LANGUAGE
> GRAMMAR
The grammatical categories of Albanian are much like
those of other European languages. Nouns show overt
gender, number, and three or four cases. An unusual
feature is that nouns are further inflected obligatorily
with suffixes to show definite or indefinite meaning;
e.g., buk' "bread," buka "the bread." Adjectives--except
numerals and certain quantifying expressions--and dependent
nouns follow the noun they modify; and they are remarkable
in requiring a particle preceding them that agrees with
the noun. Thus, in nj' burr' i madh, meaning "a big
man," burr' "man" is modified by madh "big," which is
preceded by i, which agrees with the term for "man";
likewise, in dy burra t' m'dhenj"two big men," m'dhenj,
the plural masculine form for "big," follows the noun
burra "men" and is preceded by a particle t' that agrees
with the noun. Verbs have roughly the number and variety
of forms found in French or Italian and are quite irregular
in forming their stems. Noun plurals are also notable
for the irregularity of a large number of them. When
a definite noun or one taken as already known is the
direct object of the sentence, a pronoun in the objective
case that repeats this information must also be inserted
in the verb phrase; e.g., i-a dhash' librin atij is
literally "him-it I-gave the-book to-him," which in
standard English would be "I gave the book to him."
In general, the grammar and formal distinctions of Albanian
are reminiscent of Modern Greek and the Romance languages,
especially of Romanian. The sounds suggest Hungarian
or Greek, but Gheg with its nasal vowels strikes the
ear as distinctive. Although Albanian has a host of
borrowings from its neighbours, it shows exceedingly
few evidences of contact with ancient Greek; one such
is the Gheg moken; (Tosk mok'r) "millstone," from the
Greek mekhane'. Obviously close contacts with the Romans
gave many Latin loans; e.g., mik "friend," from Latin
amicus; k'ndoj "sing, read" from cantare. Furthermore,
such loanwords in Albanian attest to the similarities
in development of the Latin spoken in the Balkans and
of Romanian, a Balkan Romance tongue. For example, Latin
paludem "swamp" became padulem, and then padure in Romanian
and pyll in Albanian, both with a modified meaning,
"forest."
Conversely, Romanian also shares some apparently non-Latin
indigenous terms with Albanian; e.g., Romanian brad,
Albanian bredh "fir." Thus these two languages reflect
special historical contacts of early date. Early communication
with the Goths presumably contributed tirq "trousers,
breeches" (from an old compound "thigh-breech"), while
early Slavic contacts gave gozhd' "nail." Many Italian,
Turkish, Modern Greek, Serbian, and Macedonian-Slav
loans can be attributed to cultural contacts of the
past 500 years with Venetians, Ottomans, Greeks (to
the south), and Slavs (to the east).
A fair number of features--e.g., the formation of the
future tense and of the noun phrase--are shared with
other languages of the Balkans but are of obscure origin
and development; Albanian or its earlier kin could easily
be the source for at least some of these. The study
of such regional features in the Balkans has become
a classic case for research on the phenomena of linguistic
diffusion.
Provided by Andi ,omo
Bibliography: Eric P. Hamp: Readings in Linguistics, Languages
of the World.
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