Albanisch

Albanisch, in German often simply Albanian, is an Indo-European language spoken mainly in Albania and Kosovo, with communities in North Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece and a large diaspora in Western Europe and the Americas. It forms its own branch within the Indo-European family. The language is traditionally divided into two main dialect groups: Gheg in the north and Tosk in the south. A standardized literary form, Standard Albanian, is largely based on the Tosk dialect and is used in education, media and administration in Albania and Kosovo. Dialectal differences influence pronunciation, vocabulary and some grammatical features, but mutual intelligibility remains relatively high.

The Albanian alphabet is Latin-based and was adopted in the early 20th century, following the Congress of Monastir in 1908. It includes letters such as ç and ë and several digraphs, for example gj, ll, nj, rr, sh and th, to represent Albanian sounds. The orthography is designed to be phonemic, with a close correspondence between letters and spoken sounds.

Historically, Albanian has been shaped by contact with Latin, Slavic, Turkish and Italian languages, which contributed loanwords and linguistic influence. Outside the main regions, there are minority varieties such as Arvanitika in Greece and Arbëreshë in Italy; these are closely related to Albanian but are increasingly endangered.

As an official language of both Albania and Kosovo, Albanian is used in schooling, government and public life. It enjoys a robust literary and cultural tradition, including contemporary literature, media and arts, and it maintains extensive use in education and daily communication among its speakers.