Albania under the Serbian Empire

After the weakening of the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian Empire in the middle and late 13th century, most of the territory of modern-day Albania became part of Serbia. Firstly, as part of Serbian Grand Principality and later as part of Serbian Empire. The southern part was governed by the semi-independent, Serbian-ruled Despotate of Epirus. Between 1272 and 1368, some areas of the modern-day state were also ruled by the Angevins as the Kingdom of Albania. In the late 14th century, Albanian Principalities were created throughout Albania.

From the sixth century, big numbers of Slavs, Avars and Bulgars invaded the Balkan provinces of the East Roman Empire. Prior to Roman times, the Balkans had already consisted of a large culturally and ethnically mixed population. The 'ancient' inhabitants, generically referred to as Ancient Greeks, Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians, were split into many smaller tribes who had different customs and even languages. The picture was mixed further in Roman times, when Roman colonists were settled the Balkan cities, as well as Germanic, Celtic and Sarmatian federates in the countryside. This led to a process of Romanization of the natives who dwelt in cities in Illyria and Pannonia, whilst Greek was the formal language in Thrace, Epirus, and Macedonia (Roman province). In the countryside, many of the natives would join the foreign elements in raiding imperial territory. Later, there was an extensive Slavonization of the Balkans. Nevertheless, small pockets of people preserved an archaic language. The geographic origin of these proto-Albanians is disputed, and cannot be proven for lack of big archaeological or historical data pertaining to Albanians prior to the twelfth century. However, scholars explain that Albanian language comes from either Illyrian or Thracian or both, with a considerate influence of Latin. Later on Slavic and Turkish loanwords influenced it, although to a much lesser extent.

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