This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Alex '05 (talk | contribs) at 23:31, 22 August 2005 (I didn't include the South Italian tribes because it's been proven that the language of the Messapii was not related close to Albanian in any way, so it disproves the Illyrian-Albanian hypothesis). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 23:31, 22 August 2005 by Alex '05 (talk | contribs) (I didn't include the South Italian tribes because it's been proven that the language of the Messapii was not related close to Albanian in any way, so it disproves the Illyrian-Albanian hypothesis)(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) and parts of Southern Italy in ancient times and into 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).