Albanian language
Albanian or Shqip (ISO 639 codes alb/sqi, sq) is an Indo-European language spoken by some five million inhabitants of the western Balkan peninsula in the south-eastern Europe (Albanians). There are two principal dialects of limited mutual intelligibility: Tosk, spoken in southern and central Albania and among the Albanian minority of north-western Greece; and Gheg (or Geg), spoken in northern Albania and by the Albanians of Serbia and Montenegro (including the province of Kosovo) as well as those of the Republic of Macedonia. Albanian is thought by some to derive principally from the Illyrian languages spoken in the region two millennia ago, and forms part of no known wider sub-group within the Indo-European family. The oldest known Albanian printed book, Meshari [1] or missal, was written by Gjon Buzuku, a Catholic cleric, in 1555. The first Albanian school is believed to have been opened by Franciscans in 1638 in Pdhanë.The Albanian alphabet was based on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the letters ë, ç, and nine digraphs to account for certain sounds in pronunciations.
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2 See also 3 External links |
| letter | SAMPA - example | letter | SAMPA - example |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a - opera | n | n - gun |
| b | b - burn | nj | J - Spanish niña |
| c | ts - curtsy | o | O - opera |
| ç | tS - church | p | p - opera |
| d | d - dance | q | k_j - Spanish pronunciation of kaffir |
| dh | D - this | r | r - opera |
| e | E - opera | rr | rr - burrito |
| ë | @ - earl or allowed (ë is a schwa) | s | s - save |
| f | f - fight | sh | S - shun |
| g | g - gun | t | t - tell |
| gj | g-j - Spanish-speaker pronunciation of John | th | T - thought |
| h | h - hope | u | u - doom |
| i | i - is | v | v - victory |
| j | j - year | x | dz - adz |
| k | k - king | xh | dZ - jungle |
| l | 5 - long | y | y - French du jour |
| ll | l - tell | z | z - zone |
| m | m - mother | zh | Z - vision |
Note: all sounds in words used for comparison are those of the English language unless otherwise noted.
Albanians transliterate foreign words in their own way, even from the Latin alphabet; thus Josh McDowell is transliterated Xhosh Mekdauëll. Each sound is approximated by one or more of the 36 letters of the alphabet, therefore words are spelled as they sound.
