
Ancient Greek writers used the name \"Pelasgian\" to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean as neighbors of the Hellenes. Pelasgians spoke a language different from the Greeks. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the Greeks, and in recent times it may refer to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of Anatolia as well. == Classical Greek uses of "Pelasgian" == The name "Pelasgians" first appears in the poems of Homer: the Pelasgians appear in the ''Iliad'' among the allies of Troy. In the section known to scholars as '' The Catalogue of Ships'', which otherwise preserves a strict geographical order, they stand between the Hellespontine cities and the Thracians of south-east Europe, i.e. on the Hellespontine border of Thrace (2.840-843). Homer calls their town or district "Larissa" and characterises it as fertile, and its inhabitants as celebrated for their spearsmanship. He records their chiefs as Hippothous and Pylaeus, sons of Lethus son of Teutamus. ''Iliad'', 10.428-429, describes their camping ground between the town of Troy and the sea. ''Odyssey'', 17.175-177, places the Pelasgians in Crete, together with two apparently indigenous and two immigrant peoples (Achaeans and Dorians), but gives no indication to which class the Pelasgians belong. Lemnos (''Iliad'', 7.467; 14. 230) has no Pelasgians, but a Minyans dynasty. Two other passages (''Iliad'', 2.681-684; 16.233-235) apply the epithet "Pelasgic" to a district called Argos about Mount Othrys in southern Thessaly, and to the temple of Zeus at Dodona. But neither passage mentions actual Pelasgians; Hellenes and Achaeans specifically people the Thessalian Argos, and Dodona hosts Perrhaebians and Aenianes (''Iliad'', 2.750) who are nowhere described as Pelasgian. It looks therefore as if "Pelasgian" were here used connotatively, to mean either "formerly occupied by Pelasgians" or simply "of immemorial age." Strabo quotes Hesiod as expanding on the Homeric phrase, calling Dodona "seat of Pelasgians" (fr. 225); he speaks also of an eponymous Pelasgus, the father of the culture-hero of Arcadia, Lycaon. After Hesiod, a number of early authors flesh out his brief statement. An early genealogist, Asius, describes Pelasgus as the first man, literally born of the earth to create a race of men. An early poet, Hecataeus, makes Pelasgus king of Thessaly (expounding ''Iliad'', 2.681-684); Acusilaus applies this Homeric passage to the Peloponnesian Argos, and engrafts the Hesiodic Pelasgus, father of Lycaon, into a Peloponnesian genealogy. Hellanicus repeats this identification a generation later, and identifies this Argive or Arcadian Pelasgus with the Thessalian Pelasgus of Hecataeus. Aeschylus regards Pelasgus as earthborn (''Supplices'' I, sqq.), as in Asius, and ruler of a kingdom stretching from Argos to Dodona and the Strymon; but in ''Prometheus'' 879, the "Pelasgian" land simply means Argos. Sophocles takes the same view (Inac/jus, fragment. 256) and for the first time introduces the word "Tyrrhenian" (bringing the Etruscans) into the story, apparently as synonymous with "Pelasgians". Herodotus, like Homer, has a denotative as well as a connotative use. He describes actual Pelasgians surviving and speaking mutually intelligible dialects * at Placie and Scylace on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont * near Creston on the Strymon; in this area they have "Tyrrhenian" neighbors (''Persian Wars'' 1.57). He alludes to other districts where Pelasgian peoples lived on under changed names; Samothrace and Antandrus in Troas probably provide instances of this. In discussing Lemnos and Gokceada and Bozcaada (Imbros and Tenedos) he describes a Pelasgian population whom the Athens s conquered only shortly before 500 BC, and in connection with this he tells a story of earlier raids of these Pelasgians on Attica, and of a temporary settlement there of Hellespontine Pelasgians, all dating from a time "when the Athenians were first beginning to count as Greeks." Elsewhere "Pelasgian" in Herodotus connotes anything typical of, or surviving from, the state of things in Greece before the coming of the Greeks. (In this sense one could regard all Greece as formerly "Pelasgic".) The clearest instances of Pelasgian survivals in ritual and customs and antiquities occur in Arcadia, the "Ionian" districts of the north-west Peloponnese, and Attica, which have suffered least from hellenization. In Athens itself the prehistoric wall of the Acropolis and a plot of ground close below it received veneration in the 5th century as "Pelasgian"; so too Thucydides (2.17). We may note that all Herodotus' examples of actual Pelasgi lie round, or near, the actual Pelasgi of Homeric Thrace; that the testimony of Thucydides (4.106) confirms the most distant of these as to the Pelasgian and Tyrrhenian population of the adjacent seaboard: also that Thucydides adopts the same general Pelasgian theory of early Greece, with the refinement that he regards the Pelasgian name as originally specific, and as having come gradually into this generic use. The historian Ephorus preserves a passage from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, and developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a warrior-people spreading from a "Pelasgian home", and annexing and colonizing all the parts of Greece where earlier writers had found allusions to them, from Dodona to Crete and the Troad, and even as far as Italy, where again their settlements had been recognized as early as the time of Hellanicus, in close connection once more with "Tyrrhenians." The copious additional information given by later writers all either interprets local legends in the light of Ephorus's theory, or explains the name "Pelasgoi"; as when Philochorus expands a popular etymology "stork-folk" into a theory of their seasonal migrations; or Apollodorus says that Homer calls Zeus 'Pelasgian' "because he is not far from every one of us". The connection with Tyrrhenians which began with Hellanicus, Herodotus and Sophocles becomes confusion with them in the 3rd century, when the Lemnian pirates and their Attic kinsmen become plainly styled as Tyrrhenians, and early fortress-walls in Italy (like those on the Palatine Hill in Rome) appear as "Arcadian" colonies. The character of the ancient citadel wall at Athens, Greece has given the name "Pelasgic masonry" to all constructions of large, unhewn blocks fitted together with mortar, from Asia Minor to Spain, the massive character one might similarly call "cyclopean". === Modern theories === From a tribal name, both Classical historians and archeologists have come to use the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants in the lands around the Aegean Sea and their descendants before the arrival of the waves of Greek-speaking invaders during the 2nd millennium BC. The results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart (1955) and F. Schachermeyr (1979) led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the 4th millennium BC. Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians: *Groups of non-Indo-European loan words in the Greek language, borrowed in its prehistoric development *Non-Greek place names in the region containing the consonantal strings "-nth-" (e.g. Corinth, Probalinthos), or its equivalent "-ns-" (e.g. Tiryns), or "-tt-" in the peninsula of Attica, or with "-ss-" (e.g. Larissa), or "-en-" (e.g. Athens, Mycenae, Cyllene). *Certain mythology stories or deities (usually goddesses) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, Celts or Indians. *A small number of non-Greek inscriptions, the best-known found on Lemnos (the Lemnos stele). These inscriptions use a version of the western Greek alphabet similar to that used in the Old Italic alphabet employed for Etruscan inscriptions. Not all of these features belong to the same people. For example, some evidence suggests that the "-ss-" placenames may have come from a language related to Hittite (for example: Parnassus may be related to the Hittite word ''parna-'' or "house"). Because of insufficient evidence from the 2nd millennium BC, no consensus exists on the relationship of these "Pelasgian" elements to their neighbors -- although much speculation has taken place, sometimes fueled by a desire for association with some of the earliest known inhabitants of Europe. But much is not known about the Pelasgians, and may never be known. As Donald A. Mackenzie, writes (in ''Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe,'' 1917, page 75): :"Before these [Hellenic] invaders entered into possession of the country [of Greece] it had been divided between various 'barbarous tribes', including the Pelasgi and their congeners the Caucones and Leleges. Connop Thirlwall, among others, expressed the view 'that the name Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni, and that each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself'. The Hellenes did not exterminate the aborigines, but constituted a military aristocracy. Aristotle was quoted to show that their original seat was near Dodona, in Epirus, and that they first appeared in Thessaly about 1384 B.C. It was believed that the Hellenic conquerors laid the foundation of Greek civilization." Mackenzie continues, quoting George Grote: :"By what circumstances, or out of what pre-existing elements, the aggregate was brought together and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit. There are, indeed, various names affirmed to designate the ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece — the Pelasgi, the Leleges, the Curetes, the Caucones, the Aones, the Temmikes, the Hyas, the Telchines, the Boeotian Thrace, the Teleboae, the Ephyri, the Phlegyae, &c. These ae names belonging to legendary, not to historical Greece — extracted out of a variety of conflicting legends by the logographer (history) and subsequent historians, who strung together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood. That these names designated real nations may be true but here our knowledge ends." The poet and mythologist Robert Graves, in his works on Greek Mythology, asserts that certain elements of that mythology originate with the native Pelasgian people — namely the parts related to his concept of the White Goddess, an archetype goddess worship — drawing additional support for his conclusion from his interpretations of other ancient literature: Irish literature, Welsh literature, Greek, Bible, Gnosticism, and Middle Ages writings. Mainstream scholarship considers Robert Graves' thesis at best controversial, although certain literary circles and many neo-paganism groups have accepted it. The French author Zacharie Mayani (1899 - ) put forth a thesis that the Etruscan language had links to the Albanian language. This thesis places the Albanian language outside the Indo-European group of languages sharing one branch with Etruscans as well as ancient Greek. Nermin Vlora Falaschi published a translation of the Lemnos stele on this basis, with the help of Arvanite Albanian. The references below by Falaschi, Catapano, Marchiano, Faverial, D'Angely, Kolias, and Cabej support this point of view. A Turkish scholar, Polat Kaya, has recently offered a translation of one of the Lemnos stele, based on his theory that it reflects a language related to Turkish language. However, in the period of the putative date of the inscription the Turkish people lived several thousand miles away in southeastern Siberia. They began to migrate westward only about AD 300, a fact that has hindered acceptance of Kaya's translation. This theory is almost unanimously rejected by the scholarship. Some Georgia (country) scholars (including M.G. Tseretheli, R.V. Gordeziani, M. Abdushelishvili, and Dr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia) connect the Pelasgian with the Iberian-Caucasian peoples cultures of the prehistoric Caucasus, known to the Greeks as Colchis. This may sound plausible since there were many autochtonic Caucasian peoples dwelling in Anatolia such as the Hattians before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. === Links and references === These references include both mainstream scholarship and fringe theories. * M.G. Abdushelishvili. ''The genesis of the aboriginal population of the Caucasus in the light of anthropological data'', Tokyo, 1968 * Milan Budimir, ''The Greeks and Pelasti (1950)'' * Milan Budimir, ''Pelasto - Slavica'' (1956) * E.J. Furnee. ''Vorgriechisch-Kartvelisches: Studium zum ostmediterranen Subtrat nebst einem Versuch zu einer neuen pelasgischen Theorie'', Leuven-Louvian, 1979 * Rismag Gordeziani. ''Pre-Grecian and Georgian'', Tbilisi, 1985 (in Georgian, German summary) * Donald A. Mackenzie, ''Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe'', 1917 [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/moc/index.htm reviewed] * J. Melaart. ''The Neolithic of the Near East'', London, 1975 * F. Schachermeyr. ''Die Ägäische Frühzeit. Forschungsbericht über die Ausgrabungen im letzten Jahrzehnt und über ihre Ergebnisse für unser Geschichtsbild. Bd. I. Die Vormykenischen Perioden des Griechischen Festlandes und der Kykladen,'' Vienna, 1979 * Akaki Urushadze. ''The Country of the Enchantress Media'', Tbilisi, 1984, 25 pp (in Russian and English) * Aristeidē P. Kollia. "Arvanites kai hē katagōgē tōn Hellēnōn : historikē, laographikē, politistikē, glōssologikē episkopisē '', Athens : [A.P. Kollias], 1985, [i.e. 1986] * Robert d'Angély. ''Des Thraces & des Illyriens à Homère'' Nicariu, Corsica : Cismonte è Pumonti, c1990 * Robert d'Angély. ''Grammaire albanaise comparée'' Paris : [Solange d'Angély], 1998 * Nermin Vlora Falaschi. ''L'Etrusco lingua viva'' Roma : Bardi, 1989 * Giuseppe Catapano. ''Thot Parlava Albanese'' Roma : Bardi, 1988 * Marchiano Stanislao. ''I Pelasgi e la loro lingua'' (1888) * Mathieu Aref. ''Albanie ou l'incroyable odyssée d'un peuple préhellénique'' (2003) * Mathieu Aref. ''Grèce : (Mycéniens = Pélasges) ou la solution d'une énigme'' (2004) == See also == *Pre-Indo-Europeans *Leleges *Paleo-Balkan languages Ancient Greece pre-Indo-Europeans Ancient history Anatolia
''Pelasgians was a name applied by Greek writers to one of most ancient peoples of Asia Minor.'' This is simply not true. Why is the entry on Pelasgians being slanted to conform to such an aggressively provincial point-of-view? This entry won't be honest until it can deal first with ancient Greeks' use of "Pelasgian". Then in a modern section, the entry could explain the pseudoarchaeology and race theory of modern Georgian academicians and why it relates to "Pelasgians". As it stands it is dishonest. If it can't be fixed, it must have a ''Caution'' sign.User:Wetman 02:27, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) ''Pelasgians is a name applied by ancient Greek writers to a group of people who dwelled in several locations as neighbors of the Greeks, and spoke a different language.'' This revised formula is still misleading. "Pelasgians" is a name applied by Greeks to the autochthonous inhabitants of Greece. They did not connect "Pelasgians" with any peoples of Anatolia, except as colonists from Pelasgian areas of Greece. Some places, like Lemnos, retained their Pelasgian culture. Herodotus and Pausanias have plenty to say about "Pelasgians." Search "Pelasgian" and "Pelasgus" at the [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ Perseus Encyclopedia]. Greeks knew a "Pelasgian creation myth" as Robert Graves expressed it in ''Greek Myths''. Whether Greek writers knew of this myth in a language that was not Greek-- that I don't know. Classical Greek writers and later ones like Pausanias mentioned localities where people spoke a non-Greek language in Greece. A handful of modern writers concerned with ''Urrecht'' bolster slender over-reaching speculative theories by co-opting a Greek name for pre-Mycenaean cultures in Greece. So let them go on with the theories as they like, but let us have a normal, sober entry on Pelasgians. User:Wetman 13:56, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::Dear User:Wetman, Pelasgians were one of most ancient peoples of Asia Minor! This is true: Pelasgians were pre-Greecian, non-IndoEuropean population of Aegean basin. They migrated from Asia Minor. It is not "pseudoarchaeology" and "race theory" of modern Georgian academicians! You know results of archaeological excavations? You know very important results of modern linguistic investigations? You know Georgian sources?... User:Levzur 16 Feb 2004 :The appelation "Pelasgians" was ''only'' applied by Greek writers to the original inhabitants of Greece, whom we now would say were "pre-Indo-European". The "original" inhabitants, if that means anything. The statement ''Pelasgians was a name applied by Greek writers to one of most ancient peoples of Asia Minor'' is false. The appelation ''Pelasgian'' is currently being applied by a group of Georgian academicians whose "very important results of modern linguistic investigations" are so unusual, that Wikipedia's readers are owed a little explanation, simply as a ''courtesy''. The entry as it stands is quite consciously misleading. The unspoken Georgian agenda is all about "proving" that Georgians were Georgians in Georgia from the beginning of time, is it not? That may be true. So were the Basques in Basque country, no doubt. Leave the Pelasgians out of it, and don't make dishonest connections, User:Wetman 04:11, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::This is an ongoing problem with other articles as well...kind of reminds me of Chekov on Star Trek saying everything was Russian :) User:Adam Bishop 06:12, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) Adam, Wetman does not realise that when archaeologists refer to ancient greece they are not talking only about one side of the Bosphorus. His comments are thus misleading.User:Zestauferov 09:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) :When classical Greeks referred to Greece they did not mean non-Hellenic cultures in Anatolia such as Phrygia and Cappadocia (places that were quite "Hellenized" by the 1st century CE). They ''did'' mean Ionia and the Aegean. They didn't ordinarily mean the thoroughly Hellenic culture of Sicily and Magna Graecia. Zestauferov's contributions tally reveals whether he is ever consistently a contributor in non-contentious entries. User:Wetman 23:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- Compare these two opening paragraphs. Former version:Pelasgians was a name applied by Greek writers to the autochthonous aboriginal inhabitants of Greece. The term is now being extended to include the pre-Indo-European dwellers in the Aegean basin and even further abroad. Georgian politician and writer Zviad Gamsakhurdia (''The Spiritual Mission of Georgia'') applies the term "Pelasgians" to the Georgians, one of the most ancient peoples of Asia Minor. User:Levsur's version: Pelasgians were one of the most ancient, non-IndoEuropean peoples of Asia Minor and Greece. They migrated to Greece in the 4th millennium BC. One of the sad inheritances of a corrupt and authoritarian indoctrination is the utterly cynical view that ''history is merely a tool of propaganda''. Educated Westerners are disgusted by this approach. Post-Soviet apologists don't see what the problem is. Every word of the first text is careful, neutral and accurate.User:Wetman 03:01, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::Dear User:Wetman, Firs of all, I am not "Post-Soviet apologist"! I am historian. Main fields of my activity are: 1. source studies of the history of the Caucasus and 2. history of the Caucasian peoples. It is fact, that you not know important Georgian sources, investigations of Georgian scholars, results of archaeological excavation on the territory of Georgia and the Caucasus. Dr. Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia was outstanding Georgian scientist, not only writer! User:Levzur 17 Feb 2004 Levzur try very hard not to be taunted by Wetman's comments. He only does it te get angry responses and such behaviour is not worth wasting time and attention on. The correction of the paragraph should have been simply to omit the part about the migration into Greece. :"Pelasgians" is an ''ancient'' Greek term for pre-Hellenic autochthonous ("aboriginal") inhabitants of Greece. Where they came from is debated by ''modern'' archaeologists. Their connections with other pre-Indo-Europeans, from Basques to Caucasian Iberia, are ''modern'' discussions. ''Modern'' Georgian ''Urrecht'' in Georgia is all-too-easily used to justify "majority" Georgian treatment of "outsiders" in Georgia, and make claims to be European, which will come in handy with the EU in the near future User:Wetman 23:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ==NPOV dispute== I've added an NPOV dispute header to this page. This article is a Georgian nationalist attempt to try to prove that Georgians are natives to the Caucasus region, an attempt that is spilling over into far too many pages. User:RickK 02:05, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) I don't think you have to be so accusative, it is simply a POV from a different culture and that is all. Who is to say which POV is right? Scientific investigation alone. User:Zestauferov 09:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) User:RickK's NPOV dispute header from 18 Feb is still in force. This article has hugely improved, IMHO. Which statements still keep this entry from being a featured entry? When can the notice be deleted? User:Wetman 16:55, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC) :I have objections to dropping the NPOV header; there have been no significant changes to this article for over 6 weeks. -- User:Llywrch 20:42, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Pelasgians & Modern Cultures== Ugh. I've been accumulating materials to bring this article up to date, & one interesting fact I've encountered is that scholars of several different nations -- from the Georgian Republic, Turkey, & Albania under Enver Hoxha -- all claimed that they were the modern Pelasgians. And then there is Robert Graves' White Goddess, whom Graves argues at length was a feature of Pelasgian culture. Now they can't all be right. If only I had to time to integrate this. -- User:Llywrch 04:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) Genetically the Turks are right. Science has proven there is no evidence to suggest that there is a significant difference in population of Asia minor now than from the time of the Hurrians and before. They simply changed their language. Albanians maybe the same but again their language is different. thus they can all be right from a certain point of view.User:Zestauferov 09:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) :Interesting. As I recall, there were three waves of Anatolian colonization by outsiders -- the early Greek, the Roman, and (of course) the Turkish -- so I'd think there would have been quite a lot of genetic mixing. Were genetic studies done to confirm the connection between modern Turks and ancient Hurrians, or was it something else? (And are there ''no'' genetic relationships between the Anatolian Turks and the central Asian Turks?) I'd like to look this up; do you have any references handy? --User:MirvUser talk:Mirv 10:12, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) unfortunately you have t pay for th full text http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=synergy&synergyAction=showAbstract&doi=10.1034/j.1399-0039.2002.600201.x&area=production&prevSearch=%2Ballfield%3Ahla%2B%2Ballfield%3Amacedonian if you are lucky you can sometimes find it on a google catch for free by searching the terms Hurrian HLA genetic turkish. :o) User:Zestauferov 10:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) :I mention the Turkish argument only because it is the least defensible. The Turkish people are recorded as entering the Anatolian region in the 10th century, at the earliest; the Pelasgian peoples settled around the Aegean Sea no later than 1000 BC. And the basis for the identification of the Pelasgians with the later Turks is based on one scholar's interpretation of an inscription found on the island of Lemnos -- which has been more convincingly connnected with the Etruscan language. :And stating that "Genetically the Turks are right" is disingenuous. With few exceptions (North America being the best known), the genetic material of the majority of present inhabitants in any region of the world is largely identical with the genetic material of previous inhabitants for thousands of years before; immigration & the displacement of peoples until recent times has never introduced enough newcomers to any signifcantly large area to make a genetic difference. And in the case of the Turks, it is not unreasonable to assume many can trace their ancestory to individuals who learned Trukish & converted to Islam, whose ancestors learned Greek & converted to Christianity, et cetera. From that perspective, of course there is a genetic connection -- at least for Turkish people in the Balkans & along the Aegean Sea. -- User:Llywrch 17:03, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::But the argument from ''genetics'' is very revealing, is it not! ''Urrecht'' User:Wetman 23:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) not so much urrecht as proof that conflicting populations (like those in the east mediterranean) are much more closely related to each other than perhaps they would like to imagine.User:Zestauferov 08:43, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::Now ''that's'' a good point, Zestauferov! User:Wetman 10:40, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) ----- ''Modern scholars sometimes extend the term "Pelasgian" to describe the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of "Old Europe" and Asia Minor, even including the Caucasus. Such cultures occupied Crete and the Cyclades, but Greek writers didn't make a connection.'' What is not factually true, that this should be erased by Levsur, the ''Press Officer for Zviad Gamsakhurdia''? :Please note that I am not "Press Officer". I am professional historian, PhD in History, Fellow of the International Academy for Intercultural Research, author of 70 scientific-research works in the fields of history of the Caucasian peoples, source studies of the history of Georgia and the Caucasus, etc. Your wording is not accepted in the scientific literature. Please note also that the first President of the Republic of Georgia, Dr. Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia (1939-1993) was a well-known scientist. User:Levzur 20 Feb 2004 ''Note to readers'' User:Levzur has his very own page among the Problem Users: Wikipedia:Conflicts_between_users/Levzur will give an idea. His own user page will also give the reader a clear picture of this contributor's agenda. ---- My proposed rewrite addresses a number of things: *Separates the fact (''what do the sources consider Pelasgian?'') from the theories (''what do the scholars consider Pelasgian?''); *Adds items that are considered related to the Pelasgians; *Adds more theories -- at least the best-known ones. I removed some of the material in the Pelasgians == Caucasians theory because it didn't explain the arguments provided for this equation. (I would expect this to set forth evidence like artefacts recovered in the different locales that are similar, similarities in language or mythology of the two peoples.) -- User:Llywrch 23:41, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Succinct appraisal from 1995: prof tells all!== Anyone struggling here will be surprised to read :''Many (if not most) Georgians tend to suffer from a naïve belief that the frontiers of Georgia as presently recognised have always encompassed a Georgian state -- some carry this to extremes and feel that territory either occupied by any group of Kartvelians or subject to Georgian control at any time in the past remains in some sense God-given Georgian land. I firmly believe that part of the country's present troubles can be traced to this view, and external observers should strenuously guard against falling prey to the same assumption.'' —B. G. Hewitt, Professor of Caucasian Languages in the University of London, adapted from an Oxford seminar lecture, "Georgia: contemporary life and politics", 20 May 1995. On-line lecture (excellent background) at http://www.abkhazia.org/georgia.html :The article of Prof. Hewitt has a very subjective character. He is a pro-separatist, pro-Abkhazian scientist. His ideas are not accepted by majority of other scholars. User:Levzur 22 Feb 2004 ::Do you mean not accepted outside Georgia or inside Georgia or anywhere?User:Zestauferov 01:40, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC) :::Both outside and inside Georgia. User:Levzur 22 Feb 2004 :: The linguist [http://www.idica.org/Personalia/hewitt.html Dr. Brian George Hewitt], besides not being an ethnic Georgian, is "Honorary Consul for Abkhazia." He is indeed as critical of Georgians as his quote that matches our experience right on these pages indicates. User:Wetman 10:40, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- I'm puzzled about 2 changes made to this article since my proposed re-write: 1. The addition of the sentence stating that the Pelasgians were "also one of the ancient peoples of Asia Minor." Obviously, the Greeks were also inhabitants of Asia Minor -- as late as the 1920s -- so I'm not clear why it is important to make this point. 2. The addition of material at the end of the article concerning the Halyzones & the Chalcis. At first glance, this seems to be irrelevant. (So Homer, who is cited in this article, knew about these people; Herodotus, who is also cited in this article, knew about the Egyptians & Nubians -- should they also be mentioned in this article?) How are they important? We can always have a link to the Halyzones if they are of some non-crucial relevance to this article. -- User:Llywrch 00:19, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC) =="Albanian"== ''"groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and dwelt in several locations in Anatolia, the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece, as neighbors of the Hellenes. Pelasgians spoke a language different from the Greeks which might be modern Albanian."'' No, it just ''couldn't'' have been modern Albanian: even the possibly connections are conjectural. Can't we leave the distraction of modern Albania out of this already rather complicated and highly contended picture, please? User:Wetman 19:23, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) :Wetman, what do you know about Albania and Albanians sothat you can argue so easily they have NO connections with ancient pelasgians ? Tell us please ? You have yet one point : it is enough a complicated matter which can surely be solve by modern Albanians who have kept since many centuries their own language which remains the oldest in Europe !!!! (Anonymously entered by User:213.246.208.166) ::nonsense. Albanian is one of the latest attested languages in Europe, and nobody knows what the language of the ancestors of the Albanians sounded like, at a time when the libraries were full of latin and greek texts, and even at a time when Romance, English, German literatures began to flourish. There is simply no connection between Albanians and the term "Pelasgian" other than pure speculation. Live with it, and add your knowledge to articles that actually ''are'' about Albanians. User:Dbachmann 11:18, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC) ( In fact the two modern Albanian language forms are members of the Indo-European language family, as is Greek. This was demonstrated by the German philologist Franz Bopp in a work published in 1854, I understand. The connection of Albanian language to other IE languages is not very clear to this day, for Albanian is the sole modern survivor of a whole subgroup of Indo-European languages, which split away from other groups before the speakers of these languages arrived in the Aegean basin and the Balkans. The more naive among us imagine that because the ''root-group'' was separate at an early date, that means modern ''Albanian'' itself is ancient. : Actually, Albanian had suffered many changes from what used to be 2000 years ago (unlike some languages that are said to be old, such as Lithuanian). For example, borrowing from Latin "somnus", after the sound-changes of the Middle Ages, came out as "gjumë". User:Bogdangiusca | User talk:Bogdangiusca 10:36, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC) A few brief written records in Albanian are preserved from the 15th century, the first being a baptismal formula from 1462. Only graffiti and personal and placenames are earlier, though Albanian folklore enthusiasts attribute extravagant antiquity to the Albanian oral tradition. Of authentically ancient languages, the connections of modern Albanian to both Dacian or Illyrian are very tentative, though Albanian nationalists read a great deal into popularized reports of some fragmentary hints. "Pelasgian," by the very definition of the term, applies to the former peoples in the Aegean Basin and elsewhere, who were speaking ''pre-''Indo-European languages: the only modern survivor of such languages in Europe is Basque— not Albanian. Albanian supernationalists are ''not'' the dependable arbiters of language history as User:213.246.208.166 asserts: for their fanciful boasting there is an Albanian Wikipedia. [http://www.albanian.com/main/culture/language/classification.html www.albanian.com] provides some highly simplified basic information. Voegelin and Voegelin, ''Classification and Index Of the World's Languages'' (1977) is standard, and M. Ruhlen, ''A Guide to the World's Languages'' (1987) is somewhat speculative as far as linguistic supergroups are concerned. I am no more a linguist than our would-be anonymous User:213.246.208.166 let me add. I merely report the universal professional opinion. --User:Wetman 11:35, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC) ) :IAAL (i am a linguist, though not specialized on Albanian), and let me add to Wetmans entirely correct summary that many would not even consider the split of proto-Albanian from Indo-European particlularly early. The fact that Albanian is difficult to classify within IE is more likely due to its hopelessly late attestation, and (while there are vestiges of an independent IE branch) its heavy "balkanisation", meaning the layers and layers of transformations induced by contact with other languages. User:Dbachmann 11:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC) What are you trying to say Wetman that Albanians just sprung up in 1500 ? If so from where.... Hopefully dab you can wipe off some of those dusty layers of balkanization and find for the rest of us the treasure of truthUser:Xhamlliku (Any reader who understands that we are talking about the late attestation of the Albanian language in surviving mss, not about people who doubtless trace their ancestry from Adam himself, will excuse me from reponding. --User:Wetman 00:20, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)) == All this Caucas bullsh*t == Is there any proof whatsoever of a link between Pelasgian and the Caucasus languages? No, there isn't, so what is all this mumbling and bumbling about. User:Decius 07:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) :indeed, I would be obliged if you could clean it out. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 08:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I've been wounded in previous battle in this very place, but I encourage you with gestures from my wheelchair... --User:Wetman 10:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Pelasgian, Indo-European connection == Vladimir Georgiev (a Thracologist) back in the 1960s or 70's published his hypothesis that Pelasgian was Indo-European. That idea should be represented. See also Paleo-Balkan languages. I'll give a summary of his theory as soon as I read his essay. User:Decius 08:59, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Claim that Pelasgian is a Greek dialect == *User:128.113.201.75 inserted a claim that "Pelasgians spoke a language that was only different from Hellenic in a dialectical sense" etc. which I have removed as speculation. If there is any evidence for this or the rest of the insertion, let's discuss it in Talk before putting it into the article, please. --User:Macrakis 13:47, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC) **Pelasgians are defenitely not Indo europeans.They are posibly from Balcan refuge in the last glacial maximum.Latest findings from megalitic culture in Macedonia and some findings in Macedonian tombs are pure proof that Macedonians and Tracians are descendants of Pelasgians.This is geneticaly acceptable regarding 20 % of Paleolitic genes in Balcan populations.These findings can explain closenes of ancient agean languages. - anonymous user **Some of the peoples Homer called Pelasgian seem to have spoken Greek; so did his Trojans. I think this is covered in the article. User:Pmanderson 22:32, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) :That info about Thracians and Macedonians being descendants of Pelasgians sounds very interesting, and I'd like to hear more about the evidence. From what I've seen, Macedonians and especially Thracians are still generally regarded as Indo-European (generally). Do you mean only descended genetically or also linguistically? User:Decius 21:21, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Not mine, and I don't believe that it is the sort of thing pre-literate archaeology ''can'' prove. Macedonian (and IIRC Thracian) exists in inscriptions. Macedonian is IE; the controversy is whether it is close enough to Greek to count as a Greek dialect. The present vein of scholarship is being added by someone who denies that Albanian is IE. User:Pmanderson 18:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I know the situation concerning the Ancient Macedonian language quite well. I just wanted that user to further define his claim and cite evidence. I don't question whether ancient Macedonian was IE, but it has been questioned by serious linguists (forgot their names though). Also, Thracian may or may not have been IE in the classic sense---it is still being investigated. User:Decius 06:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Miscellaneous assertions ==
The following, recently added, seems unfounded, uninformed by reading the rest of the article, or already better covered:''"It has to be noted however that Strabo is the one that does justice to the argument of the Pelasgians. According to Strabo the Pelasgians and the Greeks might have the same origins. It is Socrates who once said that the origin of the greek words and one might infer even the alphabet has been taken from the Pelasgians. Furthermore Pelasgians are identified more or less with the present Illyrian territories, which comprise up to south Epirus(present day Greece) by Strabo. The Pelasgians are also credited for the invention of the Olympic Games."''. (User:Wetman 17:55, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC))
This paragraph also to be neither English nor NPOV; let him salvage from it who can:
:''However it is equally interesting how much attention scholars pay to greek government founded propaganda without even studying Albanian and relying on scandalistic comments about a member of french highest academia. Mayani is not the only person that linked pelasgian with albanian. In fact the albanians that live for centeruies in Italy and Greece believe themselves as the truest descendants of this pre-hellenic race. Aristides P. Kollias in his books writes that the Pelasgian race is the progenitor race of greeks and latins, and albanians are the only ones that preserved the words as studies from Vlora Falaschi, Giuseppe Catapano, Stanislao Marchiano, Jean Cloude Faverial, Robert D'Angely, Aristides P. Kolias, Eqrem Cabej and many others have clearly shown. Socrates as many others clearly invite the scholars of that time to find the truest roots of the greek words from the "barbarians", and in fact many of the persons above have clearly shown that there is far more similiarity in terms of structure of ancient greek with albanian or arvanite dialect rather then with modern greek. The theory of the symbiosis of races seems to explain remarkably well the so called doric invasion as well. Recently another french scholar, Mathieu Aref has explained remarkably the history of the earliest greeks, the so called pelasgo-albanians. (See references for details)''
with regards User:Pmanderson 22:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
==So who was Zacharia Mayani and why was Enver Hoxha touting him?==
I googled "Zacharia Mayani" and got translations of the same nonsense entered here. Nothing else. Not a mention of Zacharia Mayani the famous scholar on all the Internet otherwise? And the Albanian boss Hoxha: why has he been deleted? Too embarassing? This entry is filling with various nationalist pseudoscience. What shall we do about it? I do think the modern nationalist "spin" is an important element: it may have more to do with post-Communist ideologies than with the pre-Indo-European Aegean. --User:Wetman 06:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I don't know too much about Mayani other than what it says in his article, but he does not qualify as 'famous'. Origin of Albanians discusses some of this stuff in its Pelasgic origin section, though that section contains new dubious edits. User:Decius 21:26, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Zacharia Mayani has essentially everything I could find on the Internet. None of it is confirmable. What makes Mayani a linguistics scholar rather than a journalist, for instance? --User:Wetman 22:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I looked through the history of the Origin of Albanians article and confirmed that the initial material on Zacharia Mayani & Hoxha was added into the article by User:Bogdangiusca on 19:35 28 Aug 2004. If I don't find info on Mayani later on today, I'll ask Bogdan about his source. User:Decius 22:30, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I punched in "Zachariah Mayani, Albanian" (added an 'h' to Zacharia) into Google and some relevant sites came up. User:Decius 22:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Even better seems to be if you type in Zacharie Mayani, a more French spelling. User:Decius 22:57, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Right! I've even moved the page to Zacharie Mayani. Thanks, Decius. --User:Wetman 01:25, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Pelasgian is a predicate to one of Pelasgic descent. Pelasgians are the proto-Hellenes, i.e. the ancient ancestors of the ancient Greeks. Pelasghia is a lady's name in Greece. User Pelasgian is a mechatronic software developer from Greece. I am about to create a not-for-profit non-governmental organisation for the purposes of improving the European business competitiveness through agile automatic production systems.
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Pelasgian:
Pelasgian
Pelasgian
Pelasgian
Pelasgian
Pelasgians
Pelasgians
Pelasgian
Ancient Greek writers used the name \"Pelasgian\" to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean as neighbors of the Hellenes. Pelasgians spoke a language different from the Greeks. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the Greeks, and in recent times it may refer to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of Anatolia as well. == Classical Greek uses of "Pelasgian" == The name "Pelasgians" first appears in the poems of Homer: the Pelasgians appear in the ''Iliad'' among the allies of Troy. In the section known to scholars as '' The Catalogue of Ships'', which otherwise preserves a strict geographical order, they stand between the Hellespontine cities and the Thracians of south-east Europe, i.e. on the Hellespontine border of Thrace (2.840-843). Homer calls their town or district "Larissa" and characterises it as fertile, and its inhabitants as celebrated for their spearsmanship. He records their chiefs as Hippothous and Pylaeus, sons of Lethus son of Teutamus. ''Iliad'', 10.428-429, describes their camping ground between the town of Troy and the sea. ''Odyssey'', 17.175-177, places the Pelasgians in Crete, together with two apparently indigenous and two immigrant peoples (Achaeans and Dorians), but gives no indication to which class the Pelasgians belong. Lemnos (''Iliad'', 7.467; 14. 230) has no Pelasgians, but a Minyans dynasty. Two other passages (''Iliad'', 2.681-684; 16.233-235) apply the epithet "Pelasgic" to a district called Argos about Mount Othrys in southern Thessaly, and to the temple of Zeus at Dodona. But neither passage mentions actual Pelasgians; Hellenes and Achaeans specifically people the Thessalian Argos, and Dodona hosts Perrhaebians and Aenianes (''Iliad'', 2.750) who are nowhere described as Pelasgian. It looks therefore as if "Pelasgian" were here used connotatively, to mean either "formerly occupied by Pelasgians" or simply "of immemorial age." Strabo quotes Hesiod as expanding on the Homeric phrase, calling Dodona "seat of Pelasgians" (fr. 225); he speaks also of an eponymous Pelasgus, the father of the culture-hero of Arcadia, Lycaon. After Hesiod, a number of early authors flesh out his brief statement. An early genealogist, Asius, describes Pelasgus as the first man, literally born of the earth to create a race of men. An early poet, Hecataeus, makes Pelasgus king of Thessaly (expounding ''Iliad'', 2.681-684); Acusilaus applies this Homeric passage to the Peloponnesian Argos, and engrafts the Hesiodic Pelasgus, father of Lycaon, into a Peloponnesian genealogy. Hellanicus repeats this identification a generation later, and identifies this Argive or Arcadian Pelasgus with the Thessalian Pelasgus of Hecataeus. Aeschylus regards Pelasgus as earthborn (''Supplices'' I, sqq.), as in Asius, and ruler of a kingdom stretching from Argos to Dodona and the Strymon; but in ''Prometheus'' 879, the "Pelasgian" land simply means Argos. Sophocles takes the same view (Inac/jus, fragment. 256) and for the first time introduces the word "Tyrrhenian" (bringing the Etruscans) into the story, apparently as synonymous with "Pelasgians". Herodotus, like Homer, has a denotative as well as a connotative use. He describes actual Pelasgians surviving and speaking mutually intelligible dialects * at Placie and Scylace on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont * near Creston on the Strymon; in this area they have "Tyrrhenian" neighbors (''Persian Wars'' 1.57). He alludes to other districts where Pelasgian peoples lived on under changed names; Samothrace and Antandrus in Troas probably provide instances of this. In discussing Lemnos and Gokceada and Bozcaada (Imbros and Tenedos) he describes a Pelasgian population whom the Athens s conquered only shortly before 500 BC, and in connection with this he tells a story of earlier raids of these Pelasgians on Attica, and of a temporary settlement there of Hellespontine Pelasgians, all dating from a time "when the Athenians were first beginning to count as Greeks." Elsewhere "Pelasgian" in Herodotus connotes anything typical of, or surviving from, the state of things in Greece before the coming of the Greeks. (In this sense one could regard all Greece as formerly "Pelasgic".) The clearest instances of Pelasgian survivals in ritual and customs and antiquities occur in Arcadia, the "Ionian" districts of the north-west Peloponnese, and Attica, which have suffered least from hellenization. In Athens itself the prehistoric wall of the Acropolis and a plot of ground close below it received veneration in the 5th century as "Pelasgian"; so too Thucydides (2.17). We may note that all Herodotus' examples of actual Pelasgi lie round, or near, the actual Pelasgi of Homeric Thrace; that the testimony of Thucydides (4.106) confirms the most distant of these as to the Pelasgian and Tyrrhenian population of the adjacent seaboard: also that Thucydides adopts the same general Pelasgian theory of early Greece, with the refinement that he regards the Pelasgian name as originally specific, and as having come gradually into this generic use. The historian Ephorus preserves a passage from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, and developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a warrior-people spreading from a "Pelasgian home", and annexing and colonizing all the parts of Greece where earlier writers had found allusions to them, from Dodona to Crete and the Troad, and even as far as Italy, where again their settlements had been recognized as early as the time of Hellanicus, in close connection once more with "Tyrrhenians." The copious additional information given by later writers all either interprets local legends in the light of Ephorus's theory, or explains the name "Pelasgoi"; as when Philochorus expands a popular etymology "stork-folk" into a theory of their seasonal migrations; or Apollodorus says that Homer calls Zeus 'Pelasgian' "because he is not far from every one of us". The connection with Tyrrhenians which began with Hellanicus, Herodotus and Sophocles becomes confusion with them in the 3rd century, when the Lemnian pirates and their Attic kinsmen become plainly styled as Tyrrhenians, and early fortress-walls in Italy (like those on the Palatine Hill in Rome) appear as "Arcadian" colonies. The character of the ancient citadel wall at Athens, Greece has given the name "Pelasgic masonry" to all constructions of large, unhewn blocks fitted together with mortar, from Asia Minor to Spain, the massive character one might similarly call "cyclopean". === Modern theories === From a tribal name, both Classical historians and archeologists have come to use the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants in the lands around the Aegean Sea and their descendants before the arrival of the waves of Greek-speaking invaders during the 2nd millennium BC. The results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart (1955) and F. Schachermeyr (1979) led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the 4th millennium BC. Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians: *Groups of non-Indo-European loan words in the Greek language, borrowed in its prehistoric development *Non-Greek place names in the region containing the consonantal strings "-nth-" (e.g. Corinth, Probalinthos), or its equivalent "-ns-" (e.g. Tiryns), or "-tt-" in the peninsula of Attica, or with "-ss-" (e.g. Larissa), or "-en-" (e.g. Athens, Mycenae, Cyllene). *Certain mythology stories or deities (usually goddesses) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, Celts or Indians. *A small number of non-Greek inscriptions, the best-known found on Lemnos (the Lemnos stele). These inscriptions use a version of the western Greek alphabet similar to that used in the Old Italic alphabet employed for Etruscan inscriptions. Not all of these features belong to the same people. For example, some evidence suggests that the "-ss-" placenames may have come from a language related to Hittite (for example: Parnassus may be related to the Hittite word ''parna-'' or "house"). Because of insufficient evidence from the 2nd millennium BC, no consensus exists on the relationship of these "Pelasgian" elements to their neighbors -- although much speculation has taken place, sometimes fueled by a desire for association with some of the earliest known inhabitants of Europe. But much is not known about the Pelasgians, and may never be known. As Donald A. Mackenzie, writes (in ''Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe,'' 1917, page 75): :"Before these [Hellenic] invaders entered into possession of the country [of Greece] it had been divided between various 'barbarous tribes', including the Pelasgi and their congeners the Caucones and Leleges. Connop Thirlwall, among others, expressed the view 'that the name Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni, and that each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself'. The Hellenes did not exterminate the aborigines, but constituted a military aristocracy. Aristotle was quoted to show that their original seat was near Dodona, in Epirus, and that they first appeared in Thessaly about 1384 B.C. It was believed that the Hellenic conquerors laid the foundation of Greek civilization." Mackenzie continues, quoting George Grote: :"By what circumstances, or out of what pre-existing elements, the aggregate was brought together and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit. There are, indeed, various names affirmed to designate the ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece — the Pelasgi, the Leleges, the Curetes, the Caucones, the Aones, the Temmikes, the Hyas, the Telchines, the Boeotian Thrace, the Teleboae, the Ephyri, the Phlegyae, &c. These ae names belonging to legendary, not to historical Greece — extracted out of a variety of conflicting legends by the logographer (history) and subsequent historians, who strung together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood. That these names designated real nations may be true but here our knowledge ends." The poet and mythologist Robert Graves, in his works on Greek Mythology, asserts that certain elements of that mythology originate with the native Pelasgian people — namely the parts related to his concept of the White Goddess, an archetype goddess worship — drawing additional support for his conclusion from his interpretations of other ancient literature: Irish literature, Welsh literature, Greek, Bible, Gnosticism, and Middle Ages writings. Mainstream scholarship considers Robert Graves' thesis at best controversial, although certain literary circles and many neo-paganism groups have accepted it. The French author Zacharie Mayani (1899 - ) put forth a thesis that the Etruscan language had links to the Albanian language. This thesis places the Albanian language outside the Indo-European group of languages sharing one branch with Etruscans as well as ancient Greek. Nermin Vlora Falaschi published a translation of the Lemnos stele on this basis, with the help of Arvanite Albanian. The references below by Falaschi, Catapano, Marchiano, Faverial, D'Angely, Kolias, and Cabej support this point of view. A Turkish scholar, Polat Kaya, has recently offered a translation of one of the Lemnos stele, based on his theory that it reflects a language related to Turkish language. However, in the period of the putative date of the inscription the Turkish people lived several thousand miles away in southeastern Siberia. They began to migrate westward only about AD 300, a fact that has hindered acceptance of Kaya's translation. This theory is almost unanimously rejected by the scholarship. Some Georgia (country) scholars (including M.G. Tseretheli, R.V. Gordeziani, M. Abdushelishvili, and Dr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia) connect the Pelasgian with the Iberian-Caucasian peoples cultures of the prehistoric Caucasus, known to the Greeks as Colchis. This may sound plausible since there were many autochtonic Caucasian peoples dwelling in Anatolia such as the Hattians before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. === Links and references === These references include both mainstream scholarship and fringe theories. * M.G. Abdushelishvili. ''The genesis of the aboriginal population of the Caucasus in the light of anthropological data'', Tokyo, 1968 * Milan Budimir, ''The Greeks and Pelasti (1950)'' * Milan Budimir, ''Pelasto - Slavica'' (1956) * E.J. Furnee. ''Vorgriechisch-Kartvelisches: Studium zum ostmediterranen Subtrat nebst einem Versuch zu einer neuen pelasgischen Theorie'', Leuven-Louvian, 1979 * Rismag Gordeziani. ''Pre-Grecian and Georgian'', Tbilisi, 1985 (in Georgian, German summary) * Donald A. Mackenzie, ''Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe'', 1917 [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/moc/index.htm reviewed] * J. Melaart. ''The Neolithic of the Near East'', London, 1975 * F. Schachermeyr. ''Die Ägäische Frühzeit. Forschungsbericht über die Ausgrabungen im letzten Jahrzehnt und über ihre Ergebnisse für unser Geschichtsbild. Bd. I. Die Vormykenischen Perioden des Griechischen Festlandes und der Kykladen,'' Vienna, 1979 * Akaki Urushadze. ''The Country of the Enchantress Media'', Tbilisi, 1984, 25 pp (in Russian and English) * Aristeidē P. Kollia. "Arvanites kai hē katagōgē tōn Hellēnōn : historikē, laographikē, politistikē, glōssologikē episkopisē '', Athens : [A.P. Kollias], 1985, [i.e. 1986] * Robert d'Angély. ''Des Thraces & des Illyriens à Homère'' Nicariu, Corsica : Cismonte è Pumonti, c1990 * Robert d'Angély. ''Grammaire albanaise comparée'' Paris : [Solange d'Angély], 1998 * Nermin Vlora Falaschi. ''L'Etrusco lingua viva'' Roma : Bardi, 1989 * Giuseppe Catapano. ''Thot Parlava Albanese'' Roma : Bardi, 1988 * Marchiano Stanislao. ''I Pelasgi e la loro lingua'' (1888) * Mathieu Aref. ''Albanie ou l'incroyable odyssée d'un peuple préhellénique'' (2003) * Mathieu Aref. ''Grèce : (Mycéniens = Pélasges) ou la solution d'une énigme'' (2004) == See also == *Pre-Indo-Europeans *Leleges *Paleo-Balkan languages Ancient Greece pre-Indo-Europeans Ancient history Anatolia
Pelasgian
''Pelasgians was a name applied by Greek writers to one of most ancient peoples of Asia Minor.'' This is simply not true. Why is the entry on Pelasgians being slanted to conform to such an aggressively provincial point-of-view? This entry won't be honest until it can deal first with ancient Greeks' use of "Pelasgian". Then in a modern section, the entry could explain the pseudoarchaeology and race theory of modern Georgian academicians and why it relates to "Pelasgians". As it stands it is dishonest. If it can't be fixed, it must have a ''Caution'' sign.User:Wetman 02:27, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) ''Pelasgians is a name applied by ancient Greek writers to a group of people who dwelled in several locations as neighbors of the Greeks, and spoke a different language.'' This revised formula is still misleading. "Pelasgians" is a name applied by Greeks to the autochthonous inhabitants of Greece. They did not connect "Pelasgians" with any peoples of Anatolia, except as colonists from Pelasgian areas of Greece. Some places, like Lemnos, retained their Pelasgian culture. Herodotus and Pausanias have plenty to say about "Pelasgians." Search "Pelasgian" and "Pelasgus" at the [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ Perseus Encyclopedia]. Greeks knew a "Pelasgian creation myth" as Robert Graves expressed it in ''Greek Myths''. Whether Greek writers knew of this myth in a language that was not Greek-- that I don't know. Classical Greek writers and later ones like Pausanias mentioned localities where people spoke a non-Greek language in Greece. A handful of modern writers concerned with ''Urrecht'' bolster slender over-reaching speculative theories by co-opting a Greek name for pre-Mycenaean cultures in Greece. So let them go on with the theories as they like, but let us have a normal, sober entry on Pelasgians. User:Wetman 13:56, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::Dear User:Wetman, Pelasgians were one of most ancient peoples of Asia Minor! This is true: Pelasgians were pre-Greecian, non-IndoEuropean population of Aegean basin. They migrated from Asia Minor. It is not "pseudoarchaeology" and "race theory" of modern Georgian academicians! You know results of archaeological excavations? You know very important results of modern linguistic investigations? You know Georgian sources?... User:Levzur 16 Feb 2004 :The appelation "Pelasgians" was ''only'' applied by Greek writers to the original inhabitants of Greece, whom we now would say were "pre-Indo-European". The "original" inhabitants, if that means anything. The statement ''Pelasgians was a name applied by Greek writers to one of most ancient peoples of Asia Minor'' is false. The appelation ''Pelasgian'' is currently being applied by a group of Georgian academicians whose "very important results of modern linguistic investigations" are so unusual, that Wikipedia's readers are owed a little explanation, simply as a ''courtesy''. The entry as it stands is quite consciously misleading. The unspoken Georgian agenda is all about "proving" that Georgians were Georgians in Georgia from the beginning of time, is it not? That may be true. So were the Basques in Basque country, no doubt. Leave the Pelasgians out of it, and don't make dishonest connections, User:Wetman 04:11, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::This is an ongoing problem with other articles as well...kind of reminds me of Chekov on Star Trek saying everything was Russian :) User:Adam Bishop 06:12, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) Adam, Wetman does not realise that when archaeologists refer to ancient greece they are not talking only about one side of the Bosphorus. His comments are thus misleading.User:Zestauferov 09:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) :When classical Greeks referred to Greece they did not mean non-Hellenic cultures in Anatolia such as Phrygia and Cappadocia (places that were quite "Hellenized" by the 1st century CE). They ''did'' mean Ionia and the Aegean. They didn't ordinarily mean the thoroughly Hellenic culture of Sicily and Magna Graecia. Zestauferov's contributions tally reveals whether he is ever consistently a contributor in non-contentious entries. User:Wetman 23:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- Compare these two opening paragraphs. Former version:Pelasgians was a name applied by Greek writers to the autochthonous aboriginal inhabitants of Greece. The term is now being extended to include the pre-Indo-European dwellers in the Aegean basin and even further abroad. Georgian politician and writer Zviad Gamsakhurdia (''The Spiritual Mission of Georgia'') applies the term "Pelasgians" to the Georgians, one of the most ancient peoples of Asia Minor. User:Levsur's version: Pelasgians were one of the most ancient, non-IndoEuropean peoples of Asia Minor and Greece. They migrated to Greece in the 4th millennium BC. One of the sad inheritances of a corrupt and authoritarian indoctrination is the utterly cynical view that ''history is merely a tool of propaganda''. Educated Westerners are disgusted by this approach. Post-Soviet apologists don't see what the problem is. Every word of the first text is careful, neutral and accurate.User:Wetman 03:01, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::Dear User:Wetman, Firs of all, I am not "Post-Soviet apologist"! I am historian. Main fields of my activity are: 1. source studies of the history of the Caucasus and 2. history of the Caucasian peoples. It is fact, that you not know important Georgian sources, investigations of Georgian scholars, results of archaeological excavation on the territory of Georgia and the Caucasus. Dr. Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia was outstanding Georgian scientist, not only writer! User:Levzur 17 Feb 2004 Levzur try very hard not to be taunted by Wetman's comments. He only does it te get angry responses and such behaviour is not worth wasting time and attention on. The correction of the paragraph should have been simply to omit the part about the migration into Greece. :"Pelasgians" is an ''ancient'' Greek term for pre-Hellenic autochthonous ("aboriginal") inhabitants of Greece. Where they came from is debated by ''modern'' archaeologists. Their connections with other pre-Indo-Europeans, from Basques to Caucasian Iberia, are ''modern'' discussions. ''Modern'' Georgian ''Urrecht'' in Georgia is all-too-easily used to justify "majority" Georgian treatment of "outsiders" in Georgia, and make claims to be European, which will come in handy with the EU in the near future User:Wetman 23:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ==NPOV dispute== I've added an NPOV dispute header to this page. This article is a Georgian nationalist attempt to try to prove that Georgians are natives to the Caucasus region, an attempt that is spilling over into far too many pages. User:RickK 02:05, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) I don't think you have to be so accusative, it is simply a POV from a different culture and that is all. Who is to say which POV is right? Scientific investigation alone. User:Zestauferov 09:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) User:RickK's NPOV dispute header from 18 Feb is still in force. This article has hugely improved, IMHO. Which statements still keep this entry from being a featured entry? When can the notice be deleted? User:Wetman 16:55, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC) :I have objections to dropping the NPOV header; there have been no significant changes to this article for over 6 weeks. -- User:Llywrch 20:42, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Pelasgians & Modern Cultures== Ugh. I've been accumulating materials to bring this article up to date, & one interesting fact I've encountered is that scholars of several different nations -- from the Georgian Republic, Turkey, & Albania under Enver Hoxha -- all claimed that they were the modern Pelasgians. And then there is Robert Graves' White Goddess, whom Graves argues at length was a feature of Pelasgian culture. Now they can't all be right. If only I had to time to integrate this. -- User:Llywrch 04:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) Genetically the Turks are right. Science has proven there is no evidence to suggest that there is a significant difference in population of Asia minor now than from the time of the Hurrians and before. They simply changed their language. Albanians maybe the same but again their language is different. thus they can all be right from a certain point of view.User:Zestauferov 09:55, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) :Interesting. As I recall, there were three waves of Anatolian colonization by outsiders -- the early Greek, the Roman, and (of course) the Turkish -- so I'd think there would have been quite a lot of genetic mixing. Were genetic studies done to confirm the connection between modern Turks and ancient Hurrians, or was it something else? (And are there ''no'' genetic relationships between the Anatolian Turks and the central Asian Turks?) I'd like to look this up; do you have any references handy? --User:MirvUser talk:Mirv 10:12, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) unfortunately you have t pay for th full text http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=synergy&synergyAction=showAbstract&doi=10.1034/j.1399-0039.2002.600201.x&area=production&prevSearch=%2Ballfield%3Ahla%2B%2Ballfield%3Amacedonian if you are lucky you can sometimes find it on a google catch for free by searching the terms Hurrian HLA genetic turkish. :o) User:Zestauferov 10:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) :I mention the Turkish argument only because it is the least defensible. The Turkish people are recorded as entering the Anatolian region in the 10th century, at the earliest; the Pelasgian peoples settled around the Aegean Sea no later than 1000 BC. And the basis for the identification of the Pelasgians with the later Turks is based on one scholar's interpretation of an inscription found on the island of Lemnos -- which has been more convincingly connnected with the Etruscan language. :And stating that "Genetically the Turks are right" is disingenuous. With few exceptions (North America being the best known), the genetic material of the majority of present inhabitants in any region of the world is largely identical with the genetic material of previous inhabitants for thousands of years before; immigration & the displacement of peoples until recent times has never introduced enough newcomers to any signifcantly large area to make a genetic difference. And in the case of the Turks, it is not unreasonable to assume many can trace their ancestory to individuals who learned Trukish & converted to Islam, whose ancestors learned Greek & converted to Christianity, et cetera. From that perspective, of course there is a genetic connection -- at least for Turkish people in the Balkans & along the Aegean Sea. -- User:Llywrch 17:03, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::But the argument from ''genetics'' is very revealing, is it not! ''Urrecht'' User:Wetman 23:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) not so much urrecht as proof that conflicting populations (like those in the east mediterranean) are much more closely related to each other than perhaps they would like to imagine.User:Zestauferov 08:43, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::Now ''that's'' a good point, Zestauferov! User:Wetman 10:40, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) ----- ''Modern scholars sometimes extend the term "Pelasgian" to describe the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of "Old Europe" and Asia Minor, even including the Caucasus. Such cultures occupied Crete and the Cyclades, but Greek writers didn't make a connection.'' What is not factually true, that this should be erased by Levsur, the ''Press Officer for Zviad Gamsakhurdia''? :Please note that I am not "Press Officer". I am professional historian, PhD in History, Fellow of the International Academy for Intercultural Research, author of 70 scientific-research works in the fields of history of the Caucasian peoples, source studies of the history of Georgia and the Caucasus, etc. Your wording is not accepted in the scientific literature. Please note also that the first President of the Republic of Georgia, Dr. Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia (1939-1993) was a well-known scientist. User:Levzur 20 Feb 2004 ''Note to readers'' User:Levzur has his very own page among the Problem Users: Wikipedia:Conflicts_between_users/Levzur will give an idea. His own user page will also give the reader a clear picture of this contributor's agenda. ---- My proposed rewrite addresses a number of things: *Separates the fact (''what do the sources consider Pelasgian?'') from the theories (''what do the scholars consider Pelasgian?''); *Adds items that are considered related to the Pelasgians; *Adds more theories -- at least the best-known ones. I removed some of the material in the Pelasgians == Caucasians theory because it didn't explain the arguments provided for this equation. (I would expect this to set forth evidence like artefacts recovered in the different locales that are similar, similarities in language or mythology of the two peoples.) -- User:Llywrch 23:41, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Succinct appraisal from 1995: prof tells all!== Anyone struggling here will be surprised to read :''Many (if not most) Georgians tend to suffer from a naïve belief that the frontiers of Georgia as presently recognised have always encompassed a Georgian state -- some carry this to extremes and feel that territory either occupied by any group of Kartvelians or subject to Georgian control at any time in the past remains in some sense God-given Georgian land. I firmly believe that part of the country's present troubles can be traced to this view, and external observers should strenuously guard against falling prey to the same assumption.'' —B. G. Hewitt, Professor of Caucasian Languages in the University of London, adapted from an Oxford seminar lecture, "Georgia: contemporary life and politics", 20 May 1995. On-line lecture (excellent background) at http://www.abkhazia.org/georgia.html :The article of Prof. Hewitt has a very subjective character. He is a pro-separatist, pro-Abkhazian scientist. His ideas are not accepted by majority of other scholars. User:Levzur 22 Feb 2004 ::Do you mean not accepted outside Georgia or inside Georgia or anywhere?User:Zestauferov 01:40, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC) :::Both outside and inside Georgia. User:Levzur 22 Feb 2004 :: The linguist [http://www.idica.org/Personalia/hewitt.html Dr. Brian George Hewitt], besides not being an ethnic Georgian, is "Honorary Consul for Abkhazia." He is indeed as critical of Georgians as his quote that matches our experience right on these pages indicates. User:Wetman 10:40, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- I'm puzzled about 2 changes made to this article since my proposed re-write: 1. The addition of the sentence stating that the Pelasgians were "also one of the ancient peoples of Asia Minor." Obviously, the Greeks were also inhabitants of Asia Minor -- as late as the 1920s -- so I'm not clear why it is important to make this point. 2. The addition of material at the end of the article concerning the Halyzones & the Chalcis. At first glance, this seems to be irrelevant. (So Homer, who is cited in this article, knew about these people; Herodotus, who is also cited in this article, knew about the Egyptians & Nubians -- should they also be mentioned in this article?) How are they important? We can always have a link to the Halyzones if they are of some non-crucial relevance to this article. -- User:Llywrch 00:19, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC) =="Albanian"== ''"groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and dwelt in several locations in Anatolia, the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece, as neighbors of the Hellenes. Pelasgians spoke a language different from the Greeks which might be modern Albanian."'' No, it just ''couldn't'' have been modern Albanian: even the possibly connections are conjectural. Can't we leave the distraction of modern Albania out of this already rather complicated and highly contended picture, please? User:Wetman 19:23, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) :Wetman, what do you know about Albania and Albanians sothat you can argue so easily they have NO connections with ancient pelasgians ? Tell us please ? You have yet one point : it is enough a complicated matter which can surely be solve by modern Albanians who have kept since many centuries their own language which remains the oldest in Europe !!!! (Anonymously entered by User:213.246.208.166) ::nonsense. Albanian is one of the latest attested languages in Europe, and nobody knows what the language of the ancestors of the Albanians sounded like, at a time when the libraries were full of latin and greek texts, and even at a time when Romance, English, German literatures began to flourish. There is simply no connection between Albanians and the term "Pelasgian" other than pure speculation. Live with it, and add your knowledge to articles that actually ''are'' about Albanians. User:Dbachmann 11:18, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC) ( In fact the two modern Albanian language forms are members of the Indo-European language family, as is Greek. This was demonstrated by the German philologist Franz Bopp in a work published in 1854, I understand. The connection of Albanian language to other IE languages is not very clear to this day, for Albanian is the sole modern survivor of a whole subgroup of Indo-European languages, which split away from other groups before the speakers of these languages arrived in the Aegean basin and the Balkans. The more naive among us imagine that because the ''root-group'' was separate at an early date, that means modern ''Albanian'' itself is ancient. : Actually, Albanian had suffered many changes from what used to be 2000 years ago (unlike some languages that are said to be old, such as Lithuanian). For example, borrowing from Latin "somnus", after the sound-changes of the Middle Ages, came out as "gjumë". User:Bogdangiusca | User talk:Bogdangiusca 10:36, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC) A few brief written records in Albanian are preserved from the 15th century, the first being a baptismal formula from 1462. Only graffiti and personal and placenames are earlier, though Albanian folklore enthusiasts attribute extravagant antiquity to the Albanian oral tradition. Of authentically ancient languages, the connections of modern Albanian to both Dacian or Illyrian are very tentative, though Albanian nationalists read a great deal into popularized reports of some fragmentary hints. "Pelasgian," by the very definition of the term, applies to the former peoples in the Aegean Basin and elsewhere, who were speaking ''pre-''Indo-European languages: the only modern survivor of such languages in Europe is Basque— not Albanian. Albanian supernationalists are ''not'' the dependable arbiters of language history as User:213.246.208.166 asserts: for their fanciful boasting there is an Albanian Wikipedia. [http://www.albanian.com/main/culture/language/classification.html www.albanian.com] provides some highly simplified basic information. Voegelin and Voegelin, ''Classification and Index Of the World's Languages'' (1977) is standard, and M. Ruhlen, ''A Guide to the World's Languages'' (1987) is somewhat speculative as far as linguistic supergroups are concerned. I am no more a linguist than our would-be anonymous User:213.246.208.166 let me add. I merely report the universal professional opinion. --User:Wetman 11:35, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC) ) :IAAL (i am a linguist, though not specialized on Albanian), and let me add to Wetmans entirely correct summary that many would not even consider the split of proto-Albanian from Indo-European particlularly early. The fact that Albanian is difficult to classify within IE is more likely due to its hopelessly late attestation, and (while there are vestiges of an independent IE branch) its heavy "balkanisation", meaning the layers and layers of transformations induced by contact with other languages. User:Dbachmann 11:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC) What are you trying to say Wetman that Albanians just sprung up in 1500 ? If so from where.... Hopefully dab you can wipe off some of those dusty layers of balkanization and find for the rest of us the treasure of truthUser:Xhamlliku (Any reader who understands that we are talking about the late attestation of the Albanian language in surviving mss, not about people who doubtless trace their ancestry from Adam himself, will excuse me from reponding. --User:Wetman 00:20, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)) == All this Caucas bullsh*t == Is there any proof whatsoever of a link between Pelasgian and the Caucasus languages? No, there isn't, so what is all this mumbling and bumbling about. User:Decius 07:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) :indeed, I would be obliged if you could clean it out. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 08:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I've been wounded in previous battle in this very place, but I encourage you with gestures from my wheelchair... --User:Wetman 10:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Pelasgian, Indo-European connection == Vladimir Georgiev (a Thracologist) back in the 1960s or 70's published his hypothesis that Pelasgian was Indo-European. That idea should be represented. See also Paleo-Balkan languages. I'll give a summary of his theory as soon as I read his essay. User:Decius 08:59, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Claim that Pelasgian is a Greek dialect == *User:128.113.201.75 inserted a claim that "Pelasgians spoke a language that was only different from Hellenic in a dialectical sense" etc. which I have removed as speculation. If there is any evidence for this or the rest of the insertion, let's discuss it in Talk before putting it into the article, please. --User:Macrakis 13:47, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC) **Pelasgians are defenitely not Indo europeans.They are posibly from Balcan refuge in the last glacial maximum.Latest findings from megalitic culture in Macedonia and some findings in Macedonian tombs are pure proof that Macedonians and Tracians are descendants of Pelasgians.This is geneticaly acceptable regarding 20 % of Paleolitic genes in Balcan populations.These findings can explain closenes of ancient agean languages. - anonymous user **Some of the peoples Homer called Pelasgian seem to have spoken Greek; so did his Trojans. I think this is covered in the article. User:Pmanderson 22:32, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) :That info about Thracians and Macedonians being descendants of Pelasgians sounds very interesting, and I'd like to hear more about the evidence. From what I've seen, Macedonians and especially Thracians are still generally regarded as Indo-European (generally). Do you mean only descended genetically or also linguistically? User:Decius 21:21, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Not mine, and I don't believe that it is the sort of thing pre-literate archaeology ''can'' prove. Macedonian (and IIRC Thracian) exists in inscriptions. Macedonian is IE; the controversy is whether it is close enough to Greek to count as a Greek dialect. The present vein of scholarship is being added by someone who denies that Albanian is IE.
Pelasgian
Pelasgian
Pelasgian is a predicate to one of Pelasgic descent. Pelasgians are the proto-Hellenes, i.e. the ancient ancestors of the ancient Greeks. Pelasghia is a lady's name in Greece. User Pelasgian is a mechatronic software developer from Greece. I am about to create a not-for-profit non-governmental organisation for the purposes of improving the European business competitiveness through agile automatic production systems.
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Pelasgian
Pelasgian
Pelasgian
Pelasgian
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Pelasgians
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