A family with no close relatives
Most European languages belong to large groups: German and English are Germanic, French and Italian are Romance, Serbian and Russian are Slavic. Albanian belongs to none of them. Linguists classify it as an independent branch of the Indo-European family, and it is the only modern representative of that branch. In this respect it resembles Greek and Armenian, which also stand on their own within the family.
That does not mean Albanian developed in isolation. Over the centuries it took in many words from its neighbours: a large layer from Latin from the Roman period, and later words from Greek, the Slavic languages and Turkish. The core of the grammar and much of the basic vocabulary, however, remained its own.
Where it comes from
Which ancient language Albanian descends from is one of the open questions of Balkan linguistics. Some scholars see it as the descendant of Illyrian, the language of the peoples on the eastern Adriatic. Others point to Thracian or Dacian, the languages of the eastern Balkans. The difficulty is the same in every case: these ancient languages are barely attested, mostly only through names and a handful of words, so a direct comparison is hardly possible.
Gheg and Tosk
Albanian has two main dialects. Gheg is spoken in the north of Albania, in Kosovo, in North Macedonia and in Montenegro; Tosk in the south of Albania. The boundary runs roughly along the Shkumbin river in central Albania. The literary forms of both are mutually intelligible, but many regional varieties are not: a farmer from the northern mountains and one from the far south may have trouble understanding each other.
For the diaspora in Switzerland, Germany and Austria this matters in everyday life. Many families come from Kosovo or North Macedonia and speak Gheg at home, while schoolbooks, news and official texts use the standard language, which is based mainly on Tosk.
A late start on paper
Albanian was spoken for a long time before it was written down. The oldest surviving sentence is a baptismal formula from 1462. Pal Engjëlli, the bishop of Durrës, recorded it in a Latin document. The first printed book followed almost a century later: the Meshari, a Catholic missal by the priest Gjon Buzuku, from 1555. The only known copy was found in the Vatican Library in 1740, nearly two hundred years after it was printed.
The formula is a single sentence: Unë të pagëzoj pr'emenit t'Atit e t'Birit e t'Shpirtit Shenjt, I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The document that contains it is kept in a library in Florence. Some scholars assume that Albanian was written down even earlier, but no such texts have survived.
One alphabet for everyone
Until the early twentieth century, Albanian was written in several alphabets at once, depending on region and religion. That changed in November 1908 at the Congress of Manastir in today's Bitola: delegates from Albanian clubs and associations agreed on a single Latin alphabet. It has 36 letters, including ë and ç and nine double letters such as dh, gj, sh and xh, and it is still in use today.
The congress was called on the initiative of the Bashkimi club and met from 14 to 22 November 1908, with 32 voting delegates representing 26 clubs and associations. A few years later, in 1916 and 1917, a Literary Commission in Shkodër put the new alphabet into practice and based its written norm on the variety spoken around Elbasan, in the middle of the country between Gheg and Tosk.
The common written language came later. In November 1972 the Congress of Orthography in Tirana set a single standard, based mainly on Tosk. Albanians in Yugoslavia had already adopted it at a linguistic conference in Prishtina in 1968. That this standard largely pushed the Gheg written tradition aside is still debated among Albanian writers and linguists today.
Albanian in Switzerland
Depending on the estimate, Albanian is spoken by up to seven and a half million people worldwide, in Albania and Kosovo as an official language, and in a large diaspora. In Switzerland it is part of everyday life: according to the Federal Statistical Office, it was the mother tongue of about 3.4 percent of the population in 2022, as common as Portuguese and, after English, one of the most widespread languages that is not a national language.
Overall, almost a quarter of the population of Switzerland uses a main language that is not one of the four national languages. The most frequent of these is English, followed by Albanian, Portuguese and Spanish. In German-speaking Switzerland, Albanian is heard in everyday life more often than in the French- or Italian-speaking regions.
Four words we use every day
Some Albanian words are part of our own vocabulary. Zi means black, kuq means red, bardh means white: these are the names of the three colourways of the Dardania leather jacket. And trashëgimi, the word under our logo, means heritage, which is what all of this is about.
The Dardania leather jacket carries the double-headed eagle across the back: 300 millimetres wide, pressed into scale-grain leather. No print, no patch. Numbered, in black and bone white.
SEE THE JACKET →Which language is Albanian related to?+
Albanian is an Indo-European language, like German or Greek, but it forms a branch of its own and has no close living relatives. Whether it descends from Illyrian, Thracian or Dacian is debated.
How many people speak Albanian?+
Depending on the estimate, up to seven and a half million people worldwide, as an official language in Albania and Kosovo and in a large diaspora. In Switzerland about 3.4 percent of the population have Albanian as their mother tongue.
What is the difference between Gheg and Tosk?+
They are the two main dialects of Albanian. Gheg is spoken in the north, in Kosovo and North Macedonia, Tosk in the south of Albania; the boundary runs roughly along the Shkumbin river. The standard language is based mainly on Tosk.
How many letters does the Albanian alphabet have?+
36, including ë and ç and nine double letters such as dh, gj, sh and xh. It was agreed at the Congress of Manastir in 1908.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Albanian language
- Omniglot: Albanian (shqip)
- Wikipedia: Albanian literature
- Wikipedia: Albanian Orthography Congress
- State Archives of North Macedonia: The Congress of Manastir and its orthography
- IamExpat: The most commonly spoken languages in Switzerland (FSO data)
- Universität Zürich: Language prestige in Switzerland (FSO data on main languages)
Queen Teuta, King Gentius, wars with Rome and emperors from the Balkans: who the Illyrians were, what we know about their language and what is still debated.
READ →Dardania was an ancient kingdom and a Roman province in the heart of the Balkans. Who the Dardanians were, what the name means and why it lives on today.
READ →Singing over a drone, a lute with two strings, a fiddle with one: the traditions of Albanian music, from UNESCO-listed polyphony to the epic songs of the north.
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