Talk:Albanian language/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

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? [1] 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)

The Table Issues

OK, either the table should be the Albanian roots which are Indo-European and the cognates in the other branches OR the table is just a list of Albanian words with equivalents in the other languages. How the table is now set up does not really make much sense. Azalea pomp (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Until the table is decided, people need to stop interchanging the Albanian table. Verdhë is yellow in Albanian and gjelbër. As the table is now, it is NOT a cognate table! Azalea pomp (talk) 04:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that turning it into a cognate table would make much more sense. There is little point in listing so many other (esp. ancient) IE languages side-by-side, if it were not for the purpose of phonetic comparison of cognate terms. Also, PIE forms would be good to have listed (most of those in the first table are already listed in separate Wiktionary appendices).

Also, there is really way too much of the article dedicated to the phonological history of Albanian (from PIE as well as historical borrowings). This should be extracted to the articles on Proto-Albanian language and Borrowings in Albanian, respectively. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree it should be a cognate table. Which modern languages do you think should be included? If one from each branch which Italic language would be best, Romanian?

A Proto-Albanian article would be a welcome addition for the Albanian words from PIE and borrowings which we have on this page already. Azalea pomp (talk) 04:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Latin would suffice for the Italic branch. I would also remove Welsh (there's already Irish) and Persian (or replace it with Avestan, which is pretty close to Sanskrit already but anyways..). If the table is to display phonological comparisons, we should focus on the oldest attested or the most archaic language in the branch. I'd also change the color for the English gloss row because it wood look as if the cognate English terms are listed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

A Unique Indo-European Language? (introductory paragraph)

I'm aware Albanian is in its own branch of the Indo-European family but, really, aren't all separate languages 'unique' inasmuch as none of them are entirely alike? If this is a technical linguistic term, forgive me, but otherwise I think the phrase 'unique' should be given context or replaced. Maybe something like "Albanian is an Indo-European language on a separate branch" or words to that effect. Noisms (talk) 10:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed the unique. Azalea pomp (talk) 18:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

deleting German

Following this line of reasoning we should strike either Lithuanian or Serbo-Croatian (on the assumption that we don't need both a Baltic language and a Slavic one), either Latin or Romanian (the latter being the most Latinate of Romance languages), and either Irish or Welsh (removing one of these might not be such a bad idea.) If we must limit ourselves to one Germanic language it should be German, not English, except that this is English Wikipedia.

Why not both Baltic and Slavic? They're fairly divergent, at least as much as Iranian and Indo-Aryan..

Romanian and Welsh were obviously superfluous so I've removed them too. We already have English so it doesn't make sense to add another distant modern Germanic language like modern German... --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

In the Origin Section put the references distinctively

Note that in the Origin Section I made an edit by putting distinctively all the references which were put together in a strange fashion. sulmues talk--Sulmues 21:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

First, the use of 73 references to prove a single contested point is a blatant gaming of the system and a misuse of sources. It is extreme POV-pushing. Never have I seen this many references for a single point. Second, it is not the place of this article to discuss the origin of the Albanians at length. A separate Origin of the Albanians article exists for that. A brief mention of the theories of descent (Illyrian, Thracian, Dacian) with a link to Origin of the Albanians is sufficient. Even so, I note that no mention is made of the theories of Thracian and Dacian origin for Albanian. These are conveniently omitted. Third, quite a few, if not most, of these 73 sources are heavily dated (one is from 1705 for crying out loud). Athenean (talk) 18:57, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The article is called Albanian language not Albanians, hence the Origin of the Albanians article is completely irrelevant here. We are talking about the origin of the Albanian language. If the references are old, that will show you that in three centuries Illyrians have been thought by scholars (starting from Leibntiz but whose references you keep deleting) as the ascendants of the Albanians. Please be mindful that references (not brought by me) are considered by you as POV pushing, but they are some of the greatest scholars in the field. sulmues talk--Sulmues 19:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Then I suppose you wouldn't mind if I included the Dacian and Thracian theories of origin, would you? Athenean (talk) 19:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You can do whatever you want as long as you bring good references. For deleting valid references, you have already been reported. sulmues talk--Sulmues 19:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Albanian umlaut

In Albanian *ō always generated a while /a-e/ is an umlaut in Albanian for forming the plural of the names, (eg dash - desh 'ram', rreth - rrathë 'circle', njëri - njerëz 'person', cjap-cjep 'he-goat', thes - thasë 'bag', vëlla - vëllezër 'brother', kulaç-kuleç 'bun' gëthep-gëthapë 'tine, hook', vllah-vlleh 'vlach' krap-krep'carp' djalë - djem 'boy' gardh - gjerdhe 'enclosure', etc) as you see from the examples above even words recently entered in Albanian language (eg vlach propably formed in middle ages) show this umlaut, so it is not a change from *ō -> e, but sometimes from *ō -> a -> e (old words) while sometimes from a -> e simply(new ones). I'll correct it. Aigest (talk) 16:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Merge of script paragraphs

I made this edit to merge two different paragraphs that were both saying the same thing. The article needs to be more concise, and although the merged paragraph needs some citations, at least we're not saying the same things twice. --_Sulmues ^{Let's talk} 13:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Albanian and Gaulish comparison

I posted these observations in the Gaulish Language page but received no response - Can these analytical, morphological and lexical similarities between the two languages be explained by indo-european common ancestry?

In Albanian N.sing.Accus. Def. is also inflected with -n , feminine dative sing nouns are also inflected with -s, the Albanian gen/dative plural -ave or ëve bear a striking similarity to the cited gaulish obo - ebo - ibo inflections. The Gaulish vocative cited here seems to be a bare stem; likewise in Albanian. Compare the uninflected Gaulish subordinating particle jo with the Albanian particle që, also uninflected. Albanian also has pronominal clitics which are tied to the verb and which can be doubled to mark direct and indirect objects. The described analytical sentence structure (SVO pro-drop, genitives and adjectives follow head nouns)could equally describe Albanian.

Possible cognates: Gaulish=art Albanian=ari Eng=bear Gaulish=uerno Albanian=verv Eng=alder Gaulish=carros Albanian=karro Eng=wagon Gaulish=briga Albanian=breg Eng=hill Gaulish=bitu Albanian=botë Eng=world Gaulish=gobbo Albanian=gojë Eng=mouth Gaulish=maru Albanian=madh Eng=great/big Gaulish=sapo Albanian=sapun Eng=soap

Would any linguists less amateur than myself care to comment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.192.52 (talk) 09:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The short answer is that these are coincidental. To begin with the cognates, some go back to the same PIE root (artos/ari; bitu/botë; verno/verr; briga/breg); maros/madh are unrelated; others are loans from Lat/Romance (sapun < L sapo(nem) < Gaul sapo < Gmc; gojë < Ital gola < L gula; karrë < Lat carrum < Gaul carros); gobbo/gojë are unrelated. As for morphology, që 'that' < *kwṓd, and its behavior is seen in other langs., including Eng. that. Most western European langs are analytical to varying degrees and share these features to varying degrees (Spanish/Italian are like Alb.). The Gaul. vocative is not a bare stem (-e, -i, -u), and neither is Alb., where -o is borrowed from Slavic. Alb def. endings are generally from an old suffixed demonstrative (cf. -i < is; -it < tei; -et < tei/tons), but the m.acc.sg. is the only orig. ending to be retained (because the demonst. fell off), and it matches Gaul. (and most other IE langs) because they are both from PIE. Similarly, fem.dat.sg.def. -ës is from an old suffixed demonstrative (ës < āi-tsāi < āi-kjāi). Alb. fem.pl.indef. -ave/ëve is an innovated compound of a/ë < -ā (copied from the other endings) + masc. u-stem -ve < -u̯-ōm, which copies the masc. formation by analogy; it is completely unreleated to -abo/ibo. Finally, the doubling of clitics in Alb. is a trait common to several Balkan langs., but Celtic does not have the same kind of phenomenon. Hope this was helpful. Flibjib8 (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Dacian cognates

1. Karpe is also found in Messapic (Italian pre-Romance area) Messapic names, Lithuanian, Latin, Greek even Georgian.
2. Man is also found in Illyrian, and Messapic
3. Mal is also found in Illyrian or here and here Messapic, Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian), while Krahe thinks is Old European
4. Ghermisara is the first time I hear it. Should bring sources.
5. Patawisa is the first time also. Should bring sources
6. Sicca ~ thika is Illyrian (see Illyrian languages) Aigest (talk) 06:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

h4?

The laryngeal chart mentions four laryngeals. This is not at all standard; someone seriously needs to explain what "h4" is and which theory this is supposed to come from. Benwing (talk) 01:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Here and here. Rgs Aigest (talk) 09:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Latin words supposedly exclusive to Albanian

A linguist is quoted in one of the sections of this article as having demonstrated that "some 85 Latin words have survived in Albanian but not in any Romance language. A few examples include (...) trifurcus → tërfurk, (...) solanum → shullг/shullë." However, from the Latin word trifurca (which is the feminine of trifurcus) derive the Spanish words trifulca, trifurcación, trifurcado and trifurcarse, and the Portuguese words trifurcaçao and trifurcar. From solanum derives solano in Spanish. --86.133.152.225 (talk) 10:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

IPA

In the infobox: [ʃcip], in the summary: [ʃcçip] - I don't know if both pronunciations are possible, but even then having two versions without an explanation is confusing.--79.130.104.10 (talk) 05:27, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

someone edited Archive 2 in May of 2011 (by mistake?) with this ....

The "coincidental" argument is simply a red herring. Every time when the linguists do not understand something they try to get answers, which are out of linguistic issues. The premise is based to a language that the contemporary linguists think that it is an ancestor language. No linguist can provide an answer about the amount of the time that a linguistic set lasts. The PIE language is not a fact. It is a supposed language. All its words are not based on measurable and verifiable data.

[(artos/ari; bitu/botë; verno/verr; briga/breg); maros/madh are unrelated]; It is so clear that they are related.

Loans from Latin? The Latin word for mouth is not gula, but they are os, oris and bucca, which is bocca in Italian. Is there any goj? Where is it? The Latin word for throat is gula, and gola in Italian. The Albanian word for mouth is "goj" and the Chinese word for mouth is 口(kou). It is a coincidence? Is there the same concept for throat and mouth? Where is it? The Albanian word for throat is fyt,gryk and gush. They have a unitary only an Albanian:goj(ë)[mouth], Gryk(ë) [throat], Gush(ë)[gills]. Are they borrowed from Slavic? Do you have any facts about that? Slavic borrowed a lot of words from Albanian. The truth is: Albanian has the core of the European language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.93.207 (talk) 23:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

And of course, I'll let the professional linguists address the Anon from Illinois's statement, and chew it up and spit it out.  :-) HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:05, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Retroflex R

Listening to some Albanian conversation recordings I heard what I think was a palatalized or retroflex /r/, neither of which are described in the phonology section. Do my ears deceive me? Dean Turbo (talk) 11:52, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I've heard the same the few times I've listened to Albanian on television, so it seems we're not alone to think so. Is there anybody out there who can verify this? Nederbörd (talk) 13:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You are right, the alveolar trill is often realised as an alveolar or rather, indeed, retroflex approximant nowadays, sounding similar to a typical English R. I have no idea how old this pronunciation is; perhaps the development is too recent to be mentioned in handbooks. The same development is found in Eastern Armenian, interestingly. It seems to be older there, however. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Phonology

The English word "cute" given as a "Pronounced as in" example is not an example of a voiceless palatal plosive, a sound that is not part of the standard English set of phonemes (unlike its similar voiceless postalveolar affricate). "Cute" is simply /kʲuːt/.

Because there's no matching native English sound, something more germane needs to be inserted here in place of "cute".

--Polemyx (talk) 17:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you also have suggestions? --JorisvS (talk) 18:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Latin element of the Albanian language

There is a list of Latin-based words in this section that supposedly exist only in Albanian and not in Romanian, yet as a Romanian-speaker I easily recognized several of them: amicus→amic, inimicus→inamic, castellum→castel. I'm not an expert on the subject so I'm not sure about the others, but still I think the statement should be either verified with another source or corrected (the figure of 151 words exclusive to Albanian may very well be inflated). TheGanea (talk) 13:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Kuq=red? Maybe 'coccum' would be right?

These two words sound nothing alike, the Albanian one is pronounced like 'kooch' if the phonology section is right. however I think it might be the Latin word for scarlet, coccum. Can someone confirm this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.112.213.78 (talk) 16:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fatmiris (talk • contribs) 03:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fatmiris (talk • contribs)  

"Proto-IE features"

I'm not sure that the IE language vocabulary-comparison chart is very useful in the form of uninterpreted raw data (without any explanation of obvious discrepancies, such as that the IE word for "mother" appears to have come to mean "sister" in Albanian). What people who come to this article will probably find more useful is a basic explanation of why Albanian is considered Indo-European, and what kinds of evidence are useful for determining this... AnonMoos (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

You need to consider the existence of things like False Friends. Nevertheless they follow PIE features.PersonPaOpinion (talk) 00:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

No evidence on it. The "IE" is a linguistic fiction as linguistics in this its subfield is.Fatmiris (talk) 04:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

For a person who claims to be a 'professor of linguistics somewhere' you've seriously shot yourself in the foot claiming Indo-European is a "fiction." HammerFilmFan (talk) 04:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Fatmiris claims to be not a professor of linguistics somewhere, unless I misread the userpage. —Tamfang (talk) 04:43, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

My error. Sorry. However, Indo-European is very much "real" and not a linguistic fiction. HammerFilmFan (talk) 13:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

For me is not very much "real". Anyway, I have always liked Chomsky, especially when he criticizes the education system. I have written something about "oko" and "ochio" and the Indo-European "hʒek". (http://linguisticglob.blogspot.com/2012/07/oko-and-ochio.html) Unfortunately, linguists do not give a semantic relationship, nor do they provide evidence which would explain Indo- European evolution.Fatmiris 67.167.88.58 (talk) 16:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The root of "altar", "vjetër", and "heavy borrowings from Southern Slavic" hypothesis are wrong.

The root of "altar" is "lart" which means "above". It does not originate from Latin. The Albanin word for above is *lart. The "vjetër" came from the Albanian word for year which is "vit", and the "last year" is just a word "vjet" in Albanian, which is the root for the concept "vjetër" 'old'.

Hypotheses that during the period followed, between 7th c. AD and 9th c. AD, that was marked by heavy borrowings from Southern Slavic are wrong. Albanian at that time was very developed from Greek and Latin; there are some other hypotheses about that, and Slavs came as slaves of Romans at that time from Ukraine , or from Persia; there are a lot of hypothesis about their origin as well. Probably happened the opposite, Slavs borrowed words from Illyrians who were Roman citizens. Illyrians were a very important military part of Roman Empire. They gave several emperors, which is a fact that can not [1]be neglected about the language domination argument.(Warfare in the Ancient World: From the Bronze Age to the Fall of Rome.Stefan G.Chrissanthos) Illyrians were still so powerful when Slavs came into Balkan.

The "o-a" shift is common to the American English compered with British and it does not mean that English is marked by heavy borrowings from Southern Slavic. It does not make any sense as a argument of borrowings. The "o-a" shift is a feature of human's mouths and vocal cords, no matter what languages they are speaking.

Reference:

• Warfare in the Ancient World: From the Bronze Age to the Fall of Rome. Stefan G.Chrissanthos

Fatmiris (talk) 04:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems you are leaning towards Original Research with these claims. Wiki is based on what the predominant Reliable Sources claim. Slavs from PERSIA?!?!!?

One sided linguistic and History. It is clear that prejudices do not like that "vjetër' did not come from Latin, and that "Slaves came as slaves in Balkan", but the evidence is evidence. The first one was my original research and you can read my blog about (linguistichttp://linguisticglob.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html). So, your answer is not related with the subject, it is emotional, and it does not make any sense. On the other hand, you were not capable to catch my pretty elementary sentence: 'They came as slaves from X-place or "y" place'. In that sentence the substantial thing is “came as slaves" which is established by most impartial Historians, and it has an "or” before “Persians”. The "or" in English is used for connecting possibilities. Some Croatian scholars have written the “Serbians are not Slavic but Gypsy Romanized shepherds", but, however, I am not interested on their origin, and it is not even of what I wrote. My original research-meaning was: A language which was in contact with ancient Greek and Latin when Slavic language wasn’t there does not need to borrow words from an unknown language. Albanian had already those words. I am saying it could not be accepted as a hypothesis. What’s wrong on that? The new arrivals as slaves did not barrow words? Were they most developed in the Roman Empire than Illyrians? As a meter of a fact, they did not have many nouns, verbs, etc., because they did not have the really object in their previous life before arriving into Balkans. They could not have them, because all cities Rome, Apolonia, Athena were not there, and so they borrowed from Illyrian language as the first language they were in contact when they arrived. From the logic point of view, slaves always learned the language of their dominators; at least that is what was showing up in our modern days. For the origin of Albanians there are only three possibilities: 1) Illyriano-Epiriots. 2) Ancient Greeks, and if is not any of them the only possibility would be Extraterrestrial. "Wiki is based on what the predominant Reliable Sources claim"- is an example of language speculation using the generalizations of garbage books, which never have been under "accepted" conditions of a scientific court. Also, how the Sources can be determined as reliable, and which is predominant or not is the other side of tricky generalizations. Sorry Wiki, but that way you are spreading the ignorance. You have to write down who wrote that hypothesis and his/her arguments and the opposite of what you are only building the Albanian language wiki page, and they are a lot about Albanian. That's it. Do not write down pages as the whole truth, that is what I mean with ignorance. They are only some personal author’s truths. You can publish from Italian sources, from some other reliable sources that divide the history on two groups: 1) the manipulated History, and 2) the non-manipulated History. Each one has its evidence.

"La storia non manipolata prova infatti che il territorio chiamato in serbo Kosovo, e con tale nome ormai accettato internazionalmente, fin dalle epoche più remote, molto prima anche della discesa delle tribù elleniche, era abitato dagli Illiri (ilir = libero), i cui eredi diretti sono noti oggi come Albanesi."

“Rivista di studi politici internazionali, Volume 60” Giacinto Bosco, Florence. Facoltà di scienze politiche "Cesare Alfieri.", Università di Firenze. Studio fiorentino di politica estera Sansoni, 1993

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.88.58 (talk) 04:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Anon IP (or is it Mr. Bosco?) - please don't add unsupported Original Research to the Talk Pages. Only properly referenced Reliable Sources can be used in Wikipedia. Additionally, your English is so poor you aren't any help to the improvement of this ENGLISH Wikipedia article. HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:36, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

the slavs could not borrow from illyrians, because illyrian mean illiterate in latin. and the roman province of illyricum means "the land of the illiterate. "i" is a negation. like "irational", and lyrical, you know. that's why palatino in his cyrilian glagolithic illyrian alphabet states: let it be known that the citizens of illyria are the most illiterate of all. thats why we don't have any illyrian written text nor monument of whatsoever.79.126.229.14 (talk) 04:50, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

First of all, your language is unacceptable. What I wrote has no trouble itself, but I am not sure why it gave trouble to you. You are so affected by feelings of anger, which is only a sign of your weakness. Yes, I admit my English is poor, and I don't care about that, but it has nothing to do with my meaning. If you reject my point of view and simultaneously do not distinguish your opinion about the word Illyricum and what is already supported about that word, you also will disturb every supported written book about Albanian and your pointless opinions. Your conceptions are formed by opinions. The *Illyrian noun is related with the native Albanian word for star "ill"(tosk) and "yll" (gheg). Check out all point of views about "Illyria" word and you will avoid your falsehood. 67.167.88.58 (talk) 05:38, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

"Illyrium" is the Latin form of the Greek "Illyria" - which just means land of the Illyrians. You're going down the path of Original Research ^. The name 'Illyrian' which the Greeks applied to their neighbours in the north-west area seems to have originated in a tribe of 'Illyrii' resident in classical times near the mouth of the Drin (Drilon) and described as Illyrii proprie dicti. At some time they were probably the southernmost outliers of the tribes which held the Zeta valley, and as such they may have been the immediate neighbours of Greek-speaking tribes in the Bronze Age. - Cambridge Ancient History HammerFilmFan (talk) 14:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

old albanian

there can not be old albanian because albanian national awakening comes in 19th ct. and there was no albanian national conciseness before that. in those territories were living: helenes, vlachs and bulgarians, and vulgar-latin was of vlach origin.79.126.237.2 (talk) 23:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Sure it can. It is the descendant of Proto-Indo-European from which the modern Albanian language descended. It has nothing to do with Albanian nationalism whatsoever. --JorisvS (talk) 23:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

how can it be when there were no albanians before 19th ct? there is some babbling about arbon or albi but that's just a latin therm for white serbs from the baltics that came from caucasian albania.212.13.86.194 (talk) 08:08, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Because speaking a language and ethnicity are not the same thing. Albanian did not come into existence out of nothing. Hence there were speakers of something similar to modern Albanian long before the 19th century. --JorisvS (talk) 12:44, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

yes. and it was called aromanian of vlach. not albanian in any case.79.126.227.174 (talk) 04:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Aromanian is a Romance languages. Albanian it's in a different Indo-European branch, it's better explained in this sentence "Albanian is considered to have evolved from an extinct Paleo-Balkan language" [2]. Romance languages appeared much later in Balkan (because of the Roman Empire), and even later appeared the Slavic languages (because of the Slavic Migration). ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.155.232 (talk) 01:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

... the “re” ‘again” of Latin and the “re” ‘new’ of Albanian have a huge difference on their meanings because every “repetition” does not have the new “concept” on it. The “again” meaning is for saying that something happens or someone does something one more time when it has already happened or been done before. While every new is recently made, and never happened or used by anyone before. The "new" never is an “again” or a “repetition” Such accepted etymologies are pseudoscientific because they arrive at their conclusions without understanding their pretty elementary semantics.(http://linguisticglob.blogspot.com/)67.167.88.58 (talk) 05:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The Gheg vocative

I noticed on the grammar section that a statement is made that the vocative is rare in Albanian. I think that they mean it is rare in the Tosk dialect, but in a number of Geg Albanian varieties it is distinct to the nominative, although a form identical to it can also be used. for example: consider the word djal, 'boy', which is nominative indefinite. A father could call his son "djalo" or "djala", dependent on dialect.--68.194.250.198 (talk) 00:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I've never heard the "djala". The "Djalo" is also in the Tosk dialect with the particle "o" :-" O djalë". The particle "o" is placed before the noun or with the forms ending in -o. "O djalë" and "djalo" are the same. There are a lot of other forms such as: "or djalë", "ore djalë", "more djalë", "moj vajzë", etc. The "moj" has nothing to do with "moy" of Russian. "moj" could be called every girl,or woman and has the same function that the particles "o", "or", "more", "ere" have 67.167.88.58 (talk) 06:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have to correct you; -o is the Tosk Albanian vocative (it could be Gheg as well, I do not know) that didn't enter the standard language and now is only dialectal. Much like old locative case -ët. Senshi 01:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clausangeloh (talk • contribs)

Proto-Albanian, Proto-Slavic possible relation

By the Lithuanian Research & Studies Center http://www.lituanus.org/1993_2/93_2_05.htm Has references, notes, seems OK to me. It's just a hypothesis, should it be added to the (Old) Albanian section? 69.136.155.232 (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

http://linguisticglob.blogspot.com/2012/09/anatolian-language.html67.167.88.58 (talk) 05:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The view that Slavic languages are Balticized Albanian languages is so weird and fringe. It should not enter here. Read wiki policies on that. Aigest (talk) 09:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I understand it looks weird (and I agree), but it's neutral , at least it's not something that either forcefully pushes Albanians to Illyrians. The author has been credited before in this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruki_sound_law . Also the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_encyclopedias have been credited as well The sound shifts are explained here http://www.lituanus.org/2003/03_3_07.htm . So it shouldn't be here? Should it be in another page then? Just asking, don't start flaming. 69.136.155.232 (talk) 02:46, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I am not entering in the Illyrians or whatever ancestral debate. Just out of curiosity if you read this author he does believe that the "Albanian is the descendant of Illyrian more than Messapic..".

I am speaking about the overwhelming consensus among linguists that Slavic languages are family on their own and do not derive from Albanian language. In fact the general consensus is Balto-Slavic composes a single language group (see Balto-Slavic languages article). What this guy is proposing is very fringe and contradicts with core PIE linguistic general knowledge. Also what he is proposing is considered racist see what he says in the same article (in the link above) "..My experience with certain "scholars" has shown that it will be easier, though not much easier, to get acceptance for my definition here of "Baits" than of "Carpathians". Here "Baits" include Prussians, Latvians, and Lithuanians in the broad sense of Baits proper (including Selonians, Curonians, etc.) and Baits by extension, Dacians and Thracians, all of whom I once called "Baltoidics", that is, peoples who have spoken some Baltoidic language (see Mayer, 1992). Here "Carpathians" include not only "Albanoidics" that is, peoples whom I have previously designated as having spoken some "Albanoidic" language (see Mayer, 1992) equally designatable as "Slavoidic" (see Mayer, 1995), that is, Albanians, Illyrians, Messapians, and Slavs, but also Rumanians. Essentially, I believe that Baits in this larger sense in early times had a certain dominance over the Carpathians. This explains why the ancestors of the Rumanians so quickly and thoroughly Romanized. It was political. It was to gain Roman protection against former Baltic masters.... Romanians embraced Latin to escape from Baltic masters?! Apart from the total fringe and pseudoscience issues, that view is a little bit off the line of a normal linguist and enters into a political and racist agenda, as such it should not enter in this article. Anyway if you are really interested this author personal views, might enter into an article about him. Regards Aigest (talk) 09:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

That's seems fair. I guess there's nothing to do here anymore 69.136.155.232 (talk) 03:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Unnecessary?

This is mentioned in the section Gothic Loans: "The earliest accepted document in the Albanian language is from the 15th century AD. The earliest reference to a Lingua Albanesca is from a 1285 document of Ragusa. This is a time when Albanian Principalities start to be mentioned and expand inside and outside the Byzantine Empire. It is assumed that Greek and Balkan Latin (which was the ancestor of Romanian and other Balkan Romance languages), would exert a great influence on Albanian. Examples of words borrowed from Latin: qytet < civitas (city), qiell < caelum (sky), mik < amicus (friend). After the Slavs arrived in the Balkans, the Slavic languages became an additional source of loanwords. The rise of the Ottoman Empire meant an influx of Turkish words; this also entailed the borrowing of Persian and Arabic words through Turkish. Surprisingly the Persian words seem to have been absorbed the most. Some loanwords from Modern Greek also exist especially in the south of Albania. A lot of the borrowed words have been resubstituted from Albanian rooted words or modern Latinized (international) words" I don't know how this has something to do with Gothic loans. Also some information given seems to contradict the sourced information in the rest of the page. Another thing is the Persian words part. I don't seem to find that anywhere and I've checked.69.136.155.232 (talk) 19:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

---

Good point, but as I'm not fit to answer it I just wanted to bring forth that one commonly used albanian word I think is derived from persian is the "xhenaze". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.235.252.13 (talk) 16:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Meaning? Sorry but I've never heard of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.155.232 (talk) 03:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

h4, here we go again

Sorry, but almost no Indo-Europeanist accepts the existence of h4 these days. So the claim that "h4 produced h" or whatever can't be allowed to stand without major hedging. Note also that even in one of the few sources accepting this laryngeal, it does not say that "h4 produced h". It says "a few people claim that h4 produced h" which is way different.

Furthermore, I know that the claim that k', k and kw all have separate reflexes in Albanian is highly disputed. Plenty of Indo-Europeanists (though not the consensus) doubt that there even was a k separate from k' and kw, and the claim about a triple reflex in Albanian is not generally cited even by those (e.g. Ringe) who explicitly defend the triple PIE series and explicitly cite the Luvian triple reflex. The times I've seen this claim about Albanian, like the previous one, it's usually described as doubtful or unproven. Benwing (talk) 07:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. Usually the case for three series of velars comes from Albanian and Luwian. For those Indoeuropean linguists who know Albanian that is a proven case. But there are some difficulties in getting wide approval by other linguists (who don't know Albanian) as described by Fortson, (see below). However most agree that Albanian shows three series of velars, (just make a Google check on it):

1. The traditional tripartition of the 'gutturals'—into palatals (k', g', (k'h), g'h), velars (k, g, (kh), gh), and labiovelars (kw, g”, (kwh), g'”h)—is based on the data from Albanian, which is the only language to have three distinct series of reflexes...The New Sound of Indo-European: Essays in Phonological Reconstruction Volumul 41 din Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] Editor Theo VennemannEditor Walter de Gruyter, 1989 ISBN 3110857340, 9783110857344 page 184
2. The Proto-Albanian velars retained an important tertiary opposition-that of "pure" velars, palatal velars and labiovelars (the later are differentiated from other velars before front vowels but merge with pure velars elsewhere). In this sense, the proto-Albanian sustem of occlusives supports thge Luwian evidence that Proto-Indo-European possesed three distinct velar oppositions....A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian Author Vladimir Ė. Orel Editor BRILL, 2000 ISBN 9004116478, 9789004116474 page 66
3. Due to the existence of remnants of all three original dorsal consonant series of the proto- language, i.e. palatals, velars, and labiovelars, Albanian can also be claimed to belong to a separate third group of Indo-European... Mood in the Languages of Europe Author Björn Rothstein, Rolf Thieroff Editor Björn Rothstein, Rolf Thieroff Editor John Benjamins Publishing, 2010 ISBN 9027205876, 9789027205872 page 447
4. The preservation of a triple reflex of the PIE velar series is accepted by most Albanologists, but have never been fully embraced by general Indo-Europeanists. The reasons are understandable: asside form the near absence of any branch that uncontroversially preserves reflexes of all three series, Albanians is not attested until very late and a great deal of its anterior history has been obscured, with often very few examples of e given sound change surviving. However the examples in this case are not beset with too many difficulties - their etymologies and morphology are for the most part non-controversial - and the evidence for three velar series series in Albanian is not much vorse than the evidence in Luvian. As with so many disputes however where the evidence is not absolutely overhelming, the matter may never be definitively settled to everyone's satisfaction Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics Author Benjamin W. Fortson, IV Editor John Wiley & Sons, 2011 ISBN 1444359681, 9781444359688 page 450

For more technical discussion of series of velars in Albanian, you can see Pedersen, Jokl, Hamp, Kortlandt etc.Aigest (talk) 11:08, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for quoting all of this, I had not realized that so many Albanologists had come to accept the triple reflex. Based on this evidence I will accept what Fortson says: "'The preservation of a triple reflex of the PIE velar series is accepted by most Albanologists, but have never been fully embraced by general Indo-Europeanists." I would suggest you put this statement in, or something similar. The current statement simply asserting a triple reflex, without any hedging, isn't acceptable because this isn't the PIE consensus. The statement about h4 is even worse; I'd suggest you remove this entirely, since it appears that the existence of h4 is distinctly a minority position, and the supposed evidence for it comes largely from Albanian in any case AFAIK, which makes it have almost no explanatory power at all. Benwing (talk) 12:21, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes we can quote Fortson on that since it better explains the situation (although there are other non Albanologists who also embrace the three series case).

As for the h4 I think it also is accepted by IndoEuropean scholars, since it is used in reconstructions. Another example of h4 use in reconstruction and the Albanian case reference also comes from Mallory-Adams 2007.

Of the laryngeals presented, *h1 leaves an adjacent vowel unchanged while an *h3 will change an adjacent *-e- to an *-o-, e.g. *dideh3- > Greek dı´do¯mi ‘I give’. Both *h2 and *h4 change an adjacent *-e- to*-a- (e.g. *peh2s- ‘protect’> Latin pa¯sco¯ ‘I protect’ and *h4elbho´s ‘white’ > Latin albus ‘white’ and Hittite alpa¯ - ‘cloud’). Only word initially can we distinguish *h2 and *h4, and then only when we have an Anatolian cognate. For *h2ewe have ha- in Hittite harkis ‘white’ (cf. Greek argo´s ‘bright’), for *h4e- we have a- (as in alpa¯ -). (Some have suggested that initial *h4 is preserved in Albanian as h-, e.g. herdhe ‘testicle’ from *h4orgˆhiyeha- beside Hittite ark- ‘mount sexually’). Where we cannot distinguish between *h2 and *h4 we will use the symbol *ha-. In some instances where a laryngeal is posited but we are uncertain which laryngeal should be indicated we will employ *hx to indicate the unknown laryngeal. The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World Authors J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams 2007 ISBN 0-19-928791-0 978-0-19-928791-8 (HB) 0-19-929668-5 978-0-19-929668-2 page 55. Aigest (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Indo-European isolates

A recent edit reverted my addition of Greek as one of the Indo-European isolates, thereby leaving the remainder of the sentence with bad grammar. I would point out that our article Hellenic languages says

Hellenic is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek.[1] In traditional classifications, Hellenic consists of Greek alone,[2][3] but some linguists group Greek together with various ancient languages thought to have been closely related, or distinguish varieties of Greek that are distinct enough to be considered separate languages.[4][5]

and our article Greek language says

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family.

It is certainly conventional to treat the Greek language as an independent branch, though as Hellenic languages says there is a contrary view. So I'm going to put in a more neutral wording than either Albanian and Armenian only or all three of them:

The Albanian language is an Indo-European language in a branch by itself, sharing its branch with no other language; the other extant Indo-European languages each in a branch by itself are Armenian and, in some classifications, Greek.

Duoduoduo (talk) 12:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Table entries

Hi, I noticed that the entries in the table which compares Albanian with other languages are not made in such way to give a good understanding from a point of view of comparative etymology. For instance, instead of putting "kuq" (a Latin loanword, as well as "verdhë" - yellow) in the red colour section, wouldn't it be better to put a native Albanian word which stems from the IE word for red? Like "pruth"-readhead, or "fruth" - measles, and "djell" - sun for yellow, giving the translation in brackets. Or the entry "motër" - sister, I think would make more sense to be cathegorized with the other European words for mother (stemming from that IE root), instead of with sister, which corresponds in fact to Albanian "vajzë" - girl. Do you think it is the case to make such changes or I'm missing something? Thanks Etimo (talk) 18:40, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

<Q> and <Gj> ?

They don't sound like voiceless/voiced palatal plosives, but more like voiceless/voiced alveolo-palatal affricates to me. Can anybody confirm? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.155.232 (talk) 03:52, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The one time I listened to Albanian examples, I could not hear a difference between the pairs q/ç and gj/xh. That means one of two things: the speaker in question did not distinguish them, or a difference exists but somehow I couldn't hear it. That would pretty much have to mean (a) the recording was bad, and (b) the sounds are indeed alveopalatal not palatal. I would suspect that the speaker didn't distinguish them at all, probably not the speaker you heard either. Benwing (talk) 07:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. See the note I added. The ref's abstract at least can be found online. Benwing (talk) 07:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I read somewhere that Luciano Canepari called them voiced/voiceless palatal affricates, but I can't find the original source. There is the difference between gj/xh , ç/q but not the ones described in the main page. 69.136.155.232 (talk) 22:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

There may be a difference for you, but clearly not for all speakers. That's what the reference unambiguously says. Benwing (talk) 05:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean "not all speakers"? All the speakers I know can tell the difference. 69.136.155.232 (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

q/ç and gj/xh are different sounds, but they should be paired q/gj and ç/xh. /q/ represents a palatal voiceless plosive, sometimes rendered as an affricate in the southern dialects (similar to German ch in Ich), while /gj/ is the voiced counterpart. These two are mergers, respectivelly, of Old Albanian clusters *kl and *gl. /ç/ is pronounced excactly as the Eglish ch in /chain/, while /xh/ is pronouced like English /j/ in job, joke etc. The difference is not at all ambiguous in standard Albanian (they represent indeed different IE reflexes), although this might not be the case in dialects. Etimo (talk) 14:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

'q' is sounds like /t͡ɕ/, 'gj' like /ɟʑ/, while 'ç' is /t͡ʃ/ and 'xh' is /ɟ/ to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.243.40.179 (talk) 04:56, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Depending on region, 'q' takes on two commonly found forms: /tɕ/ (similar to Serbo-Croatian ć) and /c/ (similar to Macedonian ќ). However, 'ç' is /tʃ/. Sometimes, 'q' merges with 'ç' and vice-versa, as common seen in colloquial speech and writing. This is not acceptable per standard orthography, as far as I'm aware. Now, 'gj', like 'q', changes forms depending on region. It can be either /ɖʑ/ (similar to Serbo-Croatian đ) or /ɟ/ (similar to Macedonian ѓ); whereas 'xh' is /ɖʐ/. Again, 'gj' sometimes merges with 'xh' for the same reasons as mentioned earlier, but is less commonly found. --Prevalis (talk) 14:20, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Literary tradition

Is it really "commonly held" that Albanian must have been written AT LEAST since 12th century (and what are those many facts that indicate that)? As far as I know and as the article mentions, oldest existing undisputed Albanian language texts (i.e. couple of sentences) are from late 15th century. According to this article,even the EXISTENCE of Albanian language was not mentioned in any (foreign language) text before late 13th century. Although there is a literary note attached to this claim, it still seems quite far fetched. 89.27.25.13 (talk) 19:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

No, it is not "commonly held that Albanian must have been written at least since the 12th century as many facts would indicate". The source for this assertion is not interpreted properly. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone object, if I remove this sentence or change it to something like: "There are some indications, that Albanian may have been written before 15th century"?128.214.145.20 (talk) 09:05, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

There are no such indications. The sources used in the text do not support such assertion.

1. The first source (written by Üwe Hinrichs) is speculation. "The first attempts to write the Albanian language are to found in the 12th – 13th centuries." There is scientific consensus that "oldest existing undisputed Albanian language texts (i.e. couple of sentences) are from late 15th century". No older document on Albanian exists.
2. The second source (supported with incomplete citation of the source written by Elsie) does not mention Albanian language. It presents what "monk Burcard (also known as Brocardus monacus or frère Brochard) wrote in 1332 in his Directorium ad passagium faciendum about "a 'linguam diversam' and to the use of Latin letters in the books of the Albanians." Burcard does not mention Albanian language nor he directly supports a hypothesis about books written in Albanian language in 14th century.

I think that this hypothesis about 12th or 14th century books or documents on Albanian language is based on speculation which directly contradicts the scientific consensus. Therefore I am uncertain if it deserves to be presented in this article.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:24, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. That is why I found this original sentence so strange in the first place. I also agree with you about Brocardus monacus. This passage probably just means (if it really means anything) that SOME Albanians use Latin as their written language. On the other hand, I don't want to start an edit war. Somebody clearly feels, that e.g. Brocardus monacus refers to Albanian language writing, and of course it is possible to interpret his comment that way. So what do you suggest that we should do? Current formulation has to be changed or completely deleted, because it is demonstably false.128.214.145.20 (talk) 10:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The article already explains "The earliest known texts in Albanian" and Earliest undisputed texts. This wording already implies that it is theoretically possible that Albanian language was written before this earliest known and undisputed texts were composed. Therefore I propose to delete "It is commonly held" paragraph of two sentences.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Done. 128.214.145.20 (talk) 11:57, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Or we could rephrase the paragraph to reflect what the sources actually say—as User:Lfdder tried to do. An opening paragraph of some sort is needed. --Omnipaedista (talk) 12:36, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that the problem of the text can be resolved with paraphrasing. One source (Burcard) does not even mention Albanian language so I think it would be wrong to present any assertion on Albanian language based on that statement. Keeping the existing opening paragraph might give undue weight to fringe theories about 12th or 14th century books or documents on Albanian language based on speculation which directly contradicts the scientific consensus. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, why is the weasel word "at least" reintroduced tothe paragraph. It is not even mentioned in that highly speculative source. Furthermore, letter of 1332 does not actually "testify" anything. At best, it "may indicate" or something similar. There are, as a matter of fact, even other similar oddly speculative claims in this chapter. Meshari e.g. "Seems to indicate an earlier tradition of writing".128.214.145.20 (talk) 13:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't 'reintroduced', it was there. — Lfdder (talk) 13:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

PIE *h₄?!

The correspondences section lists correspondences from four PIE laryngeals, but the prevailing theories only give three. What's up with this? Brownie Charles (talk) 06:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Beekes has h3 in the same place. There are a couple of others with initial h2-, h3- giving h-, though none seem terribly secure. Megalophias (talk) 03:57, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

<xh> only occurs in loanwords, never in native terms

[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.112.124.218 (talk) 21:03, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The number of Albanian Speakers does not include the Diaspora

The source writes in the first paragraph : 'It is spoken by about 7.6 million people mainly in Albania and Kosovo, and also in parts of Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia' . Thus it does not include the Albanian diaspora . Gjirokastra15 (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

In addition ,' the Arvanitika /ˌɑːrvəˈnɪtɪkə/ (Arvanitika: αρbε̰ρίσ̈τ [arbërisht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Greek: αρβανίτικα), also known as Arvanitic, is the variety of Albanian traditionally spoken by the Arvanites, a population group in Greece ' . Here we are talking about the Albanian language and not about minorities , and Arvanitika is a recognized linguistic minority in Greece , however it is not an ethnic one . Gjirokastra15 (talk) 14:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been having to explain simple concepts to you quite frequently as of late. Do you have proof that Arvanitika is recognised as a minority language by Greece? The dialect is present in Greece but whether it has any recognised status is the key for this subsection of the infobox.

As for the reference not including the diaspora, you simply are reading it wrong. The sentence clearly states simply where to mainly find the 7.6 million speakers. It would be hard to list every country where a language is spoken. Feel free to check listings of other languages on that site and you'll find similar sentence structure.

If that doesn't work for you, however, we can used Ethnologue: Gheg 4,178,790 + Tosk 3,108,200 + Arbereshe 100,000 + Arvanitika 50,000 = 7,436,990. --Local hero ^talk 15:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

In order for you to explain simple concepts to me it presumes that you understand them better which i highly doubt . The Arvanitika is a linguistic/historical fact which is recognized as such . Even if it would not be recognized by the Greek government (which it is ) that is not a criterion/neither the made up criterion you made up above. You might want to understand as well the difference between a linguistic and ethnic minority , and relate it to the fact that the Albanian language does not make you necessarily Albanian , as the English language does not make you English .

As for the reference , i am not reading it wrong . It says : the language is mainly spoken in Albania and kosovo , and then it lists the states where there are other native speakers . Thus it does not include the diaspora ... it can be that easy. You know very well that the total population of Albanians according to the sources is between 7.5-13 millions . Just in Greece for example there are 500.000 Albanians , in Italy a further 600.000 Albanians which emigrated after the fall of communism etc.etc. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 17:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Instability of /q/ and /gj/ in spoken Albanian?

I've noticed Albanian speakers tend to glide <q> and <gj> when in clusters, and it's affecting writing too. For example, sqetulla "armpit" is often confused with sjetulla in writing. The word fqollë "flake" has fallen out of use entirely, now universally written as fjollë. I noticed this wasn't mentioned in the consonant section, should we add it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:40A:8002:7EBA:45E1:12E3:A9C9:5365 (talk) 20:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning, but perhaps not under consonants. Perhaps a new section about the modern evolution of the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.239.10.168 (talk) 21:01, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Substancial corrections are needed !!!

This article is written so badly and in such a shallow fashion that it is kinda difficult to address every thing that doesn't work in it, but I will try to the best of my capabilities. Where do we begin? Let's start with saying that the article is immediately structured to be a veiled hostile and derogatory jumble of mistakes and inaccuraties:

• Albanian speakers are not 5.4 millions but rather, loosely, 7.5 millions (5 millions in ethnic lands, 2.5 millions in emigration). Number to be corrected also on the "Geographic distribution" Paragraph
• It is still not very clear to me why the "Classification" paragraph comes after the "Linguistic influence" and "Latin influences" subparagraphs, when it should obviously have the priority over the latters (or if not the entire "Classification" paragraph, at least a full bodied part of it should have the precedence). Same discourse for the "Historical presence and location" sub-paragraph, it is not understood why this piece of the article should be less relevant than the "Linguistic Influence" when clearly a general panoramic of the language should have the priority over any linguistic influences paragraph.

It's like the editor of this page immediately wanted to make clear that Albanian is an unworthy language, that doesn't really need the effort to be presented in a good way because Albanian is "heavely influenced by Latin and Slavic", therefore not interesting enough to be worried about.

• Correlated with the point above, the article is structured in such a way that to the reader is given the impression that Albanian is nothing else than a Latino-Slavic mix, that is laughable in itself.
• Why it is specifically specified that Albanian language was first attested in a "crime report" is of course a veiled but clear provocation. Point correlated with the general atmosphere of derogatory stance torwards Albanian language.
• The Doric Greek linguistic influences is exaggerated and superficially presented by people that don't even make the effort to control the correctness of what they studied, and this assertment is made only because Albanian speakers and Dorics were neighbours, therefore they should logically (but in fact wrongly) have many influences. Not only that a lot of Doricisms aren't loanwords, but Albanian and Greek languages share a substantial number of basic vocabularies (especially with the Attic dialect, that is the ancient Greek dialect with the most similarities with Albanian.) That of course would nullify the non-sense of a northern Jirecek line Albanian urheimat.
• It is not given to understand what this "Heavy borrowings from Southern Slavic" between 7th and 9th centuries CE consist of. I am an Albanian speaker and a linguistic amateur, and not only the number of Slavic loanwords is extremely low in our language, but in fact many Albanian words entered the every day speaking of Southern Slavic peoples.
• The "Latin Influence" paragraph is a mish mash of truths and lies, if made in purpose it is not up to me to decide. It is made an assumption that Albanian is indeed a quasi-Romanized idiom, when many of the examples reported as Latin influences are not loanwords but Albanian basic words, and in some cases even Albanian loans into Latin language! Some examples:

1. Why "Ar" should be a derivate of Aurum is a mystery
2. The Albanian word for Lat:"Laurum" is "Dafinë", "Lar" is almost never used
3. What Lat:"Causa" (keep in mind, only in a rare meaning of the word) and Al:"Kafshë" have in common is the wild immagination of someone that is not even able to tell the difference between a "thing" (and Causa very rarely was used to designate the concept of a "thing") and a "beast"
4. Al:"Pyll" (forest) doesn't come from Lat:"Paludem" (swamp) but it's an Albanian word and it has two cognates with Attic Greek "ὕλη"(Huli) and Ionian Greek "εἴδη"(Eidi), both meaning forest of course
5. "Latin /tj/, /dj/, /kj/ palatalized to Albanian /s/, /z/, /c/:" and it is given an example ""socius" > "shoq"". Shoq is plural, the singular form is "Shok", so this is a false example
6. "Hibernalis > Mërrajë", never heard of this Albanian word, but the phonological evolution is not clear at all, apart from the fact that they probably have 2 very different meanings (if "Mërrajë" exists at all)
7. "Chersydrus > Kuçedër", Kuçedër comes from Greek "χέλυδρος" ‎(khéludros) or "χέρσυδρος" ‎(khérsudros), not from Latin
8. "Vjetër" (old) doesn't come from Lat:"Vetus" (old) because Vjetër comes from Al:"Vjet" (year) and Vjet has cognates in Ancient Greek (ἔτος ‎(étos)) and Sanskrit (वत्स ‎(vatsá, “year”)) that have even the same meaning. Actually that is a case where Latin very possibly took this word from Albanian (Veteran)

I have my reserves with many other words like "Gaudium > Gaz", "Pōmum > Pemë", "Hōra" > "Herë" and many others, but since I can't demonstrate them to not be loanwords, I don't ask for them to be removed.

• "... while the words for plants and animals characteristic of mountainous regions are entirely original, the names for fish and for agricultural activities (such as ploughing) are borrowed from other languages." Completely flawed premise, many of these plants and animal words are Indo-European that have many cognates with other European languages, therefore they are not "entirely original". Yes I know it is often repeated that Albanian has no a sea vocabulary, but just because some non-sense is repeated ad nauseam, it doesn't mean it is truth.

Hoping that common sense prevail over shallow laziness, it would be appreciated some effort to clean this mess and ultimately these blatant mistakes to be corrected. Herakliu (talk) 12:28, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

So why don't you yourself do something about it instead of complaining about others' supposed "laziness"? Do keep WP:PILLARS in mind, including proper references. --JorisvS (talk) 15:15, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Why? I tell you immediately why. Because I cannot put the word Shkupi next to "Skopje" in in the incipit of its wikipedia page (although Albanian there being an official language in Skopje) without being obviously undone and being warned of "problematic behaviour" just because I did the right thing. Because the Slavic vocabulary in Albanian is insignificant and still, apparently, in this article Albania MASSIVELY borrowed from Southern Slavic (thanks God there's wikipedia to teach me). Since I cannot change a single word in wikipedia without a herd of pretentious ignorant telling me what my language is and what is not and without having the most minimum amount of knowledge about what they are writing, now I prefere to ask for the consensus of the holy sultanate of wikipedia before even changing a dot in this article. Herakliu (talk) 11:59, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

You claim that Albanian is official in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. What is your evidence for this? You cannot just insert your own claims without providing something with which other editors can verify them. If people could, Wikipedia would quickly become very unreliable, and that's why we require reliable sources. --JorisvS (talk) 14:14, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Exactly what I was talking about. Ohrid agreement, 6th parapgraph, Enjoy yourself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herakliu (talk • contribs) 19:54, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I take it that that is this, right? Then this document should contain the information. There I can only find two references to the Albanian language, neither of which it near a reference to Skopje. It does include a commitment to strengthening the situation of Albanian in the media in Annex C par. 6, and a commitment to enable the use of Albanian in the Assembly. Sources have to be represented faithfully, otherwise we could just as well do without them. --JorisvS (talk) 20:45, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

-Every language with more than 20% of demographic weight is an official language; -Albanian has more than 20% in Skopje; therefore = Albanian is an official language in Skopje. The agreement it's enforced in almost every level, from the parliament, to passports, to traffic signs, to bus tickets etc.etc. and bilinguism is on the way to be implemented in every single sphere of life. I can post pictures if you want. Or we could end this charade simply by informing ourselves over a reality that is as such since many years. Herakliu (talk) 06:23, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I read 6.5 as follows: Any language spoken by more than 20% of the population of Macedonia is an official language of Macedonia. Any official language may be used to communicate with the central government. Any official language may be used with a local government if that local government's area it is spoken by at least 20%. This does not say literally that those languages are official in those local government. However, "language used to communicate with the government" does not equate to "official language", because there are countries with no official language (but those people of course do communicate with their government and that has to be in a language). That said, in 6.6 it does say that it is official there: "in municipalities where a community comprises at least 20 percent of the population of the municipality, the language of that community will be used as an official language in addition to Macedonian.". Aside from this, you'd need a source for the percentage of Albanian population in Skopje, which is not difficult, because the number is 20.4% at Skopje and is sourced, though that is from 2001 and it would be better to have a more-recent source, because it's so close to the 20-percent cut-off. In any case, this should be enough for a sentence like "In Macedonia's capital Skopje, 20.4% of the percent of the population speaks Albanian, which means that it is an official there.". Go ahead and insert that. Someone reverting you will have to have a good reason for it. --JorisvS (talk) 12:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the understanding, I didn't see this coming and you demonstrate yourself to be a valid debater and person. I apologize if I may have been a bit rude, I recognize that, but fact is that there are so many inaccuracies about Albanian language (frankly speaking, quite inexcusable since coming from "authoritative" sources and scholars), that many times those mistakes or lies are used for not vey honorable reasons against us. And it does not make good the fact that our achademics are still sleeping as in the Communist times.

As for this article, I will wait some 1 or 2 months for feedbacks before editing myself. If there won't be anything, I will procede myself and see what will come out. Herakliu (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Inaccuracies can and should be fixed, always using reliable sources and writing neutrally. Based on this, we can always discuss and make improvements. You don't need to wait that long, a week or so is sufficient, and there is always the bold–revert–discuss cycle. --JorisvS (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok then, I will proced in this way. Herakliu (talk) 13:47, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

bubulcus

One example of the 85 words non inherited by romance languages from Latin is bubulcus. This word actually still exists in Italian, where it became bifolco, meaning originally a cultivator, a farmer and later a person with rude manners or no education. So it is a different meaning, but it is still alive--Alexmar983 (talk) 23:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Earliest undisputed text from 13th century

"a 208-page parchment written by Theodor of Shkodra discovered in the secret archives of Vatican" is now mentioned as the earliest undisputed text in Albanian. Have there really been some new discovery of a medieval manuscript or is this the same hoax that was allegedly found in "the secret archives of Vatican" a couple of years ago and later revealed to be a forgery (if it even ever existed). 81.175.244.139 (talk) 17:48, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I think that the link in the text for this claim is to the History of Albanian literature by Dr. Robert Elsie who himself has later said that this alleged discovery of a manuscript was a forgery. 81.175.244.139 (talk) 18:02, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Another wp:OR map

Another wp:OR product that needs citation

The specific map lacks citation both in commons and here. To sum up, what makes Albanian language a current "significant minority language" in the following regions:

• Pogoni
• Corfu
• Delvinaki
• parts of Zagori.

Off course if any Albanian immigrants are located in the above regions they don't deserve the label "significant minority" unless there is something clear that points to this.Alexikoua (talk) 15:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I assume that the above regions are included in the "significant minority areas" simply because the map is so badly designed. This is also evident in Dropull whih is painted in dark blue (Albanian majority instead of minority language).Alexikoua (talk) 15:50, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Great job Alex, that map is just a wp:OR. The Albanian language distribution map is much larger, especially in Serbia and Macedonia.

Albanians make up the majority in Struga, Debar, Presevo and so on. This article needs some attention and Albanian and Vlach editors can offer their help. Lazarati (talk) 10:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Oldest undisputed Albanian text (again)

Here is a recent lecture by Dr. Robert Elsie. In this lecture he says, that "there has been writing in Albanian for about five centuries" and that Missal of 1555 is the first Albanian-language book. Since the claim about 1209 208-page parchment of Theodor of Skhodra is also based on earlier book by Dr. Elsie, I think it is safe to say, that he does not believe anymore that this alleged earlier manuscript is authentic. Should this "manuscript" be removed from the section Oldest undisputed Albanian texts?

http://www.elsie.de/pdf/articles/A2016ChaoticCourse.pdf

109.240.153.143 (talk) 14:55, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Unless Elsie outright disavows that the earlier Theodor of Skhodra is not authentic then yes. Until then its stays in the article. In the earlier book on Albanian literature, all Elsie states is that it has been found in the Vatican library and that research on it is still pending. The Missal from 1555 is still the oldest Albanian text that has been studied and properly accounted for and he states this in the literature book. Its is only natural that he started off his short lecture in that way. As he notes in that lecture there is much that he does not cover. Get something with more depth and it peer reviewed then a summary for such a change. Best.Resnjari (talk) 15:31, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

If the research on it is still pending, is it really "undisputed"? Best wishes 81.175.244.139 (talk) 14:46, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

It probably at this point in time is not undisputed. However i am not aware if a scholar is researching it at this point in time (funding issues in Albania for such a project a meagre, access to the Vatican library etc). There is awareness of the text's existence though. Find something on it in peer viewed literature or something like that if anything has been done about it. The Elsie lecture, though not mentioning the Shkodra text also does not preclude it either. His talk is short and he himself says that he has not covered a lot on the topic of Albanian literature. He has focused on things that probably did not take up to much time going by the length of his talk. We need something more substantive in peer reviewed work that rules out the Shkodra text altogether before removing it from the article. Best.Resnjari (talk) 17:57, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I think that the above mentioned lecture kind of precludes the existence of the Shkodra text. If one of the foremost authorities of Albanology plainly and without any caveats says in public, scientific lecture, that "there has been writing in Albanian for about five centuries". This is not a case of simple omission. He could have quite as easily said "there has been writing in Albanian for about eight centuries". Existence of an huge and highly elaborate manuscript is not a simple detail (208-pages, golden miniatures, coloured initials...) to be easily omitted. Especially considering that Dr. Elsie himself writes in the "Short history" (2005) that this manuscript "will no doubt have a major impact on Albanian studies". Be that as it may, I don't pretend to be an expert of Albanology. However, the real problem with describing the manuscript as "earliest undisputed" arises from the internal logic of this Wikipedia article. If this 1209 manuscript is the EARLIEST UNDISPUTED text, how can the Bellifortis text (1402 - 1405) be described as a "disputed EARLIER text". This did make sense before the mention of Theodor of Shkodra was included in the article. For the sake of consistency the subsection "Literary tradition - Disputed earlier text" should be renamed ("Disputed early text"?) or removed completely. 81.175.244.139 (talk) 17:26, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Pronunciation of ⟨q⟩ and ⟨gj⟩

The phonology section in this article states that ⟨q⟩ is voiceless palatal affricate [c͡ç] and ⟨gj⟩ is voiced palatal affricate [ɟ͡ʝ].

At the beginning of the article, though, "gjuha shqipe" is transcribed as [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ], so ⟨q⟩=[c], ⟨gj⟩=[ɟ].

And then, in the article about the Albanian alphabet, ⟨q⟩ is said to represent voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate [t͡ɕ], and ⟨gj⟩ is [ɟ].

--ɬaɬ (talk) 13:22, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

These sounds are complicated. Q can be rendered as a "ch" as in the word chile, but in other dialects it is also rendered as a q sound as in que. Gj in some dialects is rendered as the hard xh sound as in Jack, however in some dialects it is rendered as a soft g sound as in leugue. Not sure how to go about in here though. Should we have both forms of how the letters are pronounced ? Best.Resnjari (talk) 05:33, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

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Linguistic status quo

The language is the only thing we know directly, but it is at the same time most unknown thing for us. So far there is no scientific study of language. Scientists of other fields study objective facts about their object, whereas linguists have proven only that the language could not be studied scientifically. It is the time to change. Now it is time to change and to attack this problem. The linguistic had searched for language in insignificant directions, where there are not explanations about it and never could be.

http://linguisticglob.blogspot.com/2014/03/linguistic-status-quo.html

Utterly useless (not to mention incorrect) post - does not address improvement to the article in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.169.28.35 (talk) 15:43, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Shortened citation style

Almost half of the shortened inline citations don't link to their full reference. Due to recent case of instant removals I would appreciate if -full- or -vn- tags are placed instead of performing blind rvs which can reveal a battleground nature.Alexikoua (talk) 06:47, 6 October 2017 (UTC)