Arvanites: are they Greeks or Albanians?

[RandoBloom]

That's what the church taught to you.



The word "ocean" for example as this etymology:
gre: Ὠκεανός => lat: oceanus => eng: ocean

gre: Ὠκεανός (Okeanós)
Ancient Greek[edit]

Etymology[edit]
Of uncertain origin.

In a book I'm reading "the uncertain origin" is explained like this:
alb: (n)uk ke ane (borderless; limitless) => okean => okeanós (ωκεανός)

But I think it could be:
hoqe ane (with removed borders) => alb: oqean <-> eng: ocean

And I've explained earlier that words for dolphin and barka/varka (boat) originate in albanian.

In Bosnia we use Okean.
In english you have Ocean.
Many languages use that word. Its a loanword.
Doesnt make someone a greek

[el22]

Their language indicate they were living isolated in some mountainous area (their vocabulary contains very few words related to sea)

Now that I remember, even the name of the "ionian" sea is albanian:
alb: deti jon <-> eng: our sea

And albanians still call it that way: deti jon

And this is to show that not only albanian has all the words related to sea, but there were no greeks in front of "ionian" sea until 2 centuries ago.

[iNird]

Funny that Alboz in Italy never assimilated. They still live in their villages and speak their absurd language.

Thanks for the backhanded comliment. Why absurd?

[Sikeliot]

There may be Albanians still in Sicily but based on 23andme results it'd seem (due to the high "Balkan" score amongst some people around Palermo area) that a lot of people have ancestors that assimilated too.

[Shqiptar]

Arvanites are 100% Ethnic Albanians, no question about it. They are a population group in Greece who traditionally speak Arvanitika, a dialect of the Albanian language.

[Sikeliot]

How many Greeks have Arvanite ancestry? It has to be a lot.

[Arianiti]

They should be around 2 million .

[Sikeliot]

They should be around 2 million .

So around 1/5 of the Greek population.

[Arianiti]

Yes is seems so. I have read this data given by Father Antonio Bellushi, an Arbereshi from Italy and by Aristidh Kolja an Arvaniti from Greece.

[el22]

Raine, Wikipedia disagrees:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvanites

Arvanites in Greece originated from Albanian settlers who moved south at different times between the 13th and 16th century from areas in what is today southern Albania.

Arvanites didn't move there. They have always been there.
If we have to trust those weird theories of albanian migrations, and that arvanites are called so because of the place arvana, then they originate from a village in Azerbaijan

Funny that Alboz in Italy never assimilated. They still live in their villages and speak their absurd language.

That's not only for their merit. Italian state hasn't used the same practices as the greek state did.