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Albanian language

Albanian
Shqip
Pronunciation [ʃcip]
Native to Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Greece and Albanian diaspora
Native speakers
5.4 million (ca. 2011)
Indo-European
  • Albanian
Dialects
Latin (Albanian alphabet)
Albanian Braille
Official status
Official language in
 Albania
 Kosovo
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by Officially by the Social Sciences and Albanological Section of the Academy of Sciences of Albania
Language codes
ISO 639-1 sq
ISO 639-2  (B)
 (T)
ISO 639-3 inclusive code
Individual codes:
aae – Arbëreshë
aat – Arvanitika
aln – Gheg
als – Tosk
Glottolog alba1267
Linguasphere 55-AAA-aaa to 55-AAA-ahe (25 varieties)
Albanian dialects.svg
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Albanian (shqip [ʃcip] or gjuha shqipe [ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ], meaning Albanian language) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by over five million people, primarily in Albania, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Greece, but also in other areas of Southeastern Europe in which there is an Albanian population, including Montenegro and the Preševo Valley of Serbia. Centuries-old communities speaking Albanian-based dialects can be found scattered in Greece, Southern Italy,Sicily, and Ukraine. Due to the large Albanian diaspora, the total number of speakers is much higher than the native speakers in Southeast Europe.

The first written mention of the Albanian language was on 14 July 1284 in Dubrovnik (modern-day Croatia), when a certain Matthew, witness of a crime, stated "I heard a voice shouting on the mountainside in the Albanian tongue" (Latin: Audivi unam vocem, clamantem in monte in lingua albanesca). The first audio recording of Albanian was made by Norbert Jokl on 4 April 1914 in Vienna. During the five-century period of the Ottoman presence in Albania, the language was not officially recognized until 1909, when the Congress of Dibra decided that Albanian schools would finally be allowed.


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