Albanian language

Albanian (also known as Shqip), is a member of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken by close to 6 million people worldwide.

Albanian not belong to any branch of the Indo-European language family and thus has no close relatives. It was finally proven to be an Indo-European language only in 1854. Although there is no consensus among scholars about its origin, it is generally believed that the ancestors of Albanian split from Proto-Indo-European about 4,000 years ago. The origin of the word Albanian is a matter of dispute.

Standard Albanian is the official language of Albania. It is also one of the official languages of Kosovo, and of the Republic of Macedonia.

Dialects
There are two principal dialects of Albanian that are mutually unintelligible due to significant linguistic differences between the two. The Shkumbin River in Albania divides the two dialect areas.

• Tosk (toskërishtja) is spoken by 3 million people south of the Shkumbin River. It is also spoken in Italy, Greece and in small communities of Albanian immigrants in Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, and the United States (Ethnologue).
• Gheg (gegërishtja) is spoken by 2.8 million people north of the Shkumbin River. It is also spoken in Serbia and Montenegro (including the province of Kosova) and in the Republic of Macedonia (Ethnologue).

Standard Albanian is based on the Tosk dialect.

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