Albanians Descendants of the Illyrians Albanians Descendants of the Illyrians 1 the earliest attempt to link the modern Albanians to the ancient Illyrians was made in 1774 by the Swedish historian Hans Erich Thunman in his book Untersuchungen ueber die Geschichte der Oestlichen Europaischen Voelker Research on the History of Eastern European Peoples Using Roman and Byzantine historical sources as well as linguistic and onomastic evidence Thunman was able to conclude that the Albanians were the autochthon descendants of the ancient Illyrian populations who were never Romanized like the Daco Thracian populations forefathers of the Romanians 2 Austrian linguist Johannes Georges von Hahn further supported the theory of the Illyrian origin of Albanians in his work Albanesische Studien Albanian Studies in 1854 In the course of time many other historians archeologists and linguists have provided further arguments supporting the theory that the Albanians and their language are modern day descendants of the Illyrians 3 Albanians live in the territories once inhabited historical sources pointing to the movement become settlers of these territories There are no historical sources pointing to the movement of Albanians from elsewhere to become settlers of these territories 4 Components of Illyrian linguistic elements such as names of objects tribes names of people etc known can be found in the Albanian language 5 One of the latest attempts in this ongoing effort to establish a link between these civilizations is a book entitled Ancient Illyria recently published in London It is a study of unpublished documents and includes the book Illyrian Letters written by the renowned archeologist Sir Arthur Evans This work sheds light on the society and the culture of these predecessors of Albanians 6 The relationships of Albanian with ancient Greek and Latin testify that Albanian was formed and developed alongside these two languages along the shores of the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas In 1864 Dhimiter Kamarda published his linguistic study Saggio di grammatologia comparata della lingua Albanese showing its antiquity as well as attempting to demonstrate its close relationship to Greek 7 Even according to the writers of ancient Greece Illyrians and Epirotes did not differ from each other in any way they lived and were like the modern Albanians without any difference Toskeri is the southern part of Albania Its northern counterpart is known as Gegeri they spoke the language which we speak today Ibid p 11In antiquity Herodotus wrote that Epirus is inhabited by non Greek peoples who speak a barbarian languageIn antiquity Greeks used this term to refer to foreigners Indeed it was this non Greek language which was later going to be one of the distinguishing elements setting the Albanians apart from other nationalities of the Balkan Peninsula