The Albanian Language is the oldest
Indo-European Idiom - Part One
Albanian Language belongs to the family of Indo-European
Languages, along with Indo-Iranian languages, Greek
language, Romance languages, Slavonic languages,
Germanic languages, etc. It constitutes a separate
branch in this family of languages and is not originally
associated to any of the modern Indo-European languages.
The Indo-European origin of the Albanian language and
the place it occupies in the family of Indo-European
languages was determined and proved in the middle of the
19th century, following studies in the comparative
historical linguistics. It was primarily the merit of
one of the leading founders of this linguistic
direction, the eminent German scholar Franz Bopp, who
proved scientifically that the Albanian language
belonged to the family of the Indo-European languages.
Franz Bopp dedicated to this issue a special work
entitled Ueber das Albanesische in sinen verwandtschaft
lichen Bezichungen, published in 1854.
The Indo-European languages are divided into two groups:
Eastern languages,
or satem and Western languages, or centum. The Albanian
language belongs to
the eastern group (satem), along with the Indo-Iranian
languages,
Balto-Slavonic languages and the Armenian language.
Origins
The origins of the Albanian language are one of the most
debatable issues in
the linguistic science. Its roots are found in one of
the ancient languages
of the Balkan Peninsula, Illyrian or Thracian. Two main
theories have
circulated in the linguistic literature with regard to
the Albanian language:
its origin in the Illyrian language and the one in the
Thracian language. The
Illyrian theory has had a broader historical and
linguistic support. It took
shape in the 18th century among the historians of the
time and is
further elaborated and supported from linguists.
The first attempt at explaining the origins of the
Albanians and the Albanian
language was made by the Swedish historian Hans Erich
Thunmann in his work
Undersuchunger liber di Geschichte der Östlichen
europäischen Völker
Leipzig, 1774. Based on Latin and Byzantine historical
sources as well as on
linguistic and onomatopoeic documents, he came to the
conclusion that the
Albanians are autochthonous descendants of the ancient
Illyrian population,
who were not romanised, as was the case with the
Thraco-Dacian population,
the predecessors of the Romanians.
The theses of Illyrian origin theory of the Albanian
people was defended by
well known Austrian albanologue Johannas Georges von
Hahn in his work
Albanesische Studien, published on 1854.
Since that time on, a number of eminent scholars, such
as historians,
archaeologists and linguists have brought a number of
historical and
linguistic complementary arguments in support of the
theory concerning the
origin of Albanians and their language. The complete
sinthessis of overall
studies on Albanian Language was made by out standing
linguist Prof. Eqrem
Ēabej, which brought in the ground full scientific
arguments which verify the
Illyrian thesis instead of the thrakian one Some of
these arguments are as
follows:
1. Albanians are currently living in some of the
territories, which were
inhabited by Illyrians in ancient times; on the other
hand, historical
sources do not speak of any Albanian migration from
other territories to the
present ones.
2. A number of linguistic elements such as names of
things, tribes, people,
etc., of Illyrian origin, are explained in the Albanian
language.
3. The ancient toponymic forms of the Illyrian Albanian
territories, as
compared to the corresponding present-day forms, prove
that they have evolved
in conformity with the rules of the historical phonetics
of the Albanian
language.
4. Relationships between the Albanian language and the
ancient Greek and
Latin suggest that the Albanian language took shape and
developed side by
side with these two neighbouring languages on the shores
of the Adriatic and
Ionian seas.
5. Both archaeological documents and documents belonging
to the material and
psychological heritage testify to the cultural
continuity from the ancient
Illyrians to the present-day Albanians.
In view of these arguments, presented in a concise way,
it results that the
theory of the Illyrian origin of the Albanian language
is the most plausible
theory, judging by historical and linguistic evidence.
The beginnings of the written Albanian language
Albanian is one of the ancient languages of the Balkans,
but its written
records, just like the Romanian language, date back only
to the 15th
century.
The first written record in the Albanian language is
what is known as the
Formula of Baptism of 1462 AD. It is a short sentence
in Albanian Unte
paghesont premenit Atit et birit et spertit senit (I
bless you in the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), which is
found in a circular
(pamphlet) written in Latin by the Archbishop of Durrės,
Pal Ėngjėlli, a
close associate of Skanderbeg.
During a visit to Mat, Pal Ėngjelli noticed
irregularities in the religious
practice and following this he left some directions and
recommendations with
the Catholic priest, namely the aforementioned blessing,
which could be used
by parents in baptising their children in case they
could not do it in church
or there was no priest available. The formula is written
in the Latin
alphabet in the northern dialect of the ghegs (gegėrisht).
The Formula of Baptism was found in the Laurentiana
Library of Milan by
the well-known Romanian historian Nikolla Jorga and was
published by him in
1915 in Notes et extraits pour servir a lhistoire des
croisades au XV
siecle IV, 1915. (Notes and extracts to the service the
history of the
crusades in the 15th century).
The French philologist, Mario Rogues, made a
philological publication of this
document and also its photographic reproduction in
Recherches sur les
anciens textes albanais, Paris 1932
.
The second document written in the Albanian language is
a Glossary by Arnold
von Harf of 1496 . In autumn of 1496 the German
traveller Arnold von Harf
from the village of Cologne set out on a pilgrimage tour
of the holy
countries. The tour brought him along the coast, to our
country as well,
where he stopped at Ulqin, Durrės and Sazan. In the
course of the journey,
for practical needs, he wrote down 26 words, 8 phrases
and the numerals from
1 to 10 and from 100 to 1000, along with their
equivalents in German. E. von
Grote published this Glossary for the first time in
Cologne in 1860.
Another text written in the Albanian language that dates
back to the late
15th and early 16th centuries was found in a Greek
manuscript of the 16th
century in the Ambrosiana Library of Milan. It contains
extracts translated
from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, etc., and is
written in the dialect
of the South, in the Greek alphabet. This text written
in Albanian is known
in the Albanian literature by the name The Easter
Testament.
These documents do not have any literary values, but
arouse interest with
regard to the history of the written Albanian language.
From the early stages
of its written form, Albanian language is proved to be
written in two
dialects, in the North dialect (gegėrisht) and in the
South one (toskėrisht),
and in two alphabets, the Latin and the Greek, which
testifies that Albanian
culture was under the influence of both Latin and Greek
culture.
The first book known to date to be written in the
Albanian language is the
Missal (Meshari) (the Prayer Book) by Gjon Buzuku in AD
1555, which marks
the beginning of the early Albanian literature. Only one
copy of this book
has survived and currently is in the Library of the
Vatican. The book
contains 220 pages and is written in two columns.
Missal by Gjon Buzuku 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. Obviously, it is an
attempt by the author to
introduce the Albanian language in the catholic
religious services. Hence,
the literary period of the Albanian language, as is the
case with many other
languages, has its beginnings in the translation of
religious texts.
Gjon Buzuku's Missal, the first book in the Albanian
language, was
discovered in Rome by one of the writers from the north
of Albania, Gjon
Nikollė Kazazi; but the book was lost and recovered
again in 1909 by the
bishop Pal Skeroi, researcher and explorer of antique
texts. In 1930, the
researcher Jystin Rrota from Shkodėr went to Rome,
photocopied the book and
brought three copies of it to Albania. In 1968 the book
was published as
transliterated and transcribed and provided both with
critical notes and an
introductory study by the pre-eminent linguist, Prof.
E.Ēabej. The linguist
N.Resuli also transcribed Buzuku's book.
The Missal by Gjon Buzuku is written in the northern
dialect (gegėrisht),
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.
Prof. Eqrem Ēabej, who had made a thorough study of Gjon
Buzuku's book, has
reached the conclusion that its language is not an
uncultivated land.
Looking at this text objectively he states and
judging by the fluent
language that permeates it from top to bottom and by the
consistent style of
writing, one is convinced that a literary tradition in
liturgical writings
had existed earlier in Albania, at least since the late
Middle Ages.
According to this author, the cultural level of Albania
in the Middle Ages
also supports this theory. The cultural level of the
Albanian people at that
time had not been much different from the neighbouring
countries and from
those along the Adriatic coast in particular.
There is also additional indirect evidence that speaks
of a tradition in the
writing of the Albanian language before the 15th
century.The French priest
Gurllaume Adae (1270-1341), who for a long time served
as Archbishop of Tivar
(1270-1341) and came to know the Albanians well, in a
report entitled
Directorium ad passagium faciendum ad terrom sanctam
sent to the king of
France Philip VI, Valua, wrote among others: Although
Albanians speak a
different language from Latin, they use and write their
books in the Latin
alphabet. This author speaks of books in the Albanian
language, thus
testifying that Albanian had been written well before
the 15th century.
In his work De obsi dione scodrensi (On the siege of
Shkodėr), published
in Venice in 1504, the renowned humanist Marin Barleti
also speaks of
excerpts written in vernacula lingua, i.e. in the
language of the country,
which deal with the reconstruction of the town of
Shkodėr.
This evidence of G. Adae and M. Barleti, two
connoisseurs of the Albanians
and of their country, is in harmony with the historical
data on this period,
which suggest an advanced economic and cultural level of
the Albanian
territories in the 14th and early 15th centuries. In
that period, many towns
such as Durrės, Kruja, Berat, Vlora, flourished
economically and became
important trade and cultural centres.
This evidence makes more credible the existence of an
earlier tradition in
the writing of the Albanian language; nevertheless, as
long as researches
have not brought to light any other book, Meshari by
Gjon Buzuku will
remain the first book written in the Albanian language
and the first work of
the Albanian literature.
The literature in the Albanian language among the
Arbėresh of Italy also has
its beginnings in the 16th century. The first work of
the Arbėresh literature
in the Albanian language and the second earliest work,
after that of Buzuku,
is the one by the Arbėresh priest Lekė Matrenga E
mbesuame e krishterė
("The Christian Faith") published in 1592. It is a
booklet of 28 pages, the
translation of a catechism. The book is written in the
southern dialect, in
Latin alphabet, and is provided with some special
letters representing the s
ounds of the Albanian language that are missing in
Latin.
Pjetėr Budi, Frang Bardhi and Pjetėr Bogdani who not
only translated but also
wrote original works further explored the Albanian
language in the 17th
century. In 1635, Frang Bardhi produced the first
dictionary, the
Latin-Albanian Dictionary, which marks the beginning of
the Albanian
linguistic science. The exploration and progress of the
Albanian language
entered a new stage in the 19th century, during the
National Renaissance,
under new historical circumstances. In this period
serious attempts were made
to build up a national literary language which would
become standard in the
20th century.
Dialects of the Albanian language
The Albanian language has two dialects, the northern
dialect or "gegėrisht"
and the southern dialect or "toskėrisht". The natural
boundary that separates
these dialects is the river Shkumbin that runs through
Elbasan, in central
Albania. To the right of Shkumbin lies the northern
dialect (gegėrisht) and
to the left lies the southern dialect (toskėrisht).
There are no great differences between Albanian dialects
and people can
understand each other without difficulty. Nevertheless,
there are some
differences in the phonetic system and in the
grammatical structure and
lexicon, of which the most important are: the northern
dialect has mouth and
nasal vowels, whereas the southern dialect has only
mouth vowels; the
diphthong ua in toskėrisht has the equivalent ue in
gegėrisht (grua ~ grue);
the initial cluster va in toskėrisht has the equivalent
vo in gegėrisht
(vatėr ~ votėr); the distinct nasal ā in gegėrisht has
the distinct
equivalent ė in toskėrisht (nānė ~ nėnė).
The southern dialect is characterized by rhotacism (the
changing of n to r
(ranė ~ rėrė), which in gegėrisht is missing; in
toskėrisht the consonant
clusters mb, nd, etc. are retained whereas in gegėrisht
are assimilated in m,
n, (mbush ~ mush, vend ~ ven). In the morphological
system, the northern
dialect has the infinitive form of the type me pun,
whereas toskėrisht has
instead the infinitive form of the type tė punoj. The
past participle in
toskėrisht ends in a consonant, whereas in gegėrisht
ends in a vowel (kapur ~
kapė), etc.The south dialect has the future forms: do te
punoj dhe kam per te
punuar, whereas the norther dialect apart from the above
forms has the form
kam me punue
Standard Albanian
The formation of the unified national literary language
(standard language),
as the most elaborated variant of the Albanian language,
has gone through a
long process, which began in 16th and 17th centuries,
but this process
entered a new stage in the 19th century, during the
National Renaissance.
On 1824 Naum Veqilharxhi started the work to produce
Albanian Alphabet and
the Evetar was published on 1844 and 1845. Veqilharxhi
is the first one
who drafted the targets of Albania National Renaissance
through his tractat,
his introduction of the first Evetar and many other
papers .
By this time priority was given to the learning and
exploration of the mother
tongue, its enrichment and clearance of unnecessary
foreign words. A wide
literary, cultural and linguistic activity took place
during this period.
The Society of Printing Albanian Letters, which was
created in 1879, gave
a new impetus to this activity. The first grammar books
were produced and
steps were taken for the production of a national
dictionary of the Albanian
language. The Dictionary of Albanian language by
Kostandin Kristoforidhi
was published posthumously in 1904.
During the period of National Renaissance, two literary
variants of the
Albanian language developed, which are the southern
literary variant and the
northern literary variant. Attempts were made to bring
the two variants
together and unify the literary language. An issue that
required immediate
solution was the unification of the alphabet. Up to that
time Albanian was
written in several alphabets: Latin, Greek,
Turkish-Arabic and other special
alphabets. This issue was resolved at the Congress of
Manastir, held in
November 14-22, 1908, in the town of Manastir, which is
currently situated in
Macedonia. The Congress decided on the introduction of a
new alphabet based
entirely on the Latin alphabet and provided with nine
digraphs (dh, gj, ll,
nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh), and two letters with diacritic
signs (ē, ė). This
alphabet is still in use in the Albanian language.
Though the Congress
decided the Istanbul alphabet to be free for use, with
the passage of time it
was replaced by the new alphabet endorsed by the
Congress of Manastir, i.e.
the current alphabet.
Another step towards the unification of the Albanian
literary language was
taken by the Albanian Literary Committee, which met in
Shkodėr in 1916.
The committee emphasised as a priority the exploration
of the Albanian
literary language and the development of the Albanian
literature. This
committee of linguists and writers, set up to help
create a common literary
(standard) language by bringing together the two
literary variants already in
use, decided on the median literary variant, which would
serve as a bridge
between "toskėrisht" and "gegėrisht" and set rules for
its orthography, which
contributed to the unification of the written language.
The decisions of the Albanian Literary Committee on the
standard language and
its orthography were later endorsed at the Education
Congress of Lushnje
(1920) and continued to be applied until the Second
World War.
After the Second World War, work on the unification of
the national literary
language (standard language) and its orthography was
organised by the
Institute of Sciences. Ad hoc committees were set up to
design orthography
drafts. Thus, some drafts were designed in 1948, 1951,
1953 and 1956. Two
conferences were held in 1952 on the issue of the
standard language.
In 1967, the Institute of History and Linguistics
published the new draft on
Orthography Rules of the Albanian Language. This draft
was applied in all
the Albanian territories, the Republic of Albania,
Kosovo and Montenegro.
Meanwhile, efforts were also made in Kosovo for the
unification of the
literary language and its orthography.
In 1968, a linguistic conference was held in Prishtina,
Kosova, guided by the
principle one nation-one literary language. It decided
that once the
orthography draft was approved and took official form,
it would be applied in
Kosovo as well. The decisions taken in this conference
were of great
significance for the unification of the national
literary language.
Following a public debate, the draft on Orthography
Rules of the Albanian
Language of 1967 was submitted for discussion to the
Congress on orthography
of the Albanian language held in Tirana in 1972. It has
gone down in the h
istory of the Albanian language and culture as the
Congress of the
unification of the national literary language.
Delegates attended the Congress on orthography of the
Albanian language from
all of the regions of Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro and Arberėsh
from Italy. The Congress adopted a resolution which,
among others, stated
that "the Albanian people now have a unified literary
(standard) language.
The unified national literary language (standard
language) was mostly based
on the literary variant of the south, especially with
regard to the phonetic
system, but it also encompasses elements from the
literary variant of the
north.
After the Congress of Orthography, a number of important
works were published
which codified the norms of a standard language, such as
The Orthography of
the Albanian Language (1973), The Dictionary of
Current Albanian (1980),
The Dictionary of Present-day Albanian (1984), An
Orthographic Dictionary
of the Albanian Language (1976), A Grammar of Current
Albanian, I
Morphology (1995), II Syntax (1997).
Typological features of present-day standard Albanian
Albanian language is structurally an
analytical-synthetic language, with a
dominance of synthetic elements tending towards being
analytical. Part of its
phonetic and grammatical features date back from the
ancient Indo-European
period, others have developed later.
Albanian language has its own phonological system, which
comprises 7 vowel
phonemes and 29 consonant phonemes. It is written in the
Latin alphabet
decided upon in 1908 at the Congress of Manastir.
The Albanian language alphabet has 36 letters, 25 of
which are simple (a, b,
c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u,
v, x, y, z), 9 are
digraphs (dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh) and 2
diacritic letters (ė, ē).
Albanian language has a generally fixed stress during
inflection. In most
cases, especially in the noun system, the stress falls
on the penultimate
syllable.
The Albanian language has an elaborated system of
grammatical forms, a binary
declension system: definite and indefinite, it retains
the case forms (it has
five cases), three genders (masculine, feminine and
neutral); the latter is
going out of use and is used only with a certain
category of verbal nouns
like tė shkruarit, tė menduarit, etc.
The noun system has definite and indefinite forms,
hence, definite and
indefinite declensions; the definite article takes end
position like the
Romanian and Bulgarian languages; but the article can be
pre-positioned with
nouns in the possessive case, (i, e malit), articled
adjectives (i mirė, i
vogėl, etc), neutral nouns of the type tė folurit, etc.
and this article (i
,e) (is nominated prepositive article. Apart from
inflection with
specific endings, Albanian has also an inner inflection
(dash ~ desh, marr ~
merr); it has two types of adjectives, articled
adjectives (i madh, i
ndershėm) and unarticled adjectives (trim, besnik).
Numerals are mainly used
according to the decimal system (dhjetė, tridhjetė,
pesėdhjetė), but
vigesimal system is also retained (njėzet, dyzet);
compound numerals from 11
through 19 are formed by placing digits first, then the
preposition mbė and
finally the decimals (njėmbėdhjetė, dymbėdhjetė, etc)
like the Romanian and
Slavonic languages.
The verb system is varied. Albanian language has a rich
system of mood and
time forms, part of which dates from an early period,
with the rest being
evolved during the long historical evolution. Verbs have
six moods:
indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative, "admirative"
(expressing a
surprise) and "desiderative" (expressing a wish) and
three non-finite forms
(past participle, infinitive and gerund). The future
tense is formed
analytically in two ways: with do (form of the verb dua-want)
+ conjunctive
(here, infinitive) - tė punoj = do tė punoj (I shall
work), and with
auxiliary verb kam (have) + infinitive pėr tė punuar =
kam pėr tė punuar (I
have to work).
Word order is generally free but the most common form is
subject + verb +
object.
The vocabulary of the Albanian language consists of
certain layers. Native
words date back from an ancient Indo-European period
(ditto, Nat, dimmer,
motor, Janna, etc.), or are formed in a later period out
of Albanian words
(ditor, dimėror, i pėrnatshėm).
Another layer consists of words borrowed from other
languages as a result of
the contacts the Albanian people have had with other
nations over the
centuries. Words have been borrowed from Greek, both
ancient and modern, from
Latin and Romance languages, from Slavonic and Turkish.
Despite the numerous borrowings, Albanian language has
retained its
originality as a separate Indo-European language.
The spread of the Albanian language
Albanian is currently spoken by over six million people
in the Republic of
Albania, in Kosovo, by the Albanians of Macedonia,
Montenegro and south
Serbia as well as in the territory of Ēamėri in Greece.
Albanian is also
spoken in the Albanian settlements in Italy, Greece,
Bulgaria, the Ukraine
and by Albanians who have migrated to various parts of
the world before the
Second World War and over the last decade.
The Albanian language is being taught and studied in
several universities and
Albanological centres abroad, as in Paris, Rome, Naples,
Cosenza, Palermo,
Petersburg, Peking, M?nchen, Bucharest, Salonika,
Sophia, etc.
Studies on the Albanian Language
The Albanian language and culture, their ancientness and
original character
have attracted the attention of foreign and Albanian
scholars as early as the
18th century and even before. The language, history and
culture of Albanians
drew, in particular, the attention of Germanic world. A
great philosopher
such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, who worked one
century before the
emergence of comparative linguistics, was also concerned
with it. He held
that the comparative study of languages was essential
for building a
universal history of the world, for understanding and
explaining it. In some
letters that he wrote to a librarian of the Berlin's
Royal Library at the
beginning of the 18th century, he pronounced on the
nature and origin of
Albanian as well, and after some hesitations, he came to
the conclusion that
Albanian was the language of ancient Illyrians.
The studies on the Albanian language, however, like on
many other languages,
began by the mid-19th century, after the emergence of
the
historical-comparative linguistics. One of the founders
of this linguistics,
the German scholar Franz Bopp, came to prove, as early
as 1854, that Albanian
language shared the family of Indo-European languages
and occupied a special
place in this family. After him, other scholars such as
G. Meyer, H.
Pederson, N. Jokli, explored various aspects of the
lexicon and grammatical
structure of Albanian. As early as 1891, G. Meyer
embarked on the work of
compiling an etymological dictionary of the Albanian
language (Etymologisches
Wörterbuch der albanesischen Sprache, Strasbourg, 1891),
the first dictionary
of this type for Albanian. In addition, numerous foreign
linguists such as F.
Miclosich, G. Weigand, C.Tagliavini, St. Man, E. Hamp,
A. Desnickaja, H.
Ölberg, H. Mihaescu, W. Fredler, O. Bucholtz, M. Huld,
G.B. Pellegrini, etc.,
have made invaluable contributions to the studying of
history of the Albanian
language, the problems related to its origin, etymology,
phonetics and
historical grammar, and, in addition, to the studying of
the current state of
Albanian.
In the meantime, along with the studies on Albanian by
foreign linguists, the
Albanian linguistics was born and developed. Its
beginnings date from the
17th century AD, when Frang Bardhi published the first
dictionary of Albanian
language "Dictionarium Latino-Epiroticum" (1653). During
the National
Renaissance, several Albanian grammars were published.
So, Dhimitėr Kamarda,
one of Italy's Arbėresh, published in 1864 his work "Saggio
della grammatica
comparata sulla lingua albanese", Livorno, 1864, and two
years later its 2d
vol., "L'Appendice al saggio della grammatica comparata
sulla lingua
albanese", Prato, 1866. In 1882, Kostandin Kristoforidhi
published "The
Grammar of the Albanian Language" and in 1886 Sami
Frashėri published "The
Grammar of the Albanian Language", two important
19th-century linguistic
works on the grammatology of Albanian language. At the
end of the 19th
century, Kostandin Kristoforidhi prepared another
"Dictionary of the Albanian
Language", which was published in 1904 and is considered
to be the most
important work in Albanian lexicography published before
the Second World
War. In 1909, the association "Bashkimi" published its
own dictionary.
After the proclamation of Independence, a series of
grammar books and
dictionaries were published to meet the needs of schools
and national
culture. In the field of grammar studies, the most
distinguished figure
became Prof. Dr. Aleksandėr Xhuvani.
Aleksandėr Xhuvani (1880-1961)
He received higher education at the University of
Athens. During the period
of National Renaissance he started his activity in the
study of Albanian
language and national education. He performed a great
work for providing our
schools with textbooks of Albanian language, literature,
teaching and
psychology. He directed and took part in the work for
drafting spelling
guides during the years 1949, 1951, 1954 and 1956.He
carried out a lot of
activity in the field of the purity and enrichment of
Albanian language and
also published his work "On the Purity of the Albanian
Language" (1956). He
collaborated with Professor Eqerem Ēabej for writing
such works as "Prefixes"
(1956) and "Suffixes of the Albanian Language" (1962),
which are fundamental
treatises in the field of word-formation in the Albanian
Language. He also
published a series of monographic works on the
participle, infinitive and
prepositions of the Albanian Language.He was a good
connoisseur and a
passionate collector of lexical thesaurus of the folk
speech. The words and
expressions collected by him were partly published
posthumously in the form
of a vocabulary. He prepared a second edition of
Kristoforidhi's "The
Dictionary of the Albanian Language" (1961).His complete
works, extending to
several volumes, have not yet been published. The first
volume was published
in 1980.
A greater development Albanian linguistics saw during
the second half of the
20th century, when specialised institutions were
established, such as the
University of Tirana, the University of Prishtina, the
Academy of Sciences,
the University of Shkodėr and later on other
universities in Elbasan,
Gjirokastėr, Vlorė, Tetovė, etc. During this period, a
series of generalising
works were created in various fields of linguistics. In
the areas of
lexicology and lexicography, in addition to
lexicological studies, a series
of both Albanian and bilingual dictionaries were
written, most important
being: "The Dictionary of Albanian" (1954), "The
Dictionary of Current A
lbanian Language" (1980), "The Dictionary of Present-day
Albanian" (1984),
"The Spelling Dictionary of the Albanian Language"
(1976), etc. Recently "An
Idiomatic Dictionary of Albanian Language" and a "Balkan
Idiomatic
Dictionary" (1999) have appeared.
In the field of dialectology, the description and study
of all Albanian
speeches has been carried out and "The Dialectological
Atlas of Albanian
Language" has been written, which is a monumental work
that is soon to come
out.
Also, a survey of phonetics and grammatical structures
of Albanian through
individual studies and various grammar treatises and
levels has been carried
out, of which "The Albanian Language Grammar" comprised
of Morphology I
(1995), and Syntax II (1997), drawn up in co-operation
with the Academy of
Sciences and the Tirana University, with Mahir Domi as
editor-in-chief, is
the most complete.
In the linguistic studies during the past half-century
much space was given
to the problems of the history of Albanian language, the
ethno-genesis of
Albanian people and their language, the historical
phonetics and grammar,
etc.
Some of the basic works in these areas are the
following: "Etymological
Studies in the Albanian Field" in 7 volumes by E. Ēabej;
"The Missal" by Gjon
Buzuku (E. Ēabej); "A Historical Grammar of the Albanian
Language" (Sh.
Demiraj); "The Historical Phonology of the Albanian
Language" (Sh. Demiraj);
"Balkan Linguistics" (Sh. Demiraj), etc
Albanian language
The Albanian language is the oldest Indo-European
idiom
according to
WEBSTERS NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY,
Unabridged Second Edition,
De Luxe Color, William Collins and World Publishing Co.,
Inc., 1975,
ISBN: 0-539-048523-3