Albanian stands out among other Indo-European languages. It’s worth have a look at its characteristics not only because Albania was the most popular holiday destination for Polish people in 2021. Tourists from all over the world have started enjoying the intimate atmosphere of this country and almost 300 sunny days a year.
Roots and kinship
The modern Albanian language is spoken by around 7 million people, not only in Albania, but also among the Albanian diaspora all over the world, mainly in Kosovo, Serbia. Montenegro, Macedonia, but also in the United States, which is home to many Albanian-origin immigrants.
The Albanian language is considered quite ‘young’; its oldest written form dates back to the 15th century. Starting from the early 19th century, it is written using the Latin alphabet, whilst in the past Cyrillic and Arabic scripts were commonly used. This language is still tricky for scientists who are still examining it. Some claim that its roots are in the Illyrian language which was used by the ancient tribe of Illyrians. They inhabited the territory of today’s Balkans and South Italy.
The Albanian language is considered to be one of the ‘Balkan League’ languages together with Greek, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romanian, etc. Despite being a member of this league, Albanian is not cognate to them. Albanian is not a Slavic, nor Germanic nor Romance language; it is a part of a separate group of Indo-European languages and it’s a solo group of the Albanian language only. This language has some, but not many characteristics similar to other Indo-European origin ones, such as the lexis having its roots in Greek, Turkish and Romanian.
The interesting fact is that many Albanian words have their roots in Latin, but they are much deformed, that is why this fact will not help tourists to understand Albanian. An example showing how much the words are deformed is ‘mik’ which can be translated as ‘a friend’ (‘amica’ in Latin). Albanian has also few lexis with roots in Slavic languages. Numerous deformations and few Slavic borrowings hinder Polish-Albanian communication, that is why in the case of business contact it is definitely advisable to use professional translation, <a href=”https://www.atominium.com/en”>localization</a> and <a href=”https://www.atominium.com/en”>interpreting</a> services.
Characteristics
Albanian consists of 37 Latin alphabet characters, including 4 diagraphs. The tricky thing is that pronouncing 1 letter incorrectly changes the meaning of the whole sentence.
This language has 2 dialects – Tosk (the South of the country) and Gheg (the middle and the North of the country). There are not too many differences among them, but they are strongly connected with the traditions, ethnic origin and cultural values of the inhabitants of each region.
Society and culture
Today, young Albanians use more and more foreign languages, mainly English and Italian. Restaurants in towns frequently visited by tourists usually provide an English menu, which definitely makes life easier for non-Albanian speakers. This language unquestionably sounds very strange and exotic for Polish people.
Despite the language barrier, Albanians are very friendly and hospitable towards foreigners, and you can always count on their assistance. They often communicate using body language. They enjoy tasty food and their pace of life is slow, which makes Albania unarguably a perfect holiday destination.
In the case of business relations with Albania and the need of translation services, it is strongly advisable to contact a professional translation agency.
(translation M. K.)
