79-587: Korçë County ( Albanian : Qarku Korçë ), officially the County of Korçë ( Albanian : Qarku i Korçës ), is a county in the Southern Region of the Republic of Albania . It is the largest by area and the fifth most populous of the twelve counties, with more than 173,000 people within an area of 3,711 km (1,433 sq mi). The county borders on North Macedonia to the northeast and Greece to
158-678: A Latinis, Grecis et Sclauis ita quod in nullo se intelligunt cum aliis nationibus. (Namely, the above-mentioned Albanians have a language that is different from the languages of Latins, Greeks and Slavs, so that they do not understand each other at all.) The oldest attested document written in Albanian dates to 1462, while the first audio recording in the language was made by Norbert Jokl on 4 April 1914 in Vienna . However, as Fortson notes, Albanian written works existed before this point; they have simply been lost. The existence of written Albanian
237-578: A century later, after learning Sanskrit in India, Sir William Jones detected systematic correspondences; he described them in his Third Anniversary Discourse to the Asiatic Society in 1786, concluding that all these languages originated from the same source. From his initial intuitions there developed the hypothesis of an Indo-European language family consisting of several hundred related languages and dialects . The 2009 Ethnologue estimates
316-850: A common branch in the current phylogenetic classification of the Indo-European language family. The first written mention of Albanian was in 1284 in a witness testimony from the Republic of Ragusa , while a letter written by Dominican Friar Gulielmus Adea in 1332 mentions the Albanians using the Latin alphabet in their writings. The oldest surviving attestation of modern Albanian is from 1462. The two main Albanian dialect groups (or varieties ), Gheg and Tosk , are primarily distinguished by phonological differences and are mutually intelligible in their standard varieties, with Gheg spoken to
395-573: A common period of prehistoric coexistence of several Indo-European dialects in the Balkans prior to 2000 BC. To this group would belong Albanian, Ancient Greek , Armenian , Phrygian , fragmentary attested languages such as Macedonian , Thracian , or Illyrian , and the relatively well-attested Messapic in Southern Italy. The common features of this group appear at the phonological, morphological, and lexical levels, presumably resulting from
474-472: A large amount (or the majority) of their sea environment lexicon. A similar phenomenon could be observed with agricultural terms. While the words for 'arable land', 'wheat', 'cereals', 'vineyard', 'yoke', 'harvesting', 'cattle breeding', etc. are native, the words for 'ploughing', 'farm' and 'farmer', agricultural practices, and some harvesting tools are foreign. This, again, points to intense contact with other languages and people, rather than providing evidence of
553-626: A millennium. The most popular hypothesis for the origin and spread of the language is the Kurgan hypothesis , which postulates an origin in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe. The existence of PIE was first postulated in the 18th century by Sir William Jones , who observed the similarities between Sanskrit , Ancient Greek , and Latin . By the early 20th century, well-defined descriptions of PIE had been developed that are still accepted today (with some refinements). The largest developments of
632-470: A more southern homeland to explain these borrowings. According to Mallory and Adams, some of these borrowings may be too speculative or from a later date, but they consider the proposed Semitic loans *táwros 'bull' and *wéyh₁on- 'wine; vine' to be more likely. Anthony notes that those Semitic borrowings may also have occurred through the advancement of Anatolian farmer cultures via the Danube valley into
711-964: A much earlier date for the Indo-European languages, proposing an origin in Anatolia and an initial spread with the earliest farmers who migrated to Europe. It has been the only serious alternative for the steppe-theory, but suffers from a lack of explanatory power. Also, the Armenian hypothesis proposes that the Urheimat of the Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus. While the Armenian hypothesis has been criticized on archeological and chronological grounds, recent genetic research has revived debate. The Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (1612–1653) noted extensive similarities between various European languages , Sanskrit , and Persian . Over
790-475: A number of isoglosses with Albanian. Other linguists linked the Albanian language with Latin , Greek and Armenian , while placing Germanic and Balto-Slavic in another branch of Indo-European. In current scholarship there is evidence that Albanian is closely related to Greek and Armenian, while the fact that it is a satem language is less significant. Armenian Greek Phrygian (extinct) Messapic (extinct) Gheg Tosk Messapic
869-547: A possible linguistic homeland (also known as a Urheimat ). The centre of Albanian settlement remained the Mat River. In 1079, the Albanians were recorded farther south in the valley of the Shkumbin River. The Shkumbin, a 181 km long river that lies near the old Via Egnatia , is approximately the boundary of the primary dialect division for Albanian, Tosk and Gheg . The characteristics of Tosk and Gheg in
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#1732776585408948-451: A sophisticated system of declension and verbs used a similarly sophisticated system of conjugation . Relationships to other language families, including the Uralic languages , have been proposed but remain controversial. There is no written evidence of Proto-Indo-European, so all knowledge of the language is derived by reconstruction from later languages using linguistic techniques such as
1027-933: A strong sense of identity and are unique in that they speak an archaic dialect of Tosk Albanian called Arbëresh . In the United States and Canada, there are approximately 250,000 Albanian speakers. It is primarily spoken on the East Coast of the United States, in cities like New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit, as well as in parts of the states of New Jersey, Ohio, and Connecticut. In Argentina, there are nearly 40,000 Albanian speakers , mostly in Buenos Aires. Approximately 1.3 million people of Albanian ancestry live in Turkey , with more than 500,000 recognizing their ancestry, language and culture . There are other estimates, however, that place
1106-439: A synthesis of linguistics , archaeology , anthropology and genetics has established the existence of Proto-Indo-European and the spread of its daughter dialects through migrations of large populations of its speakers, as well as the recruitment of new speakers through emulation of conquering elites. Comparative linguistics describes the similarities between various languages governed by laws of systematic change , which allow
1185-722: A total of about 439 Indo-European languages and dialects, about half of these (221) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch based in Southern Asian subregion. The Indo-European family includes most of the major current languages of Europe , of the Iranian plateau , of the northern half of the Indian Subcontinent , and of Sri Lanka , with kindred languages also formerly spoken in parts of ancient Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing from
1264-667: Is also spoken by 450,000 Albanian immigrants in Greece, making it one of the commonly spoken languages in the country after Greek. Albanian is the third most common mother tongue among foreign residents in Italy . This is due to a substantial Albanian immigration to Italy. Italy has a historical Albanian minority of about 500,000, scattered across southern Italy, known as Arbëreshë . Approximately 1 million Albanians from Kosovo are dispersed throughout Germany , Switzerland and Austria . These are mainly immigrants from Kosovo who migrated during
1343-709: Is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora , which is generally concentrated in the Americas , Europe and Oceania . Albanian is estimated to have as many as 7.5 million native speakers. Albanian and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. Albanian in antiquity is often thought to have been an Illyrian language for obvious geographic and historical reasons, or otherwise an unmentioned Balkan Indo-European language that
1422-601: Is an Indo-European language and the only surviving representative of the Albanoid branch , which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group . It is the native language of the Albanian people . Standard Albanian is the official language of Albania and Kosovo , and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro , as well as a recognized minority language of Italy , Croatia , Romania and Serbia . It
1501-608: Is considered the closest language to Albanian, grouped in a common branch titled Illyric in Hyllested & Joseph (2022). Hyllested & Joseph (2022) in agreement with recent bibliography identify Greco-Phrygian as the IE branch closest to the Albanian-Messapic one. These two branches form an areal grouping – which is often called "Balkan IE" – with Armenian. The hypothesis of the " Balkan Indo-European " continuum posits
1580-687: Is explicitly mentioned in a letter attested from 1332, and the first preserved books, including both those in Gheg and in Tosk, share orthographic features that indicate that some form of common literary language had developed. By the Late Middle Ages , during the period of Humanism and the European Renaissance , the term lingua epirotica ' Epirotan language ' was preferred in the intellectual, literary, and clerical circles of
1659-506: Is generally regarded as the result of intensive borrowing, which suggests that their homelands were located near each other. Proto-Indo-European also exhibits lexical loans to or from Caucasian languages , particularly Proto-Northwest Caucasian and Proto-Kartvelian , which suggests a location close to the Caucasus. Gramkelidze and Ivanov , using the now largely unsupported glottalic theory of Indo-European phonology, also proposed Semitic borrowings into Proto-Indo-European, suggesting
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#17327765854081738-536: Is not completely clear, from an insufficiency of evidence. The authors point out that these dates, which are only approximate, are not inconsistent with the dates established by other methods for the various archaeological cultures which are thought to be associated with Indo-European languages. For example, the date for the Tocharian break-off corresponds to the migration that gave rise to the Afanasievo culture;
1817-598: Is spoken in North-western Greece, while Arvanitika is spoken by the Arvanites in southern Greece. In addition, Arbëresh is spoken by the Arbëreshë people, descendants of 15th and 16th century migrants who settled in southeastern Italy, in small communities in the regions of Sicily and Calabria . These settlements originated from the (Arvanites) communities probably of Peloponnese known as Morea in
1896-486: Is spoken in the south, and Gheg spoken in the north. Standard Albanian is based on the Tosk dialect. The Shkumbin River is the rough dividing line between the two dialects. Gheg is divided into four sub-dialects: Northwest Gheg, Northeast Gheg, Central Gheg and Southern Gheg. It is primarily spoken in northern Albania, Kosovo , and throughout Montenegro and northwestern North Macedonia . One fairly divergent dialect
1975-576: Is the Upper Reka dialect , which is however classified as Central Gheg. There is also a diaspora dialect in Croatia , the Arbanasi dialect . Tosk is divided into five sub-dialects, including Northern Tosk (the most numerous in speakers), Labërisht , Cham , Arvanitika , and Arbëresh . Tosk is spoken in southern Albania, southwestern North Macedonia and northern and southern Greece. Cham Albanian
2054-488: Is the linguistic reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages , as spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans after the split-off of Anatolian and Tocharian. PIE was the first proposed proto-language to be widely accepted by linguists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing it than any other proto-language and it is by far the most well-understood of all proto-languages of its age. During
2133-399: Is the most probable. Although Albanian shares lexical isoglosses with Greek , Germanic , and to a lesser extent Balto-Slavic , the vocabulary of Albanian is quite distinct. In 1995, Taylor, Ringe , and Warnow used quantitative linguistic techniques that appeared to obtain an Albanian subgrouping with Germanic, a result which the authors had already reasonably downplayed. Indeed,
2212-569: Is the official language of Albania and Kosovo and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro . Albanian is a recognised minority language in Croatia , Italy , Romania and in Serbia . Albanian is also spoken by a minority in Greece , specifically in the Thesprotia and Preveza regional units and in a few villages in Ioannina and Florina regional units in Greece. It
2291-749: The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex ( c. 2400 –1600 BCE) and spread to the Levant ( Mitanni ), northern India ( Vedic people , c. 1700 BCE ). The Iranian languages spread back throughout the steppes with the Scyths , and into Ancient Iran with the Medes , Parthians and Persians from c. 800 BCE . A number of alternative theories have been proposed. Colin Renfrew 's Anatolian hypothesis suggests
2370-862: The Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek , the Indo-European family is significant in historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history , after the Afroasiatic family . Almost 3 billion native speakers use Indo-European languages, making them by far the largest language family. Of the 20 world languages with the largest numbers of native speakers , twelve are Indo-European – Spanish , English , Hindi , Portuguese , Bengali , Russian , German , Punjabi , Marathi , French , Urdu , and Italian – accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers. The (late) Proto-Indo-European language (PIE)
2449-463: The Congress of Dibra decided that Albanian schools would finally be allowed. Albanian is an isolate within the Indo-European language family; no other language has been conclusively linked to its branch . The only other languages that are the sole surviving members of a branch of Indo-European are Armenian and Greek. The Albanian language is part of the Indo-European language family and
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2528-629: The Janissary of Muhammad Ali Pasha , an Albanian who became Wāli , and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan . In addition to the dynasty that he established, a large part of the former Egyptian and Sudanese aristocracy was of Albanian origin. In addition to the recent emigrants, there are older diasporic communities around the world. Albanian is also spoken by Albanian diaspora communities residing in Australia and New Zealand . The Albanian language has two distinct dialects, Tosk which
2607-808: The Korçë District , Kamnik in Kolonja , Kolsh in the Kukës District , Rashtan in Librazhd , and Nezir in the Mat District . As in other parts of Europe, these PreIE people joined the migratory Indo-European tribes that entered the Balkans and contributed to the formation of the historical Paleo-Balkan tribes. In terms of linguistics, the pre-Indo-European substrate language spoken in the southern Balkans probably influenced pre-Proto-Albanian ,
2686-867: The League of Prizren and culminated with the Congress of Manastir held by Albanian intellectuals from 14 to 22 November 1908, in Manastir (present day Bitola ), which decided on which alphabet to use, and what the standardised spelling would be for standard Albanian. This is how the literary language remains. The alphabet is the Latin alphabet with the addition of the letters ⟨ ë ⟩ , ⟨ ç ⟩ , and ten digraphs : dh , th , xh , gj , nj , ng , ll , rr , zh and sh . According to Robert Elsie : The hundred years between 1750 and 1850 were an age of astounding orthographic diversity in Albania. In this period,
2765-754: The National Agency of Protected Areas has the Fir of Drenovë National Park and Prespa National Park under its administration. The UNESCO Ohrid-Prespa Transboundary Biosphere Reserve is also encompassed in the county. Most of the region's inhabitants are ethnic Albanians, but there are also important communities of Greeks (especially in the South), Macedonians (especially in the East), Aromanians (more concentrated in Western parts) and Roma. With regards to religion,
2844-508: The comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction . Most linguists recognize there is a limit to linguistic reconstruction, and that reconstructing an ancestral language to Proto-Indo-European might not be possible. The Indo-Hittite hypothesis postulates a common predecessor which both the Anatolian languages and the other Indo-European languages came from, called Proto-Indo-Hittite. Although PIE logically had predecessors,
2923-692: The 14th century, but they failed to cite specific words. The oldest surviving documents written in Albanian are the " formula e pagëzimit " (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 Durrës in 1462 in the Gheg dialect, and some New Testament verses from that period. The linguists Stefan Schumacher and Joachim Matzinger (University of Vienna) assert that
3002-531: The 1990s. In Switzerland , the Albanian language is the sixth most spoken language with 176,293 native speakers. Albanian became an official language in North Macedonia on 15 January 2019. There are large numbers of Albanian speakers in the United States, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Canada . Some of the first ethnic Albanians to arrive in the United States were the Arbëreshë. The Arbëreshë have
3081-518: The 19th century, the vast majority of linguistic work was devoted to reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European or its daughter proto-languages such as Proto-Germanic , and most of the current techniques of historical linguistics (e. g. the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction ) were developed as a result. Scholars estimate that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BCE, though estimates by different authorities can vary by more than
3160-603: The 20th century have been the discovery of Anatolian and Tocharian languages and the acceptance of the laryngeal theory . The Anatolian languages have also spurred a major re-evaluation of theories concerning the development of various shared Indo-European language features and the extent to which these features were present in PIE itself. PIE is thought to have had a complex system of morphology that included inflections (suffixing of roots, as in who, whom, whose ), and ablaut (vowel alterations, as in sing, sang, sung ). Nouns used
3239-745: The 3rd millennium BCE Yamnaya migrations into the Danube Valley, while Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic may have developed east of the Carpathian Mountains , in present-day Ukraine , moving north and spreading with the Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE). The Proto-Indo-Iranian language and culture probably emerged within the Sintashta culture ( c. 2100 –1800 BCE), at
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3318-505: The Albanian and Germanic branches share a relatively moderate number of lexical cognates. Many shared grammatical elements or features of these two branches do not corroborate the lexical isoglosses. Albanian also shares lexical linguistic affinity with Latin and Romance languages. Sharing linguistic features unique to the languages of the Balkans , Albanian also forms a part of the Balkan linguistic area or sprachbund . The place and
3397-560: The Albanian language was on 14 July 1284 in Ragusa in modern Croatia ( Dubrovnik ) when a crime witness named Matthew testified: "I heard a voice crying on the mountain in the Albanian language" ( Latin : Audivi unam vocem, clamantem in monte in lingua albanesca ). The Albanian language is also mentioned in the Descriptio Europae Orientalis dated in 1308: Habent enim Albani prefati linguam distinctam
3476-435: The Albanian language was put to writing in at least ten different alphabets – most certainly a record for European languages. ... the diverse forms in which this old Balkan language was recorded, from the earliest documents to the beginning of the twentieth century ... consist of adaptations of the Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Cyrillic alphabets and (what is even more interesting) a number of locally invented writing systems. Most of
3555-800: The Indo-European language group. Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, but basing their work on comparative vocabulary, a number of researchers have attempted to estimate the dates of the splitting up of the various Indo-European languages. According to the latest study by Kassian et al. (2021), Hittite was the earliest language to split off from the rest, around 4139–3450 BC, followed by Tocharian around 3727–2262 BC. Subsequently Indo-European split into four branches ca. 3357–2162 BC: (1) Greek-Armenian, (2) Albanian, (3) Italic-Germanic-Celtic, (4) Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian. Balto-Slavic split from Indo-Iranian around 2723–1790 BC, Italic-Germanic-Celtic broke up around 2655–1537 BC, and Indo-Iranian split up around 2044–1458 BC. The position of Albanian
3634-421: The Indo-Hittite hypothesis is not widely accepted, and there is little to suggest that it is possible to reconstruct a Proto-Indo-Hittite stage that differs substantially from what is already reconstructed for PIE. Frederik Kortlandt postulates a shared common ancestor of Indo-European and Uralic, Proto-Indo-Uralic , as a possible pre-PIE. According to Kortlandt, "Indo-European is a branch of Indo-Uralic which
3713-404: The Middle Ages. Among them the Arvanites call themselves Arbëror and sometime Arbëresh. The Arbëresh dialect is closely related to the Arvanites dialect with more Italian vocabulary absorbed during different periods of time. The Albanian language has been written using many alphabets since the earliest records from the 15th century. The history of Albanian language orthography is closely related to
3792-443: The Shkumbin river since the Post-Roman and Pre-Slavic period, straddling the Jireček Line . Centuries-old communities speaking Albanian dialects can be found scattered in Greece (the Arvanites and some communities in Epirus , Western Macedonia and Western Thrace ), Croatia (the Arbanasi ), Italy (the Arbëreshë ) as well as in Romania , Turkey and Ukraine . The Malsia e Madhe Gheg Albanian and two varieties of
3871-412: The Tosk dialect, Arvanitika in Greece and Arbëresh in southern Italy, have preserved archaic elements of the language. Ethnic Albanians constitute a large diaspora , with many having long assimilated in different cultures and communities. Consequently, Albanian-speakers do not correspond to the total ethnic Albanian population, as many ethnic Albanians may identify as Albanian but are unable to speak
3950-536: The Yamna-horizon at the Pontic steppe, while the time-range of several Asian cultures also coincides with the proposed trajectory and time-range of the Indo-European migrations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis or Steppe theory , the Indo-European language and culture spread in several stages from the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat in the Eurasian Pontic steppes into Western Europe , Central and South Asia , through folk migrations and so-called elite recruitment. This process started with
4029-937: The ancestor idiom of Albanian. The extent of this linguistic impact cannot be determined with precision due to the uncertain position of Albanian among Paleo-Balkan languages and their scarce attestation. Some loanwords, however, have been proposed, such as shegë ' pomegranate ' or lëpjetë ' orach '; compare Pre-Greek λάπαθον , lápathon ' monk's rhubarb '. Indo-European migrations Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of peoples who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and
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#17327765854084108-399: The contact between the various languages. The concept of this linguistic group is explained as a kind of language league of the Bronze Age (a specific areal-linguistics phenomenon), although it also consisted of languages that were related to each other. A common prestage posterior to PIE comprising Albanian, Greek, and Armenian, is considered as a possible scenario. In this light, due to
4187-578: The cultural orientation and knowledge of certain foreign languages among Albanian writers. The earliest written Albanian records come from the Gheg area in makeshift spellings based on Italian or Greek. Originally, the Tosk dialect was written in the Greek alphabet and the Gheg dialect was written in the Latin script . Both dialects had also been written in the Ottoman Turkish version of the Arabic script , Cyrillic , and some local alphabets ( Elbasan , Vithkuqi , Todhri , Veso Bey, Jan Vellara and others, see original Albanian alphabets ). More specifically,
4266-473: The date for the Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian break-up may be correlated with the end of Corded Ware culture around 2100 or 2000 BC; and the date for Indo-Iranian corresponds to that of the Sintashta archaeological culture, frequently associated with Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers. Archaeological research has unearthed a broad range of historical cultures that can be related to the spread of the Indo-European languages. Various steppe-cultures show strong similarities with
4345-404: The derived Indo-European languages , which took place from around 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these related languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia spanning from the Indian subcontinent and Iranian plateau to Atlantic Europe , in a process of cultural diffusion . While these early languages and their speakers are prehistoric (lacking documentary evidence),
4424-525: The eastern Pontic steppe. The late PIE culture, within the Yamnaya horizon on the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 3000 BCE, then branched to produce the bulk of the Indo-European languages through migrations to the west and southeast. Albanian , Greek , and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic may have developed from Indo-European languages coming from Central Europe to Western Europe after
4503-403: The eastern border of the Abashevo culture , which in turn developed from the Corded Ware-related Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture . The Sintashta culture grew into the Andronovo culture ( c. 1900 –800 BCE), the two first phases being the Fedorovo Andronovo culture ( c. 1900 –1400 BCE) and Alakul Andronovo culture ( c. 1800 –1500 BCE). Indo-Aryans moved into
4582-411: The first literary records of Albanian date from the 16th century. 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 first Latin–Albanian dictionary. The first Albanian school is believed to have been opened by Franciscans in 1638 in Pdhanë . One of the earliest Albanian dictionaries
4661-431: The introduction of cattle at the Eurasian steppes around 5200 BCE, and the mobilisation of the steppe herder cultures with the introduction of wheeled wagons and horse-back riding, which led to a new kind of culture. Between 4500 and 2500 BCE, this " horizon ", which includes several distinctive cultures culminating in the Yamnaya culture , spread out over the Pontic steppes, and outside into Europe and Asia. Anthony regards
4740-463: The kinship groups involved in this movement. According to the widely held Kurgan hypothesis , or renewed Steppe hypothesis, the oldest Indo-European migration split from the earliest proto-Indo-European speech community (archaic PIE) inhabiting the Volga basin, and produced the Anatolian languages ( Hittite and Luwian ). The second-oldest branch, Tocharian , was spoken in the Tarim Basin (now western China ), after splitting from early PIE spoken on
4819-477: The language. Standard Albanian is a standardised form of spoken Albanian based on Tosk . The language is spoken by approximately 6 million people in the Balkans, primarily in Albania, Kosovo , North Macedonia , Serbia , Montenegro and Greece . However, due to old communities in Italy and the large Albanian diaspora , the worldwide total of speakers is much higher than in Southern Europe and numbers approximately 7.5 million. The Albanian language
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#17327765854084898-534: The larger number of possible shared innovations between Greek and Armenian, it appears reasonable to assume, at least tentatively, that Albanian was the first Balkan IE language to branch off. This split and the following ones were perhaps very close in time, allowing only a narrow time frame for shared innovations. Albanian represents one of the core languages of the Balkan Sprachbund . Glottolog and Ethnologue recognize four Albanian languages. They are classified as follows: The first attested written mention of
4977-465: The latter alphabets have now been forgotten and are unknown, even to the Albanians themselves. Albanian constitutes one of the eleven major branches of the Indo-European language family , within which it occupies an independent position. In 1854, Albanian was demonstrated to be an Indo-European language by the philologist Franz Bopp . Albanian was formerly compared by a few Indo-European linguists with Germanic and Balto-Slavic , all of which share
5056-429: The names for fish and for agricultural activities (such as ploughing ) are borrowed from other languages. A deeper analysis of the vocabulary, however, shows that could be a consequence of a prolonged Latin domination of the coastal and plain areas of the country, rather than evidence of the original environment in which the Albanian language was formed. For example, the word for 'fish' is borrowed from Latin, but not
5135-401: The north and Tosk spoken to the south of the Shkumbin river . Their characteristics in the treatment of both native words and loanwords provide evidence that the split into the northern and the southern dialects occurred after Christianisation of the region (4th century AD), and most likely not later than the 6th century AD, hence possibly occupying roughly their present area divided by
5214-410: The number of people in Turkey with Albanian ancestry and or background upward to 5 million. However, the vast majority of this population is assimilated and no longer possesses fluency in the Albanian language, though a vibrant Albanian community maintains its distinct identity in Istanbul to this day. Egypt also lays claim to about 18,000 Albanians, mostly Tosk speakers. Many are descendants of
5293-412: The only surviving representative of its own branch , which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group . Although it is still uncertain which ancient mentioned language of the Balkans it continues, or where in the region its speakers lived. In general, there is insufficient evidence to connect Albanian with one of those languages, whether Illyrian , Thracian , or Dacian . Among these possibilities, Illyrian
5372-467: The reconstruction of ancestral speech (see Indo-European studies ). Archaeology traces the spread of artifacts, habitations, and burial sites presumed to be created by speakers of Proto-Indo-European in several stages, from their hypothesized Proto-Indo-European homeland to their diaspora throughout Western Europe, Central Asian, and South Asia, with incursions into East Asia. Recent genetic research, including paleogenetics , has increasingly delineated
5451-520: The region is home to a large Muslim majority (many of whom are Bektashis ) and a significant Orthodox Christian minority. According to the last national census from 2023, the county has 173,091 inhabitants. Ethnic groups in the county include Albanians , Greeks , Macedonians , Montenegrins , Aromanians , Romani , Egyptians . Albanian language Albanian ( endonym : shqip [ʃcip] , gjuha shqipe [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ] , or arbërisht [aɾbəˈɾiʃt] )
5530-460: The southeast, the counties of Elbasan to the northwest, Berat to the west and Gjirokastër to the southwest. It is divided into six municipalities , Korçë , Devoll , Kolonjë , Maliq , Pogradec and Pustec , with all of whom incorporate thirty-seven administrative units . The Ministry of Tourism and Environment manages numerous natural sites and protected areas in Korçë County. In conjunction with numerous national natural sites and areas,
5609-400: The steppe zone. According to Anthony, the following terminology may be used: The Anatolian languages are the first Indo-European language family to have split off from the main group. Due to the archaic elements preserved in the now extinct Anatolian languages, they may be a "cousin" of Proto-Indo-European, instead of a "daughter", but Anatolian is generally regarded as an early offshoot of
5688-478: The time that the Albanian language was formed are uncertain. The American linguist Eric Hamp has said that during an unknown chronological period a pre-Albanian population (termed as "Albanoid" by Hamp) inhabited areas stretching from Poland to the southwestern Balkans. Further analysis has suggested that it was in a mountainous region rather than on a plain or seacoast. The words for plants and animals characteristic of mountainous regions are entirely original, but
5767-564: The time, and used as a synonym for the Albanian language. Published in Rome in 1635, by the Albanian bishop and writer Frang Bardhi, the first dictionary of the Albanian language was titled Latin : Dictionarium latino-epiroticum ' Latin-Epirotan dictionary ' . During the five-century period of the Ottoman presence in Albania , the language was not officially recognised until 1909, when
5846-572: The treatment of the native words and loanwords from other languages are evidence that the dialectal split preceded the Slavic migrations to the Balkans , which means that in that period (the 5th to 6th centuries AD), Albanians were occupying nearly the same area around the Shkumbin river, which straddled the Jireček Line . References to the existence of Albanian as a distinct language survive from
5925-421: The word for 'gills' which is native. Indigenous are also the words for 'ship', 'raft', 'navigation', 'sea shelves' and a few names of fish kinds, but not the words for 'sail', 'row' and 'harbor'; objects pertaining to 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) and thus lost
6004-544: The writers from northern Albania and under the influence of the Catholic Church used Latin letters, those in southern Albania and under the influence of the Greek Orthodox church used Greek letters, while others throughout Albania and under the influence of Islam used Arabic letters. There were initial attempts to create an original Albanian alphabet during the 1750–1850 period. These attempts intensified after
6083-409: Was closely related to Illyrian and Messapic . The Indo-European subfamily that gave rise to Albanian is called Albanoid in reference to a specific ethnolinguistically pertinent and historically compact language group. Whether descendants or sisters of what was called ' Illyrian ' by classical sources, Albanian and Messapic , on the basis of shared features and innovations, are grouped together in
6162-641: Was radically transformed under the influence of a North Caucasian substratum when its speakers moved from the area north of the Caspian Sea to the area north of the Black Sea." Proto-Finno-Ugric and PIE have a lexicon in common, generally related to trade, such as words for "price" and "draw, lead". Similarly, "sell" and "wash" were borrowed in Proto-Ugric . Although some have proposed a common ancestor (the hypothetical Nostratic macrofamily ), this
6241-735: Was written in 1693; it was the Italian manuscript Pratichae Schrivaneschae authored by the Montenegrin sea captain Julije Balović and includes a multilingual dictionary of hundreds of the most frequently used words in everyday life in Italian, Slavic, Greek, Albanian, and Turkish . Pre-Indo-European (PreIE) sites are found throughout the territory of Albania. Such PreIE sites existed in Maliq , Vashtëmi , Burimas , Barç , Dërsnik in
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