Ventidius Cumanus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventidius_Cumanus
Pravi Vlah, I am told you are of Cuman origin and quite proud of it.
Nastavak ---
THE ARVANITES AND THEIR (POSSIBLE) ORIGIN.
The original
Arvanites are very likely unrelated to the Skipetarians, but at some point in their history they "shared" the same geographical area. The Arvanites seemed to have been originally a LATIN-speaking population which was found in northern Albania around the end of the 9th century as a "occupying power" in the service of the Roman (
Byzantine) emperors. Their legendary homeland at that time was the area of
Bojana, an area in the coastal zone of northern Albania along the river of the same name. Their historic "capital" was originally the city of Drivastum and later the ancient city of Skodra, which they themselves renamed to Skoutari. According to their legend the Arvanites were not indigenous to Albania. Their origin was from the north, and specifically from the Dalmatian cities of the north. According to their myth, they came from "Roman colonists", from Italy.
Around the middle of the 11th century the Arvanites attempted a geographical "expansion" in the area of present-day northern Albania at the expense of the rest of the inhabitants of the region, especially at the expense of the Slavs, but also those who would later become the Tosk Albanians. This failed miserably, forcing many of them to leave the area.
A part of them moved all the way south to the area of Aitolo-Akarnania, where they eventually settled. A second part of them settled in the area of today's Berat, and renamed this area to Spathania, perhaps by the name of their leading family in that region (Spata). The region was "lost" later (in the 13th century) by the Mouzaka family. A third group settled a little further south of Berat in the region of Korcha in today's southeastern Albania.
Finally, much of them moved much less than the rest, to the south, along the beach and settled in the area of today's Laberia.
In many of the places where they settled, either in Greece or in today's Albania (Laberia), the Arvanites
gave new names (BUT
NOT SKIPETAR) to the places where they settled, creating new toponyms. These new place names came mainly from the names of their leading families. They give us valuable information about the type of language they spoke. Let's see this.
We will initially use a text written by an Albanian journalist, Marjola Rukaj, in December 2009, and refers to the peculiarities of the toponyms of Albania. This text is published on the internet under the title "Lexical cleansing: Slavic toponyms in Albania (or out of?)" And can be read at the following web address (in English):
https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/...ng-Slavic-toponyms-in-Albania-or-out-of-47472
In her article, Marjola Rukaj criticized the Albanian government's decision to change the Slavic place names of the country with Albanian. Having first observed that:
“But the issue is very complex. Albanian territory is so crammed with Slavic place names that non-Slavic place names, such as those of Albano-phone, Greek, Turkish, and Italian origin, seem like a tiny minority” and also
"But for the time being Greek place names in southern Albania, Turkish ones in other regions, and LATIN AND ITALIAN ONES ALONG THE COAST do not seem to be a source of concern”.
The coastal area with the Latin and Italian place names referred to in its article by Marjola Rukaj is in fact the area of Laberia. But what value does this observation have for the LATIN AND ITALIAN place names of Laberia?
The value of these Latin and Italian toponyms of Laberia lies in the fact that these are not old but
new toponyms given in those places certainly after the 11th century. It is certain that these parts had completely different names that we know safely from various historical sources. This means that at some point, maybe at the end of the 11th century or in the early 12th century, a Latin-speaking population entered the area of Laberia and changed the existing names of the area (WHICH WERE NOT SKIPETAR), giving those parts names from Latin which
this People were using at the moment. And this people were very likely
Arvanites, who "entered" in Laberia at the end of the 11th century while they were still Latin-speaking.
One can write a full study of the LATIN and ITALIAN place names of the Laberia area. For the time being, let's confine ourselves to detecting the language from which they come from giving only one example.
We know that about 1.5 kilometers away from the ancient city of Vyllida, in the area of Malakastra, was also the ancient city of Nikea (Νίκαιας). Today, however, this area is called Klozi (Klosi in Albanian). But what strange thing does that name have?
The name Klozi (Klosi), today's name of ancient Nikea, is NOT SKIPETAR name, as some may think, but Latin. In fact, this place name can only come from a Balkan language, but it is not spoken anymore. And this is the Dalmatian Latin. In Dalmatian Latin, therefore, the name Klozi means the enclosed and fenced area, and more specifically the castle (derived from the Latin word clausum). And that's the first thing you'll ever see coming to that place: the castle of ancient Nikea. And that was what the Arvanites came to that place and gave it that name in the language they spoke at the time they arrived there. And this could not have been the Albanian, since this word does not exist in the Albanian/Skipetar language.
And to close it for the moment. The ancestors of the Arvanites were still Latin-speaking when they left
Bojana and "moved" to the area of Laberia, Berat, Korcha and Aitolo-Akarnania in the 11th century. That is why the new toponyms that they "delivered" to the places that they settled came from the Latin language, which they spoke initially. And this is not limited to Albania only. Even the Arvanites, who came much later and settled in Greece, continued to use Latin rather than Albanian language to create toponyms.
PS:
Coincidence or not, there is a Bojano or Boiano in the province of Campobasso, Molise, south-central Italy. After the Lombard conquest, the deserted area was given to a group of Bulgars, who circa 662 fled from the Avars and sought refuge with the Lombards. Bojano became a seat of a gastaldate. The Bulgars also settled in nearby Sepino and Isernia. Paul the Deacon in his Historia Langobardorum writing after the year 787 says that in his time Bulgars still inhabited the area, and that even though they speak "Latin", "they have not forsaken the use of their own tongue". In later times they had evidently become completely assimilated.
URL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojano
