Pelasgian

plural Pelasgians · plural Pelasgi

1. An inhabitant of pre-Hellenic Greece.

   It seems evident that the Hellenes much excelled the Pelasgians in the spirit of enterprise and in military accomplishments.

   1830, Henry Malden, History of Rome, Baldwin and Cradock, page 70

   1 more example

   In Homer the Pelasgians¹ are of little importance. They are inhabitants of Asia Minor, where they possess a Larissa, and fight in the ranks of the Trojan army. We also hear of Pelasgi among the inhabitants of Crete.

   1895, Evelyn Abbott, A History of Greece, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 27

1. The language spoken by the Pelasgians.

   1869, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, Volume 1, Ethnological Society of London, Trübner and Co. page 324, Pelasgian, therefore, is regarded by him as convertible with Illyrian, and that with Gueg, subject to modifications of Tosk and relations therewith.

   1 more example

   […]Malte-Brun described Pelasgian as a primitive version of Greek, and distinguished it from Illyrian, which he regarded as a branch of the Thracian language.

   2002, Noel Malcolm, “Myths of Albanian National Identity”, in Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd Jürgen Fischer, editors, Albanian Identities, Indiana University Press, page 76

comparative more Pelasgian · superlative most Pelasgian

1. Of or pertaining to the Pelasgians, their culture, etc.

   The very solemn and ancient observance of her^([Demeter's]) worship in Attica, which was so eminently a Pelasgian state in the time of Homer, entirely accords with the indications of the Homeric text.

   1858, William Ewart Gladstone, Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Volume II, Oxford University Press, page 214

   2 more examples

   Croesus learns that of the Spartans and the Athenians, the one ethnos, the Spartans, was Dorian, the other, the Athenians, was Ionian; the one (obviously Athenians) were Pelasgian of old, the other (the Dorians) were Greek (Hellenikon).

   2000, Rosalind Thomas, Herodotus in Context, Paperback edition, Cambridge University Press, page 119

   Until recently, the investigation of Pelasgian language and culture was treated as a special field of Indo-European studies because the majority of scholars were convinced that the pre–Greek population of Greece must have been of Indo-European ethnic stock.

   2014, Harald Haarmann, Roots of Ancient Greek Civilization, McFarland & Company, page 17

   Synonyms: Pelasgic