Gheg Albanian

 ( Albanian Dialects ) 

After WWII, Yugoslavia planned to create a Kosovan language based on the Gheg dialect, in line with Tito's efforts to define nations through language. This was part of a push for union with Albania, but after the 1948 split between Stalin and Tito, the idea was abandoned.

With the warming of relations between Albania and Yugoslavia starting in the late 1960s, the Kosovo Albanians—the largest ethnic group in Kosovo—adopted the same standard in a process that began in 1968 and culminated with the appearance of the first unified Albanian orthographic handbook and dictionary in 1972. Although they had until then used Gheg and almost all Albanian writers in Yugoslavia were Ghegs, they chose to write in Tosk for political reasons.Pipa, p. 173: Although the Albanian population in Yugoslavia is almost exclusively Gheg, the Albanian writers there have chosen, for sheer political reasons, to write in Tosk

The change of literary language has had significant political and cultural consequences because the Albanian language is the main criterion for Albanian self identity. The standardization has been criticized, notably by the writer Arshi Pipa, who claimed that the move had deprived Albanian of its richness at the expense of the Ghegs. He referred to literary Albanian as a "monstrosity" produced by the Tosk communist leadership, who had conquered anti-communist northern Albania and imposed their own dialect on the Ghegs.

In 1974, Tosk-based standard Albanian became Kosovo’s official language, though Gheg remains the everyday dialect used by most Kosovo Albanians, while standard Albanian is taught in schools and used in media.

1. Durrës, which includes its surrounding villages and environs and municipal units of Ishëm and Shijak;
2. Tirana, including the surrounding villages and environs under the municipal units of Petrelë, Dajt, Vorë, Pezë, Ndroq, Zall-Herr, Zall-Bastar, Shëngjergj, Kavajë, and Rrogozhinë (the last two traditionally being grouped with the Durrës region);
3. Elbasan, including its surrounding villages and the settlements under the municipal units of Labinot-Mal, Labinot-Fushë, Bradashesh, Funarë, Krrabë, and Peqin (the last two regions generally speak dialects closer to that of the Durrës and Tirana region); and
4. Librazhd, including the surrounding settlements and those under the ethnographic regions and municipal units of Çermenikë, Qukës, Prrenjas, Hotolisht; and
5. Struga

Southern Gheg can be further broken down into two major groupings: Southwestern Gheg and Southeastern Gheg. The first group includes the dialects spoken in the regions of Durrës, Tirana, Kavajë and sections of Elbasan such as Peqin and the western villages of Krrabë. The latter group, on the other hand, is spoken in the regions of Elbasan, Librazhd, and Martanesh. The spoken dialects of Shëngjergj, in Tirana, and Krrabë, in Elbasan, act as transitional dialects between the two groups, although the former is closer to the Southwestern group and the eastern villages of the latter with the Southeastern group.

The dialects of Ishëm, Vorë, Zall-Herr, and Zall-Dajt represent the northernmost extensions of Southern Gheg (specifically Southwestern Gheg), and as such, they show direct influences from Central Gheg (spoken in neighbouring Krujë, Mat Municipality, and Bulqizë); thus they can be labelled as transitional dialects.

Certain settlements to the extreme south of the Southern Gheg dialect zone, which are included in the largely Southern Gheg-speaking units, speak transitional dialects depicting both characteristics of Gheg and Tosk Albanian. These include villages such as Dars in Peqin, the coastal villages of southernmost Kavajë, and a number of settlements in Qukës and Hotolisht.

According to linguists such as Jorgji Gjinari and Xhevat Lloshi, the Central Gheg dialect group represents a sub-group of the larger Southern Gheg zone.

• Northeastern Gheg include the Albanians of Bujanovac, Podujevo, Gjilan, Mitrovicë, Medvegjë, Preshevë, Pristina, Vushtrri, and the formerly Albanian-populated territories of Niš Sanjak (Niš, Vranje, Toplica District).Meniku, Linda (2008). Gheg Albanian Reader. Page 7
• Northwestern Gheg or often called as Prizren old dialect is mostly spoken in Prizren, (Shkodër, Shiroka, Vermosh, Selcë, Vukël, Lëpushë, Nikç, Tamarë, Tuzi, Shestani-Kraja, Ulcinj, Bar, Plav, Gusinje, Peja, Gjakova, Lezhë and the rest of Malësia)

• One isolated and particularly divergent NorthwesternMeniku (2008). Gheg Albanian Reader. Page 7 dialect: the Arbanasi dialect of Arbanasi peopleMatasović, Ranka (2012). "A Grammatical Sketch of Albanian for students of Indo-European". Page 42-43

The Italian linguist Carlo Tagliavini puts the Gheg of Kosovo and North Macedonia in Eastern Gheg.

The Northeastern Gheg dialectal area begins roughly down from the eastern Montenegrin-Albanian border, including the Albanian districts (Second-level administrative country subdivisions) of Tropojë, Pukë, Has District, Mirditë and Kukës; the whole of Kosovo, and the municipalities of Bujanovac and Preševo in Serbia. The tribes in Albania speaking the dialect include Nikaj-Merturi, Puka, Gashi, and Tropoja.

The Albanian speech in roughly around Skopje, Karadak, and Kumanovo in North Macedonia, is sometimes regarded part of Northeastern Gheg.

Calques of Serbian language are evident in the areas of syntax and morphology.Pipa, p. 56 The Northeastern Gheg slightly differs from Northwestern Gheg (spoken in Shkodër), as the pronunciation is deeper and more prolonged. Northeastern Gheg is considered to be the autonomous branch of Gheg AlbanianPipa, p. 57: Northern Gheg is divided vertically. Later this proved to be appropriate chiefly for methodological reasons, seeing that Eastern Gheg is considered to be an autonomous branch. in turn, the Northeastern Gheg dialects themselves differ greatly among themselves.Van Coetsem, Frans (1980), Contributions to Historical Linguistics: Issues and Materials, Brill Archive, . p. 274: "Northeastern Geg ... differed greatly among themselves"

The dialect is also split in a few other minority dialects, where the phoneme y of standard Albanian is pronounced as i, i.e. "ylberi" to "ilberi" (both meaning rainbow); "dy" to "di" (both meaning two). In Northeastern Gheg, the palatal stops of standard Albanian, such as c (as in q en , "dog") and ɟ (as in gjumë, "sleep"), are realised as palato-alveolar affricates, t͡ʃ and d͡ʒ respectively.Pipa, p. 59

The main contrast between Northwestern Gheg and Northeastern Gheg is the slight difference in the tone and or pronunciation of the respective dialects. Northwestern Gheg does not have the more deeper sounding a's, e's, etc. and is considered by some to sound slightly more soft and clear in tone compared to Northeastern Gheg, yet still spoken with a rough Gheg undertone compared to the Southern Albanian dialects. Other differences include different vocabulary, and the use of words like "kon" (been), and " qysh" (how?) which are used in Northeastern Gheg, and not often used in Northwestern Gheg. Instead Northwestern Gheg speakers say "kjen or ken" (been), and use the adverb "si" to say (how?). For example in Northeastern Gheg to say "when I was young", you would say, "kur jam kon i ri", while in Northwestern Gheg you would say " kur kam ken i ri, kur jam ken i ri.". Although there is a degree of variance, Northwestern Gheg and Northeastern Gheg are still very much similar, and speakers of both sub-dialects have no problem understanding and having a conversation with one another.

The early isolated Malsia Albanian has preserved archaic features of Proto-Albanian and Proto-Indo-European in comparison to other Gheg varieties and to Tosk, such as the word-initial voiceless and voiced stops. Whereas Tosk Albanian has homorganic nasal-stop clusters, having produced a shift from the proto form that featured a word-initial stop to a nasal-stop cluster, which was achieved by placing a prefix en- (< PAlb preposition *en 'in'). Gheg Albanian is in a transitional position, featuring nasals that resulted from reduced nasal-stop clusters.

Examples of the formation of nasal-stop clusters by placing the prefix en- with unstressed word-initial vowel are: Tosk mbuʃa 'to fill', from PAlb *e n- busa (vs. Malsia buʃa); Tosk ŋga 'where, from where', from PAlb *e n- ka (vs. Malsia ka); Tosk ŋgula 'to thrust, put on point', from PAlb *e n- kula (vs. Malsia ku:ʎ); Tosk ndej 'to stretch', from PAlb *e n- tenja (vs. Malsia tæ̃:n).

The PAlb preposition *en 'in' has been preserved solely in the Malsia Albanian dialect, whereas in the other Gheg varieties and in Tosk it has been reanalyzed as a prefix attached to other lexical terms, no longer existing as a preposition.

• Albanian dialects
• Arbëresh language
• Arvanitika
• Cham Albanian dialect

• (1984). 9780880330473 ISBN 9780880330473

• Albanian Etymology
• ISO Documentation