Albanian–Romanian linguistic relationship

The four Balkan Romance languages in the early 20th century

Albanian dialects in Southern Europe

Romanian is a Romance language spoken by about 25 million people primarily in Southeastern Europe.[5] Its principal variant, Daco-Romanian, is the official language of Romania and Moldova.[5] A second variant, Macedo-Romanian (or Aromanian), is spoken by about 350,000 people in Albania, southwestern Bulgaria, northern Greece and North Macedonia.[5] The third variant, Megleno-Romanian, exists in the Meglen region in southeastern North Macedonia and northern Greece.[5][6] The fourth variant, Istro-Romanian, is spoken in eight settlements in Istria (in Croatia).[5] The four variants developed from a common ancestor, known as Common Romanian.[7] The venue of the formation of Proto-Romanian is debated. Some scholars propose that the Roman province of Dacia Traiana (which existed to the north of the Lower Danube from 106 AD to 271) was included in the Romanians' homeland.[8][9] Other scholars say that Proto-Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the south-Danubian Roman provinces and the Romanians' ancestors started to settle in most regions of Romania only in the 12th century.[10][11]

Romanian and Aromanian languages diverged only in the ninth or tenth century[10][12]

Forming a separate branch of the Indo-European language family, Albanian is spoken by about 6.5 million people in Albania and the nearby regions in Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece.[13] Albanian has two main dialects, Gheg and Tosk, with the former spoken to the north of the river Shkumbin (Scampis) and the latter to the south of the river.[14] Two varieties of the Tosk dialect, Arvanitika in Greece and Arbëresh in southern Italy, preserved archaic elements of the language.[14] Gheg and Tosk which are primarily distinguished by phonological differences are mutually intelligible.[14][15] According to concurring scholarly theories, Albanian is regarded as the direct descendant of ancient Illyrian or Thracian languages, or of the hypothetical Daco-Mysian language.[15]

Tosk/Gheg differentiation leading to regular correspondences,[16] affect native words, Latin loans, and Classical Greek loans, but not Slavic loans, led researchers to the conclusion that the dialectal split preceded the Slavic migration to the Balkans.[17][18] According to the view of Demiraj, at the time of the Tosk/Gheg split, Albanian populations were roughly in their present location,[19] while Eric Hamp agrees "it must be relatively old, that is, dating back into the post-Roman first millennium", and speculates Tosk/Gheg isoglosses could reflect "a spread of the speech area, after the settlement of the Albanians in roughly their present location, so that the speech area straddled the Jireček Line".[20]

Albanian and Romanian, along with Bulgarian and Macedonian, are the core members of the Balkan linguistic area—an area of linguistic convergence affecting six to eight languages in the Balkan Peninsula (in Southeastern Europe).[21] Linguists also list the Torlakian dialect of Serbo-Croatian and Greek among the members of the same linguistic area.[21] The membership of the Balkan dialects of Romani (or Gypsy) and of Turkish is debated, although they share some characteristics with the other idioms.[21] Scholars agree that only common characteristics shared by more than two languages in the group can be regarded as true Balkan features.[22] Albanian and Romanian share most Balkan features, but they also have common features which do not characterize other Balkan languages.[22]

The existence of an unrounded central vowel—either a mid central vowel (ə) or a close central unrounded vowel (ɨ)—is the principal common phonological feature of most Balkan languages, although these vowels are not present in Greek and standard Macedonian.[23] The loss or limited usage of infinitives characterizes all Balkan languages, but Albanian developed a new type after losing the inherited form.[24][25] The postponed article is also a well-known Balkanism, missing only from Greek: for instance, Albanian nënë and nëna ("mother" and "the mother"), Bulgarian selo and seloto ("village" and "the village"), and Romanian om and omul ("man" and "the man").[25][26] Most Balkan languages use the auxiliary verb "want" when creating verbs in future tense and merged the dative and genitive cases in nominal declension.[25][26]

The Tosk dialect of Albanian, spoken in Southern Albania, in particular is held to have experienced developments parallel to early Romanian. These notably include the centralization of /a/ before nasals, rhotacism of intervocalic /n/ (regular in Tosk, more limited in Romanian : see LAMINA > lamura). However, it is important to note that /n/ rhotacism is present in other Romance languages such as Franco-Provençal therefore not necessarily a unique similarity between Albanian and Romanian.[28] Some words of the shared Albanian–Romanian lexicon, such as vatra/vatră, in Romanian clearly agree with the Tosk form and not the Gheg (northern) Albanian form. The proposed interaction between Tosk and Romanian is held to have been the last stage of the crucial Albanian–Romanian period of convergence. Since these effects are marginal if present at all upon Slavic loans, they likely occurred before contact with Slavs.[29]

Other features dated to the breakup of Romance languages that are shared between Albanian and Romanian include the merger of long /eː/ and short /i/, but not long /oː/ and short /u/ (most Romance languages either merged both or neither), and the replacement of /k/ in clusters /ks/ and /kt/ with a labial (p in Romanian, f in Albanian: see luctare > Albanian luftoj, Romanian lupta; Latin coxa > Albanian kofshë, Romanian coapsă). In the latter case, variation in Albanian outcomes has been explained as being the effect of loans entering Albanian at different times.[30]

In both languages the ă/ë vowel evolution presents similarities: from Latin /a/ followed or preceded by a certain consonants (Latin camisia> Rom. cămașă, Alb. këmishë), also from Latin unstressed /e/ (Lat. peccātum> Rom. păcat, Alb. mëkat), or from Slavic unstressed /o/ (Sl.сито > Rom.sită, Alb.sitë). Unlike in Albanian, in Romanian the vowel came also from unstressed /i/ in Latin words or stressed o. Nasalization is similar in both languages when applied to Latin words but Romanian went further: stressed /a/ followed by /n/ became /ə/, then closed in further to /ɨ/. Albanian continued to apply this treatment to Slavic loanwords for example вранъ> Alb.i vrërë while Romanian preserved the /a/ sound. In a similar manner the rhotacism phenomenon continued in Albanian with the Slavic words while in Romanian it was limited to Latin words and in several cases to words of common origin with Albanian (mugure, viezure) which in Albanian have a velar /l/ (mugull, vjedhullë - Gheg dialect).[31]

When comparing the morphological elements of the four core languages of the Balkan linguistic area, scholars have concluded that Albanian and Romanian share most common features.[27] Albanian and Romanian use postponed articles with proper names, while this feature is absent from Bulgarian and Macedonian.[27]

There are several hundred words in Romanian that are cognate only with Albanian cognates (see Substrate in Romanian), [32] though by lower estimates there are 70–90 possible substrate words with Albanian cognates,[33][34] and 29 terms are probably loanwords from Albanian.[35]