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

Caucasian Albania

Caucasian Albania, also known as Alvank in Armenian, Ardhan in Parthian, Arran in Persian, and Al-Ran in Arabic, was an ancient kingdom, which existed on the territory of present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan. The name "Albania" is Latin, and denotes "mountainous land". The native name for the country is unknown.

Albania (Balkans)

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

Arbon

The toponym Arbon (Άρβων or Αρβών) is mentioned by Polybius in the History of the World (second century BC). The people who lived there were called Arbonitai (Αρβωνίται). Biris relates the name Arbon with the name Arbanitai, and notes the similarities of Arbon with Arben and Arbana.

Albanoi

Albanoi first occurs in extant written sources in a work of Ptolemy dating back to 130 AD. "Albanopolis of the Albanoi" appears on a map of Ptolemy, a place located in what is now North central Albania.

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

Albania

According to the Albanian scholar Faïk bey Konitza, the term "Albania" did not displace "Illyria" completely until the end of the fourteenth century. The word "Alba" or "Arba" seems to be connected with the town Arba (modern Rab, Croatia), in prehistoric times inhabited by the Illyrian Liburnians, first mentioned in 360 BC.

Approximately a millennium after, some Byzantine writers use the words "Albanon" and "Arbanon" to indicate the region of Kruja. Under the Angiò, in the 13th century, the names "Albania" and "Albanenses" indicate the whole country and all the population, as it is demonstrated by the works of many ancient Albanian writers such as Budi, Blanco and Bogdano.

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

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

Arbanon

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

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

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

However, the ethnonym Albanians may itself derive from Arbanon .

Shqipëria

There seems to be no doubt that the root Alb- or Arb- is earlier than Shqip-, from which the modern name of the state Shqipëria (Tosk: Shqipërija, Gheg: Shqipnija) derives, a name which appears only in the time of the Turkish invasions. The Albanian name of the country, Shqipëria, translates into English as "Land of the Eagles", hence the two-headed bird on the national flag and emblem, and because of the large presence of these animals in the mountainous zones of Albania.

Biris notes that the terms Shqipëria and Shqiptarë probably weren't Turkish, since the Ottomans used the term Arnaut. Kollias writes: "I believe that the name Shqiptarë was first used by the greatest Albanian hero, Scanderbeg", and he also notes the connection with the eagle (shqipe or shqiponjë is Albanian for eagle) of Scanderbeg's emblem.

The Tale of the Eagle is an Albanian folk tale about the origin of the name Shqipetar.

Albania (Scotland)

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

References

1. ^ V. Minorsky. Caucasica IV. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 15, No. 3. (1953), p. 504
2. ^ James Stuart Olson. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. ISBN 0313274975
3. ^ "Arran". Encyclopaeida Iranica. By C.E Bosworth
4. Robert H. Hewsen. Ethno-History and the Armenian Influence upon the Caucasian Albanians, in: Samuelian, Thomas J. (Hg.), Classical Armenian Culture. Influences and Creativity, Chico: 1982, 27-40.

• Johann Georg von Hahn, Albanesische Studien, 1854
• Kostas Biris, Arvanites, 1960 (3rd edition, 1998: ISBN 960-204-031-9)
• Aristeides Kollias, Arvanites, 1983
• John J. Wilkes, The Illyrians, 1992

• History of Albania
• Placename etymologies
• Country name etymology
• Exonyms
• Roman toponymy