Albanian language

The Monastery of the Forty Saint Martyrs (Albanian: Manastiri i 40 Shenjtorëve, Greek: Ιερά Μονή των Αγιών Σαράντα Μαρτύρων, Iera Moni ton Agion Saranta Martyron) is a ruined Eastern Orthodox monastery overlooking the coastal city of Sarandë in southern Albania. The monastery was erected during the 6th century AD and possibly became for at least one millennium the most important pilgrimage site in the Ionian Sea region. The name of the monastery (Agioi Saranta in Greek meaning Forty Saints) was transferred to the adjacent city of Onchesmos. During the People's Republic of Albania (1944-1991) the site was transformed into a military installation. Today only a part of the side walls of its basilica type church survive.

The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau, with additional native branches found in regions such as parts of Central Asia (e.g., Tajikistan and Afghanistan), southern Indian subcontinent (Sri Lanka and the Maldives) and Armenia. Historically, Indo-European languages were also spoken in Anatolia and Northwestern China. Some European languages of this family—English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch—have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, including Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic, all of which contain present-day living languages, as well as many more extinct branches.

Today the individual Indo-European languages with the most native speakers are English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hindustani, Bengali, Punjabi, French, and German; many others spoken by smaller groups are in danger of extinction. Over 3.4 billion people (42% of the global population) speak an Indo-European language as a first language—by far the most of any language family. There are about 446 living Indo-European languages, according to an estimate by Ethnologue, of which 313 belong to the Indo-Iranian branch.

Arabic has had a great influence on other languages, especially in vocabulary. The influence of Arabic has been most profound in those countries visited by Islam or Islamic power.

Arabic loanwords have made into many languages as diverse as Abkhaz, Afrikaans, Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Circassian, Croatian, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Nepali, Odia, Ossetian, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sicilian, Spanish, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Tajik, Tatar, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. Other languages such as Maltese and Nubi derive from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary. Arabic words were being used from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Maritime Southeast Asia prior to the spread of European international words.

The Greek state has systematically pursued a policy of Hellenisation following its independence from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1830s. This ideology included replacing all geographical and topographic names with revived names rooted in Classical Greece – that is, any name deemed foreign, divisive against Greek unity, or considered to be "bad Greek" was hidden or assimilated. The names that were considered foreign were usually of Albanian, Slavic or Turkish origin. Byzantine Greek was considered bad Greek at the time of the establishment of the state until well after the Balkan Wars; accordingly those places were also renamed.

The aim of the name changes was to cover the memory of the "dark past": meaning Roman, Frankish, Venetian, and especially Turkish rule. The name changes followed the territorial expanses of Greece and continued into the Greek Republic. They occurred in the Arvanite settlements in central Greece since 1830, in Thessaly since 1881, after the Balkan Wars in Macedonia since 1913, and Western Thrace since 1920. The last name changes occurred in 1998.

Durrës (/ˈdʊrəs/ DUURR-əs, Albanian: [ˈdurəs]; Albanian definite form: Durrësi) is the second most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is one of Albania's oldest continuously inhabited cities, with roughly 2,500 years of recorded history. It is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of the Erzen and Ishëm at the southeastern corner of the Adriatic Sea. Durrës's climate is profoundly influenced by a seasonal Mediterranean climate.

Durrës was founded under the name of Epidamnos around the 7th century BC, by ancient Greek colonists from Corinth and Corcyra in cooperation with the Taulantii, a local Illyrian tribe. Also known as Dyrrachium, Durrës developed as it became an integral part of the Roman Empire and its successor the Byzantine Empire. The Via Egnatia started in the city and led east across the fields, lowlands and highlands of the Balkan Peninsula to Constantinople.

Kumanovo (Macedonian: Куманово [kuˈmanɔvɔ] ; Albanian: Kumanovë, Albanian definite form: Kumanova; also known by other alternative names) is the second-largest city in North Macedonia after the capital Skopje and the seat of Kumanovo Municipality, the largest municipality in the country. Kumanovo lies 340 metres (1,115 feet) above sea level and is surrounded by the Karadag part of Skopska Crna Gora mountain on its western side, Gradištanska mountain on its southern side, and Mangovica and German mountain on the eastern side. The Skopje Airport also serves Kumanovo.

It has many historical sites. One of its most important is the 4,000-year-old megalithic astronomical observatory of Kokino, located 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Kumanovo and discovered in 2001. It is ranked fourth on the list of old observatories by NASA.

The Paleo-Balkan languages are a geographical grouping of various Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. In antiquity, Dacian, Greek, Illyrian, Messapic, Paeonian, Phrygian and Thracian were the Paleo-Balkan languages which were attested in literature. They may have included other unattested languages.

Paleo-Balkan studies are obscured by the scarce attestation of these languages outside of Ancient Greek and, to a lesser extent, Messapic and Phrygian. Although linguists consider each of them to be a member of the Indo-European family of languages, the internal relationships are still debated. A Palaeo-Balkanic or Balkanic Indo-European branch has been proposed in recent research, comprising the Albanoid or Illyric (Albanian–Messapic), Armenian, and Graeco-Phrygian (Hellenic–Phrygian) subbranches. Regardless of the name, there is no direct evidence to support the location for the hypothetical common ancestor of these languages in the Balkan peninsula itself. Τhe common stage between the Late Proto-Indo-European dialects of Pre-Albanian, Pre-Armenian, and Pre-Greek, is considered to have occurred in the Late Yamnaya period, after the westward migrations of Early Yamnaya across the Pontic–Caspian steppe; also remaining in the western steppe for a prolonged period of time, separated from the Indo-European dialects that later gave rise to the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures in Europe.

Albanians in Montenegro (Albanian: Shqiptarët e Malit të Zi; Montenegrin: Албанци у Црној Гори, romanized: Albanci u Crnoj Gori) are ethnic Albanians who constitute 4.97% of Montenegro's total population. They are the largest non-Slavic ethnic group in Montenegro.

Albanians are particularly concentrated in southeastern and eastern Montenegro alongside the border with Albania in the following municipalities including Ulcinj (73.5% of total population), Tuzi (62.6%), Gusinje (34.4%), Plav (9.4%), and Rožaje (5.1%).

Berat (pronounced [bɛˈɾat]; Albanian definite form: Berati) is the ninth most populous city of Albania and the seat of Berat County and Berat Municipality. By air, it is 71 kilometres (44 miles) north of Gjirokastër, 70 kilometres (43 miles) west of Korçë, 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of Tirana, and 33 kilometres (21 miles) east of Fier.

Berat is located in the south of the country. It is surrounded by mountains and hills, including Tomorr on the east that was declared a national park. The river Osum (total length 161 km (100 mi)) runs through the city before it empties into the Seman within the Myzeqe Plain. The municipality of Berat was formed at the 2015 local government reform by the merger of the former municipalities Berat, Otllak, Roshnik, Sinjë, and Velabisht, that became municipal units. The seat of the municipality is the city Berat. The total population is 62,232 as of the 2023 census, in a total area of 421.6 km (162.8 sq mi).