Definition of "Pelasgian"

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

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

Pelasgian, therefore, is regarded by him[Von Hahn] as convertible with Illyrian, and that with Gueg, subject to modifications of Tosk and relations therewith.

1869, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, Volume 1, Ethnological Society of London, Trübner and Co. page 324

[…] 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

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

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