Publisher and author Petrit Latifi.
“After this geographical overview we will move on to a more detailed characterization of the inhabitants of northern Albania. All probability suggests that the Albanians of today are the direct descendants of the ancient Dardanians and Illyrians of Pelasgian origin. In the 7th century AD the Slavs pushed in from the north and the Illyrians pushed southwards through the Narenta valley.
The Byzantines only knew the latter under the name Arvanites, a corruption of the name Albani, which one of their peoples had already borne in Ptolemy’s time. The western tribes have retained the name Albanians, but the Turks changed the Byzantine name to Arnaut, while their national name is Skipetaren, which means mountain dwellers. They in turn pushed the Greeks and their language back to the Corinthian coast; their foremost detachments even penetrated into the heart of the Peloponnese and the Cyclades.
The river Schkumb divides the Albanians into northern Ghegen. and southern Tuscans, but their division into Catholics, Greeks and Muslims confuses this division considerably. As a physically beautiful people with predominantly military habits, they were often recruited to the most distant provinces of the empire and often established a new home there, which is why the map of Turkey is full of Arnautköi’s Albanian village.
What ancient history had to say about the Dardanian people fits the Albanians of today exactly Not even a century has passed since the complete extermination of the Albanian pirates, and the customs of the mountain Albanians clearly reflect a prehistoric freedom. Civilized peoples have never entered the interior of the country, but have contented themselves with establishing settlements on the sea coasts, which they carefully fortified against attacks by the natives. At the time of the migration of peoples, barbarian tribes did indeed reach the interior of the country, but they seem to have only partially occupied the plains.
The Albanian language with its numerous Gothic and Celtic words still bears the traces of this Like Greece, Albania also shows numerous signs of a long-standing Slavic occupation. This also seems to have been more limited to the plains, as only here do the Slavic names of hills and places occur frequently In the Middle Ages, Albania seems to have been politically in the hands of the Slavs, as it has no history of its own It fought together with its powerful neighbors, the Slavs, whose princes also more or less ruled over Albania.
The Albanian mountain dwellers living in the governorates of Prisrend and Janina have, if not the same, then at least similar customs and political privileges as the Catholic mountain Albanians. However, these customs do not occur in such an original form as in the latter regions. The local customs are the highest law for the mountain Albanians. They include criminal and civil law, political administration and also exert their influence on religion, which is often forced to make concessions to local customs.”
Reference
Balkan Academia 