The Pre-Ethnonymic Slavic Linguistic Continuum: Epirus and Thessaly as a Southern Conservative Areal

This monograph advances a falsifiable linguistic hypothesis concerning thepre-ethnonymic Slavic linguistic continuum and its chronological relationshipto the earliest historical attestations of the ethnonym *Sclaveni*. Focusing on Epirus and Thessaly as a southern conservative areal, the studycombines internal linguistic chronology, toponymic analysis, areal linguistics,and available archaeogenetic data. The results challenge late and rapidlanguage-replacement models commonly associated with the sixth–seventhcenturies CE and argue for a much earlier formation of the Slavic linguisticsystem.