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Post by Caslav Klonimirovic on Dec 28, 2009 22:27:40 GMT -5
Albanians mistaken for slavs?
I bet my bottom dollar heaaaps of Albanians have been mistaken for slavs. I've even read Albanians on this forum telling of how people have gone up to them and started speaking a slav language. I was with a good Albanian friend from FYROM once (he's one of the only Albanians I've seen in real life) and when I introduced him to this Croatian guy (who obviously has no clue) after speaking a while and it came up he was Albanian the Croat guy jumps out of his skin & says hey I knew you wer a slav! lol so funny. So is any Albanian here going to fess up?
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Post by ngadhnjyesi on Dec 28, 2009 22:34:48 GMT -5
I bet my bottom dollar heaaaps of Albanians have been mistaken for slavs. I've even read Albanians on this forum telling of how people have gone up to them and started speaking a slav language. I was with a good Albanian friend from FYROM once (he's one of the only Albanians I've seen in real life) and when I introduced him to this Croatian guy (who obviously has no clue) after speaking a while and it came up he was Albanian the Croat guy jumps out of his skin & says hey I knew you wer a slav! lol so funny. So is any Albanian here going to fess up? I get mistaken for Russian all the time although I'm not sure what you're asking though. Are you asking if other Slavs or non-Slavs mistake us for Slavs? Americans assume I speak Russian even when I tell'em I'm Albanian
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Post by L0gjICK on Dec 28, 2009 22:38:01 GMT -5
I get Polish. Sometimes I get Irish or British. Then again, what do Americans know..........
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Post by todhrimencuri on Dec 28, 2009 22:38:12 GMT -5
The only type of Slav I get mistaken as is south Slav (Serb, Croatian, Bosnian). At a Bosnian place near my school the first I went in a group of Bosnians were staring at me the entire time while I ordered trying to figure out if I was Bosnian or Albanian. A party held at a place I worked once a table asked me to go over and literally started to speak to me in Croatian thinking I knew the language... I said "sorry Im Albanian" and they responded with "Must be why".
I have like a million such tales.
Other more ignorant people say I look Polish or Russian... but that is far more rare. Hell I know a Greek kid who gets mistaken for Russian all the time... and he is not even from a Yugoslav influenced area (from Attica)...
So... I guess we all look human...
Im not sure if I have any Slav in me... they did have a significant presence in Epirus for a while and my father's side is from one of the most Slavic influenced regions in Albania (the lowland territory of Korca)... but my mom is from Vlora... an area with very little Slav influence.
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Post by dusko1 on Dec 28, 2009 22:40:18 GMT -5
I'm sure there's some Slavic elements in some (northern) Albanians.
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Post by Caslav Klonimirovic on Dec 28, 2009 22:43:54 GMT -5
I get mistaken for Russian all the time although I'm not sure what you're asking though. Are you asking if other Slavs or non-Slavs mistake us for Slavs? Yeah I mean by anyone. I think it's safe to say non-Balkanites find it more difficult to distinguish one type of Balkanite from another whereas a lot of us treat it as an artform thinking we can distinguish one village from the next.
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Post by Caslav Klonimirovic on Dec 28, 2009 22:46:13 GMT -5
I'm sure there's some Slavic elements in some (northern) Albanians. Well southern Albania actually contains more slavic toponyms then northern Albania.
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Post by todhrimencuri on Dec 28, 2009 22:48:15 GMT -5
Southern Albania, principally the plains around Korca (Goritsa) is the heart of Slavic toponomy in Albania. Bulgarians settled the region back during the First and Second Bulgarian Empire. There are still remnants of it in the 'Macedonian' minority there today.
Ironically, people in that area tend to look more Greek like than Slav like. That area is also where you can find most "Epirote" Alpine classification.
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Post by dusko1 on Dec 28, 2009 22:54:48 GMT -5
Southern Albania, principally the plains around Korca (Goritsa) is the heart of Slavic toponomy in Albania. Bulgarians settled the region back during the First and Second Bulgarian Empire. There are still remnants of it in the 'Macedonian' minority there today. Ironically, people in that area tend to look more Greek like than Slav like. That area is also where you can find most "Epirote" Alpine classification. I figure it would be northern Albania since they are closer to Montenegro & Serbia. Didn't know about the Bulgarian settlements way back when. I'm gonna have to look into that.
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Post by coke&broke on Dec 29, 2009 0:41:03 GMT -5
Sometimes I get asked if my ethnicity is Russian, but this is probably due to my sharp facial features which they associate with 'Eastern Europeans' and my height; ignorant westerners have this perception of Russians being of great stature because of cold-war era Hollywood films depicting them as big, bad villains. A notable example being Ivan Drago in Rocky IV (Who was played by a Swede). Other time's I have been asked whether I was German, Polish, Lithuanian and once or twice Bosnian.
As for South Slavs or Slavs in general, they have never mistaken me as one of their own. It's pretty easy to spot an Albanian from a mile away too, since we have a look that is unique to our ethnicity. Only once have I mistaken a foreigner for an Alb, and he was Hungarian.
But I guess to Westerners who have never been in the company of Albanians, we resemble Slavs more so than any other group.
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Post by shejtani on Dec 29, 2009 7:15:24 GMT -5
I have been mistaken for a Fyromak and a Serb.
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Patrinos
Amicus
Peloponnesos uber alles
Posts: 4,763
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Post by Patrinos on Dec 29, 2009 8:14:12 GMT -5
Many Greeks, who are not so good friends with reading... think that Albanians are Slavs, just like all our northern neighbors...
Melty is an obvious example of a Tosk slavoalbogreco hybrid...
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Weltgeist
Membrum
Dionysian Joy of Life
Posts: 57
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Post by Weltgeist on Dec 29, 2009 9:06:17 GMT -5
I bet my bottom dollar heaaaps of Albanians have been mistaken for slavs. I've even read Albanians on this forum telling of how people have gone up to them and started speaking a slav language. I was with a good Albanian friend from FYROM once (he's one of the only Albanians I've seen in real life) and when I introduced him to this Croatian guy (who obviously has no clue) after speaking a while and it came up he was Albanian the Croat guy jumps out of his skin & says hey I knew you wer a slav! lol so funny. So is any Albanian here going to fess up? I get mistaken for a Russian mostly all of the time.
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Post by Kastorianos on Dec 29, 2009 10:48:39 GMT -5
Im always mistaken for a nongreek. Usually German (although I dont look German anymore, my appearance has turned into a rather slavic-balkan mix now in my opinion). When I tell the people that Im Greek they are staring at me disbelieving. Thats somewhat disturbing but thats life.. There are also people though that tell me "no, there are very light Greeks as well, your look is not that untypical for a Greek".
The most light Greeks I have ever seen in Greece was this summer in the Preveza region. So many red and blond heads...with blue eyes..light skin...relatively many ungreek looking people. Tall and slim, very unepirotic. Also the med. types are slim and tall. It must be a very mixed region, much of Greek, albanian and some slavic blood. I always thought Kastoria would be like that but Kastorians are physically supergreek in comparison to the Fanariotes of Preveza. On the other hand Kastoria has very many descendants of Asia Minor Greeks and Pontians, who are usually darker while the Preveza hinterland has very very few only..
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Post by Caslav Klonimirovic on Dec 29, 2009 11:06:39 GMT -5
Yeah ok so the point here is obvious. Slavs penetrated deep into Greek & Albanian territories & yet f**k all remains to show for this in your respective populations. It's obvious even just using anecdotal evidence like this that Albanians & Greeks have absorbed a significant proportion of slavs into their ethnogenisis. Nobody is pure & both Greeks & Albanians have to admit one day that their gene pool was significantly improved by slavs. Especially Albanians it would appear. I mean Bulgarians and other south slavs have no problem doing the same and admitting we absorbed a lot of native & other elements. Anyways Laku Noc girls and boys. That's Serb slav for good night.
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Post by coke&broke on Dec 29, 2009 11:35:21 GMT -5
Yeah ok so the point here is obvious. Slavs penetrated deep into Greek & Albanian territories & yet f**k all remains to show for this in your respective populations. It's obvious even just using anecdotal evidence like this that Albanians & Greeks have absorbed a significant proportion of slavs into their ethnogenisis. Nobody is pure & both Greeks & Albanians have to admit one day that their gene pool was significantly improved by slavs. Especially Albanians it would appear. I mean Bulgarians and other south slavs have no problem doing the same and admitting we absorbed a lot of native & other elements. Anyways Laku Noc girls and boys. That's Serb slav for good night. I honestly lol'd.
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Post by ngadhnjyesi on Dec 29, 2009 11:58:36 GMT -5
Yeah ok so the point here is obvious. Slavs penetrated deep into Greek & Albanian territories & yet f**k all remains to show for this in your respective populations. It's obvious even just using anecdotal evidence like this that Albanians & Greeks have absorbed a significant proportion of slavs into their ethnogenisis. Nobody is pure & both Greeks & Albanians have to admit one day that their gene pool was significantly improved by slavs. Especially Albanians it would appear. I mean Bulgarians and other south slavs have no problem doing the same and admitting we absorbed a lot of native & other elements. Anyways Laku Noc girls and boys. That's Serb slav for good night. Well you mised the point that the only reason we get mistaken for Slavs is because most Westerners have no clue what an Albanian looks like. That and the fact that we were the only non-slavs alonside the Hungarians who were part of the Eastern Bloc. There's also 6-7 million of us as opposed to 300 million or so Slavs. Dobar Dan.
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Post by leshte on Dec 29, 2009 12:48:04 GMT -5
You also left out the Romanians.
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Post by rusebg on Dec 29, 2009 13:16:18 GMT -5
If you think that Bulgarians or Serbs look like Russians or Poles which is absolutely not true, the latter having 0.01 % influence in the Balkans.
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Post by ngadhnjyesi on Dec 29, 2009 13:41:25 GMT -5
If you think that Bulgarians or Serbs look like Russians or Poles which is absolutely not true, the latter having 0.01 % influence in the Balkans. Well we all look the same to the Chinese or the Americans. My point was that there are so very few of us that it's hard for people to create an opinion on how we look. Greeks for example have a very good idea what an Albanian looks like since they've had a huge influx in the last 20 years.
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