Indo-European Languages
Balkan Group: Albanian
Jonathan Slocum and Carol Justus
In the twentieth century, Albanian was determined to be an Indo-European language, but one so different from the neighboring Italian, Greek, and Slavic languages which have influenced it that it must be classified as an independent surviving branch of Indo-European. Three different Paleo-Balkan languages (Illyrian, Thracian, and Dacian) have each been proposed as the ancestor of modern Albanian, hence these four at least might be argued to constitute a "Balkan" family.
Now, exactly how these and other old Balkan languages including Macedonian and perhaps Paionian might be related to Albanian, to each other, and to the Indo-European language family more generally is a much debated topic supported by too little objective evidence (i.e., ancient texts). Yet because these and certain other ancient languages of the Balkans are generally if not provably considered to be Indo-European and somehow related to one another, and because they were geographically clustered, they are grouped for convenient reference. A recently coined term, the Balkan sprachbund, refers to a variety of ancient and, especially, modern languages of the Balkans that have strongly influenced one another, so much so that ancestral relationships (if they exist) among the "Balkan" subset may never be identified with certainty due to the obscure evidence.
Albanian, as noted, is demonstrably Indo-European. Where it is spoken in the Balkans, there are two main dialects: Gheg, generally toward the north (Serbia/Kosovo and Montenegro), and Tosk, generally toward the south (Albania).
Recommended Reading
- Mallory, J.P. & Douglas Q. Adams, eds. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. (As the name suggests, a large encyclopedia; cf. "Albanian Language" article)
- Mann, S.E. 1977. An Albanian Historical Grammar. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
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