Albanian alphabet

The modern Albanian alphabet is a Latin alphabet, and consists of 36 letters:

Note: The vowels are shown in bold.  Listen  to the pronunciation of the letters.

The earliest mention of Albanian writings describes them "'Licet Albanenses aliam omnino linguam a latina habeant et diversam, tamen litteram latinam habent in uso et in omnibus suis libris' (The Albanians indeed have a language quite different from Latin. However, they use Latin letters in all their books)."

The history of the later 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 Monastir held by Albanian intellectuals from November 14 to 22 November 1908, in Monastir (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" (English: The Albanians indeed have a language quite different from Latin, however they use Latin letters in all their books).

The earliest document discovered so far that is written in Albanian is a manuscript from 1210 by Theodor of Shkodra [4], presumably written in Latin characters.

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