Albanian Varieties | Can they understand each other? 

If you enjoyed this video, check out this video comparing Arvanitika, Arberesh and standard Albanian on Martin's channel: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YQCM4AbVRoI.html As well as this brief interview about Sicilian words in Arbëresh: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-toOz9t77vvU.html Please follow and contact us on Instagram if you have any suggestions or if you speak a language that has not been featured before and would like to participate in a future video: instagram.com/BahadorAlast

We’re so lucky to have the Arbëresh. They are our truth. We need to protect them and help preserve the Arberesh language. Love this video. Super informative and big thanks to Martin for all the great work he does.

Let's not forget about Arvanitika in Greece which like Arbëresh preserved archaic elements of Albanian.

Proud of Albanian people in Sicily . Amazing people with big heart! Their food is heaven and cannoli from Piana degli Albanesi are paradise! Huge respect to this community and all Albanian nation ( Albania , Kosovo and Italian Albanian). You are brothers with the same blood. Forza Albania 🇦🇱❤️

The harder I study Albanian and the varieties, the better I understand that the root words are exactly the same in all of the varieties. Some words have changed the meaning from its basic form historically, but still it is very relatable for me. I love Albanian!

The Arbëreshë Albanians came to Italy starting in the 14th century as a consequence of the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans. It is remarkable that they have retained so much of their language and culture. This is an anthropological miracle!

All 3 were very knowledgeable, and Martin had a lot of interesting facts to share. That was great.

I agree with Martin. There is no need for purification when you can beautifully enrich the official language by adding instead of taking away.

Gheg isnt only spoken in Kosovo. It is spoken by Albanians of Macedonia and by the northern half of Albania itself. Anyway great video as always.

My family is from an Arbëresh enclave in the Southern Italian region of Molise called Këmarini (or "Campomarino" in Italian). It was founded by Albanian refugees that fled to Italy after the Ottoman invasions, and to these days the traditional dialect is still spoken, with lots of streets that are bilingual or named for important Albanian people (for example, the main avenue is called Corso Skanderbeg)

I’m from central Albania and I understand perfectly well all of the dialects. Great video! Thanks 🙏🏻

Amazing! Honestly, this was the best video so far. It was insightful, very educational, and fun to follow along. Thanks to all four of you. Albanian is a linguistic treasure in the middle of Europe which must be studied and understood better and more extensively. So I really admire Martin for his work. It's really commendable!! Albanian varieties are traced back to the different Albanian tribes, variants of a single linguistic system that to date isn't really closely connected to any other language.

Great video! Albanian is such an interesting and intriguing language. Happy to see Martin back 😊

What I love in all these videos is that you try to bring people together through languages and this totally shows us we have nothing to separate.

YESSSS SHQIPPPP!!! GJUHA MË TË VEÇANT NË TË GJITH BOTËS! THANK YOU BAHADOR! Much love to all Albanian speakers who have persisted and kept their language alive..from the Arbëresh of Italy and Argentina to the Arvanites of Greece, to the Arbanasi of Croatia to the Arnaut of Turkey and Ukraine and to the thriving diaspora stretching from Australia to America -- we are all Shqiptar!

Albanian people were, are and will always be welcome in Italy!

Albanian sounds really cool. This video changed my view about albania! Greetings from iran👋

Just a little note for everyone watching this: the word kerr derives from the word "karrocë", which means cart in English, that´s the english word that I didn´t come up with immediately, but I recall that I still correctly mentioned it, but it got apparently cut out in the video making process. Anyways, I am really amazed of the great work and how informative this video became !!! Thank you for your great work @Bahador Alast.

I'm amazed that my RU-vid algorithm suggested me this insightful video! This is literally so cool, i underestimate my albanian language sometimes caude i live abroad and don't get the chance to use it very often, but ugh, this made me nostalgic almost and proud of the varieties, cause we still understand each other pretty well and the community is actually pretty big, no matter how the geo-politics changing over the years. Amazing, thank you for this!

As an albanian from from kosovo i can understand the tosk dialect completely even though i was born and raised in london. the arberesh dialect fascinates me and to be honest from videos i’ve seen of people speaking arberesh i could understand a lot of it with no problem whatsoever. seeing this is amazing and brings me joy

I like that you are trying to capture the albanian complexity with this video and seeing diffreneces in dialects. I love the vids you make about Albania

I love how each one of them is interested to know every detail of the words the other one is speaking. Nice video Bahador!

i keep getting impressed by these videos

I knew I liked you! Thanks a lot for this wonderful video and as always thank you for your unbelievable work!

This was extremely interesting!! I speak the Tosk dialect and often have trouble understanding other dialects, since I have not been exposed. Thanks for such an educational video!

So Arberesh were impacted by the italians while the Tosk and Ghegh people of that Balkans were impacted by Slavs and Turks. But despite the impact, they managed to keep the full basis and foundation of their language.

You are doing great Job! Thank you that you came to this topic!

Thanks for organizing this event and sharing it with us 🙏

We need more albanian groups like arnauts and arvanits, maybe even arbanas from Croatia 🇭🇷!

When i heard word from arberesh "gjegjem" is a word "to understand", now i can explain the word of Gheg= Gjegj and meaning is to understand. With gjejem we have another word pergjegjem = to answer, ndergjegjje= conscience. Very good video thanks for making it.❤

To me the Arbëresh dialect Is a lot like the dialect spoken from my ancestors from Camëria.

Very interesting video, thank you for the post!

🤣I love Arbereshe, sometimes it stands alone but at the same time makes sense in Albanian.

Awesome video!! It’s amazing how many dialects there are to this day just going from village to village or any major city, we’re from present day north Macedonia and I heard there are still Arberesh speakers among the people who live up the road to the castle in Ohrid Macedonia

Hi Bahador. I only just came across this video today, although I've seen many others of yours. As a linguist all are interesting to me, but this video is probably the most interesting one. Amazing! I find the historical linguistic aspect of Arbëresh deeply fascinating. Thank you!

What an interesting vid! I enjoyed this comparison of the ancient Albanian language and dialects . I could understand each one of these speakers,so not too different.

Ju rujt Zoti te gjithë Shqipeve kudo qe jeni 🇦🇱

Many thanks for this and all your videos! Nothing like this video exists online so I was very happy to watch it. I would love to hear the Arbanas language as nothing exists online. I would also love to see a comparison with Arvanites but probably not a good idea as I can see it getting political. Thanks again!

Thanks for sharing this ❤️

Thank you Bahador very interesting programme.

This was great , next one , I would like to see them talking all the time in Albanian

Albanian is very fascinating. Very much like Armenian. Being two isolates with a very interesting history.

Love this second video !!

Many Arberesh words like "vrej", etc., are common to the dialect of central Albania as well.

This was really cool too see! My family is from Mali Zi and we speak the Northwestern sub-dialect of Gheg Albanian, and we have some words that even we say different then the Gheg speaker in this video. Like "shoes" for us is a different word and we even have some other words we say differently that could be old Albanian words?! I will say; I agree with the Gheg speaker that there were similarities with the way we say the words in Gheg, and how the Arberesh guy says words, and I think it has to do with the nasal sounds that Gheg has. I read that Tosk had it too, but lost it and it sounds like the Arberesh preserved some of those sounds; if not more, like Gheg has them! The Turks occupying us though for all those years did have an effect on words we use; which I believe we have like 1000 plus Turkish words that both dialects use and how we say the words too, and what we use them for! It would be cool if they got an Albanian that speaks Arbanasi which is a Gheg dialect in Croatia of Gheg speakers who fled when the Turks came and preserved a lot of the old archaic features of the Gheg dialect before the Turks came. Also, it would be cool to go back in time and hear Proto-Albanian before the dialects spilt apart to see how the language has changed, and progressed till now!

Great meeting guys. Thank you Bahador for bring the boys together! I have a few comments that maybe Someone can address. Now I understood all three of them without an issue. I am a gheg from Shkodra (Scutari). I think Martin speaks a tosk dialect but it uses many words and grammar that is similar to gheg. Why? Not a linguist haha, but I’ll propose a theory. Tosks who migrated to Italy 500 years ago lived in a time when tosk and gheg were more similar. It is a recognized fact that gheg is more conservative as a language , meaning closer to the old. So as the arberesh moved their language has remained somewhat frozen while tosk in Albania has continued to evolve. Rotacism is a known evolution of tosk. For example Vlona became Vlora. The n became an r. Gheg like Arberesh is also more frozen. So this is the reason why Arberesh appears closer to gheg. Also many of the soldiers, parts of scanderbegs army were northern gheg. So likely Arberesh have mixed Tosk mostly but also gheg ancestry. Martin so many of the words you used are like Shkodran gheg. For example Leva. Un leva ne Shkoder is quite the same as we speak it. Martin also mentioned Meshari I Gjon Buzukut (the missal of the Catholic liturgy) and Kanuni which I completely understand without issue. Another point of contact between Shkodra and Arberesh is the long ties with Venice and Italy and the many Latin influences in our dialect which make it similar to Arberesh. For example we also use shkarpa (scarpa) for shoes. We as far as I know are the only Albanians to call tomatoes golden apples (molla t’arta) which is like the Italian word Pomo d’oro. Many more things were said here that make Arberesh and Shkodran spiritual brothers. Of course you all speak beautifully! My wife is from Vlona and I’m familiar with Dukatis dialect. Greeting and respect to you all.

For FLORIST the right word in official Albanian is LULISHTAR (lule=flower; isht=is), LULE SHITES means FLOWER SELLER. The Arberesh form LULAR seems very convenient and we should adopt it and add it to our OFFICIAL VOCABULARY.

I am so proud of all you guys especially Martin hi keeps alive the Arberesh language.when I was reading the comments what’s the Albanian brothers writing down I felt so emotional 😭🙌🏻🙌🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇮🇹🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇽🇰🇽🇰🇽🇰🇽🇰🇽🇰🇽🇰🇽🇰🇮🇹🇽🇰🇽🇰🇽🇰🇮🇹🇦🇱🇽🇰🇮🇹🇦🇱🇽🇰🇮🇹👐🏻🇽🇰🇮🇹🇦🇱🇽🇰🇮🇹🇦🇱🇽🇰O SA MIR ME KAN SHQIPTAR OHE OHE 👐🏻👐🏻👐🏻

Arbereshe (in Italy) is a Tosk variety dialect. For the word degjoj, you can also hear ndegjoj/endegjoj/endegloj in South Albania. Shoh is also used all over Albania. Gheg also is the only dialect that uses infinatives (me shku-to go) while Tosk uses subjunctive (te shkoj-that I go). Also, with qumesht, you can hear klumesht/klumshit in South Albania and tamel/tambel/tomel/tombel in Central and North Albania and Kosovo

Interesting stuff :)

Great video bro

One mistake on word transcriptions though. Morphologically, usually is the toske dialect which the word would end on vocals like "hene" and in Geg dialect ends on consonants like "han" moon and "hana" is the moon, a definite form. Should have used same forms for proper comparisons. Jam e bunj' seems very archaic feature to me. similar usage this days we can compare "jam ka baj", or "jam duke bere" with different auxiliary words. i am not sure if we can find this authentic arbereshe form on arvatini or Cam people.

I’m an Albanian from Macedonia from kërcovë and this was the most surreal experience ever, I can understand all these people equally and surprisingly martin was extremely easy to understand and the similarities we have when we speak Albanian to the severest was dare I say easier to see how they arrived to those words than leautrim or Aurel and in some cases extremely foreign but could still piece it together after thinking it throughout

Suggestion: Instead of giving just a plain words (speak, go,... etc...) it would be much easier for the participants to answer, in case short sentence has been given: ''I am going.'', ''I am speaking'',.. etc. In this case, it turns to be that everybody was describing/pronouncing the given word, according to their own perception at the given moment.

Thnk you so much for this video❤❤ new subscribe❤

Such a good video👏

While Albania has a population of a little under 3 million people, it is estimated that there are around 7 million Albanian speakers across the planet.

I understand all dialects even the Arbereshe ones, but if you don't put someone from Dibra region, you won't have the right picture. Dibra's dialects are a story of their own, so fascinating. When I was little I had a rough time to understand my grandmother from Reci and my grandmother from Bulqiza. Now I'm a master of all Dibra's dialects ( I guess the hardest Albanian dialects, Ancient Macedonian dialect).

Great video, I think will be really nice to see, dialects from Çameria, Macedonia, also very important is the time when the persons are born . We used to use most of the words from Gegnisht, and Arberisht in the region of Himara , I remember when I was kid and visited my grandparents in the village allot of words that we used in the village was different from the city. ( and im not talking about mixed Greek)

Buon lavoro, grazie mille per questo vidio.

Little known fact about the script used to write the Albanian language. It was not always Latin, and even though over the years, the language has made use of an Arabic alphabet (the Ottoman Turkish version) and Cyrillic, many do not know that several local alphabets, like Todhri, Elbasan, and Veso Bey, had been developed. There was also a period when the Tosk dialects used the Greek alphabet.

Shqipja ka te njejten origjin, Ilirijan. Por mbas mira vjetesh gjuha do te ndyshoj. Pushtimet e shumta edhe emigracioni kan bere te veten. Rrespekt per te gjith qe e kan ruajt gjuhen Shqipe.🥰

Tosk+Gheg+Arberesh=🇦🇱 always brothers 🙏🏻

Respect for Martin he keeps alive the old language Respect ✊

A curiosity: in Albanian "to go" is "Ik", in Japanese "to go" Is "Ikimas" (where "-mas" is the ending of all Japanese verb)

Bahador bey, I love your videos. I m from Turkey. I searched through the internet and found no videos of Kazakh and Kyrgyz people trying to communicate. I think you d be the only person who could bring that on!! Thanks for the videos !!

What the F.... i love u guys. You have done some minor errors but still the best. Keep up. Big like for Arberesh for what they have past thru and still speaking our beautifull language.

I love this!

I love this comparison, I would love to see one between standard Albanian and Albanian from ilirida (North Macedonia)

Can you do one with Assyrian and Maltese?

Amazing to hear Arbëresh properly for the first time!

MARTIN there is another word in Albanian used in old times when the water was carried from the sources with wooden vessels: BUCELE/BUCI which seems to be a version of the word you are using.

Interesting how in Romanian, all three albanian words are or were used as village (in ro: sat) fșat is the old form of sat (out of use nowadays). cătun is a settlement smaller than a village (a hamlet) horă is a greek loanword (XVIII secle) used in the phanariot epoch.

Very interesting video, I must say! But also I would like to comment the fact that word ''qumesht'' is also very much being used in Kosovo in every linguistic aspect. Where I come from(Kosovo as well), majority of native Albanian speakers are using the world ''qumesht'' instead of ''tamel''. :)

It’s amazing how well arbershet have preserved Albanian language which is the most beautiful language. We are proud to be Albanian

Albanian is very distinct, there is really no language that can be linked to Albanian even though it's classified as Indo-European it's actually very different from all other Indo-European languages.

The standardised version of Albanian belongs in the Tosk group. Although aspects of the Gheg dialects were incorporated, official Albanian is around 80% Tosk. This is the language of government and literature. However, in recent decades, a movement has grown to revive literary Gheg. Before the communist regime took over in Albania, Tosk wasn’t considered as the official language. Instead, in the early 20th century, the Albanian Literary Commission recommended the use of the Elbasan subdialect that has characteristics of both of the major groups as the official version. However, after WWII, the communist regime chose Tosk as the new standard.

Very good video.The roots of each word in Tosk,Geg & Arberesh is pretty much similar. You need to understand that it depends where abouts in Albania,Kosovo,Maqedonia ,Greece or Montenegro you live and what your local dialect will be. Dialects of the words sometimes can vary even between villages in Albania , you can imagine if you were from outside Albania divided in 5 countries and kept under Ottomans 500 years and for over 100 years under Serbia isolated with no contact to the motherland.Its a miracle to be where we are. When Albanian language was standardised in Albania, Toske dialect made 80% of the modern Albanian which we learn today ,leaving out most of Geg dialect , Arberesh dialect and Arvanitas completely out. Hence why some difference but the root of each word is the same. I think Albanian language needs to be enriched with loads of Geg,Arberesh and Arvanitas words. Instead of foreign words.This needs to be done before is too late. Listening to Arberesh and Geg dialects, is like hearing my greatgrandmother speak, which she lived 104 years ,born in 1888. Well done guys,great video and keep the good work going. Arberesh are our bloodline and we honour ,we respect you and your strong carriage for bring this beautiful Arberesh league to this days. It's a miracle to survive for 600 years. God bless all Arberor Arberesh Albanians wherever they are. Mirëmbeçi 🇦🇱🇽🇰🇦🇱🇦🇱

Nice and interesting video Bahador. Many Greetings to our Albanian neighbours from Greece.

@Bahador Alast thank you for making this possible!

In Kosova for "shoemaker" we use the word "kunraxhi" or "kundraxhi", as well as the modern version "kpuctar" (we don't put emphasis on "e"-letter as in standard word "kepucetar"/"kepucar"). For the word "shoe" the older geg version is: "kunra"/"kundra". Exmaple in plural: "ku i kam kunrat e reja?"... "where are my new shoes?". Of course nowadays we use the word "kepuca" as a standard Albanian.

Awesome

lovely video , guys which people are Shkreti? I want to find out more .thank you

Bravo cuna gjaku jon Nuk behet uj zemra mal me ju me behet qefi qe po beni nje video si kjo bravo jini shum patrriot

I'm an albanian from North macedonia and I understand all three dialects because in North macedonia we have cities that speak tosk albanian we have cities that speak gegh mostly like in kosovo and cities who speak similarly to arberesh like for example the word gjegj me gjegj is commonly used here by albainias meaning to hear, I'd be great if in the next video you include albanians from North macedonia as well.

5. As for the word: "go", in Kosova we say "shko" same as in Tosk. Leutrim got it wrong, because "me ece" means "to walk". In Kosova when we say to someone "ec" or "hec", means "move away" or "walk away".

nice video

Nice video! I like that Martin gives explanations and background to the words as I would expect considering that he is a linguist. What I would suggest is to give the context for every word, because the speakers seem to get confused with the different senses they have. For instance, the whole discussion for "go" in which they confused it with the senses of "go away", "travel", "walk" and "walk away". Additionally, the form of the words as in infinitives, imperatives and conjugations blurred the differences in the dialects. Standard Albanian does not have an infinitive, while the Gheg dialects have which does not a give a very good comparison in pronunciation since different forms are being used. Other examples are the discussions for the words "look" that included the meanings of "see", "observe", "notice", and "glass" for which Albanian has different words for the material compared to the object. So, having a sentence to refer to would reduce these misunderstandings by emphasizing the meanings and the forms.

Ju lumt Ju pershendesim nga Kosova vellezrit ton shqiptar🇦🇱👏👏👏👏

Norbert JOKL:"" The Albanian lanGUAage serves as a fiber that keeps the trunk alive and connects the branches with roots As you descend along this fiber to the wonders of history ,strands can be affected.The Albanian language is a tool through which the seeker can illuminate the dawn of the Albanian people's beginninigs and immerse themselves in time that goes beyond the historical evidence"".

Some of the words from the gheg perspective here are the same as the tosk perspektive, but leutrim is saying these words in a different time-manner. (For example Aurel is saying it in simple present and leutrim is saying them in past progressive or something like that). I really much appreciate Leutrim and i am sure he is trying his best, but he seems a bit out of touch sometimes (becouse its very hard to know all the varieties, since it is really confusing and diverse) he is still fluent and doing good alltho he uses a very harsh and specific dialect. He also adresses the different forms and dialect spoken in kosovo at the end of the video, very smart. Great Video 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Gheg was such smooth and easy to listen to! Beautiful dialect!

I found this very interesting even though I only picked up only a few words and those were mostly the Italian words. My maternal grandmother was from Piana Degli Albanesi in Sicily. I speak several languages among them Italian so I wanted to see if I understood one of the dialects my grandmother spoke. I did not understand much, but like I said, I found it interesting.

Very nice language Ancient Albanian 👐👍

I would love to visit some Arbereshe hora in south Italy but dont know where to start. . is there any information or adress or sight to guide for travelling there? Anybody?

This is so cool. Gonna show my husband lol

Shum interesante

Thank you for making this video, I’m from Ohrid, Macedonia we speak Albanian Tosk. Ohrid and Struga mostly we speak Tosk dialect. However lately more gheg speakers have moved to Struga. From my mom side they are from Veleshta they speak Gheg but not as rough as northern Albania or Kosova.

Please make a video on chinese langauge vs any language

Jom nka Tirona, dhe e kuptoj njiqind per qind te tri dialektet. Ju lumt cuna. Boni sa ma shume vidio te ktilla.🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱