meant 'white'; referring perhaps to the snow-capped mountains of Albania. Others^{citation needed} think the source may be a non-Indo-European root *alb-, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in alp "mountain pasture".

Arbon

The toponym Arbon (Greek: Ἄρβων or Ἀρβών) ¹⁰ or Arbo¹¹ (Greek: Άρβωνα)¹² is mentioned by Polybius in the History of the World (second century BC). It was perhaps an island¹³ in Liburnia or another location within Illyria. Stephanus of Byzantium centuries later, cites Polybius, saying it was a city in Illyria and gives an ethnic name for its inhabitants.

Albanoi

Albanoi first occurs in extant written sources in a work of Ptolemy dating back to 150 AD¹⁴. "Albanopolis of the Albanoi" appears on a map of Ptolemy, a place located in what is now North central Albania.

The Albanoi were Illyrians, but whether the modern Albanians have an ethnic continuity with the Illyrian Albanoi is disputed (see Origin of Albanians), and the ethnonym may have been transferred to an unrelated people. The Albanoi are also named^{citation needed} on a Roman-era family epitaph at Scupi, which has been identified with the Zgërdhesh hill-fort near Kruja in northern Albania.

Albania

In the 12th to 13th centuries, Byzantine¹⁵ writers use the words Arbanon (Greek: Άρβανον) for a principality in the region of Kruja.

We first learn of the ancestors of the modern Albanians in their native land as the Arbanites of Arbanon in Anna Comnena's account (Alexiad, IV) of the troubles in that region caused in the reign of her father Alexius I Comneus (1081-1118) by the Normans. In the History written in 1079-1080, Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates was first to refer to the Albanoi as having taken part in a revolt against Constantinople in 1043 and to the Arbanitai as subjects of the duke of Dyrrachium.

Their descendants in Greece and Italy have been called in different ways with the passing of the years: Arbërór (in Arvanitic) or more commonly Arvanites (in Greek), Arbënuer, Arbënor, Arbëneshë, Arbëreshë.

Arbanon

Arbanon may have been the name of a district, rather than a particular place. The plain of the Mat has been suggested.

The mediaeval ethnonyms Arbanitai and Arbanios and the corresponding modern ethnonyms Arvanite, Arber, and Arbëreshë are considered by many linguists to have the same etymology as Albania, being derived from the stem Alb- by way of a rhotacism, Alb- → Arb-. Compare the rhotacism of alb- into arv- in the Neapolitan dialect of Italy.

Some linguists have argued that Arbanitai derives from the place, or river, called Arbanon, and Greek linguist Georgios Babiniotis states that Arvanite, Arber, and Arbëreshë do not derive from Albania or Albanoi.

Albania (Scotland)

Alba, a Gaelic name for Scotland, may be related to the Greek name of Britain Albion, Latinized as Albania during the High Medieval period, and later passed into Middle English as Albany. Some recent scholarship has however connected it with one of the early names of Ireland, "Fodla", which is taken to mean (land of the) "going down" (of the Sun), in contrast to Alba which means (land of the) "rising" (of the Sun). This is consistent with one of the ancient emblems of Scotland consisting of a rising sun crossing the horizon, a symbol laden with much significance.

Notes

^ ^a ^b V. Minorsky. Caucasica IV. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 15, No. 3. (1953), p. 504
^ ^a ^b James Stuart Olson. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. ISBN 0313274975
^ ^a ^b "Arran". Encyclopaeida Iranica. By C.E Bosworth
^ Дворецкий, И.Х. Латинско-русский словарь, М., 1986
^ Robert H. Hewsen. Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians, in: Samuelian, Thomas J. (Hg.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, 27-40.
^ Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible by David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck ,2000,page 152: "... Bartholomew preached to the Indians and died at Albanopolis in Armenia). It was condemned in the Gelasian decree, referred ..."
^ The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Frank Viola,page 170: "... one of the Twelve, is beaten and cru- cified in Albanopolis, Armenia. ..."
^ Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Indo-European Etymological Dictionary) 1959 p. 30-31
^ Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Indo-European Etymological Dictionary) 1959 pp. 30–31
^ The general history of Polybius, Tome 1,"and escaped to Arbon"
^ Polybius, Histories,2.11,"Of the Illyrian troops engaged in blockading Issa, those that belonged to Pharos were left unharmed, as a favour to Demetrius; while all the rest scattered and fled to Arbo"
^ Polybius, Histories,2.11,"είς τόν Άρβωνα σκεδασθέντες"
^ Strabo, Geography H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., Ed,"The Libyrnides are the islands of Arbo, Pago, Isola Longa, Coronata, &c., which border the coasts of ancient Liburnia, now Murlaka."
^ Madrugearu A, Gordon M. The wars of the Balkan peninsula. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. p.146
^ Comnena, Anna. The Alexiad, Book IV.
^ Britannica

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