Zacharie Mayani

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Zacharie or Zecharia Mayani (1899 - ) is a French author who has put forth a thesis according to which Albanian had ancient pre-Indo-European connections with the Etruscan language in The Etruscans Begin to Speak (1961, translated by Patrick Evans 1962). Mayani's thesis, relying chiefly on Albanian, claimed to have established some of the grammar, and enlarged the known vocabulary, of ancient Etruscan, taking as his starting-point that Etruscan was based on Illyrian, and that an Illyrian core survives in modern Albanian, quite apart from Albanian's borrowings from Latin and modern languages. According to Mayani, Etruscan has features linking it with the inscriptions on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean, with Lydia, Lycia, Phoenicia, and with Ancient Egypt. In many instances the words involved have a religious significance.

The late Albanian strongman Enver Hoxha found Mayani's hypothesis useful in the ideological linking-up of modern Albanians with the mysterious Illyrians, that was a central tenet in Hoxha's Albania. The Illyrian presence in the Balkans preceded that of the Indo-European Hellenes, according to official interpretations, with clear lessons for Albanian Urrecht in present-day politics.

[edit] Dismissed by most linguists

Linguists will discount Mayani's theories because of his various assertions that happen to be irreconcilable with late 20th-century linguistics. Certainly, the mere suggestion that Albanian could be "the oldest language in Europe" is a grave misunderstanding of linguistics and the concept of language evolution. All languages around the world change over time. So there can be no modern language that is the "oldest language in Europe". Albanian must surely have changed since such an early time and therefore cannot truly be the same language that once existed, even if it might be derived from it. To claim Albanian somehow avoids evolution is equally absurd. Every language spoken by a sizable amount of people shows at the very least regional speech differences, regardless of national borders. Therefore, this assertion alone makes Mayani's views counter to basic linguistic principles.

It can also be proven that Albanian is not a descendant of Illyrian thanks to the great strides achieved in Indo-European studies. Due to special sound changes and historical connections between languages and archaeological data, this position is no longer tenable without an inordinate amount of pleading. Therefore, this assertion is counter to what is generally known from the field of Indo-European linguistics.

Due to advances in the field of Etruscan and related languages (see Aegean languages), there is little at all that can be connected to the Albanian language specifically. In fact, words translated by Mayani simply do not work in all contexts that we find them. He typically has given multiple meanings to individual words to make them fit better within their various contexts. However, the value of many Etruscan words are now known with certainty thanks to cross-referencing. A growing number of words are at odds with Mayani's findings. Therefore, his translations and forced connections to Albanian make him a maverick in Etruscan studies as well.