17 Albanian (Handbuch der Südosteuropa-Linguistik).pdf

Xhevat LLOSHI, Prof. Doctor of Linguistics

ALBANIAN

1. Denomination 6. Dialects

2. Extension 7. Structure

3. Character of the language 8. Vocabulary

4. Origin

9. The written language

5. Periodization

10. The controversy

1. Denomination.

The Albanians of today call themselves shqiptarë, their country Shqipëri, and their language

shqipe. These terms came into use at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th

century.

Foreigners call them albanesi (It.), Albaner (Germ.), Albanians (Engl.), Alvanos

(Gr.), Arbanasi (old Serb.), the country Albania, Albanie, Albanien, Alvania, and

Albanija, and the language albanese, Albanisch, Albanian, alvaniki, and arbanashki

respectively. All these words are derived from the name Albanoi of an Illyrian tribe and their

center Albanopolis, noted by the astronomer of Alexandria, Ptolemy, in the 2nd century.

Alban could be a plural of alb-/arb-, denoting the inhabitants of the plains (ÇABEJ 1976).

The name passed over the boundaries of the Illyrian tribe in Central Albania, and was

generalized for all the Albanians. They called themselves arbënesh/arbëresh, the country

Arbëni/Arbëri, and the language arbëneshe/arbëreshe.

In the foreign languages, the Middle Ages denominations of these names survived,

but for the Albanians they were substituted by shqiptarë, Shqipëri and shqipe. The primary

root is the adverb shqip, meaning "clearly, intelligibly". There is a very close semantic

parallel to this in the German noun Deutsche ‘ the Germans’ and ‘the German language’

(LLOSHI 1984). Shqip spread out from the North to the South, and Shqipni/Shqipëri is

probably a collective noun, following the common pattern of Arbëni/Arbëri. The change

happened after the Ottoman conquest, because of the conflict in the whole line of the

political, social, economic, religious, and cultural spheres with a totally alien world of the

Oriental type. A new and more generalized ethnic and linguistic consciousness of all these

people responded to this, distinguished against the foreigners as a community of men

( shqiptarë) clearly understanding each-other, that is understanding each-other shqip. This

adverb predominates in everyday use, the noun shqipe and the collocation gjuha shqipe

are a recent written coinage.

There is nothing scientific in explaining Shqipëri as "the country of the eagle" and

shqiptarë as "the sons of the eagle".

2. Extension.

The Albanian language is spoken by more than seven million people, of whom about three

and a half million live within the frontiers of the Republic of Albania, more than two million

live in Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro, and the rest in other countries - principally in

Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the USA, and Switzerland. These figures are relative

because of the strong flow of emigration from Albania and Kosova in the last decades of the

twentieth century.

Historically, however, some distinctions must be made:

a. The Albanian area - includes all the territories of Albania and the adjacent

zones in Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro, and North-West Greece, where the Albanian

language has been uninterruptedly spoken from the ancient times. The dialectal division of

this language is applied over this area, and this is the historical territory, in which the

evolution of this language as an entity through its different periods took place.

b. The Diaspora - includes the Albanians that emigrated up to the end of the

Middle Albanian period (no later than the beginning of the 18th century). As a result, they

don't call themselves the modern name shqiptarë.

The Italian-Albanians, whose mass emigration goes back to the 15th century, call

themselve s arbëreshë , and mostly live in southern Italy (Calabria and Sicily).

The Greek-Albanians, whose emigration goes back to the 14th century, call

themselves arbëreshë, but are called arvanites by the Greeks . They are settled on Ionian

coast line, in Peloponnesos, around Athens and on various Greek islands. They must be

distinguished from the Çam (Tscham), who belong to the Albanian area, although

arvanitika - the idiom of Arvanites - is closer to çamërishte as a South Tosk dialect.

Some small enclaves of the Albanian diaspora are in the former Yugoslavia, in

Bulgaria, and in the Ukraine.

The Albanian idiom of diaspora represents an historical dialect, evolving in a

bilingual situation and without direct connection with the Albanian area. Only in the second

half of the 20th century the written variants of diaspora were oriented to Standard Albanian.

c. The Colonies - include the Albanians who settled in foreign countries beginning

from the 18th century, already speaking New Albanian. The largest colonies were created in

Turkey, Romania, the United States, and Egypt. Their idiom is influenced by bilingualism.

d. The Emigrants – include those speaking contemporary Albanian and also those

educated in Standard Albanian. Massive emigrations of Albanians occurred beginning

before the World War I due to the political conflicts, and further occurred especially in the

last decade of the 20th century due to the cleansing policy and the oppression of the

Albanians in former Yugoslavia, and to the fall of communism in Albania.

3. Character of the language.

The Albanian language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages ; it forms

an independent branch of its own within this family. The identification of the Albanian as

Indo-European was not established until relatively late by F. BOPP (1854). The details of

the main correspondences of Albanian with Indo-European languages were elaborated by

G. MEYER in the 1880s and 1890s. Through his work it has been accepted that Albanian,

because of some earlier phonetical changes, like the reflection in a of the short I.E. o,

pertains to the Northern European group of languages and is distinct from Greek and from

Italic languages in the reflecting of the palatal tectals. There have been evidence of ancient

lexical correspondences between Albanian and the Balto-Slavonic languages, as well as

Greek, Armenian etc., and particularly between Albanian and Romanian.

Further linguistic refinement were presented by H. PEDERSEN and N. JOKL.

PEDERSEN (1900) acknowledged that the three ancient tectal series were differently

reflected in Albanian, and on this basis Albanian is included to the group of satem

languages, but with some particular developments of its own. It may be considered

pertaining to a transitional zone of the central Indo-European area, like the Balto-Slavonic

languages and Armenian. Relevant Indo-European features of Albanian are the

preservation of the poly-valence of its declension and conjugation endings, apophonic and

suppletive verbal forms and stems.

The Indo-European character of the Albanian is to be observed in all its subsystems

(DEMIRAJ 1986, 1988). Inherited elements in its vocabulary have been preserved, e.g. all

its numerals (with the exception of qind - hundred and mijë -thousand from Latin) are of

Indo-European heritage. In the compound numerals of the type tridhjetë, pesëdhjetë

(‘thirty’, ‘fifty’) Albanian has preserved the Indo-European model ( njëzet ‘twenty’ and

dyzet ‘forty’ belong to the specific vigesimal system). The personal and demonstrative

pronouns are generally of Indo-European origin. Ancient changes have been rendered

evident, such as in the pre-historic evolution of o > a in natë (‘night’); a > o in motër

(‘sister’, the ancient meaning: ‘mother’), and the long e > o in tetë (‘eight’). There are traces

of the ancient inherited opposition of long vs. short vowels, etc.

In the course of its evolution, the Indo-European heritage of the Albanian has

undergone a continuous evolution, and this language has also developed several new

traits, some of which are not encountered elsewhere. In historical times other changes were

produced in Albanian inherited elements: the transformation of the ancient three-gender

system into a two-gender one, and newly created verbal endings continue to be polysemic.

Among the general innovations, that have taken place in Albanian, the following ones could

be mentioned:

- morphonologic alternations e/ie ~ i (hedh - hidhni ‘ I throw - you throw’), metaphony

( dash – desh ‘ram – rams’, dal - del ‘I go out - he goes out’), apophony ( e/ie ~ o :

mbledh - mblodha ‘I gather - I gathered’; a ~ o : marr - mora ‘I take - I took’),

diphthongization of o ( ftoi - ftua ‘quince - the quince’), palatalization of the stem final

consonants in the plural of numerous nouns ( breg - brigje ‘shore- shores’, zog - zogj

‘bird – birds’);

- creation of a particular plural stem opposed to that of the regular ( prind – prindër

‘parent – parents’);

- creation of a double (indefinite - definite) declension;

- the prepositive derivational and inflexional particles with adjectives, numerals and ordinal

numbers, kinship nouns, and genitive forms;

- agglutinated possessive pronouns for 1st and 2nd persons;

- re-organization of the non-active conjugation and the coining of the analytic non-finite

forms of the verbs ( me punue, pa punuar ‘to work, without working’);

- in the syntax: the bound determinatives are placed after the noun, whereas the

unbound determinatives are regularly placed before the noun.

As a consequence of its gradual evolution, Albanian has been transformed from a

formerly synthetic to a synthetic-analytical language.

After K. SANDFELD's Linguistique balkanique (1930), Albanian is considered

an important member of the Balkan Sprachbund. As the main balkanisms , the Balkan

features, of Albanian that could be listed are:

- the postposition of the definite article, a manifestation of the ancient tendency of

this language to place all the bound determinatives after the noun;

- uniformity of the genitive and dative cases;

- redoubling of the direct and direct objects through the unstressed forms of the personal

pronouns;

- disappearance of the infinitive, substituted by subjunctive forms or analytical forms;

- the future tense formed by means of the auxiliary dua (I will) in the form of a particle do

+ subjunctive.

Thus, Albanian is to be characterized as a Balkan Indo-European language.

In the Balkan area Albanian has been exposed to external influences. Despite the

powerful pressures on the part of Greek, Latin, Slavonic and Turkish, the Albanian

language has preserved its essential features. As summarized by prof. SH. DEMIRAJ

(1988), "Albanian can be characterized as an Indo-European language which has followed a

course of evolution of its own even in those cases, when it manifests concordances with

some of other Indo-European languages".

4. Origin .

Among Albanian language scholars there is practically no dispute over the thesis that

Albanian is related to Illyrian: Albanian is a direct descendant of a south-west group of

Illyrian dialects. However, there have been other hypotheses proposed, among which the

following merit to be mentioned.

a. The Pelasgian hypothesis. Albanian is the continuation of the language of an

ancient people called Pelasgians, a hypothesis rather diffused in the 19th century. J.G. von

HAHN (1854) formulated in a strict manner the hypothesis that the Albanians are direct

descendants of the Illyrians, Macedonians, and Epirotes, and that in the remotest times they

formed a united race together with the Latins and the Hellenes called Pelasgians, with their

language, the Pelasgian. A. SCHLEICHER gave full authority to this theory of Pelasgian

origin with his family tree of languages. Today this is considered a groundless idea.

b. The Thracian (Dacian) hypothesis. Albanian is the continuation of the

Thracian language. This thesis, implying an Albanian-Rumanian symbiosis, is supported by

students of Rumanian: H. HIRT, K. PAUL, G. WEIGAND, H. BARIC, I. POPOVIC, and

I. I. RUSSU. Only scant remains of Thracian exist, but HIRT saw Albanians as descendants

of the Thracians. This means that in the early Middle Ages the Albanians moved westward

from the central part of the Balkans, but there are no historical records of such a massive

migration. To BARIC Albanian is an Illyricized Thracian dialect.

c. The Illyrian-Thracian hypothesis. Albanian is derived from a mixture of

Illyrian and Thracian. N. JOKL supported the idea of an intermediate position between

Illyrian and Thracian. However, Thracian is not better known than Illyrian, and it is difficult

to distinguish their specific elements, or to trace a dividing line between Illyrian and Thracian.

For JOKL the Albanians are probably the descendants of the Illyrian tribe of Dardanians,

living in the interior of the Balkan peninsula, who migrated westward some time in the late

Roman period.

d. The Daco-Moesian hypothesis is sustained by the Bulgarian academician V.

GEORGIEV.

e. The independent hypothesis. H. KRAHE affirms that Albanian presents an

independent Indo-European language. The vast work of Prof. E. ÇABEJ on Albanian

etymology (1976), an unrivaled synthesis of everything known in this field, refers to remote

periods of Albanian as an Indo-European language, without considering the Illyrian

language. Following a strict method, the Albanian etymologies would go back to Illyrian

forms, which in turn would be traced back to Indo-European roots, like the Italian

etymologies going back to Latin forms. E. HAMP (1972) states: "Albanian shows no

obvious close affinity to any other Indo-European language; it is plainly the sole modern

survivor of its own subgroup".

The whole question of origin is closely connected to the question of the area where

the Albanian was formed, and of the place where its transformation ocurred. It is not by

chance that the Illyrian origin of Albanian was suggested on a historical base by H.E.

THUNMANN in 1774. Archeological finds of our days substantiate the theory of the

autochthony of the Albanians, and the supporters of the Illyrian origin theory comprise many

historians. The continuity of the same material culture on the same territory is a proven fact,

but the linguistic argumentation is not very substantial.

The Illyrian language is only known from certain words reported by ancient writers,

from a few rare inscriptions and, to a gretaer extent, from surviving names of persons and

places. Despite remarkable studies by H. KRAHE, A. RIBEZZO, A. MAYER, and others,

the question of the place that the Illyrian occupies in the Indo-European family is still

debatable. Most German, Austrian and Italian historians and linguists, such as: G. MEYER,

F. MIKLOSISCH, H. PEDERSEN, P. KRETSCHMER, V. PISANI, W.

CIMOCHOWSKI, and others have supported the Illyrian kinship of the Albanian.

Albanian linguists in general - E. ÇABEJ, S. RIZA, M. CAMAJ, SH. DEMIRAJ,

M. DOMI, A. KOSTALLARI - advocate the Albanians’ autochthony and the Illyrian

filiation of the Albanian language. Albanian was formed through the gradual evolution of a

group of south-western Illyrian dialects during the period between the final stage of the

intensive influence of Latin upon Illyrian and the arrival of the Slavs. This rather long and

complicated process occurred in the first centuries A.D. The linguistic arguments put

forward by the opposers of the Illyrian origin of Albanian cannot resist criticism. SH.

DEMIRAJ (1988): "The Albanian language was formed precisely in the regions of the

eastern Adriatic and Ionian seas inhabited in ancient times mostly by Illyrian tribes".

5. Periodization.

Different schemes for the periodization of the Albanian language have been proposed, based

on various linguistic and historical criteria: H. PEDERSEN, E. ÇABEJ, S. RIZA, A.V.

DESNITSKAJA, B. BOKSHI, XH. LLOSHI, SH. DEMIRAJ. The problem becomes

very complex with regard to various hypotheses on the origin of this language. If we take a

stance for an independent origin, then the proto-Albanian would have a period of archaic

Albanian , which would serve as the first ring of a periodization. Otherwise, the proto-

Albanian would have to be identified with Illyrian, Illyrian-Thracian, etc. In these

circumstances, the most acceptable solution would be a periodization beginning with the first

centuries of the New Era.

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: