Their characteristics in the treatment of both native words and loanwords indicate the dialectal split occurred after Christianisation of the region (4th century AD), likely after 700 AD but before 1000 AD, with the historic boundary between Gheg and Tosk being the Shkumbin, which straddled the Jireček line. The two main Albanian dialect groups (or varieties), Gheg and Tosk, are primarily distinguished by phonological differences, with Gheg spoken to the north and Tosk spoken to the south of the Shkumbin river. Not enough is known of these languages to completely prove or disprove the various hypotheses. Alternative hypotheses hold that Albanian may have descended from Thracian or Daco-Moesian, other ancient languages spoken farther east than Illyrian. For more historical and geographical reasons than specifically linguistic ones, there are various modern historians and linguists who believe that the Albanian language may have descended from a southern Illyrian dialect spoken in much the same region in classical times. Albanian is considered to be the descendant of one of the Paleo-Balkan languages of antiquity. This is one of the reasons why its still-unknown origin has long been a matter of dispute among linguists and historians. įirst attested in the 15th century, it is the last Indo-European branch to appear in written records. With about 7.5 million speakers, it comprises an independent branch within the Indo-European languages and is not closely related to any other Indo-European language. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.Īlbanian ( endonym: shqip or gjuha shqipe ) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and the Albanian diaspora in the Americas, Europe and Oceania.

Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. (The map does not indicate where the language is majority or minority.) Map of dialects of the Albanian language.

Albanian to english