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.

Not like italian. But I understand immediatelly that it is neither slavic, nor germanic. I probably wouldn't understand that it is albanian. Some languages like albanian, and romanian, I don't know them well enough to know them when I hear them, but they are different from other european languages.

(But I can't help but notice that the -tosk- arvanites of southern Greece don't have polyphonic songs. While the Greek epirotans have. eh eh)

About the polyphonic songs, I never said that you took it (it didn't even cross my mind actually). The history of these songs is lost in the blurry past.

(But I can't help but notice that the -tosk- arvanites of southern Greece don't have polyphonic songs. While the Greek epirotans have. eh eh)

So it didnt even cross your mind huh.

We have many albanians here in Italy, so I had many occasions to hear them speak.

I agree with those who said that it sounds rather similar to Romance languages. Actually, I find the Albanian inflection closer to Italian one than, say, that of neo-latin tongues as French or Portuguese.

Albanian language sounds just a bit more whiny and drone than Italian to my hear, but not much -a lot less different, as to pronunciation alone- than other East European languages, at least. On the contrary, the lexicon is incomprensible to me, so when I hear Albanians talking in their language I have thge funny impression of Italian people who talk in an imaginary tongue, using words of their own invention, as kids sometime do for fun.

It is true that the latin influence on the modern albanian is due to the process of latinisation which happened in the adriatic shore during the first centuries AD. But in the mountains the process never completed, and in the region of Albania - Kosova there are plenty of mountains. So the albanian preserved its uniqueness, as well as a big amount of original vocabulary. But yes, it has some similarities with the romance languages.

Tosk and Toscano are not related actually. The modern Toscano probably took the name from a pre-latin language of the ethruscan populace of that zone. So the term is not of clear latin reference. The albanian Tosk comes from a tree, which was considered holy. I dont remember how is it in english, but it was the sacred tree of Zeus of Dodona. In albanian it is Dushk, from this derives Tosk.

Nikodimos, almost all of the known illyrian terms have a relative in modern albanian language. Is it just a casuality???And for your info, there are not few words known to be Illyrian. We have some hundreds of ethnonyms, like the names of the tribes, of the places, of the rivers, of the mountains, of the persons...And the majority of these are explained through albanian.

Bruno, the differences between tosk and gheg are not in the vocabulary of both dialects. Tosk and Gheg share almost 90% of their vocabulary, the difference stays in the prononciation. Anyway, the dialects, in their several forms are mutually comprehenisble. Even the latin-originated words are shared by the dialects. Regarding the ancient greek words, they are to be found in the ghegs as well as in the tosks, and they are mostly words describing an agrarian life...Eqerem Cabej made many interesting studies regarding the latin and the ancient greek influences in albanian, and he presented his studies succesfully to the international science communities, during his life. The gheg and the tosk are two dialects which were formed in the last 5 centuries, so the latin influenced them the same.

The official Albanian language, written in a standard roman-style orthography adopted in 1909, was based on the south Gheg dialect of Elbasan from the beginning of the Albanian state until World War II, and since has been modeled on Tosk. Albanian speakers in Kosovo and in Macedonia speak eastern varieties of Gheg but since 1974 have widely adopted a common orthography with Albania. Before 1909, the little literature that was preserved, was written in local makeshift Italianate or Hellenizing orthographies, or even in Turko-Arabic characters. A few brief written records are preserved from the 15th century, the first being a baptismal formula from 1462. The scattering of books produced in the 16th and 17th centuries originated largely in the Gheg area (often in Scutarene north Gheg) and reflect Roman Catholic missionary activities. Much of the small stream of literature in the 19th century was produced by exiles. Perhaps the earliest purely literary work of any extent is the 18th-century poetry of Jul Variboba, of the enclave at S.Giorgio, in Calabria. Some literary production continued through the 19th century in the Italian enclaves, but no similar activity is recorded in the Greek areas. All these early historical documents show a language that differs little from the current language. Because these documents from different regions and times exhibit marked dialect peculiarities, however, they often have a value for linguistic study that greatly outweighs their literary merit.

Actually the strong influence of the English in the contemporary albanian society has started to give many loanwords to the Albanian language. Because half the english words are borrowed from the Latin, there is an increase of the words of latin roots in the albanian language. For example: "management" is an english word borrowed from the renaissance italian word "maneggiare" (handlement, because mano=handle). So the Latin is strongly influencing the Albanian language for the third time (after the times of the Roman empire and the times of the Venetian republic).   Bruno

I am not saying that there is no latin influence in albanian, sometimes this language is clasified as partially latinised. But some words, like padulem-pyll, probably are just sharing the same IE root, like Coch (Welsh red) with Kuq (Alb red). And remember, the latin itself was affected hardly by the other italic languages, like the ethruscan, the oscan, the venete, the messapian, the Japyggian etc. If we accept that some of this shared at least some similarities with illyrian...you get it

As you see there are not much differences, are there

Believe me, I can speak and understand fluently many of the tosk and gheg variances, there are not much differences between tosk and gheg, if you want you can give me a longer text to translate in both languages. And just for your info, it is true that the standard language probably took more from the tosk, but it took also parts of the gheg dialect, and anyway, it is a standard language, it is used only in the medias and in the offices. The tosk is easier to pronunciate (phonetically) while the gheg has at least 140 sounds (phonemes) that you should be able to pronounce if you want to speak it. It is as easy as that, there is no complote inside

from evropian linguists proved that Albanian language is olddest than Latin language (because Albanian language was formed as a language at an earlier)...and of course Albanian language have Latin words but Latin language have little Albanian (or Illyrian) Words too...

hahah bulgarians by the way are not my brothers and never will be. I deny any similarities with them... even the so called "slavic line" and dont offend me like that.. because as i see it the greeks of modern greece are not exactly the ancient ones (whell atleast most of them that is).

My feelings about my ancestors arre clear even in my nickname... but since u insist

My beginings wore ancient Macedonians,
My middle age granfathers wore macedonians,
My dad is macedonian
and so am I... I am a Macedonian and i freely declare that.

If you belive this ist so... then tell me
what makes a Macedonian?
and tell me What claims do you have about you being "macedonian" and using the macedonian symbols(if u used them for other reasons, such as meaning of power and unity then u dont have to answer the last question).

Ok so you say cal my self a panonian-slav not a macedonian?

mmm good point by why dont you look at maps prior 1912 u know nder the turkis rule... if u dont have one ill provide u with one.

Ok we all know alexander III had graeat archer... i wonder where they came from... ohhhh yes the previously conqured and assimilated panonians... dont you think this is so?

Hehehe i dont mention the panonians because they wore alredy part of the macedonian culture and life... and + teritorial scares are not my reagon ... just dont mentione it or i will be forced to stray away from the toppic...

Dont make teritorial claims... u have enough as it is...

sorry to all moderators but i was forced in this argument.

hehe if macedonians wore assimilated by the powerfull romans than greeks of today (along with egyptians and so on) in your way of thinking are assimilated too...

:P

this is how i understand yur theory