Zeus10 wrote:Jay, your map is very interesting, but could you please give us few more details how did you came up to this conclusion, embodied grafically at this map.
Here is how I came up with the map.
Albanian has been connected by different linguists as closest to various branches of Indo-European by various scholars.
Albanian has been connected more directly in a northern group which consists of Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic. There are clear affinities with Albanian and Germanic as well as with Albanian and Baltic.
Albanian has been connected to Celtic perhaps with a transitional Pannonian zone between them. There is a clear affinity with Celtic and Albanian.
Albanian has been connected to Italic. Venetic shows an interesting relationship between Illyrian (Albanian) in some aspects and Italic on the other, with regards to sound changes. This shows a transitional dialectal characteristic of Venetic between Illyrian and Italic. Liburnian seems to be transitional between Venetic and Illyrian proper.
Albanian has been related to Greek and Armenian to form a so called southern group. Greek, Phrygian, and Armenian are clearly in a southern sub-branch. Illyrian transitions into Paeonian which transitions into Ancient Macedonian appears to be a transitional dialect between Illyrian (Albanian) and Greek. Phrygian seems to be transitional between Greek and Armenian.
Messapic has close affinities to Illyrian, but not so much with Italic. It looks more like some Indo-Europeans in Illyria crossed over to Italy and not the same migration as the Italic one.
Illyrian (Albanian) has close affinities Dacian, Thracian, and Indo-Iranian. It very much seems that Illyrian transitions into Dardanian with transitions into Moesian and then into Thracian south and then transitions into Dacian north. Dacian transitions into Cimmerian as one goes east and that transitions into Indo-Iranian.
More problematic is Anatolian. It was probably an early migration out of the Balkans before any other movement. Anatolian does not have any close affinity to Greek, Phrygian, or Armenians its nearest neighbors, but more so with Italic which would probably show an earlier split.
Tocharian is spoken far east of the other branches and does not shows any close affinities to Indo-Iranian. It shows more affinities with Celtic which demonstrates and early break.
As I have stated before Albanian is about the only branch of Indo-European which shows a close affiliation to all of the other branches. Albanian as well has its own unique set of sound changes and it has retained a laryngeal h4 which was lost in all other branches of Indo-European.
I have not considered some other extinct Indo-European branches due to the lack of much data such as Lusitanian, Ligurian, Elymian, or Sicel.
From reading the various linguistic sources, Albanian (Illyrian) really does appear to be the center of a wheel with the other Indo-European branches being spokes.