Albanian language

Albanian
shqip gjuha shqipe
Pronunciation	[ʃcip] [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ]
Native to	Albania Kosovo Greece Italy Montenegro North Macedonia Serbia Ukraine
Ethnicity	Albanians
Native speakers	7.5 million (2017)
Language family	Indo-European Albanian
Early form	Proto-Albanian
Dialects	Gheg Tosk Arbëresh Arvanitika Upper Reka Arbanasi Istrian †
Writing system	Latin (Albanian alphabet) Albanian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Albania Kosovo North Macedonia (co-official) Montenegro (co-official)
Recognised minority language in	Italy Serbia Croatia Romania
Regulated by	Academy of Sciences of Albania Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sq
ISO 639-2	alb (B) sqi (T)
ISO 639-3	sqi – inclusive code Individual codes: aae – Arbëresh aat – Arvanitika aln – Gheg als – Tosk
Glottolog	alba1267
Linguasphere	55-AAA-aaa to 55-AAA-ahe (25 varieties)
The dialects of the Albanian language in Southern Europe.(The map does not indicate where the language is majority or minority.)

Albanian (endonym: shqip [ʃcip] or gjuha shqipe [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ]) is an Indo-European language and branch, which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group. 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 is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania. With perhaps as many as 7.5 million speakers, it comprises an independent branch within the Indo-European languages and is not closely related to any other modern language.

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 unattested Balkan Indo-European language that was closely related to Illyrian and Messapic. The earlier phase of Albanian is also labelled '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 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 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 5th–6th centuries AD, hence possibly occupying roughly their present area divided by 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. Two varieties of 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 the language.

Standard Albanian is a standardised form of spoken Albanian based on Tosk.

Geographic distribution

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.

Europe

The Albanian language 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 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 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.

Americas

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 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.

Asia and Africa

Approximately 1.3 million people of Albanian ancestry live in Turkey, with more than 500,000 recognising their ancestry, language and culture. There are other estimates, however, that place 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 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.

Oceania

Albanian is also spoken by Albanian diaspora communities residing in Australia and New Zealand.

Dialects

The Albanian language has two distinct dialects, Tosk which 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 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 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 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.

Orthography

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 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, 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 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, 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 the latter alphabets have now been forgotten and are unknown, even to the Albanians themselves.

Classification

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 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.

Paleo-Balkanic Armenian Graeco-Albanian Graeco-Phrygian Illyric Messapic Albanian Gheg Tosk Arvanitika Arbëresh Mainland Tosk

Albanian and Messapic in the Paleo-Balkanic branch based on "The Indo-European Language Family" by Brian D. Joseph and Adam Hyllested (2022)

Messapic 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 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 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 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:

History

Historical documentation

The first attested written mention of 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 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 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 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 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 the Congress of Dibra decided that Albanian schools would finally be allowed.

Linguistic affinities

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 appears to have evolved from one of the Paleo-Balkan languages of antiquity, although it is still uncertain which one, or where in southern Europe that population lived. In general, there is insufficient evidence to connect Albanian with one of those languages, whether Illyrian, Thracian, or Dacian.Among these possibilities, Illyrian 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, 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.

Historical presence and location

The place and 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 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 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 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 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 the treatment of the native words and loanwords from other languages are evidence that the dialectal split preceded the Slavic migration 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 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 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 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 substratum

Pre-Indo-European (PreIE) sites are found throughout the territory of Albania. Such PreIE sites existed in Maliq, Vashtëm, Burimas, Barç, Dërsnik in 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, 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'.

Proto-IE features

Although Albanian has many words that do not correspond to IE cognates, it has retained many proto-IE features: for example, the demonstrative pronoun *ḱi- is ancestral to Albanian ky/kjo, English he, and Russian sej but not to English this or Russian etot.

Albanian is compared to other Indo-European languages below, but Albanian has exhibited some notable instances of semantic drift, such as motër meaning "sister" rather than "mother".

Vocabulary of Albanian and other Indo-European languages

Albanian	muaj	ri	nënë	motër	natë	hundë	tre / tri	zi	kuq	verdhë	kaltër	ujk
Proto-Indo-European	*mḗh₁n̥s	*néwos	*méh₂tēr	*swésōr	*nókʷts	*néh₂s	*tréyes	*kr̥snós	*h₁rewdʰ-	*ǵʰelh₃-	*bʰléh1-uo-	*wĺ̥kʷos
English	month	new	mother	sister	night	nose	three	black	red	yellow	blue	wolf
Latin	mēnsis	novus	māter	soror	nox/noctis	nāsus	trēs	āter, niger	ruber	helvus	caeruleus	lupus
Lithuanian	mėnesis	naujas	motė	sesuo	naktis	nosis	trys	juodas	raudonas	geltas	mėlynas	vilkas
Old Church Slavonic	мѣсѧць měsęcĭ	новъ novŭ	мати/матере mati/matere	сестра sestra	нощь noštĭ	носъ nosŭ	трьѥ trĭje	чрьнъ črĭnŭ	чрьвл҄енъ črĭvl'enŭ	жлътъ žlŭtŭ	син҄ь sin'ĭ	влькъ vlĭkŭ
Ancient Greek	μείς/μηνός meís/mēnós	νέος néos	μήτηρ mḗtēr	ἀδελφή adelphḗ	νύξ/νυκτός núx/nuktós	ῥίς rhī́s	τρεῖς treîs	μέλας mélas	ἐρυθρός eruthrós	ξανθός xanthós	κύανος kúanos	λύκος lýkos
Classical Armenian	ամիս amis	նոր nor	մայր mayr	քոյր k'oyr	գիշեր gišer	քիթ k'it'	երեք erek'	սեաւ seaw	կարմիր karmir	դեղին dełin	կապոյտ kapoyt	գայլ gayl
Old Irish	mí	nuae	máthir	derbṡiur	adaig	srón	trí	dub	rúad	buide	gorm	fáelchú
Sanskrit	मास māsa	नव nava	मातृ mātṛ	स्वसृ svasṛ	नक्ति nakti	नासा nāsā	त्रि tri	कृष्ण kṛṣṇa	रुधिर rudhira	पीत, हिरण्य pīta, hiraṇya	नील nīla	वृक vṛka

Albanian–PIE phonological correspondences

Phonologically, Albanian is not so conservative. Like many IE stocks, it has merged the two series of voiced stops (e.g. both *d and *dʰ became d). In addition, voiced stops tend to disappear in between vowels. There is almost complete loss of final syllables and very widespread loss of other unstressed syllables (e.g. mik 'friend' from Lat. amicus). PIE *o appears as a (also as e if a high front vowel i follows), while *ē and *ā become o, and PIE *ō appears as e.

The palatals, velars, and labiovelars show distinct developments, with Albanian showing the three-way distinction also found in Luwian. Labiovelars are for the most part differentiated from all other Indo-European velar series before front vowels, but they merge with the "pure" (back) velars elsewhere. The palatal velar series, consisting of Proto-Indo-European *ḱ and the merged *ģ and ģʰ, usually developed into th and dh, but were depalatalised to merge with the back velars when in contact with sonorants. Because the original Proto-Indo-European tripartite distinction between dorsals is preserved in such reflexes, Albanian is therefore neither centum nor satem, despite having a "satem-like" realization of the palatal dorsals in most cases. Thus PIE *ḱ, *k, and *kʷ become th, q, and s, respectively (before back vowels *ḱ becomes th, while *k and *kʷ merge as k).

A minority of scholars reconstruct a fourth laryngeal *h₄ allegedly surfacing as Alb. h word-initially, e.g. Alb. herdhe 'testicles' presumably from PIE *h₄órǵʰi- (rather than the usual reconstruction *h₃erǵʰi-), but this is generally not followed elsewhere, as h- has arisen elsewhere idiosyncratically (for example hark < Latin arcus).

Reflexes of PIE bilabial plosives in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*p	p	*pékʷ- 'to cook'	pjek 'to bake'
*bʰ / b	b	*srobʰ-éi̯e- 'to sip, gulp'	gjerb 'to sip'

Reflexes of PIE coronal plosives in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*t	t	*túh2 'thou'	ti 'you (singular)'
*d	d	*dih2tis 'light'	ditë 'day'
	dh	*pérd- 'to fart'	pjerdh 'to fart'
	g	*dl̥h1-tó- 'long'	gjatë 'long' (Tosk dial. glatë)
*dʰ	d	*dʰégʷʰ- 'burn'	djeg 'to burn'
	dh	*gʰórdʰos 'enclosure'	gardh 'fence'

Reflexes of PIE palatal plosives in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*ḱ	th	*ḱéh1smi 'I say'	them 'I say'
	s	*ḱupo- 'shoulder'	sup 'shoulder'
	k	*smeḱ-r̥ 'chin'	mjekër 'chin; beard'
	ç/c	*ḱentro- 'to stick'	çandër 'prop'
*ǵ	dh	*ǵómbʰos 'tooth, peg'	dhëmb 'tooth'
*ǵʰ	dh	*ǵʰed-ioH 'I defecate'	dhjes 'I defecate'
	d	*ǵʰr̥sdʰi 'grain, barley'	drithë 'grain'

Reflexes of PIE velar plosives in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*k	k	*kágʰmi 'I catch, grasp'	kam 'I have'
	q	*kluH-i̯o- 'to weep'	qaj 'to weep, cry' (dial. kla(n)j)
*g	g	*h3lígos 'sick'	ligë 'bad'
	gj	*h1reug- 'to retch'	regj 'to tan hides'
*gʰ	g	*gʰórdʰos 'enclosure'	gardh 'fence'
	gj	*gʰédn-i̯e/o- 'to get'	gjej 'to find' (Old Alb. gjãnj)

Reflexes of PIE labiovelar plosives in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*kʷ	k	*kʷeh2sleh2 'cough'	kollë 'cough'
	s	*kʷélH- 'to turn'	sjell 'to fetch, bring'
	q	*kʷṓd	që 'that, which'
*gʷ	g	*gʷr̥H 'stone'	gur 'stone'
*gʷʰ	g	*dʰégʷʰ- 'to burn'	djeg 'to burn'
	z	*dʰogʷʰéi̯e- 'to ignite'	ndez 'to kindle, light a fire'

Reflexes of PIE *s in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*s	gj	*séḱstis 'six'	gjashtë 'six'
	h	*nosōm 'us' (gen.)	nahe 'us' (dat.)
	sh	*bʰreusos 'broken'	breshër 'hail'
	th	*suh1s 'swine'	thi 'pig'
	∅	h1ésmi 'I am'	jam 'I am'
*-sd-	th	*gʷésdos 'leaf'	gjeth 'leaf'
*-sḱ-	h	*sḱi-eh2 'shadow'	hije 'shadow'
*-sp-	f	*spélnom 'speech'	fjalë 'word'
*-st-	sht	*h2osti 'bone'	asht 'bone'
*-su̯-	d	*su̯eíd-r̥- 'sweat'	dirsë 'sweat'

Reflexes of PIE sonorants in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*i̯	gj	*i̯éh3s- 'to gird'	(n)gjesh 'I gird; squeeze, knead'
	j	*i̯uH 'you' (nom.)	ju 'you (plural)'
	∅	*trei̯es 'three' (masc.)	tre 'three'
*u̯	v	*u̯os-éi̯e- 'to dress'	vesh 'to wear, dress'
*m	m	*meh2tr-eh2 'maternal'	motër 'sister'
*n	n	*nōs 'we' (acc.)	ne 'we'
	nj	*eni-h1ói-no 'that one'	një 'one' (Gheg njâ, njo, nji )
	∅ (Tosk) ~ nasal vowel (Gheg)	*pénkʷe 'five'	pesë 'five' (vs. Gheg pês)
	r (Tosk only)	*ǵʰeimen 'winter'	dimër 'winter' (vs. Gheg dimën)
*l	l	*h3lígos 'sick'	ligë 'bad'
	ll	*kʷélH- 'turn'	sjell 'to fetch, bring'
*r	r	*repe/o 'take'	rjep 'peel'
	rr	*u̯rh1ḗn 'sheep'	rrunjë 'yearling lamb'
*n̥	e	*h1n̥men 'name'	emër 'name'
*m̥	e	*u̯iḱm̥ti 'twenty'	(një)zet 'twenty'
*l̥	li, il / lu, ul	*u̯ĺ̥kʷos 'wolf'	ujk 'wolf' (Chamian ulk)
*r̥	ri, ir / ru, ur	*ǵʰr̥sdom 'grain, barley'	drithë 'grain'

Reflexes of PIE laryngeals in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*h1	∅	*h1ésmi 'I am'	jam 'to be'
*h2	∅	*h2r̥tḱos 'bear'	ari 'bear'
*h3	∅	*h3ónr̥ 'dream'	ëndërr 'dream'
*h4	h	*h4órǵʰi 'testicles'	herdhe 'testicles'

Reflexes of PIE vowels in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*i	i	*sínos 'bosom'	gji 'bosom, breast'
	e	*dwigʰeh2 'twig'	degë 'branch'
*ī < *iH	i	*dih2tis 'light'	ditë 'day'
*e	e	*pénkʷe 'five'	pesë 'five' (Gheg pês)
	je	*wétos 'year' (loc.)	vjet 'last year'
*ē	o	*ǵʰēsreh2 'hand'	dorë 'hand'
*a	a	*bʰaḱeh2 'bean'	bathë 'bean'
	e	*h2élbʰit 'barley'	elb 'barley'
*o	a	*gʰórdʰos 'enclosure'	gardh 'fence'
*ō	e	*h2oḱtōtis 'eight'	tetë 'eight'
*u	u	*súpnom 'sleep'	gjumë 'sleep'
*ū < *uH	y	*suHsos 'grandfather'	gjysh 'grandfather'
	i	*muh2s 'mouse'	mi 'mouse'

Reflexes of PIE diphthongs in Albanian

PIE	Albanian	PIE	Albanian
*ey, *h1ey	i	*g'heymōn	dimër
*ay, *h2ey	e
*oy, *h3ey	e	*stoygho-	shteg
*ew, *h1ew	a
*aw, *h2ew	a	*h2ewg-	agim
*ow, *h3ew	a, ve-

Standard Albanian

Since World War II, standard Albanian used in Albania has been based on the Tosk dialect. Kosovo and other areas where Albanian is official adopted the Tosk standard in 1969.

Elbasan-based standard

Until the early 20th century, Albanian writing developed in three main literary traditions: Gheg, Tosk, and Arbëreshë. Throughout this time, a Gheg subdialect spoken around Elbasan served as lingua franca among the Albanians, but was less prevalent in writing. The Congress of Manastir of Albanian writers held in 1908 recommended the use of the Elbasan subdialect for literary purposes and as a basis of a unified national language. While technically classified as a southern Gheg variety, the Elbasan speech is closer to Tosk in phonology and practically a hybrid between other Gheg subdialects and literary Tosk.

Between 1916 and 1918, the Albanian Literary Commission met in Shkodër under the leadership of Luigj Gurakuqi with the purpose of establishing a unified orthography for the language. The commission, made up of representatives from the north and south of Albania, reaffirmed the Elbasan subdialect as the basis of a national tongue. The rules published in 1917 defined spelling for the Elbasan variety for official purposes. The commission did not, however, discourage publications in one of the dialects, but rather laid a foundation for Gheg and Tosk to gradually converge into one.

When the Congress of Lushnje met in the aftermath of World War I to form a new Albanian government, the 1917 decisions of the Literary Commission were upheld. The Elbasan subdialect remained in use for administrative purposes and many new writers embraced it for creative writing. Gheg and Tosk continued to develop freely and interaction between the two dialects increased.

Tosk standard

At the end of World War II, however, the new communist regime radically imposed the use of the Tosk dialect in all facets of life in Albania: administration, education, and literature. Most Communist leaders were Tosks from the south. Standardisation was directed by the Albanian Institute of Linguistics and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Albania. Two dictionaries were published in 1954: an Albanian language dictionary and a Russian–Albanian dictionary. New orthography rules were eventually published in 1967 and in 1973 with the Drejtshkrimi i gjuhës shqipe (Orthography of the Albanian Language).

Until 1968, Kosovo and other Albanian-speaking areas in Yugoslavia followed the 1917 standard based on the Elbasan dialect, though it was gradually infused with Gheg elements in an effort to develop a Kosovan language separate from communist Albania's Tosk-based standard. Albanian intellectuals in the former Yugoslavia consolidated the 1917 standard twice in the 1950s, culminating with a thorough codification of orthographic rules in 1964. The rules already provided for a balanced variety that accounted for both Gheg and Tosk dialects, but only lasted through 1968. Viewing divergences with Albania as a threat to their identity, Kosovars arbitrarily adopted the Tosk project that Tirana had published the year before. Although it was never intended to serve outside of Albania, the project became the "unified literary language" in 1972, when approved by a rubberstamp Orthography Congress. Only about 1 in 9 participants were from Kosovo. The Congress, held at Tirana, authorized the orthography rules that came out the following year, in 1973.

More recent dictionaries from the Albanian government are Fjalori Drejtshkrimor i Gjuhës Shqipe (1976) (Orthographic Dictionary of the Albanian Language) and Dictionary of Today's Albanian language (Fjalori i Gjuhës së Sotme Shqipe) (1980). Prior to World War II, dictionaries consulted by developers of the standard have included Lexikon tis Alvanikis glossis (Albanian: Fjalori i Gjuhës Shqipe (Kostandin Kristoforidhi, 1904), Fjalori i Bashkimit (1908), and Fjalori i Gazullit (1941).

Calls for reform

Since the fall of the communist regime, Albanian orthography has stirred heated debate among scholars, writers, and public opinion in Albania and Kosovo, with hardliners opposed to any changes in the orthography, moderates supporting varying degrees of reform, and radicals calling for a return to the Elbasan dialect. Criticism of Standard Albanian has centred on the exclusion of the 'me + participle' infinitive and the Gheg lexicon. Critics say that Standard Albanian disenfranchises and stigmatises Gheg speakers, affecting the quality of writing and impairing effective public communication. Supporters of the Tosk standard view the 1972 Congress as a milestone achievement in Albanian history and dismiss calls for reform as efforts to "divide the nation" or "create two languages." Moderates, who are especially prevalent in Kosovo, generally stress the need for a unified Albanian language, but believe that the 'me + participle' infinitive and Gheg words should be included. Proponents of the Elbasan dialect have been vocal, but have gathered little support in the public opinion. In general, those involved in the language debate come from diverse backgrounds and there is no significant correlation between one's political views, geographic origin, and position on Standard Albanian.

Many writers continue to write in the Elbasan dialect but other Gheg variants have found much more limited use in literature. Most publications adhere to a strict policy of not accepting submissions that are not written in Tosk. Some print media even translate direct speech, replacing the 'me + participle' infinitive with other verb forms and making other changes in grammar and word choice. Even authors who have published in the Elbasan dialect will frequently write in the Tosk standard.

In 2013, a group of academics for Albania and Kosovo proposed minor changes to the orthography. Hardline academics boycotted the initiative, while other reformers have viewed it as well-intentioned but flawed and superficial.

Education

Albanian is the medium of instruction in most Albanian schools. The literacy rate in Albania for the total population, age 9 or older, is about 99%. Elementary education is compulsory (grades 1–9), but most students continue at least until a secondary education. Students must pass graduation exams at the end of the 9th grade and at the end of the 12th grade in order to continue their education.

Phonology

Standard Albanian has seven vowels and 29 consonants. Like English, Albanian has dental fricatives /θ/ (like the th in thin) and /ð/ (like the th in this), written as ⟨th⟩ and ⟨dh⟩, which are rare cross-linguistically.

Gheg uses long and nasal vowels, which are absent in Tosk, and the mid-central vowel ë is lost at the end of the word. The stress is fixed mainly on the last syllable. Gheg n (femën: compare English feminine) changes to r by rhotacism in Tosk (femër).

Consonants

Albanian consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
				plain	velar.
Nasal		m		n			ɲ	(ŋ)
Plosive	voiceless	p		t			c	k
	voiced	b		d			ɟ	ɡ
Affricate	voiceless			t͡s		t͡ʃ
	voiced			d͡z		d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	f	θ	s		ʃ			h
	voiced	v	ð	z		ʒ
Approximant				l	ɫ		j
Flap				ɾ
Trill				r

IPA	Description	Written as	English approximation
m	Bilabial nasal	m	man
n	Alveolar nasal	n	not
ɲ	Palatal nasal	nj	~onion
ŋ	Velar nasal	ng	bang
p	Voiceless bilabial plosive	p	spin
b	Voiced bilabial plosive	b	bat
t	Voiceless alveolar plosive	t	stand
d	Voiced alveolar plosive	d	debt
k	Voiceless velar plosive	k	scar
ɡ	Voiced velar plosive	g	go
t͡s	Voiceless alveolar affricate	c	hats
d͡z	Voiced alveolar affricate	x	goods
t͡ʃ	Voiceless postalveolar affricate	ç	chin
d͡ʒ	Voiced postalveolar affricate	xh	jet
c	Voiceless palatal plosive	q	Latvian ķirbis
ɟ	Voiced palatal plosive	gj	Latvian ģimene
f	Voiceless labiodental fricative	f	far
v	Voiced labiodental fricative	v	van
θ	Voiceless dental fricative	th	thin
ð	Voiced dental fricative	dh	then
s	Voiceless alveolar fricative	s	son
z	Voiced alveolar fricative	z	zip
ʃ	Voiceless postalveolar fricative	sh	show
ʒ	Voiced postalveolar fricative	zh	vision
h	Voiceless glottal fricative	h	hat
r	Alveolar trill	rr	Spanish perro
ɾ	Alveolar tap	r	Spanish pero
l	Alveolar lateral approximant	l	lean
ɫ	Velarized alveolar lateral approximant	ll	ball
j	Palatal approximant	j	yes

Notes:

• The contrast between flapped r and trilled rr is the almost the same as in Spanish or Armenian. However, in most of the dialects, as also in standard Albanian, the single "r" changes from an alveolar flap /ɾ/ to an alveolar approximant [ɹ].
• The palatal nasal /ɲ/ corresponds to the Spanish ñ and the French and Italian gn. It is pronounced as one sound, not a nasal plus a glide.
• The ll sound is a velarised lateral, close to English dark l.
• The letter ç is sometimes written ch due to technical limitations, in analogy to the other digraphs xh, sh, and zh. Usually it is written simply c or more rarely q with context resolving any ambiguities.
• The sounds spelled with q and gj show variation. They may range between occurring as palatal affricates [c͡ç, ɟ͡ʝ] or as palatal stops [c, ɟ] among dialects. Some speakers merge them into the palatoalveolar sounds ç and xh. This is especially common in Northern Gheg, but is increasingly the case in Tosk as well. Other speakers reduced them into /j/ in consonant clusters, such as in the word fjollë, which before standardisation was written as fqollë ( < Medieval Greek φακιολης).
• The ng can be pronounced as /ŋ/ in final position, otherwise it is an allophone of n before k and g.
• Before q and gj, n is always pronounced /ɲ/ but this is not reflected in the orthography.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		u
Close-mid / Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

IPA	Description	Written as	English approximation
i	Close front unrounded vowel	i	seed
y	Close front rounded vowel	y	French tu, German Lüge
e	Close-mid front unrounded vowel	e	bear
a	Open central unrounded vowel	a	car
ə	Schwa	ë	about
o	Close-mid back rounded vowel	o	more
u	Close back rounded vowel	u	boot