Albanian, Tosk

Facts

Language: Albanian, Tosk
Alternate names: Tosk, Arnaut, Shkip, Shqip, Skchip, Shqiperë, Zhgabe
Language code: als
Language family: Indo-European, Classical Indo-European, Albanian, Albanian-Tosk
Number of speakers: 2980000
Script: Latin script

More information:

Introduction

Albanian is the primary language in Albania and Kosovo. Albanian in a revised form of the Tosk dialect is the official language in the Republic of Albania and an official written language in the Republic of Kosovo.

Albanian speaking areas on the Balkan Peninsula, Europe.

The Albanian language belongs to the eastern group of the Indo-European family, along with the Indo-Iranian languages, Balto-Slavonic languages and the Armenian language. It is the sole member of its group with two main subgroups: Tosk (ALN) and Cheg (ALS).

The verb

The active and medio-passive voices are present in Albanian verbal categories. The verb can have nine moods including indicative, subjunctive, conditional, optative, admirative, imperative, participial, infinitive and gerundive.

Tense morphology can be either synthetic resulting in eight tense categories: present, imperfect, aorist, perfect, pluperfect I, pluperfect II, future, and future perfect, with the last five being realized also in analytic form with the use of the auxiliary verbs ‘jam’ and ‘kam; (‘be’, ‘have’) and modal verbs such as ‘due’ and ‘mund’ (‘want’, ‘can’).

Person and number, marked in the conjugation, play an important role in verb morphology.

Sample verb: jam

Present

unë	jam
ti	je
ai	është
ne	jemi
ju	jeni
ata	janë

Verblist

to bite -- kafš-ɔy [kafshoj]
to burn -- dyɛg [djeg]
to come -- viy [vij]; ɛrða [erdha]
to die -- v=dɛs [vdes]
to eat -- ha [ha]
to fly -- flutuɾ-ɔy [fluturoj]
to give -- yap [jap]; ðaš-ǝ [dhashë]
to kill -- v=ɾas [vras]
to know -- di [di]
to lie -- štɾi-ɾǝ [shtrirë]
to say -- θɛ-m [them]
to see -- šɔh [shoh]; pa-šǝ [pashë]
to sit -- ri [rri]; ndɛy [ndej]
to sleep -- flɛ [fle]
to go -- šk-ɔy [shkoj]

References

Orel, Vladimir. A concise historical grammar of the Albanian language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian. Brill. Leiden Boston, 2000.
Weigand, Gustav. Albanesische Grammatik im südgegischen Dialekt. Johann Ambrosius Barth. Leipzig, 1913. [PDF]
Guerra, Paola et Spagnoli, Alberto. Dizionario Albanese. Avallardi. Milano, 2000.