Author(s)

Giancarlo T. Tomezzoli¹, Rainhardt S. Stein²

¹Etno-Archaeological Observatory, Munich, Germany.
²Universiteit Utrecht, Uithof, Holland.

This article follows a previous publication dedicated to Venetic personal anthroponyms. In the present article, we investigate Illyrian personal anthroponyms from the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, a continuously updated Latin inscription catalogue covering the Roman Empire period and its provinces. The Illyrian anthroponyms appear deeply latinised and graecised and the meaning of their roots was identified by comparing each one of them with corresponding lexemes in the present surviving Slavic languages. The result is that the Illyrian personal anthroponyms having Slavic roots is 45.93%, which permits to estimate that during the Roman Empire period, i.e. about five cen., roughly 46% of the Illyrian population had Slavic ascendancies. This highlights that Slavs were already present in areas incorporated by the Roman Empire well before the VII cen. A.D. the date, according to the generally accepted theory, of the Slav late arrival in Europe. The logical consequence is that this theory is wrong and should be rejected.

Illyrians, Anthroponyms, Veneti, Slavs, Late Arrival, Roman Empire, C.I.L., Linguistics

Tomezzoli, G. and Stein, R. (2021) Illyrian Personal Anthroponyms. Archaeological Discovery, 9, 1-15. doi: 10.4236/ad.2021.91001.