Albanian

Albanian (Shqip in Albanian)

represents an independent branch within the Indo-European language family. It is widely thought to be derived from the Illyrian language. Throughout history the language has borrowed many words from surrounding languages such as Latin, Greek, and Italian. It also shares common vocabulary with Romanian and Armenian.
The language is spoken by about six million people – about 3.5 million in Albania with the rest concentrated in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and northwestern Greece. There are also Albanian-speaking communities in about forty villages in southern Italy and Sicily. There are two dialects of Albanian: Gheg to the north of the Shkumbin River and Tosk to the south.

Albanian, which has official status in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, developed a written form only in recent centuries. The oldest surviving texts date back to the second half of the fifteenth century. The modern written language uses the Latin script and is based on the Tosk dialect.