The linguistic relation that connects them with the Albanian language
can be partially clarified of course since it comes only from one
source the encyclopaedia Britannica.
Further investigation will follow.
" Similarly, the Albanian language derives from the language of the Illyrians, the transition from Illyrian to Albanian apparently occurring between the 4th and 6th centuries AD.
(Some scholars, however, dispute such theses, arguing that Illyrians were not autochthonous and that Albanian derives from a dialect of the now-extinct Thracian language.)
Now if you click on the thracian language
"anguage spoken by the inhabitants of Thrace primarily in pre-Greek and early Greek times. Generally assumed to be an Indo-European language, Thracian is known from proper names, glosses in Greek writings, and a small number of inscriptions, some of which appear on coins; these sources date from as early as the 6th century BC. Thracian is thought by many scholars to be related to the ancient Phrygian language spoken in Asia Minor. Compare Phrygian language."
And further in the Phrygian language sheds some light to why the albanian belongs to a separate group as the greek language..
"
ancient Indo-European language of west-central Anatolia. Textual evidence for Phrygian falls into two distinct groups. Old Phrygian texts date from the 8th to 3rd centuries BCE and are written in an alphabet related to but different from that of Greek. The majority of those that can be understood are cultic in nature. Most were found at established Phrygian sites such as Gordion and Midas City, but a few are from more peripheral areas, as far east as the Hittite capital city, Hattusa (near the modern town of Bogazkale, formerly Bogazköy, Tur.), and as far south as the borders of Lycia. The extant texts of the second group date from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. These Neo-Phrygian texts are virtually all curse formulas that were written in the Greek alphabet and appended to tomb inscriptions.
Phrygian has a special status in that it is an Indo-European language found in Anatolia that does not share the defining features of the so-called Anatolian languages, a group of Hittite, Luwian, and related languages; presumably, its presence in the region reflects a later population movement. While Phrygian shares several notable features with Greek (such as the “augment,” a verbal prefix e- marking the past tense), its dialectal position within Indo-European remains a matter of debate.
H. Craig Melchert
Theo P.J. van den Hout
