The Albanian language

[mihaitzateo]

- maybe "katun" - Alb.=small village, hamlet hence the offensive "katundar"-villager

In romanian cătun (write it këtun to understand how to pronounce it in albanian) have same meaning as in albanian.

 

[Zemra]

Albanian words similar to Romanian

New user here . I find this topic very interesting, I would like to give my contribution to it.

B balaur-bollë-watersnake, dragon baltă-baltë-mud brusture-brushtull-burdock bucura-bukur-beautiful(alb.), happy(rum.) burduf-burdhë-sack buză-buzë-lip	F fărâmă-thërrime-small piece, crumb	M mal-mal-mount(alb.), shore(rum.) mazăre-modhul-peas, chick peas moașă-moshë-old woman (rum.), age(alb.) mugur-mugull-bud murg-murg-dusk, dark mânz-mëz-colt măgar-magar(prot alb.), gomar(modern)-donkey măgură-magulë-hill mălai-miell-flour mărar-mararja(old alb.)-dill mătrăgună-matërgone-belladonna	R rânză-rrëndës-tripe	Z zară-dhallë-buttermilk zgardă-gardh-fence(alb.), dog collar(rum.) zgură-zgjyrë-slag
C cioc-çukë-beak ciut-shut(shyt)-hornless ciută-sutë-doe/shy girl cursă-kurth-trap,snare căciulă-kësulë-fur cap, hood căpușă-këpusha-tick(bug) cătun-katund-hamlet,village	G gata-gati-ready ghionoaie-gjon-woodpecker(rum.) tibet owl(alb.) grapă-grep-hook gresie-garatja (proto alb.) grij (modern)-grind groapă-gropë-hole grumaz-gurmaz-neck grunz-grundë-saw dust,clod	N năpârcă-nëpërka-snake, viper	S scrum-shkrumb-ash sâmbure-sumbull-pit of a fruit	Ț țarc-thark-milking ben țeapă-thep-, peak, point, stick
D daltă-daltë-chisel(a tool)	L leurdă-hurdhë-garlic	P pupăză-pupëzë, pupë-stern pârâu-përrua-stram	V viezure-vjedhull-badger văpaie-vapë-heat, hot weather

I hope it's useful (although I doubt it, from what I see you guys have done your homework :embarassed: ).

 

[Gentjan]

I find this topic very interesting.
I wold like to add and ask something.
In Albanian we have two letters. q and ç.
They are very similar in pronouncing and for the other persons that arenot Albanian they can't distinguish them.
ç - sound like chess and for the q i could not find any similarsound in English.
Now we have words like
çaj - tea çan - cutting ( ai çan - he is cutting)
qaj - crying qan - crying ( ai qan - he is crying)

Can someone explain haw is that the Albanians have to different letters( witch differ in similar words with different meaning) for a similarsound) when all the other language have only one letter for the both sounds.

 

[Taranis]

I find this topic very interesting.
I wold like to add and ask something.
In Albanian we have two letters. q and ç.
They are very similar in pronouncing and for the other persons that arenot Albanian they can't distinguish them.
ç - sound like chess and for the q i could not find any similarsound in English.
Now we have words like
çaj - tea çan - cutting ( ai çan - he is cutting)
qaj - crying qan - crying ( ai qan - he is crying)

Can someone explain haw is that the Albanians have to different letters( witch differ in similar words with different meaning) for a similarsound) when all the other language have only one letter for the both sounds.

Hi Gentjan, the two sounds are similar but not identical: the sound that is spelled "q" in Albanian is a so-called voiceless palatal plosive whereas the sound spelled "ç" is so-called voiceless palato-alveolar affricate. The big difference between the two is that the first is a single sound, while the latter is a co-articulated sound (in other words, a combination of the sounds "t" and "sh"). The latter sound is the more common variety and it's found in many other languages (notably also in English, in words like "rich", "witch" or "chin").

 

[Endri]

I find this topic very interesting.
I wold like to add and ask something.
In Albanian we have two letters. q and ç.
They are very similar in pronouncing and for the other persons that arenot Albanian they can't distinguish them.
ç - sound like chess and for the q i could not find any similarsound in English.
Now we have words like
çaj - tea çan - cutting ( ai çan - he is cutting)
qaj - crying qan - crying ( ai qan - he is crying)

Can someone explain haw is that the Albanians have to different letters( witch differ in similar words with different meaning) for a similarsound) when all the other language have only one letter for the both sounds.

The letter /q/ is much more similar to /gj/ in pronunciation, /ç/ written in another way in Albanian would be /tsh/.

The confusion of /q/ with /ç/ is more of a recent development in Albanian, more or less in the start of the new millennium and I seriously doubt is a Gheg feature cause at the time of Albanian Renaissance and Alphabet, Gheg writters (aka more than 60-70%) seemed to have a pretty good distinction between /q/ and /ç/.

And as just for info "çaj" is turkish word while "qaj" most likely is latin. Furthermore /q/ is a sound which developed from the sound /k/ (Albanian /k/) and is most of the times related to latin origin words who started with /c/.

Exp: Qaj (modern Albanian)-Kjaj (old form), qytetërim-civitas (latin), qëndër-centrum, qen-canis ect.

This change hasn't finished yet so you can even today see it, mostly in irregular nouns in plural.

Exp: Ujk-Ujq, Turk-Turq, Lak-Leqe ect...

 

[Zemra]

Actually çaj is Russian (чай). I agree with the rest of your post.

Can you help me with the origin of these words?
zanafillë- begining
zaptoj- to occupy
zgavër-tree hollow

 

[Endri]

Actually çaj is Russian (чай). I agree with the rest of your post.

Can you help me with the origin of these words?
zanafillë- begining
zaptoj- to occupy
zgavër-tree hollow

I have no idea about "zaptoj" and "zgavër" but "zanafillë" might be a composite word from "zë" - "it start-s/ed" like in "Zuri shiu" or "Zuri të bjerë shi" or "Zë të flas") and "fill" from the verb "filloj". As the modern expression "zë fill" (exp: "Gjithçka/Historia/Ngjarja zë fill një natë të errët...").

Cause "zanafillë", as far as I know, it's meaning it's not just "begining", it's "THE begining". Like there's not an event preceding it (exp: "Zanafilla e Universit").

This is my idea...

 

[Yetos]

Actually çaj is Russian (чай). I agree with the rest of your post.

Can you help me with the origin of these words?
zanafillë- begining
zaptoj- to occupy
zgavër-tree hollow

Zgaver reminds me the Greek word
virb σκαπ-τω skapto ( root skap) i dig a hole
noun εκ-σκαφη σκαμα σκαφη etc excavate of material to create a hole, dig hole, primitive boat, etc

it is probably IE
I don't know if Grim's law can connect Greek skap with Albanian zgav

 

[Zemra]

Thanks both of you.

 

[Finalise]

can anyone ellaborate on how much of an influence gothic had on albanian? im not really familiar with it. i looked at the lord's prayer in gothic, i saw some similarities: Atta unsar þu in himinam (Our father, thou in heaven) ---> Ati yne ju ne parajse(latin). Also slightly similar, swe in himina jah ana airþai---->si ne parajse dhe ne bote. aflet uns which means forgive us ---> fal looks similar, which also means forgive, uns its used as us, but une means I in alb. again any thoughts from anyone who has some knowledge on gothic would be appreciated.

2 other words i found in seperate texts

dig ----> GROB -----> grope (literally dug hole)
upon ----> BI ----------> mbi

 

[LeBrok]

dig ----> GROB -----> grope (literally dug hole)
upon ----> BI ----------> mbi

GROB is also used in slavic as GRAVE.

 

[Zeus10]

Hi everyone. I would like to discuss a little bit about Albanian language, and its relationship to the so called PIE, which in my opinion is not only a hypothetical language, but also wrongly reconstructed, since not all Europian languages were taken into consideration during this reconstruction, and especially language like Albanian which is one of the few that has followed a clear natural phonetical and lexical development and has not undergone "language purifications" or scholastic standartizations, like the most of other now spoken European ones, until at least lately. Being such at least the following examples are wrong:

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

The noun 'dhëmb' has not derived from the PIE *g´ombh, but clearly from the Albanian verb "dhëmb" which is the correspondant for the 'pain'Assuming that Albanian 'dhelpër' comes from the ancestor of 'yellow' which is *g´hel, means that whoever made that assumption knows nothing about Albanian language. I will analyse this and many like this in another occassion.

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.

Albanian is not a Satem language, and the theory of isoglosses division in Satem and Centum is not correct, because at least in Albanian case the theory completely ignores the fact that Albanian in both dialectes doesn't use sibilants but clear velars. That must be applied even in Proto-Albanian, which is unknown anyways. And this theory being correct, does it make French language a Satem because of its 'son'.

 

[Taranis]

Hi everyone. I would like to discuss a little bit about Albanian language, and its relationship to the so called PIE, which in my opinion is not only a hypothetical language, but also wrongly reconstructed, since not all Europian languages were taken into consideration during this reconstruction, and especially language like Albanian which is one of the few that has followed a clear natural phonetical and lexical development and has not undergone "language purifications" or scholastic standartizations, like the most of other now spoken European ones, until at least lately. Being such at least the following examples are wrong:

Welcome to Eupedia, Zeus.


It appears to me that you are having a large number of misconceptions about what Proto-Indo-European is, and also how it is reconstructed. Most notably, you have to bear in mind that the reconstruction is not only based on modern language (it would be a lot more difficult to do that), but also on ancient languages, to mention a few ones, notably Classical Greek, Mycenaean Greek, Avestan, Sanskrit and Hittite. Modern Albanian is not particuarly representative at all of Proto-Indo-European, and the reasons for that have been addressed extensively in this thread.

The backbone of language reconstruction is the comparative method, and the concept of sound changes. The underlying assumption is that sound laws are exceptionless, that they irreversable (if a sound change happens, it applies to ALL words in the vocabulary), and also that sound changes have no memory of the past of a language. This means if there are words that seemingly violate these sound changes, they must have entered into a language after this sound change occured.

Let me point out that the comparative method has not only been successfully used for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European, but also for other language families, and it works every single time.

The noun 'dhëmb' has not derived from the PIE *g´ombh, but clearly from the Albanian verb "dhëmb" which is the correspondant for the 'pain'Assuming that Albanian 'dhelpër' comes from the ancestor of 'yellow' which is *g´hel, means that whoever made that assumption knows nothing about Albanian language. I will analyse this and many like this in another occassion.

I'll ask you something: would the Albanian word for "tooth" derive from the word for "to hurt"? The examples I have given clearly show that there is a regular correspondence between Albanian "dh" and the Proto-Indo-European sounds *g´ and *g´h (which Proto-Albanian must have merged at one stage), and that this perfectly corresponds with sounds in other Indo-European languages (notably *g´ is reflected as *k in Germanic, *g in Celtic, Greek and Latin, and *z in many Satem languages).

There is no "secret knowledge" about the Albanian language.

Albanian is not a Satem language, and the theory of isoglosses division in Satem and Centum is not correct, because at least in Albanian case the theory completely ignores the fact that Albanian in both dialectes doesn't use sibilants but clear velars. That must be applied even in Proto-Albanian, which is unknown anyways. And this theory being correct, does it make French language a Satem because of its 'son'.

The idea that Centum and Satem represents an early split is probably wrong, but the description that an Indo-European language is a "Centum" or "Satem" language is accurate nontheless.


Yes, the Albanian language possesses velars, but that doesn't make it a Centum language. The Baltic, Slavic and Indo-Iranic languages also all possess velars, that doesn't make them Centum. The question is, how do the sounds in one language correspond to sounds in other languages.


I actually am glad that you bring up the example of French, because it is indeed a language that has (at a later point) developed what appears at first glance to be Satem-like features. The best example is the French word for "dog", "chien" (pronounced "ʃjɛ:"). If you however look at the word in other Romance languages (Portuguese "cão", Spanish "can", Italian "cane", Romanian "câine"), and most importantly Latin ("canis"), then it's clear that this development of *k > *ʃ is a unique development French.

This gets clearer if you compare this with words for "dog" in other Indo-European branches:

Celtic:
- Irish "cún"
- Welsh "ci"

Germanic:
- English "hound"
- German "Hund".
- Icelandic "hundur"

- Greek: "kyon"

Baltic:
- Latvian "suns"
- Lithuanian "šuo"

- Armenian: "shun"

Indo-Iranic:
- Sanskrit "sva"

If you compare this, it is pretty clear that Albanian "qen" must be a loanword.

 

[Zeus10]

Welcome to Eupedia, Zeus.It appears to me that you are having a large number of misconceptions about what Proto-Indo-European is, and also how it is reconstructed. Most notably, you have to bear in mind that the reconstruction is not only based on modern language (it would be a lot more difficult to do that), but also on ancient languages, to mention a few ones, notably Classical Greek, Mycenaean Greek, Avestan, Sanskrit and Hittite. Modern Albanian is not particuarly representative at all of Proto-Indo-European, and the reasons for that have been addressed extensively in this thread.The backbone of language reconstruction is the comparative method, and the concept of sound changes. The underlying assumption is that sound laws are exceptionless, that they irreversable (if a sound change happens, it applies to ALL words in the vocabulary), and also that sound changes have no memory of the past of a language. This means if there are words that seemingly violate these sound changes, they must have entered into a language after this sound change occured.Let me point out that the comparative method has not only been successfully used for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European, but also for other language families, and it works every single time.

I am surprised how fast you have jumped to conclusions about my "large number of misconceptions", and "surprisely" not explaining what are those misconceptions. I would say that you have a huge misconception about my knowledge. Let me make myself more clear. In the five series of stops:
Labial: p b bh
Dental: t d dh
Palatal: k' g' gh'
Velar: k g gh
Labiovelar: kw gw ghw

no one knows for certain that these were the actual phonetical values.
Secondly, why in the generic root the vowel is usually *e?
Why this generic root is supposed to contain, only two consonants from the voiced column, and why the voiced aspirated consonant presence excludes the voiceless one in the structure and vice-verca?
Then why the c-v-c structure, has to be the predominant one, meanwhile is more reasonable that such a structure to be a development of c-v one, and this last one must be the initial one?
If you are able to answer the above question, then you can have a debate with me.

 

[Zeus10]

I'll ask you something: would the Albanian word for "tooth" derive from the word for "to hurt"?

Why you are asking me this, when I already suggested the answer?

The examples I have given clearly show that there is a regular correspondence between Albanian "dh" and the Proto-Indo-European sounds *g´ and *g´h (which Proto-Albanian must have merged at one stage), and that this perfectly corresponds with sounds in other Indo-European languages (notably *g´ is reflected as *k in Germanic, *g in Celtic, Greek and Latin, and *z in many Satem languages).

How could a phonetical evolution be so "weird" to give a dental stop as a product of a velar one? Who did suggest that, you?

There is no "secret knowledge" about the Albanian language.

No of course, but Albanian is one of the few, not saying the only Europian language, which shaped its phonetical system and its lexicon in the family hearth, otherwise from other "strong" languages, which are cleary inherited through scholasticism, and they were invented, developed and used by the theocrats on the first place.

The idea that Centum and Satem represents an early split is probably wrong, but the description that an Indo-European language is a "Centum" or "Satem" language is accurate nontheless.

That is just a political division. Just to remind you what Bradke elucidated

a division between eastern and western cultural provinces

Yes, the Albanian language possesses velars, but that doesn't make it a Centum language. The Baltic, Slavic and Indo-Iranic languages also all possess velars, that doesn't make them Centum. The question is, how do the sounds in one language correspond to sounds in other languages.

Don't play dumb with me. You know very well that I am talking about the velars used on the word 'hundred'

I actually am glad that you bring up the example of French, because it is indeed a language that has (at a later point) developed what appears at first glance to be Satem-like features. The best example is the French word for "dog", "chien" (pronounced "ʃjɛ:"). If you however look at the word in other Romance languages (Portuguese "cão", Spanish "can", Italian "cane", Romanian "câine"), and most importantly Latin ("canis"), then it's clear that this development of *k > *ʃ is a unique development French.

This gets clearer if you compare this with words for "dog" in other Indo-European branches:

Celtic:
- Irish "cún"
- Welsh "ci"

Germanic:
- English "hound"
- German "Hund".
- Icelandic "hundur"

- Greek: "kyon"

Baltic:
- Latvian "suns"
- Lithuanian "šuo"

- Armenian: "shun"

Indo-Iranic:
- Sanskrit "sva".
- Albanian "qen"

You yourself proved that Albanian can not qualify as Satem language but as Centum one, but then:

If you compare this, it is pretty clear that Albanian "qen" must be a loanword

trying to escape the truth, you came up with the"rescue boat" of the "loanword". What does it make "pretty clear", that Albanians had to wait for stangers arrival, to create the term for their dogs?

 

[Zeus10]

I can not post links before 10 posts, can you change this to 4?

 

[Yetos]

How could a phonetical evolution be so "weird" to give a dental stop as a product of a velar one? Who did suggest that, you?



No of course, but Albanian is one of the few, not saying the only Europian language, which shaped its phonetical system and its lexicon in the family hearth, otherwise from other "strong" languages, which are cleary inherited through scholasticism, and they were invented, developed and used by the theocrats on the first place.

if you reject this then you reject the whole of IE languages, and surely you put the Albanian outside of IE languages,

Grim's law describe how the inheritage from PIE was done, either by family heart as you say, either by scholasticism.

Albanian language of today has the lowest IE words, and if you exclude Grim's law then surely you claim that Albanian is not IE language,

by accepting Grim's law you can find how Albanian should be as a early proto-form, how the inheritage was transfered from PIE.


Inner laws of a language were developed after the tranformation of IE to a modern language (Grim's law)


Grim's law are based in asspirations and sometimes may give words that sound strange to a modern language, that is because inner sound laws of a language enter after the change laws from PIE to the certian language


so if a word that does follow Grim's law and inner sound laws its a loan.

 

[Taranis]

I am surprised how fast you have jumped to conclusions about my "large number of misconceptions", and "surprisely" not explaining what are those misconceptions. I would say that you have a huge misconception about my knowledge. Let me make myself more clear. In the five series of stops:

Labial: p b bh
Dental: t d dh
Palatal: k' g' gh'
Velar: k g gh
Labiovelar: kw gw ghw

no one knows for certain that these were the actual phonetical values.
Secondly, why in the generic root the vowel is usually *e?
Why this generic root is supposed to contain, only two consonants from the voiced column, and why the voiced aspirated consonant presence excludes the voiceless one in the structure and vice-verca?
Then why the c-v-c structure, has to be the predominant one, meanwhile is more reasonable that such a structure to be a development of c-v one, and this last one must be the initial one?
If you are able to answer the above question, then you can have a debate with me.

I agree that we do not know if these really were the actual phonetic values. There are some other possibilies, for instance what is often suggested is that the palatovelars were actually plains velars and that the series normally reconstructed as plain velars was actually uvular. The Glottalic Theory poses that the voiced series was actually one of ejective stops.

Since evidently, Proto-Indo-European was spoken long before being recorded, we do not know which scenario for reconstruction is correct. But, no matter which scenario we use we must justify how we end up with the respective reflexes in the daughter languages.

As for syllable structure, let me pick a different example: why does for instance Basque have so many words with a VCV structure? We do not know. Conjecturally, I would say it has something to do with the prehistory of the language.

Since you evidently seem to know more than you claim, I'd like to ask you how you would reconstruct PIE instead, and I'd like to hear the arguments that you bring forth to justify it.

Why you are asking me this, when I already suggested the answer?

Because to me, it doesn't make sense semantically for the word "tooth" to derive from the word for "to hurt"?

How could a phonetical evolution be so "weird" to give a dental stop as a product of a velar one? Who did suggest that, you?

Last time I checked, it's a dental fricative, rather then a dental stop.

No of course, but Albanian is one of the few, not saying the only Europian language, which shaped its phonetical system and its lexicon in the family hearth, otherwise from other "strong" languages, which are cleary inherited through scholasticism, and they were invented, developed and used by the theocrats on the first place.

I do not know why you keep insisting on this. If you mean by that statement that Albanian was comparably longer an illiterate language, and even longer a language with no standard orthography, then yes. But the idea that other European languages are, as you put it, "invented", because of a long literacy tradition is, in my opinion a quite flimsy argument. As an example, how would a medieval scholar, who's primary literature language is Latin, be able to affect the every-day language of a German peasant? Would you also claim that languages like Hebrew and Arabic which have a strong literacy traditions are "invented"? The latter is particularly interesting because if you look at modern Arabic dialects it's very clear that they have their own developments - independent from the written standard.

But, we can circumvene a lot of confusion here by asking you one simple question: do you believe the Neogrammarian Hypothesis to be accurate?

That is just a political division. Just to remind you what Bradke elucidated

a division between eastern and western cultural provinces

No, I don't think that this is necessarily accurate. I do think however that the "Centum"/"Satem" concept is very useful in describing an Indo-European language, simply by the merit of wether the palatovelars are reflected as plain velars or as fricatives in the respective daughter branch.

Don't play dumb with me. You know very well that I am talking about the velars used on the word 'hundred'

I'm not playing dumb with you. The textbook example for the Centum/Satem split is the word "hundred" (after which, atfer all, it is named), but my point is that there's many other examples that you can pick to show wether an Indo-European language can be described as "Centum" or "Satem".

You yourself proved that Albanian can not qualify as Satem language but as Centum one, but then:

trying to escape the truth, you came up with the"rescue boat" of the "loanword". What does it make "pretty clear", that Albanians had to wait for stangers arrival, to create the term for their dogs?

Well, I'm not actually escaping any truth here: nobody said that the Albanian language did not have a different ("native", if you will, in the sense of "native to the language") word for "dog". It merely got replaced by the Latin loanword. In a very similar fashion, English has replaced many "native" Germanic words in it's vocabulary with Latin and Romance ones.

I also disagree on your notion that Albanian "cannot" be a Satem language because as I've demonstrated before (and I'm very willing to demonstrate again), the palatovelars are regularly reflected as dental fricatives into Albanian.

I can not post links before 10 posts, can you change this to 4?

I'm sorry for any potential inconvinience, but it's a precaution that the admin installed against potential spammers.

 

[Taranis]

if you reject this then you reject the whole of IE languages, and surely you put the Albanian outside of IE languages,

Grim's law describe how the inheritage from PIE was done, either by family heart as you say, either by scholasticism.

Albanian language of today has the lowest IE words, and if you exclude Grim's law then surely you claim that Albanian is not IE language,

by accepting Grim's law you can find how Albanian should be as a early proto-form, how the inheritage was transfered from PIE.


Inner laws of a language were developed after the tranformation of IE to a modern language (Grim's law)


Grim's law are based in asspirations and sometimes may give words that sound strange to a modern language, that is because inner sound laws of a language enter after the change laws from PIE to the certian language


so if a word that does follow Grim's law and inner sound laws its a loan.

Yetos no, you're confusing the concept of sound laws as a whole with Grimm's Law. Grimm's Law merely describes how Proto-Germanic sound correspond with Proto-Indo-European ones. It is not relevant for any other branch of Indo-European, but obviously there are sound laws relevant for the various Indo-European branches. Besides, Zeus made no such other claims about the nature of the Albanian language.

 

[Zeus10]

if you reject this then you reject the whole of IE languages, and surely you put the Albanian outside of IE languages, Grim's law describe how the inheritage from PIE was done, either by family heart as you say, either by scholasticism.Albanian language of today has the lowest IE words, and if you exclude Grim's law then surely you claim that Albanian is not IE language, by accepting Grim's law you can find how Albanian should be as a early proto-form, how the inheritage was transfered from PIE.Inner laws of a language were developed after the tranformation of IE to a modern language (Grim's law)Grim's law are based in asspirations and sometimes may give words that sound strange to a modern language, that is because inner sound laws of a language enter after the change laws from PIE to the certian languageso if a word that does follow Grim's law and inner sound laws its a loan.

Totally wrong there. Grimm's law is applied in early Germanic sound shift ONLY.