Albanian alphabet

The modern Albanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and consists of 36 letters:

Note: The vowels are shown in bold. Listen (help·info) to the pronunciation of the letters.

History

The history of the Albanian alphabet is closely linked with the influence of religion among Albanians. The writers from the North of Albania used Latin letters under the influence of the Catholic Church, those from the South of Albania under the Greek Orthodox church used Greek letters, while others used Arabic letters under the influence of Islam. There were also attempts for an original Albanian alphabet in the period of 1750-1850. The current alphabet in use among Albanians is one of the two variants approved in the Congress of Manastir held by Albanian intellectuals from November 14 to 22 November 1908, in Manastir (Bitola, Macedonia).

A first reference for Latin letters was in a medieval Latin manuscript of 1332, possibly attributed to a monk called Brocardus Monacus or to one Guillaume Adam. In this manuscript there is a quoted phrase about the existence of books in Albania "licet Albanenses aliam omnino linguam a latina habeant et diversam, tamen litteram latinam habent in usu et in omnibus suis libris" (The Albanians indeed have a language quite different from Latin, however they use Latin letters in all their books). Though the reference to the existence of the Albanian language is clear, that to writing in Albanian is ambiguous. It cannot be said for certain whether the author meant books in Albanian language written with Latin letters or simply books written in Latin.

However the first certain document in Albanian "Formula e pagëzimit" (1462) (Baptesimal formula), issued by Pal Engjëlli, (1417-1470) was written in Latin characters. It was a simple phrase that was supposed to be used by the relatives of a dying person if they couldn't make it to churches during the troubled times of the Ottoman invasion.

Also, the five Albanian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Gjon Buzuku, Lekë Matrënga, Pjetër Budi, Frang Bardhi and Pjetër Bogdani) who form the core of early Albanian literature, all used Latin scripts for their Albanian books; this alphabet remained in use by writers in northern Albania until the beginning of the 20th century.

While the writers from the North with their Latin based alphabet began establishing an Albanian literature, this was not the case for the writers who used the Greek letters. Their activity consisted mostly in translating Greek Orthodox religious text and not in forming any kind of literature which could form a strong tradition for the use of Greek letters. As the Albanologist Robert Elsie has written:^[1]

The predominance of Greek as the language of Christian education and culture in southern Albania and the often hostile attitude of the Orthodox church to the spread of writing in Albanian made it impossible for an Albanian literature in Greek script to evolve. The Orthodox church, as the main vehicle of culture in the southern Balkans, while intent on spreading Christian education and values, was never convinced of the utility of writing in the vernacular as a means of converting the masses, as the Catholic church in northern Albania had been, to a certain extent, during the Counter-Reformation. Nor, with the exception of the ephemeral printing press in Voskopoja, did the southern Albanians ever have at their disposal publishing facilities like those available to the clerics and scholars of Catholic Albania in Venice and Dalmatia. As such, the Orthodox tradition in Albanian writing, a strong cultural heritage of scholarship and erudition, though one limited primarily to translations of religious texts and to the compilation of dictionaries, was to remain a flower which never really blossomed.

The turning point was the aftermath of the League of Prizren (1878) events when in 1879 Sami and Naim Frashëri formed the "Association for Albanian publications". They created an alphabet based on the principle "one sound one letter" (except for the rr digraph^{[dubious – discuss]}). This was called the "Istanbul alphabet" (also "Frashëri alphabet"). In 1905 this alphabet was in widespread use in all Albanian territory, North and South, including Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox areas.

The so-called Bashkimi alphabet was designed for being written on a French typewriter and includes no diacritics other than é (compared to ten graphemes of the Istanbul alphabet which were either non-Latin or had diacritics).

In the Congress of Manastir (Bitola) held by Albanian intellectuals in 1908, hosted by the Bashkimi ("unity") club Prominent delegates included Gjergj Fishta, Ndre Mjeda, Midhat Frashëri, Sotir Peci, Shahin Kolonja, and Gjergj D. Qiriazi. There was much debate and the contending alphabets were Istanbul, Bashkimi and Agimi. However, the Congress was unable to make a clear decision and opted for a compromise solution of using both the widely used Istanbul, with minor changes, and an modified version of the Bashkimi alphabet. Usage of the alphabet of Istanbul declined rapidly and it was essentially extinct over the following decades.

During 1909 and 1910 there were movements by Young Turks supporters to adopt an Arabic alphabet, as they considered the Latin-based alphabet to be un-Islamic. In Korçë and Gjirokastër, demonstrations took place favoring the Latin-based alphabet, and in Elbasan, Muslim clerics led a demonstration for the Arabic alphabet, telling their congregations that using the Latin alphabet would make them infidels. In 1911, the Young Turks dropped their opposition to the Latin-based alphabet; finally, the modified Bashkimi alphabet was adopted, and is still used today.

The modifications to the Bashkimi alphabet were made to include characters used in the Istanbul and Agimi alphabets. Ç was chosen over ch since c with cedilla could be found on every typewriter, given its extensive use in Romance languages. Other changes were more esthetic and as a way to combine the three scripts.

A second congress at Manastir (Bitola) was held on 21 March 1910, which confirmed the decision taken in the first congress of Manastir. After Albanian independence in 1912 there were two alphabets in use. Following the events of the Balkan wars and World War I, the Bashkimi variant dominated the terrain. The Bashkimi variant is at the origin of the official alphabet of the Albanian language in use today.

List of alphabets

The modern Latin-based Albanian alphabet is the result of long evolution. Before the creation of the unified alphabet, Albanian was written in six different alphabets, with several sub-variants:

• The Latin alphabet, using various conventions:
  • The oldest surviving Albanian document of the 15th century was written in the Latin alphabet. Early Albanian writers such as Gjon Buzuku, Pjetër Bogdani, Pjetër Budi, and Frang Bardhi also used a Latin-based script, adding Greek characters to represent extra sounds.
  • Evetor. In 1824, Naum Veqilharxhi generated a 33-letter Latin-based alphabet which was mainly used in southern Albania, dropping previous Greek and Arabic characters.
  • A Catholic alphabet used by Arbëreshë (Italo-Albanians).
  • The Istanbul alphabet, created by Sami Frashëri, combining Latin and Greek. This became widely used as it was also adopted by the Istanbul Society for the Printing of Albanian Writings, which in 1879 printed Alfabetare, the first Albanian abecedarium.
  • Bashkimi, developed by the Albanian literary society Bashkimi (Unity) in Shkodër with the help of Catholic clergy and Franciscans aiming at more simplicity than its forerunners. It used digraphs for unique sounds of the Albanian language. It resembles the current alphabet with the differences being the use of ch for ç, c for q, ts for c, é for e, e for ë, gh for gj, gn for nj, and z/zh have swapped places with x/xh.
  • Agimi, developed by the Agimi ("Dawn") Literary Society in 1901, and spearheaded by Ndre Mjeda. It made use of diacritcs instead of digraphs used by Bashkimi.
• The Greek alphabet; used to write Tosk starting in about 1500 (Elsie, 1991). The printing press at Voskopojë published several Albanian texts in Greek script during the 18th century. (Macrakis, 1996) The Greek-based modern Arvanitic alphabet is now only used in Greece.
• The Ottoman Turkish alphabet, favored by Muslims.
• The Elbasan script (18th century); locally used in central Albania. (Omniglot)
• The Beitha Kukju script (1840); another local script, named after its inventor. (Omniglot)
• The Cyrillic alphabet (Christophoridēs, 1872).
  • Albanians in Yugoslavia who were educated in Serbian schools only used Cyrillic letters to communicate in Albanian during the 20th century. However, this was restricted to vulgar usage only.

Keyboard Layouts

Windows XP default

The Albanian keyboard layout is German based (QWERTZ). The specific Albanian characters are directly accessible (ë, Ë, ç, Ç).

Prektora

A preferable alternative to the default one is Prektora, a (QWERTY) keyboard layout for Windows XP and Vista. (ë, Ë, ç, Ç, é, É, ô, Ô, â, Â)

JLG Extended Keyboard Layout

The JLG Extended Keyboard Layout is a layout working on a US keyboard layout. This layout allows to make all specific Albanian characters.

• ë = CTRL + " then e, or Alt + 137
• Ë = CTRL + " then E, or Alt + 0203
• ç = CTRL + , then c, or Alt + 135
• Ç = CTRL + , then C, or Alt + 128

Notes

1. ^ Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Birmingham, 15 (1991), p. 20-34.

See also

• Albanian language
• Alphabets derived from the Latin

References

• Van Christo, "The Long Struggle for the Albanian Alphabet", formerly available at [1]; archived at [2]. Christo in turn says "Much of the above material was excerpted or otherwise derived from Stavro Skendi's excellent book The Albanian National Awakening: 1878-1912, Princeton University Press, 1967".
• Robert Elsie, "Albanian Literature in Greek Script: the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Orthodox Tradition in Albanian Writing", Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 15:20 (1991) [3].
• Omniglot on Albanian
• Christophoridēs, Kōnstantinos, Psalteri, këthyem mbas ebraishtesë vietërë shqip ndë gegënishte prei Konstantinit Kristoforidit, Constantinople, 1872.
• Macrakis, Stavros M., "Character codes for Greek: Problems and modern solutions" in Macrakis, 1996. Includes discussion of the Greek alphabet used for languages other than Greek. [4]

External links

• Instalimi i tastierës shqipe me Windows XP
• Albanian alphabet on YouTube