Talk:Albanian alphabet

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Faster than Thunder in topic Separating the 9 digraphs from the 27 letters before the table

Permission edit

I think this belongs here rather than in the article itself:

Christo has given permission to use the article under GFDL permission.

--bjh21 11:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Letter "W" edit

Is the letter "W" in the Albanian alphabet? --84.61.57.178 13:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

No Ciacchi 21:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why is the letter "W" not in the Albanian alphabet? --84.61.61.177 10:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

  • Well it's quite simple - because there is need for it (no sounds). Easy, ah? :) --B. Jankuloski 08:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
There isn't any word in Albanian Language i can think of that need the letter "W" to be used. Illuminati 12:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Precursors to Albanian alphabet? edit

There is mention in the article about three different competing Latin orthographies for Albanian. What were the letters in each of the three Latin orthographies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.196.96 (talk) 15:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

pronunciation issues? edit

any native albanian speakers here? i'm listening to the pronunciation clip and i can't hear any difference between ch/q and xh/gj. i'm a trained linguist and i know what a "palatal stop" is supposed to sound like and i don't hear this sound on the recording, i.e. it sounds like the speaker is using ch and xh for both types of sounds. (also, p/t/k sound strongly aspirated, which isn't mentioned anywhere.) Benwing (talk) 05:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm not a native speaker, but I live in northeastern Albania (Peshkopi in Dibër region), and I'm told that there are villages whose inhabitants don't contrast q/ç and gj/xh. I've seen some Albanians make spelling mistakes between those letters. Most speakers do contrast them though. There are few minimal pairs - the only example that comes to mind is çaj "tea" / "to split" vs. qaj "to cry". The difference between them is more apparent when the speaker is enunciating carefully, such as when correcting a foreigner's mispronunciation! --Kenji Yamada (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

In case you know Serbian, it is easy: Q corresponds to Ć as in Marković, whereas Ç corresponds to Č as in Četnik. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.90.80.51 (talk) 14:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)Reply


Shkronjat Shqiptimi Simbol
a a like Adriana a
b b like bravo b
c c ts
ç ç like tchau tʃ
d d like day d
dh dh like this ð
e e like menina ɛ
ë ë like amanha ə
f f like flag f
g g like golf g
gj gj like ɟ
h h like hotel h
i I like italy i
j j like you j
k k like Kilogram k
l l like like l
ll ll like ɫ
m m like mama m
n n like november n
nj nj like amanha ɲ
o o like oscar o
p p like palavra p
q q like c
r r like romeo r
rr rr is strong r r
s s like sentado s
sh sh like ʃ
t t like tirana t
th th like think θ
u u like you u
v v like violet v
x x like dz
xh xh like jaket dʒ
y y y
z z like zebra z
zh zh ʒ

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.72.172.169 (talk) 11:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

The IPA pronounciations for Q and GJ are definitely wrong. It made me question a lot of what I knew, but corroborating the fact that IPA [c] is present in Romanian and Czech and I know how it should sound, it's definitely not the Q in Albanian. At most, it would be an allophone of K. » byeee 23:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

I looked around as much as I could find but there's nothing authoritative on Albanian spelling that I can find. The Polish and Turkish articles of [Albanian language] reflect a double pronounciation, namely [ʨ] or [c] for Q and [ʥ] or [ɟ] for GJ. I assume this is something pertaining to the dialects (Gheg/Tosk). Most pronounciations put it somewhere in between [ʧ] and [c] (see [it:Lingua albanese], for example), but it seems to depend on the language (Hungarian, for example, has [ɟ] and [c]). All "spoken" examples that I can find are of [ʨ] and [ʥ]. » byeee 05:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)Reply
The recording seems to have a bit of frication for gj and q, I'm not sure if that's because the speaker is non-native (voiceless stops are aspirated, is that a feature of Albanian?) or if maybe the speaker is making a non-standard/dialectal pronunciation. I've found a simple grammar book that corroborates the palatal stop pronunciations. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)Reply
Many Gheg dialects have merged the two, so if the speaker in the recording is Gheg, that could be why (my computer refuses to load the recording right now, so I can't verify). Apart from that, I also suspect that the palatal stops are actually palatal affricates. I've seen at least one article that describes them as such: Lowman, G.S. (1932). The Phonetics of Albanian. Language, vol. 8. He claims there is "a noticeable off-glide" and that a narrow transcription would be [cç]. A little dated, but if he's correct it could just be that they are described as stops for simplicity's sake. Palatal and velar stops tend to be unstable as it is. Even the English velar stops are sometimes slightly affricated when you look real close. --Terfili (talk) 18:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

36 letters? edit

considering the number of digraphs, it is correct to say the Albanian alphabet has 36 letters? (then how can you compare the number of letters in alphabets? German for instance has 26 letters but a number of combinations like sch, ch, ng, ph, etc, plus the umlauts). you'll have noticed I'm not a linguist... but I'd be interested to know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.90.80.51 (talk) 14:20, 27 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

They technically consider digraphs to be separate letters. And, I would assume, an alphabetical ordering would mirror that. It would not be the case of German, where ü, for example, might be considered ue for alphabetical purposes. » byeee 23:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

A, E, K & Q edit

In some words E is pronounced [e], A is sometime pronounced [ɒ] (in MK FYROM for persian words), and K pronounciation is ق [q] and not ك [k] ([[1]]), and Q is [ʨ] (Ќќ / Ćć / Ћћ). Nemzag (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Article title edit

Might not this article be better titled as "Albanian Orthography"?

The Albanian language does not have a unique alphabet - the alphabet it uses is the Latin alphabet (albeit supplemented through the use of diacritics and digraphs). The subject of this article is how the Latin alphabet is used to represent the sounds of the Albanian language, which is, by definition, its orthography.

P M C 19:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

Adding Veso Bey Alphabet? edit

It's referenced by Elsie in his paper [2], it's one of the 7 original alphaets. More info here [3] (in Japanese), and here it is again in Unicode's website [4] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.112.124.218 (talk) 06:31, 15 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

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External links modified edit

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion edit

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Uppercase Istanbul alphabet? edit

Where are the capital forms of the Istanbul alphabet from? The image at the bottom is only the lowercase. I would like a link to the original source, rather than the Unicode approximations in the table. ThatGuy30722 (talk) 23:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Separating the 9 digraphs from the 27 letters before the table edit

Can we do this? Faster than Thunder (talk) 05:23, 7 January 2022 (UTC)Reply