A language speaks a lot, but only few hear the truth.

On overview of what our language, as the biggest history of every nation writes everyday

Xhoena Polisi CEN1 ENG 102 10 May 2013 Research Paper

Honor Statement: I certify that all material not attributed to others is common knowledge or my original contribution.

Xhoena Polisi 2

Abstract: Language is a live fact that shows clearly the history and the changes that a nation can undergo. As an Albanian, seeing that we have still conflicts about our

origin and our language, I just want to find the roots of our ancestors. How old is Albanian? It comes from Latin, Greek or German? The conclusion made at the end, by comparing it with Jewish, Sanskrit and studying phonemes, is that Albanian in fact, is a unique, have similarities with other languages not because it comes from them, but because they were derived by itself and it is one of the oldest languages in the world. Keywords: Albanian language, phonemes, Hebraic, Sanskrit.

Before introducing my topic I would like to make a review of the history, our history. We know by facts that we were occupied most of the time; we were all the time facing wars and other nations trying to take our lands, our freedom, our dignity, our nation. Everything has changed from that time, some things are disappeared, some facts are unknown, some events are still alive, and some

3 Xhoena Polisi

conflicts exist until now. Only one thing is remained alive, untouchable and beautiful as it was when it showed up. Language is connected with everything that has passed over these lands, with the new or old mentality, with the old psychology. And if it is not studied by using these facts we cannot give the truth, but it will still remain a mister. By considering the facts that some countries wanted to consider our land and our nationnot indigenous as people that came from different places; we can understand that different authors have described our language as a derived one. In this origin, I am searching through the tunnels of Albanians origin, through books covered by dust and through authors whose words were never considered clearly. In this research paper I want to state clearly the conclusion that Albanian is a unique old language, maybe one of the oldest one in the world, whose semantic fields and vocabulary was taken by other new languages and this is a fact, not a statement. Albanian language states clearly by studying it who is the oldest nation in the Balkan Peninsula, and the archeological facts give precisely the conclusion that Pelasgians spoke Albanian, and if so, Albania is the nation who is descendant of Pelasgians. Evidently, Albanians origin is mythic and very old to remember it. In the following paragraphs the proofs for this claim will be shown. At the beginning I would like to explain why Albanian is considered as a unique language spoken only in these lands and at the places where people

Xhoena Polisi 4

emigrate from here. To do so, I am using as evidences the book of Roberto DAngely written during the period 1893-1966 with 5 volumes Enigma. Robert DAngely is the first foreign albanologist who made a well developed research for the origin of the oldest languages found in Balkan Peninsula. He showed a special interest for Pelasgians and for their language because as he concluded in his book Pelasgians were the first nation in the peninsula and Albanian is unique because it was used to create new language and not the vice versa. He showed that Hellenic language (old and new) was created by usage of Albanian as shown below: -Albanian kjaj is same as - in Greek; -hepem for benting in Albanian corresponds to -. Etc But interesting is the fact that Hellenic Gods name can be explained only in Albanian and in no other language. - Zeus is studied the first as it was the master of all of them, which Italians name it was Jupiter. He was known as God of Thunder. The meaning of thunder is given only by Albanian Z-s, in Greek as we can see clearly that just a little deformation of Albanian word express it: Z=zs (thunder resound).

5 Xhoena Polisi

- Demetra is the God of land and everything on Earth. By using Albanian we can actually show that Demetra= De-meter, and we go further de(dhe) meter(mm) which means Dheu Mm that gives the clear image of Demetra as God of Land. But this words meaning doesnt make sense when we try to define from their language. The reason why I chose to show that Albanian can explain the Gods name is because these names show their national beliefs, their own personality. If they had their own Gods, as they pretend, the Gods names should be explained in their language and not in Albanian, but as we can see clearly they have taken these names, belief by Pelasgians, which shows that Pelasgians were in these lands before their arrival and they had their own belief, which they transmitted to other coming nations. Before saying that our language is one of the oldest, one of the primitive ones, its origin is mythic etc first of all we have to define and to show what the general opinion is for an older language, whose origin is even before Latin and Hellenic were spoken and to compare if Albanian can fulfill this opinions criteria. I can summarize the opinions of authors like Otto Ranke, Petro Zheji, Giuseppe Crispi, Roberto DAngely etc to arrive in a definition (if we consider these criteria to enter on a group) as: The primitive language, since it was spoken by humans who didnt know what words were, contained many one syllable short words and

Xhoena Polisi 6

many short words containing not more than three consonants; the first languages were symbolic ones and their words explanation should be searched in a symbol, not in a concept. Returning back in the past we can imagine humans who dont know words, sentences etc trying to communicate with each other. It is obvious that at those times the communication was done by gestures (symbolic) and by sounds (vowels). They didnt know these perfect languages that we have know, but they knew that communication should be developed with them and survive with them all the time. Lets consider the communication done by sounds which clearly means vowels. Giuseppe Crispi tries to find a relation of Albanian with the description of the primitive language in his book Memories about Albanian language (Palermo, pub. Lorenzo Dato, 1831). He compares Albanian with Jewish language, as it is considered as one of the oldest and maybe the oldest one (14). He also continues the work done by DAngely to find explanation of Tyrrhenian words and Greek words in Albanian. The method used to compare these two languages is in syllables, sounds, words and syntax. I will be focused only on the sounds, because this is the part that has a great interest. Sounding is thought to mean vowels actually and we know that vowels are only 5. But sounds? We have many, short ones and long ones, so the number increases. It is evident that the language that has a great number of sounds can be classified to the definition made in the previous

7 Xhoena Polisi

paragraph. Jewish language has 13 vowels and Albanian has even more, 20 or a bigger number of vowels. These both two languages have two special sounds as y (in French u), (an unsounded e). Crispi states that the number of vowels can explain clearly the origin of Albanian (17-20). The facts taken by Crispis book are useful, but we have to take a deeper look into the phonetics of Albanian. Since it can be looked as one criterion that can classify our language as of the oldest, we have to find real relations. Lowmans article titled The phonetics of Albanian. (Linguistic Atlas of The United States and Canada, 1930) serves like a window for anyone who wants to have a deep study in phonetics. In his article, Lowman notates that Albanian language has different sounding in different places you are there, in North, South, Center and no one, except them in some cases can speak their own language and words. It is difficult to say these words as in original version. The observation was done to Scutari, with conversation with Mr. Rifat Tirana, three other Scutari natives etc (272). What draw the writers attention were the different dialects that existed between Muslims and Catholics in Scutari. The author thinks that the dialects may have lived aside for a long period and shows for a great sociality between them. He starts it study with stresses, which are three: primary, secondary and unstressed. What he notes there is The effect of the manner in which the stress falls into a vowel is rather peculiar for an English ear. (272), for example: [i: te].

Xhoena Polisi 8

In Albanian and in some Indian language, when we stress the first vowel, the stress is weaker at the beginning but after it starts to be increased, and after a short period declines. The glottal stop is not used as in English, because it helps the emphasizing. About consonants it says that there are 33 ones in the studied dialect and the speakers sound. Here is an overview:

(273) For each consonant there exists different pronunciation in different words for example: po(yes), vrapin (running), kep(point). The sound of p it starts to be increased by the first word to the other. About vowels, the author has studied only 13 vowels and different techniques how to say them.

(281) He has studied 13 vowel phonemes, but it describes 21 members of these 13s and also vowel glide, nasal vowel, diphthongs etc. so the number increases gradually. For each word has only a unique saying and sounding, which can do the same only the people living in the same region and for the foreigners is even harder to understand, because he cannot say the exact pronunciation for a word, since it has unique techniques in saying that. It is obvious that the phonemes of Albanian

9 Xhoena Polisi

need a clear study and a net division for each sound, but sure we can see that just for one dialect we have so much different soundings and if we consider the other dialects the conclusion we came is that based on the fact that the primitive language had many soundings and vowels, Albanian fulfills this criterion with convincing evidences shown by linguistic researches done before nowadays. As a medal has two different faces, so different opinions must be shared for this language and as I want to be as objective as possible in my research paper I would like to consider the counter facts that other authors like Xylander, Meyer,Benlow say for Albanians origin. When they studied our language, they arrived in different conclusions, in opposite ones. This wrong path was taken sometimes deliberately and sometimes just for misunderstanding the facts given. One of them is Gustav Meyer who arrived in wrong conclusions for Albanians origin as he arrived in a conclusion that Albanian came from newly born languages as Latin, Greek, Turkish, Italian, and Slavonic etc. His results were published in his book Etymological dictionary of Albanian language. (Strassburg, Trbner,J.K., 1891). His vocabulary contains 5140 words in total which he divides them into this portion based on the origin of the words: 1420 words taken by Latin and Romanian, 540 Slavonic words, 1180 Turkish ones, 840 Neo Greek words and 730 words with unknown origin. To his list, only 400 words belonged to the Albanian language. It is a rare conclusion, because Meyer states that our language

Xhoena Polisi 10

is mostly made by Latino-Romanian words, after that Turkish ones, Greeks, Slavonic and then the Albanian roots came out. It is not the conclusion rare actually. As Eqerem abej stated in his book The History of Albanian Language (1976,9) that Meyer followed a wrong path, which gave to him and to other a wrong conclusion. He couldnt understand the truth power of Albanian, but he was just focused on the words, as he didnt thought for any moment that the Albanian roots were found to those different languages words. This conflict of conclusion was remarked by other researchers that replaced many words from other language word list to Albanian. Carlo Tagliarini (Zheji,2005), after reading the book, remarks that most of those 730 words remained without a proper field, were Albanian and many other words who were considered wrongly by Meyer were put to their proper place (Albanian field list), especially the Latin ones(22). There are many followers of thinking way of Meyers too. Its a contradiction since it is accepted the fact that Albanian has connection with older languages, even with those ones which are far away, or not used or obliterated and after this it is considered as a language derived by other ones. So this shouldnt exist anymore, since there are facts to only one truth, not both. To the definition gave above, only one part of it was explained, and the part for the symbolic one remained last. We can say that unfortunately, our language

11 Xhoena Polisi

has started to be written in a very latish time, but it didnt lose any of its symbolic definition from which it came from. This part is described in detail in the 2 books of Petro Zheji Albanian and Sanskrit (2005). As Crispi did in his book comparison with Jewish since it has many vowels instead of other language, Zheji took in consideration the fact that Sanskrit is an old Hindi language not spoken any more, symbolic one and compared it with Albanian in two different ones. The first method was comparing the words which had the same root and described the same symbol, the formation of the words (which included other). The second method was the comparison of words which didnt have any relationship by a first view, but if we divide into components we can find a relations and state conclusions (2227). At the following paragraphs I am giving just one example for each method, but for sure in these two books there are many, but I think one is enough to give the key idea. The first example given in the list is : lath (in Sanskrit) corresponding lith, loth (Albanian) which means zgjidh (nowadays Albanian) resolve,divide etc. By a simple equation we have lath= +lath In Albanian, represents division, negation, something different that the meaning of the word, as we can describe more clearly by the verb aj (divide into two

Xhoena Polisi 12

pieces). In a symbolic way we can describe it as where stands for the full part and | for the division part. We can simply denote that the first symbol is

expressing division or in other words the first symbol is the letter , if you flip it we get D (division, darje). By this part we understand two facts: the first, the similarity between Sanskrit and Albanian, and the second the symbolic way of Albanian language. The meaning of division can be described as [ ] = . There is no such a word operator to describe the meaning of lath in Sanskrit since the lith in Albanian and the operator L describes connections and this usage we can see even in different language: legare (Italian), lier (French) etc(43-44). The second methods example is a word upa-rati in Sanskrit. There exist no similar word with this word in Albanian, but if we divide it in small parts we see: U pa rat U ba rat U= a formation part of passive way in Albanian (u shtriva, u lava etj meaning I laid, I washed myself etc). Pa= the verb ba (baj, bej, in English do). Rat= participle form of verb me rene (to fall).

13 Xhoena Polisi

None of these operators exist freely in Sanskrit, but only in Albanian and only using Albanian we can derive the meaning of this word. If we see it clearly uparati = u ba rat it gives the idea of falling, falling for country in middle of the war, falling and breaking some part of the body and an acute death(34). So u ba rat in Albanian gives the idea of a person falling and dying, while the true meaning of the verb in Sanskrit is the dead body. Evidently, there is no more explanation to add since the definition of the two words match together and if we try to use again symbols we can express that Sanskrit is part of the semantic field of Albanian in this way Albanian >= Sanskrit. To conclude, Albanian fulfills the two criteria made by the other researches to classify which are the older languages of the world, so by this we mean that Albanian is one of the oldest languages in the world. It has similarities with different old languages as Jewish, Sanskrit and many other not explained above. Our language is not formed by Latin or Greek Language, it is uniquely spoke, formed, structured and has helped other language to be built on. Our language is the beautiful Pelasgians language arrived until today untouched, pure as it was, with different phonemes and different soundings, whispering the true origin of our nation and we have the right to protect it, to develop and to make researches in a way that no other researches as Meyers and other make wrong conclusion which bring only conflicts in Balkan and different places. Shine above us to your truth,

Xhoena Polisi 14

my beautiful Albanian language! In these days you will be our guide through the path of finding ourselves! REFERENCES: DAngely, Robert. Paris, December 22, 1893 - Paris October 22, 1966. Enigma (5 Volumes). The Pumonti Cismonte Publications. http://pelasg.org/robert_dangely_enigma_en.html Crispi, Giuseppe, 1831, Albanian, mother of all the languages, Palermo, pub. Lorenzo Dato. http://fr.scribd.com/doc/28106800/Shqipja-nena-e-gjuheve-Crispi-Giuseppe1831 *in Albanian

http://books.google.com/books?id=IccGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover &dq=memoria+sulla+lingua+albanese+giuseppe+crispi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2 gKPUPOBJsXj4QT4_IGgCA&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA version written in Italian Lowan, G. S. 1930.The phonetics of Albanian. Linguistic Atlas of The United States and Canada * the original

15 Xhoena Polisi

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/408833?uid=3737464&uid=2134&ui d=378543443&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=378543433&uid=60&sid=2110 1730064433 Meyer, Gustav.1891. Etymological dictionary of Albanian language. Strassburg, Trbner,J.K. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6937403M/Etymologisches_wo%CC%88rte rbuch_der_albanesischen_sprache Zheji, Petro.2005. Albanian and Sanskrit(2 volumes).Tirana, Tertiumdatum.