Northeastern Gheg

Northeastern Gheg

      Northeastern Gheg
Native to Albania, Kosovo[a], Serbia, Macedonia
Ethnicity Albanians
Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog None

Northeastern Gheg, is a variant or sub-dialect of Gheg Albanian, the northern dialect, spoken in Northeastern Albania, Kosovo, and Serbia.

History and boundaries

Gheg Albanian is one of two dialectal groups of Albanian, the other being Tosk, with the two being divided by the Shkumbin river in central Albania.[1][2] Gheg is also the dialect spoken by Albanians in Kosovo, Montenegro and most of Macedonia.[2] The Gheg dialect is divided by four sub-dialects: Central Gheg, Southern Gheg, Northwestern Gheg (or Western Gheg), and Northeastern Gheg (or Eastern Gheg).

Before World War II, there was no official attempt at legislating a unified Albanian literary language; both literary Gheg and literary Tosk was used.[2] The communist regime imposed a Tosk-based unified standard with basis in the Korçë speech, in all of Albania.[2] The same standard was adopted by the Albanians in Yugoslavia, who had until then used the Gheg standard, in a process that began in 1968, with culmination in 1972 when the first unified Albanian orthographic handbook and dictionary was agreed upon in 1972.[2]

The Northeastern Gheg dialectal area begins roughly down from the eastern Montenegrin-Albanian border, including the Albanian districts (Second-level administrative country subdivisions) of Tropojë, Pukë, Has, Mirditë and Kukës; the whole of Kosovo[a], and the municipalities of Bujanovac and Preševo in Serbia. The tribes in Albania speaking the dialect include Nikaj-Merturi, Puka, Gashi, and Tropoja.

The Albanian speech in roughly around Tetovo and Skopska Crna Gora, in the Republic of Macedonia, is sometimes regarded part of Northeastern Gheg.

Characteristics

Calques of Serbian origin are evident in the areas of syntax and morphology.[3] The Northeastern Gheg is significantly different from Northwestern Gheg (spoken in Shkodër),[2] and it has been considered an autonomous branch of Gheg Albanian.[4] In turn, the Northeastern Gheg dialects themselves differ greatly among themselves.[5]

The dialect is also split in a few other minority dialects, where the sound spelt "Y" is pronounced as if spelt "I", like "Ylberi" (Rainbow) to "Ilberi", "Dy" (Two) to "Di".

Palatalization

In Northeastern Gheg:

Examples

Standard Tosk Gheg Northeastern Gheg English
Shqipëri Shqipëri Shqypní Shipní 'Albania'
Një Një Nja/Ni Njo 'one'
Bëj Bëj Baj Boj 'I do'
Qenë Qënë Kenë Kôn 'been'
Pleqëri Pleqrĩ Pleqni Pleçni 'eld'
Është Është or Ësht' Âsht or â Osht or o 'is'

Annotations

a. ^ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008, but Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory. The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the Brussels Agreement. Kosovo has been recognised as an independent state by 108 out of 193 United Nations member states.

References

  1. ↑ Brown and Ogilvie (2008), p. 23. The river Shkumbin in central Albania historically forms the boundary between those two dialects, with the population on the north speaking varieties of Geg and the population on the south varieties of Tosk.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Joseph 2003, When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence, p. 266: "Northeastern Geg"
  3. ↑ Sami-Repishti 1984, p. 56
  4. ↑ Pipa-Repishti 1984, p. 57: "Northern Gheg is divided vertically. Later this proved to be appropriate chiefly for methodological reasons, seeing that Eastern Gheg is considered to be an autonomous branch."
  5. ↑ Frans Van Coetsem 1980, Contributions to Historical Linguistics: Issues and Materials, Brill Archive, ISBN 9004061304, 9789004061309, p. 274: "Northeastern Geg ... differed greatly among themselves"
  6. ↑ Pipa-Repishti 1984, p. 59: "Northeastern Gheg"

Sources

  • Arshi Pipa, Sami Repishti (1984). Studies on Kosova. East European Monographs. 
  • Le parlate albanesi di tipo Ghego orientale (in Italian). 
  • Elsie, Robert. "Albanian Dialects". Retrieved 14 April 2012. 
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