Gheg Albanian in the context of "Principality of Arbanon"

Tosk (Albanian definite form: toskërishtja) is the southern group of dialects of the Albanian language, spoken by the ethnographic group known as Tosks. The line of demarcation between Tosk and Gheg (the northern variety) is the Shkumbin River. Tosk is the basis of the standard Albanian language.

Major Tosk-speaking groups include the Myzeqars of Myzeqe, Labs of Labëria, Chams of Çamëria, Arvanites of Greece and the Arbëreshë of Italy, as well as the original inhabitants of Mandritsa in Bulgaria. In North Macedonia, there were approximately 3000 speakers in the early 1980s.

The Albanians of Kosovo (Albanian: Shqiptarët e Kosovës, pronounced [ʃcipˈtaɾət ɛ kɔˈsɔvəs]), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians or Kosovan Albanians, also commonly referred in the Albanian language as simply Kosovars (Albanian: Kosovarët), constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians belong to the Gheg dialectal sub-group of ethnic Albanians, because they speak Gheg Albanian, more specifically the Northwestern and Northeastern Gheg variants. Other Ghegs live in Albania (north of the Shkumbin river), southern and eastern Montenegro, in southern Serbia, and in western parts of North Macedonia.

According to the 2024 national census by the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, Albanians comprise 91.8% of the population in Kosovo.

The Albanian language is composed of many dialects, divided into two major groups: Gheg and Tosk. The Shkumbin river is roughly the geographical dividing line, with Gheg spoken north of the Shkumbin and Tosk south of it.

The Ghegs (also spelled Gegs; Albanian: Gegët) are one of the two main dialectal subgroups of Albanians, alongside the Tosks. These groups are distinguished by their linguistic characteristics.

The Ghegs live in Albania (north of the Shkumbin river), Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. The Ghegs speak Gheg Albanian, one of the two main dialects of Albanian language. The social organization of the Ghegs was traditionally tribal, with several distinct tribal groups of Ghegs.

Proto-Albanian is the ancestral reconstructed language of Albanian, before the Gheg–Tosk dialectal diversification (before c. 600 CE). Albanoid and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. Whether descendants or sister languages of what was called Illyrian by classical sources, Albanian and Messapic, on the basis of shared features and innovations, are grouped together in a common branch in the current phylogenetic classification of the Indo-European language family. The precursor of Albanian can be considered a completely formed independent IE language since at least the first millennium BCE, with the beginning of the early Proto-Albanian phase.

Proto-Albanian is reconstructed by way of the comparative method between the Tosk and Gheg dialects and between Albanian and other Indo-European languages, as well as through contact linguistics studying early loanwords from and into Albanian and structural and phonological convergences with other languages. Loanwords into Albanian treated through its phonetic evolution can be traced back as early as the first contacts with Doric Greek (West Greek) since the 7th century BCE, but the most important of which are those from Latin (dated by De Vaan to the period 167 BCE to 400 CE) and from Slavic (dated from 600 CE onward). The evidence from loanwords allows linguists to construct in great detail the shape of native words at the points of major influxes of loans from well-attested languages.

Sllovë is a village and a former municipality in the Dibër County, northeastern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Dibër. The population at the 2011 census was 2,405. Elez Isufi (1861 – 29 December 1924) was an Albanian nationalist figure and guerrilla fighter. He was born in the village of Sllovë in 1861 his father was Isuf Ndreu a native of a region. The population of Sllovë is ethnically Albanian and they speak with the Gheg dialect of the Albanian language.