Category:Albanian language

Jewish-Christian-Islamic Origins -- Albanian language

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by five million people, primarily in Albania, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Greece, but also in other areas of Southeastern Europe in which there is an Albanian population, including Montenegro, Italy, Serbia and Ukraine.

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Albanian language -- History of research -- Overview

Giulio Variboba

Kostandin Kristoforidhi

Meshari (The Missal, 1555) by Catholic cleric Gjon Buzuku, is the earliest extant literary work of written Albanian. This translation of significant parts of the Catholic Liturgy into Albanian contains the liturgies of the main religious holidays of the year, comments from the book of prayers, excerpts from the Bible as well as excerpts from the ritual and catechism.

Pjetër Bogdani's Çeta e profetëve, published in Italy in 1685 also with a Latin translation (Cuneus Prophetarum) and in 1691 with an Italian translation (L'infallibile verità della cattolica fede), is an early example of biblical history, containing the History of Israel and the Life of Jesus.

In 1761 the Elbasan Gospel Manuscript (Anonimi i Elbasanit), probably a work by Gregory of Durrës, was the first translation in Albanian of portions of the New Testament. In 1762 Giulio Variboba published a poem of The Life of the Virgin Mary.

In 1827 the integral text of the New Testament (Dhiata e Re) was translated by Vangjel Meksi and Grigor Gjirokastriti into Albanian (in a Greek-Albanian edition).

The New Testament was translated into Albanian again in 1872 by Kostandin Kristoforidhi.

In the first half of the 20th century a few works of biblical subject were published in Albanian, most notably, the play Juda Makabé by Gjergj Fishta (1914). In 1921 the first translation of the Qur'an in Albanian was completed by Ilo Mitke Qafëzezi.

In 1932 Albanian-American scholar Fan Stylian Noli published an English translation of the New Testament "from the approved Greek text of the Church of Constantinople and the Church of Greece."

During the communist regime, Albanian was a completely isolated country and the study of religion was forbidden. The most conspicuous exception is the work of philologist Eqrem Çabej on the Missal of Gjon Buzuku, of which Namik Resuli had published the transcription in 1958. The work of Pjetër Bogdani also was reprinted in 1977 in Germany by Giuseppe Valentini and Martin Camaj. New translations of ancient religious texts in Albanian could be published only abroad, in Serbia by Simon Filipaj (Gospel of Matthew, 1977; New Testament, 1980), Feti Mehdiu (Qur'an, 1985), H. Sherif Ahmeti (Qur'an, 1988) and Hasan I. Nahi (Qur'an 1988), or in England by Muhammad Zakaria Khan (Qur'an, 1990).

After the fall of the communist regime in 1992, the first edition of the whole Christian Bible were published in Albanian--the Protestant Bible by Stephen Etches in 1993 and the Catholic Bible (with the OT Apocrypha) by Simon Filipaj in 1994. Two major studies were published in Albania in the 1990s, summarizing the history of the translations of the Christian Bible and the Qur'an in Albanian, by Feti Mehdiu in 1996 and Engjëll Sedaj in 1999.

The second revised edition of Khan's translation of the Qur'an appeared in Germany in 2003. The success of the novel The Da Vinci Code also reached Albania in 2004. Thanas Gjika introduced the critical study of the New Testament.

Albanian scholars are still struggling to regain their place in international scholarship.