The Elbasan Gospel Manuscript The Elbasan Gospel Manuscript comes from the
Orthodox Christian monastery of St. Jovan Vladimir's Church in the village of
Shijon, west of Elbasan. The albanologist and translator
Injac Zamputi (1910–1998) transcribed the manuscript, after which the Elbasan Gospel was published in standard Albanian for the first time. Domi's hypothesis was later supported by Robert Elsie. The name "Papa Totasi" (father Totasi) is written on the cover's
verso, thus sometimes the alphabet is attributed to him. Recent studies seem to point out a certain
Cosmas of Durrës (1643-1702) as the author of at least the alphabet, if not the text itself.
Historical analysis Robert Elsie notes the author's desire to avoid foreign influences. The
Latin,
Greek and
Arabic scripts had already been in use for Albanian, and the
Cyrillic and
Glagolitic scripts were also available. But the author chose to devise a new script specific to Albanian, reflecting what Elsie called "the wish of Albanian intellectuals" for a distinct writing system of their own. Furthermore, a surprisingly low number of loanwords appear in the manuscript: only three Latin loans, seven Turkish loans, and twenty-one loans from
Biblical Greek (the language the manuscript was translated from). Elsie argues that the author's
determination to root out loanwords becomes clear with the marked crossing out of the Turkish loan
sheher "city" and its replacement with
qytet, which was apparently not recognized as a loan from Latin
cīvitāt(em). == Properties ==