Illyrian was an Indo-European language, or possibly a small group of related languages, spoken by the Illyrians of southeastern Europe in antiquity, across territory now covered by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. It went extinct sometime between the second and sixth centuries AD and survives only through personal names, place names and occasional glosses recorded in classical sources, with no Illyrian inscriptions or connected texts of its own, which is enough to confirm its Indo-European affiliation but too little to reconstruct it with confidence or settle proposed finer connections to the Albanoid languages or to Messapic. In early modern times the unrelated term Illyrian was also sometimes applied to Serbo-Croatian, a usage that has nothing to do with the ancient language.
Facts
RegionSpoken across Southeast Europe in antiquity, native to what is now Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, with a linguistic core identified around modern Albania and Montenegro. 1 Proto-Language StatusIllyrian is unattested apart from personal names and place names recorded by classical writers; no proto-language has been reconstructed, and for lack of sufficient evidence the language is conventionally placed in its own branch of Indo-European. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Illyrian Language
WikipediaGeographic distribution field
Native to Modern Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia
Classification section
For lack of more information, Illyrian is typically described as occupying its own branch in the Indo-European family tree.
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