| Labovë e Kryqit | |
| County: | Gjirokastër |
| Municipality: | Libohovë |
| Municunit: | Qendër Libohovë |
| Coordinates: | 40.0736°N 20.2917°W |
Labovë e Kryqit (Labovë of the Cross) is a settlement in Southern Albania, which has taken the name of its famous church, the Dormition of the Theotokos Church. It consists of two neighbourhoods: Labovë e Poshtme (Lower Labovë) and Labovë e Sipërme (Upper Labovë). To distinguish it from its neighbour Labovë e Madhe (Labovë e Vangjel Zhapës), the village is known by two names Labovë e Kryqit, in reference to a nearby old Byzantine church and Labovë e Libohovës (Labovë of Libohovë).[1] It is part of the Qendër Libohovë subdivision of the Libohovë municipality, in Gjirokastër County, southern Albania.[2]
Afanasy Selishchev (1931), derived Labovë from the Slavic hleb’ meaning bread and Xhelal Ylli (1997) states that is not semantically possible. The suffix -ov-a is a Slavic formation. The root word of the toponym might denote the following: a Lab, an inhabitant of Labëria, the proto-Slavic *lap’ for "leaf", or Bulgarian words for plants like lop (petasites), lopen (verbascum), lopuh (arctium tomentosum). The proto-Slavic reflex a in the placename became o in Slavic, while in Albanian its a, with an Albanian sound change of p to b. If the toponym is derived from Lab, Ylli suggests it would mean the incoming Slavs encountered the earlier residents there, the Labs.[3]
A Hellenistic era garrison was built in Labovë as part of the fortification system of Chaonia,[4] the later region belonging to the northwestern ancient Greek group of tribes of the Epirotes.[5]
In the interwar period Nicholas Hammond passed through the area and described Labovë as a place of mixed speech (Albanian and Greek), with Albanian as the mother tongue.[6] In fieldwork done by Leonidas Kallivretakis in 1992, Labovë e Kryqit had an exclusive Albanian Orthodox population.[7]