How does Geg? and Tosk Albanian sound to non-Albanian speakers

Johane Derite

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Here is Kosovo Albanian Geg? example from talkshow:

 
Here is Tosk talkshow example from Albania:

 
About the intonations, in the first video the man sounds Byzantine-Greek,even Russian,while the second,German-Italian.


These people try to be Michaelangelo, post some old folk speech.
 
Hello Johane.
For me, that am a native Portuguese speaker who understands very well Spanish, Galician, Italian and a bit of French , the first video sounds like Russian and the second one sounds like a British trying to spoke Russian because of the retroflex sound of the "r" .
This sound of retroflex "r" also exists in the Portuguese spoken in some inland regions of Brazil and is considered a hick accent.
Hugs :)
 
Hello Johane.
For me, that am a native Portuguese speaker who understands very well Spanish, Galician, Italian and a bit of French , the first video sounds like Russian and the second one sounds like a British trying to spoke Russian because of the retroflex sound of the "r" .
This sound of retroflex "r" also exists in the Portuguese spoken in some inland regions of Brazil and is considered a hick accent.
Hugs :)
I'm unable to listen to the second video but the fact that you spotted that typical "r" means that it's not Tosk at all but someone from Tirana speaking a predominantly Standardized Albanian.

Albanians from Kosovo (except Gjakova area), Macedonia, and Tosk Albanian (excluding Lab dialect) have the "strong r" while the others have both, strong and soft.

But I never understood how can Albanian be confused with Russian when they sound so different.
 
I'm unable to listen to the second video but the fact that you spotted that typical "r" means that it's not Tosk at all but someone from Tirana speaking a predominantly Standardized Albanian.

Albanians from Kosovo (except Gjakova area), Macedonia, and Tosk Albanian (excluding Lab dialect) have the "strong r" while the others have both, strong and soft.

But I never understood how can Albanian be confused with Russian when they sound so different.

The second link doesn't seem to allow embedding, but it works on youtube, just follow it to there
 
I'm unable to listen to the second video but the fact that you spotted that typical "r" means that it's not Tosk at all but someone from Tirana speaking a predominantly Standardized Albanian.

Albanians from Kosovo (except Gjakova area), Macedonia, and Tosk Albanian (excluding Lab dialect) have the "strong r" while the others have both, strong and soft.

But I never understood how can Albanian be confused with Russian when they sound so different.

Hi, Nik.
I think it's just a matter of phonetics.
Many people say that Portuguese spoken in portugal and Portuguese spoken in the city of Rio de Janeiro and in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, sounds like Russian or Polish because of the "s" that is pronounced with the sound of "sh" . For example, in Portugal and Rio de Janeiro it is said Portuguésh and not Portugués. Eshporte and not Esporte.
The Portuguese spoken in the rest of Brazil (for the most part) sounds softer because the vowels are pronounced very openly (vowel rhythm) and the "s" has a "s" sound and not a "sh" sound.
In Portugal we have predominantly the accentual rhythm, and not a vowel rhythm, as in Brazil. In Portugal, the vowels are very "stressed", practically swallowed up in many words, besides the exaggerated sound of the "s" pronounced with the sound of "sh".
In this sense, Portuguese spoken in Brazil is much more phonetically similar to the Spanish spoken in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia and Mexico, and to the Galician spoken in Galicia, Spain, and, in this sense, would hardly be confused, at least in a long distance, with the sound of Polish or Russian, as many Europeans say about the sonority of Portuguese spoken in Portugal.
The written form is identical in both Brazil and Portugal. The written form of the language was unified in 1990 through an orthographic agreement signed between the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
The unified spelling for Portuguese is used by all Portuguese-speaking countries. The agreement was also signed by official representatives from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinean, as well as observers from Galicia, Spain.

Hugs :)
 
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The second link doesn't seem to allow embedding, but it works on youtube, just follow it to there
Ok I watched the video and as I suspected from Duarte's comment both of them are not speaking Tosk at all.

They're both typical people from Tirana speaking in standard version for the TV and most likely speaking the Gheg (although with standard influences) version of Tirana with their family and friends.

Johane, you must be from Kosovo for not being able to differentiate.

I think it's just a matter of phonetics.
Many people say that Portuguese spoken in portugal and Portuguese spoken in the city of Rio de Janeiro and in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, sound like Russian or Polish because of the "s" that is pronounced with the sound of "sh" . For example, in Portugal and Rio de Janeiro it is said Portuguésh and not Portugués. Eshporte and not Esporte.
The Portuguese spoken in the rest of Brazil (for the most part) sounds softer because the vowels are pronounced very openly (vowel rhythm) and the "s" has a "s" sound and not a "sh" sound.
In Portugal we have predominantly the accentual rhythm, and not a vowel rhythm, as in Brazil. In Portugal, the vowels are very "stressed", practically swallowed up in many words, besides the exaggerated sound of the "s" pronounced with the sound of "sh".
In this sense, Portuguese spoken in Brazil is much more phonetically similar to the Spanish spoken in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia and Mexico, and to the Galician spoken in Galicia, Spain, and, in this sense, would hardly be confused, at least in a long distance, with the sound of Polish or Russian, as many Europeans say about the sonority of Portuguese spoken in Portugal.
The written form is identical in both Brazil and Portugal. The written form of the language was unified in 1990 through an orthographic agreement signed between the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
The unified spelling for Portuguese is used by all Portuguese-speaking countries. The agreement was also signed by official representatives from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinean, as well as observers from Galicia, Spain.

Hugs :)

I do agree that if I'm sitting on the next table from Portuguese speakers it does sound Slavic even though I'm starting to understand Portuguese due to travelling to Brazil often and being around Portuguese speaking colleagues. Obviously that's because I speak Italian and Spanish.

But Albanian sounds nothing like Russian.
 
The first one sounds like a German trying to speak Portuguese. The second sounds like an Italian-Greek mix.
 
In the second video they speak in Standard Albanian.
 
Ok I watched the video and as I suspected from Duarte's comment both of them are not speaking Tosk at all.

They're both typical people from Tirana speaking in standard version for the TV and most likely speaking the Gheg (although with standard influences) version of Tirana with their family and friends.

Johane, you must be from Kosovo for not being able to differentiate.


I do agree that if I'm sitting on the next table from Portuguese speakers it does sound Slavic even though I'm starting to understand Portuguese due to travelling to Brazil often and being around Portuguese speaking colleagues. Obviously that's because I speak Italian and Spanish.

But Albanian sounds nothing like Russian.

There are no Gege features in Elsa Demo's speech. The Enverist Standardised Albanian is a Tosk dialect, it does not have Gege features apart from the occasional "vocabulary" which anyway is altered to fit the Tosk.

Maybe the guy she is interviewing has a bit of a subtle tendency, but not Elsa Demo.

There is no infinitive being used, there are no nasal vowels, all the N-s are rhotacised, etc, its entirely Tosk aka standard.

Its not a permet Dialect, but it is Tosk, and in no way is it Gege at all. If they are speaking Gege in private, that says nothing about this interview as an example of Tosk. The Gege interview as an example is also influenced by the Standard and is not how its spoken in villages by old folk, but its Gege.

If you want more extreme examples I already posted a link to the dialect map for all the dialects from the most gege to the most tosk, spoken by villagers, not influenced by the standard.
 
IMO all Albanian dialects I have heard sound pretty unique, they don't sound much like any other language. If I have to found the closest counterparts to compare it to foreign languages, the first video (Geg from Kosovo) sounds vaguely like a mix of European Portuguese and some Slavic language (probably not Russian, it's not palatalized enough, more like some South Slavic, like Serbo-Croatian). The second one sounds a bit like a mix of English, Italian and Romanian.
 
There are no Gege features in Elsa Demo's speech. The Enverist Standardised Albanian is a Tosk dialect, it does not have Gege features apart from the occasional "vocabulary" which anyway is altered to fit the Tosk.

Maybe the guy she is interviewing has a bit of a subtle tendency, but not Elsa Demo.

There is no infinitive being used, there are no nasal vowels, all the N-s are rhotacised, etc, its entirely Tosk aka standard.

Its not a permet Dialect, but it is Tosk, and in no way is it Gege at all. If they are speaking Gege in private, that says nothing about this interview as an example of Tosk. The Gege interview as an example is also influenced by the Standard and is not how its spoken in villages by old folk, but its Gege.

If you want more extreme examples I already posted a link to the dialect map for all the dialects from the most gege to the most tosk, spoken by villagers, not influenced by the standard.
As I suspected, you're from Kosovo.

The analysis of their speech is correct, but off topic nevertheless. We all know that Standard is based on Tosk, yet it's not Tosk they're speaking but Standard.

Tosks can speak Standard too, yet we (from Albania) can spot their Tosk accents whereas the 2 people in the video have Tirana accents, and their original Tirana dialect is Gheg.

This is Vlora (Tosk) dialect:

This is Malesor (Montenegro) from 1:35
 

The man with tattoos on the head speak Korça dialect. Meanwhile the other two actors speak in Berati dialect. Both Tosk dialects.
 
They sound complete weird to me but the 1rst albanian sounds a bit like polish. And sometimes italian like.

The tosk sounds more closer to some latin type language, at least based on how the sounds felt ( maybe greek?). I have no idea
Maybe

Granted polish and balkan languages are alien to my ears. I know nothing really about them except the words albanoi, and shqiptar
 

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