Pelasgians

Ancient Greek writers used the name "Pelasgians" (Gk. Pelasgoí, s. Pelasgós) to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and still dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean, as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The Greek references to Pelasgians are unanimously in agreement that they spoke a language or dialect that was different enough from Greek dialects so as not to be intelligible to Hellenes. Whether Pelasgian was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which Pelasgian was a single language are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the Greeks, and in recent times some may apply "Pelasgian" to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of Anatolia as well.

Related Topics:
Gk. - Hellenes - Greece - Crete - Aegean - Indo-European - Nationalist issues - Autochthonous - Greeks - Pre-Indo-European - Anatolia

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