The Albanian language

Status
Not open for further replies.

Taranis

Elite member
Messages
2,381
Reaction score
433
Points
0
Location
Germany
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b1b2a* (inferred)
We've had a lot of heated discussions lately - some of them not located in the Linguistics section despite the fact that they should have been held there, which concerned the origin of the Albanians of the Albanian language. Because these were almost always off-topic in other threads I decided to create a proper, separate thread on it. There are a lot of misconceptions about the Albanian language in existence, some of them will have to elaborated on here. We do have other examples of IE languages that are also attested relatively late (or even later than Albanian), the Baltic languages being a prime example of this. However, the big difference is that we have multiple Baltic languages attested (Latvian, Lithuanian, Old Prussian) that help us for the reconstruction of Proto-Baltic. Likewise, we do have the Slavic languages which share a significant number of commonalities with Baltic, which gave rise to the concept of a Balto-Slavic branch of Indo-European. In contrast, there is just the Albanian language alone (which includes it's dialects), and it is pretty clear that today Albanian represents a distinct branch inside the Indo-European language family. This of course poses a significant problem from the perspective of research. Before you proceed reading the rest here, I would like to say that I'm obviously not an expert on Albanian. However, give how Albanian is an Indo-European language, the same basic rules that apply to for other IE languages can be applied to the Albanian language as well. Also note that this first post is only an introduction, and that I will get into some more details later. I must admit that it certainly is frivolous when a non-Albanian attempts to tell Albanians where their language comes from, but I thought I should make a bold attempt here.

General features of Albanian:
- The standard word order in Albanian is Subject-Verb-Object, as it is in many other Indo-European languages.
- Albanian has two genders, masculine and feminine, similar to the Romance languages.
- Albanian has five cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative. A sixth case, the vocative, exists vestigially. Two other cases from Proto-Indo-European, the Instrumental and the Locative, have been lost.

Unique Features in Albanian
There are a few rather unique features found in the Albanian language that should be noted:

- the (partial) preservation of the laryngeal sounds reconstructed to have existed in the Proto-Indo-European language (preserved in the shape of /h/). The only other branch of IE in which these laryngeal sounds have been preserved are the Anatolian languages (such as Hittite and Luwian). Note that this doesn't automatically mean a relationship with the Anatolian languages (in fact, that can be ruled out due to fundamentally different grammatical structures), but it is certainly a parallel.

- What I would like to call 'Semantic anomalies'. There is a set of Albanian words which clearly have cognates in other Indo-European languages which have however considerably changed but yet related meanings. The big surprise here is actually that the meaning in other branches of IE is generally the same whereas in Albanian it is different. Some examples of this include (compared against cognates in various other IE languages):

Albanian 'motër' ("sister") versus for example English "mother", Latin "mater", Irish "máthair", Lithuanian 'motina', Hindi "mātā" - which however all have the meaning 'mother'.
Albanian 'verdhë' ("yellow") versus in various Romance languages "Verde" (green)
Albanian 'gjelbert' ("green") versus German "gelb" (yellow, note that the Albanian word must be a Germanic or otherwise Centum loanword, because the PIE root word *g´hel- would have yielded 'dhel-' in Albanian, which can be indeed still seen in the word 'dhëlper', "fox")

General considerations on the origin
When we talk about the origins of any language, we should consider the following simple guideline: no language, given sufficient time, remains the same. The amount of change may vary, with some languages being more conservative over longer stretches of time, and languages changing drastically in relatively short amounts of time. Of the former, Greek is a good example, whereas of the latter the changes from Archaic (Oghamic) Irish to Old Irish, or from Latin to Old French are good examples - in which in only a few short centuries drastic changes occured to a language. What this means in the case of Albanian is that whatever language it is descended from must have invariably looked anywhere between somewhat to considerably different from modern-day Albanian - also depending on what time slice we talk about. In any case, we can be certain that Albanian (or Proto-Albanian) 2000 years ago did not look like modern-day Albanian. This, of course, makes it hard for us to compare the modern-day language with whatever language it's ancestor was.

"Albanoi" vs. "Shqiptar"
One crucial point to be considered is that the term "Albanians" is an exonym (compare "Welsh", "Germans"), while "Shqiptar" is the endonym (compare "Cymry", "Deutsche"). This means we have no way to verify if the "Albanians" recorded in ancient sources are really the same as the modern-day Albanians. The ancient (Proto-Albanian) cognate of "Shqiptar" would have been something akin to "Skiptar", which should have been rendered into something akin to "Skipteroi" or "Skipteri" in Greek/Roman sources. Since this cannot be found anywhere, we must assume that the Albanians did not self-designate themselves as "Skipteri" in Antiquity, and that this self-designation was adopted only later.

Possible origins of Albanian
The general consensus is that Albanian must be - with high likelihood - descended from one of the Paleo-Balkan languages. This is a "grab-all" term for the collection of the rather poorly attested languages that were spoken on the Balkan peninsula in Antiquity - including Dacian, Illyrian and Thracian. The relationship between these languages is disputed, but what is clear is that they were without exception Indo-European languages. In any case, there are several main rivaling hypotheses which I briefly want to elaborate on:

1) The Illyrian Hypothesis
The Illyrians were an Indo-European people who lived in the northwestern part of the Balkan peninsula, including the northern areas of modern-day Albania. Very little is known about the Illyrian language itself (exclusively onomastic), but it has been suggested as the ancestor of the Albanian language. Wether Illyrian is suitable as an ancestor stands and falls mainly with the question if Illyrian was a Centum language or a Satem language (Albanian being part of the latter). What is an additional problem with Illyrian is the fact that the Albanian language has been noted for it's scarcity of native naval and maritime terms (instead we find borrowings, such as 'tokë' (shore), which is derived from Slavic 'tok' (to flow)). As a result, the Proto-Albanians are generally assumed to have dwelled somewhere in inland, away from the sea. In contrast, the Illyrians are well-known to have possessed a highly sophisticated naval culture and were feared by both the Greeks and the Romans as pirates in the Adriatic sea. As such, the Illyrians lend themselves poorly as the ancestors to the Albanians.

2) The Dacian Hypothesis
The Dacians, who inhabited the eastern parts of the Balkans penninsula - as well as adjacent areas in central and eastern Europe are one of the main contenders as ancestors of the Albanians. In general, Dacian was a Satem language. Additionally, there is a large vocabulary of words shared by the Albanian and Romanian language - with Romanian being generally considered as a Romance language that has a Dacian substratum.The main problem with the Dacian hypothesis is that the Dacian-inhabited areas, are located sufficiently far away that one must ask for a considerable migration of the Proto-Albanians towards their present-day location.In any case, even if Albanian is not descended from the Dacian language, it is nonetheless clear that Dacian words entered the Albanian vocabulary just like they did enter Romanian.

3) The Thracian Hypothesis
While this hypothesis is rarely discussed and tends to be generally dismissed, but I think it should be elaborated why. Thracian in generally shares also many similarities with Albanian (including being a Satem language, and lexical similarities), but a relationship is unlikely for a different reason: the Thracians lived in an area that was to become completely hellenized in later history. Had the Proto-Albanians originated here, we would expect them to have much more Greek loanwords and very little in Latin loanwords. Instead, we only see relatively few (and ancient) Greek loanwords and a substantial amount of Latin loanwords. From that perspective, we must assume that the origins of the Albanians lie north of the Jireček Line that historically divided the Balkan penninsula into a Latin and Greek part.

Loanwords in Albanian
One set of evidence which provides additional evidence is the amount of loanwords from in Albanian. As with other languages, loanwords allow a relative chronology of when a word entered Albanian vocabulary due to it's adherence (or non-adherence) to Albanian sound laws. I will get to these sound laws later, but for now I would like to give an overview of the sources we can find, in chronological order:

- Classical (Dorian) Greek: the oldest loanwords found in Albanian, apparently, are from classical Greek, clearly predating the Roman period.
- Latin: the vast bulk of loanwords into Albanian are of Latin origin and these make up a substantial part of the Albanian vocabulary. These, naturally, date from the period of the Roman Empire.
- Germanic loanwords. Most of these are of East Germanic origin and likely date from the Migration Period (it cannot have been later due to the demise of East Germanic).
- Slavic loanwords. These too must have entered into the Albanian language during the Migration Period or in subsequent centuries.
- Turkic loanwords. These date from the Ottoman period. These include for instance 'Bakër' (copper) and 'Kallaj' (tin).

From this we can establish with certainty that we can be reasonably sure that the Albanians lived at their (very) approximate present-day location (the Balkan penninsula) since Classical Antiquity.

This is all for now as an introduction. I will post more later (in particular on Albanian sound laws). (y)
 
Last edited:
great post

just something I like to add, the tribe mentioned as Albanoi was only recordered in 150AD by Ptolemy, while it has no place in this map below. 150AD is far too late for a tribal name, so it could be emigrants from elsewhere or a name given to a mix of people, like the Vidivarri in prussia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popolazioni_della_Dalmazia_png.png
Note, Romans do not refer to illyrians as a people only a land, the people where all called dalmatians


next - the DNA is basically exclusibly E which is also in a big percentage with Greeks. I once believed that Albanians where from Dacian areas, but have recently read in Italian that they originated in the pindus mountains in western Thessally - some say ancient Molossians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_balkans_4thcentury.png
Map above has Moesia, dacia, dardania and praevalitana as what the Romans referred to Dacia ...........so I could have been confused with this

Lastly , the 4 dialects/languages which make up the albanian language clearly shows a mixture of tribes , does it not?
 
Funny isn't it?

when Iapetoc was claiming about the same

At least he deserves a +1 rep

but how sure we are that Dacian was Satem?
in the thread about Dacian Language I apetoc arque and Belives that Dacian was Centum,
Except if Goths were satem too.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everybody.

but how sure we are that Dacian was Satem?
in the thread about Dacian Language I apetoc arque and Belives that Dacian was Centum,
Except if Goths were satem too.

Well, what does "Centum" and "Satem" mean, anyways? Basically it's all about the treatment of three sounds found in Proto-Indo-European (*k´, *g´ and *g´h) and the way the are reflected in the respective IE language. In the Centum languages, these sounds are merged with their respective plain velar counterparts (*k, *g, *gh) whereas in the Satem languages they are reflected as fricative sounds (such as /s/, /z/, /ʃ/ or /θ/).

Gothic was a Germanic language, hence without any doubt Centum. The Gothic word for 'hundred' was 'hunda'. You have a development of *k´ > *k > *χ > *h in Germanic (with *k´ > *k being the step of Centumization, as it is also found in Celtic, Italic, Greek and Tocharian).

Regarding Dacian, evidence of it's Satem nature comes from words which include reflexes of the above mentioned sounds in PIE. A good example of this is the deity name 'Zalmoxis'. The element 'zalm-' (thought to mean 'bear hide') is a cognate with Germanic 'helm-' (as in English 'helmet') as well as Lithuanian 'šalmas' (also meaning 'helmet'). The PIE root word is *k´el- (to hide, cover). While we are at it, the Albanian cognate is 'thelm' ('rags').
 
Here is a continuation of the previous, namely Albanian sound laws. Note that the list below is far from complete, but it's giving a bit of an overview over important Albanian sound laws (giving examples in each case), and also the sequence in which they occured:

De-Aspiration in Proto-Albanian
Early Proto-Albanian merged the voiced and unvoiced stop sounds from PIE:

*bh and *b
*dh and *d
*gh and *g
*g´h and *g´
*gwh and *gw

De-Aspiration is pretty common amongst the Indo-European languages. However, unlike some other branches of Indo-European (for example the Celtic languages), where this development is relatively late, it must be assumed that the development occured early in Proto-Albanian (due to the common treatment of aspirated and non-aspirated sounds), before many other Albanian sound laws applied.

In contrast to this, Greek for example retains the aspirated stops sounds from PIE as distinct sounds (as φ, θ and χ respectively).

Satemization in Proto-Albanian
This means the Palatovelar sounds inherited from PIE become fricative sounds in Albanian:

*k´ became *θ in Proto-Albanian
*g´ became *ð in Proto-Albanian

However, these sounds have a further later development (later than the 'Late Albanian developments' described below):

*θ is shifted to /s/ before /u/, /w/, /i/, /j/
*θ is shifted to /k/ before sonorants (and unchanged elsewhere)
*ð is shifted to /d/ if it's at the beginning of syllables and followed by a sibilant (unchanged elsewhere)

Note that /θ/ is spelled 'th' and /ð/ is spelled 'dh' in Standard Albanian orthography.

Examples:
PIE *g´ombh- (tooth/bite) > Albanian 'dhëmb' (tooth), compare with English 'comb' and Greek 'gomphos' (peg) and Lithuanian 'žambas' (corner)
PIE *g´hel- (yellow, golden) > Albanian 'dhelpër' (fox, originally 'Yellow One'), compare with German "gelb" (yellow)

Like other Satem languages, Proto-Albanian also adheres to the RUKI Law, which shifted *s > *ʃ at specific positions. However, Albanian (at a much later point) must have also shifted *s > *ʃ at other positions.

Other (relatively early) developments

*gw > *z (before PIE-inherited *i,*e)
*gw > *g (elsewhere)

*gw > *z must have occured before *gw > *g, because other *g is unaffected by this.

*kw > *s (before PIE-inherited *i, *e)
*kw > *k (elsewhere)

*kw > *s must have occured before *kw > *k, because other *k is unaffected by this.

Examples:
PIE *dhegwh- ('to burn' > Albanian 'djeg' ('to burn'), compare Old Irish 'daig' (fire), Latin 'febris' (fever)
PIE *kwel- ('wheel', 'to turn') > Albanian 'sjell' ('to turn'), compare English 'wheel', Latin 'collum' (neck), Russian 'kolo' (wheel)
PIE *gwesdo- > Proto-Albanian *geθ- > Albanian 'gjeth' ('leaf')

Late Albanian Developments

*s > *ɟ (only at initial positions)
*g > *ɟ (before secondary *i,*e)
/ɟ/ is written as 'gj' in standard Albanian orthography.

Note that at this stage, the shift applies to PIE *g, *gh, *gw, *gwh - assuming these aren't changed by previous sound laws).

PIE *ghend > Albanian 'gjen' ('to find'), compare Latin 'apprehendere' (to apprehend), English 'forget'

These sound laws also applies to Latin loanwords:

Latin 'argentum' > Albanian 'argjend' (silver)
Latin 'somnum' > Albanian 'gjumë' (sleep)
Latin 'serpens' > Albanian 'gjarpër' (snake)

*k > *c (before secondary *i,*e)
/c/ is written as 'q' in standard Albanian orthography.

Proto-Albanian *ken > Albanian 'qen' (dog)

This development must have occured very late (after ca. 500 AD) because Latin loanwards are subject to this sound law as well:
Latin 'cicer' > Albanian 'qiqer'
Latin 'civitas' > Albanian 'qytet'
Latin 'facies' > Albanian 'faqe'

Also note that this applies to PIE *kw that was previously shifted to *k, such as PIE *kwod > *që ('that', compare Latin 'quod')

*s > *ʃ (at non-RUKI positions)
PIE *septm̥ > Albanian 'shtatë' (seven)
This law also applied for Latin loanwords, for example Latin:
'sagitta' > Albanian 'shëngjete'
 
The "reply with quote" option doesn't seem to work for me (it "crowds" to the right). But let's try this:

You wrote:

"PIE *g´ombh- (tooth/bite) > Albanian 'dhëmb' (tooth)"

This is intriguing. In most Slavic languages (except Polish, I don't know about others) there is "denazalization" of the "tooth" word: thus "zub" not "zumb" in my native Ukrainian (note also the satemization of the *g). There is apparently no such process in Albanian. Does this retention of the nasal sound apply across the board in Albanian?
 
The "reply with quote" option doesn't seem to work for me (it "crowds" to the right). But let's try this:

Hmmm... that sounds like a serious technical problem. You should contact Maciamo about it.

You wrote:

"PIE *g´ombh- (tooth/bite) > Albanian 'dhëmb' (tooth)"

This is intriguing. In most Slavic languages (except Polish, I don't know about others) there is "denazalization" of the "tooth" word: thus "zub" not "zumb" in my native Ukrainian (note also the satemization of the *g). There is apparently no such process in Albanian. Does this retention of the nasal sound apply across the board in Albanian?

First off, you are absolutely correct that the Slavic languages (indeed, Balto-Slavic as a whole) shifted PIE *g´ to /z/. But as you can see, the loss of *m at the position is found in all branches of Slavic, as well as in Latvian:

Latvian 'Zobs'
Belorussian 'Zub'
Bulgarian 'Zŭb'
Czech 'Zub'
Slovak 'Zub'
Polish 'Ząb'
Croatian 'Zub'
Serbian 'Zub'
Slovenian 'Zob'
Russian 'Zub'
Ukrainian 'Zub'

In contrast, the Lithuanian cognate 'žambas' (which actually means 'corner', rather than 'tooth') retains the /m/.

Albanian also generally retains the /m/, but there instances where /n/ is lost, for example PIE *penkwe (five) > *pesë.
 
Thanks for the specifics. The contrast between Lithuanian and Latvian is interesting. But note that Polish "zab" (with a little tail below the "a") is actually pronounced "zonb" or "zomb". I gather from your list that it is the only Slavic language in which this nasal sound persists. An irregular process in Albanian, then.
 
Hi,

In Albanian "tok" means land, earth and so it could also be used to refer to the seashore, I see no similar meaning with the slavic "to flow". Seashore is "breg-det" in Albanian, det-deti being the sea.
 
Lastly , the 4 dialects/languages which make up the albanian language clearly shows a mixture of tribes , does it not?

Albanian language is made up of two main dialects (not languages), Geg and Tosk. Can you tell what are these 4 dialects or languages you refer to? thx
 
"bereg" sounds a lot like the Slavic word for "shore" [also "edge" "corner"]. What's interesting here is the "det" addition. It feels like a neologism on a Slavic basis...
 
Last edited:
Hi,

In Albanian "tok" means land, earth and so it could also be used to refer to the seashore, I see no similar meaning with the slavic "to flow". Seashore is "breg-det" in Albanian, det-deti being the sea.


how about the Greek βροχη Vrochi and virb βρεχω - βρεχ-ομαι (rain-get wet)
how about 'det; with δυτης δυω IE Dye english Dive
????
 
razor said:
"bereg" sounds a lot like the Slavic word for "shore" [also "edge" "corner"]. What's interesting here is the "det" addition. It feels like a neologism on a Slavic basis...
Or the Slavic word is a neologism based on Albanian language, which is by far more plausible both historically and linguistically.


Props for the topic, I hope to get some free time on my hands to join the joyful discussion! :)
 
how about the Greek βροχη Vrochi and virb βρεχω - βρεχ-ομαι (rain-get wet)
how about 'det; with δυτης δυω IE Dye english Dive
????

sorry I can't read the above completely, I don't get what's your question. Deti - sea is likely derived from the word for the Goddess of the sea, Thetis, one of the earliest deities in archaic Greece. We call Ionian sea, Deti Jon (literally our sea)
 
Why don't you add "archaeologically, culturally, theologically, philosophically" and anything else you can think of? That would make your point even more convincing :)=)))
 
Last edited:
I'd like to make a comment on "Breg(-det)". I would argue that it's native to neither languages (the Slavic family or Albanian). Why, because this gets clear when you look at cognates in other branches of Indo-European:

- Celtic has numerous cognates with this, all with the meaning 'high' or 'exalted'. For example 'Brig-' and '-briga' found in Celtiberian and Gaulish town names, for example the (latinized) name "Brigantium". This is the name of various Celtic towns, including modern-day Bragança (Portugal), Briançon (France) and Bregenz (Austria). It is also found in the Celtic deity name 'Brigantia', which is rendered in Irish as 'Brighid'. It's also found in modern Celtic languages as Welsh 'brig' (climax) and Scottish Gaelic 'brìg' (heap, pile).

- For the Germanic languages, examples are German 'Berg' (hill, mountain) and 'Burg' (castle). Also compare English '-burgh' and '-borough'.

- In Latin, 'fortis' ('strong', 'powerful'). There are numerous derivates in the Romance languages, as well as in English, including 'fort', 'force' and 'fortitude'.

- The word is also found in the other Satem language families. In Armenian, a cognate is 'bardzr' (բարձր), meaning 'high'. In Indo-Iranic, Avestan has the word 'berezant' meaning 'high' or 'lofty'.

From this, we can reconstruct the PIE word as 'bhereg´h', which would have been rendered as something akin to 'Brez-' in Balto-Slavic and 'Bredh' in Albanian. Since this isn't the case, I would argue that it's a loanword in both language families.

Or the Slavic word is a neologism based on Albanian language, which is by far more plausible both historically and linguistically.

Disregarding the above, I must also disagree on this assessment. Assuming the word didn't arrive from a third source in both languages (which I find more plausible, see above), I would actually wager that the word arrived from Slavic into Albanian, and not the other way around. The reason is that the word is found in all branches of the Slavic languages:

West Slavic:
Czech 'břeh'
Slovak 'breh'
Polish 'brzeg'

East Slavic:
Russian 'bereg'
Ukrainian 'bereg'

South Slavic:
Croatian/Serbian: 'brijeg'
Slovenian 'breg'
Bulgarian 'bryag'

If the word was borrowed from Albanian into Slavic, we'd likely only see a borrowing from Albanian into South Slavic, not into other branches. The way things are, it's far more likely that the word entered into Proto-Slavic from somewhere else, and I'm pretty sure that the Proto-Slavs did not have any contact with the Proto-Albanians due to living at rather different locations, and by the time the Slavs entered the Balkan, the Slavic language family was probably already in the process of fragmentation.
 
Albanian language is made up of two main dialects (not languages), Geg and Tosk. Can you tell what are these 4 dialects or languages you refer to? thx

I placed link in other Albanian threads in Eupedia .....look them up ............there is even a map

In modern society, there is no difference between a language and a dialect . As an example, if sicily was to gain independence do you think the sicilian dialect will still be called a sicilian dialect or a language in the new nation!
 
sorry I can't read the above completely, I don't get what's your question. Deti - sea is likely derived from the word for the Goddess of the sea, Thetis, one of the earliest deities in archaic Greece. We call Ionian sea, Deti Jon (literally our sea)

I don't think that "Deti" derives from Thetis, primarily because I don't see how Classical Greek /tʰ/ would be rendered as /d/ into Albanian. Since Albanian didn't have any aspiration, /tʰ/ from Greek loanwords was rendered as /t/ into Albanian. Regarding the Ionian Sea, I'm pretty sure that this is a pseudo-etymology, playing on the pun between "Ionian" rendered into Albanian (Jon) and 'ours' (Jonë).
 
I don't think that "Deti" derives from Thetis, primarily because I don't see how Classical Greek /tʰ/ would be rendered as /d/ into Albanian. Since Albanian didn't have any aspiration, /tʰ/ from Greek loanwords was rendered as /t/ into Albanian. Regarding the Ionian Sea, I'm pretty sure that this is a pseudo-etymology, playing on the pun between "Ionian" rendered into Albanian (Jon) and 'ours' (Jonë).

1) To confuse or pronounce /t/ like /d/ , /k/ like /g/, /p/ like /b/ aren't very rare in albanian. Now i didn't know that Classical Greek /th/ turned into albanian /t/ since i'm no linguistic or try to be, but since /t/ and /d/ in albanian not rarely are pronounced the same couldn't it have happened during some period of time that /t/ became /d/?

2) 'Ours' in albanian is 'Ynë". 'Jonë' doesn't exist in albanian sorry and 'Jon' is dialect.

3) Somewhere in some posts above i read smth about the word 'Toke" being the same with the Slav word 'Tok'. Toke in albanian means land or earth. Also in dialect exists the word 'Tok' which means 'Together'.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

This thread has been viewed 295689 times.

Back
Top