Talk:Albanian language

Archive 1

Kwami's input II

Hey again - Another two cents.

• "1.1 How Albanian compares with other languages"

This isn't quite what I meant. It's a collection of vocabulary, but the words aren't all cognates. What I was thinking (and it should probably go later in the article, say in the vocabulary section) will take a bit more research. For other branches of Indo-European, there are specific articles for the branch (Germanic languages, Slavic languages, etc.) which ideally would summarize how the branch developed from proto-Indo-European and maybe how it relates to other branches. But for the Albanian branch, there's just Albanian (maybe that could be your next project - people would appreciate it!). What I thought would be useful would be a list of cognates showing how Albanian relates to other IE languages. *gw → /g, z/, etc. Well, most of the details belong in the Indo-European article, which currently has nothing on Albanian, but it would be interesting to have a few of the quirks here too. Even just a list of indigenous Albanian numerals and pronouns, showing their similarities but also divergences from other IE languages, would be interesting. Or maybe some examples of how Albanian can look quite different from Greek, even when the words are related.

• Is the only diff in the phoneme inventories of Gheg and Tosk that Gheg has a set of nasal vowels? Are all the vowels found nasalized? Also not clear from the text or the table if final schwa reduction is a feature of Tosk, or of Gheg compared to Tosk.
• Case: I refer you to Balkan genitive-dative merger. Albanian does not have a genitive case, and it should be removed from the table. Perhaps you could have a note, instead of a genitive case, Albanian uses with dative with the preposition X or something. The constructions aren't identical in Albanian, unlike Bulgarian, but case is an inflection of the noun, and Albanian doesn't inflect its nouns specially for a genitive. Or you could leave just the dative row, but label it "genitive/dative", and in a note say for the genitive, the preposition X is used.
• Don't know what you mean by 6 "types" of mood. Should it be 6 moods?
• The word for a negative imperative is 'prohibitive': "In prohibitive clauses [or "negative commands", if you prefer], the particle mos is used".
• The English pronunciation equivalents are confusing, especially with their odd mixture of capital and lower case letters. I find them illegible. If you want a spelling pronunciation, I have one at Asteroid pronunciation key that's worked pretty well and which you might use. Or you could simply remove this and stick with the IPA and sound files, which should be enough for anyone.

Cheers, kwami 00:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

hello,

Just a couple of words about colour words in Albanian used in the comparison chart. The word for 'yellow' in standard literary Albanian is 'i verdhë' and not 'i gjelbër/i blertë'(which mean green); 'jeshile' in the green column is just another synonym for 'i gjelbër/i blertë'. However, in various areas in Northern Albania and Kosova, 'i gjelbër' (but to my knowledge not 'i blertë') means 'yellow', while 'i verdhë' means 'green'. To complicate matters further, I personally know of a couple of villages in Kosova where people use 'i verdhë' to mean 'blue'. 84.70.84.73 15:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

copy vio and possible pov?

First of all the phrase "and by smaller numbers of ethnic Albanians in other parts of the southern Balkans, along the east coast of Italy and in Sicily, in southern Greece, and in Germany, Sweden, the United States, Ukraine, and Belgium." is copy paste from Britanica, that means using it is a possible copyright violation.

Apart from that I think that the previous phrasing (see here) is more NPOV. +MATIA ☎ 10:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Could you tell us what's POV about the Britannica quote? kwami 11:33, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Arvanites are not ethnic Albanians is a good start... Can you notice any other differences between the two versions? +MATIA ☎ 11:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is not about the Arvanites or their language. We are talking about the (officially inexistant) Çam Muslim and Orthodox communities. I'm sure that that's what Britannica is talking about and I don't think that Britannica is POV (imagine that). I also highly doubt that it is a possible copyright violation as it is a phrase. If you like, I can ask the Help Desk to check it. Rex^(talk) 12:24, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

REX we've been through all these before. The Chams were about 40.000 and they left (let's not get into the reasons now), during the 2nd world war. And the majority of the Cham people were muslims, like the majority of Tosks were christians. All these people are reffered by scholars (for example the editors of Britanica) as Albanians. The majority of "Albanians" (sic) in Greece are not the Chams nor the Albanian workers (since 1992) but the Arvanites. They spoke Arvanitika which some scholars call Albanian, etc. With your search on Albanian language, you 'll see various things that perhaps I've already read, and I think that you'll agree with me. Please give a shot, trying to understand my explanation.

As for Britannica if we could copy-paste it, it would be interesting, but I'm afraid we can't. Read Talk:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Both the 1911 and the current Britannica are excellent encyclopedias but a) we can't copy-paste from the new one because of copyright (we can't even use the name Britannica for citing the 1911) and b) read WP:PD about bias - I'm not making it up, I'm trying to help you and to discuss that change. +MATIA ☎ 12:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

What about the 30,000 Shqiptarë, don't they exist? Honestly, are you saying that Britannica has published a gross inaccurracy? I simply fail to see why you are trying to cover up the fact that there are ethnic Albanians in Greece. What about the 600,000 Albanian immigrants, they even outnumber the Arvanites! If you object to quoting Britannica, why didn't you object to the following, which has been there for months and was removed by me diff:Languages sharing a common origin with Tosk are spoken in Italian and Greek enclaves and appear to be related most closely to the dialect of Çamëria in the extreme south of Albania. That is a blatant copypaste of Britannica which under POV processing resulted in that. Or does copypasting individual sentences amount to copyright violation only in selective cases? As far as I know it isn't (5% is allowed). The only think we can do is to ask if it is. Perhaps quoting Ethnologue's figures is a copyvio. Rex^(talk) 13:20, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not trying to cover up anything. I've wrote about the ethnic Albanians who came to work in Greece (check my text for the word 1992). Verify with a wikipedia expert what I wrote if you don't believe what I write, or if you can't understand the links I gave you before. PS Ethnologue allows to be cited as a refference and they are linguists. +MATIA ☎ 13:27, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Can I please point out that I myself am Arvanite, or in our own language, Arberesh! We are very much Albanian, but of pre=Ottoman heritage and therefore do not call ourselves Shqiptars. Many Arvanitika people fail to call themselves Albanians because of the association with Shqiptars, which we are not. I find it odd that anyone could say that we don't exist, someobody forgot to tell me I was dead! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.157.223 (talk • contribs) 23:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the point here is whether the language of Arvanit is albanian or not. The pre-otoman name of Albania was Arbani and even the albanians of that time called themselves Arbaneshe. In greek you can see the change of B->V which makes is Arvani. Also the Arbanesh or Arberesh (with n->r rotacion in southern tosk dialect)which live nowadays in Itali call themselves, Arberesh and not Albanians. This does not exclude the fact that they are of Albanian origin and they speak Albanian language. - Aigest 10:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Albanian phonetics

I'll repeat a question I posed a few months back, in the hope that somebody has an answer. In the audio examples provided, Albanian r definitely sounds like an English alveolar approximant (ɹ), not a Spanish alveolar flap (ɾ) as claimed in the article. Can anyone confirm this? No audio is provided for rr to establish whether it is in fact an alveolar trill (r). Also, gj and q are given as the voiced (ɟ) and voiceless palatal plosive (c) respectively, even though they sound more like the postalveolar affricates dʒ and tʃ rather than true palatal plosives.--Theathenae 13:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, Omniglot seems to indicate that everything is as they are on the article now. I am more concerned about the tables on Greek language. Are there voiced (ɟ) and voiceless palatal plosives (c) in Greek? If so, can you provide us with some kind of source? I can't find anything. Rex^(talk) 13:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

To my ears, the audio samples in the relevant articles for c and ɟ are the second consonants in κακιά and μαγκιά, which would mean that Greek does indeed have true palatal plosives. In the case of Albanian it would appear that the symbols are instead being used for postalveolar affricates, perhaps to distinguish q and gj from ç and xh. Do q and ç, and gj and xh, really sound different? The audio samples for shqip and tungjatjeta in this article definitely sound much more like [ʃtʃip] and [tun dʒat jɛ ta].--Theathenae 14:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I just checked your Omniglot reference and in fact both ç and q are assigned the IPA symbol for the tʃ, as I correctly suspected. However, it assigns ɟ to gj and dʒ to xh. Now that is intriguing! :)--Theathenae 14:21, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Isn't that original research? κακιά and μαγκιά sound like /kakja/ and /magja/ to me. Also, I was in Cyprus the other day and it sounded quite different (wanna know how)? I'll require a definete source for the presence of those sounds in Greek, or I'll change due to lack of sources. Omniglot denies the existence of those phonemes Rex^(talk) 15:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No, /kakja/ and /magja/ is how foreigners like you would pronounce those words in Greece. The Greeks pronounce them with a single chop of the tongue.--Theathenae 16:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Not really, I have lived in Greece for 11 years, I know how it's pronounced, just in the same way that I know that in Tirana, qen (dog) is pronounced exectly like the Greek word κεν (your version). It is pronounced chen in Shkoder I think, it depends on the dialect. Do find a source. There is no evidence to support the existence of those phonemes in Greek. Rex^(talk) 17:01, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, you have just proved to yourself that those phonemes do exist. If Greek κεν is pronounced "exactly" the same as Albanian qen, as you claim, and Albanian q is the voiceless palatal plosive, as you claim, then by your own admission it exists in Greek too. But Omniglot claims Albanian q is pronounced tʃ, while κεν is not, in standard Greek at least.--Theathenae 17:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

According to Omniglot, if there were a Greek word κεν, it would be pronounced /kεn/. Maybe that should be made clear in the article Greek language, that palatat plosives don't exist in Greek. If they do, please provide evidence. Rex^(talk) 17:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Omniglot does not dispute the existence of those sounds in Greek, it simply fails to mention what happens to k and g before the front vowels e and i. It is not an exhaustive analysis of Greek phonology.--Theathenae 17:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Really, then why don't we add clicks to the Greek language article? There is no source that says that there isn't. This is an encyclopaedia, you don't build encyclopaedias by natural deduction. It's not for me to prove that those sounds don't exist. It's for you to prove that they do exist. Rex^(talk) 17:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops, would you look at that. The University of London obviously has no problem in saying that "q" is a voiceless palatal plosive. Rex^(talk) 17:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I guess we have a clash of sources. Mais quoi de faire?--Theathenae 17:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Not really. Omniglot is a private website run by an amateur polyglot. The UCL obviously carries more weight, AND says that r is a voiced alveolar tap, that rr is voiced alveolar trill, that gj is a voiced palatal plosive, that q is a voiceless palatal plosive etc. Who shall prevail? WP:RC Rex^(talk) 17:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

So I guess you can't use Omniglot to justify your claims that there are no palatal plosives in Greek. Thanks for the clarification.--Theathenae 17:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I guess so. What a pity that I created and added those tables to the Greek language article claiming the existence of palatal plosives in Greek. I kinda knew that all along :-))) Rex^(talk) 17:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

You're a stirrer. But I knew that already.--Theathenae 17:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean? I was just begining to doubt how much truth there is in my "original research" on the Greek language. Rex^(talk) 17:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Hearing it all around you for 11 years means that you probably know better than any "respectable" source written by some academic in a distant land.--Theathenae 18:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Umm, if κ and γκ are palatal before ε, but not elsewhere, and there is no [k] or [g] before ε, then they're allophones, not phonemes. You could as easily claim that English has palatal stops in words like key, but it would be inappropriate to add them has separate consonants. kwami 23:34, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No, they're also palatal before ι. Rex^(talk) 23:47, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, should have said "before ε, η, υ, and ι". Palatal before front vowels, velar elsewhere. This is very common allophony. It could lead to a phonemic split eventually, as it did in English and the Romance languages.

Also, I wouldn't place too much confidence in the University of London page either. (Omniglot truly is unreliable, so we need not even go there except to get ideas to check out elsewhere.) The problem is that it is very common to give 'close enough' phonemic correspondances, and this page appears to be a homework assignment for an elementary linguistics class. The author could easily have copied the example from some other source without knowing anything of the language. (They might have had the palatal symbols merely for convenience, like you see for the Indic languages, and the author could have taken them at face value and added unjustified IPA descriptions. This happens all the time!) Or s/he could have simplified things to make the problem more accessible to the students. What you really need is a detailed phonetic description of these sounds, rather than just IPA labels. Indic langages don't have palatal stops, even though they're listed with the phonemes /c/ and /ɟ/ in dozens of references. I'm not trying to claim that Albanian doesn't have these sounds - I've never heard the language - but this isn't a convincing reference. However, there would be no need for the letters q and gj if they weren't phonemes, so I think the alphabet itself is reasonably good evidence that they are somehow different from ç and xh. And without any better reference, we might as well leave them as palatals. I just think we should confirm this if we can. kwami 23:54, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I take some of that back. If Rex can attest that Albanian qen is pronounced as Greek κεν (that is, that it is a pure stop and not aspirated or an affricate), and furthermore that q is pronounced the same way before all other Albanian vowels, then this would be confirmation of the existance of palatal stops in Albanian, even if technically original research that should be supported elsewhere if possible. kwami 23:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't clarify it enough. "Γκ" and "κ" are palatal only before Close front unrounded vowels and Open-mid front unrounded vowels. Everywhere else, they're /k/ and /g/. Also, "q" and "gj" are palatal plosives (in standard Albanian at least). Proof: "çaj" means tea and "qaj" means cry. Rex^(talk) 00:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't prove that q is a palatal stop, only that it contrasts with ç (I presume you could just as easily contrast it with k). This leaves open the possibility that it is a palatal affricate, for example, as in some registers of Hungarian, or that it's a palatalized velar stop, etc. I'm more interested in how the q or qaj compares to the κ of κεν. kwami 00:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

It sounds the same. All Albanian letters always sound the same, that was Enver Hoxha's intention when he standardised the alphabet. It is intended to be idiot-proof (ie accessible by anyone). And to answer your previous question, "q" in "qen" sounds the same as "q" in "qaj" which is in turn different (only slightly) from "ç" in "çaj". Rex^(talk) 00:28, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

It should be noted however that "q" is pronounced the same as "ç" in certain dialects. I think Kosovo is one of those places, but I don't know for sure. Rex^(talk) 00:31, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I think you're onto something, kwami. The audio sample provided makes q sound a lot like a Cretan κ in κενό rather than a standard Greek one. It would appear that Albanian q and gj are most likely the voiceless (ʨ) and voiced alveolo-palatal affricate (ʥ) that contrast with ç and xh, the voiceless (tʃ) and voiced postalveolar affricate (dʒ) respectively, as in Serbian.--Theathenae 13:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I just downloaded the files (they weren't playable in IE either), and yes, they sure do sound like affricates, not stops. The sound quality isn't the best, and they're said rather quickly, though. Rex, if you can find sound samples of Mandarin, could you listen to retroflex zh vs. alveolo-palatal j, and tell us if that's anything like the difference between Albanian ç and q? kwami 21:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'll do that. You can listen to Albanian radio at www.europaelire.org and at www.bbc.co.uk/albanian. I doubt it will help, but you may be able to pick out the letters q or gj. I know for a fact that the first words on the BBC one include BBC në Shqip. It's a bit original research I know, but listen to it and tell me what you think the q is in Shqip. Rex^(talk) 21:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The Chinese zh and j don't exist in Albanian. I have listened to both of them. Especially the j, it is totally different from q. Chinese J sounds more like /ts/. Rex^(talk) 21:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Just want to add my experience about Albanian /ɟ/, /dʒ/, /c/ and /tʃ/. I am Italian, but I've been a dozen of times in Albania. I am always very curious about language matters, and tried to learn the most I could of Albanian.

Once I asked a young girl from the area of Gramsh to teach me the difference between those sounds and she repeatedly pronounced the word 'paqe' (peace) in the correct way and — to put in evidence the difference — as it was written 'paçe'. Well, to my ear there was no difference, but she laughed a lot because in her opinion the difference were clear.

It is known that if two sounds are allophones in the sound system of one's mother-tongue there is the possibility that it is not discriminable for him when in other language these are different phonemes.

This often happens to Italians when try to learn English. It is hard for us to distinguish the words 'sing' and 'sin' as in Italian [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/. The same happens for us with French city names "Cannes" and "Caen". There is plenty of exemples like this.

All of this to say that what seems not discriminable for strangers can be absolutely evident for those who speek a certain language.

Finally, I think that the exemple brought by Rex on the words "çaj" and "qaj" is the definitive proof that closes the argument.

Ninonino 09:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Genitive-dative case

I'm moving this discussion over from my talk page so everyone has access to it. kwami 19:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

---

Hello, I saw your edits to Albanian language. I'm concerned that they may be a bit original research. I have a recent Albanian grammar book in front of me right now and it clearly says that there exists a "gjinore" (genetive) and a "dhanore" (dative). If you look at Balkan linguistic union#Case system, it says that in the Balkan languages, the genitive and dative cases (or corresponding prepositional constructions) are merged, it doesn't say that a genetive case does not exist. You say that the equivalent of a genitive is formed by using the prepositions i/e/të/së with the dative. Your version seems to imply that a genetive does not exist. While this may be true as far as linguists are concerned, it's a rather novel way to look at it, since the genetive is listed in every Albanian gramar book. Also, if you look at Romanian grammar, they list a genetive there as well. Now I'm no linguist, but it does seem like original research and would make Wikipedia stand out like white amongst black if this novel apprach is taken. Rex^(talk) 12:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

We can do further referencing with the Balkan Sprachbund. Meanwhile, can you give me a single noun in Albanian that has a genitive? Do any of the books that claim a genitive give a single example? (The fact that the Albanian language has separate names for genitive and dative may only mean that it translated these from Latin or Greek.)

I once found an Aymara grammar that showed the language had the exact case system of Latin. Unfortunately, Aymara is nothing like that - the author simply assumed that all languages had Latin grammar. kwami 19:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but it also may not. This all seems like original research to me. In Romanian (and I know this for a fact) nominative and accusative are always identical and genetive and dative are always identical. Why can we say that Romanian has two cases instead of four. The Balkan Sprachbund is about the two cases being identical. That doesn't mean that the genetive no longer exists. Rex^(talk) 20:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, yes: If Romanian has two cases, we should say it has two cases. Why, does the article say it has four? And yes, if Albanian has a single genitive-dative case, then it has one case, not two.

I think you might be confusing the roles that case plays with morphological case itself. Hungarian is supposed to have 25 cases (there is debate about whether this is true, but that's irrelevant for my argument). Spanish has no case at all in its nouns. However, using prepositions, Spanish may well be able express the 25 cases of Hungarian. That is, the case roles may exist in both languages. Or perhaps Spanish with prepositions can only express half of the case roles of Hungarian: we still wouldn't say that Spanish has 12 cases. Spanish nouns don't inflect for case at all, and case is an inflectional category.

Take the English clause Mary! John just gave the dog a bone. Now, the case roles (that is, the equivalent cases in Latin) are vocative (Mary), nominative (John), dative (the dog), and accusative (a bone). But this has nothing to do with the English case system: English only has a genitive vs. non-genitive. There is no dative, or vocative, or accusative in English nouns, and it would be misleading to have a table of English case that listed

nominative: the dog. accusative: the dog. genitive: the dog's. dative: to the dog. vocative: O dog!. ablative: from the dog. instrumental: with the dog, etc.

This completely misrepresents the English language, but seems to be what we're doing with Albanian. kwami 20:31, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, check out Romanian nouns#Case. They talk about syntactic case and morphological case. The latter is 'case' in the traditional sense, and they say that nominative = accusative is one case, and that genitive = dative is a second case. Syntactic case (case roles) is a more ambiguous concept, and one where different authors are likely to disagree substantially depending on their theoretical bases. But morphological case is straightforward (do the nouns have a separate inflection, or do the not?), and this is what is normally illustrated in case tables. And voilà, the Romanian case table only has two entries (not counting the vocative, which we left out of the Albanian description). kwami 20:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe, however, on what authority are we saying that this "one case" is called dative and not genetive. It could be the other way around... After all, in Greek the "one case" is the genetive (modern greek). Rex^(talk) 20:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Call it genitive-dative if you like. (That's what they do in the Romanian article.) The label isn't important. The reason I chose the word 'dative' was because the genitive role is conveyed with a preposition, and I had assumed therefore that a bare noun would be interpreted as dative. If you believe that's not the case (ahem!), please correct it. kwami 21:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

You say: "The equivalent of a genitive is formed by using the prepositions i/e/të/së with the dative.". This seems to me that it is not exact. i/e/të/së are called "nyje përaparme" that can be translated as "preposited articles" and, as you surely know, are used also with the adjectives. Prepositions are called "parafjala" and are for exemple nga, tek, në, nëpër, me, për and so on.
I have in front of me a grammar written by Gjovalin Shkurtaj where cases are listed as five (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive and ablative). Gjovalin Shkurtaj was listed in the article we are discussing as a well known albanologist (the old article stated: ...and Gjovalin Shkurtaj who is probably the most distinguished socio-linguist in Albania today. He is the head of the Department of Linguistics at Tirana University). Now the Albanology section has been deleted. I think that Kwami's point of view on the dative-genitive merging is substantially correct, but it is a linguistical point of view and contrasts with the sense that Albanians have of their own language. They are tought at school that Albanian has five cases and will be surprised to read that they have only four (and would regard it as an error).
With respect to all. ninonino, 13 November 2005 (UTC).

Spanish - nariz

• I thought that I should point out that in the newly added Spanish words (How Albanian compares...) the word nariz "nose" is from Latin naris, nares "nostril" and not from nasus "nose" (as the French form is).--Hraefen 15:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't see the point of the extensive table. I understand that it is useful to put Albanian in its Indo-European context, but in a general encyclopedia article like this, it is pointless to include every IE language you can think of, unless it makes a particular point: if, for example, some Albanian form can only be connected to Tocharian or Old Prussian and no other attested IE form. I have trimmed the table, but it could probably stand further trimming. The languages that are most relevant are: representatives of several IE branches (ideally as old as possible, so Latin rather than French etc.), and languages which have been in contact with Albanian since IE unity, notably Greek, South Slavic, Romanian, and Italian (to show borrowings). But the current table doesn't show borrowings.... --Macrakis 16:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

paragraph

This paragraph:

Some eminent scholars in the field of Albanian language have been Johann Georg von Hahn, Franz Bopp, Gustav Meyer, Norbert Jokl, Eqrem Çabej, Stuart Edward Mann, Carlo Tagliavini, Wacław Cimochowski, Eric Pratt Hamp, Agnija Desnickaja, Martin Camaj and Gjovalin Shkurtaj. Gjovalin Shkurtaj is probably the most distinguished socio-linguist in Albania today, and he is the head of the Department of Linguistics at Tirana University.

used to be in the article. If anyone wants perhaps it can be re-phrased and re-inserted. talk to +MATIA 13:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Colloquial Albanian book

I listed it in the references, but according to http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0415056632/103-9290820-5194205?%5Fencoding=UTF8 :

" Many phrases taught are described as old fashioned by my Albanian friends, or from a less popular dialect. [...]Terms and reading (on the cassette) are from Kosovo. The standard, unified dialect from the capital is different."

" This book is NOT the proper albanian to learn. This was written in Kosovo dialect, which is only used in Kosovo Yugoslavia. An Albanian from Albania or Montenegro will not fully understand you and most likely make fun of you"

I don't remember if the book's author states which sort of Albanian (s)he is teaching. The back cover only says "Albanian": http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0415056632/ref=sib_rdr_bc/103-9290820-5194205?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S0AS&j=0#reader-page One can see a few sample pages here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0415056632/ref=sib_rdr_ex/103-9290820-5194205?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00X&j=0#reader-page (perhaps this is a temporary link which won't work for you, but you can follow the "excerpt" link at http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0415056632/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-9290820-5194205#reader-link ) Apokrif 13:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

From the example pages that I read, that language is not the language which is mostly spoken in Kosovo, it is much closer to the standard language. ilir_pz 00:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Albanian colours

kuq - red

The Latin word for scarlet, coccinus is a loan from Greek kokkinos -> kokkos (kermes berries), Welsh has coch for red, and Albanian has kuq. Are kuq, kokkos, and coch cognates or are the Albanian and Welsh terms borrowed from Latin? It would be interesting if someone could find out. Imperial78 09:18, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

zi - black

Albanian zi and Welsh du /di/ sound so similar that if they are not cognates from PIE does anyone have an alternative explanation? Xhyljen 12:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Most probably the adjective i/e zi (black) derives from the word siyah(black) from Persian (Farsi) language, also an Indoeuropean language. Also in Turkish language siyah stands for black and they loaned this word from Farsi (Persian/Iranian language). This, at the same time, explains how this word came into Albanian language, from influences of the Ottoman Empire (mid. 15th century- early 20th century). (Pirro i epirit (talk) 16:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC))

your answer is below

All you need to do is scroll down one post, but here it is: Albanian zi 'black' (notice the fuller plural forms zinj, zeza) is from reconstructed Proto-Albanian *džedi, from Indo-European *gwed-, which gave OE cwēad "bad", MHG quāt "dirt", Lith gé(.)da "shame", OSl gadǔkǔ "disgusting", gadǔ "reptile, worm"

Welsh du "dark", cognate with Irish dub, is from Proto-Celtic *dubios, which is akin to E deaf, and Gk typhlós "blind".

Flibjib8 17:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

comparison chart

i have added blertë to the list with gjelbër for 'green', and i have annotated the notes, since only kuq, verdhë, and gjelbër are borrowings (coccum, viridis, galbinus). the similarities with welsh are due to both languages borrowing the same words from latin, which therefore leads to the similarities between romanian and italian with albanian, since both are descendants of latin. though this does not include Alb zi 'black' and Welsh du, which are from entirely different sources (see below).

specific etymologies are:

- muaj 'month' < Proto-Albanian *môsnja; cf. Eng month, Lat mensis, OIr mí, Skt más, Arm amis, OSl měšecĭ, Lith ménesis

- ri 'new, young, recent' < Proto-Albanian *rija; cf. ON o,rr "quick", OSax aru "id"

- nënë 'mother'; cf. Welsh nain 'grandmother', Lat nonna 'id', Gk nânnê 'maternal aunt', nínnê 'grandmother', Bulg neni 'the other one', Russ nyanya 'child's guardian', Farsi nana 'mother', Skt naná 'mother'

- motër < Proto-Albanian *mâter; cf. Eng mother, Lat māter, Ir mathair, Gk mátér, OSl mati, Skt mātá, Toch A macar

- natë < Proto-Albanian *nakti; cf. Eng night, Lat nox, Welsh nos, Gk nýx, OSl noštĭ, Lith naktìs, Skt nákt, Hitt nekuz, Toch A naktim

- hundë - ?

- tre < Proto-Albanian *treje; cf. Eng three, Lat tres, Ir trí, etc.

- zi/zezë < *zëi < Proto-Albanian *džedi; cf. OEng cwéad 'bad', MHGer quât 'dirt', Lith géda 'shame', OSl gadǔkǔ 'disgusting', gadǔ 'reptile, worm'

- blertë < OAlb blerë < Proto-Albanian *blôra; cf. Lat flōrus 'shining, bright', Welsh blawr 'grey'

- ujk < OAlb ulk < Proto-Albanian *(w)ulka; cf. Lat lupus 'wolf', Gk lýkos, Skt vr.ka, Lith vil~kas, Latv vìlks, OSl vlŭkŭ, Av vəhrkō, Eng wolf, Welsh gweilgi 'torrent'

Welsh du 'dark, black', akin to Old Irish dub, comes from Proto-Celtic dubos; cf. E deaf, Gk typhlós 'blind'

71.74.209.129 03:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC) Flibjib8 21:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe dumb question: how does hundë relate to nose? I see the nd, but I am curious about the rest of the word. Jpaulm 17:19, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

jpaulm hundë

hundë means 'nose' but is not in any way related to most of the words for nose in the other indo-european languages. i didn't make the chart, but i can only assume the purpose of putting it in, just like comparing 'kuq', nënë, or blertë is to show words that are not related to most other indo-european languages, to convey the mixture in albanian.

i sadly do not have access right now to orel's albanian etymological dictionary, so i can't give you an etymology of the word. all i can say is that the initial h- probably comes from an sk-, based on what else i know about albanian etymology. so, clearly, no relation to NOSE.

Flibjib8 21:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

history

I rewrote the history section, though I kept a portion of it at the end. 71.74.209.129 03:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

dialects

i have added specific information about the major characteristics that differentiate Tosk and Gheg and a number of other characteristics for other dialects in the dialect section. nothing was lost or altered. Flibjib8 19:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Albanian dialects --Poemsnewly 16:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

display problem

On my browser (Firefox 1.5.0.6) The "Indoeuropean languages" box overlaps the section comparing the Albanian language to other Indoeuropean languages. Looks really bad. If the problem isn't just a prob with my browser, then perhaps judicious use of <p><br clear="all" /></p> might help. Ling.Nut 02:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The word 'jan'

The aritcle states that the word 'jan' is delivered through the roma gipsies. Well, i think that the word 'jan' is from the persian word of same meaning, as the word is used in turkish, urdu, persian, hindi and some dialects of kurdish, and that it is delivered to albanian through the ottoman empire. Hamid, 21:30, 28 september 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.51.211.94 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

vocabulary

for whoever added the "vocabulary" section, you should be aware that you are quoting dated material. i realize that it is accepted practice to quote this bit as often as possible when in Albania, as if to establish some sort of solid link to the past, but to presume that 1) Albanian has not significantly changed in 2000 years and that 2) the modern Albanian word forms, which if truly represented in the names listed (Thetis, Dhea, Malion, etc), would discount all etymological reconstructions that attach it to indo-european, is entirely preposterous.

Take for instance Thetis, supposedly equivalent to Alb det "sea". Notice the fuller forms of Italo-Albanian dejt, dejët and dialectal dēt, both of which indicate a much larger or fuller form, and this probably just 1000 years ago. The typical reconstruction is *deubeta, related to English depth. Further, a modern d cannot come from a former th. The two cannot be linked.

please research and then revise or remove this section or i will do it for you.

Flibjib8 04:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Νοne of these words are illyrian

They have not found illyrian inscriptions except the messapic!

Thetis (greek goddess of the sea) The etymology of her name (from tithemi (τίθημι), "to set up, establish"

ylis - ylli - Star

Bardylis - White Star

Thetis (goddess of the sea)- Deti - Sea

Emathia - e madhia - big, Great

Malion - Mali - Mountain

Dhea ( Gea equivalent) - Dheu - Ground, Earth, (Mother Earth)

Di,Diti - Dita - Day

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Dardanos (talk • contribs) 15:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

What are these mystical 12th century manuscripts that are mentioned in the vocabulary section? Does the one allegedly found in the Vatican mean the same one that was "found" couple of years ago and then revealed as a hoax? The Athonite manuscript was also news to me. Does it really mean (Balkan)Albanian or rather Caucasian Albanian? I would like to see the sources.213.216.208.231 10:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, "la lingua Albanesca" cannot be Latin, since Latin does not have article "la".213.216.208.231 09:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Caucasian Albanians are Serbian % Greek propaganda, trying to link the modern Albanians with Caucasian roots. The name for present Albanians (Illyrians) are called "albanians" because of Roman more frequent contact with Illyrian tribe called P/Bardhini (look the Illyrian tribes). This tribe was originally named Bardhin and has the meaning "The white" (only in Albanian language), and that is the explanation why the Romans named this tribe in their recordings and maps, with the same meaning in Latin language with Albanians (white ones).

For Greek audience here, the explanation can be something like this: the Helen tribes were named Greeks, because Greek tribe had the more frequent contact with Romans, and the people who spoke that language were called Greeks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnegro (talk • contribs) 21:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I can agree with the fact that trying to explain old words with actual Albanian is a little bit difficult, but also there are cases that some of the old words have not passed many changes through milleniums. For example number three, or day, night, mother. In the case the name Dhemetra, is very logic to explain it with dhe-metra, which means earth-mother. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetra you can see even the link where dheghom is I.E name for earth and it is still used in Albanian in the form of "Dhe". And for the change matera-moter (sister) in Albanian is a well known fact and you can find o lot of articles as a reference.
Another explanation you can find for the goddes Aphrodite, which in Albanian language is the name of the star and explains that the day is approaching(afro-approaching dit-day). The people used with astronomy which know the position of the planet and its appearance on the sky can see the explanation there. This star(planet) in the sky starts shining when the day is approaching. - Aigest 10:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

similarity to finnish and french languages

who here besides me sees a similarity to the finnish and french languages? because from what i see, most albanian place names always have those two dots on them, like most finnish place names, Example: Kotla-Jaarve, and i also noticed a similarity between written shiqp and the french language in a book about albania i read. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.175.1.237 (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC).

None whosoever. Rursus 07:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Dialects cleanup request

The dialects section is repetitious, unclear (multiple dialects are one dialect), and could be better organized. —Largo Plazo 18:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think what it needs is some rewording as subdialects, etc. Azalea pomp 04:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Cognates to Dacian and Thracian?

History section says that the cognates with Illyrian are few. Have anyone tried to map the cognates with Dacian and the cognates with Thracian? Rursus 07:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Many people have. The problem is that the data are sparse and hard to interpret. There are also many cranks in this field. If you find WP:Reliable sources on relationships with Dacian and Thracian, let's discuss them.... --Macrakis 13:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I'll read WP:Reliable sources. Evaluating a source to be reliable, requires experience and a sound method. Rursus 09:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The numerous cognates are between Albanian and a mysterious substratum in Romanian. I like how the article discusses the Albanian-Messapian connection so enthusiastically, while you can go to a library and read in other recent sources that that hypothetical link is widely disregarded these days. It's hard to write encyclopedically on this subject, I notice most attempts (like this current Wikipedia article) come out like personal essays. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Linguists trying to establish Albanian as a descendant of Illyrian, Dacian or Thracian are exarcerbated by this scarcity of data. Generally speaking, Albanian linguists are for the Illyrian hypothesis. When dealing with a small body of material, the few cognates have to be viewed in that light. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

What is this? "The numerous cognates are between Albanian and a mysterious substratum in Romanian" what is this substratum you are talking about?Megistias (talk) 20:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

That's the problem. No one really knows whether the substratum/adstratum words are from Illyrian, Dacian, Thracian, etc. However they are not considered loans from Albanian into Romanian because of linguistic considerations (see for example Hamp, his work is online, I may link it later and quote him). Examples are Romanian mânz, Albanian mëz, Romanian mazăre, Albanian modhullë, etc., there are many Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 21:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

And it cant be discerned at all what language was the source of these?There are too few things known about Illyrian, Dacian & Thracian indeed.Megistias (talk) 21:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It is disputed among linguists. Most Albanian linguists like to think that Albanian evolved from Illyrian while many Romanian linguists will say Dacian is more likely. The Albanians generally want to feel indigenous to Albania, the Romanians to Romania. But then there is the problem of the words and sounds in common, which I think all linguists do not consider loans from Albanian into Romanian. Even a Hungarian website with an anti-Romanian view point does not call them loans but they use the words to say that the Romanian language developed from Latin in an area south of the Danube where proto-Albanian was spoken. The other theory is that proto-Albanian was once spoken north of the Danube as well and later proto-Albanians migrated south and beame Albanians. 76.208.179.126 (talk) 21:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

If Albanian was Illyrian it would have elements from the west meaning from the adriatic and generally the area of the Illyrians and not from Thrace and Dacian areas specificaly.

Megistias (talk) 21:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Whatever cognates are established between Albanian and Illyrian should be mentioned in Illyrian languages primarily, secondarily here. Others are hypothetical cognates. In any case the phrase has been edited out of the article. By the way we are obviously talking about very close cognates that establish very close affinity, isoglosses, etc., not cognates such as English comb and ancient Greek gomphos, "tooth". That is a cognate but that's all it is, an IE cognate. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 22:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

More important than cognates one should be aware that Messapian is attested: see Messapian language an article compiled mostly be me. What contemporary works are there saying that Messapian represents proto-Albanian? Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 23:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

This is Proto-Albanian?:

klohi zis thotoria marta pido vastei basta veinan aran in daranthoa vasti staboos xohedonas daxtassi vaanetos inthi trigonoxo a staboos xohetthihi dazimaihi beiliihi inthi rexxorixoa kazareihi xohetthihi toeihithi dazohonnihi inthi vastima daxtas kratheheihi inthi ardannoa poxxonnihi a imarnaihi

That's Messapian. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 23:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Albanian r

Most sources list is an an alveolar tap, but are there any sources which list it as an alveolar approximant? azalea pomp 07:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I am troubled by the statement that "The contrast between flapped r and trilled rr is the same as in Spanish". I don't think so. Spanish does indeed distinguish between a flapped r and a trilled rr, but in the recordings of spoken Albanian that I have heard the "alveolar approximant" (or whatever) that is heard doesn't sound like any sound known to me in Spanish. (Except, perhaps, the funny alveolar "r" used in Costa Rica, which to speakers of most other dialects sounds quite un-Spanish anyway.) I haven't paid much attention to the sound of Albanian "rr", so I can't compare that to Spanish "rr" until I have another listen. (I am not a native Spanish speaker but have been living in [several] countries where Spanish is spoken, and obviously speaking it, for the last 30 years, so I think I know...) --A R King (talk) 10:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Table of comparisons

The table of comparisons is fouled up. The columns for Albanian words often align with the wrong other languages columns. The person who created the table should fix it. Or it should be totally removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.40.86 (talk • contribs) 21:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Mental Note about serb trollers

I see that serbs take their battle even in wikipedia, no surprise from my side however be observant.Trojani 06:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Bear in Albanian and Gaulish

If you take a look here: [[1]] you can see that bear (the animal) in Gaulish is believed to be pronounced Artiu. In Albanian it's called Ari or Ariu. Thought it was an interesting find :-)213.112.155.156 20:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The Celtic words for bear, (cf. Old Irish arth, Welsh arth, Old Breton arzh), and Albanian ari, arush "bear" (< Proto-Albanian *arina), Old Albanian ar (< Proto-Albanian *ara), are all cognates with Latin ursus, Greek árktos, Sanskrit r.'ks.as, Avestan arša, Armenian arj^, Hittite h_artagga, Afgh yə'ž.

Flibjib8 15:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Total speakers

The current article (as of 13:47, 5 July 2007 UTC) mentions 15 million speakers in the lead, and 10 to 15 million in the infobox. But the reference used (Ethnologue) mentions 6 million.

Regardless of what the real number is, it would be much appreciated if the text is modified to match the reference, or if the reference is changed or amended to explain the discrepancy. I didn't edit it myself because I'm not familiar with the topic and didn't find any discussion about this issue in the talk pages to guide me. - Thanks already, Ev 19:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I have edited the article to reflect the ca. 6 millions mentioned by the source (Ethnologue). However, the list of countries of the infobox adds up to 7.4 million. The discrepancy still remains. - Best regads, Ev 07:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the edit by Bibliophilus that tripled the Albanian-speaking population & misrepresented the Ethnologue reference. If you think that Ethnologue's numbers are inaccurate, please, discuss the issue here instead of simply modifying the article. If you haven't done so yet, please familiarize yourself with our neutral point of view, verifiability & no original research core polices first. - Best regards, Ev 00:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted, yet again, the same edit by Bibliophilus. Please, keep in mind that per our verifiability policy "[t]he threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." To be included in the article, the claim that the total number of Albanian speakers is the triple of that mentioned by Ethnologue would need to be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. Otherwise, such content would constitute original research on our part. - Regards, Ev 10:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I have corrected the article once again, reducing the number of speakers from 8 million to the ca. 6 millions mentioned by the source (Ethnologue 2005). - Ev (talk) 15:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I have corrected it once again, reducing the number of speakers from 8-9 million to the ca. 6 millions mentioned by the source (Ethnologue 2005). - Ev (talk) 11:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Corrected again, reducing the number of speakers from 21 million to the ca. 6 millions mentioned by the source (Ethnologue 2005). - Ev (talk) 21:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Corrected again, reducing the number of speakers from 8 million to the ca. 6 millions mentioned by the source (Ethnologue 2005). - Ev (talk) 13:33, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

10-15 million speakers? LOL

Does tha include imaginary speakers that exist only in the fevered imagination of albanian nationalists? someone please fix this and give a correct figure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.131.247 (talk • contribs) 07:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually they like 17 million a bit better... All the info on wiki totals to about 8.17 million. I'm sure they could find a source claiming about 2 million in Greece about 5 million in Serbia (Kosovo) 3 million in Italy. Its f*cking ridiculous. I don't understand why they feel the need to inflate their numbers. They could say "Currently we're just above 8 million but with the populations in Western Macedonia and Kosovo reproducing faster than fruit flies we can expect the number to triple by tomorrow. So lets just say 24 million." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.250.136.39 (talk) 11:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Its just been increased to 16 - 20 million. Its getting ridiculous. Who ever is doing this - just accept that your language hase ~8 M speakers and move on with your life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gkmx (talk • contribs) 15:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We have left for too long unguarded our articles, so you serbs and greeks have fixed the figures how you wanted to. Now is time for justice. Albania's population is 3,7 millions. Kosova's is 2,5. In Macedonia there are 40% of the total population of 2,2 million. In Greece there are 650,000 albanian immigrants and 700,000 albanian arvanites and chams. In Turkey (you should know better) there are millions of deported albanians from the Sandjak of Nish, Kosova and Chamuria. We have the highest population growth and the youngest population in Europe. Why you feel so surprised? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bibliophilus (talk • contribs) 20:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal of discussion from article

I've removed the following from the article: Note: Aside from kuq, verdhë, and gjelbër, these Albanian words are directly inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Albanian motër is cognate with the Indo-European root for "mother", probably the result of a derived form (< *motrë < *mātrā < through *māterea) meaning "maternal", and by extension "uterine sister", akin to Welsh modryb "aunt, lit. mother's sister". Note: That Albanian "moter" is akin to Welsh "modryb" is a complete flight of fancy. Also for the information of people who do NOT know Albanian: "gjelber" does NOT mean "giallo" or "yellow"; and "verdhe" does NOT mean "verde" or "green" !!! Rather the other way round! Why don't you consult Albanian -speaking natives instead of brandishing those "facts"? I corrected you once and you decided to cancel my editing but your table still contains mistakes! Can I trust the rest of this article?

I can't tell where the discussion begins and where the content ends so I removed it all. Please keep discussion on the talk page and not in the article.

Note: If you cannot cite your sources, the info shouldn't be included at all

 --M2Ys4U ^(talk) 01:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

This is sourced : The law formulated in 1892 by J. Wackernagel, according to which unstressed parts of the sentence tend to occupy a position after the first stressed word normally situated at the beginning of a sentence qualifies Albanian as the oldest living Indo European language.Dodona —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.24.246.61 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Illyrian

That Albanien derives from Illyrian is of course a current theory, but saying that "Most scholars believe that Albanian derives from the Illyrian language" is a bit too strong. Most scholars, in my experience, are very cautious on the topic of classificating Albanian. Personally, I also think the Illyrian theory may be the most likely, but saying that most scholars think so is a bit strong. JdeJ 17:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Most scolars say what?

I'm not saying that the Albanian Language might not be related to a older Language which may be what we try to call Illyrian but who are the "most scolars"?

Could this be precised please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.185.55.70 (talk) 18:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

als = Alemannisch or Albanian Tosk?

As the ISO 639-3 code "als", which is used for years by the Alemannic German wikipedia http://als.wikipedia.org/ , had recently been assigned to Tosk Albanian, we have an inconsistency which is discussed at Wikipedia talk:User categories for discussion (and elsewhere). A simple solution could be to file a request to have the Albanian codes changed, to ones beginning with "sq" rather than "al".

code	now	better
alb	Albanian ISO 639-2	Albanian
aln	Gheg	Low Alemannic German (Niederalemannische Sprache)
aae	Arbëreshë	Arbëreshë?
aat	Arvanitika	Arvanitika?
als	Tosk	Alemannic German (Alemannische Sprache) or Alsatian
sqe	-	Arbëreshë?
sqb	-	Arbëreshë?
sqg	-	Gheg
sqi	Shqip Albanian	Shqip Albanian
sqr	-	Soqotri
sqt	Soqotri	Tosk
sqv	-	Arvanitika?

Does this make sense? -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       05:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

More noble? What?

But Albanian is notabily higher developed and more noble than any slavic language, especially than the serbian one which has been created during the 1900-s.

What the heck does that mean? I'm pretty sure "higher developed and more noble" is not an accepted philological description. I smell Albanian nationalism. Borkingchikapa 15:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

How come you didnt smelled serbian nationalism at the original text calling the ethnic albanian region of Kosova with the provocative term "Kosovo i Metohija". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bibliophilus (talk • contribs) 20:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, a territory can not have a nationality, only peoples can have it (if they choose to). Second word Kosovo/Kosova has Slavic origin, and Metohija has Greek origin paradoxical (second paradox is that Metohija is bigger than Kosovo). Third, Albanians do live in Serbia in other territories, not only on administrative province under UN protection Kosovo and Metohija. So Kosovo without Metohija is like Herzegovina without Bosnia (not Bosnia without Herzegovina because Herzegovina is smaller part of that state).

Albanian language branch

One site, www.krysstal.com/langfams says that Albanian falls within the Illyric language branch, along with the dead languages Illyric and Mesapian. I haven't checked other sources but if others might, I propose this heading be changed and that the extinct languages be added.

Parmadil 05:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The site only states that [t]he ancient Illyric and Mesapian languages [...] are considered by some to be an extinct member of [the Illyric] branch, without mentioning who helds this opinion, or presenting this theory as the predominant view, much less asserting it as an established fact.

In any case, since this is a rather contentious issue, I believe it would require much better sources -preferably printed ones- to even mention the issue in the article. Sources that clearly explain exactly who considers these languages related -as opposed to some-. - Best regards, Ev 22:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

As of now Albanian is best left as an independent branch of Indo-European. There is simply not enough of Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian to know for certain. Since all are IE languages, they all are related anyway. There simply is not a consensus on the branching of IE or how many of these extinct poorly documented languages are related to the living PIE languages. But, if I had to put money on it, I would say Albanian descends from Illyrian. The geography makes a lot more sense. Albanian probably had a secondary satemization sound change or perhaps inter-dialect borrowings? I am not sure if there is any historical move of Dacians into present day Albania. Perhaps Dacian and Illyrian were closely related anyway. Heck, anyone has about the same guess until more data is found... Azalea pomp (talk) 07:54, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thracian Link on Albanian

[2]

The Thracian Language: "An ancient language of Southern Balkans, belonging to the Satem group of Indo-European. This language is the most likely ancestor of modern Albanian (which is also a Satem language), though the evidence is scanty. 1st Millennium BC - 500 AD." Megistias (talk) 22:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Albanian was called also Epirotic

In the literature of Pjeter Bogdani Albanian(Shqip) also was addressed as Epirotic language although written in Gege dialect--Besa Arvanon (talk) 12:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Show the source,please and remember it was a geographic unhistorical term if referring to albanians.Epirotes were Greek.Megistias (talk) 12:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Cuneus Prophetarum (The Band of the Prophets) of Pjeter Bogdani Albanian Academy of Science 2005 was written in Italian and Epirotic language , the Albanian language was addressed often as Epirotic or “Shqip” --Besa Arvanon (talk) 12:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As a geographical term.Megistias (talk) 12:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Jo,No or Oxi, do not pervert the source --Besa Arvanon (talk) 12:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The source is wrong as epirotes were Greek and albanian had this as a geographical term.Megistias (talk) 12:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

They -the albanian dialects/languages-were called Turkalbanian as well.Would you like to add it as well?I can source it with hundreds of books.Megistias (talk) 12:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

In this book Pjeter Bogdani a native Albanian from Macedonia was consider successor of Great Alexander and Gjergj Kastrioti ,read it and stop racism--Besa Arvanon (talk) 13:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Albanian natiolistic dreams.Epirotes and Macedons were NW greeks.NW greeks.Megistias (talk) 15:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Barleti is a primary source and thus not acceptable.The other author is making nationalistic claims.The whole thing is pov pushing.Megistias (talk) 15:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Read it and stop racisem and insulting Albanians and The Band of the Prophets Concerning Christ, Saviour of the World and his Gospel Truth, edited in Italian and Epirotic and divided into two parts by Pjetër Bogdani of Macedonia, student of the Holy Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, doctor of philosophy and holy theology, formerly Bishop of Shkodra and Administrator of Antivari and now Archbishop of Skopje and Administrator of all the Kingdom of Serbia--Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

He lived 17 century and can not be an Albanian nationalist --Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

He is a primary source and NO original research.You cant use him As well and all he said was wrong as modern science has proven.Megistias (talk) 19:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

They are tosk and Gheg now.Megistias (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Try to understand please they are the same race, anyway the book was written in Gege dialect which is Albanian as it is the Tosk dialect and also was called Epirotic language--Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It was a geographic term and a historical anachronism.Epirotes were Greek.Albanians came at the area at 1000 AD.Megistias (talk) 19:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

This is another discussion but if you speak with one from Epir will not agree with you and then Greek , Albanian are the same race and brothers , what make the same people enemy is the politic but this is temporary --Besa Arvanon (talk) 20:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry , I forgot the religion but now we are multi -religious --Besa Arvanon (talk) 20:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wiki is about history,knowledge and secondary reliable sources.Megistias (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes i agree with you --Besa Arvanon (talk) 20:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, are not primary source and not my original work, if you care to read the books, read also primary and secondary source controversy. I am leaving your last version and stop racism and insulting me , can you tell me you image of normal person?!--Besa Arvanon (talk) 12:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Names of the Albanians and their Language

Turkalbanians and Turkalbanian language.These were also the names for 500 years because of the Connection of Albanians with islam and their great roles in the Ottoman empire as lords.Source,Sarandos Kargakos-Albanians,Arvanites & Greeks,The studies.ISBN ISBN: 9789600801729,Ethnikē bibliothēkē Των Hetaireia Makedonikōn Spoudōn,Makedonika apomnēmoneumata kai diplomatika paraskēnia.,Aphieroma, 1821-1871 Των Dēm. Gr Tsakōnas,Thessaliká chroniká,Megistias (talk) 15:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes they were lords and you must know they were and are lords of Greece as well ,read famous Arvanites --Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You dont belong here.Apologise for your insults.Megistias (talk) 19:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I may report you to administrator but I do not like the role of spy, so I hope they see you and dam you --Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Report me immediately.Megistias (talk) 19:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Stop putting words in my mouth,lying and disrupting.And see what original research is.Megistias (talk) 12:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

so please see to your talk page where you consider me insame , the abnormal is you here and your delusions , you know nothing about Epir and Macedonia and ethnic people that leave there, you are a criminal and liars , you commit a crime each time that try to change history and maps--Besa Arvanon (talk) 12:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Read wikipedia rules please and stop insults.Megistias (talk) 12:32, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

stop you to insult me and do not try to be smart, you claims of territories that belong to Greece when I gave you very sourced view , there are letters inside the book from the other writer even from Serbian Kingdom nation where Albanian language is addressed as Epirotic and stop delete my edits but read fist the book, but of course you must know first Albanian which most of you Greek know very well--Besa Arvanon (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Apologias for insulting Albanians as Turkish Islamist etc very sick and racist view of yours --Besa Arvanon (talk) 13:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The name isn't insulting but a historical name because of Albanian achievements in the context of the Ottoman empire as Muslims.It was used with no offense even than is it indicated religious and "political" affiliations.I haven't insulted you or the Albanians.Turkish and Islamists arent evil or bad as you imply.Megistias (talk) 15:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The Albanian achievement are not to be mention only in context of ottoman empire but also Byzantine Empire ,Roma Empire and of course in the ancient Hellenic and modern Greek state .Also to not forget that Albanian is multi religious country where all the religion exist. Of course nothing is wrong with any religion --Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Albanian placenames

Could somebody tell me, why in Albanian most places have at least two or more names? See: Shkodër/Shkodra, Vlorë/Vlora, Prizren/Prizreni, Kosovë/Kosova, Enver/Enveri, Prishtinë/Prishtina. I see, e.g. that most people say "Kosova" when they are talking about this part of the world. What does "Kosovë" stand for? Thought it was the difference between the Gheg and Tosk dialects, but somebody told me it's rather the distinction between the definite and the indefinite form. My questions are:

• Why double names? (for reasons of dialect or grammar? high standard - low standard? etc.)
• Do Kosovo-Albanians rather prefer using the definite forms (or do they prefer any grammatical version) other than Albanian Albanians do?
• Is there a difference between Kosovo and Albanian language use?
• Which placename should be mentioned first when mentioning it in a table or on a map?

Thanks a lot for any help! --88.117.30.189 (talk) 12:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

On English maps, we often prefer the indefinite, except in the case of Tirana.

Albanian Language and its words

The Phonetics of Albanian G. S. LowmanIn 1891 Gustav Meyer state that of 5140 words =1180 Turkish,400 original Albanian,1420 Romance,840 Greek,540 Slavonic and over 700 indeterminable whose number later may have been prove to be Albanian to a degree.Megistias (talk) 18:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Unreliable source

http://www.albanianhistory.net/ is an unreliable source to say the least and original research is used again.Also the term was wrong and Geographic and this need be mentioned.Megistias (talk) 19:33, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Most are a secondary source and not my imagination, this is the reality and I may provide further evidence if you wish so --Besa Arvanon (talk) 19:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Dont put words in my mouth again and see what original research and reliability is.Megistias (talk) 20:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, enough with the insults and the arguing. I did a little research myself to end this conflict. Bottom line, Epirotic language was another common name for the Albanian language centuries ago. This is because Epirus (Epir in Albanian) once belonged to Albania, and the locals spoke Albanian though they called their language Epirotic, thus bringing the point where Epirotic was just another name for the Albanian language. --Prevalis (talk) 21:55, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

To the roman the byzantine and the Ottoman empire.The albanians descent in Epirus in 1000 ad and move more to the south while living with the Greeks there.It was never part of Albania but of the Byzantine and the Ottoman empire since it has to do with 1000 AD and after.500 years later the name appears as a historical anachronism.Megistias (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

What you write here and your personal opinion and passion have nothing to do with wikipedia, do not forget that you are entering in a very dispute subject with your claims. You got to have very pure evidence for your claims .If you continue with your negativity do not think that you can write the history yourself and as you wish. I can see that you do lobbing here...… If you came from ancient Greek and consider yourself Hellenes, which I think you do not are, have respect for the other work and mostly for your neighbors. You live in country with majority Albanian ancestry population, do you think you will continue to tell lies and fairy tells and to divide Albanian and Greek like one nation originate from Africa and the other from the North Pole.

I will remind a old Albanian or Epirotic song

‘’Jemi ketu ne dhene tene Qe pa pate lere diell e hene.’’

‘’We are here in our country Since the moon and the sun was not born ‘’--Besa Arvanon (talk) 13:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

None of your sources appears to be a reliable source of information about the history of the Albanian language]], in fact, two of them aren't language resources at all, and the third seems to be private correspondence. I'm going to remove your edit for now, and if you have a source that is more reliable- like a published history of the Albanian language that confirms these facts- we can restore it. By the way, personal attacks, involving racial or nationalistic conflicts, and the singing of patriotic songs are not helpful in a talk page. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Comparison with other languages

i/e verdhë = yellow i/e gjelbër= green

Is that correct? I don't know any Albanian but it seems to be the opposite for Romanian (verde=green, galben=yellow) and other Romance languages. Since Albanian is Indo-European, could someone have mixed up the table? BalkanFever 02:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the same thing and think it looks incorrect. Can anyone verify it who speaks Albanian? Thanks. Entbark (talk) 14:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jawohl (talk • contribs) 13:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes i verdhë is yellow and i gjelbër is green. This needs to be corrected - the etymology is shared with fr. vert sp. verde etc but the meaning changed to yellow at some time.Todosmentira (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Table

Since this is the Albanian page, only one language from each branch of IE is necessary. Including Latin and Romanian is fine as Romanian and Albanian seem to share some substratum vocabulary. French, Italian, and other Romance languages are not needed for this table. Azalea pomp (talk) 07:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Albanian language

I will add the following sourced statement in the article, I welcome any constructive suggestions : During Ottoman Empire in classification of "millet", the religion defined national community and Greek orthodox Albanians were classified as Greeks while muslims as Turkish .Generally to Albanian were denied linguistic rights in their language,so in 1878 there were 163 Greek schools and 80 Turkish but not Albanian schools in Berat , Gjirokater and Vlore.In Korca the lessons were conducted in modern Greek while the local loved their own language.

Reference: The question of the education of the Albanians in their own language was a problem posed many times in the reports of American religious missionaries in the Balkans. In June 1896 Reverend Lewis Bond reported that lessons at the Korça (Korcë) school were conducted in modern Greek, while the local people loved their own tongue which they spoke only at their homes. "Can we do anything for them", asked Reverend Bond. His question obviously remained rhetorical, because three years later he sent another, much more extensive, statement on the issues of the language and education of the Albanians in Korça. He wrote that only at the girls' school, set up by the Protestant community, the training was in Albanian and once more claimed there was no American who would not sympathise with the Albanians and their desire to use their own language Antonina Zhelyazkova 1999.. International center for minority study and intercultural relations. Sofia .BULGARIA [3]

Reference : The history of modern Albanian identity, like that of other modern Balkan identities, begins during the end of the Ottoman Empire. At this time, the Ottoman system of classification was based on millet, which can be glossed ?religiously defined national community?. Greek Orthodox Albanians were therefore classified as Greeks and Muslim Albanians as Turks. The Orthodox were subject to Hellenization, while the Muslims were denied linguistic rights granted to Christians. Thus, for example, in 1878 there were 80 Turkish schools, 163 Greek schools, and no Albanian schools in the sandjaks of Berat, Gjirokastër, and Vlorë (Jelavich 1983, 85). Source: Ammon, Ulrich(Editor). Sociolinguistics. Berlin, , DEU: Mouton de Gruyter (A Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co. KG Publishers), 2006. p 144.Dodona --Burra (talk) 21:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but again, your sentence is in so poor English that the logical relations between its parts just doesn't become clear, and you also aren't rendering the meaning of the sources correctly. For instance, the sources do not claim that the lack of schools was due to a prohibition of such schools by the authorities. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Please feel free of any changes , for me the meaning is clear ?!Dodona--Burra (talk) 10:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wrong ref

Ref 21 is not what the link says.this is in WIKI=The question of the education of the Albanians in their own language was a problem posed many times in the reports of American religious missionaries in the Balkans. In June 1896 Reverend Lewis Bond reported that lessons at the Korça (Korcë) school were conducted in modern Greek, while the local people loved their own tongue which they spoke only at their homes. "Can we do anything for them", asked Reverend Bond. His question obviously remained rhetorical, because three years later he sent another, much more extensive, statement on the issues of the language and education of the Albanians in Korça. He wrote that only at the girls' school, set up by the Protestant community, the training was in Albanian and once more claimed there was no American who would not sympathise with the Albanians and their desire to use their own language Antonina Zhelyazkova 1999.. International center for minority study and intercultural relations. Sofia .BULGARIA this is what the link says[4]Megistias (talk) 19:19, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Please go through all the material, on the left see all different sections.Dodona --Burra (talk) 19:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Then just put the proper link.Megistias (talk) 19:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hold on this site is Wonderland Bulgaria [5].Megistias (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Albanian and ancient Greek

I would like to add the following statement in the article, based on the following reference:

It is believed that the parallels between ancient Greek and Albanian language would have occurred early as inheritance from Proto-indo-European without such case found elsewhere in the Indo- European family

Reference: Given that Ancient Greek had both the question usage and the "fear"-complement usage and that there are numerous uncertainties about the prehistory of Albanian, it is tempting to think of these Greek-Albanian parallels as innovations that spread from Greek to Albanian, but such a spread would have occurred, if at all, in an early, pre-Balkanizing, period of contact between the languages. Alternatively, the occurrence of both the question usage and the "fear"-complement usage in Ancient Greek and Albanian could be taken to warrant positing these as inheritances from Proto-Indo-European, even if they are not found elsewhere in the Indo- European family. Source : Author Brian D Joseph : Is Balkan Comparative Syntax Possible? [Version of August 28, 1998] [6]Dodona--Burra (talk) 14:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

As I said elsewhere, you misunderstood your source. Your summary makes no sense. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

what do you suggest as summery ?Dodona--Burra (talk) 17:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing. The stuff Joseph is talking about is just one very small detail in the structure of the language, it's too specialised to go into an encyclopedia article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Albanian and Messapian

What's up with thse weasel words:

"To a small extent, both - mainly Messapian - have left evidence that may in some way liken them to Albanian." Looks to me like: "The attested Messapian writings don't look like what we'd expect proto-Albanian to look like. However, there seem to be a number of sound changes in common. And some cognates between Messapian and Albanian are interestingly close. Messapian was probably not proto-Albanian, but we hope it was an IE variant somehow close to proto-Albanian. Even though the Messapian texts do not appear to be proto-Albanian."

However the table of Messapian-Albanian cognates looks like it contains errors and speculations along with good correspondances. I don't know how reliable this Wiki text is or what the sources are, after finding sica and mantia---Thracian words---listed as Illyrian. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 11:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

They should be removed thenMegistias (talk) 11:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm waiting just in case the author of the Wiki text comes and brings the sources. He mostly just cited the Wikipedia Messapian language article. Why is that? Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 11:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Because he has none? I think an editor can't quote another wiki article but secondary sources themselves.Megistias (talk) 11:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I added the Original research warning. Original research includes tieing together referenced material into a personal essay, as the section pretty clearly is. And the table of Messapian-Albanian correspondances is unreferenced; if referenced I suspect that half of them are highly speculative and alternative etymologies exist. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 12:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way the Sica was the weapon of choice of the Dacians besides the fact that Thracologists list it invaraiably as a Thraco-Dacian word. The change of an s sound to a th sound (in Albanian thikë) is common among various languages; for example Dorians often had an s sound in place of a theta (cf. salassa instead of thalassa, etc.). See also Thraco-Illyrian for a sketch of the debate on how close Illyrian may have been to Thraco-Dacian. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Lots of the stuff in that section of the article is so tenuous. For example Thracian "heris" (hand). I've seen that listed as a Thracian word in some non-academic website, but there may be a publication out there that states that that may be a borrowing from Greek. In what context was that word found, etc. People start building theories on flimsy evidence. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 21:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

See List of Dacian plant names for accepted evidence that PIE *diwes (day) became Die- in Dacian, whatever the case with Thracian "titha" may be. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

From Pokorny, PIE *deru-: thrak. kalam…n-dar `Platane', ON D£randoj, T£rantoj (*dar-ant-) `Eichst„tt', Z…ndrouma, DindrÚmh `Zeushain', VN 'O-drÚ-s-ai, DrÒsoi, Dru-geri (dru- `Wald'); Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 23:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

And if one feels skeptical about Julius Pokorny's derivation of Thracian -dar (in kalamandar an Edonian word for the plane tree) see Hindi deodar, from Sanskri devadaru, "divine tree" (Cedrus deodara, the Deodar tree). Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 04:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I found an etymology for Thracian "titha" but it has nothing to do with PIE *diwes-. This etymology is much more likely:

-θειθης. Mihailov (see above) quotes as occurrence of the 'irrational spirant' the name Βουρθειθης (TSR 81, IGB II, 744 at Razgrad(Abrittus)), although here only the second component, -θειθης is interesting. This one makes an alternance with *-tsitsis, reconstructed from the derivated ending -tsitsinis of the name Burtsitsinis (TSR 83, at Histria (ISM I, ?). Relying on these variants we can reconstruct quite accurately a formant -ċīċis (with a long first vowel, indicated by the alternance Gk./ει/=Lat./i/). Other final formants could also be alternating forms of this one, as for example ζεζες, -θιθ(θ)α, Tzitzis, Tzittas(?) a.o. Despite this closeness in form, I don't know if we can identify this /ċīċis/ with the formant and the name -titha, -τιθος, Τιθα, Θιθθα, which should be transcribed /tiċis/, meaning "breast, tit" (meaning proved by the attribute of Diana Germetitha which doubtlessly meant "(the one) with warm bosom").---Olteanu, a current Thracologist

Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 11:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Fellow editors

Can we please help prevent pseudo-linguistics from being mirrored across the internet by Wikipedia clones? Thank you. The anonymous IP will probably return and try to revert the article to include the mish-mash. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 23:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Note from a fellow reader: I appreciate your efforts to clear the page from unsourced research. However, I rely on your ability to search for sources, to verify information as much as possible, to quote contradictory sources if necessary and replace nonsense with sense, point of view with neutral assessment, rather than using the delete button indiscrimiately. Few is known, though this does not justify a blank page. Thanks! Rokus01 (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes it does, because when you add information to an encyclopedia you have to add it properly. The text was full of errors and suspicious. The thing an editor should do in that situation is remove it all as unusable in an encyclopedia. To open the discussion again in the article you really need to quote your sources correctly keeping in mind that this is an encyclopedia not a geocities website where you can present your thesis on Messapian being akin to proto-Albanian. And the sources have to be good. It's not about "few is known" (sic) as you say, it's about what is known. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 19:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been editing here since 2004 and I know about this field so shut the fuck up. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 19:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Love you too. Although, this answer hardly gives the impression of somebody trying to introduce nuance. Fighting against Messapian being akin to proto-Albanian, is this what it is all about with you? Here some quotes from Britannica: The language (Messapian) is believed to be related to the extinct Illyrian languages that were spoken on the east side of the Adriatic. and: Some scholars believe the modern Albanian language (q.v.) to be descended from Illyrian. A simple conclusion: some published references must exist. It is a pity I don't have this book at my disposal: Orel, Vladimir. A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian, I suppose here you'll find some valuable references. Rokus01 (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

As I wrote above, if someone wants to discuss the Messapian-Albanian connection they have to "quote the sources correctly" and "the sources have to be good". For more on Messapian-Albanian you can find an interesting quote at Talk:Illyrian languages from a book by a fellow named Fortson:

"If I may - a quote from Benjamin W. Fortson "Indo-European Language and Culture" (American, very much ambivalent about Balkan politics):

"Two hypothesis about Illyrian's connection to other languages are widely held: that Illyrian is the same as or closely related to Messapic (see below), and that Illyrian is the ancestor of Albanian. The first hypothesis is based on close cultural connections between the Messapians and Illyrians, and on certain similarities between some linguistic elements. The second hypothesis has very little, if any linguistic support; proponents point out that the word Albanoí is first attested (in the Geography of Ptolemy) as the name of an Illyrian tribe. One glossed word that has been compared with Albanian is rhinos 'fog' (cp. Old Geg ren 'cloud', modern rê), but that alone does not prove the case. The relationship to Messapic does not help, for the Messapic inscriptions evince no obvious similarities to Albanian."

On the matter of Messapic the same book writes: "Messapic is known from close to 300 inscriptions from southeastern Italy in Calabria and Apulia and dating from the sixth tp the first centuries BC. The ancient people known as Messapii are linked by ancient historians with Illyria, across the Adriatic Sea; the linkage is borne out archeologically by similarities between Illyrian and Messapic metalwork and ceramics, and by personal names that appear in both locations - "

The Messapian-Illyrian-Albanian-Venetic "family" is an idea that goes back to the 19th century. Unfortunately Venetic writings were later discovered so that idea had to be abandoned, otherwise Albanian editors or whoever would be adding a magnificent thesis on how Venetic is the ancestor of Albanian. The elucidation of the Messapian writings also did not bode well for the hypothesis, but it continues to survive as a little more than a modern legend. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 19:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The anonymous editor who added Orel as a reference apparently attributes the source of this text to Orel, if you check the edit history as editors here should do in these cases. I see no evidence in the edit history that that vast bumbling thesis added later was supported by Orel. Anybody want to go through the edit history and figure the mess out? Anyway, whatever Orel has written has to be taken in context with what others have written. This is a NPOV encyclopedia that aims to be scholarly, not presenting Orel's thesis if he is idiosyncratic or unpopular. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

And if Orel is the source of that text then Orel is wrong when he says that "only Messapian" has left evidence that may link it to Albanian, excluding Illyrian and Thracian. That is blatantly incorrect. Illyrian has left a bit, and Thracian and Dacian have left a substantial amount. A lot has been written about the Thracian-Albanian connection. There are a lot of cognates and sounds in common. So yes, find Orel's book and pretty please tell us what it says. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

However I sympathize with some of your arguments, you are invalidating your stance yourself by picking out the publications that suit you and scoff at anything else. Why should I believe one editor more than another one? If indeed at least part of the edits were supported by sources, it would be against WP:AGF to just erase such edits. Again, I am not in the position to verify at this moment. I am not here to defend bad edits, it just worries me that all reference to the Messapic connection has been erased. The quotes you produced above, for instance, would be a valid start to address the subject. I don't agree with you there is no issue at all, and even a legend (your point of view) is an issue. Why not approach the issue from a neutral stance, and quote arguments in favor and arguments against a Messapic connection? Albanian has been confirmed to be an Indo-European language related to other members of the southeastern branch (indeed excluding Venetic), in a genetic relationship that cuts right through the difference between satem (Armenian-Thacian) and kentum (Greek) languages (satemization has also been described as a sound change by interaction, so why the proximity of Thracian can not be considered separately?). This would make any investigation on the affinity of Albanian with Illyrian languages even more interesting. I am not interested in conclusions, since most conclusions are limited to the point of view of a certain stance. It is arguments, in favor and against, that guarantee NPOV and encyclopedic information. Rokus01 (talk) 20:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course if someone brings new sources that are academic. But the case here is as I'm trying to show is that all that text I removed cannot at the moment be shown to derive from an academic source. It was full of errors, and it was not presented in a scholarly fashion. So I removed it completely. It is in the edit history. The discussion will no doubt be opened again but this time I expect editors here to demand a more scholarly text. Till then if anyone reverts or adds back to the text with Messapic arguments they have to be sourced by academic sources. That is how I edit. I don't leave a jumbled mass of text just because some people think it looks pretty and it fills up space. I'm dismayed that it was in the article for so long. No wonder so many view Wikipedia as a collection of trash and don't want to edit here, and when you remove the trash you get all this hassle from people who are attached to some text they have been looking at for months and months and never bothered to question it. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Even if I want to add some of the pro-Messapic arguments back I can't and no one can until they have the academic source ready to be quoted on this talk page. What can I salvage from that text I removed? Would you like to make a suggestion? Do you have a source that backs up your suggestion? I can't even add the Messapian-Albanian cognates back until the literature is reviewed. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 21:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Like I already said, your quotes from Benjamin W. Fortson would be an excellent start. My suggestion is to open a separate section and compile as much as can be supported by different valid sources. Of course, suspicious contributions have no place here. Rokus01 (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Eventually that is what I want to see in the article. I don't have the pro-Messapic-Albanian sources ready. I am just returning to this field after an almost two year hiatus. I remember that the Messapic-Albanian link is not touted much these days but I have not seen the up-to-date specialist literature. I am waiting for someone to bring valid sources in favor of the Messapian theory if I can't find them. I also know that as Fortson pointed out there are two different scenarios regarding the Albanian-Illyrian connection: in the 19th and early 20th century there were fellows arguing that Messapians-Illyrians-Albanians-Venetics represented one branch of IE. Later Venetic was excluded. Then the problem of Messapian came as the links to Albanian were not evident. Some then began to recant and say that Messapians and Illyrians are two separate IE branches, in order to salvage the Illyrian-Albanian connection. However there is a vast amount of evidence and arguments in support of Messapians and Illyrians forming one branch. If Messapians and Illyrians were close branches of the same, then those in favor of the Illyrian-Albanian theory will have to scramble in order to salvage their theory. These "scarmblings" are what we saw in the text I removed: vague unsourced or dubiously sourced references to sound-changes, cognates, and suffixes allegedly in common between Albanian and Messapian, without addressing the issue of the Messapian texts which as others point out "evince no obvious similarities to Albanian". I don't know if I can find the pro-Messapic sources. I suppose I am waiting for other editors to bring them. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 22:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have Fortson's book. I took the quote from a fellow at Talk:Illyrian languages. I assume good faith there, because it is in line with what I've read of the literature. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 22:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Some of those Messapian-Albanian cognates are sourced, like the one for brention and bilia, which my source (a French journal from 1872) identified with Latin filia, filius, etc. However I don't want to compile the arguments pro and con. I would rather check in on the article and edit away unsourced or improperly compiled material. The Messapian language looks like it sucks dick to me, and I'm not very interested in it after taking a look at a number of the inscriptions. But hey, if some people like it. Thracians were way cooler. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 11:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The main problem with Messapic seems to be that nobody can really make much sense out of it: Mallory quoted three very different "translations" of the same text. As such, I would consider any proven similarity to Albanian a feat. At least, the few similarities don't not give any argument against a Balkan continuum having proto-Albanian on the crossroad between Messapic and Illyrian, and Thracian to the east. Since we don't know much about Illyrian anyway, it might very well be contineous to Venetic and Italic to the north as well. I mean, you'll have to start from the most simple and straightforward alternative. The fact that Illyrians, like Anatolian people, don't show much affinity to Thracian-like horseriding might be boring to some, I figure especially to the traditional Kurgan diehards, though to me this alone is important enough to insist on a closer look at this always easily neglected side of the Indo European story. Let's hope someone will come up with unbiased information of interest that can be verified. Still, I have the strong feeling some valuable information could have been here on the proper place already, especially now you admit at least some could be verified. Rokus01 (talk) 13:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I already knew that the Albanian cognate for brention is accepted (it has better Baltic or Swedish cognates by the way). The French paper from 1872 mentioned also bilia and Latin filius, which is obviously the Messapic word that has been given as a cognate to that Albanian word though the 1872 text does not mention it. My POV is that the similarities (mostly a few cognates and a few sound parallels) between Albanian and Messapian can be explained by Thraco-Illyrian as you seem to kinda expect also. Thracians and Messapic-Illyrians have a lot of elements in common, for example the Messapic name Bizatas and the Iapodian (?) name Buzetius is cognate to Thracian Byzas, Byzantis etc. The Messapic texts show heavy hellenization which rules out Messapian being proto-Albanian itself if nothing else does. Now, whether Messapian was akin to proto-Albanian to a relevant degree that is the only question that remains for me. As far as this Albanian language article goes, the debate has to be presented concisely and correctly, we can't let it run into a long biased thesis. Considering the dubiuousness of the text I removed and the many errors, I am satisfied that I removed the text and the reponsibility is on User:Flibjib8 and others who contributed the material to condense it and present it properly for an encyclopedia. If Flibjib does not know how, he should stop editing Wikipedia and start his own Wiki. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 19:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The source for the pro-Messapic-Albanian material seems to be mainly Vladimir Orel's book. Quoting him on this talk page or at least specifying what he says for the other editors here is what I want. It is a courtesy to other editors. Now the matter of my POV is not really an issue in my edits here. I am trying to maintain a scientific NPOV as far as possible. I have not convinced myself that Albanian is not the descendant of a northern Illyrian dialect, rather than a Thraco-Moesian-Dacian dialect. The Illyrian Pannoni (not be confused with the apparently non-Illyrian Paionians) were settled north of the Danube as well. An Illyrian origin for the Albanian language does not necessitate Albanians being indigenous to all of Albania and northern Epirus, which is almost ludicrous given what we know. The actual Illyrians in Epirus were thoroughly hellenized etc. see also the Messapic texts (Theotorras for Greek Theodoros, Arnisses from Greek Arnissa, Evprosi from Greek Euphrosunos, hanphorias from Greek amphoria, etc etc the Hellenization of the Messapians is overwhelming if you merely review the 1872 paper). Albanians pretty clearly came from a bit further north and contacted Greeks a bit later. My POV did not cause me to remove the personal thesis. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Here I quote some of your corrective edits that might be problematic: [7] and subsequently [8] (deletion of valuable source (E. Polomé) putting nuance on satem classification. Then, already corrupted by your edit, you decide to delete everything: [9] In the original version, most of the "Thracian and Dacian" section was sourced. (most of the other deletions were reinstated by you later: [10]

Here you delete very general sourced information: [11], for instance:

The Albanian language has been variously attached to Illyrian and Messapian, both of which were related, with the closest onomastic links to the southeastern Dalmatian area.

Here you come up with an unsourced statement yourself: [12]

This edit deletes information that could be rephrased with general information quoting the special position of Albanian (for instance using Britannica) [13]

Some information might indeed have been wrongly illustrated quoting wikipedian articles, and other information might indeed have been wrongly linked together by SYNC. Still, it should be verified how this can be solved by rephrasing or by deletion for turning out wp:undue. Rokus01 (talk) 16:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Rokus, at this point I am beginning to think you are an idiot or a troll. Either revert my edits or fuck off. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I think you already know exactly what you are.Rokus01 (talk) 07:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not adding any of that information back into the article until someone brings the exact quotes from academic sources showing us the details of the argument for the Messapic-Albanian connection. If you want to be a stupid cocksucker and add the information back in haste, go ahead. That Messapian and Illyrian are likely related (there is dispute, as even the quote from Fortson showed, and the quote from Fortson also showed that the agument can be divided into those who argue for Messapian being akin to Illyrian or akin to Albanian being two different and competing scenarios, which shows we need to determine what is really going on in the field) ) is information to be found in Messapian language. That southeastern Dalmatia shows the most onomastic evidence for the Illyrian-Messapic relation is information for Messapian language and Illyrian languages for now. The information on Dacian-Thracian was erroneous and will be restored with a review of the academic sources. I'm not using that piece of shit "Britannica" to build the section back, and I can explain why later. The section will be rebuilt when the proper sources are available. The fact that you are nitpicking at the second paragraph that I removed from the introduction which was clearly redundant and incorrect indicates to me that you are a stupid cocksucker and a troll trying to get on my case. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

What happened here is a clear example of why it is better not to get involved and not to edit Wikipedia. When an idiot cocksucker like Rokus steps in and starts nitpicking over every change you made, although he admits to not being familiar with the field. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 18:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

What Rokus doesn't seem to understand is just because 1) Messapic and Illyrian were probably akin, at least many sources admit this 2) Illyrian is cited (often offhand) as an ancestor of Albanian (usually by general sources such as Brittanica which are merely reporting a general belief current among many in the field regardless of whether there is a strong case for it, and I recall the Brittanica article on Albanians saying "Illyrians or Thracians", if I can get the quote); does not mean that there are many publications out there building a strong case for the Messapian-Albanian hypothesis. To someone like Rokus not familiar with this field, that may be hard to believe. But that is the case. What current academic sources there are and what they have to say is what needs to be determined to rebuild that section of the article. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 19:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

2nd Paragraph of Intro

The second paragraph of the intro has bothered me for sometime now. The tone seems un-encyclopedic and some of the terms used are ambiguous and could lead to misunderstandings. Furthermore, all of that this paragraph is meant to convey is better stated in the very next paragraph (under the Classification heading), making it redundant. I haven't figured out how to reword it (admittedly, I haven't committed much time to it), but I would be just as fine with simply deleting this paragraph.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 19:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Cognates

there are a lot of cognates for Albanian mëz even one in Basque it seems: from Pokorny:

"Root / lemma: mend-, mond- (mn•d-?)

English meaning: to suck (breast), to feed; breast

German meaning: `s„ugen, saugen; Brust'; auch `junge, saugende Tiere'

Material: Alb. ment `s„uge, sauge', mezej `s„uge'; mes, mezi m. `Fµllen', mezat `junger Stier, Tierjunges', mezore `junge Kuh' (*mondi¸o-); illyr. PN Menda f. `Stute', ablaut. PN Mandeta; mandos `kleines Pferd', daraus dial. mannus: lat. `kleines gall. Pferd'; Messapian: Juppiter Menzana (*mendi¸o-no-) `Gott, dem Pferde geopfert wurden'; aus dem Illyr. stammt rom. mandius `Fµllen, Rind' (rum. minz `Fµllen', manzat `junge Kuh', nhd. Tirol Manz, Menz `unfruchtbare Kuh', rheinl„nd. Minzekalb, Basque mando `mulus', usw. ); mir. menn (*mendo-), menna´n `junges Tier, Kalb, Fµllen', sekund„r benna´n `K„lbchen, B£cklein, Hirschlein', nir. binnseach, gael. minnseach `Zicklein', cymr. mynnan `kid', corn. min `haedus', bret. menn `junges Tier', menn gavr `Zicklein'; gall. ON Epo-manduo-durum, brit. ON Mandu-essedum (illyr. Lw. ?); wohl auch der bair. FlN Mindel; ahd. manzon m. Pl. `Zitze, Euter'; illyr. gall. mand- k£nnten auch idg. Ablaut mn•d- enthalten.

References: WP. II 232, WH. II 29 f. , Marstrander ZceltPh. 7, 384 f. , Krahe, Wµrzburg. Jb. 1, 189, 202.

Page(s): 729"

-Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone should start a properly sourced article: Albanian words with Messapian cognates or something. I removed the Messapian-Albanian cognates that the anonymous editor listed in a wiki table in Albanian language because 1) it was apparently unsourced 2) the text contributed by that IP was unencyclopedic and full of errors. Lisa the Sociopath (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Satellite Map

The satellite map depicting the Republics of Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, etc., should be replaced by a similar map, where the borders of the Republic of Kosovo and those of the Republic of Montenegro are clearly exposed. Both of the latter have declared independence from Serbia.--_{Arbër|Let's Talk} 08:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree the map also needs to be fixed to show the Tosk speaking areas of Macedonia. Azalea pomp (talk) 05:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Comparative language table questioned

I can't see what criteria, if any, have been followed for choosing what lexical items to include in the table. Given that Albanian is an IE language and therefore related to the other languages in the table, the "default" expectation (i.e. if no other purpose is explicitly stated) would be, I think, for the table to illustrate the relationship, and therefore to provide examples that suggest such a relationship. If, on the contrary, the purpose of the table is to make some other point, such as that the genetic relationship between the languages is not always easy to see by looking at many lexical items, then the text preceding the table ought to say so. As this stands now, it's just a table that doesn't say or show anything (or at least not very obviously). You might as well add in a few more languages (such as Basque, Hebrew or Dravidian) for all the difference it would make...

A couple of other suggestions: Glosses should appear next to the Albanian items heading each list of cognates. Inclusion of English in the cognate list is not the same as glossing the item. In fact, English may not even be the best choice of a representative of the Germanic languages to illustrate whatever is being illustrated here (whatever that is - see above), but whether it is or not, the purpose of the gloss is to tell you what the word means, and that of the cognate is to compare the form of the word in a related language. Also, the Albanian words at the top of the list ought to be left-adjusted, like the cognates below, so that they appear aligned, which would facilitate reading of the table; at present they are centred. --A R King (talk) 14:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I 100% agree with you. Azalea pomp (talk) 17:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I actually found this table useful. I was simply trying to find where Albanian stood vis a vis other Indo European languages and the table helped me greatly. The choice of words isn't that important. Any twenty taken from a group of the most used words would have done. Perhaps I would have chosen fewer colours , more essential nouns (bread, water, milk, cheese) and verbs (have, do, go, make/do) etc. 88.97.15.184 (talk) 22:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Notable lexicological differences between Tosk and Gheg

Does this table really show lexical differences? Most of them look like they're probably phonological... --A R King (talk) 20:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think that most of the major differences between Gheg and Tosk are phonological. There are some lexical differences of course, but the phonological ones are more important for comparative purposes. I would like to see a map of Albanian dialects. The map now does not really include any useful information and it is not complete and inaccurate. Although to be honest, there just isn't much published on Albanian dialectology. Azalea pomp (talk) 00:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the desirability of a dialect map. --A R King (talk) 11:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been going through some academic sources to see if I can create a more accurate map. Azalea pomp (talk) 22:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

New Dialect Map

I have added a new dialect map. Some of the info is based on the Ethnologue and other academic sources. Struga is Tosk speaking while Debar is Gheg speaking. The rest of northern Macedonia is Gheg. Any suggestions or corrections are welcome. Azalea pomp (talk) 01:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about this [14] map then I'm afraid you need to change it. This map is a caricature of the linguistic situation in the 18th century, if someone wrote that Attica today contains Arvanite speakers in the way your map implies, then we're not living on the same planet. It's much easier to find a Greek-speaker in southern Albania than an Arvanite-speaker anywhere in Greece. You have marked in blue a region of approximately 5 million people or more, accounting for an estimate of 150,000 [15]. I'm afraid you need to redo this based on more detailed information or remove the map completely. Miskin (talk) 12:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Also the article makes repeated estimates of 9 million speakers but the reference provided makes an estimate of less than 6 million. Makes no sense. Miskin (talk) 12:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, the Albanian speaking part of the map is from the Ethnologue. I will do more research and fix that. I was thinking that 150K was a bit low to fit in all of that territory. I will have put dots in like I did for Arberesh. Also, I should explain that south Struga is Tosk and North Struga is Gheg. Azalea pomp (talk) 15:35, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the map a bit until I can find more detailed info. Ethnologue states 300 Arvanitic speaking villages in these areas although it does not list any village by name. I am not sure what you mean by easier to find Greek speakers in Albania as there are 60,000 Greek speakers in Albania. The estimates for Arvanitic speakers ranges a bit from 30K to 150+K. Azalea pomp (talk) 16:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Put these back in

Someone put these word borrowings back in

doff greek,diff gothicMegistias (talk) 07:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone please.Megistias (talk) 21:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Someone see to the removals above and to this.diffMegistias (talk) 08:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Restoring vandalism from anon on 76.189.111.120

Restored from:

A piece of Greek-Slavic propaganda.

to former

Historical presence and location

If the research opinions doesn't fit the subjective opinions of the anon behind 76.189.111.120, then go get yourself a blog, do not use Wikipedia as a scribble board. If seriously wanting to challenge the models described on WP, then start a criticism subsection under Historical presence and location, and use arguments that are citeable from outside sources f.ex. on the net. According to NPOV and NOR, we don't care about the actual truth behind the articles, we care that the article is a complete and coherent reflection about the outside thinking on the topics of the articles, and criticism could fit here as well, but it must be properly done! Said: Rursus ☻ 12:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Or mark with {{fact}}, where the sentences are, that are most objectionable. The article seems to need some more citations. Said: Rursus ☻ 12:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

New Dialect Info from Academic Source

I will put the dialect information in according to Dialektologjia shqiptare by Jorgji Gjinari, 1970. Azalea pomp (talk) 19:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Persian word for "nose"

The word "damagh" cited in the table of comparisons with other indo-european languages as the Persian word for "nose" is misleading as it is an Arabic loan-word (Arabic meaning: "brain"). The original Persian word is "biní". I have edited the table accordingly. Source: Soleiman Hayyem, New Persian-English Dictionary, Farhange Moaser, Tehran 1991.Danbae (talk) 19:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Number of Speakers

I noticed today that it has 10,000,000 as the number however the reference listed totals approximately 6,000,000. Should this be reverted? It looks like the user (68.192.79.227) who made these changes on 8 May 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Albanian_language&diff=prev&oldid=211129433) made a number of unhelpful edits across numerous Albanian-related articles. batobatobato (talk) 02:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The discrepancy was corrected in less than one hour. See also the "Total speakers" section above. - Ev (talk) 11:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I see it has been corrected now. Cheers. batobatobato (talk) 10:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Oldest surviving text written in Albanian

Oldest surviving Albanian text, highlighted in red, from Bellifortis Manuscript, written by Konrad Kyeser around 1380-1405.

The "Formula e Pagëzimit" (Baptismal formula) from 1462, ("Un'te paghesont' pr'emenit t'Atit e t'Birit e t'Spirit Senit.") was discovered and published in 1915 by Nicolae Iorga in Notes et éxtraits pour servir à l'histoire des croisades au XV-ème siècle (4-ème sèrie, 1453-1576, Bucharest, 1915, p. 194-198).

Another Romanian scholar, Dumitru Todericiu, discovered in 1967 an even older text written in Albanian. He studied microfilms of the Bellifortis manuscript (particularly the text found in the Museum of Chantilly Castle, France) written by Konrad Kyeser around 1380-1405. On page 153v he discovered a text insertion in a weird language. Until then, scholars considered it as a text without an actual meaning, written in an artificial language (see image on the right):

11 ? racha Yze ivenie zabel ? dayte dayti
12 dayze yan yon yan
18 Pagam ragma mathy zagma? perbra
19 Ista aus ausker auskary austkarye zyma bomchay
20 Zewestmus lisne zehanar zehanara zensa
21 Eahem viliant adolcten zeth dorchene zehat stochis
23 Lipre zehamar zehanara zehayssa
29 Deo Gracias

Dumitru Todericiu and professor Dumitru Polena from Bucharest used the small Albanian-German "dictionary" of Arnold von Harff (around 1496-1499), containing 26 words, 8 phrases and 12 numerals, to decipher the text in old Albanian, and after 4 month of working, the following text resulted (in modern Albanian):

11 raha yzë (i) néen n (ie) zabel ? da yt e da yt (t) i
12 da yzë (u) jan jon jan
18 pa ka (ra) ma madhy za gma (nga) ? perbrai
19 Isht (a) ay za (u) ska ra skari ay skary e qima bomche
20 Qé'vesht t'mus lish (n) e që hana (r) qi hana re qen sa
21 E ahem mu lia n't'a do le kten q'eth dörchen a zeh at stochis
23 Lip rezeh a marqëhana ra që ha isha

In English, that is:

A star has fallen in a place inside a forest, distinguish it!
Distinguish the star (from the others); they are ours!
Can you see where the big thunder (/sound/voice) has fallen nearby?
That thunder. (But) it didn't hit (it didn't fallen hitting), it didn't hit, it, which would do
Not to let your ear to believe that the Moon has fallen then,
Try to pull out your hand and grab the one that throws the jet far away;
Ask (invoke) light, if the Moon has fallen and is no longer now

The original Latin context being an astrological one, this is part of an initiation ritual practiced by young Albanians who become men and it's a vestige of the ancient phallic cult, very common in the Balkan peninsula.

The information above was resumed from the following article:

Dumitru Todericiu, An Albanian text older than the "Christening Formula" of 1462, in "Magazin Istoric", nr. 8, Bucharest, November 1967. --Alex:D (talk) 19:51, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

That's cool, interesting. Maybe they are describing the crash landing of a flying saucer ;) A from L.A. (talk) 20:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Unlikely. The Latin text speaks about the 12 light signals of the sky. Remember that this is an ancient ritual, so cosmic stuff was perceived differently back then. --Alex:D (talk) 21:17, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I was joking, however why does the text refer to a star falling in a forest? In old European magical rituals, there were tales of magicians "drawing down the moon" and "drawing down stars" from the sky, "stars" being a synonym for supernatural beings. The lore of comets and meteorites was also involved. A from L.A. (talk) 21:32, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Ask the ancient Albanians (Illyrians) why a duck (this is my joke :). --Alex:D (talk) 23:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate non sequiturs, and I recently watched a documentary/biography on Groucho Marx and he had some funny lines and routines...your mention of Why a Duck? was a non sequitur, you wanted to share that article. The only sequitur would be me asking "why does the text refer to..." Anyway, while a crashed flying saucer is probably not what the text describes, the text is a look at forgotten, obscure beliefs in the Balkans of former times. A from L.A. (talk) 20:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It was just a way to say "I don't have a clue". Here's another view upon the Bellifortis manuscript and the translation of Todericiu and Polena: [16] (PDF). I think the information presented until now could be summarized and inserted into the article. If I have some spare time, I'll do it myself.--Alex:D (talk) 11:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

So how did they know Albanian? Wasn't the author of Bellifortis German? --Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 19:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

He has been in Albania and there were some Albanians in France. --Alex:D (talk) 23:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you speaking about Konrad Keyser, or the guy who translated it?--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 03:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Keyser. In Magazin Istoric there are many details about this matter (the possible conection between Keyser and Albanians), but I resumed it down to 1 sentence. Professor Dumitru Polena is a specialist in Albanian language, among others. --Alex:D (talk) 17:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I just recently read Pal Engjëlli's manuscript (translated into Albanian by Kristo Frashëri) and he mentioned efforts to try and eradicate what sounds like a pagan faith that worships the stars. If anybody wants to to, I could and try and post the original Latin script in here. I thought this might still be of interest.--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 22:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

albanian pronunciation

any native albanian speakers here? i'm listening to the pronunciation clip on Albanian alphabet and i can't hear any difference between ch/q and xh/gj. i'm a trained linguist and i know what a "palatal stop" is supposed to sound like and i don't hear this sound on the recording, i.e. it sounds like the speaker is using ch and xh for both types of sounds. (also, p/t/k sound strongly aspirated in the recording, despite claims i've seen elsewhere that these sounds are unaspirated. also, the r sounds like an approximant, not a flap.) Benwing (talk) 07:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

First, the letter is ç not ch. For some dialects ç and q have merged and xh and gj have merged. Some dialects of Albanian as well have a slight aspiration to the voiceless stops. Honestly, the palatal stops do not sound that much different from the postalveolar affricates anyway. I could barely tell the difference. Also, the r (single r) in Albanian varies a bit by dialect and depending on its position and following vowel. It isn't always a strict alveolar flap. Azalea pomp (talk) 08:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The Albanian r is definitely an approximant as in English, I've been saying that for years. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 09:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Native speakers can notice the difference between "xh" and gj" and "q" and "ç". Look at the sounds section in the article (Albanian language).--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree native speakers can hear the difference. Although some dialects do collapse these sounds and also some dialects pronounce them differently from the standard pronunciation. I think the dialects section needs more examples, but I am trying to work out a table which makes sense.  :) Azalea pomp (talk) 10:24, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I can tell a bit of a difference between the palatals and the postalveolars, but the palatals in the sample are clearly affricated (the way it's also supposed to be for Hungarian etc.) --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 12:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Albanian dialect forms

I think we need a new table of dialect forms from various Albanian dialects which would better show the linguistic diversity. There are sources such as Gjinari, Newmark, and others. I will try to create a table with these forms. Azalea pomp (talk) 09:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Albanian Dialect Map Idea

To better show the dialects, couldn't the dialect map show exactly how the dialects border each other instead of these white spaces. The map would demonstrate dialect distribution, but not the concentration of speakers. Meaning, the colors of the dialects does not mean that other languages are not spoken in certain areas or that Albanian is or is not the majority language. This map just shows in any area speakers of whatever villages or towns found in these areas speak a certain dialect Azalea pomp (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Arvanitika in Greece

Really interesting article and, what is more, it seems to be rather unbiased. As a native Greek, I would like to point out that there are a lot more places in continental Greece where Arvanika was a major language than those mentioned in the article. Thebes and many villages in Arkadia, for example. I cannot supply any written sources or web links for this fact (for I have not really searched the subject); I am aware of it from personal communication with elders, including those of my family. I also consider it to be common knowledge of every native Greek who is honest about the history of his country (and proud of it) and is not trying to hide it. Let me mention, though, that the number of people who currently speak Arvanitika is nowhere near what is was, say, 70 years ago, and that I do not think that there are anymore many young people who are fluent at it (but I might be wrong). Of course, someone should try and find valid sources for all these. Finally, it would be very interesting if the article supplied information on the circumstances on which medieval Albanian phyla inhabited Greece during the Middle Ages (I have come across a theory that suggests that regions of continental Greece had been desolated in the 14th century, due to Black Death. This allowed many medieval Albanians to move in Greece peacefully). 79.129.242.100 (talk) 16:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

sorry for being hasty, I just saw that there is a separate article devoted to Arvanitika; such a section would be more appropriate there 79.129.242.100 (talk) 16:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Albanian dialects page?

Anyone think we should start a page about Albanian dialects? Azalea pomp (talk) 23:20, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Latin element in Albanian language

I think in the article we should include a new section regarding the latin element in Albanian language. It is the most influencing foreign language in Albanian dictionary and it is used by scholars to demonstrate their theories regarding the Albanian language evolution. Aigest (talk) 07:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I have added a part dedicated to the Latin element in the Albanian language. It is not the final though it will be expanded a little more. Aigest (talk) 11:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Did some cleanup - a few things remain unclear however:

• plus signs on+spleneticum, +musconea and *+oct-
• iunctÏra
• "shullг" (a small ge??)

And does "ltar" really not have an initial vowel?

Furthermore, I suggest eventually arranging the Alb./Latin pairs to be all either forward (L > A) or backward (A < L), not a mix of both. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 12:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually trying not to make any mistake I used the exact version found on the materials.

• I don't know why the use of + before musconea etc
• Ï it is used sometimes for the Latin alphabet [17]
• Shullr comes from the drop of ë in shull(ë)r
• ltar in this case (North Alb) does not have an initial vowel. Aigest (talk) 12:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Arguments and counterarguments

I have noticed a discrepancy between the arguments in the article. The Greek words of the Doric dialect actually are used as an argument from Illyrian-Albanian supportes. The same is for the penultimate accent. The argument of the sprachbund (substratum of Balkan languages) is not connected to the Illyrian-Albanian theory since it may as well existed if Albanian descended from Illyrian (see Thraco-Illyrian or Paleo Balkan languages for more details ) and there are other authors who claim the sprachbund derived from old Paleo Balkan substratum and finishing, what does it mean Proto-Albanian names argument (an eg Ulk (wolf)< Ulcinus)?! If it is for that even in Romania or Bullgaria these names do not exist. Aigest (talk) 15:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I have waited for two months here pointing to the nonsense and unreferenced Arguments and counterarguments. Since none has brought any reference or a entered into discussion I am going to change that part. Aigest (talk) 13:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Borrowings

What language was the source of borrowings in the left menu of this? [18] Alone Coder (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Italian and some English. After 1990 there were a lot of borrowing from western languages especially regarding technical terms in different fields, but most of them are before 1990 especially from italian in begining of XX century. Anyway it looks like the creator of the website either doesn't posses a normal Albanian lexicon, some of the borrowings have their respective Albanian form for eg (Dosier(It)-Dosje(Alb), Spektër(It-Eng) - Pasqyrë(Alb), Opinione (It)- Mendime(Alb) etc), or he wants to have a "modern international look":) Aigest (talk) 06:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European and Albanian Phonological Correspondences

I added the Proto-Indo-European and Albanian Phonological Correspondences. Though it is very interesting and informative, it looks like a little bit long and maybe I should have used double columns. Any idea for a better form? Aigest (talk) 13:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Or is it better to group them palatals, velars, labiovelars etc? Aigest (talk) 14:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice information there on the various phonological correspondences. Azalea pomp (talk) 17:35, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Albanian Dialects page needed

There needs to be a separate wikipedia page on Albanian dialects with sourced materials as this page is getting too long. Azalea pomp (talk) 19:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

In one of my books there is a map of dialects. Should I use it (redraw it in wiki format maybe)? Aigest (talk) 06:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The current map is based on Gjinari. Does the map in your book mostly agree with the one we have already? Azalea pomp (talk) 07:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Somewhat more detailed. Aigest (talk) 12:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say redraw on the wiki format and let's see how it looks. Does it have the basic subdivisions of NE, NW, Central, Southern Gheg; Transitional, Northern, Lab, Cham Tosk in Albania? :) Azalea pomp (talk) 14:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Help needed at Imagine Peace Tower page

There is an opportunity to add the Albanian version of the English imperative phrase "Imagine Peace" to the In Other Languages section of Yoko Ono's Imagine Peace Tower. Use the proper script if possible, and put all in upper case if applicable. If a choice of expressions, select words used by "the common man". Thanks. Irv (talk) 05:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Number of speakers

Kedadi made an edit changing the figure for Albanian speakers from 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 on the grounds that "There can't be 10 million Albanians, and only 6 million of them who speak Albanian language". I'm reverting this edit for two reasons: 1) Yes, there can be 10 million Albanians and only 6 million who speak the Albanian language, depending on how we define "Albanians". 2) The source given for the 6 million figure was Ethnologue, which is a published source. An alternate source needs to provided, with some reasoning given for preferring it over Ethnologue, if this figure is to be changed in the article. Kenji Yamada (talk) 05:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kenji, can you tell me, how do we define Albanians that "there can be 10 million Albanians and only 6 million who speak the Albanian language". AFAIK you can't be an Albanian if your native language isn't the Albanian language, on the other hand you may speak the Albanian language and may not be an Albanian at all. Your case for example, you are an American who speaks the Albanian language while I as an Albanian speak the English language, but that doesn't make me an American or an English. Thank you. kedadial 15:10, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

By "Albanian" we could mean:

genetic ancestry (the Belushi brothers are Albanian in this sense only, and so would anyone be whose ancestors were Albanian, regardless of whether they spoke the language or not),

citizenship (in this sense, I could become an Albanian, although I was born a citizen of the USA and Japan),

place of residence (in this sense, anyone or anything located in Albania is Albanian, regardless of legal status or language), or

a combination of the above. Using "Albanian" to mean "a speaker of the Albanian language" is not in line with the norms of English. "Japanese" doesn't mean "a speaker of the Japanese language", for instance. Kenji Yamada (talk) 01:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Extremely gross footnote

Please someone fix this. A reference style like in Pelagornithidae may be helpful here. Note that there "footnotes" are here "references" and "references" there are "bibliography" here. It will also help to make Albanian_language#Historical_presence_and_location accessible for users who do not use editing aids; at present it borders on violation of #2. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:40, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

(Old)Albanian - Living legacy of a dead language?

According to the central hypothesis of a project undertaken by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Old Albanian had a significant influence on the development of many Balkan languages. Intensive research now aims to confirm this theory. This little-known language is being researched using all available texts before a comparison with other Balkan languages is carried out. The outcome of this work will include the compilation of a lexicon providing an overview of all Old Albanian verbs. http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/public_relations/press/pv200805-en.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.78.77.182 (talk) 20:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)