Talk:Pelasgians/Archive 1

message: 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.  RickK 02:05, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have objections to dropping the NPOV header; there have been no significant changes to this article for over 6 weeks. -- llywrch 20:42, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV dispute

message: 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. Decius 07:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: indeed, I would be obliged if you could clean it out. dab (ᛏ) 08:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: I've been wounded in previous battle in this very place, but I encourage you with gestures from my wheelchair... --Wetman 10:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  All this Caucas bullsh*t 

message: *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.  --Macrakis 13:47, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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? Decius 21:21, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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. <sigh> Septentrionalis 18:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: 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. Decius 06:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claim that Pelasgian is a Greek dialect 

message: 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.". (Wetman 17:55, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 Septentrionalis 22:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscellaneous assertions 

message: 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. --Wetman 06:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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. Decius 21:26, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: That article 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? --Wetman 22:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: 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. Decius 22:30, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I punched in "Zachariah Mayani, Albanian" (added an 'h' to Zacharia) into Google and some relevant sites came up. Decius 22:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Even better seems to be if you type in Zacharie Mayani, a more French spelling. Decius 22:57, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Right! I've even moved the page to Zacharie Mayani. Thanks, Decius. --Wetman 01:25, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: So who was [[Zacharia Mayani]] and why was [[Enver Hoxha]] touting him?

message: I must excuse myself for hastily agreeing to Deucalionite's compromise (though I indicated it was provisional, until I noticed a blatant flaw in the argument). I clicked on the link, googled a bit, and found no indication that any archaeologist considers those markings to be an early form of the Greek alphabet (the blatant flaw). 
I'd already realized that even if they were Greek letters, they could have been used by people who spoke and wrote a non-Greek language, then passed their alphabet onto the Greeks; but if the letters were Greek (as you claimed that some archaeologists consider that option, though they would have been in the fringe), I may have let it "slide by", but that would be compromising Wikipedia quality. 
I also don't see why we should further compromise Wikipedia standards and present the Dispilio Tablet as proof or as an argument that the Pelasgians spoke a Greek language. I was thinking about leaving that as a possible proof of "long continuity", but when it comes down to it, it cannot tell us what kind of language the people who inscribed it spoke. See Linear A and Linear B, similar scripts, different languages.
The theory you are trying to find evidence for is that the Pelasgians spoke a Greek language. Beyond some dubious classical quotes, no such evidence exists. 
---Decius 19:52, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One could make a perfectly equivalent argument that these were early forms of the Phoenician alphabet as well. They are equally far from those. But that would run counter to the local agenda. Nothing in these incised figures suggests connected text. --Wetman 21:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Youra Potsherds]] and [[Dispilio Tablet]]

message: I am in fact gettin interested in the various movements of national mysticism and I would really like to hack together an article on these theories. grecoreport.com    looks like a good starting-point, but clearly too stark-raving for an article; isprehistory.it more notable? Is there some published debate about this stuff, or is this only internet kookery? What title would such an article have? Paleolithic Proto-Greek hypothesis? Hellenic Anthropogenesis theory? Is there a term for this stuff? It reminds me of some of the Harappan kookery over at Aryan Invasion Theory, and it would really be nice to write a comparative overview of these ideas at National mysticism. Occult Aryan race/Armanen/Nordic theory stuff of course belongs in the same category, but these phenomena are easier to describe because they had quite some notability in the early 20th century. dab (ᛏ) 13:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a vast subject, as we know. I would be surprised if there is one nation on this earth that doesn't have these guys. Www.grecoreport.com is a jewel that I came across awhile ago, and I set it on my mantle besides www.dacia.org. I vote for an overview in National mysticism as well as more particular articles. ---Alex 13:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: what are you saying? Switzerland doesn't have them, we are far too boring  :P (sadly, we do, in fact, have them, but they tend to team up with Germany's Neonazis, since there is really no "Swiss nation" to speak of :) dab (ᛏ) 13:55, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The above are nothing.  You should see the theories that the Twelve Gods were supernatural extraterrestrial beings that came to Earth from Sirius and created humankind.  :-))))))))  Chronographos 14:03, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: national mysticism

message: User:Glengordon01 added some text (which I partly rewrote as it is below) to Lemnian language, which however belongs in Pelasgians and Sea Peoples if it emanates from a notable source:
:"There is a hypothesis that the actual Pelasgians are to be identified with a specific group of people that united with other nationless Sea Peoples to wage war on Egypt during the Year 5 of Pharaoh Merneptah's reign in the 12th century BC. In Egyptian texts, their name is written as [prsţw], perhaps for *Perasţaw. "
--Alexander 007 09:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sea Peoples

message: This talk page is getting long, and refers largely to settled questions. Is it time to archive it? Septentrionalis 04:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archiving