This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Alex '05 (talk | contribs) at 20:03, 22 August 2005 (revert---the material you added is not scientific or of Wiki quality). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 20:03, 22 August 2005 by Alex '05 (talk | contribs) (revert---the material you added is not scientific or of Wiki quality)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Illyrians were an Indo-European people, who inhabited the western Balkans from Epirus 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 1000 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 related languages.
Whether the Albanian language descends from an Illyrian language is disputed among scholars (see Origin of Albanians).