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Language Information

There are approximately 5 million speakers of Albanian. About 3 million live in Albania, 1½ million in Yugoslavia, and smaller numbers in Italy and Greece. The Albanians call their language shqip and their country Shqipéria. There are two distinct dialects—Tosk, spoken in the south, and Gheg, spoken in the north.

Albanian is an Indo-European language, constituting a separate and independent branch of this family. Its origin is uncertain and it was not until 1854 that it was conclusively proven to be Indo-European. The vocabulary contains many words not to be found in any other Indo-European language, though there has been considerable borrowing from Latin, Greek, Turkish, and the Slavic languages. Albanian adopted the Roman alphabet in 1908.

Albanian has striking similarities with Balkan languages, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek and Romanian. A striking feature of the Albanian is the use of periphrastic expressions to avoid a tabu words.

Albania, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Yugoslavia.

Family: Indo-European

Writing Sample

Translation

Mountains and stones,
Lush meadows unshorn,
A river beyond,
Fields full of corn.

Out yonder, the village,
Its church and its graves,
Cottages here and there,
Low under their eaves.

Chill water springs.
A keen wind blows.
The nightingale sings.
And the women. . . they're like does!

Idlers in the shade,
Kept by their wives;
A plague on them all
For wasting their lives!

—ANTON ZAKO ÇAJUPI, My Village