Albanian  
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  • An Indo-European language.

  • Albanian is the only modern representative of a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family.

  • There are two principal dialects of limited mutual intelligibility: Tosk and Gheg. Tosk is spoken in southern and central Albania, by the Arbëreshë of Italy, among the Albanian minority of Greece: the Çam and the Arvanites, and in small communities of Albanian immigrants in Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, and United States. Gheg (or Geg) is spoken in northern Albania and by the Albanians of Serbia and Montenegro (including the province of Kosovo) as well as those of the Republic of Macedonia.

  • Albanian, in the Tosk dialect, is the official language of Albania. Albanian is also one of the official languages of Kosovo, and of the Republic of Macedonia.

  • The Albanian alphabet was based on the Latin alphabet, with the addition of the letters ë, ç, and nine digraphs to account for certain sounds in pronunciations.

  • The alphabet contains 29 consonants: B, C, Ç, D, Dh, F, G, Gj, H, J, K, L, Ll, M, N, Nj, P, Q, R, Rr, S, Sh, T, Th, V, X, Xh, Z, Zh.

  • The Albanian alphabet has seven vowels: A, E, Ë, I, O, U, Y.

  • Albanians transliterate foreign words in their own way, even from the Latin alphabet; thus Josh McDowell is transliterated Xhosh Mekdauëll. Each sound is approximated by one or more of the 36 letters of the alphabet, therefore words are spelled as they sound.

  • The oldest known Albanian printed book, Meshari or missal, was written by Gjon Buzuku, a Catholic cleric, in 1555. The first Albanian school is believed to have been opened by the Franciscans in 1638 in Pdhanë.

Online Dictionaries
Online Newspapers
Online and Satellite TV & Radio Stations
Other resources
  • Albanian Bible (HTMLBible, 2.7 MB) - The "HTML Bible" download contains the entire Bible with each chapter as a web page in a single Zipped file. These are plain ASCII text .htm files, suitable for almost any platform. To use, you must save and unzip the .zip file using PKUNZIP or Winzip, which you can get as evaluation copy from www.winzip.com
  • Albanian Bible (3.2 MB) - The "SpeedBible" download contains a single file that does not have to be unzipped, but requires that you save the file and open with Internet Explorer 4.0 or better to use. It is in the Microsoft "HTML Help" format, as used on MSDN. The "SpeedBible" has a search engine, Index, Table of Contents, and is good for a standalone PC.
  • BBC - Languages Across Europe - Albanian
  • Conversation Exchange - Practice another language by speaking to a native speaker.
  • Ethnologue report for Albania
  • Wikipedia in Albanian
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