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How would albanian sound to a non-ethnic?

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  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: How would albanian sound to a non-ethnic?
    Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 08:08
Now, I know this topic is not going to be hot , because I believe that only few of you might have heard albanian for a significative time. But reading some diferent threads about how would other languages sound, I took the courage to open this new topic.
How does albanian sound to the ears of a non-ethnic albanian, be it a speaker or not. Does it sound similar to other languages? Does it sound easy or difficult to pronounce?Have you ever tried to pronounce any albanian words?
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  Quote vulkan02 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 09:27
If you seen the movie "Inside Man" there is a part where the bank robbers play tapes of Enver Hoxha in order to confuse the police. They play this aloud and it seems no one in New York knows how Albanian sounds like but some of them make bad guesses such as Bulgarian and Armenian. Then they get a hooker or something (which by the way speaks with a heavy slavic accent) and she tells them that its Albanian. I doubt most people would know how it sounds like and the fact that its an isolated Indo-European language explains it.
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  Quote osmanlija Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 11:27
I heard people speaking Albanian in Macedonia.It looks like soft language and i think how Albanians pronounce "r" is very funny.I heard the word "ari" which means bee in Turkish.It was completely different with Turkish "ari".Although i though Albanians are tough people usually,their language is soft.I have a friend called "Halil" from Tirana.He speaks Turkish with a very soft accent.And  we usually laugh him when he pronounces "r".He says "kardeşim"in a very funny way.No offense to any albanian but usually when boys speak like him,people call them "sissies" or "gays" here.Smile
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  Quote osmanlija Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 11:28
I heard people speaking Albanian in Macedonia.It looks like soft language and i think how Albanians pronounce "r" is very funny.I heard the word "ari" which means bee in Turkish.It was completely different with Turkish "ari".Although i though Albanians are tough people usually,their language is soft.I have a friend called "Halil" from Tirana.He speaks Turkish with a very soft accent.And  we usually laugh him when he pronounces "r".He says "kardeşim"in a very funny way.No offense to any albanian but usually when boys speak like him,people call them "sissies" or "gays" here.SmileLastly i wanna say that Albanian isnt like any other language that i have heard before
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  Quote Mila Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 11:30
I think it's a very pretty language. It reminds me on Turkish sometimes, there's that weird... like when an Albanian says harroj, it reminds me when a Turk says boyle. It's just a weird place in the throat for the "o".

I find Albanian very raw, very... passion sounds good with Albanian. This might be a bad comparrison, but I think Adolf Hitler's speeches in Albanian would have sounded quite beautiful. You know, minus the subject matter.
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  Quote Mila Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 11:33
Originally posted by vulkan02

If you seen the movie "Inside Man" there is a part where the bank robbers play tapes of Enver Hoxha in order to confuse the police. They play this aloud and it seems no one in New York knows how Albanian sounds like but some of them make bad guesses such as Bulgarian and Armenian. Then they get a hooker or something (which by the way speaks with a heavy slavic accent) and she tells them that its Albanian. I doubt most people would know how it sounds like and the fact that its an isolated Indo-European language explains it.


I loved that scene! As soon as the American construction guy said it was Albanian, I thought - oh God, they're going to bring in some folk dancer to decipher it.

I was praying for a good Balkan stereotype, and I got one. This hot woman with a skin-tight green dress walks into the booth, hands over a little gift bag.

"What's this?"
"Parking tickets, you'll take care of it?"
"You can't smoke in here..."
"Stern Smile"

I loved it. I was so pleased that they didn't put a folk dancer. I love when international movies make fun of us in the same ways we do.
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  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 13:21
Originally posted by osmanlija

I heard people speaking Albanian in Macedonia.It looks like soft language and i think how Albanians pronounce "r" is very funny.I heard the word "ari" which means bee in Turkish.It was completely different with Turkish "ari".Although i though Albanians are tough people usually,their language is soft.I have a friend called "Halil" from Tirana.He speaks Turkish with a very soft accent.And  we usually laugh him when he pronounces "r".He says "kardeşim"in a very funny way.No offense to any albanian but usually when boys speak like him,people call them "sissies" or "gays" here.SmileLastly i wanna say that Albanian isnt like any other language that i have heard before
 
Just a correction, bee in english would be blet/bleta in albanian. The albanian word ari/ariu means bear, while the albanian ar/ari means gold. The albanian ar/ara means agrarian land/field. And regarding Kardesim, the turkish word for brother, in albanian has a totally different meaning, and makes it difficult for people to pronounce it (especially when they are shy and polite).I will not translate the meaning it takes in albanian, it will be probably on another topic on albanian swearing (just a coincidence, homophonie, nothing related to turkish).
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  Quote Tangriberdi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 14:27

Here in Turkey I had chance to hear what like Albanian is. It is a language softer than Yugo-Slavic languages, but harder than French. It is between Slavic and French in my opinion. When I heard native Albanian speakers I felt that they combined Serbo-Croatian and French somehow. Of course t's not true. But Albanian is pretty lovely. I like it. The only one which I love more is Turkish. Because I speak and understand it. It's my mother tongue.

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Edited by Tangriberdi - 17-Aug-2006 at 14:29
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  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 14:36
Everybody loves his/her mothertongue, thats naturalTongue
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  Quote kotumeyil Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 15:29
I have listened to Albanian songs, especially by Merita Halili. While singing it's soft and sounds like slavic. However I haven't heard a long dialogue in Albanian. I had 2 Albanian friends and they spoke Turkish very well but sometimes they pronounced some words just like in Roumelian Turkish.
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  Quote vulkan02 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Aug-2006 at 00:08
Originally posted by Mila

Originally posted by vulkan02

If you seen the movie "Inside Man" there is a part where the bank robbers play tapes of Enver Hoxha in order to confuse the police. They play this aloud and it seems no one in New York knows how Albanian sounds like but some of them make bad guesses such as Bulgarian and Armenian. Then they get a hooker or something (which by the way speaks with a heavy slavic accent) and she tells them that its Albanian. I doubt most people would know how it sounds like and the fact that its an isolated Indo-European language explains it.


I loved that scene! As soon as the American construction guy said it was Albanian, I thought - oh God, they're going to bring in some folk dancer to decipher it.

I was praying for a good Balkan stereotype, and I got one. This hot woman with a skin-tight green dress walks into the booth, hands over a little gift bag.

"What's this?"
"Parking tickets, you'll take care of it?"
"You can't smoke in here..."
"Stern Smile"

I loved it. I was so pleased that they didn't put a folk dancer. I love when international movies make fun of us in the same ways we do.


Yes but Albanians never have accents as heavy as that, well maybe except those who just move from the mountains to NYC but its still very distinct from that. She sounded and she even looked Bosnian lol ... wait I think she looked something like you no?!
But yeah passion does sound good in AlbanianWink and i know this for a fact. Albanian has many more tenses of verbs than english and one of them is called the "Wishing tense".
For example:
Te marrsha - "i Wish to take"
Te befsha - "I wish to do"
te Qifsha - Big smile
Now its just up to your imagination Mila.


Edited by vulkan02 - 18-Aug-2006 at 00:11
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  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Aug-2006 at 14:00
In the "Languages I've heard" I saw more people who posted they have heard albanian. Apparently they dont have an opinion about its sound, or what?
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  Quote Giannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 09:21
I have been familiar with the albanian language for a long time, I can also speak some too. I think it's more like romanian to me. Not slavic-like, but more latin-like language.
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  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 13:57
    

Long time ago, in the time of Ceausescu, I remember a day I saw a movie at tv, in an unknown language. I tried to guess what language was. I sounded uniform, sometimes I though is English or a latin language (I was very young and incult at the time), or Turkish or a Slavic language.

Later I found that was Albanian. I think it has a phonetic which is not matching with any other language, perhaps the closest is Romanian.

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  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 18:42
Originally posted by Menumorut

    

Long time ago, in the time of Ceausescu, I remember a day I saw a movie at tv, in an unknown language. I tried to guess what language was. I sounded uniform, sometimes I though is English or a latin language (I was very young and incult at the time), or Turkish or a Slavic language.

Later I found that was Albanian. I think it has a phonetic which is not matching with any other language, perhaps the closest is Romanian.
 
Well, to slide from english to latin, and then turkish or slavic...
Regarding the albanian - romanian linguistic relation, you are right regarding the Phonetics, albanian shares similar characteristics with romanian. This probably comes from a similar background, albanian is a derivate of the old illyrian, with a share of latinized words, while romanian is a latin language developed on daco-thracian linguistic ground. There are theories regarding the relation between illyrian and thracian (dacian, getae, moesian). Some linguist historian believe that illyrian language was near to thracian perhaps as much as checz to slovak. This would explain also the amount of the pre-latin words, that romanian shares with albanian, as well as the phonetic similarities. Bukureshti, the romanian capital in albanian would mean is beautiful, bukur - beautiful, sht - is, same (or similar to romanian).
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  Quote Giannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 19:55
Arber can you explain me where Shquip (not sure for the spelling) comes from? I mean what's the origin of this word, and it's litteral meaning, is it a word meaning something or just a name?
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  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 20:32
Originally posted by Giannis

Arber can you explain me where Shquip (not sure for the spelling) comes from? I mean what's the origin of this word, and it's litteral meaning, is it a word meaning something or just a name?
 
Sure I can tell you.
Shqip means literally language of eagles shqipe/shqype/shkabe - eagle
I think shqipe - eagle has a similar IE root with a greek word meaning eagle (a greek friend told me, but i dont remember the word). The eagle is one of the symbols appearing more frequently in albanian folklore, more than other symbol animals (like the goat, or the snake for example)
The albanians used to call their language arberisht-arberore (which is the real ethnical name for the language), and they still do in many cases. But in the eighteenth century, while rresurrecting as a nation, the albanians started calling themselves Shqiptare/Shqyptare/Shkyptare meaning eagle-man, or suns of eagles, using as a symbol the Eagle of the Castriotes, and of Scanderbeg (Gjergj Kastrioti, Giorgio Castriota).the eagle was choosen also as a clear symbol showing no ethnical link with the ottomans, which always were regarded as occupators. Communities which were isolated outside albania, like the emmigrants settling in greece and in sth-italy in the XII century still call the language arberore/arberisht, and dont use Shqip, which started to gain popularity only in the XIX century.
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 21:31
Originally posted by Giannis

I have been familiar with the albanian language for a long time, I can also speak some too. I think it's more like romanian to me. Not slavic-like, but more latin-like language.
 
I agree.  The Albanians that I have heard speaking sounded Latin.  I thought that I could almost identify a few verb roots from my knowledge of Spanish.  
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  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Aug-2006 at 23:30
   

Bukureshti, the romanian capital in albanian would mean is beautiful, bukur - beautiful, sht - is, same (or similar to romanian).



Bucuresti come from root bucur, meaning joyness. The esti termination is the most common for Romanian villages and means a group of people. Like a family called, say, Bundy is called The Bundies.

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  Quote The Chargemaster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Aug-2006 at 16:02
I have heard an albanian folk song in Microsoft Encarta. It sounds just like the bulgarian folk songs from the Rhodopes mountain in Southern Bulgaria.
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