At the international symposium “Albanian Among Indo-European Languages: Origins and Antiquity,” held in Tirana, scholars reaffirmed the early, 6,000-year divergence of the Albanian language and traced the movement of the ancestors of Albanians not through a northern steppes route but rather along an east-west migration path toward the Balkan Peninsula.

The two-day conference, organized by the Academy of Sciences and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, featured prominent albanologists, linguists, and international researchers, including Paul Heggarty, author of a study published a year ago in Science on the antiquity of Indo-European languages.

During the conference, Heggarty explained the methods used to date developments within Indo-European languages, including Albanian.

In a statement to the media, Heggarty noted, “This was an extensive study that took 7–8 years of work. I want to clarify that last year’s study did not focus solely on the antiquity of the Albanian language, but rather on the entire Indo-European family, which is equally ancient. Albanian is an early language with a unique position in the linguistic tree—a well-known fact, but our study reinforces this and provides updated datings, although without offering a specific date.”

Heggarty’s study suggests that Proto-Indo-European dates back 8,100 years, with the initial branches, including that of the Albanian language, diverging between 6,000 and 7,000 years ago.

“The methodology we used is derived from biology and DNA studies, developed by mathematicians. It’s a new, widely debated approach among linguists, and we must be very cautious about any conclusions. We are trying to determine the chronology of the Indo-European language family’s development,” he emphasized.

The international symposium “Albanian Among Indo-European Languages: Origins and Antiquity” was considered a high-quality success and an example of the benefits of collaboration between albanologists and their associated research centers and institutions.

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