banohet

Banohet is a present tense form in Albanian that functions as a passive or impersonal construction of the verb meaning to reside or inhabit. It is formed with the stem ban- (to reside/inhabit) plus the suffix -ohet, resulting in a clause that describes the habitation status of a place rather than the action of a specific subject. In practice, banohet is commonly found in descriptive or encyclopedic writing about places.

Usage and meaning

- The subject of a sentence with banohet is typically a location such as a city (qytet), a village (fshat), a region (rajon), or a zone (zonë). The form conveys that the place is inhabited.

- If the sentence specifies the inhabitants, the agent is introduced with a prepositional phrase, usually using nga or prej to indicate the group of people living there, for example: Qyteti banohet nga afro 60,000 banorë (The city is inhabited by about 60,000 inhabitants).

Notes on style and register

- banohet is most common in formal, descriptive, or demographic contexts. It appears in encyclopedic entries, statistical summaries, and geographical descriptions.

- In everyday speech, Albanian speakers more often use active expressions such as banoj or jetoj to say “I live” or “people live in,” or the passive participle form i/banuar in constructions like “qyteti është i banuar” (the city is inhabited).

Related forms

- banues (inhabitant) and i/banuar (inhabited) are related terms used for demographic or descriptive purposes.

- The active equivalents include banoj (I reside) and jetoj (I live).

See also: Albanian grammar, passive voice, demographic description.