The Shkumbin (; ), also known as Shkembi, is a river in Albania. It is long and its drainage basin is . Its average discharge is .
Etymology
It derives from
Latin Scampinus (recorded alternatively as ), which replaced the Illyrian name of the river:
Genusus (recorded in , also ,
and in ). A
Slavic languages intermediation has been rejected. Its inclusion in Latin loanwords into
Proto-Albanian and phonetic evolution coincides with the historical existence of a large Roman town (near present-day
Elbasan), which gave the river its new name.
Overview
Human history
The ancient name of the river was
Genusus and was located in central southern
Illyria. At the same time, it was referred as
Scampini, as it was identified by the town of
Elbasan. In classical antiquity, the valley of the Shkumbin was inhabited by several Illyrian peoples. The
Parthini lived in the middle valley of the river.
They neighbored to the west the
Taulantii who lived in the coastal area including the lower valley of the river, and to the east the
Dassaretii who lived in the region of
Lake Ohrid, including the upper valley of the river.
The ancient
Via Egnatia followed the river, giving it the role of a strategically important corridor between
orient and occident.
The Via Egnatia started with two branches, the northern one from
Epidamnos, and the southern one from Apollonia. The two branches converged at
Ad Quintum, near modern
Elbasan, continuing eastwards through the valley of the Shkumbin.
In Roman Empire times, the line of division between the administrative provinces of Illyricum and Epirus Nova ran from the west somewhere between Scodra and Dyrrachium, to the east somewhere between the north side of the Shkumbin and Lake Ohrid.[Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond. Migrations and invasions in Greece and adjacent areas. Noyes Press, 1976. . p. 54.] During this period, the valley of Shkumbin constituted roughly the border between the Latin and the Greek language-speaking area.
The river is roughly the geographical dividing line between Tosk Albanian and Gheg Albanian dialects, with Gheg spoken north of the Shkumbin and Tosk south of it. The dialectal split occurred after Christianisation of the region (4th century AD),[ Indo-European language and culture: an introduction By Benjamin W. Fortson Edition: 5, illustrated Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2004 , (page 392) ] with the river as the historic dialectal boundary[ Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World By Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie Contributor Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie Edition: illustrated Published by Elsevier,2008 , (page 23)] which straddled the Jireček line.[Orel, Vladimir; Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Brill, 1998 ][See also Hamp 1963.]
See also
-
Geography of Albania
-
Central Mountain Range
-
Rivers of Albania
Bibliography
