Albanian Language
Albanian Language
Albanian Language
The earliest written document that mentions the Albanian language is a late-13th-century crime report from
Dubrovnik. The rst audio recording of Albanian was
made by Norbert Jokl on 4 April 1914 in Vienna.[6]
History
According to the central hypothesis of a project undertaken by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Old Albanian
had a signicant inuence on the development of many
Balkan languages. Intensive research now aims to conrm this theory. Albanian is being researched using all
1
1 HISTORY
available texts before a comparison with other Balkan languages is carried out. The outcome of this work will include the compilation of a lexicon providing an overview
of all Old Albanian verbs.[14]
1.3
151 Albanian words of Latin origin were not inherited in Romanian. A few examples include Albanian
mik from Latin amicus, or armik from inimicus, arsye from rationem, bekoj from benedicere, qelq from
calix (calicis), kshtjell from castellum, qind from
centum, gjel from gallus, gjymtyr from iunctura,
mjek from medicus, rrjet from rete, shpresoj from
sperare, vullnet from voluntas (voluntatis).[21]
Some Albanian church terminology have phonetic
features which demonstrate their very early borrowing from Latin. A few examples include Albanian
altar from Latin altare, engjll from angelus, bekoj
from benedicere,i krishter from christianus, kryq
from crux (crucis), kish from ecclesia, ipeshkv from
episcopus, ungjill from evangelium, mallkoj from
maledicere, mesh from missa, murg from monacus,
pagan from paganus.[22]
Other authors[23] have detected Latin loanwords in Albanian with an ancient sound pattern from the 1st century
BC, for example, Albanian qingl from Latin cingula and
Albanian e vjetr from Latin vetus/veteris. The Romance
languages inherited these words from Vulgar Latin: VulEqrem abej also noticed, among other things, the ar- gar *cingla became N. Romanian chinga, meaning belly
band, saddle girth, and Vulgar veteran became N. Rochaic Latin elements in Albanian:[19]
manian btrn, meaning old.
1. Latin /au/ becomes Albanian /a/ in the earliest bor- Albanian, Basque, and the surviving Celtic languages
rowings: aurum > ar, gaudium > gaz, laurus > such as Irish and Welsh are the non-Romance languages
lar. But Latin /au/ is retained in later borrowings: today that have this sort of extensive Latin element datcausa > kafsh", laud > lavd.
ing from ancient Roman times, which have undergone the
2. Latin // becomes Albanian /e/ in the oldest Latin sound changes associated with the languages.
borrowings: pmum > pem", hra > her".
An analogous mutation occurred from Proto-IndoEuropean to Albanian; PIE *ns became Albanian
ne, PIE *ot + sux -ti- became Albanian tet"
etc.
3. Latin unstressed internal and initial syllables become lost in Albanian: cubitus > kub, medicus
> mjek, paludem > V. Latin padule > pyll.
An analogous mutation occurred from Proto-IndoEuropean to Albanian. In contrast, in later Latin
borrowings, the internal syllable is retained: paganus > pagan, plaga > plag" etc.
4. Latin /tj/, /dj/, /kj/ palatalized to Albanian /s/, /z/,
/c/: vitius > ves, ratio > arsye, radius > rreze,
Illyrians, Dacians, Getae and Thracians at 200 BC
facies > faqe, socius > shoq etc.
Haralambie Mihescu demonstrated that:
Some 85 Latin words have survived in Albanian
but not (as inherited) in any Romance language. A
few examples include bubulcus > bujk, hibernalia >
mrraj, sarcinarius > shelqror, trifurcus > trfurk,
accipiter > skifter, musconea > mushkonj, chersydrus > kuedr, spleneticum > shpretk, solanum >
shull.[20]
3
the words for plants and animals characteristic of mountainous regions are entirely original, the names for sh
and for agricultural activities (such as ploughing) are borrowed from other languages.[25] A deeper analysis of the
vocabulary, however, shows that this could be a consequence of the prolonged Latin domination of the coastal
and plain areas of the country, rather than evidence of the
original environment where the Albanian language was
formed. For example, the word for 'sh' is borrowed from
Latin, but not the word for 'gills, which is native. Indigenous are also the words for 'ship', 'raft' and 'navigation',
'sea shelves and a few names of sh kinds, but not the
words for 'sail', 'row', 'harbor', objects pertaining navigation itself and a large part of sea fauna. This rather shows
that Proto-Albanians were pushed away from coastal areas in early times (probably after the Latin conquest of
the region) thus losing large parts (or the majority) of
sea environment lexicon. A similar phenomenon could
be observed with agricultural terms. While the words for
'arable land', 'corn', 'wheat', 'cereals, 'vineyard', 'yoke',
'harvesting', cattle breeding etc are native, the words for
'plowing', 'farm' and 'farmer', agricultural practices, and
some harvesting tools are foreign. This, again, points to
intense contacts with other languages and people, rather
than providing evidence of a possible Urheimat.
The center of Albanian settlement remained the Mat
river. In AD 1079 they are recorded farther south in
the valley of the Shkumbin river.[26] The Shkumbin, a
seasonal stream that lies near the old Via Egnatia, is approximately the boundary of the primary dialect division
for Albanian, Tosk-Gheg. The characteristics of Tosk
and Gheg in the treatment of the native and loanwords
from other languages are evidence that the dialectal split
preceded the Slavic migration to the Balkans,[27][28][13]
which means that in that period (5th to 6th centuries AD)
Albanians were occupying pretty much the same area
around the Shkumbin river, which straddled the Jireek
Line.[29][24]
References to the existence of Albanian as a distinct
language survive from the 14th century, but they failed
to cite specic words. The oldest surviving documents
written in Albanian are the "formula e pagzimit" (Baptismal formula), Un'te paghesont' pr'emenit t'Atit e t'Birit e
t'Spertit Senit. (I baptize thee in the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit") recorded by Pal Engjelli, Bishop of Durrs in 1462 in the Gheg dialect, and
some New Testament verses from that period.
The oldest known Albanian printed book, Meshari, or
missal, was written in 1555 by Gjon Buzuku, a Roman
Catholic cleric. In 1635, Frang Bardhi wrote the rst
LatinAlbanian dictionary. The rst Albanian school is
believed to have been opened by Franciscans in 1638 in
Pdhan.
2 Dialects
Main article: Albanian dialects
Albanian is divided into two major dialects: Gheg, Tosk,
and a transitional dialect zone between them.[30] The
Shkumbin river is roughly the dividing line, with Gheg
spoken north of the Shkumbin and Tosk south of it.[31]
There are also other dialects like Arbresh and Arvanitika, which are mixtures between Gheg and Tosk with
some archaic features of Albanian. They are spoken in
some areas of Italy and Greece.
3 Standard Albanian
Before World War II the language predominantly used for
ocial purposes was Gheg Albanian because King Zog I
was a Gheg leader.[32] Prior to World War II, dictionaries consulted by developers of the standard have included
Lexikon tis Alvanikis glossis (Albanian: Fjalori i Gjuhs
Shqipe (Kostandin Kristoforidhi, 1904),[33] Fjalori i
Bashkimit (1908),[33] and Fjalori i Gazullit (1941).[34]
After World War II standard Albanian is based on the
Tosk dialect, while standardization was directed by the
Institute of Albanian Language and Literature of the
Academy of Sciences of Albania.[35] Two dictionaries
were published in 1954: an Albanian language dictionary and a RussianAlbanian dictionary. New orthography rules were eventually published in 1967[35] and 1973
(Drejtshkrimi i gjuhs shqipe (Orthography of the Albanian Language).[36] More recent dictionaries from the
Albanian government are Fjalori Drejtshkrimor i Gjuhs
Shqipe (1976) (Orthographic Dictionary of the Albanian
Language)[37] and Dictionary of Todays Albanian language (Fjalori Gjuhs s Sotme Shqipe) (1980).[35][38]
4 Geographic distribution
Albanian is spoken by approximately 7.6 million
people,[39][40] mainly in Albania, Kosovo, Turkey, the
Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Italy (Arbereshe)
and by immigrant communities in many other countries, notably the United Kingdom, the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
4.1 Standard
Standard Albanian, based on the Tosk dialect of southern
Albania, is the ocial language of Albania and Kosovo
and is also ocial in municipalities of the Republic of
Macedonia where ethnic Albanians form more than 20%
of the municipal population. It is also an ocial language
of Montenegro, where it is spoken in municipalities with
ethnic Albanian populations.
6 GRAMMAR
Phonology
5.1
Consonants
Notes:
The palatal nasal // corresponds to the Spanish
and the French and Italian gn. It is pronounced as
one sound, not a nasal plus a glide.
6 Grammar
See also: Albanian morphology
Albanian has a canonical word order of SVO (subject
verbobject) like English and many other Indo-European
languages.[46] Albanian nouns are inected by gender
(masculine, feminine and neuter) and number (singular
and plural). There are ve declensions with six cases
(nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and
vocative), although the vocative only occurs with a limited
number of words, and the forms of the genitive and dative are identical (a genitive is produced when the prepositions i/e/t/s are used with the dative). Some dialects
also retain a locative case, which is not present in standard
Albanian. The cases apply to both denite and indenite
nouns, and there are numerous cases of syncretism.
The following shows the declension of mal (mountain), a
masculine noun which takes i in the denite singular:
5.2
Vowels
5.2.1
Schwa
Although the Indo-European schwa ( or -h2-) was preserved in Albanian, in some cases it was lost, possibly
when a stressed syllable preceded it.[42] Until the standardization of the modern Albanian alphabet, in which
the schwa is spelled as , as in the work of Gjon Buzuku in
the 16th century, various vowels and gliding vowels were
employed, including ae by Lek Matrnga and by Pjetr
Bogdani in the late 16th and early 17th century.[43][44]
The schwa in Albanian has a great degree of variability from extreme back to extreme front articulation.[45]
Within the borders of Albania, the phoneme is pronounced about the same in both the Tosk and the Gheg
dialect due to the inuence of standard Albanian. Howevever, in the Gheg dialects spoken in the neighbouring
Albanian-speaking areas of Kosovo and Macedonia, the
phoneme is still pronounced as back and rounded.[45]
6.2
Numerals
Numerals
7 Orthography
Ti et shqip. You speak Albanian. (indicative)
Main articles: Albanian alphabet and Albanian braille
Ti iske shqip! You (surprisingly) speak Albanian!" (admirative)
Rruga sht e mbyllur. The street is closed. (indicative)
Rruga qenka e mbyllur. "(Apparently,) The street
is closed. (admirative)
For more information on verb conjugation and on inection of other parts of speech, see Albanian morphology.
6.1
Word order
8 Literary tradition
8.1 Earliest undisputed texts
8 LITERARY TRADITION
the Fjalori i Arnold von Hart (Arnold Ritter von also contains passages from the Psalms, the Book of IsaHars lexicon), a short list of Albanian phrases with iah, the Book of Jeremiah, the Letters to the Corinthians,
German glosses, dated 1496.[49]
and many illustrations. The uniformity of spelling seems
to indicate an earlier tradition of writing. The only known
a song, recorded in the Greek alphabet, retrieved copy of the Meshari is held by the Apostolic Library.[51]
from an old codex that was written in Greek. The In 1968 the book was published with transliterations and
document is also called Perikopeja e Ungjillit t comments by linguists.
Pashkve or Perikopeja e Ungjillit t Shn Mateut
(The Song of the Easter Gospel, or The Song of
Saint Matthews Gospel). Although the codex is 8.2 Disputed earlier text
dated to during the 14th century, the song, written
in Albanian by an anonymous writer, seems to be a
16th-century writing. The document was found by
Arbresh people who had emigrated to Italy in the
15th century.[50]
9.3
Proto-IE features
the text is indeed Albanian, is fanciful and based, among searched using all available texts before a comparison
other things, on a false reading of the manuscript, includ- with other Balkan languages is carried out. The outcome
ing the exclusion of a whole line.[53]
of this work will include the compilation of a lexicon providing an overview of all Old Albanian verbs.[63]
8.3
Ottoman period
Classication
9.1
Origin
9.2
(Old) Albanian
According to the central hypothesis of a project undertaken by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Old Albanian
had a signicant inuence on the development of many
Balkan languages. Intensive research now aims to conrm this theory. This little-known language is being re-
[4] Cluster -sd[5] Cluster -s[6] Cluster -sp[7] Cluster -st[8] Dissimilation with following vowel
10 VOCABULARY
[1] Before i, e, a
10
10.1
Vocabulary
Cognates with Illyrian
Barba- swamp, a toponym from Metubarbis; possibly related to Alb. brrak swampy soil[70]
10.3
Gothic loans
<
Goth
Dacian language
12 Notes
brfas
13 References
[1] Albanian language
[2] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,
Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). Albanian.
Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
[3] Albanian language
[4] http://www.minorityrights.org/1617/italy/albanians.html
[5] http://www.albanianlanguage.net/
[6] Robert Elsie (2010). Historical Dictionary of Albania.
Rowman & Littleeld. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-8108-61886. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
[7] Nicholas Georey Lemprire Hammond (1976).
Migrations and invasions in Greece and adjacent areas. Noyes Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-8155-5047-1.
Retrieved 23 January 2013.
After the Slavs arrived in the Balkans, the Slavic languages became an additional source of loanwords. The
[8] Zeitschrift fr Balkanologie. R. Trofenik. 1990. p. 102.
rise of the Ottoman Empire meant an inux of Turkish
Retrieved 23 January 2013.
words; this also entailed the borrowing of Persian and
Arabic words through Turkish. Many Albanian names [9] Watkins 1998, p. 38.
(such as Enver Hoxha) are of Turkish origin. Some loan[10] Labov 1994, p. 42.
words from Modern Greek also exist especially in the
south of Albania. A lot of the borrowed words have been [11] Hamp 1994, pp. 6667.
re-substituted from Albanian rooted words or modern La[12] Huld, Martin E. (1986). Accentual Stratication of Antinized (international) words.
11
See also
Arbresh language
Arvanitika
Gheg Albanian
Tosk Albanian
Illyrian languages
Thraco-Illyrian
10
13
REFERENCES
[33] Lloshi, p. 9.
[37]
[38]
[39]
[40]
11
14 Bibliography
Ajeti, Idriz. La presence de l'albanais dans les parlers des populations slaves de la Peninsule Balkanique la lumiere de la langue et de la toponymie.
SA 1968/2
12
Ban, Emanuele. Linguistica balcanica. Bologna
1985
Ban, Emanuele. Storia linguistica del sud-est europeo. Milano 1991
Bopp, Franz. ber das Albanesische in seinen verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen. Berlin (1855)
14 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Demiraj, Shaban. (Albanian in pp. 480501)
Albanian, within The Indo-European Languages,
edited by Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paolo Ramat,
eds. London: Routledge, 1998;
Demiraj, Shaban. Gjuha shqipe dhe historia e saj.
Shtpia botuese e librit universitar (Tirane) 1988
abej, Eqrem. Mbi disa rregulla t fonetiks historike t shqipes. SF 1970/2 (In German Die
Sprache, Wien 1972)
abej, Eqrem. L'ancien nom national des albanais.
SA 1972/1
abej, Eqrem. Problemi i vendit t formimit t
gjuhs shqipe. SF 1972/4
abej, Eqrem. Karakteristikat e huazimeve latine t
gjuhs shqipe. SF 1974/2 (In German RL 1962/1)
abej, Eqrem. Studime etimologjike n fush t
shqipes.; vll. II, Tiran 1976
abej, Eqrem. Studime etimologjike n fush t
shqipes; vll. I. Tiran 1982
Camarda, Demetrio. Saggio di grammatologia comparata sulla lingua albanese. Livorno (1864)
Camarda, Demetrio. Appendice al Saggio di grammatologia sulla lingua albanese. Prato (1866)
Campbell, George L., ed. Compendium of the
Worlds Languages, 2nd edn., vol. 1: Abaza to
Kurdish, s.v. Albanian. London and New York:
Routledge, 2000, pp. 507.
Cimochowski, Waclaw. Recherches sur l'histoire du
sandhi dans la langue albanaise. LP II, 1950
Cimochowski, Waclaw. Des recherches sur la toponomastique de l'Albanie. LP VIII, 1960
Cimochowski, Waclaw.
Pozicioni gjuhsor i
ilirishtes ballkanike n rrethin e gjuhve indoevropiane. SF 1973/2
13
Hamp, E. P. Albanian, in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, edited by R. E. Asher, vol. 1.
Oxford: Pergamon, 1994, pp. 657.
Huld, Martin E. Basic Albanian etymologies.
Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers. (1984)
Katicic, Radoslav. Ancient languages of the Balkans
(Trends in linguistics). The Hague and Paris: Mouton. (1976)
Kopitar, B.J. Albanische, walachische und bulgarische Sprache. Vienna (1829)
Kretschmer, Paul. Einleitung in die Geschichte der
griechischen Sprache, (Introduction of the History
of the Greek Language), Gttingen, (1896)
Kretschmer, Paul. Sprachliche Vorgeschichte des
Balkans, (Parahistoria gjuhsore e Ballkanit), Revue Internationale des e'tudes balkaniquee, vol. II
(1935)
Pisani, Vittore L'albanais et les autres langues indoeuropennes, Annuaire de l'Institut de philologie et d'histoire orientales etslaves, t. X, Bruxelles,
1950
Tagliavini, Carlo. La straticazione del lessico albanese. Elementi indoeuropei. Bologna 1965
lberg, Hermann. Einige Uberlegungen zur Autochtonie der Albaner auf der Balkanhalbinsel. Akten Innsbruck (1972)
14
15
15
External links
Albanian Translation
Albanian Dictionary
Albanian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words
(from Wiktionarys Swadesh-list appendix)
Albanian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
Doctor John Bassett Trumper discussing the classication of Albanian within Indo-European on
YouTube
Dictionaries
Albanian Online Dictionary (40 000 lemmas)
English Albanian / Albanian English
Dictionary on Western Barbarisms and Albanian
Responsible Words entry on the National Library
of Albania (Hysenbegasi, Arion. Fjalor i barbarizmave perndimore n gjuhn shqipe dhe fjalve
prgjegjse shqipe. Ombra GVG, Tirana, 2011)
EXTERNAL LINKS
15
16
16.1
16
16
16.2
Images
16.3
Content license