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Revision as of 04:55, 20 August 2005 by Alex '05 (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Illyrians were an Indo-European people, who inhabited the western Balkans up into Pannonia before the Common Era. They spoke languages grouped in the Illyrian languages, a separate branch of Indo-European.
The Illyrians may have appeared in the western part of the Balkan peninsula about 2000 BC, a period coinciding with the end of the Bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age. The Illyrians were not a unified body but a group of many different tribes. These tribes however had a common culture and spoke relaed languages.
Whether the Albanian language descends from an Illyrian language is disputed among scholars (see Origin of Albanians).