From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Albanian or Shqip is a language spoken by some six million inhabitants of the western Balkan peninsula in the south-eastern Europe (Albanians).
Some eminent scholars in the field of Albanian language have been Johann Georg von Hahn, Franz Bopp, Gustav Meyer, Norbert Jokl, Eqrem Ēabej, Stuart Edward Mann, Carlo Tagliavini, Wacław Cimochowski, Eric Pratt Hamp and Agnija Desnickaja.
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300"
! colspan="2" bgcolor="#DDDDDD" style="font-size:120%"|Albanian (Shqip)
|-
| valign="top"|Spoken in:
| Albania
|-
| valign="top"|Region:
| Eastern Europe
|-
| valign="top"|Total speakers:
|6 Million
|-
| valign="top"|Ranking:
| (Not in top 100)
|-
| valign="top"|Genetic
classification:
|Indo-European
Albanian
|-
! colspan="2" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"|Official status
|-
| valign="top"|Official language of:
| valign="top"|Albania
|-
| valign="top"|Regulated by:
| valign="top"| -
|-
! colspan="2" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"|Language codes
|-
|ISO 639-1||sq
|-
|ISO 639-2||sqi
|-
|SIL||ALB
|}
History
The oldest known Albanian printed book, Meshari [1] or missal, was written by Gjon Buzuku, a Catholic cleric, in 1555. The first Albanian school is believed to have been opened by Franciscans in 1638 in Pdhanė.
Classification
Albanian is an Indo-European, that is thought by some to derive principally from the Illyrian languages spoken in the region two millennia ago, and forms part of no known wider sub-group within the Indo-European family.
Geographic distribution
Dialects
There are two principal dialects of limited mutual intelligibility: Tosk and Gheg. Tosk is spoken in southern and central Albania, by the Arbėreshė of Italy, among the Albanian minority of Greece: the Ēam and the Arvanites, and in small communities of Albanian immigrants in Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, and United States. Gheg (or Geg) is spoken in northern Albania and by the Albanians of Serbia and Montenegro (including the province of Kosovo) as well as those of the Republic of Macedonia. Official status
Albanian, in the Tosk dialect, is the official language of Albania.
| letter | SAMPA - example | letter | SAMPA - example |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a - Spanish la | n | n - gun |
| b | b - burn | nj | n^ - Spanish nińa |
| c | ts - hats | o | O - four |
| ē | tS - church | p | p - opera |
| d | d - dance | q | c - Close to hit you |
| dh | D - this | r | 4 - Spanish pero |
| e | E - let | rr | r - Spanish perro |
| ė | @ - allowed (ė is a schwa) | s | s - save |
| f | f - fight | sh | S - shun |
| g | g - gun | t | t - tell |
| gj | J - Close to did you | th | T - thought |
| h | h - hope | u | u - doom |
| i | i - eat | v | v - victory |
| j | j - year | x | dz - adze |
| k | k - king | xh | dZ - jungle |
| l | l - lee | y | y - French du jour |
| ll | l_e - tell | z | z - zone |
| m | m - mother | zh | Z - vision |
Note: all sounds in words used for comparison are those of the English language unless otherwise noted.
- Hear the pronunciation (146KB OGG Vorbis file)
Vowels
The Albanian alphabet has seven vowels: A, E, Ė, I, O, U, Y.
Consonants
There are also 29 consonants: B, C, Ē, D, Dh, F, G, Gj, H, J, K, L, Ll, M, N, Nj, P, Q, R, Rr, S, Sh, T, Th, V, X, Xh, Z, Zh.Writing system
The Albanian alphabet was based on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the letters ė, ē, and nine digraphss to account for certain sounds in pronunciations.Examples
Note: All the sounds above are in the Ogg Vorbis format.See also
External links
