Names of the Albanians and Albania explained

The Albanians (Albanian: Shqiptarët) and their country Albania (Shqipëria) have been identified by many ethnonyms. The native endonym is Shqiptar. The name "Albanians" Latin: Albanenses/Arbanenses) was used in medieval Greek and Latin documents that gradually entered European languages from which other similar derivative names emerged. Linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps. Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar, the term in Albanian became rendered as Arbëreshë (Arbëneshë) for the people and Arbëria (Arbënia|link=no) for the country.

Contemporary Albanian language employs a different ethnonym, with modern Albanians referring to themselves as Shqiptarë and to their country as Shqipëria. Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym: one, derived the name from the Albanian word for eagle (shqiponjë). The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general, for example the flag of Skanderbeg, whose family symbol was the black double-headed eagle, as displayed on the Albanian flag.[1] [2] [3] [4] The other within scholarship connects it to the verb 'pronounce' (shqiptoj), deriving from Latin excipere. In this instance the Albanian endonym like many others would originally have been a term connoting "those who speak [intelligibly, the same language]". Attested from 14th century onward, the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria and Arbëreshë amongst Albanian speakers between the late 17th and early 18th centuries. That era brought about religious and other sociopolitical changes. As such a new and generalised response by Albanians based on ethnic and linguistic consciousness to this new and different Ottoman world emerging around them was a change in ethnonym.

Arbënesh/Arbëresh (Albanian)

See also: Albania (placename) and Principality of Arbanon.

Arbën, Arbëneshë, Arbënuer (as rendered in northern Gheg dialects) and Arbër, Arbëreshë, Arbëror (as rendered in southern Tosk dialects) are the old native terms denoting ancient and medieval Albanians used by Albanians.[5] The Albanian language was referred to as Arbërisht (Arbënisht).[6] While the country was called Arbëni, definite: Arbënia and Arbëri, definite: Arbëria by Albanians. These terms as an endonym and as native toponyms for the country are based on the same common root alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar. The national ethnonym Albanian has derived from Albanoi,[7] [8] [9] an Illyrian tribe mentioned by Ptolemy with their centre at the city of Albanopolis,[10] located in modern-day central Albania, near the city of Krujë.[11] [12] The alb part in the root word for all these terms is believed by linguists be an Indo-European word for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps.[13] The Lab, also Labe, Labi; Albanian sub-group and geographic/ethnographic region of Labëri, definite: Labëria in Albania are also endonyms formed from the root alb. These are derived from the syllable cluster alb undergoing metathesis within Slavic to lab and reborrowed in that form into Albanian.[14]

Terms derived from all those endonyms as exonyms appear in Byzantine sources from the eleventh century onward and are rendered as Albanoi, Arbanitai and Arbanites and in Latin and other Western documents as Albanenses and Arbanenses.[15] [16] The first Byzantine writers to mention Albanians in an ethnic sense are Michael Attaliates (in the book History) and Anna Comnena (in the book Alexiad), referring to them as Albanoi and Arbanitai, in the 11th century.[17] [18] In later Byzantine usage, the terms "Arbanitai" and "Albanoi" with a range of variants were used interchangeably, while sometimes the same groups were also called by the classicising name Illyrians.[19] [20] [21] The first reference to the Albanian language dates to the year 1285.[22]

The country was known in Byzantine sources as Arbanon (Άρβανον) and in Latin sources as Arbanum. In medieval Serbian sources, the ethnonym for the country derived from the Latin term after undergoing linguistic metathesis was rendered as Rabna (Рабна) and Raban (Рабан), while the adjective was Rabanski (Rабански).[23] [24] [25] From these ethnonyms, names for Albanians were also derived in other languages that were or still are in use. In English Albanians; Italian Albanesi; German Albaner; Greek Arvanites, Alvanitis (Αλβανίτης) plural: Alvanites (Αλβανίτες), Alvanos (Αλβανός) plural: Alvanoi (Αλβανοί); Turkish Arnaut, Arnavut; South Slavic languages Arbanasi (Арбанаси), Albanci (Албанци) and so on.[26] The term Arbëreshë is still used as an endonym and exonym for Albanians that migrated to Italy during the Middle Ages, the Arbëreshë.[27] It is also used as an endonym by the Arvanites in Greece. Within the Balkans, Aromanians still use a similar term, Aromanian; Arumanian; Macedo-Romanian: Arbinesh, in the Aromanian language for contemporary Albanians.[28] [29]

Arbanasi

See also: Arbanasi people.

Arbanas (Арбанас), plural: Arbanasi (Арбанаси); is the old ethnonym that the South Slavs, such as the Bulgarians and Serbs, used to denote Albanians, dating back to the Middle Ages. Arbanaski (Арбанаски), Arbanski (Арбански) and Arbanaški (Арбанашки) are adjectives derived from those terms.[30] The term Arbănas was also used by Romanians for Albanians. They first appear with this ethnonym in a Bulgarian manuscript dated 1000-1018, during the reign of Tsar Samuel, in which Arbanasi (Albanians) are mentioned as being half-believers (i.e. non-Orthodox Christians).[31] The term was in use amongst South Slavs until the mid 20th century. The name Arbanasi is still used as an exonym for a small Albanian community in Croatia on the Dalmatian coast that migrated there during the 18th century.[32] In modern South Slavic languages the term is Albanac.[33]

Arvanites

See also: Arvanites.

Arvanitis (Αρβανίτης), plural: Arvanites (Αρβανίτες); is a term that was historically used amongst the wider Greek-speaking population to describe an Albanian speaker regardless of their religious affiliations until the interwar period, along with Alvanoi (Αλβανοί). The name was established in Greek language from the original ethnonym Alvanitis (Άλβανίτης), which in return derived from Alvanos (Άλβάνος). The name appears as the ethnonym of Albanians in medieval Byzantine sources, originally as "Arbanitai",[34] [35] (in Greek language the letter 'b' is pronounced as 'v'; hence "Arvanitai") and was rendered in modern Greek as "Arvanites".[36]

Today, the term Arvanites is used by Greeks to refer to descendants of Albanians or Arbëreshë that migrated to southern Greece during the medieval era and who currently self identify as Greeks, as a result of assimilation.[37] [38] [39] Sometimes its variant Alvanites may be used instead.[38] In the region of Epirus within Greece today, the term Arvanitis is still used for an Albanian speaker regardless of their citizenship and religion.[40] While the term Arvanitika (Αρβανίτικα) is used within Greece for all varieties of the Albanian language spoken there, whereas within Western academia the term is used for the Albanian language spoken in Southern Greece.[41] [42] Alongside these ethnonyms the term Arvanitia (Αρβανιτιά) for the country has also been used by Greek society in folklore, sayings, riddles, dances and toponyms.[43] For example, some Greek writers used the term Arvanitia alongside the older Greek term Epirus for parts or all of contemporary Albania and modern Epirus in Greece until the 19th century.[44]

Arnaut/Arnavut

See also: Arnaut.

Arnaut (ارناود), Arvanid (اروانيد), Arnavud (آرناوود), plural: Arnavudlar (آرناوودلار): modern Turkish: Arnavut, plural: Arnavutlar; are ethnonyms used mainly by Ottoman and contemporary Turks for Albanians with Arnavutça being the name of the Albanian language.[45] [46] These ethnonyms are derived from the Greek term Arvanites and entered Turkish after the syllable cluster van was rearranged through metathesis to nav giving the final Turkish forms as Arnavut and Arnaut.[47] Meanwhile, in Greek the name Arvanitis was derived from the original name Alvanitis [Άλβανίτης] (in return derived from Alvanos [Άλβάνος]).

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries due to socio-political disturbances by some Albanians in the Balkans the term was used as an ethnic marker for Albanians in addition to the usual millet religious terminology to identify people in Ottoman state records. While the term used in Ottoman sources for the country was Arnavudluk (آرناوودلق) for areas such as Albania, Western Macedonia, Southern Serbia, Kosovo, parts of northern Greece and southern Montenegro.[48] [49] [50] During the late Ottoman period, government officials used the terms Arnavudlar (Albanians) and Arnavud kavmı (the Albanian people) for the ethnic group, along with the terms Ghegs and Tosks for northern and southern Albanian ethno-cultural subgroups. At the same time Albanian regions within the empire were referred to as Arnavudluk (Albania) and the geographic terms Gegalık (Ghegland) and Toskalık (Toskland) were also used in government documents. In modern Turkish Arnavutluk refers only to the Republic of Albania.[51]

Historically as an exonym the Turkish term Arnaut has also been used for instance by some Western Europeans as a synonym for Albanians that were employed as soldiers in the Ottoman army.[52] The term Arnā’ūṭ (الأرناؤوط) also entered the Arabic language as an exonym for Albanian communities that settled in the Levant during the Ottoman era onward, especially for those residing in Syria. The term Arnaut (Арнаут), plural: Arnauti (Арнаути) has also been borrowed into Balkan south Slavic languages like Bulgarian and within Serbian the word has also acquired pejorative connotations regarding Albanians.[53] [54] During the Ottoman era, the name was used for ethnic Albanians regardless of their religious affiliations, just like it is today.[52]

Albanese

Albanese and Albanesi is an Italian surname meaning "Albanian", in reference to the Arbëreshë people (Italo-Albanians) of southern Italy. Among people who have the surname it is common in southern Italy and rare elsewhere in the country.[55] In Venice, the term albanesoti (singular, albanesoto) was used in the 15th and 16th centuries for those Albanians and their descendants who had received Venetian citizenship and lived in Venetian territories in northern Italy.

The term Albanesi was used for some Balkan troops recruited (mid 18th - early 19th centuries) by the Kingdom of Naples that indicated their general origins (without implying ethnic connotations) or fighting style, due to the reputation Albanians held of serving as mercenaries in Ottoman armies.[56]

Epirot

See also: Epirotes. By the Late Middle Ages, during the period of Humanism and the European Renaissance, the terms epirot, Epir and gjuhë epirote (Latin: epirota, Epirus, lingua epirotica) were preferred in the intellectual, literary and clerical circles of the time, used as synonyms for arbën, Arbën, Dheu i Arbënit, Arbëní/rí, abënuer/arbëror, i arbënesh/arbëresh, and later, respectively for shqiptar, Shqipni/Shqipëri, (lingua) shqipe. Subsequently, this linguistic-historical ethnic association was faithfully followed also by the Albanian intellectuals and Catholic clerics during the Middle Ages. On a letter sent to the Prince of Taranto Giovanni Orsini in 1460, the Albanian Lord Skanderbeg wrote: “Se le nostre cronache non mentono, noi ci chiamiamo Epiroti” ("If our chronicles don't lie, we call ourselves Epiroti"). Published in Rome in 1635 by the Albanian bishop and writer Frang Bardhi, the first dictionary of the Albanian language was titled: Dictionarium latino-epiroticum ("Latin-Epirotan [Albanian] dictionary").

Shqiptar

See also: Shqiptar. Shqip(ë)tar and Shqyptar (in northern Albanian dialects) is the contemporary endonym used by Albanians for themselves while Shqipëria and Shqypnia/Shqipnia are native toponyms used by Albanians to name their country. All terms share the same Albanian root shqipoj that is derived from the Latin excipere with both terms carrying the meaning of "to speak clearly, to understand". While the Albanian public favours the explanation that the self-ethnonym is derived from the Albanian word for eagle shqipe that is displayed on the national Albanian flag.[57]

The words Shqipëri and Shqiptar are attested from 14th century onward,[58] but it was only at the end of 17th and beginning of the early 18th centuries that the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria and Arbëreshë amongst Albanian speakers in the Balkans.[59] Skipetar is a historical rendering or exonym of the term Shqiptar by some Western European authors in use from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. The term Šiptar (Шиптар), plural: Šiptari (Шиптари) and also Šiftari (Шифтари) is a derivation used by Balkan Slavic peoples and former states like Yugoslavia; Albanians consider this derogatory due to its negative connotations, preferring Albanci instead.[60] [61] [62] [63]

See also

References

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Elsie 2010, "Flag, Albanian", p. 140: "The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general. It is also said to have been the flag of Skanderbeg...As a symbol of modern Albania, the flag began to be seen during the years of the national awakening and was in common use during the uprisings of 1909-1912. It was this flag that Ismail Qemal bey Vlora raised in Vlora on 28 November 1912 in proclaiming Albanian independence."
  2. Book: The Flag Bulletin. Flag Research Center.. 1987-01-01. en. History records that the 15th century Albanian national hero, Skanderbeg (i.e. George Kastriota), had raised the red flag with the black eagle over his ancestral home, the Fortress of Kruje.
  3. Book: Hodgkison, Harry. Scanderbeg: From Ottoman Captive to Albanian Hero. 2005. Bloomsbury Academic . 978-1-85043-941-7.
  4. Encyclopedia: ALBANCI . Enciklopedija Jugoslavije 2nd ed. . Supplement . 1 . . . 1984 .
  5. "Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia" Jeffrey E. Cole - 2011, Page 15
  6. "Everyday Arberesh" Martin Di Maggio
  7. .
  8. .
  9. .
  10. . "Albanian is an Indo-European language, but like modern Greek and Armenian, it does not have any other closely related living language. Within the Indo-European family, it forms a group of its own. In Albanian, the language is called shqip. Albania is called Shqipëri, and the Albanians call themselves shqiptarë. Until the fifteenth century the language was known as Arbërisht or Arbnisht, which is still the name used for the language in Italy and Greece. The Greeks refer to all the varieties of Albanian spoken in Greece as Arvanitika. In the second century AD, Ptolemy, the Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer and geographer, used the name Albanoi to refer to an Illyrian tribe that used to live in what is now central Albania. During the Middle Ages the population of that area was referred to as Arbanori or Albanon. It is clear that the words Arbëresh, Arvanitika, and even Albanian and Albania are all related to the older name of the language."
  11. Malcolm 1998, p. 29. "Nor is there any mystery about the origin of this name. In the second century Ptolemy referred to a tribe called the 'Albanoi', and located their town, 'Albanopolis', somewhere to the east of Durres."
  12. Ramadan Marmullaku - 1975, Albania and the Albanians - Page 5
  13. . "Linguists believe that the ‘Alb-’ element comes from the Indo-European word for a type of mountainous terrain, from which the word ‘Alps’ is also derived."
  14. . "Die besondere ethnische Stellung der Labëri tritt auch in den Benennungen lab 'Labe', Labëri, Arbëri hervor, die von der Wurzel *alb-/*arb- gebildet sind und die alte Selbstbenennung der Albaner enthalten. Der Bewohner von Labëri wird auch jetzt lab, best. labi genannt, eig. ‘der Albaner’. Der Wandel *alb- > lab zeigt die für das Slawische typische metatheseerscheinung. [The particular ethnic position of ''Labëri'' emerges also in the names lab, 'Labe', Labëri, Arbëri that from the root *''alb''-/*''arb''- formed and included the old self-designation of the Albanians. The residents of Labëri is also now lab, spec. ''labi'' called proper 'the Albanians'. The change *''alb''>''lab'' shows the typical metathesis for the Slavic.]"
  15. . "Their traditional designation, based on a root *alban- and its rhotacized variants *arban-, *albar-, and *arbar-, appears from the eleventh century onwards in Byzantine chronicles (Albanoi, Arbanitai, Arbanites), and from the fourteenth century onwards in Latin and other Western documents (Albanenses, Arbanenses)."
  16. Malcolm, Noel. "Kosovo, a short history". London: Macmillan, 1998, p.29 "The name used in all these references is, allowing for linguistic variations, the same: 'Albanenses' or 'Arbanenses' in Latin, 'Albanoi' or 'Arbanitai' in Byzantine Greek. (The last of these, with an internal switching of consonants, gave rise to the Turkish form 'Arnavud', from which 'Arnaut' was later derived.)"
  17. Michaelis Attaliotae: Historia, Bonn 1853, p. 8, 18, 297
  18. Comnena, Anna. The Alexiad, Book IV, 7-8, Bonn 1836, p. 215‑221 and p. 293-294.
  19. Mazaris 1975, pp. 76–79.
  20. N. Gregoras (ed. Bonn) V, 6; XI, 6.
  21. .
  22. Web site: Robert Elsie, The earliest reference to the existence of the Albanian Language . Scribd.com . 2007-05-28 . 22 September 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110207231306/http://www.scribd.com/doc/87039/Earlies-Reference-to-the-Existance-of-the-Albanian-Language . 7 February 2011 .
  23. . "Die Albaner hatten im Verlauf des Mittelalters keinen eigenen Staat, doch besaßen sie ein kompaktes, mit einem Ethnonym versehenes Mutterland (Arbanon, Arbanum, Raban, Regnum Albaniae, Albania). [The Albanians had during the Middle Ages no state of their own, but they had a compact area, that provided with an ethnonym for the motherland (Arbanon, Arbanum, Raban, Regnum Albaniae, Albania).]"
  24. . "у наведеном цитату привлачи пажњу чињеница, да је Стефан Немања запосео,,од Рабна оба Пилота’’. Назив,,Рабна’’ или,,Рабан’’, као што је већ у исторнографији истакнуто, изведен је метатезом од именнце,,Арбаном’’ или,,Арбанум’’, за које знају грчки и латински извори ис XI и XII века. [in the above quotation draws attention to the fact that Stefan Nemanja possessed,,Rabna of both Pulats’’. The name,,Rabna’’ or,,Raban’’, as has already been pointed out in histriography, is derived from the metathesis of the term,,Arbanom’’ or,, Arbanum’’, which is known from Greek and Latin sources during the eleventh and twelfth century.]
  25. . "За време стварања српске државе Стефаном, сином Немањам, око 1215 год, област Arbanum (спр. Рабан), у којој је био и овај арбанашки Београд [During the creation of the Serbian state Stefan, son of Nemanja, around 1215, the area ''Arbanum'' (Sr. ''Raban''), in which this Albanian Berat was]"; p.744. "Наши облици Рабан и рабански постали су без сумње од лат. Arbanum на исти начин као што је Rab постало од лат. Arba… [Our forms ''Raban'' and ''rabanski'' come without doubt from the Latin. ''Arbanum'' in the same manner as ''Rab'' came from the Lat. ''Arba''...]"
  26. . "The ethnic name shqiptar has always been discussed together with the ethnic complex: (tosk) arbëresh, arbëror, arbër — (gheg) arbënesh, arbënu(e)r, arbën; i.e. [''arbën/r''(—)]. p.536. Among the neighbouring peoples and elsewhere the denomination of the Albanians is based upon the root arb/alb, cp. Greek ’Αλβανός, ’Αρβανός "Albanian", ‘Αρβανίτης "Arbëresh of Greece", Serbian Albanac, Arbanas, Bulg., Mac. албанец, Arom. arbinés (Papahagi 1963 135), Turk. arnaut, Ital. albanese, German Albaner etc. This basis is in use among the Arbëreshs of Italy and Greece as well; cp. arvanit, more rarely arbëror by the arbëreshs of Greece, as against arbëresh, arbëresh, bri(e)sh (beside gjegj — Altimari 1994 (1992) 53 s.). (Italy) (Kr. ?) árbanas, (Mandr.) allbanc, (Ukr.) allbanc(er) (Musliu — Dauti 1996) etj. For the various forms and uses of this or that variant see, inter alia, also Çabej SE II 6lss.; Demiraj 1999 175 ss. etj.
  27. "The Indo-European Languages"; Mate Kapović, Anna Giacalone Ramat, Paolo Ramat; 2017, page 554-555
  28. .
  29. . "The Vlachs call the Albanian-speaking Orthodox Christians Arbinéši, and it was under this name that the ancestors of the modern Albanians first appeared in the Middle Ages."
  30. . "Арбанас, арбанаски, арбански и арбанашки и све остале од исте основе изведене речи постала су од Arbanus. [''Arbanas'', ''arbanaski'', ''arbanski'' and ''arbanaški'' and all of the same grounds derived words have come from ''Arbanus''.]"
  31. http://www.albanianhistory.net/1000_Origins-of-Nations/ Robert Elsie Texts and Documents of Albanian History
  32. . "Možemo reći da svi na neki način pripadamo nekoj vrsti etničke kategorije, a često i više nego jednoj. Kao primjer navodim slučaj zadarskih Arbanasa. Da bismo shvatili Arbanase i problem njihova etnojezičnog (etničkog i jezičnog) identiteta, potrebno je ići u povijest njihova doseljenja koje seže u početak 18. st., tj. točnije: razdoblje od prve seobe 1726., razdoblje druge seobe od 1733., pa sve do 1754. godine koja se smatra završnom godinom njihova doseljenja. Svi su se doselili iz tri sela s područja Skadarskog jezera - Briske, Šestana i Livara. Bježeći od Turaka, kuge i ostalih nevolja, generalni providur Nicola Erizzo II dozvolio im je da se nasele u područje današnjih Arbanasa i Zemunika. Jedan dio stanovništva u Zemuniku se asimilirao s ondašnjim stanovništvom zaboravivši svoj jezik. To su npr. današnji Prenđe, Šestani, Ćurkovići, Paleke itd. Drugi dio stanovništva je nastojao zadržati svoj etnički i jezični identitet tijekom ovih 280 godina. Dana 10. svibnja 2006. godine obilježena je 280. obljetnica njihova dolaska u predgrađe grada Zadra. Nije bilo lako, osobito u samom početku, jer nisu imali svoju crkvu, škole itd., pa je jedini način održavanja njihova identiteta i jezika bio usmenim putem. We can say that all in some way belong to a kind of ethnic category, and often more than one. As an example, I cite the case of Zadar Arbanasi. To understand the problem of the Albanians and their ethnolinguistic (ethnic and linguistic) identity, it is necessary to go into the history of their immigration that goes back to the beginning of the 18th century., etc more precisely: the period from the first migration of 1726, the period of the second migration of 1733, and until 1754, which is considered to be the final year of their immigration. All they moved from three villages from the area of Lake Scutari - Briska, Šestan and Livara. Fleeing from the Ottomans, plague and other troubles, the general provider Nicola Erizzo II allowed them to settle in the area of today's Arbanasa and Zemunik. One part of the population in Zemunik became assimilated with the local population, forgetting their language. These are for example, today's Prenda, Šestani, Ćurkovići, Paleke etc. The second part of the population tried to maintain their ethnic and linguistic identity during these 280 years. On May 10, 2006 marked the 280th anniversary of their arrival in the suburb of Zadar. It was not easy, especially in the beginning, because they did not have their own church, school, etc., and is the only way to maintain their identity and language was verbally."
  33. Mirdita, Zef (1969). "Iliri i etnogeneza Albanaca". Iz istorije Albanaca. Zbornik predavanja. Priručnik za nastavnike. Beograd: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika Socijalističke Republike Srbije. pp. 13–14.
  34. Malcolm, Noel. "Kosovo, a short history". London: Macmillan, 1998, p. 29 "The name used in all these references is, allowing for linguistic variations, the same: 'Albanenses' or 'Arbanenses' in Latin, 'Albanoi' or 'Arbanitai' in Byzantine Greek. (The last of these, with an internal switching of consonants, gave rise to the Turkish form 'Arnavud', from which 'Arnaut' was later derived.)"
  35. "Their traditional designation, based on a root *alban- and its rhotacized variants *arban-, *albar-, and *arbar-, appears from the eleventh century onwards in Byzantine chronicles (Albanoi, Arbanitai, Arbanites), and from the fourteenth century onwards in Latin and other Western documents (Albanenses, Arbanenses)."
  36. 2006, Carl Waldman, Catherine Mason; "Encyclopedia of European Peoples" - Volume 2 - Page 38
  37. . "The term "Arvanite" is the medieval equivalent of "Albanian." it is retained today for the descendants of the Albanian tribes that migrated to the Greek lands during a period covering two centuries, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth."
  38. . "Among Greeks, the term "Alvanitis"—or "Arvanitis"—means a Christian of Albanian ancestry, one who speaks both Greek and Albanian, but possesses Greek "consciousness." Numerous "Arvanites" live in Greece today, although the ability to speak both languages is shrinking as the differences (due to technology and information access and vastly different economic bases) between Greece and Albania increase. The Greek communities of Elefsis, Marousi, Koropi, Keratea, and Markopoulo (all in the Attikan peninsula) once held significant Arvanite communities. "Arvanitis" is not necessarily a pejorative term; a recent Pan Hellenic socialist foreign minister spoke both Albanian and Greek (but not English). A former Greek foreign minister, Theodoros Pangalos, was an "Arvanite" from Elefsis."
  39. Book: Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Skutsch, C.. 2013. Taylor & Francis. 9781135193881. 138. 2017-05-15.
  40. . footnote. 9. "Until the Interwar period Arvanitis (plural Arvanitēs) was the term used by Greek speakers to describe an Albanian speaker regardless of his/hers religious background. In official language of that time the term Alvanos was used instead. The term Arvanitis coined for an Albanian speaker independently of religion and citizenship survives until today in Epirus (see Lambros Baltsiotis and Léonidas Embirikos, "De la formation d’un ethnonyme. Le terme Arvanitis et son evolution dans l’État hellénique", in G. Grivaud-S. Petmezas (eds.), Byzantina et Moderna, Alexandreia, Athens, 2006, pp. 417-448."
  41. . "Botsi's chapter on Arvanitika also gives much useful information but contains some unfortunate errors. The northern dialect of Albanian is Geg, not Gjeg (47 et passim), and the formulation "... Albanian does not constitute the direct descendent of an Indo-European language ..." is flat out wrong. While it is true that we are not certain which lndo-European language Albanian is directly descended from, it is as much the descendent of a single language as Greek or French. The claim that Greek and Latin are "at the origin of Albanian polygensis" (48) is mistaken. To be sure, Albanian was heavily influenced by Latin (much less by Greek, especially in the north), but the core grammar and vocabulary represent a distinct and different branch of Indo-European. The primary shape of the root alban- in deriving the various forms of the relevant name is not clearly presented and the forms Shqipëria (Geg Shqipnia) and Shqip(ë)tar are misspelled. The use of Arvanitika to cover all the Albanian-speakers of Greece no doubt reflects popular Greek usage, but in the North American academic community, this label is restricted to those dialects of Greece for which the term of self-ascription is Arbërisht rather than Shqip. This latter term, which apparently came into use in the 15th century and is derived from an adverb meaning ‘[speak] clearly,’ is used by the Çams as well as in the villages near Florina, Konitsa, in Thrace and, we can add, in Mandres near Kilkis (an enclave that arrived from Mandrica in what is now Bulgaria as a result of the Balkan Wars, although the dialect is now moribund or dead [Eric Hamp, p.c., see Hamp 1965 for more data]). From a strictly dialectological point of view, what we can call Arvanitika proper (Southern Arvanitika in Botsi's terms) represents the southernmost extension of the Albanian dialect continuum with a consistent and gradual development of isoglosses. Arbëresh, on the other hand, shows a diversity of Tosk dialects, the ancestors of whose speakers must have come from all along the western part of the Northern Tosk-Lab-Çam-Arvanitika continuum (Eric Hamp, p.c.). While Arvanitika proper broke off directly from southern cam, the non-cam dialects of Epirus., Macedonia and Thrace are all the results of later northern Tosk migrations."
  42. . "It is not too widely known that a majority of villages in the Athens area of Greece are inhabited by people of Albanian rather than Greek ethnic origin. These people are not recent immigrants, but the descendants of Albanians who entered the country at various times, for the most part between the 11th and 15th centuries. These Greek Albanians long retained a clearly separate ethnic identity, apparently, but gradually this identity has been eroded. Today they refer to themselves not as Albanians but as Arvanites, and call the language they speak not Albanian but Arvanitika. They are also very concerned to explain to outsiders that they are not only Arvanites but Greeks as well (see Trudgill and Tzavaras, forthcoming). The result of this development is that the main, perhaps only identifying characteristic of the Greek Albanians is now their language."
  43. . "Por edhe llojet e tjera folklorike, si p.sh. fjalët e urta, gojëdhënat, gjëagjëzat, vallet dhe toponimet na japin vetem trajtat Αρβανίτης, Αρβανιτιά, αρβανίτικος (arvanit, Arbëri, arvanit) [But other kinds of folklore, such as ''proverbs'', ''legends'', ''riddles'', ''dances'' and ''toponyms'' which give us only the forms ''Αρβανίτης'', ''Αρβανιτιά'', ''αρβανίτικος'' (''arvanit'', ''Arber'', arvanit'')]."
  44. . "During the period of the Ottoman domination the geographic entity of Epirus was a matter of great study for the scholars and the geographers of the time. The way the subject was dealt with was mainly a matter of the ideological perspective of each scholar and of his academic and cultural background, a factor that differentiates both them and the definitions that each one gives. It can be observed that scholars who were influenced by the Ancient Greeks favoured an approach based on Ptolemy's theory that the boundaries of Epirus are the Akrokeravnia mountain range, while those inclined to Byzantine opinions added areas of what was once New Epirus such as Avlona and Dyrrachio. All of them, though, were obliged to determine the differences between the ancient term of Epirus and the new term Arvanitia or Albania, the area of which was similarly disputed. We will confine ourselves to the references of a few scholars of the period of Ottoman domination, particularly those that belong chronologically near the era we are studying. For A. Psalida, "Albania, (former Illyricon and Epirus) is bordered to the east by the lower parts of Macedonia and Thessaly, to the north by Bosnan and Serbia, to the west by the Ionian Sea and to the south by the Gulf of Amvrakia", a perception without any ethnological basis which reflects the literature of the period. The writer uses the word Albania, the scholars’ way of expressing the older Greek term Arvanitia, to refer to Epirus. "Albania consists of two toparchies or kingdoms, one of Epirus and one of Illyricon", the writer continues. With this revision he places the river Aoos as a border between Epirus and Illyricon - Ano Arvanitia (upper Arvanitia), a notion which his student Kosmas the Thesprotian also adopts to define Albania. "Albania to the west is bordered by the Adriatic Sea, to the east by the western parts of Macedonia, to the north by Bosnan, Dalmatia and Montenegro and to the south by Epirus, from which it is divided by the river Viosa or Vousa". In these descriptions it is obvious that Avlona is also included inside the borders of Epirus, although the ancient treatise clearly places it in Macedonia (Ptolemy). A few years later, at the time of the Greek revolution, Psalidas refutes, for obvious reasons, the term Arvanitia and comments: "Epirus is wrongly referred to as Arvanitia, since no one there knows how to speak Arvanitika (Albanian)". The Bishop of Athens, Meletios, in the old and new Geography (1728) defines two terms, Arvanitia which constitutes the western part of Macedonia, and the Old Epirus. The two regions are divided by the river Kelidno, which the writer identifies as a river in the area of Liapouria. We observe that this opinion coincides with Ptolemy’s scheme (Γ′, 12, 4.) to which the latest term, Arvanitia, is now added. As a subdivision of Arvanitia, Meletios newly introduces the old-Byzantine term of New Epirus in which he includes the lands between Hemmara and Dirrachio. In "Modern Geography", the Dimitries restore the boundary to Akrokeravnia mountain, which was the ancient Greeks line of demarcation for the lands of the area. They place the lower part of Arvanitia (Kato Arvanitia) in western Macedonia. All the rest of the geographical or ethnological approaches of the 18th and 19th century are theoretical texts that duplicate more or less the views mentioned above. It can be said that in general there is a tendency to identify the political transformations that occur over time with the determination of geographical boundaries and names."
  45. "Arnavudca". Osmanlıcayazılışı. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
  46. .
  47. "Malcolm, Noel. "Kosovo, a short history". London: Macmillan, 1998, p.29 "The name used in all these references is, allowing for linguistic variations, the same: 'Albanenses' or 'Arbanenses' in Latin, 'Albanoi' or 'Arbanitai' in Byzantine Greek. (The last of these, with an internal switching of consonants, gave rise to the Turkish form 'Arnavud', from which 'Arnaut' was later derived.)"
  48. . "This Albanian participation in brigandage is easier to track than for many other social groups in Ottoman lands, because Albanian (Arnavud) was one of the relatively few ethnic markers regularly added to the usual religious (Muslim-Zimmi) tags used to identify people in state records. These records show that the magnitude of banditry involving Albanians grew through the 1770s and 1780s to reach crisis proportions in the 1790s and 1800s."; p.107. "In light of the recent violent troubles in Kosovo and Macedonia and the strong emotions tied to them, readers are urged most emphatically not to draw either of two unwarranted conclusions from this article: that Albanians are somehow inherently inclined to banditry, or that the extent of Ottoman "Albania" or Arnavudluk (which included parts of present-day northern Greece, western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, Kosovo, and southern Serbia) gives any historical "justification" for the creation of a "Greater Albania" today."
  49. . "In this case, however, Ottoman records contain useful information about the ethnicities of the leading actors in the story. In comparison with ‘Serbs’, who were not a meaningful category to the Ottoman state, its records refer to ‘Albanians’ more frequently than to many other cultural or linguistic groups. The term ‘Arnavud’ was used to denote persons who spoke one of the dialects of Albanian, came from mountainous country in the western Balkans (referred to as ‘Arnavudluk’, and including not only the area now forming the state of Albania but also neighbouring parts of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro), organized society on the strength of blood ties (family, clan, tribe), engaged predominantly in a mix of settled agriculture and livestock herding, and were notable fighters — a group, in short, difficult to control. Other peoples, such as Georgians, Ahkhaz, Circassians, Tatars, Kurds, and Bedouin Arabs who were frequently identified by their ethnicity, shared similar cultural traits."
  50. . "Anscombe (ibid., 107 n. 3) notes that Ottoman "Albania" or Arnavudluk... included parts of present-day northern Greece, western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, Kosovo, and southern Serbia"; see also El2. s.v. "Arnawutluk. 6. History" (H. İnalcık) and Arsh, He Alvania. 31.33, 39-40. For the Byzantine period. see Psimouli, Souli. 28."
  51. .
  52. . "And a further complication is introduced by the term "Arnaut", which could he used as a synonym for "Albanian", hut tended to suggest those Albanians (in the ethnic-linguistic sense) who acted as soldiers for the Ottomans — though these, it should be noted, included Catholic Albanians as well as Muslim ones. (When early reports refer to the local Ottoman forces, such as the force led by Mahmut Begolli [Mehmet Beyoğlu], pasha of Peja, they usually state that they consisted largely of Arnauts. Those Serb historians who claim that the terms Arnaut and Albanian did not mean ethnic Albanians, when applied to the supporters of Piccolomini, seem to have no difficulty in accepting that they did have that meaning, when applied to those fighting against him.)"
  53. . "Der ursprüngliche Name Άλβανίτης (abgeleitet von Άλβάνος) wurde im Neugriechischen zu Άρβανίτης… In türkischer Vermittlung erfuhr die Silbe -van- eine Metathese zu -nav-, so dass die türkische Form des Namens für die Albaner arnavut bzw. arnaut Lautet. In dieser Form gelangte das Wort ins Bulgarische (BER I/1971: 15). [The original name Άλβανίτης (derived from Άλβάνος) was established in Modern Greek to Άρβανίτης .... In Turkish the syllable was experienced and mediated as -''van''- and by metathesis to -''nav''- so that the Turkish form of the name for the Albanians became respectively Arnavut or Arnaut. In this form, the word came into Bulgarian (BER I / 1971: 15).]"
  54. . "зову Арнаут, Арнаутка, па од тог назива доцније им потомци прозову се Арнаутовићи. [...] Арнаучићи зли, пакосни и убојити."
  55. Book: Alinei. Mario. Benozzo. Francesco. Dizionario etimologico-semantico dei cognomi italiani (DESCI). 2017. PM edizioni. 9788899565442. 124. "Albanése, -i : dall'etnico Albanése o, nel Sud, 'appartenente alle colonie albanesi' (in Abruzzo, Puglie, Campania, Calabria e Sicilia)."
  56. "In the eighty odd years during which Naples employed light infantry from the Balkans, the troops of the regiment and its successors were known popularly under three names... the seemingly national names of Greci, Albanesi, and Macedoni. These names did not, however, have their later ethnic connotations but were instead stylized terms that described the soldiers’ general origins or mode of fighting... The term Albanesi was used because that nation had achieved fame for its style of fighting as mercenaries of the Ottoman Empire. Muslim Albanians had become a mainstay of the sultan’s armies and were given the nickname "the Swiss of the Near East” by Europeans."
  57. . "Prior to the emergence of the modern self-ethnonym Shqiptarë in the mid-16th century (for the first time it was recorded in 1555 by the Catholic Gheg, Gjon Buzuku, in his missal), North Albanians (Ghegs) referred to themselves as Arbën, and South Albanians (Tosks) Arbër. Hence, the self-ethnonym Arbëreshë of the present-day Italo-Albanians (numbering about 100,000) in southern Italy and Sicily, whose ancestors, in the wake of the Ottoman wars, emigrated from their homeland in the 14th century. These self-ethnonyms perhaps influenced the Byzantine Greek Arvanites for ‘Albanians,’ which was followed by similar ones in Bulgarian and Serbian (Arbanasi), Ottoman (Arnaut), Romanian (Arbănas), and Aromanian (Arbineş). It is clear that scholars and Albanians themselves agree that they do not agree on any single etymology of the ethnonym ‘Albanian.’ A similar predicament is faced by the self-ethnonym Shqiptarë. The most popular scholarly explanation is that it was formed by analogy to ‘Slavs’ (*Slovene), believed to be derived from slovo (‘word’), and by extension, from *sluti (‘to speak clearly.’) The last explanation semantically contrasts with Slavic Niemiec (‘mute,’‘stammering,’‘babbling’), and Greek ‘barbarian’ (from barbaros ‘those who stammer, babble’). Hence, Shqiptarë could be derived from Albanian shqipoi (from Latin excipere) for ‘to speak clearly, to understand.’ The Albanian public favors the belief that their self-ethnonym stems from shqipe (‘eagle’) found on the Albanian national flag."
  58. Book: Matasović, Ranko. 2019. A Grammatical Sketch of Albanian for Students of Indo European. Zagreb. 39.
  59. . "The Albanians of today call themselves shqiptarë, their country Shqipëri, and their language shqipe. These terms came into use between the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. Foreigners call them albanesi (Italian), Albaner (German), Albanians (English), Alvanos (Greek), and Arbanasi (old Serbian), the country Albania, Albanie, Albanien, Alvania, and Albanija, and the language Albanese, Albanisch, Albanian, Alvaniki, and Arbanashki respectively. All these words are derived from the name Albanoi of an Illyrian tribe and their center Albanopolis, noted by the astronomer of Alexandria, Ptolemy, in the 2nd century AD. Alban could he a plural of alb- arb-, denoting the inhabitants of the plains (ÇABEJ 1976). The name passed over the boundaries of the Illyrian tribe in central Albania, and was generalised for all the Albanians. They called themselves arbënesh, arbëresh, the country Arbëni, Arbëri, and the language arbëneshe, arbëreshe. In the foreign languages, the Middle Ages denominations of these names survived, but for the Albanians they were substituted by shqiptarë, Shqipëri and shqipe. The primary root is the adverb shqip, meaning "clearly, intelligibly". There is a very close semantic parallel to this in the German noun Deutsche, "the Germans" and "the German language" (Lloshi 1984) Shqip spread out from the north to the south, and Shqipni/Shqipëri is probably a collective noun, following the common pattern of Arbëni, Arbëri. The change happened after the Ottoman conquest because of the conflict in the whole line of the political, social, economic, religious, and cultural spheres with a totally alien world of the Oriental type. A new and more generalised ethnic and linguistic consciousness of all these people responded to this."
  60. . "emri etnik a nacional e shqiptarëve, përkundër trajtës së drejtë sllave Albanci, tash del të shqiptohet si Šiptari e Šipci me një konotacion përbuzës negativ, ashtu siç është përdorur në krye të herës te serbët edhe në kohën e Jugosllavisë së Vjetër bashkë dhe me formën Šiftari e Arnauti me po të njëtat konotacione pejorative. [ethnic name or the national one of Albanians, despite the right Slavic term Albanci, now appears to be pronounced as Šiptari of Šipci with a connotation that is contemptuously negative, as it is used in the very beginning of the Serbs era at the time of the old Yugoslavia together and the form Šiftari and Arnauti which have the same pejorative connotations.]"
  61. . "There is similar terminological confusion over the name for the inhabitants of the region. After 1945, in pursuit of a policy of national equality, the Communist Party designated the Albanian community as ‘Šiptari’ (Shqiptare, in Albanian), the term used by Albanians themselves to mark the ethnic identity of any member of the Albanian nation, whether living in Albania or elsewhere.… However, with the increased territorial autonomy of Kosovo in the late 1960s, the Albanian leadership requested that the term ‘Albanians’ be used instead—thus stressing national, rather than ethnic, self-identification of the Kosovar population. The term ‘Albanians’ was accepted and included in the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution. In the process, however, the Serbian version of the Albanian term for ethnic Albanians—‘Šiptari’—had acquired an openly pejorative flavor, implying cultural and racial inferiority. Nowadays, even though in the documents of post- socialist Serbia the term ‘Albanians’ is accepted as official, many state and opposition party leaders use the term ‘Šiptari’ indiscriminately in an effort to relegate the Kosovo Albanians to the status of one among many minority groups in Serbia. Thus the quarrel over the terms used to identify the region and its inhabitants has acquired a powerful emotional and political significance for both communities.
  62. . "Because of their allegedly rampant aggression and concerted attempts to destroy national integrity, Albanians in Macedonia are stigmatized with the pejorative term Šiptar (singular)/Šiptari (plural) as an ethic Other. Especially important for the purposes of this paper, as I show below, is the ambivalent character of the stereotype Šiptar/i—after all, as Bhabha ([1994] 2004:95) reminds us "the stereotype [is] an ambivalent mode of knowledge and power," a "contradictory mode of representation, as anxious as it is assertive" (2004:100). In particular, the stereotype declares Albanians to be utterly incapable of participating in political and social life as Macedonian nationals who are committed to respecting and upholding state laws, and the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Macedonia. In this sense, they are allegedly intrinsically "inferior"—"stupid," "dirty," "smelly," "uncultured," "backward," and so on. By the same token, however, and in the context of an ethnic-chauvinist and masculinist ideology (which I discuss in the next section), the stereotype also declares Albanians to be aggressive and capable of violating the territorial integrity of the Macedonian state and the moral integrity of Macedonian women. In this sense then, the stereotype invests Albanians with an excessive, disorderly energy that cannot be regulated and, hence, is dangerous (also see Lambevski 1997; for an analysis of the production and transgression of stereotypes, see Neofotistos 2004).
  63. .

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