Tosks
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| Tosk Albanian | |
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The Tosks are one of two major ethnic subgroups of Albanians (the other being the Ghegs) differentiated by their cultural, linguistic, social and religious characteristics.
Tosk may refer to the Tosk-speaking Albanian population of southern Albania, subgroups of which include the Myzeqars of Myzeqe, Labs of Labëria (name version in Albanian: sing: Lab, pl. Lebër, also dial. sing.: Lap; Greek: Λιάπης, Liapis) and Chams of Çamëria. The Arvanites of Greece and Arbëreshë of Italy are, mainly, descendants of Tosk-speaking settlers, as are the original inhabitants of the village of Mandritsa in Bulgaria. The name Toskëria itself is often used to name entire Tosk-speaking parts of Albania, in contrast to northern Gegëria.
The Tosks in Albania live indicatively south of the Shkumbin river. This region is widely referred to from foreigners as Toskeria (alb. Toskëri) The Ottoman Turkish term, used during the times when Albania was included in the empire, was Toskalık which is derived from Turkish language and means, belonging to Tosks.
The Tosks speak Tosk Albanian, one of the two main Albanian dialects. The Albanian communist regime based the standard Albanian language mostly on Tosk Albanian. This practice has been criticized, notably by Arshi Pipa, who claimed that this decision deprived the Albanian language of its richness at the expense of the Ghegs, and referred to the literary Albanian language as a "monstrosity" produced by the Tosk communist leadership which conquered anti-Communist north Albania militarily, and imposed their Tosk Albanian dialect on the Ghegs. Although Albanian writers in former Yugoslavia were almost all Ghegs, they chose to write in Tosk for political reasons. This change of literary language has significant political and cultural consequences because the language is the main criterion for self-identification of the Albanians. Despite all efforts to unify Albanian language in some cases Ghegs from remote northern regions can not have conversation with Tosks from the further south.
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Wikipedia