Content area
Full text
THE ALBANIAN LANGUAGE
Albanian is an Indo-European language with about 5 to 6 million speakers living mostly in the Republic of Albania, Kosovo, the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, Yugoslavia (Montenegro and Serbia), Italy (southern parts and Sicily), Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. According to prevailing opinion, the Albanian language forms a branch of its own within the Indo-European language family (Hetzer, 1995). The question as to whether the Albanian language originates from Illyrian or Thrako-Dacian still needs to be answered. Taking into account the history and continuity of colonization, an origination from Illyrian is preferred (Hetzer, 1995).
The Albanian language is divided into two principal dialects, Tosk (toskërishtja) and Gheg (gegërishtja). The river Shkumbin marks the border between the two dialects. Gheg is spoken to the north and Tosk to the south of the river. A strip of about 10 km to 20 km south of the city Elbasan, stretching from the coast to lake Ohrid, is generally agreed to be the transition zone between Tosk and Gheg. Both Gheg and Tosk can be further subdivided. Hetzer (1995), following Desnickaja (1968), subdivided Gheg into Northern Gheg (Shkodër and Kosovo), Middle, and South Gheg, with further subdivisions for Northern Gheg. Tosk is further subdivided into Northern Tosk (the basis for the Modern Standard, see also Byron, 1976), Lab (Gjirokastër), and Çam (Konispol, Epirus) in the South. This classification suggests that there is no influence of national borders on the dialect continuum.
There are considerable differences between the Tosk and the Gheg varieties. As regards the vowel system, Byron (1976) discerned three geographical regions. The Gheg vowel system comprises long, short, and nasalized vowels, southernmost Tosk has long and short vowels, and northern Tosk has only short vowels. From the fact that a long/short vowel distinction can be observed in southernmost Tosk as well as in Arbëresh, Byron concluded that the loss of this distinction in Northern Tosk is an innovation that took place in the last few centuries. Similarly, Tosk
[Image omitted. See Article Image.]
is the result of a sound change of the Gheg variant. The vowel system of Northern Tosk, as well as that of Modern Standard Albanian, therefore, comprises seven vowels.
Standard varieties are upheld by the elite of a speech...