Slavs are indigenous in the Balkans
Author: Mario Alinei
Filed: 03/10/2003, 14:15:52
Source: Origini delle lingue d�Europa, Vol. I: La teoria d
Here are some excerpts of Dr. Mario Alinei’s study concerning the Slavic populations in the Balkans. It is congruent with Dr.Florin Curta’s conclusions about the invention of the “arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans”.
“I have to commence by clearing away one of the most absurd consequences of the traditional chronology, namely, that of the ‘arrival’ of the Slavs into the immense area in which they now live. The only logical conclusion can be that the southern branch of the Slavs is the oldest and that from it developed the Slavic western and eastern branches in a differing manner and perhaps at different times.”
“Today only a minority of experts support the theory of a late migration for the Slavs… because none of the variant versions of such late settlement answers the question of what crucial factor could possibly have enabled the Slavs to have left their Bronze-Age firesides to become the dominant peoples of Europe. The southwestern portion of the Slavs had always bordered on the Italic people in Dalmatia, as well as in the areas of the eastern Alps and in the Po lowlands.”
“The surmised ‘Slavic migration’ is full of inconsistencies. There is no ‘northern Slavic language’, it is rather only a variant of the southern Slavic… The first metallurgic cultures in the Balkans are Slavic… and connected with Anatolia… Slavic presence in the territory, nearly identical to the one occupied by them today, exists ever since the Stone Age… The Slavs have (together with the Greeks and other Balkan peoples developed agriculture… agriculturally mixed economy, typically European, which later enabled the birth of the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin urbanism. Germanic peoples adopted agriculture from the Slavs… The Balkans is one of the rare regions in which a real and true settlement of human groups coming from Anatolia is proven…].
REFERENCES
Mario Alinei, Origini delle lingue d�Europa, Vol. I: La teoria della continuit�, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1996;
Vol. II: La continuit� delle principali aree etnolinguistiche dal Mesolitico all�et� del Ferro, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2000.
BIOGRAPHY
Mario Alinei is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987.
Founder and editor of “Quaderni di semantica” review.
He is president of “Atlas Linguarum Europae”.
Makedonika: The Macedonian Blog 
20081005 at 02:42
A very interesting article. Certainly there will always be those who would agree and those who would not.
It is certain that your Macedonian language is ancient as are your roots in the Balkans. I am not Macedonian, however I am a descendant of the Slavic (and Baltic) people.
And thus have a vested interest in the welfare of all Slavs.
The fact that Macedonian Culture and the Macedonian Language has continued to survive for centuries and has successfully resisted assimilation and extinction is evidence
of the tenacious nature of the Macendonian people and their love of their heritage.
The origins of each Slavic People and their repective languages are perhaps not quite as important as the fact that we are ALL SURVIVORS. We are still here today and won’t be trading in our identities. This I am sure is a very disappointing notion to those who would not recognize but prefer to dominate our people.
In closing I would like to offer my words of encouragement to those amongst the Macedonian people who continue to assert Macedonian identity and to preserve Macedonian Culture, Heritage and Language for future generations.
By doing so they bring honor to the sacrifices of their ancestors and strengthen the legacy and existance of
our greater Slavic Family.
(On a more personal note…It is to be expected that your own personal efforts in these regards would draw negative attention from those Greeks who would deny recognition to the Macedonian people. For them, the Entire world revolves around the accomplismnets of very Ancient Greece. They see only ‘Greek’ contributions to the modern world and their arrogance and over inflated ego’s prevent them from lending recognition contributions by many other cultures, both large and small. Today’s Greece is only a fractional remnaent of a the great cultural civilization of long, long ago. Macedonians are an integral part of a much larger and expansive civilization which continues to flourish today. It’s people are counted by the hundreds of millions. It’s territories are vast and expansive. Our Slavic Identity is enjoyed and celebrated each day on a scale that dwarfs even the legacy of the ‘Ancient’ Greek Civilizations.)
Michael Mursko
A Descendant of the Slovak and Lithuanian People