shqipe

• shqype (Gheg)

Blend of shkabë (“eagle, vulture”) +‎ shqip (“Albanian”), since the two-headed eagle is the Albanian national emblem. However, more likely to be a prefixed form of qep, sqep (beak of a bird) because in the documents of Gjon Buzuku, the word for "clear, unequivocally" is written as shqip and the one denoting the bird as shqypetë (the birds), respectively. The latter being most likely a formation based of a dissimilation and a suffixed -e feminine variant sh-qep-e > sh-qyp-e > sh-qip-e, similar to some plural buildings, where an umlaut happens shteg>shtigje or other derived terms vjel>vile.

shqipe f (indefinite plural shqipe, definite singular shqipja)

1. eagle

• shkabë, gabonjë

• shqiponjë