...Helen Abadzi Since the nineteenth century, Greece and Albania have been separate countries, but for about twenty-two centuries they belonged to the same state in its various forms. The ancient Greeks and Illyrians were Indo-European tribes who intermarried with pre-Hellenic populations after...

... increased, however, since the beginning of the present century. In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region on the western part of today’s Balkan Peninsula, founded by Illyrian tribes, an ancient people inimical to Macedonians, who spoke the Illyrian language.29 Knowledge of the Illyrians...

... of Balkan DNA, Niko could serve as the archetypal figure. For the studies show that all the peoples of southeastern Europe share genetic characteristics of the Hellenes, Illyrians, Slavs, Thracians, and Phoenicians. In Niko’s case, he was born in 1935 in the largely Hellenic mountain vil- lage...

...- cated linguistic elements that brought their dialect close to the Attic, cul- minating with the formation of the final product, the koine, in Philip’s and Alexander’s time. Nothing like that occurred with the non-­Greek Illyrians, despite their proximity to the Greek world, simply because...

..., the Illyrians, Thracians, Dacians and Greeks, though the Greek connection is undoubtedly the strongest. Oddly perhaps, the denomination Vlach, by which they are most widely known, is plainly not of Vlach origin, coming, as far as scholars of linguistics can determine, either from Celtic or Germanic roots...