Tosk Albanian in the context of "Memaliaj"

Gheg (Gheg Albanian: gegnisht, Standard Albanian: gegërisht) is one of the two major varieties of Albanian, the other being Tosk. The geographic dividing line between the two varieties is the Shkumbin River, which winds its way through central Albania. Gheg is spoken in northern and central Albania, Kosovo, northwestern North Macedonia, southeastern Montenegro and southern Serbia by the Albanian dialectal subgroup known as Ghegs.

Gheg does not have any official status as a written language in any country. Publications in Kosovo and North Macedonia are in Standard Albanian, which is based on Tosk. However, some authors continue to write in Gheg.

Albanians in Greece (Albanian: Shqiptarët në Greqi; Greek: Αλβανοί στην Ελλάδα, romanized: Alvanoí stin Elláda) are people of Albanian ethnicity or ancestry who live in or originate from areas within modern Greece. They are divided into distinct communities as a result of different waves of migration. Albanians first migrated into Greece during the late 13th century. The descendants of populations of Albanian origin who settled in Greece during the Middle Ages are the Arvanites, who have been fully assimilated into the Greek nation and self-identify as Greeks. Today, they still maintain their distinct subdialect of Tosk Albanian, known as Arvanitika, although it is endangered as the younger generations no longer speak it due to language attrition.

The Chams are an Albanian group from the coastal parts of Epirus, in northwestern Greece and the southernmost part of Albania. The Chams of Muslim faith were expelled from Epirus during World War II after large parts of their population collaborated with the Axis occupation forces. Greek Orthodox Albanian communities have been assimilated into the Greek nation.

This article concerns the morphology of the Albanian language, including the declension of nouns and adjectives, and the conjugation of verbs. It refers to the Tosk-based Albanian standard regulated by the Academy of Sciences of Albania.

Novoselë (also: Piskal-Novoselë) is a village and a former municipality in the Korçë County, southeastern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Kolonjë. The population at the 2011 census was 355 and the population was 100% Albanian in ethnicity, having the Tosk dialect of the Albanian language.

The municipal unit consists of the villages Novoselë, Mesiçkë, Kagjinas, Zharkan, Piskal, Vitisht, Shijan, Kaduç, Ndërrmarr and Mbreshtan. The etymology of the village comes from Slavic languages meaning new village, Novo Selo. In Albanian it turned into Novoselë, the village may have been named by Slavic peoples which have invaded this part of Albania and created a new village here, which explains the etymology.

Dhërmi (Albanian definite form: Dhërmiu; Greek: Δρυμάδες, Drymádes) is a village in Vlorë County, Albania. It is part of the municipality of Himarë. The village lies 42 kilometers south of the city of Vlorë and 69 kilometers north of the southern city of Sarandë. It is built on a slope of the Ceraunian Mountains at approximately 200 meters in altitude, and comprises three neighborhoods: Gjilek, Kondraq, Kallami, and Dhërmi itself. The mountains descend to the southwest into the Ionian coast and Corfu in the distance to the south. Nearby is the village of Palasë. The local inhabitants of Dhërmi are ethnic Greeks that mainly speak a variant of the Greek Himariote dialect, and partly the Tosk Albanian dialect. During the last decade, the coastal area has seen a boom in the construction of accommodation facilities, such as wooden villa complexes.

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.

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.