Did Homer Speak Albanian?

 

Did Homer Speak Albanian?
The Mystery of the Iliad’s Opening Words

The thesis of Luftulla and Liljana Peza tested against the text: μῆνις / mëni, manuscripts, Linear B, and the history of Albanian

ELTON VARFI

A Thesis to Be Tested, Not Ridiculed

On 14 August 2026, the website Autokton revived a striking thesis: the opening words of the Iliad were not Greek, but “Pelasgian-Albanian”. Such a claim touches at once on Homer, the linguistic prehistory of the Balkans, the history of Albanian, and the decipherment of Aegean scripts. Precisely for that reason, it deserves a more rigorous examination than a simple dispute over identity.[1]

The correct question is not whether sequences can be found in the Iliad that resemble modern Albanian words. In languages belonging to the same broad Indo-European family, and in a region of millennia-long contact such as the Balkans, similarities of this kind are possible and can sometimes be historically significant. The scientific question is more demanding: the proposed reading must account regularly for word forms, inflection, syntactic relations, phonological development and, in Homer’s case, metrical structure as well.

It is therefore possible to take the initial intuition seriously without automatically accepting its conclusion. In this examination we will distinguish three levels: what the article materially shows; what Peza and Peza propose as linguistic analysis; and what Homeric, Mycenaean, and Albanological sources actually allow us to maintain.

1. What the Article Actually Claims

Autokton presents as a “document” the thesis that the letters used in the Homeric poems derive from a Pelasgian alphabet already attested in the Vinča-Turdaș culture; it further claims that Linear B represents a Pelasgian-Albanian language and that the Iliad directly preserves Albanian words and phrases. The piece explicitly attributes to Luftulla Peza and Liljana Peza, as early as 2009, the conclusion that the opening words of the Iliad are Pelasgian-Albanian. A directly verifiable and highly detailed formulation of the same reading appears in their article of 7 February 2017 in Gazeta Telegraf.[1][2]

The crucial step is the rereading of the opening verses. Peza and Peza begin with the transliteration “MENIN AEIDHE, THEA…” and redivide it as “MENIN A E I DHE, THE A…”, then arrive at a sentence interpreted through modern Albanian. The same source applies a similar procedure to the second verse of the Iliad and to the opening of the Odyssey. We are therefore not dealing with a simple comparison between two words: the proposal redraws the word boundaries and assigns a different linguistic structure to the Homeric sequence.[2]

THE PROPOSED EVIDENCE MENIN AEIDHE, THEA … → MENIN A E I DHE, THE A … → reconstructed reading in Albanian

This is the point on which the thesis must be judged. If the new segmentation were linguistically superior to the Greek one, it should systematically explain the text through historically plausible Albanian forms, not merely through intuitive equivalences drawn from the modern language. The purpose of this examination is not to dismiss wholesale every possible lexical comparison proposed by Peza and Peza; it is to test the strongest core of their thesis — the opening — together with several factual claims used to support it. If the method works, it must produce replicable results outside the passages selected because they happen to resemble Albanian; if it works only by choosing favourable syllables and freely recombining them, we are dealing with an ad hoc resegmentation, not with a linguistic demonstration.

2. The Photographic “Document”: a Manuscript from 1477

The first check is material and surprisingly simple. The image accompanying the Autokton article is not an archaic papyrus, an Aegean tablet, or a codex from classical antiquity. It shows the opening pages, ff. 1v–2r, of Vat. gr. 1626, a celebrated bilingual Greek-Latin manuscript of the Iliad preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library. Here an important chronological distinction must be made: the Greek text is dated by its subscriptions to 30–31 May 1477 and was copied by Giovanni (Johannes) Rhosos; the Latin version, identified palaeographically as the work of Bartolomeo Sanvito, belongs to a later phase, as does the late-fifteenth-century miniature decoration, which remained unfinished.[3]

Fig. 1 — Vat. gr. 1626, ff. 1v–2r: opening pages of the bilingual Iliad. The Greek text was copied by Giovanni Rhosos in 1477; the Latin is by Bartolomeo Sanvito, and the decoration belongs to a later phase of the late fifteenth century. Source: Wikimedia Commons / Vatican Apostolic Library; reproduction marked as public domain.

This identification does not by itself disprove a theory about the language of the Iliad: a fifteenth-century manuscript can of course transmit a much older text. But it prevents that photograph from being used as palaeographic evidence for an alleged Pelasgian alphabet from Homer’s age or for an archaic Albanian script. The image documents the humanist reception of the poem and its manuscript tradition, not the language in which the poem was composed or fixed centuries earlier.

3. What the First Verse Says in Greek

The principal critical editions of the Iliad print the opening in the following form:

ILIAD 1.1–2 Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε…

The decisive point is not that each word, taken in isolation, “has a Greek meaning”. It is that the forms fit together grammatically. μῆνιν is the accusative singular of μῆνις and functions as the object of ἄειδε; θεά is the vocative of the goddess being invoked; Πηληϊάδεω and Ἀχιλῆος are genitives specifying whose anger is meant. In the following verse, οὐλομένην, feminine accusative singular, agrees with μῆνιν. The construction is therefore a continuous Greek sentence, and the first verse forms a regular Homeric dactylic hexameter.[4]

Form	Analysis	Function in the sentence	English rendering
μῆνιν	acc. sg. of μῆνις	object of ἄειδε	anger / wrath
ἄειδε	imperative, 2nd sg. of ἀείδω	predicate: command addressed to the Muse/goddess	sing
θεά	vocative sg. of θεά	person being addressed	O goddess
Πηληϊάδεω	patronymic genitive sg.	specifies the possessor of μῆνιν	of the son of Peleus
Ἀχιλῆος	genitive sg.	apposition/specification of the son of Peleus	of Achilles
οὐλομένην	acc. fem. sg.	agrees with μῆνιν	destructive, ruinous

4. The Resegmentation Test: “AEIDHE” → “A E I DHE”

The Pelasgian-Albanian proposal proceeds in the opposite direction: it takes the sequence analysed by Greek editions as ἄειδε and divides it into A / E / I / DHE; similarly, θεά is reinterpreted as THE / A. One qualification is necessary here, and it strengthens rather than weakens the test: in ancient Greek texts, graphic word division does not always correspond to modern practice, and scriptio continua is well attested. It would therefore be incorrect to reject A / E / I / DHE merely because a modern edition prints ἄειδε without internal spaces.

The problem is linguistic, not typographical. ἄειδε belongs to the paradigm of the verb ἀείδω, “to sing”, and the same sequence is attested elsewhere in Homer in independent contexts. In Odyssey 1.325–326, for example, ἄειδε occurs twice as an unaugmented imperfect indicative referring to the bard Phemius; a few lines later, at 1.339, Penelope again uses ἄειδε as an imperative addressed to the singer. In every case the sequence fits the Greek verbal system and the syntax of the sentence. For the division A / E / I / DHE to become competitive, independent evidence would therefore be required: historically reconstructible Albanian morphemes, regular phonological rules, and a syntax capable of explaining not only this verse but also other occurrences not selected in advance.[4]

Sequence	Greek analysis	Operation proposed in the Albanian reading
Μῆνιν	one inflected word: acc. sg. of μῆνις	directly associated with mëni
ἄειδε	one verbal form: imperative of ἀείδω	resegmented as A / E / I / DHE; requires an independently demonstrable morphological and syntactic structure
θεά	noun in the vocative: “O goddess”	resegmented as THE / A; the new division must be justified by the linguistic system, not by sounds alone
Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος	two genitives linked to μῆνιν	recombined according to a modern Albanian sentence

The methodological test is simple: an alternative reading must reduce, not increase, the interpreter’s freedom. If we may shift boundaries, select only favourable syllables, and assign them values taken case by case from the modern language, coincidences will inevitably emerge. A robust philological proposal must instead predict how less favourable forms will be read as well, while maintaining the same phonological and grammatical rules. On this ground, the A / E / I / DHE reading, in the sources examined, remains without a systematic demonstration.

5. The Truly Interesting Point: μῆνις / μῆνιν and Albanian mëni / mëri

Here the question changes, and this is the most delicate point in the entire article. The proximity between Greek μῆνις (accusative μῆνιν), a central epic term for a grave anger charged with consequences, and Albanian mëni / mëri, “anger, resentment, hatred”, is formally and semantically suggestive. Leonard Muellner has shown how μῆνις carries a specific religious and social value in epic; for precisely that reason, the comparison should neither be hidden nor dismissed with sarcasm.[6]

The first caution concerns the internal history of Albanian. Gheg mëni corresponds to Tosk mëri; the n / r relationship is compatible with the well-known Tosk rhotacism of earlier intervocalic n. This means that comparison with Greek must begin from historical Albanian forms, not from the mere graphic impression produced by modern orthographies. Moreover, η in μῆνις represents a long vowel in Ancient Greek, whereas ë belongs to a different phonological system: graphic similarity and historical phonetic correspondence are not the same thing.

The second caution is etymological. Under mëri ~ mëni, Vladimir Orel proposes a loan ultimately traceable to Latin mania, while also indicating Greek μανία as a possible source or alternative; Ranko Matasović likewise places mëri, with Gheg mëni, within the etymological network of mania / μανία. But this is not the only proposal in Albanological scholarship. In a study devoted specifically to the origin of mëní / mërí, David Luka argues for an inherited solution: he connects the word with the Indo-European stock and the root *men- “to think”, also reconstructing the internal development that produced the Tosk form through rhotacism. Luka’s proposal cannot automatically be turned into a consensus view, but it is sufficient to show that it would be incorrect to present the Albanian etymology as definitively settled.[5]

The remote etymology of Greek μῆνις is also debated. Calvert Watkins proposed a specific Indo-European reconstruction; Leonard Muellner examined above all its semantic and formulaic value; reference works such as Beekes record the term’s etymological difficulties. It is also essential not to confuse μῆνις with μανία simply because both may gravitate semantically around anger: they are different Greek forms, with histories that must be demonstrated rather than assumed. “Disputed etymology” means that alternatives must be evaluated through phonological, morphological, and chronological correspondences; it does not mean that any external resemblance automatically becomes valid.[6]

The possibility of deep relations between Albanian and Greek in general is by no means foreign to Indo-European linguistics. In a 2022 synthesis, Adam Hyllested and Brian D. Joseph argue that a set of shared innovations points to a particularly close connection between Albanian and Greek within a broader palaeo-Balkan framework. This makes the search for ancient correspondences scientifically legitimate; it does not, however, license us to declare a particular pair cognate without demonstration, still less to identify the language of an entire verse on the basis of a single resemblance.[13]

The logical limit is decisive: even if future research were to demonstrate that μῆνις and mëni descend from related Indo-European material, that would at most establish a prehistoric lexical relationship. Greek and Albanian are both Indo-European languages; related languages can share cognates without being the same language. To establish that the opening of the Iliad is Albanian, the entire sentence — not a single word — would have to be explained regularly through historically plausible Albanian phonology, morphology, and syntax.

METHODOLOGICAL POINT A lexical resemblance can be important without demonstrating the linguistic identity of an entire text. Even a genuine ancient cognate between Greek and Albanian would not, by itself, turn a Greek sentence into an Albanian one: regular sets of correspondences, morphology, syntax, and chronology are required.

6. “Homer Never Mentions the Hellenes”: Checking the Text

Another claim found in the material by Peza and Peza, and repeated by Autokton, is that Greeks or Hellenes do not appear in the Homeric poems. Here the semantic distinction is essential. It is true that Homer chiefly uses Achaeans, Danaans, and Argives for the forces fighting at Troy, and that Ἕλληνες does not necessarily carry, in every Homeric passage, the pan-Hellenic and political meaning that the term would acquire in later periods. But it does not follow from this that the word is absent.[7]

In the Catalogue of Ships, Iliad 2.684 reads Μυρμιδόνες δὲ καλεῦντο καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἀχαιοί: “they were called Myrmidons, Hellenes, and Achaeans”. At 2.530, Πανέλληνες also appears. These passages do not allow us to project the national identity of classical or modern Greece backwards into the eighth century BC; they do, however, allow us to reject the literal statement “Homer never mentions the Hellenes”. The presence of the term and its historical meaning are two different questions.[7]

7. Linear B and Greek Before the Fifth Century BC

The claim most difficult to reconcile with the evidence, found in the texts examined, is that Linear B does not record Greek and that no Greek documents exist before the fifth century BC. In 1952 Michael Ventris identified the language of the tablets as an early form of Greek; with John Chadwick he published “Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives” in 1953 and Documents in Mycenaean Greek in 1956. The validity of the decipherment does not rest on the authority of those two names, but on the fact that the system allows an ever-growing corpus of administrative texts to be read coherently, with Greek vocabulary, morphology, formulae, and personal names.[8]

Fig. 2 — Mycenaean tablet PY Ta 716 from Pylos, written in Linear B, Late Bronze Age. Photographic source as indicated by Wikimedia Commons: T. G. Palaima and N. G. Blackwell (2020); file marked with the Public Domain Mark.

The decipherment was not received as a dogma immune from criticism: it had opponents, tests, corrections, and debates. R. J. E. Thompson has also reconstructed the exchanges with dissenters such as Arthur Beattie and Leonard Palmer. The scientific point is that Mycenaean readings continued to produce testable results on tablets from different sites. An alternative theory according to which Linear B records Albanian would therefore have to provide a competing reading of the entire system and explain a large, independent portion of the corpus with at least the same regularity.[8]

In 2024 Cambridge University Press published The New Documents in Mycenaean Greek, edited by John Killen, a two-volume update of the documentation and scholarship that followed the first edition of Ventris and Chadwick. The publisher’s description identifies Linear B, as deciphered by Ventris, as the earliest known form of Greek. This reference is not offered as an argument from authority, but as an indication of the current state of a discipline that works with thousands of documents, transcriptions, translations, and commentaries.[9]

Consequently, the idea that Greek first appears only in the fifth century BC is untenable. Linear B takes the documentation of a Greek variety back to the Late Bronze Age. And even if, for the sake of argument, Mycenaean were set aside, the claim would still be unsustainable: alphabetic Greek inscriptions are documented from the eighth century BC; on the basis of finds from Eretria and Methone and the linguistic evidence, John K. Papadopoulos describes a rapid spread of alphabetic use by around 725 BC.[11]

8. An Actual Ancient Witness to the Iliad

To avoid the opposite misunderstanding, it must be made clear that we possess neither a “Homeric autograph” nor a manuscript of the Iliad contemporary with the period in which the poem took shape. Homeric composition belongs within a long oral tradition, and the chronology of its fixation in writing remains a matter of debate. We do, however, possess numerous ancient papyrus witnesses in Greek that allow the textual history of the poem to be studied concretely.

Fig. 3 — Papyrus Oxyrhynchus III 551, Princeton University Library, AM 4405: Homer, Iliad XIV, 227–253 and 256–263, second century AD. Source: Princeton University Library / Wikimedia Commons.

P.Oxy. III 551, now Princeton University Library AM 4405, is dated to the second century AD; the official Princeton record identifies it as a Greek text of Iliad XIV, 227–253 and 256–263, from Oxyrhynchus and first published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1903.[10] Naturally, a papyrus from the second century AD does not automatically give us the exact form of the poem in the eighth century BC. It does, however, show the kind of material evidence on which Homeric papyrology works and must be clearly distinguished from the illuminated pages of Vat. gr. 1626.

9. The Greek Alphabet, the Phoenicians, and “Pelasgic Letters”

The history of the alphabet likewise requires more nuance than a polemical formula. The Greek alphabet is not the same thing as Linear B: after the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial world, the Linear B syllabary ceased to be used, whereas the archaic Greek alphabet emerged in a later context. Scholarship relates it structurally to Semitic models, especially Phoenician, while still debating the precise place, date, and manner of the adaptation. The most characteristic feature of the Greek innovation is the systematic use of signs for vowels.[11]

Comparing the new finds from Eretria and Methone with the linguistic evidence, John K. Papadopoulos argues that the vocalic innovation had a single point of origin and that Methone — a port of contact between Greeks and Phoenicians — is an important candidate for the place where the alphabet took shape. His is a proposal about the history of alphabetic adaptation, not a demonstration of a linear and documented chain Vinča → Pelasgian alphabet → Greek.[11]

The question of the so-called “Pelasgic letters” in ancient sources is, however, real and interesting. Willemijn Waal has shown that the ancient tradition concerning the origin of Greek writing is more complex than the simple slogan “Cadmus brought the Phoenician letters”. Her study explicitly discusses the “Pelasgic letters” and proposes a rereading of the traditions concerning phoinikeia grammata; in her interpretation, she identifies the phoinikeia grammata with Linear B written on palm leaves and interprets the “Pelasgic letters” as an ancient designation for the same script. This is an argument that deserves to be cited accurately; but Waal does not identify the “Pelasgic letters” with modern Albanian, nor does she demonstrate a graphic-linguistic continuity linking Vinča, Pelasgian, and Albanian.[12]

As for the Vinča-Turdaș signs, their nature and function remain debated: the literature uses terms such as sign system, pre-writing, and, in some interpretations, writing proper. This very uncertainty imposes an elementary methodological rule: graphic resemblance between a Neolithic sign and a letter from millennia later does not by itself establish either the sign’s phonetic value or the language it represented. There is no generally accepted decipherment of the Vinča system that identifies it as a corpus of Albanian texts.[15]

10. The Year 1462 Is Not the “Birth” of Albanian

On one point, Autokton’s polemic touches on a misunderstanding that deserves clarification. Saying that the earliest surviving and unambiguous Albanian attestation generally accepted is Pal Engjëlli’s baptismal formula of 1462 does not mean that Albanian was “born” in 1462. Earlier medieval sources attest to the existence of a distinct language spoken by Albanians and suggest earlier writing practices; what is lacking, in the generally accepted state of the evidence, is a surviving and unambiguous Albanian text predating the formula. Seit Mansaku and, more recently, Adam Hyllested and Brian D. Joseph maintain precisely this distinction.[13]

The preliterate history of Albanian is reconstructed through the comparative method, ancient loanwords, phonological innovations, dialectology, and relations with other Indo-European and Balkan languages. Gjon Buzuku’s Meshari of 1555 is the earliest large surviving extended text; late written documentation, therefore, does not imply a late linguistic history.[13]

This recognition, however, does not license the reverse procedure: we cannot automatically backdate every ancient sequence that resembles Albanian and call it an “Albanian document”. Alleged attestations before 1462 must be evaluated case by case for authenticity, dating, reading, and linguistic system. The deep preliterate history of Albanian is a conclusion of historical linguistics; identifying an individual document requires specific documentary proof.

11. Albanian and Illyrian: an Open Question, Not a Slogan

The same caution applies to Illyrian. A genealogical connection between Albanian and Illyrian is one of the best-known hypotheses in the history of Albanological studies and continues to have authoritative supporters. But the documentary evidence is extremely limited. Friedman and Joseph observe that the view of an Illyrian ancestry for Albanian is widespread but has also been challenged; above all, according to the authors, we do not possess a single verifiable inscription in Illyrian. The material invoked consists chiefly of onomastics, glosses, and other fragmentary data.[14]

The most accurate conclusion is therefore neither “Albanian has nothing to do with Illyrian” nor “Illyrian-Albanian continuity has already been proved by bilingual texts or a deciphered corpus”. The question remains open within the limits of the available documentation. Above all, it must be kept separate from the specific question addressed in this article: even a much stronger future demonstration of the Illyrian-Albanian relationship would not automatically make the first verse of the Iliad Albanian.

12. Assessment of the Main Claims

Claim examined	Available evidence	Assessment
μῆνις / μῆνιν resembles Albanian mëni / mëri	A real formal and semantic resemblance; the Albanian etymology is debated (among the proposals: borrowing in Orel, Indo-European inheritance in Luka); the remote etymology of μῆνις also presents difficulties.	Interesting; not probative for the language of the verse
The first verse is Albanian, not Greek	The verse has a consistently Greek lexical, morphological, syntactic, and metrical analysis.	Not demonstrated
ἄειδε should be read A E I DHE	Scriptio continua makes modern spacing non-decisive; however, ἄειδε is an attested Greek verbal form in independent Homeric contexts, while the new segmentation lacks a systematic alternative grammar.	Not demonstrated
The Autokton image is an ancient document	It is Vat. gr. 1626: Greek text copied by Giovanni Rhosos in 1477; the Latin and decoration belong to later phases of the late fifteenth century.	Cannot be used as Homeric evidence
Linear B is not Greek	The deciphered system accounts for a vast corpus in Mycenaean Greek and continues to be tested against newly studied tablets.	Contradicted by the corpus
There is no Greek before the fifth century BC	Linear B: Late Bronze Age; alphabetic Greek inscriptions: already by the eighth century BC.	False
Homer never uses “Hellenes”	Ἕλληνες appears in Iliad 2.684; Πανέλληνες in 2.530. The historical value of the terms must nevertheless be contextualised.	Literally false; semantics must be historicised
1462 marks the birth of Albanian	1462 is the date of the earliest surviving, unambiguous Albanian sentence generally accepted, not the origin of the language.	Conceptual error
Albanian and Illyrian may be connected	A historically important hypothesis, but Illyrian documentation is too fragmentary for a conclusive textual demonstration.	Open question

Conclusion: What Remains After Verification

Once the Renaissance photograph, the Homeric text, the grammar, Albanian etymology, and Mycenaean documentation are separated, the central thesis does not stand in the form in which it is presented by Luftulla and Liljana Peza and repeated by Autokton. We do not have an ancient document showing the opening words of the Iliad written in Albanian. We do have a verse that receives a coherent lexical, morphological, syntactic, and metrical analysis in Greek; a verbal form, ἄειδε, that recurs in independent Homeric contexts; a Greek papyrus and manuscript tradition; and, much further back in time, Mycenaean documents in Linear B attesting an early form of Greek.

The part that deserves to survive the examination is narrower but, precisely for that reason, more interesting: why do μῆνις and mëni / mëri resemble one another so closely? A definitive answer would be premature. Orel and Matasović place the Albanian word within the etymological sphere of mania / μανία; David Luka instead proposes Indo-European inheritance from *men-. The remote history of μῆνις has likewise been subject to differing reconstructions. The scientifically correct conclusion is not “the resemblance means nothing”, but “the resemblance, by itself, does not decide the question”.[5][6]

This distinction does not diminish the history of Albanian. On the contrary, it makes it stronger. Contemporary research can support a particularly close prehistoric relationship between Albanian and Greek while at the same time requiring specific evidence for each individual etymology.[13] A language with a deep prehistory does not need every resemblance to become proof: the comparative method derives its value precisely from distinguishing inheritance, borrowing, innovation, contact, and coincidence through regular correspondences.

The final result is therefore precise. The thesis that “the opening words of the Iliad are Albanian” is not demonstrated by the evidence currently available; the Greek reading of the verse, by contrast, has systemic support that the proposed resegmentation, on the basis of the sources examined, does not match. A legitimate and fascinating field of research remains open: the comparative history of μῆνις, μανία, mëni, and mëri and, more broadly, the prehistoric relations between Greek and Albanian. It is precisely by distinguishing what is documented from what is possible that an intriguing question becomes a genuine philological investigation.

• [1] Autokton, “Dokumenti, fjalët e para të Iliadës janë shkruar në gjuhën pellazg-shqipe dhe jo greke”, published 14 August 2026; accessed 8 September 2026. The page attributes to L. Peza & L. Peza (2009) the thesis concerning the opening and also repeats the claims about Linear B, Vinča, and the absence of Greek before the fifth century BC. — Autokton
• [2] Luftulla Peza – Liljana Peza, “Gjuha shqipe më e vjetra e shkruar në botë”, Gazeta Telegraf, 7 February 2017. The page reproduces the sequence MENIN AEIDHE, THEA and its resegmentation as MENIN A E I DHE, THE A, together with the readings proposed for the second verse and for the Odyssey. — Gazeta Telegraf
• [3] Monica Centanni, “Tradurre l’oro. Le pagine incipitarie greca e latina dell’Iliade in un codice miniato rinascimentale (Vat. gr. 1626)”, Engramma 30 (2004): the codex is dated on ff. 404v and 444v to 30–31 May 1477 and signed by Giovanni Rhosos; the Latin is identified as the work of Bartolomeo Sanvito and was produced later. The Library of Congress record confirms the bilingual codex and the dating of the Greek text. — Engramma — Library of Congress
• [4] D. B. Monro, A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect, 2nd ed., Oxford 1891, digital edition, Dickinson College Commentaries; for independent occurrences of ἄειδε, see Odyssey 1.325–326 and 1.339 in the DCC text and commentary. — Monro – DCC — Odyssey 1.325–364 – DCC
• [5] Vladimir E. Orel, Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1998, s.v. mëri ~ mëni; Ranko Matasović, A Grammatical Sketch of Albanian for Students of Indo-European, p. 65; David Luka, “Rreth prejardhjes së fjalës mëní / mërí”; the discussion and conclusions are taken up again in the introduction published in Studime Filologjike 3–4 (2017), pp. 141–162, where an inherited Indo-European derivation is defended and the rhotacism of the Tosk form is discussed. — Luka – PDF Albanica — Matasović – teaching material
• [6] Leonard Muellner, The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996; Calvert Watkins, “À propos de μῆνις”, Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 72.1 (1977): 187–209; Robert S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010, s.v. μῆνις. — Muellner – Cornell
• [7] Homer, Iliad 2.684: Μυρμιδόνες δὲ καλεῦντο καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἀχαιοί; Iliad 2.530: Πανέλληνες. The Greek text can be consulted in the Perseus/Scaife corpora. The presence of these forms does not by itself resolve the semantic history of the term Ἕλληνες, which must be distinguished from its later pan-Hellenic value. — Scaife / Perseus
• [8] Michael Ventris – John Chadwick, “Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 73 (1953): 84–103; R. J. E. Thompson, “The Ventris–Chadwick Correspondence and the Decipherment of Linear B: A Denier, a Dissenter and a Dubious Conclusion”, The Cambridge Classical Journal 65 (2019): 173–199, DOI 10.1017/S1750270519000058. — DOI Thompson
• [9] John Killen (ed.), The New Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge University Press, 2024. The publisher’s description recalls Ventris’s decipherment and defines the language of the tablets as the earliest known form of Greek. — Cambridge University Press
• [10] Princeton University Library, APIS: P.Princeton inv. AM 4405 (= P.Oxy. III 551), Homer, Iliad XIV 227–253, 256–263; Greek papyrus, second century AD, provenance Oxyrhynchus; first edition Grenfell – Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri III (1903), no. 551. — Princeton APIS
• [11] John K. Papadopoulos, “The early history of the Greek alphabet: new evidence from Eretria and Methone”, Antiquity 90.353 (2016): 1238–1254, DOI 10.15184/aqy.2016.160. The article discusses the vocalic innovation, the rapid spread of the alphabet by the eighth century BC, and Methone as a possible place of origin. — Cambridge Core
• [12] Willemijn Waal, “Deconstructing the Phoenician myth: ‘Cadmus and the palm-leaf tablets’ revisited”, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 142 (2022): 219–254, DOI 10.1017/S0075426922000131. The study contains a specific section on the “Pelasgic letters”, without identifying them with modern Albanian. — Cambridge Core
• [13] Adam Hyllested – Brian D. Joseph, “Albanian”, in Thomas Olander (ed.), The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp. 223–245, DOI 10.1017/9781108758666.013: earliest Albanian documentation in 1462 and proposal of a particularly close connection between Albanian and Greek. For the written tradition: Seit Mansaku, “Tradita e shkrimit të shqipes dhe ‘Formula e pagëzimit’”, Studime Filologjike 3–4 (2007): 27–34. — Cambridge – Albanian — Mansaku – Albanica
• [14] Victor A. Friedman – Brian D. Joseph, The Balkan Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2025, especially ch. 1, “The Balkan Peninsula and Its Languages”, on palaeo-Balkan documentation and the Illyrian-Albanian problem. The authors stress the scarcity and fragmentary nature of the Illyrian evidence and the resulting impossibility of a conclusive textual demonstration. — Cambridge University Press
• [15] Shan M. M. Winn, Pre-Writing in Southeastern Europe: The Sign System of the Vinča Culture, ca. 4000 B.C., Calgary: Western Publishers, 1981; Richard Sproat, Symbols: An Evolutionary History from the Stone Age to the Future, Cham: Springer, 2023, DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-26809-0. The literature uses different categories for the Vinča signs; there is no shared reading that identifies them as Albanian texts. — DOI Sproat

Essential Bibliography

This bibliography collects the works cited in the article together with several indispensable reference works for further study of the most delicate issues: Homeric philology, Albanian etymology, Mycenology, the history of the alphabet, and palaeo-Balkan documentation.

Homeric Text and Philology

• Homer. Homeri Opera. Vol. I: Iliadis libros I–XII continens. Ed. David B. Monro and Thomas W. Allen. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920. [online]
• Monro, David B. A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891. Digital edition, Dickinson College Commentaries. [online]
• Muellner, Leonard. The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. [online]
• Watkins, Calvert. “À propos de μῆνις.” Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 72.1 (1977): 187–209.
• Beekes, Robert S. P., with Lucien van Beek. Etymological Dictionary of Greek. 2 vols. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010, s.v. μῆνις (vol. II, p. 946). [online]

Manuscript Tradition and Papyrology

• Centanni, Monica. “Tradurre l’oro. Le pagine incipitarie greca e latina dell’Iliade in un codice miniato rinascimentale (Vat. gr. 1626).” Engramma 30 (2004). [online]
• Princeton University Library, APIS. P.Princeton inv. AM 4405 (= P.Oxy. III 551), Homer, Iliad XIV 227–253, 256–263, second century AD. [online]

Albanian and the Palaeo-Balkans

• Orel, Vladimir E. Albanian Etymological Dictionary. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1998, s.v. mëri ~ mëni.
• Orel, Vladimir E. A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian. Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 2000.
• Matasović, Ranko. A Grammatical Sketch of Albanian for Students of Indo-European. Zagreb: University of Zagreb, 2024, author’s online version, p. 65. [online]
• Luka, David. Studime për historinë e gjuhës shqipe. Tiranë: Qendra e Studimeve Albanologjike, 2010. Includes the study “Rreth prejardhjes së fjalës mëni, mëri”; discussion of the entry is taken up again in the introduction published in Studime Filologjike 3–4 (2017), pp. 141–162. [online]
• Topalli, Kolec. Fjalor etimologjik i gjuhës shqipe. Tiranë: Qendra e Studimeve Albanologjike, Instituti i Gjuhësisë dhe i Letërsisë, 2017.
• Hyllested, Adam; Joseph, Brian D. “Albanian.” In The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective, ed. Thomas Olander. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp. 223–245. DOI 10.1017/9781108758666.013. [online]
• Mansaku, Seit. “Tradita e shkrimit të shqipes dhe ‘Formula e pagëzimit’.” Studime Filologjike 3–4 (2007): 27–34. [online]
• Friedman, Victor A.; Joseph, Brian D. The Balkan Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. Especially ch. 1, “The Balkan Peninsula and Its Languages”, pp. 11–64. DOI 10.1017/9781139019095.003. [online]

Linear B and Mycenaean Greek

• Ventris, Michael; Chadwick, John. “Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 73 (1953): 84–103.
• Ventris, Michael; Chadwick, John. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
• Thompson, R. J. E. “The Ventris–Chadwick Correspondence and the Decipherment of Linear B: A Denier, a Dissenter and a Dubious Conclusion.” The Cambridge Classical Journal 65 (2019): 173–199. [online]
• Killen, John, ed. The New Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. [online]

Origins of the Greek Alphabet

• Papadopoulos, John K. “The early history of the Greek alphabet: new evidence from Eretria and Methone.” Antiquity 90.353 (2016): 1238–1254. [online]
• Waal, Willemijn. “Deconstructing the Phoenician myth: ‘Cadmus and the palm-leaf tablets’ revisited.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 142 (2022): 219–254. DOI 10.1017/S0075426922000131. [online]

Vinča Signs and Symbolic Systems

• Winn, Shan M. M. Pre-Writing in Southeastern Europe: The Sign System of the Vinča Culture, ca. 4000 B.C. Calgary: Western Publishers, 1981. [online]
• Sproat, Richard. Symbols: An Evolutionary History from the Stone Age to the Future. Cham: Springer, 2023. DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-26809-0. [online]

Texts Examined

• Autokton. “Dokumenti, fjalët e para të Iliadës janë shkruar në gjuhën pellazg-shqipe dhe jo greke.” 14 August 2026. [online]
• Peza, Luftulla; Peza, Liljana. “Gjuha shqipe më e vjetra e shkruar në botë.” Gazeta Telegraf, 7 February 2017. [online]
• Peza, Luftulla; Peza, Liljana. “Ilias of Omer and Incorrect Translations in European Languages.” Online paper; cited as a source for the authors’ thesis, not as philological consensus. [online]