Editing Dacian language (section)

==== Albanian ====
{{See also|Origin of the Albanians|Albanian language}}

[[Vladimir I. Georgiev]], although accepting an Illyrian component in Albanian, and even not excluding an Illyrian origin of Albanian, proposed as the ancestor of Albanian a language called "Daco-Mysian" by him, considering it a separate language from Thracian.{{sfn|Rusakov|2017|p=555}}{{sfn|Demiraj|2006|p=78}} Georgiev maintained that "Daco-Mysian tribes gradually migrated to the northern-central part of the Balkan Peninsula, approximately to [[Dardani]]a, probably in the second millennium B.C. (or not later than the first half of the first millennium B.C.), and thence they migrated to the areas of present [[Albania]]".{{sfn|Demiraj|2006|p=78}} However, this theory is rejected by most linguists, who consider Albanian a direct descendant of ancient Illyrian.{{sfn|Lloshi|1999|p=283}} Based on shared innovations between Albanian and Messapic, [[Eric P. Hamp]] has argued that Albanian is closely related to Illyrian and not to Thracian or Daco-Moesian, maintaining that it descended from a language that was sibling of Illyrian and that was once closer to the Danube and in contact with Daco-Moesian.{{sfn|Friedman|2020|p=388}} Due to the paucity of written evidence, what can be said with certainty in current research is that on the one hand a significant group of [[Albanian-Romanian linguistic relationship|shared]] Indo-European non-Romance cognates between Albanian and Romanian indicates at least contact with the 'Daco-Thraco-Moesian complex', and that on the other hand there is some evidence to argue that Albanian is descended from the 'Illyrian complex'.{{sfn|Friedman|2022}} From a "genealogical standpoint", Messapic is the closest at least partially attested language to Albanian. Hyllested & Joseph (2022) label this Albanian-Messapic branch as ''Illyric'' and in agreement with recent bibliography identify Greco-Phrygian as the IE branch closest to the Albanian-Messapic one. These two branches form an areal grouping - which is often called "Balkan IE" - with Armenian.{{sfn|Hyllested|Joseph|2022|p=235}}