Albanian in Southern Europe Forming a separate branch of the
Indo-European language family, Albanian is spoken by about 6.5 million people in Albania and the nearby regions in
Montenegro,
Kosovo, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece. Albanian has two main dialects,
Gheg and
Tosk, with the former spoken to the north of the river
Shkumbin (Scampis) and the latter to the south of the river. Two varieties of the Tosk dialect,
Arvanitika in Greece and
Arbëresh in southern Italy, preserved archaic elements of the language. Gheg and Tosk which are primarily distinguished by phonological differences are mutually intelligible. Albanian is the only surviving representative of the
Albanoid branch of Indo-European, which belongs to the
Paleo-Balkan group. Tosk/Gheg differentiation leading to regular correspondences, affect native words, Latin loans, and Classical Greek loans, but not Slavic loans, led researchers to the conclusion that the dialectal split preceded the
Slavic migration to the Balkans. The Tosk/Gheg dialectal diversification was relatively old, dating back to the post-Roman first millennium.
Eastern Romance Eastern Romance is a
Romance language family spoken by about 25 million people primarily in
Southeastern Europe. Its most spoken variant,
Romanian (or Daco-Romanian), is the official language of
Romania and
Moldova. A second variant,
Aromanian, is spoken by about 350,000 people in Albania, southwestern Bulgaria, northern Greece and North Macedonia. The third variant,
Megleno-Romanian, exists in the
Meglen region in southeastern North Macedonia and northern Greece. The fourth variant,
Istro-Romanian, is spoken in eight settlements in
Istria (in Croatia). The four variants developed from a common ancestor, known as
Common Romanian. The venue of the formation of Proto-Romanian is debated. Some scholars propose that the
Roman province of
Dacia Traiana (which existed to the north of the
Lower Danube from 106 AD to 271) was included in the Romanians' homeland. Other scholars say that Proto-Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the south-Danubian Roman provinces and the Romanians' ancestors started to settle in most regions of Romania only in the 12th century.
Balkan linguistic area Albanian and Eastern Romance, along with
Bulgarian and
Macedonian, are the core members of the Balkan linguistic areaan
area of linguistic convergence affecting six to eight languages in the
Balkan Peninsula (in
Southeastern Europe). Linguists also list the
Torlakian dialect of
Serbo-Croatian and
Greek among the members of the same linguistic area. The membership of the
Balkan dialects of Romani (or
Gypsy) and of
Turkish is debated, although they share some characteristics with the other idioms. Albanian and Eastern Romance share most Balkan features, but they also have common features which do not characterize other Balkan languages. The existence of an
unrounded central voweleither a
mid central vowel (ə) or a
close central unrounded vowel (ɨ)is the principal common phonological feature of most Balkan languages, although these vowels are not present in Greek and standard Macedonian. The loss or limited usage of
infinitives characterizes all Balkan languages, but Albanian developed a new type after losing the inherited form. The postponed
article is also a well-known Balkanism, missing only from Greek: for instance, Albanian
nënë and
nëna ("mother" and "the mother"), Bulgarian and Macedonian
selo and
seloto ("village" and "the village"), and Romanian
om and
omul ("man" and "the man"). Most Balkan languages use the
auxiliary verb "want" when creating verbs in
future tense and merged the
dative and
genitive cases in nominal
declension. == Literature ==