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Albanian or Gjuha shqipe is a language spoken by more then six million inhabitants of the western Balkan peninsula (Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece) in the south-eastern Europe (Albanians) and by a small number of people in Calabria, southern Italy.
| Albanian (Gjuha shqipe)
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| Spoken in:
| Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Italy, and other countries
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| Region:
| Eastern Europe
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| Total speakers:
| 8 million
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| Ranking:
| Not in top 100
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| Genetic classification:
| Indo-European
Albanian
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| Official status
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| Official language of:
| Albania, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia
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| Regulated by:
| -
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| Language codes
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| ISO 639-1 | sq
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| ISO 639-2 | sqi
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| SIL | ALS, ALN, AAE, AAT
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History
The oldest known Albanian printed book, Meshari [1] (http://www.albanianliterature.com/html/authors/prose/buzuku.html) or missal, was written by Gjon Buzuku, a Catholic cleric, in 1555. The first Albanian school is believed to have been opened by Franciscans in 1638 in Pdhanë.
Classification
Albanian was proved to be an Indo-European language in the 1850s, that is thought by some to derive principally from either the Illyrian languages or the Dacian language, both spoken in the south-eastern Europe two millennia ago, and forms part of no known wider sub-group within the Indo-European family.
Albanology
Some eminent scholars in the field of Albanian language have been Johann Georg von Hahn, Franz Bopp, Gustav Meyer, Norbert Jokl, Eqrem Çabej, Stuart Edward Mann, Carlo Tagliavini, Wacław Cimochowski, Eric Pratt Hamp, Agnija Desnickaja and Gjovalin Shkurtaj who is probably the most distinguished socio-linguist in Albania today. He is the head of the Department of Linguistics at Tirana University.
Geographic distribution
Dialects
There are two principal dialects of limited mutual intelligibility: Tosk and Gheg. The geographical border of the two dialects has traditionally been the Shkumbini River in Albania, with Gheg being spoken north of the river, and Tosk south of the river. The two dialects have phonological as well as lexicological differences.
Tosk is spoken in southern and central Albania, by the Arbëreshë of Italy, among the Albanian minority of Greece: the Çam and the Arvanites, and in small communities of Albanian immigrants in Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, and United States.
Gheg (or Geg) is spoken in northern Albania and by the Albanians of Serbia and Montenegro (Southern Montenegro and Southern Serbia), the UN protectorate of Kosovo, as well as those of the Republic of Macedonia.
Since after World War II there have been efforts to standardize on one dialect called Standard or Literary Albanian that borrows most heavily from the Tosk dialect (at the behest of the Dictator Enver Hoxha, himself a Tosk speaker). Two books that were published in the 1970s, Drejtshkrimi i gjuhës shqipe and Fjalori drejtshkrimor i gjuhës shqipe, contained prescribed orthographical rules and dictionary definitions respectively.
Official status
Albanian, in the Tosk dialect, is the official language of Albania. Albanian is also one of the official languages of Kosovo, and of the Republic of Macedonia.
Sounds
| letter
| SAMPA - example
| letter
| SAMPA - example
|
| a
| a - Spanish la
| n
| n - gun
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| b
| b - burn
| nj
| J - Spanish niña
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| c
| ts - hats
| o
| O - four
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| ç
| tS - church
| p
| p - opera
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| d
| d - dance
| q
| c - Close to hit you
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| dh
| D - this
| r
| 4 - Spanish pero
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| e
| E - let
| rr
| r - Spanish perro
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| ë
| @ - allowed (ë is a schwa)
| s
| s - save
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| f
| f - fight
| sh
| S - shun
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| g
| g - gun
| t
| t - tell
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| gj
| J\ - Close to did you
| th
| T - thought
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| h
| h - hope
| u
| u - doom
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| i
| i - eat
| v
| v - victory
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| j
| j - year
| x
| dz - adze
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| k
| k - king
| xh
| dZ - jungle
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| l
| l - lee
| y
| y - French du jour
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| ll
| l_G - tell
| z
| z - zone
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| m
| m - mother
| zh
| Z - vision
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Note: all sounds in words used for comparison are those of the English language unless otherwise noted.
- Hear the pronunciation (146KB Ogg file)
Albanians transliterate foreign words in their own way, even from the Latin alphabet; thus Josh McDowell is transliterated Xhosh Mekdauëll. Each sound is approximated by one or more of the 36 letters of the alphabet, therefore words are spelled as they sound.
Vowels
The Albanian alphabet has seven vowels: A, E, Ë, I, O, U, Y.
Consonants
There are also 29 consonants: B, C, Ç, D, Dh, F, G, Gj, H, J, K, L, Ll, M, N, Nj, P, Q, R, Rr, S, Sh, T, Th, V, X, Xh, Z, Zh.
Vocabulary
Albanian split from the Proto-Indo-European language about 4000 years ago and most of the basic words are derived directly from it. Some of these words have cognates in Romanian and it is believed by some that the language spoken by the Dacians before the romanization was a language related to proto-Albanian.
Major influences over Albanian were ancient Greek and with the expansion of the Roman Empire, Latin, more specifically, the Balkan Latin, which was also the ancestor of Romanian. Examples of words borrowed from Latin: qytet < civitas (city), qiell < caelum (sky), mik < amicus (friend).
After the Slavs arrived in the Balkans, another source of Albanian vocabulary were the Slavic languages, especially Bulgarian. Like for all Balkan languages, the rise of the Ottoman Empire meant an influx of Turkish words.
Writing system
The Albanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the letters ë, ç, and nine digraphs to account for certain sounds in pronunciations. Until 1908, when the Latin alphabet was introduced in Albanian, the Greek alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, and the Ottoman Turkish version of the Arabic alphabet had been used to write Albanian.
Examples
- Albanian: shqip /Sk_jip/ (shkEEp) listen
- hello: tungjatjeta /tun g_jat jE ta/ (tUhn-ngIAt-IEta) listen
- good-bye: mirupafshim /mi ru paf Sim/ (mEEr-Uh-oA-fshEEm) listen
- please: ju lutem /ju lu tEm/ (iU LU-tehm) Listen
- thank you: faleminderit /fa 5E min dE rit/ (fAh-leh-mEE-nde-rEEt) listen
- that one: atë /a t@/ (ATEH) listen
- how much? sa është? /sa @S t@/ (sAh ush-te) listen
- English: anglisht /an gliSt/ (ahn-GLEE-sht) listen
- yes: po /po/ (POE) listen
- no: jo /jo/ (IOH) listen
- sorry: më fal /m@ fal/ (mUh FAL) listen
- I don't understand: nuk kuptoj /nuk kup toj/ (nUhk KUP-toi) listen
- where's the bathroom?: ku është banjoja? /ku @S t@ ba Jo ja/ (kuh ush-tEh bA-nio-jA) listen
- generic toast: gëzuar /g@ zu ar/ (gUh-zuh-ar) listen
- Do you speak English?: flisni Anglisht? /flis ni an gliSt/ (flee-snEE ahn-GLEE-sht) listen
- Note: All the sounds above are in the Ogg Vorbis format.
See also
External links
Wikipedia articles written in this language are located at the
Albanian language Wikipedia
Sample of 3 different type of Albanian Language:
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