| History
> ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME
"ALBANIA"
A curious item about Albania is her very name,
that is, the etymology of the word "Albania."
The country was known as Illyria in ancient times
and until the eleventh century A.D. Since the
name "Albania" appears in 13th century Latin dictionaries,
the term was probably in use even earlier. During
the Middle Ages the Albanians called their country
Arb'r or Arb'n and referred to themselves as Arb'resh
or Arb'nesh. To this day, there are communities
of Albanians who migrated to Greece and Italy,
in the wake of foreign invasions and pressures,
who know themselves by those names (11). According
to the Albanian scholar Konitza, the term "Albania"
did not displace "Illyria" completely until the
end of the fourteenth century (12). The term is
believed to derive from "Albanoi," the name of
an Illyrian tribe in what is now north-central
Albania, which was first mentioned in the second
century A.D. by Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer.
The term slowly spread to other Illyrian tribes
until its usage became universal among all the
Albanian people.
From: Prifti, Peter R. Socialist Albania since
1944 - Domestic and Foreign Developments.
Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1978.
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