Albanian (Gjuha shqipe, pronounced [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ], or shqip, pronounced [ˈʃcip]) is an Indo-European language spoken by nearly 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, Montenegro, southern Serbia and north-western Greece. Albanian is also spoken by native enclaves in Greece, along the eastern coast of southern Italy, and in Sicily. Additionally, speakers of Albanian can be found elsewhere throughout the latter two countries resulting from a modern diaspora, originating from the Balkans, that also includes Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada and the United States.

Earliest undisputed texts

The primary records in Albanian include the "Formula e pagëzimit" (baptesimal formula), dating back to 1462, authored by Pal Engjëlli (or Paulus Angelus) (ca. 1417–1470), Archbishop of Durrës and a close friend and counselor of Skanderbeg. It was written in a pastoral letter for a synod at the Holy Trinity in Mat and read in Latin characters as follows, Unte paghesont premenit Atit et birit et spertit senit ("I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost"). It was discovered and published in 1915 by Nicolae Iorga.[2] The second is Fjalori i Arnold von Harf ("Arnold von Harf vocabulary") in 1469; the third document Ungjilli i Pashkëve ("Easter Gospel") or Ungjilli i Shën Mateut ("Saint Matthew's Gospel") is dated in the 15th century.

Meshari of Gjon Buzuku 1555

The first book in Albanian was the Meshari (English: The Missal), written by Gjon Buzuku between 20 March 1554 to 5 January 1555. The book was written in the Gheg dialect in the Latin alphabet with some Slavic letters adapted for Albanian vowels. The book was discovered in 1740 by Gjon Nikollë Kazazi, the Albanian archbishop of Skopje. It contains the liturgies of the main holidays. There are also texts of prayers and rituals and catechetical texts. Every page contains two columns. The initials are decorated. The grammar and the vocabulary are more archaic than in the Gheg text from the 17th century. The text is very valuable from the viewpoint of the history of language. The 188 pages of the book comprise about 154,000 words with a total vocabulary of ca. 1,500 different words, and are a veritable precious source for lexicographers and historical linguists. The archaic text is easily read due to the circumstance that it is mainly a translation of known texts, in particular the Bible. Most of the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John were translated in the book. It also contains passages from the Psalms, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Jeremiah, the Letters to the Corinthians, and many illustrations. The consequent character of orthography and grammar seems to indicate an earlier tradition of writing. The Apostolic Library in the Vatican holds the only known copy of the book.

Disputed earlier text

Possibly the oldest surviving Albanian text, highlighted in red, from Bellifortis Manuscript, written by Konrad Kyeser around 1402-1405.

In 1967 scholar Dumitru Todericiu studied microfilms of the Bellifortis text, manuscript 663, preserved at the Musée Condé of the Chantilly Castle in France. This work was written by Konrad Kyeser around 1402-1405. The original Latin context is an astrological one, part of an initiation ritual practiced by young boys when becoming men and a vestige of the ancient phallic cult, very common in the Balkan peninsula. On page 153v Todericiu discovered a text insertion in a strange language. Until then, scholars considered it as a text without actual meaning, written in an artificial language. Believing the words were in Albanian, Todericiu, together with professor Dumitru Polena from Bucharest, after four months' work obtained a modern version of the text:

A star has fallen in a place in the woods, distinguish the star, distinguish it.

Distinguish the star from the others, they are ours, they are.
Do you see where the great voice has resounded? Stand beside it
That thunder. It did not fall. It did not fall for you, the one which would do it.
...
Like the ears, you should not believe ... that the moon fell when ...
Try to encompass that which spurts far ...
Call the light when the moon falls and no longer exists ...

Dr. Robert Elsie, a specialist in Albanian studies, considers that "The Todericiu/Polena Romanian translation of the non-Latin lines, although it may offer some clues if the text is indeed Albanian, is fanciful and based, among other things, on a false reading of the manuscript, including the exclusion of a whole line. [...] Certain evidence, both linguistic and non-linguistic, supports an Albanian origin for the Bellifortis text under study. The incantation and taboo character of such a passage involving initiation rites, however, precludes an interlinear translation. If the Bellifortis text is indeed Albanian, which remains to be proved conclusively, it would be the oldest datable text in that language"

Ottoman period

In 1635 Frang Bardhi (1606–1643) published in Rome his Dictionarum latinum-epiroticum, the first known Latin-Albanian dictionary. The evidence shows, that the study of Albanian has a tradition of 350 years and includes works of Frang Bardhi, Andrea Bogdani (1600–1685), Nilo Katalanos (1637–1694) and others. Andrea Bogdani has become known for writing the first Latin-Albanian grammar book.

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History of the alphabet

The history of the Albanian alphabet is closely linked with the influence of religion among Albanians. The writers from the North of Albania used Latin letters under the influence of the Catholic Church, those from the South of Albania under the Greek Orthodox church used Greek letters, while others used Arabic letters under the influence of Islam. There were also attempts for an original Albanian alphabet in the period of 1750-1850. The current alphabet in use among Albanians is one of the two variants approved in the Congress of Manastir held by Albanian intellectuals from November 14 to 22 November 1908, in Manastir (Bitola, Macedonia).

Standard Albanian

Albanian in a revised form of the Tosk dialect.

In 1973 the publication in Tirana and Pristina of a book of orthographical rules, Drejtshkrimi i gjuhës shqipe,created a considerable degree of phonological normalization as well as spelling reform. The book was followed by a widely distributed authoritative dictionary in 1976 "Fjalori drejtshkrimor i gjuhës shqipe",

Classification

Albanian was demonstrated to be an Indo-European language in 1854 by the philologist Franz Bopp. The Albanian language constitutes its own branch of the Indo-European language family.

Establishing longer relations, Albanian is often compared to Balto-Slavic and Germanic, both of which share a number of isoglosses with Albanian. Moreover, Albanian has undergone a vowel shift in which stressed, long o has fallen to a, much like in the former and opposite the latter. Likewise, Albanian has taken the old relative jos and innovatively used it exclusively to qualify adjectives, much in the way Balto-Slavic has used this word to provide the definite ending of adjectives. Other linguists link Albanian with Greek and Armenian, while placing Germanic and Balto-Slavic in another branch of Indo-European.Nakhleh, Ringe, and Warnow found that Albanian can be placed at a variety of points within the Indo-European tree with equally good fit; determining its correct placement is hampered by the loss of much of its former diagnostic inflectional morphology and vocabulary.

Origin

Traditionally scholars have seen the Albanian as the descendant of Illyrian,although this hypothesis has been challenged by some linguists, who maintain that it derives from Dacian or Thracian.(Illyrian, Dacian, and Thracian, however, may have formed a subgroup or a sprachbund; see Thraco-Illyrian.)