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Albania
Languages and Dialects
The Albanian language is spoken by nearly all inhabitants of
Albania, as well as by the vast majority of the population of
neighboring Kosovo. Greeks, Macedonians, and other ethnic groups
in Albania used their ancestral languages, in addition to Albanian,
to the extent that this right could be exercised. Ethnic minorities,
according to the testimony of many émigrés, were in the past forbidden
to speak their own languages in public.
A member of the Indo-European family of languages, modern Albanian
is derived from ancient Illyrian and Thracian. Additions and modifications
were made as a result of foreign contacts, beginning in the pre-Christian
era. The most significant of these changes were the result of
Latin influence during the centuries of Roman domination, and
Italian influences resulting from trade with Venice during the
Renaissance and from Italian hegemony over Albania in more recent
times. Contributions also were made by the Greeks, Turks, and
Slavs. Because the first written documents in Albanian did not
appear until the fifteenth century, tracing the early development
of the language is difficult.
Beginning in the fifteenth century and continuing over a period
of some 450 years, the repressive policies of the Ottoman Empire
rulers retarded language development. Writing in Albanian was
forbidden, and only the Turkish or Greek languages could be used
in schools. Émigré Albanians, particularly those living in Italy,
helped keep the written forms of language alive. Until the nineteenth
century, the language was sustained in Turkishdominated areas
largely by verbal communication, including ballads and folk tales.
By the early twentieth century, more than a dozen different alphabets
were being used by Albanians. Some were predominantly Latin, Greek,
or Turko-Arabic. Many were a mixture of several forms. It was
not until 1908 that a standardized orthography was adopted. The
Latin-based alphabet of twenty-six letters, approved at that time
by a linguistic congress at Monastir (now Bitola, in Macedonia),
was made official by a government directive in 1924 and continued
to be in use in the early 1990s.
The two principal Albanian dialects are Geg, spoken by about
two-thirds of the people, including almost all Albanians in Kosovo,
and Tosk, used by the remaining third. Within each dialect, there
are subdialects. Despite the variations that have developed in
the many isolated communities, Albanians generally communicate
well with each other.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the government attempted to establish
the dialect of the Elbasan area, which was a mixture of Geg and
Tosk, as the official language. The local dialects persisted,
however, and writers and even officials continued to use the dialect
of their association. After Hoxha acceded to power, the Tosk dialect
became the official language of the country. Some scholars saw
the imposition of "standard" Albanian as a political scheme to
denigrate the Geg dialect and culture.
Data as of April 1992
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