Albanian language

Spoken in

• Indo-European languages Albanian

Sq.

Sqi ( macro language )

Included Single Languages:

• Aln ( Gheg )
• Aat ( Arvanitika )
• As ( Tosk )
• Aae ( Arbëresh )

The Albanian language forms a separate branch within the Indo-European language family. It is on record since the 15th century and today the official language of Albania and Kosovo, and minority language in other countries of Southeast Europe as well as in Italy. Self descriptions are Gjuha Shqipe / ɟuha ʃcipɛ / and short Shqipja / ʃcipja /.

The Albanian language has two major dialect groups in the north of the Gheg dialect and to the south the Toskische, which can be divided into some very different local sub- dialects (see: Albanian dialects ). Today's Albanian written language was not developed until the mid-20th century on the basis toskischer dialects. 1972, this process came at a congress in Tirana to a conclusion. For some years see a greater role to take into account variations in Gheg dialect of language.

The Albanian vocabulary contains many loan words from Latin and some from ancient Greek; and later included borrowings from the Bulgarian, Italian, French and Turkish. Also in Albanian many anglicisms are now represented.

• 4.1 differences
• 4.2 Geographical subdivision

• 6.1 Pronunciation Special
• 6.2 Phonology

• 7.1 nouns 7.1.1 determination

History

The first accounts

From Albanians population and speakers of this language for the first time reported Byzantine writers in the 11th century, such as Anna Comnena. Albanian -speaking population groups lived at that time in the remote mountain regions north of the river Shkumbin. In the following three centuries the Albanians spread mainly to the south and east, but also to the Adriatic coast towards. These hikes spread of their language, which still had no written form, in Epirus, parts of Greece, Macedonia and Kosovo. In the 14th century Albanian populated tracts of land in Thessaly and even in Attica are attested. In today's Albania, the Slavic population slowly assimilated to the Albanians and took their language. This process continued until the 20th century.

The oldest written records of the Albanian date from the 15th century. From Engjelli Pal (1416-1470), Archbishop of Durres, the first Albanian sentence was handed down. It is the baptismal formula " Un'te paghesont ' pr'emenit t'Atit e t'Birit e t'Spirit Senit " ( I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ) that the cleric in 1462 wrote a letter.

The Jerusalem - pilgrim Arnold von Harff (1471-1505), who had also crossed on his travels Albania, handed in his travel report from the year 1496 a short Albanian- German word list. The Catholic priest Gjon Buzuku wrote in 1555 the oldest printed, Albanian book that Meshari ( Exhibition Book ).

The National Movement " Rilindja "

With the rise of nationalism among Albanians in the 19th century was - apart from individual precursors - an Albanian literature. After 1870, the first newspapers and magazines were published. At that time, the Albanian was rarely ever written sectarian- either in Latin or Greek alphabets with Arabic letters. End of the 19th century, the supporters of the Albanian national movement " Rilindja " ( Rebirth, Renaissance ) have worked to unify the notation. The proposal has the most appeal the so-called " Stamboller Alphabet " (Albanian for Istanbul) by Sami Frashëri, a major Albanian scholars, who worked mainly in the Ottoman capital.

1908 Albanian intellectuals met from all parts of the country to the Congress of Monastir in today's Macedonian Bitola ( Manastir Alb. ). At this meeting was finally decided that the Albanian language should be written from now on exclusively in Roman letters. As a starting point the Stamboller alphabet and the one used in Shkodra developed by Gjergj Fishta " Bashkimi alphabet " ("the Association " for Albanian ) were used. They also agreed on a strictly phonetic spelling with only two special characters: Ç / ç Ë / ë; these were the two characters that were already available on the French typewriter keyboard. All other sounds of Albanian, which have no counterpart in the Latin alphabet should be expressed by a combination of characters. The regulations of 1908 are still valid today and can be called the Congress of Monastir rightly regarded as the birth of the Albanian orthography, even if it takes another 60 years to get merged the dialect forms from the Gegischen and Tosk to a general written language standard.

Origin

Possible intermediate stations of Albania on the way from the Indo-European are not yet clearly grasped. Not least because of the proximity of the historically known Illyrians many researchers tried to link Albanian with this, but this is hardly provable because of totally inadequate evidence of the Illyrian. The first of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz expressed (1646-1716), this supposition. Other representatives of this trend were linguists such as Franz Bopp, Gustav Meyer, Eqrem Çabej, St. Francis of Miklosich, Gustav Weigand and A. Desnickaja. More recently pointed Joachim Matzinger again to the difficulties of a unique assignment.

Alternatively, the prehistoric affiliation is proposed to balkan - Indo- intermediate, together with the Greek and Armenian. The counter-argument of a " federal language " differs already from the Armenian. This assumption was considered not only by Norbert Jokl, but further from Martin E. Huld and Joachim Matzinger. Supported this assumption still lexicostatistical of an investigation, as well as a glottochronologischen calculation of SA Starostin.

Dissemination

The closed Albanian -speaking countries on the Balkan Peninsula comprises Albania, Kosovo, the western and northwestern parts of Macedonia and some adjacent tracts of land in Serbia and Montenegro. Long-established Albanian-speaking minorities live in southern Italy and Sicily ( see Arbëresh ) and on the Peloponnese, Attica and other southern Greek islands and regions (see Arvanites ). In Südepirus also lived until a few decades Albanians (see CAMs ). In addition, there are smaller minorities in Bulgaria ( Mandriza ), Romania ( Bucharest, Timisoara, Iasi, Constanta, Cluj -Napoca ) and Ukraine ( Zaporizhia Oblast and Budschak ).

Overall, more than 7.2 million people speak the Albanian language, of which about 2.5 million in Albania alone, approximately 2.6 million in the other Balkan countries as well as more than two million emigrants worldwide.

Dialects

The medium Albanian Shkumbin River divides the Albanian language area in a northern Gheg dialect and a Southern toskische zone. Alongside the river, there is a transition zone, which is about 15 to 20 kilometers wide. During the Rilindja two Albanian written language for the Tosk dialect and the gegischen emerged. Today's Albanian standard language that was unified in 1972, is based largely on the nordtoskischen dialect with some gegischen elements.

Differences

The two major dialects differ phonetically, morphologically and lexically. The phonetic differences are minor, such as the nasal â [ ɑ ] of Gegischen and the ë [ ə ] of Tosk ( Nana - Nena, the mother ') or even the Gheg dialect n with the Tosk r ( syni - Syrian, the eye '). Another difference is that words that have the Tosk a "q" in Gegischen to a " k" are ( QESH - kesh, laugh ').

The morphological differences are more numerous, the Gheg dialect has an infinitive that is missing the Tosk. In addition, the future tense in Gegischen with the conjugated verb, have ' ( in Gegischen me PAs ) are formed and the infinitive, whereas in Tosk a unkonjugierbare form of the verb ' will ' (do) happen with a relative clause, which the the future tense to Deputy end verb included in konjungierter form in the present tense. This subordinate clause is introduced by the të subjunction. An example of this Une të shkoj do is, I'll go '.

The vocabulary of the two main dialects partly also differs in words for everyday things, so to say, milk ' in Gegischen tâmbël, qumësht in Tosk it., Village ' is Katun in Gegischen, Fshat in Tosk. The fox ' means in Gegischen skile or Shpin and dhelpër in Tosk. Also bërshê g ( n ) with respect to t. (v ) ENJE, Stinkwacholder; Yew ', REJ - gënjej, deceive ', krejt - fare, very ', or shpull - Pellumb, dove '.

Geographical subdivision

• Gheg Nordwestgegisch in northwestern Albania and in all Albanian communities in Montenegro ( in the vicinity of Bar and Ulcinj )
• Nordostgegisch in Kosovo, East Albania, Albanian in all municipalities in Serbia and in the areas around Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo and Gostivar in Nordwestmazedonien
• Zentralgegisch in Mirdita, in northern central Albania (Tirana, Durres and Peshkopi ) and Südwestmazedonien ( Debar and Struga )
• Südgegisch in central Albania ( Kavaja to Elbasan )

• Gheg - Toskische transition zone at Shkumbin ( about 20 miles wide, including Shpat and Sulova )

• Tosk Nordtoskisch scattered in the area between Vlora, Lushnja, Pogradec and Bilisht and within Macedonia in many villages on the Ohrid and Prespa as well as enclaves in the regions of Bitola, Krusevo and Dolneni
• Labischtoskisch on the Albanian Riviera as far as Piqeras and of Vlora on the Vjosatal until after Tepelenë (up here Labëria ) and Përmet and to the east in the regions of Leskovik and Erseka
• Camisch - Tosk in southern Albania ( Gjirokastra and Saranda ) and earlier in the eponymous cameria in Northwestern Greece
• Arbëresh - Tosk in some regions in southern Italy ( including Sicily )
• Arvanitisch - Tosk in many settlements in central and southern Greece ( but is usually regarded as a single language )

Alphabet

The Albanian language is written phonetically consistent. It uses 27 letters and nine digraphs play the other sounds. These digraphs are considered as inseparable entities and are treated as separate letters ( in Albanian of such dictionaries ). Subsequently, the whole alphabet of Albanian.

Phonetics and phonology

Pronunciation features

Phonology

The Tosk Albanian - (South Albania, Arvanitika, Arbëresh, West Macedonia ) has 29 consonants and seven vowels. The emphasis is usually on the penultimate syllable. Beyond The Gheg Albanian - ( North Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Northwest, Southeast Montenegro, southern Serbia) still has these consonants, vowels and nasal vowels which are absent in Tosk: ɑ, ɒ, ɪ, ŋ, ɳ, ø, ɔ, ɹ, ʊ, ʏ.

¹ These phonemes are found only in the Gheg Albanian -.

Grammar

The grammar of Albanian points in the structure similarities with Greek and Romanian, although it is not closely related to both. There are also to the South Slavic languages ​​: Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian parallels that can be explained by the long and intensive contact of the support of these languages ​​to each other. This phenomenon is commonly explained by the theory of the Balkan language Bunds.

Nouns

The Albanian language has two genera: masculine and feminine. Neutra found only as relics in today's language, but which are to be found in independent form.

Determination

Albanian nouns are inflected according to the grammatical category determination and therefore know two basic forms: - The indefinite or indeterminate form, which consists of many masculine nouns (and some feminine nouns ) from the pure strain - The definite or certain shape with a special definitem suffix that has evolved from the definite article. This suffix is masculine in general- i, after Stammauslaut velar (k, g or q) - u. For feminines it - a. As exceptions are masculine, feminine nouns inflect like (eg djalë in the table below ), and also some irregular feminine nouns and masculine. An overview of the main pattern:

This is roughly equivalent to the German nouns that carry a definite or indefinite article with you. The syntactic functions are not entirely congruent.

Unlike the Germans, this is also true for (self - ) name: the significance of the distinction between definite and indefinite form thus the accuracy of lexicon entries Albanian places and people in foreign languages. In cities that determines on -a border ( "Tirana" ), the German is used in reference to the Italian practice this form. Ends a name determined in-i ( " Durrësi " ) is preferred ( in this case " Durres " ) the indefinite endung loose form. See also the list of cities in Albania. On the other hand, the maps Albanian indefinite form is normally used throughout ( " Shkodër ").

Very rich in form and irregular is the plural form of the Albanian nouns. In total, there are about 100 classes, after which the majority is formed. Some have very few words, others are often represented.

The declination comprises as in Latin five cases. The sixth case vocative is used only in the salutation and there is optional. In addition, he is no different from the genitive case, which is why the vocative is not mentioned in many textbooks. The vocative was recorded only in the course of history in the language. The declination depends on the gender of the word, his determination and whether it is in the singular or plural. The flexion is achieved both by word endings as well as through prefixed article. Compared to the formation of the plural declensions are easily and regularly.

Pronoun

The personal pronouns in Albanian are differentiated in the second person of respect and in the third person by genus:

Adjectives

Language example

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1: