Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by about 6,400,000 inhabitants of the eastern Adriatic coast in Albania and also in neighbouring Yugoslavia, principally in Kosova and Macedonia, west of a line from near Leskovac to Lake Ohri. There are perhaps 300,000 more speakers in isolated villages in southern Italy (Abruzzi, Molise, Basilicata, Puglia, and Calabria), and Sicily, and southern Greece (in Voiot'a, Attica, fvvoia, çndros, and the Pelop-nnesos)The origins of the general name Albanian, which traditionally referred to a restricted area in central Albania, and of the current official name Shqip or Shqip'ri, which may well be derived from a term meaning "pronounce clearly, intelligibly," are still disputed. The name Albanian has been found in records since the time of Ptolemy. In Calabrian Albanian the name is Arbresh, in Modern Greek Arvan'tis, and in Turkish Arnaut; the name must have been transmitted early through Greek speech.

Dialects: The two principal dialects, Gheg in the north and Tosk in the south, are separated roughly by the Shkumbin River. Gheg and Tosk have been diverging for at least a millennium, and their less extreme forms are mutually intelligible. Gheg has the more marked subvarieties, the most striking of which are the northernmost and eastern types, which include those of the city of Shkod‘r (Scutari), the neighbouring mountains along the Montenegro border, Kosova, Macedonia, and the isolated village of Arbanasi (formerly Borgo Erizzo) on the Croatian coast of Dalmatia outside Zara (Zadar). Arbanasi, founded in the early 18th century by refugees from near Tivar (formerly Antivari, Bar), has about 2,000 speakers.

All of the Albanian dialects spoken in Italian and Greek enclaves are of the Tosk variety, and seem to be related most closely to the dialect of ‚am‘ria in the extreme south of Albania. These dialects resulted from incompletely understood population movements of the 13th and 15th centuries. The Italian enclaves--nearly 50 scattered villages-- probably were founded by emigrants from Turkish rule in Greece. A few isolated outlying dialects of south Tosk origin are spoken in Bulgaria and Turkish Thrace but are of unclear date. The language is still in use in Mandritsa, Bulgaria, at the border near Edirne, and in an offshoot of this village surviving in M‡ndres, near Kilk’s in Greece, that dates from the Balkan Wars. A Tosk enclave near Melitopol in the Ukraine appears to be of moderately recent settlement from Bulgaria. The Albanian dialects of Istria, for which a text exists, and of Syrmia (Srem), for which there is none, have become extinct.

Meshari (Albanian for "The Prayer Book") is the first book written in Albanian language. The book was written by Gjon Buzuku, a Catholic cleric in 1555. The book contains 188 pages and is written in two columns. Meshari is the translation of the main parts of the catholic liturgy into Albanian. It contains the services of the main religious holidays of the year, comments from the book of prayers, parts from the Testament as well as parts from the ritual and catechism. Therefore, it includes the parts a preacher needs in his daily religious services. The only known copy of this book currently is in the Library of Vatican.

Meshari was discovered in 1740, then lost and rediscovered in 1909. In 1930, the book was photocopied and brought to Albania. In 1968 it was published with transliterations and comments by linguists.

Meshari is written in the northern dialect (gegërisht), in the Latin alphabet, and is provided with some special letters. The book has a relatively rich vocabulary and its orthography and grammatical forms seem to be established, which is indicative of an earlier tradition in the writing of the Albanian language.

Below is an excerpt from Meshari:

"I, Don John, son of Benedict Buzuku, having often considered that our language had in it nothing intelligible from the Holy Scriptures, wished for the sake of our people to attempt, as far as I was able, to enlighten the minds of those who understand, so that they may comprehend how great and powerful and forgiving our Lord is to those who love him with all their hearts. I beg of you from today on to go to church more often to hear the word of God. If you do this, may our Lord have mercy upon you. Those who have suffered up to now shall suffer no longer. May you be the elect of our Lord. He will be with you at all times if you pursue righteousness and avoid iniquity. By so doing, the Lord shall give you increase, for your harvest shall last until the vintage and the vintage shall last until the time of sowing. I, moreover, wish to finish my work if it please God. I began it in the year 1554 on the 20th day of March and finished it in the year 1555 on the 5th day of January. If perchance mistakes have been made in any part, I pray and beg of those who are more learned than I to correct them. For I should not be surprised if I have made mistakes, this being the very first work, great and difficult to render into our language. Those who printed it had great difficulty and thus could not fail to make mistakes, for I was not able to be with them all the time. Running a church, I had to serve in two places. And now I beg of you all to pray to the Lord on my behalf."

History: The official language, written in a standard roman-style orthography adopted in 1909, was based on the south Gheg dialect of Elbasan from the beginning of the Albanian state until World War II, and since has been modelled on Tosk. Albanian speakers in Kosova and in Macedonia speak eastern varieties of Gheg but since 1974 have widely adopted a common orthography with Albania. Before 1909, the little literature that was preserved, was written in local makeshift Italianate or Hellenizing orthographies, or even in Turko-Arabic characters.

A few brief written records are preserved from the 15th century, the first being a baptismal formula from 1462. The scattering of books produced in the 16th and 17th centuries originated largely in the Gheg area (often in Scutarene north Gheg) and reflect Roman Catholic missionary activities. Much of the small stream of literature in the 19th century was produced by exiles. Perhaps the earliest purely literary work of any extent is the 18th-century poetry of Jul Variboba, of the enclave at S.Giorgio, in Calabria. Some literary production continued through the 19th century in the Italian enclaves, but no similar activity is recorded in the Greek areas. All these early historical documents show a language that differs little from the current language. Because these documents from different regions and times exhibit marked dialect peculiarities, however, they often have a value for linguistic study that greatly outweighs their literary merit.

Classification: That Albanian is of clearly Indo-European origin was recognized by the German philologist, Franz Bopp, in 1854; the details of the main correspondences of Albanian with Indo-European languages were elaborated by another German philologist, Gustav Meyer, in the 1880s and 1890s. Further linguistic refinements were presented by the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen and the Austrian Norbert Jokl. The following etymologies illustrate the relationship of Albanian to Indo-European (an asterisk preceding a word denotes an unattested, hypothetical Indo-European parent word, which is written in a conventionalized orthography): pes' "five" (from *pZnk e); zjarm "fire" (from *g hermos); nat' "night" (from *nok t-); dh'nd'r "son-in-law" (from * gem ter-); gjarp'r "snake" (from *sZrpon-); bjer "bring!" (from *bhere); djeg "I burn" (from *dheg ho); kam "I have" (from *kapmi); pata "I had" (from *pot-); pjek "I roast" (from * peko); thom, thot' "I say, he says" (from *k'emi, *k'et . . .).

The verb system includes many archaic traits, such as the retention of distinct active and middle personal endings (as in Greek) and the change of a stem vowel e in the present to o (from *e) in the past tense, a feature shared with the Baltic languages. For example, there is mbledh "gathers (transitive)" as well as mblidhet "gathers (intransitive), is gathered" in the present tense, and mblodha "I gathered" with an o in the past. Because of the superficial changes in the phonetic shape of the language over 3,000 years and because of the borrowing of words from neighbouring cultures, the continuity of the Indo-European heritage in Albanian has been underrated.

Albanian shows no obvious close affinity to any other Indo-European language; it is plainly the sole modern survivor of its own subgroup. Of ancient languages, both Dacian (or Daco-Mysian) and Illyrian have been tentatively considered its ancestor or nearest relative.

Grammar: The grammatical categories of Albanian are much like those of other European languages. Nouns show overt gender, number, and three or four cases. An unusual feature is that nouns are further inflected obligatorily with suffixes to show definite or indefinite meaning; e.g., buk' "bread," buka "the bread." Adjectives--except numerals and certain quantifying expressions--and dependent nouns follow the noun they modify; and they are remarkable in requiring a particle preceding them that agrees with the noun. Thus, in nj' burr' i madh, meaning "a big man," burr' "man" is modified by madh "big," which is preceded by i, which agrees with the term for "man"; likewise, in dy burra t' m'dhenj"two big men," m'dhenj, the plural masculine form for "big," follows the noun burra "men" and is preceded by a particle t' that agrees with the noun. Verbs have roughly the number and variety of forms found in French or Italian and are quite irregular in forming their stems. Noun plurals are also notable for the irregularity of a large number of them. When a definite noun or one taken as already known is the direct object of the sentence, a pronoun in the objective case that repeats this information must also be inserted in the verb phrase; e.g., i-a dhash' librin atij is literally "him-it I-gave the-book to-him," which in standard English would be "I gave the book to him." In general, the grammar and formal distinctions of Albanian are reminiscent of Modern Greek and the Romance languages, especially of Romanian. The sounds suggest Hungarian or Greek, but Gheg with its nasal vowels strikes the ear as distinctive. Although Albanian has a host of borrowings from its neighbours, it shows exceedingly few evidences of contact with ancient Greek; one such is the Gheg moken; (Tosk mok'r) "millstone," from the Greek mekhane'. Obviously close contacts with the Romans gave many Latin loans; e.g., mik "friend," from Latin amicus; k'ndoj "sing, read" from cantare. Furthermore, such loanwords in Albanian attest to the similarities in development of the Latin spoken in the Balkans and of Romanian, a Balkan Romance tongue. For example, Latin paludem "swamp" became padulem, and then padure in Romanian and pyll in Albanian, both with a modified meaning, "forest."

Conversely, Romanian also shares some apparently non-Latin indigenous terms with Albanian; e.g., Romanian brad, Albanian bredh "fir." Thus these two languages reflect special historical contacts of early date. Early communication with the Goths presumably contributed tirq "trousers, breeches" (from an old compound "thigh-breech"), while early Slavic contacts gave gozhd' "nail." Many Italian, Turkish, Modern Greek, Serbian, and Macedonian-Slav loans can be attributed to cultural contacts of the past 500 years with Venetians, Ottomans, Greeks (to the south), and Slavs (to the east).

A fair number of features--e.g., the formation of the future tense and of the noun phrase--are shared with other languages of the Balkans but are of obscure origin and development; Albanian or its earlier kin could easily be the source for at least some of these. The study of such regional features in the Balkans has become a classic case for research on the phenomena of linguistic diffusion.

Vocabulary and contacts: Although Albanian has a host of borrowings from its neighbours, it shows exceedingly few evidences of contact with ancient Greek; one such is the Gheg mokÔn (Tosk mokÔr) "millstone," from the Greek mekhane'. Obviously close contacts with the Romans gave many Latin loans; e.g., mik "friend," from Latin amicus; kÔndoj "sing, read" from cantare. Furthermore, such loanwords in Albanian attest to the similarities in development of the Latin spoken in the Balkans and of Romanian, a Balkan Romance tongue. For example, Latin paludem "swamp" became padulem, and then padure in Romanian and pyll in Albanian, both with a modified meaning, "forest."

Conversely, Romanian also shares some apparently non-Latin indigenous terms with Albanian; e.g., Romanian brad, Albanian bredh "fir." Thus these two languages reflect special historical contacts of early date. Early communication with the Goths presumably contributed tirq "trousers, breeches" (from an old compound "thigh-breech"), while early Slavic contacts gave gozhdÔ "nail." Many Italian, Turkish, Modern Greek, Serbian, and Macedonian-Slav loans can be attributed to cultural contacts of the past 500 years with Venetians, Ottomans, Greeks (to the south), and Slavs (to the east).

A fair number of features--e.g., the formation of the future tense and of the noun phrase--are shared with other languages of the Balkans but are of obscure origin and development; Albanian or its earlier kin could easily be the source for at least some of these. The study of such regional features in the Balkans has become a classic case for research on the phenomena of linguistic diffusion.

Alphabet: The Albanian alphabet consists of 36 letters of the Latin script. The alphabet was standardized in 1909.

Albanian characters are supported by the ISO Latin-1 ASCII character set. Your computer must use this set if the following characters are to be displayed correctly.

A B C Ç D Dh E ë F G Gj H I J K L Ll M N Nj O P Q R Rr S Sh T Th U V X Xh Y Z Zh a b c ç d dh e f g gj h i j k l ll m n nj o p q r rr s sh t th u v x xh y z zh