01Albanian (Shqip) is an Indo-European (or Indo-Germanic) language even though its membership of this language family was discovered relatively late by Franz Bopp in 1854.
02Nodding “no” and shaking “yes”: Shaking one’s head from side to side does not mean “no” but “right, I agree, I’m listening” while someone else is talking. Conversely, nodding one’s head up and down does not mean “yes”. It means “sorry, I’m afraid not” and seems to accompany bad news.
03The Albanian alphabet has 36 letters:
a, b, c, ç, d, dh, e, ë, f, g, gj, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, nj, o, p, q, r, rr, s, sh, t, th, u, v, x, xh, y, z, zh.
The alphabet contains the following compound letters: dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh. As with all the other letters, these entries are always pronounced the same and are represented by unique sounds.
Each has a separate section in Albanian dictionaries, i.e., words that start with ⟨th⟩ are not to be found in the t-section of a dictionary.
04Albanian verbs have six moods: the admirative, which expresses surprise or disagreement, the subjunctive - applied to express potentiality, conditional, which reflects a degree of possibility), the optative used to express a wish, the jussive (suggestion or proposal) and the imperative (a command).
05Albanian names are also often associated with the country’s geography, for example Korab, Shkëlzen, Drin, Sazan, Valbona and so on. These are the names of famous mountains and rivers in Albania but they are widely used for people as well. Other names may express virtues such as Besnik ("faith"), Krenar ("proud"), Perparim ("progress") and Shpresa ("hope").
06Mother Teresa was born as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu - The word bojaxhiu in Albanian means “painter” and gonxha "rosebud".
07Albanian language is officially regulated by the Social Sciences and Albanological Section of the Academy of Sciences of Albania, the highest scientific institution in the Republic of Albania founded in 1972. Under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences and Institute of Albanian Language numerous fundamental scientific works have been published including Dictionary of Albanian Orthography, The Dictionary of Contemporary Albanian Language and The Grammar of Albanian Language.
What does Albanian sound like? Listen to an Albanian radio station.