Kostandin Kristoforidhi

Food Normandin Kristoforidhi (also Konstandin Kristoforidhi; Greek Konstandínos Kristoforídhis Κωνσταντίνος Χριστοφορίδης; * 1827 in Elbasan, † 1895 ) was an Albanian writer and translator. He was involved in the Albanian national movement Rilindja.

Life

Kristoforidhi visited the Greek secondary school Zosimea in Ioannina; later he studied philology in Athens. He was extraordinarily gifted in languages ​​. Besides his native Albanian, as well as ancient and modern Greek, he also mastered Hebrew, Turkish, Bulgarian, Italian and French.

Kristoforidhi worked intensively with the Albanian language. In 1857 he wrote a memorandum in which he explained the need for a unified Albanian written language and thus gave the initial impetus for the efforts in this regard within the Albanian national movement.

From Kristoforidhi comes from 1869, the first complete transmission of the New Testament and the Psalms into Albanian. He worked there both a version in gegischen and a Tosk dialect in which he thus gave the same rank for the production of literature. To his translation work, the London Bible Society had him excited which materially assisted him during the work and took over the cost of the first edition. Kristoforidhis separate works are less literary than spoke practical and didactic nature. In 1867 he was a committee of writers, which established the so-called Stamboller alphabet ( a slight adaptation of the Latin script ) as the standard for the printing of Albanian books mastermind.

After a stay in Istanbul from 1865 to 1870 Kristoforidhi undertook several trips in Albania, when he again returned to Istanbul in 1878. In 1884 he settled permanently in his native city of Elbasan down and died there in 1895.

Works (selection)

• Abetare. (ABC - book, Gheg 1867 Tosk 1868)
• Dhjata e Re. (New Testament, Gheg, 1869)
• Istoria e shkronjësë shënjtëruarë. (1872 )
• Λεξικὸν τῆς ἀλβανικῆς γλώσσης lexicon tēs albanikēs glosses. ( Greek - Albanian dictionary, published in 1904 in Athens after his death)
• Γραμματική τῆς γλώσσης κατὰ τὴν τοσκικὴν διάλεκτον grammatike tēs glosses kata Ten toskikēn dialekton. ( Grammar of Tosk dialect, 1882)