The Contribution of the Arbëresh to the Writing of the Albanian Language

The documentation of the Albanian written language is relatively late due to the historical situations that Albania has gone through. This paper focuses on the issues of Albanian writing and aims to shed light on the efforts to unify the Albanian script, the drafting of the alphabet. The Albanian alphabet was unified in 1908 at the Congress of Manastir. The late drafting of the alphabet shows the difficulties encountered in unifying the Albanian script according to a unifying graphic model. This comprehensive alphabet for all users, for all Albanian writers, came as a result of a wide contribution of many researchers, among whom an important role was given to the Arbëresh of Italy. Until 1908 we have the use of many alphabets for writing Albanian, which came as individual initiatives. The lack of graphic consistency and the lack of precise definition of letters, were reflected in the use of different alphabets that were used by the authors, this problem is even encountered in the same author such as Jeronim De Rada, a well-known Arbëresh writer, who wrote with more than one alphabet. In this paper, we will focus on the elaboration and analysis of two arguments related to the contribution that Arbëresh scholars have made to the Albanian language. Specifically, in: 1-Their efforts to write Albanian and develop Albanian literature.; 2-Drafting the Albanian alphabet. For this purpose, we have collected data from numerous sources, which we have analyzed, drawing conclusions about the contribution of the Arbëresh to Albanian. The study focuses on the alphabets used by the Arbëresh writers from the last period of the 18th century to the first half of the 19th century. During this period, the Arbëresh showed influence from Greek in the design of the Albanian alphabet. The analysis will show that different cultures influence each other's development, when the need arises for the development of one side. Through the inductive method, after analyzing the alphabets of each of the authors, the alphabets will be placed in a comparative plan with each other, with the main aim of determining the values and features of the use of Greek letters in writing Albanian by these authors. Received: 9 March 2025 / Accepted: 25 April 2025 / Published: 08 May 2025