Albanian - Albanian

It is a branch of the Indo-European language family. In addition to the Republic of Albania, where it is the official language of about 2.5 million people, it is also spoken in Serbia, Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia, Greece, and southern Italy. The Albania that ancient historians refer to is an area on the west coast of the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region, and present-day Albania was mainly a sphere of influence for Latin. It is likely that the Albanian-speaking people who lived in the surrounding mountainous areas gradually assimilated Latin. Literature begins with a translation of the Bible in the 15th century, but the history before that is unclear. Since it was under foreign rule for a long time from ancient times to modern times, it was strongly influenced by foreign countries, and there are many loanwords, especially Latin-based vocabulary. In Albania, which calls itself Shqipëria (the Tosk dialect form), two major dialects, Tosk and Gheg, are spoken in the north and south of Albania, with the border around the capital of Tirana, and the written language is different, but it is said that there is a tendency for them to become unified recently. The writing is written in the Latin alphabet. Nouns are masculine and feminine (the neuter gender has almost disappeared), there are five cases, and verbs have the tenses present, imperfect, aorist (indefinite past), and perfect (compound expressions), as well as mood distinctions.It retains the inflectional features of Indo-European languages, but it shows tendencies shared with other Balkan languages ​​such as the use of postdefinite articles and the fusion of cases.

[Kizamaki Kiyozo]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

インド・ヨーロッパ語族の一語派。約250万人が公用語とするアルバニア共和国のほか、セルビア、モンテネグロ、北マケドニア共和国、ギリシア、南イタリアなどでも話されている。古代史家のいうアルバニアは、コーカサス地方のカスピ海西岸の地域で、現在のアルバニアは主としてラテン語の勢力範囲であった。おそらく周辺の山岳部に住んでいたアルバニア語族が、徐々にラテン語を同化したものであろう。文献は15世紀の聖書訳に始まりそれ以前の歴史は明らかでない。古代から近代まで長く外国の支配下にあったため、強くその影響を受けたが、とくにラテン系の語彙(ごい)の借用語が非常に多い。シュキペリアShqipëria（トスク方言形）と自称するアルバニアには、トスクToskとゲグGhegとよばれる二大方言が、アルバニアの首都チラナ付近を境に南北で話され、文語も異にするが、最近では統一的傾向にあるという。文字はラテン・アルファベットを使用する。名詞は男女性（中性はほとんど消滅）格は5、動詞も現在、未完了、アオリストaorist（不定過去）、完了（合成表現）の時制のほか、法の区別もあり、インド・ヨーロッパ語の屈折的特徴を保っているが、定冠詞の後置、格の融合などに他のバルカン諸語と共通の傾向を示している。

［風間喜代三］

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