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70-488: Ginestra ( Arbëreshë Albanian : Zhura ) is an Arbëreshë town and comune in the Province of Potenza , Basilicata , Italy . It is bounded by the comuni of Barile , Forenza , Maschito , Ripacandida , Venosa . This Basilicata location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB Albanian language The Arbëreshë people are bilingual, also speaking Italian. Arbëresh

140-461: A palatalized voiced velar plosive [ɡʲ] and a palatalized voiceless velar plosive [kʲ] , rather than a voiced palatal plosive [ɟ] and a voiceless palatal plosive [c] as in standard Albanian. E.g. the word gjith ('all') is pronounced [ɡʲiθ] rather than [ɟiθ] , qiell ('heaven') is pronounced [kʲiɛx] rather than [ciɛɫ] , and shqip ('Albanian') is pronounced [ʃkʲɪp] . GL, KL In some words, Arbëresh has preserved

210-512: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] . The vast majority of these words originate in Sicilian, but the sound also occurs in words of Albanian origin. Often ⟨G⟩ when pronounced [ɣ] is replaced by ⟨GH⟩ in the Arbëresh orthography, with ⟨G⟩ in theory reserved for /g/ (although in practice it is inconsistent). This feature is very strong that it is carried over into

280-520: A consistent Proto-Indo-European pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages. The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with Holger Pedersen (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. Antoine Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that

350-638: A fusion of the Arbëresh word of Albanian etymology: "fjalë" plus the Sicilian augmentative /-azz[a]/ minus the feminine gendered ending /-a/; this calques the Sicilian word 'palurazza' which is cognate with Italian 'parolaccia'. There are many instances in which Arberisht differs greatly from Standard Albanian, for instance: Compared with Standard Tosk Albanian (second row), and Gheg Albanian (third row). There are many elements of Arberesh grammar that differ considerably from Albanian, for example: Armenian language Armenian ( endonym : հայերեն , hayeren , pronounced [hɑjɛˈɾɛn] )

420-468: A loan from Armenian (compare to Armenian եւ yev , ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi ). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities. Loan words from Iranian languages , along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led some linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that

490-425: A network of schools where modern Armenian was taught, dramatically increased the rate of literacy (in spite of the obstacles by the colonial administrators), even in remote rural areas. The emergence of literary works entirely written in the modern versions increasingly legitimized the language's existence. By the turn of the 20th century both varieties of the one modern Armenian language prevailed over Grabar and opened

560-574: A similar evolutionary pattern to Arvanitika , the Albanian linguistic varieties spoken in Greece. Arbëresh varieties are spoken in Southern Italy in the regions of Abruzzi , Basilicata , Calabria , Campania , Molise , Apulia and Sicily . The varieties of Arbëresh are closely related to each other but are not always entirely mutually intelligible. Arbëresh retains many features of medieval Albanian from

630-454: Is a dialect or a separate variant of the same language group. The varieties of Arbëresh largely correspond with the regions where they are spoken, while some settlements have distinctive features that result in greater or lesser degrees of mutual intelligibility. The Siculo -Arbëresh variety is spoken exclusively in the Province of Palermo and in three villages: Piana degli Albanesi , Santa Cristina Gela and Contessa Entellina ; while

700-739: Is also a Molisan -Arbëresh and an Apulio -Arbëresh. Within the Cosenza Calabrian varieties of Arbëresh, the dialect of Vaccarizzo Albanese is particularly distinct. Spoken in the villages of Vaccarizzo Albanese and San Giorgio Albanese in Calabria by approximately 3,000 people, Vaccarizzo Albanian has retained many archaic features of both Gheg and Tosk dialects. Some features of Arbëresh distinguish it considerably from standard Albanian while also maintaining features still used in other Tosk Albanian dialects. In some cases these are retentions of older pronunciations. The letter ⟨Ë⟩

770-406: Is also descended from Arvanitika which evolved separately from other forms of Albanian since the 13th century when its first speakers emigrated to Morea from Southern Albania and Epirus. A dialect is defined linguistically as closely related and, despite their differences, by mutual intelligibility. In the absence of rigorous linguistic intelligibility tests, the claim cannot be made whether one

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840-603: Is an Indo-European language and the sole member of the independent branch of the Armenian language family. It is the native language of the Armenian people and the official language of Armenia . Historically spoken in the Armenian highlands , today Armenian is also widely spoken throughout the Armenian diaspora . Armenian is written in its own writing system , the Armenian alphabet , introduced in 405 AD by Saint Mesrop Mashtots . The estimated number of Armenian speakers worldwide

910-545: Is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages . It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological changes within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization , although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian ), Albanian and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian

980-455: Is between five and seven million. Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Armenian

1050-702: Is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger . While Italian law protects the language and culture of the Albanian people in Italy, the language taught at school and university is Standard Albanian, constituting an issue for the Arbëresh communities' preservation of their native idiom, wich has remained separated from the main Albanian-speaking compact area for around 500 years. Alongside

1120-545: Is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian. Eric P. Hamp (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the augment and a negator derived from the set phrase in the Proto-Indo-European language * ne h₂oyu kʷid ("never anything" or "always nothing"),

1190-469: Is derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂r̥ǵipyós , with cognates in Sanskrit (ऋजिप्य, ṛjipyá ), Avestan ( ərəzifiia ), and Greek (αἰγίπιος, aigípios ). Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartian eue ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely

1260-476: Is experiencing contact-induced language shift . Many scholars have produced language learning materials for communities, including those by Giuseppe Schirò Di Maggio , Gaetano Gerbino, Matteo Mandalà, Zef Chiaramonte. The Arbëresh local idioms in some areas are so different from each other that Arbëresh people of those areas use Italian or Standard Albanian as lingua franca to communicate with each other. Arbëresh language beside medieval mainland Tosk Albanian

1330-415: Is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from Luwian , although some researchers have identified possible Hittite loanwords as well. One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenian xalam , "skull", cognate to Hittite ḫalanta , "head". In 1985,

1400-456: Is pronounced [xɑ] , not [hɑ] . Arbëresh additionally has the palatalized counterpart, [ç] . Therefore, the word hjedh ('throw') is pronounced [çɛθ] . The letter combination ⟨HJ⟩ is present in a few standard Albanian words (without a voiceless velar fricative), but is not treated as a separate letter of the alphabet as it is in Arbëresh. LL, G, GH The letters ⟨LL⟩ and ⟨G⟩ are realised as

1470-507: Is pronounced as either a mid central vowel [ə] or as a close back unrounded vowel [ɯ] . So the word Arbëresh is pronounced either [ɑɾbəˈɾɛʃ] or [ɑɾbɯˈɾɛʃ] depending on the dialect. Arbëresh lacks the close front rounded vowel [y] of Albanian, which is replaced by the close front unrounded vowel [i] . For example ty ('you') becomes tihj , and hyni ('enter') becomes hini . GJ, Q The letters ⟨GJ⟩ and ⟨Q⟩ are pronounced as

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1540-451: Is uncertain, as the Italian national census does not collect data on minority language speakers. This is also further complicated by the Italian state's protection of the Albanian culture and population as a whole and not Arbëresh Albanian specifically. This law theoretically implements specific measures in various fields such as education, communication, radio, press and TV public service, but in

1610-565: The ⟨d⟩ becomes [ð] . Arbëresh has retained an archaic system of final devoicing of consonants in contrast with Standard Albanian. The consonants that change when in final position or before another consonant are the voiced stops b, d, g, gj ; the voiced affricates x, xh ; and the voiced fricatives dh, ll, v, z, zh . Examples: Stress in Arbëresh is usually on the penultimate syllable, as in Italian . In Arbëresh, just like in Tosk,

1680-458: The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (11–14th centuries) resulted in the addition of two more characters to the alphabet (" օ " and " ֆ "), bringing the total number to 38. The Book of Lamentations by Gregory of Narek (951–1003) is an example of the development of a literature and writing style of Old Armenian by the 10th century. In addition to elevating the literary style and vocabulary of

1750-503: The Armenian genocide , mostly in the diaspora ). The differences between them are considerable but they are mutually intelligible after significant exposure. Some subdialects such as Homshetsi are not mutually intelligible with other varieties. Although Armenians were known to history much earlier (for example, they were mentioned in the 6th-century BC Behistun Inscription and in Xenophon 's 4th century BC history, The Anabasis ),

1820-571: The Catanzaro area of Calabria . The following year, some of their relatives and other Albanians were settled in four villages in Sicily . In 1459 Ferdinand I of Naples also requested assistance from Skanderbeg. After victories in two battles, a second contingent of Albanians was rewarded with land east of Taranto , in Apulia , where they founded 15 villages. After the death of Skanderbeg (1468), resistance to

1890-631: The Greek language , the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages . Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek ( s > h ). Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who believe

1960-631: The Indo-European homeland to be located in the Armenian Highlands , the " Armenian hypothesis ". Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection. Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic , splitting into Proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian ). Classical Armenian (Arm: grabar ), attested from

2030-528: The Mekhitarists . The first Armenian periodical, Azdarar , was published in grabar in 1794. The classical form borrowed numerous words from Middle Iranian languages , primarily Parthian , and contains smaller inventories of loanwords from Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Mongol, Persian, and indigenous languages such as Urartian . An effort to modernize the language in Bagratid Armenia and

2100-652: The Peloponnese , as the Turks invaded. Afterwards these troops reinforced defences in southern Italy against the threat of Turkish invasion. They established self-contained communities, which enabled their distinct language and culture to flourish. Arbëreshë, as they became known, were often soldiers for the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Venice, between the 16th and 19th centuries. Despite an Arbëreshë cultural and artistic revival in

2170-534: The 19th century, emigration from southern Italy significantly reduced the population. In particular, migration to the Americas between 1900 and 1940 caused the total depopulation of approximately half of the Arbëreshë villages. The speech community forms part of the highly heterogenous linguistic landscape of Italy, with 12 recognised linguistic minorities Italian state law (law 482/1999). The exact Arbëresh speech population

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2240-408: The 5th century to the 19th century as the literary standard (up to the 11th century also as a spoken language with different varieties), was partially superseded by Middle Armenian , attested from the 12th century to the 18th century. Specialized literature prefers "Old Armenian" for grabar as a whole, and designates as "Classical" the language used in the 5th century literature, "Post-Classical" from

2310-481: The Armenian language by adding well above a thousand new words, through his other hymns and poems Gregory paved the way for his successors to include secular themes and vernacular language in their writings. The thematic shift from mainly religious texts to writings with secular outlooks further enhanced and enriched the vocabulary. "A Word of Wisdom", a poem by Hovhannes Sargavak devoted to a starling, legitimizes poetry devoted to nature, love, or female beauty. Gradually,

2380-460: The Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa. A notable example is arciv , meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of Urartian Arṣibi and Northeast Caucasian arzu . This word

2450-399: The Italian speech of inhabitants of Piana degli Albanesi and Santa Cristina Gela in words such as grazie , frigorifero , gallera , magro , gamba etc. which are realised respectively as [ʁratsiɛ] , [friɣoˈrifero] , [ɣaˈlɛra] , [ˈmaɣro] , [ˈʁamba] etc. In Piana degli Albanesi the tendency is to treat Italian loanwords differently from Sicilian , which results in

2520-549: The Koine comes above all from their use in Byzantine religious practices, when the corresponding use in Albanian declined, the "courtly" one of the church was used. The Arberesh use ancient Greek in their liturgies. Thus synonyms are created, such as parkales or lutje for the word "prayer". Some Arbëresh words appear to be of Koine Greek influence. Examples: Some Arbëresh words appear to be of Albanian Arvanitika which has influenced

2590-646: The Ottomans in Albania came to an end. Subsequently, many Albanians fled to neighbouring countries and some settled in villages in Calabria. There was a constant flow of ethnic Albanians into Italy into the 16th century, and other Albanian villages were formed on Italian soil. The new immigrants often took up work as mercenaries with Italian armies. For instance, between 1500 and 1534, Albanians from central Greece were employed as mercenaries by Venice , to evacuate its colonies in

2660-656: The Russian Empire), removed almost all of their Turkish lexical influences in the 20th century, primarily following the Armenian genocide . In addition to Armenia and Turkey, where it is indigenous , Armenian is spoken among the diaspora . According to Ethnologue , globally there are 1.6 million Western Armenian speakers and 3.7 million Eastern Armenian speakers, totalling 5.3 million Armenian speakers. In Georgia, Armenian speakers are concentrated in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts where they represent over 90% of

2730-454: The Russian and Ottoman empires led to creation of two separate and different environments under which Armenians lived. Halfway through the 19th century, two important concentrations of Armenian communities were further consolidated. Because of persecutions or the search for better economic opportunities, many Armenians living under Ottoman rule gradually moved to Istanbul , whereas Tbilisi became

2800-815: The Soviet linguist Igor M. Diakonoff noted the presence in Classical Armenian of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages . Noting that Hurro-Urartian-speaking peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne ), cov "sea" ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ "(inland) sea"), ułt "camel" ( ← Hurr. uḷtu ), and xnjor "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri ). Some of

2870-496: The Standard Albanian language – which was unified as a mainly Gheg-based standard from 1908 to 1969, and as a mainly Tosk-based standard from 1969 – as they did not use the standard Albanian form of writing. Since the 1980s, some efforts have been organized to preserve the cultural and linguistic heritage of the language. Arbëresh has been replaced by local Romance languages and by Italian in several villages, and in others

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2940-799: The areas of medieval Albania , Epirus and Morea now Peloponesse , were often recruited by the Franks , Aragonese , Italians and Byzantines . The invasion of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century caused large waves of emigration from the Balkans to southern Italy . In 1448, the King of Naples, Alfonso V of Aragon , asked the Albanian noble Skanderbeg to transfer to his service ethnic Albanian mercenaries. Led by Demetrio Reres and his two sons, these men and their families were settled in twelve villages in

3010-541: The case of the Arberesh community the legal construction of the language as "Albanian" and the community as the "Albanian population" effectively homogenises the language and has not led to adequate provision for the linguistic needs of the communities. Armenian Greek Phrygian (extinct) Messapic (extinct) Albanian Arbëresh varieties derive from varieties of Old Tosk Albanian , which were spoken in southern Albania and Greece . They have experienced

3080-434: The center of Armenians living under Russian rule. These two cosmopolitan cities very soon became the primary poles of Armenian intellectual and cultural life. The introduction of new literary forms and styles, as well as many new ideas sweeping Europe, reached Armenians living in both regions. This created an ever-growing need to elevate the vernacular, Ashkharhabar, to the dignity of a modern literary language, in contrast to

3150-409: The consonant clusters /ɡl/ and /kl/ . In Standard Albanian these have mostly become the palatal stops gj and q, e.g. glet not gjet ('s/he looks like ... '), klumësht not qumësht ('milk'), and klisha instead of kisha ('church'). H, HJ The letter ⟨H⟩ is pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative [x] . As such, the Albanian word ha ('eat')

3220-664: The current Greek areas since the Middle Ages. Examples: On the Koine Greek elements in the Italo-Albanian dialects see T. Jochalas (1975). In the Arbëresh varieties of Sicily and Calabria there are loanwords from the Sicilian language that have crystallized into the Arberesh language matrix at some time in the past but have now mostly disappeared, or evolved in the Romance vocabulary of

3290-438: The difference between llampjun , pronounced as [ʁampˈjun] (from lampione , 'lamp post'), and lampadhin , pronounced as [lampaˈðin] (from Italian lampadina ). In the first example, the ⟨L⟩ becomes ⟨LL⟩ [ʁ] because it comes from Sicilian, whereas in the process of transference from the Italian lampadina to Arbëresh lampadhin , the ⟨l⟩ does not change but

3360-565: The existence of the two modern versions of the same language was sanctioned even more clearly. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) used Eastern Armenian as its official language, whereas the diaspora created after the Armenian genocide preserved the Western Armenian dialect. The two modern literary dialects, Western (originally associated with writers in the Ottoman Empire) and Eastern (originally associated with writers in

3430-471: The fact that Arbëresh is rarely written, another issue for the language attrition is the differentiation between the Albanian varieties used in Italy: the Arbëresh local idioms in some areas are so different from each other that Arbëresh people of those areas use Italian or Standard Albanian as lingua franca to communicate with each other. Between the 11th and 14th centuries, Albanian-speaking mercenaries from

3500-464: The first person present indicative (e.g. "I work") is marked by the word ending in NJ , whereas in standard Albanian this is normally marked by J . So, 'I live' is rró nj in Arbëresh and rro j in standard Albanian. The present continuous or gerund differs from Standard Albanian; Arbëresh uses the form "jam'e bënj" instead of "po bej" (I am doing). The adoption of words of ancient Greek origin or of

3570-425: The hypothetical Mushki language may have been a (now extinct) Armenic language. W. M. Austin (1942) concluded that there was early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages , based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies ), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy )

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3640-464: The interests of the population at large were reflected in other literary works as well. Konsdantin Yerzinkatsi and several others took the unusual step of criticizing the ecclesiastic establishment and addressing the social issues of the Armenian homeland. These changes represented the nature of the literary style and syntax, but they did not constitute immense changes to the fundamentals of the grammar or

3710-434: The late 5th to 8th centuries, and "Late Grabar" that of the period covering the 8th to 11th centuries. Later, it was used mainly in religious and specialized literature, with the exception of a revival during the early modern period, when attempts were made to establish it as the language of a literary renaissance, with neoclassical inclinations, through the creation and dissemination of literature in varied genres, especially by

3780-463: The local population. This also occurs in other Arberesh varieties outside of Sicily with the local Romance varieties of their communities. Examples: Alongside the Sicilian vocabulary element in Siculo-Arbëresh, the language also includes grammatical rules for the incorporation of Sicilian-derived verbs in Arbëresh, which differs from the rules concerning Albanian lexical material. Examples: In

3850-560: The morphology of the language. Often, when writers codify a spoken dialect, other language users are then encouraged to imitate that structure through the literary device known as parallelism . In the 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland was once again divided. This time Eastern Armenia was conquered from Qajar Iran by the Russian Empire , while Western Armenia , containing two thirds of historical Armenia, remained under Ottoman control. The antagonistic relationship between

3920-403: The now-anachronistic Grabar. Numerous dialects existed in the traditional Armenian regions, which, different as they were, had certain morphological and phonetic features in common. On the basis of these features two major standards emerged: Both centers vigorously pursued the promotion of Ashkharhabar. The proliferation of newspapers in both versions (Eastern & Western) and the development of

3990-526: The official status of the Armenian language. Eastern Armenian is the official variant used, making it the prestige variety while other variants have been excluded from national institutions. Indeed, Western Armenian is perceived by some as a mere dialect. Armenian was also official in the Republic of Artsakh . It is recognized as an official language of the Eurasian Economic Union although Russian

4060-619: The oldest surviving Armenian-language writing is etched in stone on Armenian temples and is called Mehenagir . The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405, at which time it had 36 letters. He is also credited by some with the creation of the Georgian alphabet and the Caucasian Albanian alphabet . While Armenian constitutes the sole member of the Armenian branch of the Indo-European family, Aram Kossian has suggested that

4130-474: The parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his book Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine (1936). Georg Renatus Solta (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek

4200-403: The past tense this conjugates as follows: The Arbëresh diminutive and augmentative system is calqued from Sicilian and takes the form of /-ats(-ɛ)/ = Sic. -azz(u/a); for example "kalac" (cavallone/big horse), and the diminutive takes the form of /-tʃ-ɛl(-ɛ) from Sic. /-c-edd(u/a); for example "vajziçele" (raggazzina/little girl).The Arbëresh word for "swear word" is "fjalac" and comes from

4270-407: The path to a new and simplified grammatical structure of the language in the two different cultural spheres. Apart from several morphological, phonetic, and grammatical differences, the largely common vocabulary and generally analogous rules of grammatical fundamentals allows users of one variant to understand the other as long as they are fluent in one of the literary standards. After World War I ,

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4340-552: The population. The short-lived First Republic of Armenia declared Armenian its official language. Eastern Armenian was then dominating in institutions and among the population. When Armenia was incorporated into the USSR, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic made Eastern Armenian the language of the courts, government institutions and schools. Armenia was also russified . The current Republic of Armenia upholds

4410-436: The representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces". Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family , ancestral to

4480-463: The similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to the Iranian language family . The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann (1875) used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenian vocabulary . He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded

4550-512: The terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European , he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage. Contemporary linguists, such as Hrach Martirosyan , have rejected many of

4620-601: The time before the Ottoman invasion of Albania in the 15th century. Arbëresh varieties also retain some Greek elements, including vocabulary and pronunciation, most of which they share with Arvanitika varieties. Many of the conservative features of Arbëresh were lost in mainstream Albanian Tosk. For example, it has preserved certain syllable-initial consonant clusters which have been simplified in Standard Albanian (cf. Arbëresh gluhë /ˈɡluxə/ ('language/tongue'), vs. Standard Albanian gjuhë /ˈɟuhə/ ). Arbëresh most resembles

4690-484: The varieties of Albanian spoken in the southern region of Albania, notably Lab Albanian , as well as Cham Albanian . Arbëresh was commonly called Albanese ('Albanian' in the Italian language) in Italy until the 1990s. Until the 1980s Arbëresh was mostly a spoken language, except for its written form used in the Italo-Albanian Byzantine Church , and Arbëreshë people had no practical connection with

4760-483: The varieties of Piana and Santa Cristina Gela are similar enough to be entirely mutually intelligible, the variety of Contessa Entellina is not entirely intelligible. Therefore a further dialect within Siculo-Arbëresh known as the Palermitan -Arbëresh variety can be identified, as well as a Cosenza variety, a Basilicata variety, and a Campania variety represented by the speech of one single settlement of Greci . There

4830-405: Was situated between Proto-Greek ( centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian ( satem subgroup). Ronald I. Kim has noted unique morphological developments connecting Armenian to Balto-Slavic languages . The Armenian language has a long literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Another text translated into Armenian early on, and also in the 5th-century,

4900-666: Was the Armenian Alexander Romance . The vocabulary of the language has historically been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages , particularly Parthian ; its derivational morphology and syntax were also affected by language contact with Parthian, but to a lesser extent. Contact with Greek, Persian , and Syriac also resulted in a number of loanwords. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian (spoken mainly in Armenia) and Western Armenian (spoken originally mainly in modern-day Turkey and, since

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