the spread of standard albanian: an illustration based on an analysis of vowels

The spread of Standard Albanian: An illustrationbased on an analysis of vowels

S y l v i a M o o s m ü l l e r a n d T h e o d o r G r a n s e r

Austrian Academy of Sciences

A B S T R A C T

Modern Standard Albanian is a young variety, proclaimed in 1972 at the Congressof Orthography in Tirana. It is based on the Tosk variety, one of the two mainvarieties (Tosk and Gheg) of the Albanian language, which is spoken in the Southof the country. The aim of the current investigation is to look at the way in which thisStandard is realized by its representatives, the educated speakers of four geograph-ical regions: SouthAlbania, MiddleAlbania, NorthAlbania, and Kosovo. The analy-sis is based on the realization of stressed vowels. It can be shown that there arestriking differences between the speakers of the Republic of Albania and Kosovo,whereas within Albania, speakers from the different geographical regions adoptcharacteristic features from the other geographical regions. The spread of StandardAlbanian is, therefore, not solely an intrusion of the Tosk-based variety into theGheg varieties, but rather, speakers counterbalance among their varieties on thebasis of the alleged variety.

T H E A L B A N I A N L A N G U A G E

Albanian is an Indo-European language with about 5 to 6 million speakers livingmostly in the Republic of Albania, Kosovo, the former Yugoslavian Republic ofMacedonia, Yugoslavia (Montenegro and Serbia), Italy (southern parts and Sic-ily), Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. According to prevailing opin-ion, the Albanian language forms a branch of its own within the Indo-Europeanlanguage family (Hetzer, 1995). The question as to whether the Albanian lan-guage originates from Illyrian or Thrako-Dacian still needs to be answered. Tak-ing into account the history and continuity of colonization, an origination fromIllyrian is preferred (Hetzer, 1995).

The Albanian language is divided into two principal dialects, Tosk (toskëri-shtja) and Gheg (gegërishtja). The river Shkumbin marks the border between thetwo dialects. Gheg is spoken to the north and Tosk to the south of the river. A stripof about 10 km to 20 km south of the city Elbasan, stretching from the coast tolake Ohrid, is generally agreed to be the transition zone between Tosk and Gheg.

This article is a considerably revised version of a presentation given at the 2nd International Confer-ence on Language Variation in Europe at Uppsala University in June, 2003. We are grateful for thecomments of participants there and especially grateful for helpful comments by Werner Deutsch andtwo anonymous referees.

Language Variation and Change, 18 (2006), 121–140. Printed in the U.S.A.© 2006 Cambridge University Press 0954-3945006 $9.50DOI: 10.10170S0954394506060066

121

Both Gheg and Tosk can be further subdivided. Hetzer (1995), following Desnic-kaja (1968), subdivided Gheg into Northern Gheg (Shkodër and Kosovo), Mid-dle, and South Gheg, with further subdivisions for Northern Gheg. Tosk is furthersubdivided into Northern Tosk (the basis for the Modern Standard, see also Byron,1976), Lab (Gjirokastër), and Çam (Konispol, Epirus) in the South. This classi-fication suggests that there is no influence of national borders on the dialectcontinuum.

There are considerable differences between the Tosk and the Gheg varieties.1

As regards the vowel system, Byron (1976) discerned three geographical regions.The Gheg vowel system comprises long, short, and nasalized vowels, southern-most Tosk has long and short vowels, and northern Tosk has only short vowels.From the fact that a long0short vowel distinction can be observed in southern-most Tosk as well as in Arbëresh, Byron concluded that the loss of this distinctionin Northern Tosk is an innovation that took place in the last few centuries. Sim-ilarly, Tosk 0@0 is the result of a sound change of the Gheg variant.2 The vowelsystem of Northern Tosk, as well as that of Modern Standard Albanian, therefore,comprises seven vowels.

Standard varieties are upheld by the elite of a speech community. However,traditional dialectology usually gives no description referring to the education ofthe speakers. In the case of Albanian, it is therefore rather difficult to find a basisfor comparison. An indirect inference on the spoken Standard language of Gheg3

can be drawn from the study performed by Beci (1995) in which he provided adetailed analysis of the vowels of three educated speakers of Shkodër with noreference to the social dimension and possible implications.4 This study was per-formed in the late 1970s, so it can be assumed that these speakers had beeneducated before the Congress of Orthography (held in Tirana in 1972) and there-fore, that they can be taken as representatives of the Gheg Standard variety.5

D E V E L O P M E N T O F M O D E R N S T A N D A R D A L B A N I A N

Generally, the starting point for the development of a standard language is thedesideratum of a certain speech community to unify the diverse varieties spokenwithin that community. The basis for the origination of a standard is an appro-priate literary language (Coulmas, 2000). Therefore, the development of thespoken standard language cannot be seen independently of the literary language.

Within the Albanian speech community, the necessity for a unified AlbanianStandard language was all the more pressing since language—in a community ofcultural and religious diversity—provided the possibility of a unifying bond againstforeign rule (Nehring, 2000). At the turn of the century, Xhuvani (cited afterByron) held the view that “dialectal preferences should be suppressed in theinterest of important national needs: he saw a standard language as a unifyingcultural force, njisia e gjuhës âsht njisia e kombit, ‘unity of the language is unityof the nation’” (Byron, 1976:57). On the other hand, this request was not an easytask, first of all, because no standardized alphabet existed, and secondly, because

122 S Y LV I A M O O S M Ü L L E R A N D T H E O D O R G R A N S E R

in the 19th and 20th centuries, two equally important literary variants, the North-ern Gheg variety and the Tosk variety, based on the two main Albanian dialects,coexisted (Lloshi, 1999).

The 1908 Congress of Manastir was a turning point in the development of theStandard Albanian language insofar as it paved the way for the adoption of theRoman alphabet.As a next step, both at the Literary Committee in Shkodër (191601917) and at the Lushnjë Congress (1920), a compromise was made by favoringthe variety of Elbasan as a common basis for the Standard Albanian language.The reason for choosing the Elbasan variety was understandability for both NorthGheg and Tosk speakers as well as the vicinity of the newly founded capitalTiranë. In 1923, the Elbasan variety of South Gheg was proclaimed the officialAlbanian Standard language. However, this variety never succeeded in becomingthe basis for a Standard Albanian language and consequently, the two main vari-eties (North Gheg and Tosk) remained as two separate entities (Lloshi, 1999).Educational books existed both in Gheg and Tosk, and therefore Tosk was taughtin Gheg schools and Gheg was taught in Tosk schools (Hetzer & Finger, 1993).After World War II, work on the creation of a sole Standard language was resumedand in 1953, the National Conference on Orthography recommended that literaryAlbanian should be based on the Tosk variant. According to Hetzer (1995), thenew Standard language also contains many Gheg features, especially as concernsmorphosyntax, so that, strictly speaking, the Standard Albanian language is notmerely a poor copy of the Tosk variety, but is easily distinguishable from the Toskvarieties. The 1968 Conference of Prishtinë marked a pivotal point in the discus-sion. Under the heading of “One Nation—One Language” the new Standard ver-sion was adopted as standard in Kosovo, thus abandoning the Gheg standard.6

This decision gave way to the Congress of Orthography in Tiranë in 1972, wherethe Tosk-based Standard was established. The use of the uniform standard varietybecame obligatory after 1972 and new literary texts were no longer printed in theGheg variety (Lloshi, 1999).

The development of the Standard Albanian was not a natural evolutionaryprocess, but a sociopolitical decision.

1. Especially due to foreign rule, but also because of cultural and religious diversityamong Albanians, national identity could best and most easily be conveyed via aunified language. The climax of this response towards external pressure was the1968 Conference of Prishtinë.

2. The necessity of a quick response towards external pressure impeded a natural,evolutionary process, a process that usually runs over centuries and during whichthe cultural and economic elites gradually counterbalance among their varieties(as has been the case e.g., in Dutch, see Haar, 2001).

3. Since the compromise of the Elbasan version failed, two equally potent culturalelites remained. As is often the case when two competing varieties face each other,the one favored by those holding political power becomes accepted (e.g., Queen’sEnglish, see Schröder, 2001). At that time in Albania, political powers favored theTosk variety.7

V O W E L S O F S TA N D A R D A L B A N I A N 123

In Albania, the main supporters of Modern Standard Albanian are people withmiddle and higher education (Nehring, 2002). As concerns the spoken Standardlanguage, it can, however, be assumed that people educated before 1972 mightspeak different Standard varieties (based on Tosk and Gheg, respectively) in con-trast to people educated after 1972.

O B J E C T O F I N V E S T I G A T I O N

The current investigation is an analysis of Modern Standard Albanian as it isspoken by representatives of four important geographical regions. Is it possible tospeak of a uniform Standard language or are there considerable differences betweenthe speakers of North and South Albania? Do national borders have an influenceon the spoken Albanian Standard? The classification we presented of dialectregions suggests that national borders are of small relevance. The 1968 Confer-ence of Prishtinë fosters the same line of argumentation. On the other hand, lan-guage politics of educational systems within and outside the Republic of Albaniadiffer considerably, naturally leaving their marks.

The analysis is based on the articulation of the stressed vowels. Stressed vow-els have been chosen because, following the theory of Natural Phonology (Dressler,1984), it is the stressed positions that are foregrounded, both from a perceptualand from an articulatory point of view. Therefore, if someone intends to speak aStandard variety, he or she will concentrate on the stressed positions in the firstinstance.8 The vowel system of the Standard variety as proclaimed in 1972 com-prises seven vowels:

Three high vowels (front unrounded, front rounded, and back rounded)Three mid vowels (front unrounded, central unrounded, and back rounded)One low vowel.

Regional differences are to be expected especially as concerns the realizationof the schwa, since the Gheg varieties lack this phoneme. On the basis of threeeducated speakers of Shkodër, Beci (1995) described an unnasalized, unroundedback vowel [ö] in positions where Tosk varieties put a schwa. Beci’s observationnot only points to the difference with the Tosk varieties, but also to the differencewith the Gheg dialects. Therefore, a word like këllëf “cover: indef” would havethe following representations:

Modern Standard Albanian Tosk Standard Gheg Standard9 Gheg dialect0k@à@f0 0kEàEf0 0köàöf0 0kÁàD Áf0

The Standard varieties, therefore, differ from the Gheg dialects insofar as nasal-ization and rounding is missing. To further complicate matters, central vowelstend to be articulated either as a front or as a back vowel (see e.g., Fant, 2001 forSwedish; Stratka, 1978 for German, Catalan, Bulgarian, and Chinese; Martin,1998 for Québécois; Granser & Moosmüller, 2002 for Albanian). Therefore, a


surface back unrounded and unnasalized vowel [ö] can be interpreted both as anallophone of 0@0 or as a phoneme of its own.

Further differences are to be expected as concerns the realization of the vowel0a0 which has only one representation for Tosk, whereas two phonemes, whichadditionally differ in duration, have to be assumed for the Gheg varieties.

M E T H O D

Twelve male subjects with either an academic background or a university entrancediploma (3 from North Albania, 3 from Middle Albania, 3 from South Albania,and 3 from Kosovo) were asked to read a list of words, a list of sentences, aliterary text, and to speak spontaneously. For the current investigation, the stressedvowels of the list of read sentences have been analyzed.

The recorded material was digitized at 22.05 kHz, 16 bits using the acousticworkstation STX.10 All prosodically strong vowels (1562 in total) have been labeledand frame-by-frame formant frequency contours have been produced. The first3 formants were calculated using Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) with 26 co-efficients, a preemphasis of 0.9, a frame width of 46 ms, and a 2-ms frameshift. Linear time standardization was performed. One-way analyses of variance(ANOVAs) were calculated for each vowel.

For the acoustic description of small vowel inventories, the first two formants(F1 and F2) are sufficient. The vowels of small inventories can therefore berepresented in the traditional F10F2 plane. However, due to the nonlinear rela-tionship between articulatory settings and acoustic output (e.g., Carré, 2004; Ste-vens, 1989), an F10F2 representation in Hz is not comprehensive and cannotillustrate articulatory adjustments. The psychoacoustically defined Bark scalelinks formant values to perception, which seems a more realistic representation(see Iivonen, 1994, 1995 for a discussion). It has to be emphasized, though, thatlarge vowel inventories (e.g., the vowel system of Standard Austrian German)cannot be captured by an F10F2 chart. The third formant (F3) has to be consid-ered, as well. Processing formant data in Bark additionally yields a normaliza-tion, which only points out the perceptually relevant differences. Therefore, it hasbeen decided to additionally present and process data in Bark. The articulatoryinterpretation of the data has been performed independently and follows the theo-retical framework presented in Fant (2004) and Wood (1979).

R E S U L T S

General results

Table 1 gives the mean values, the variability coefficients,11 and the number ofanalyzed items of the first three formants (in Hz), differentiated according to thefour geographical regions.From these data it can be deduced that Modern Stan-dard Albanian discerns four constriction locations for the articulation of vowels:a palatal constriction location for 0i, y, e0, a velar for 0u0, an upper pharyngeal for


TABLE 1. F1, F2, F3 (in Hz), variability coefficients, and number of items, according togeographical regions

0i0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2

VariabilityCoefficient F3

VariabilityCoefficient ni

South Albania 355 17.26 2057 6.20 2619 7.29 41Middle Albania 312 10.44 2000 5.00 2594 4.90 40North Albania 303 9.62 2023 4.17 2645 8.29 31Kosovo 313 11.29 1875 5.95 2442 4.79 42

0y0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2




0e0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2




0@0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2




0a0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2




0o0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2




0u0 F1VariabilityCoefficient F2




S 1562


0o0 and a pharyngeal for 0A, a0. These results are in accordance with Wood (1979)and Fant (2004). 0@0 has alternating locations, in the South, it is predominantly apalatal one, in Middle and North Albania, a central one,12 and in Kosovo, theconstriction is located in the upper pharynx, near 0o0.

A cluster analysis (see Figure 1) on the raw data of all three formants (in Bark)of all vowels of the 12 speakers produced two main clusters; basically, the Alba-nian speakers are discerned from the speakers from Kosovo. Only one speakerfrom Middle Albania is grouped with the speakers from Kosovo. The speakersfrom Kosovo are further subdivided, each speaker building a cluster of his own.

To get a clearer picture of how the speakers from Kosovo differ from thespeakers from Albania, Euclidian distances for each vowel from the mean of allAlbanian speakers13 have been calculated for all four dialectal regions (see Fig-ure 2). As regards the back vowels 0o0 and 0u0, all four regions show aboutequally large distances. The distances of the front vowels and especially of thevowel 0a0, however, are much more pronounced for the speakers from Kosovothan for the other speakers. The mid central vowel 0@0 takes a special position.Speakers from Middle and South Albania and Kosovo show large distances, thedistances of South Albania and Kosovo are about equally large; they go, however,in opposite directions (see Figure 3). The speakers from North Albania—exceptfor 0o0 and 0u0—center quite well around the overall mean values and conse-quently, expose the shortest distances. These results indicate that the speakers

figure 1. Cluster analysis of all speakers over the mean values of all vowels (F1, F2, F3in Bark).


from North Albania do not group with the speakers from Kosovo; this result isalso reflected in Pearson’s correlation coefficient, which gives no relationshipbetween Kosovo and North Albania (r � �0.31).

Going into more detail, predominantly the first and second formants are respon-sible for between-group distances (see Table 2). In Table 2 the values that arehigher than the overall mean values of all distances are marked in bold. It caneasily be seen that Kosovo has the most marked values, followed by South Alba-nia. Distances are the least for North Albania.

From Table 2 it can be deduced that the distances as concerns the third formantare negligible, therefore the between-group differences can be read off from aF10F2 plot of the vowels (Figure 3). Figure 3 indicates high between-group vari-ability, and, in fact, the between-group variability is statistically significant forF1 and F2 of all vowels. However, excluding the speakers of Kosovo, F2 of thehigh front vowels 0i0 and 0y0 is no more statistically significant.

All the speakers of all four regions show great divergences from the meanAlbanian values for the back rounded vowels 0o0 and 0u0. These great between-group differences are most probably due to great contextual variation in theconsonant-vowel-consonant transitions (discussed later). Next come the vowels0@0 and 0a0. The divergence from the Albanian mean is most pronounced for thevowel 0a0 of the speakers from Kosovo; they articulate this vowel as a backvowel 0A0, which is additionally more closed than the Albanian variant. Thespeakers from South Albania, however, also differ considerably from the Alba-nian mean with respect to the vowel 0a0. Their variant is a front vowel 0a0. Allspeakers except the speakers from North Albania diverge considerably from themean value of the mid central vowel 0@0. The difference is most pronounced for

figure 2. Euclidian distances for all vowels (F1, F2, F3 in Bark) of the speakers of fourregions to the mean of all Albanian speakers.


the speakers from South Albania, who expose a front and more open articulation0E0, whereas the speakers from Kosovo and Middle Albania prefer a back con-figuration 0ö0. As concerns the front vowels 0i, y, e0, only the speakers fromKosovo diverge considerably from the mean values.

These overall results show that the speakers from Kosovo diverge considera-bly from the speakers from Albania, and, most interestingly, they diverge espe-cially from the speakers from North Albania, although, from a dialectologicalpoint of view, the speakers from North Albania and Kosovo should have similarresults. A detailed look at within-vowel variability offers a further understandingof the data.

Within vowel variability

The back rounded vowels. Within vowel variability is high especially amongthe back rounded vowels, the schwa and 0a0 (see Figure 4).The highest variabilityis found for the second formant among the back rounded vowels 0o0 and 0u0.This variability, however, is solely due to phonetic context.Asequence like 0’tonA0tona ‘our: fem’or 0’kUS0 kush ‘who’starts with a high F2, changes slowly towardsa more or less low F2 (target) and then rises again towards the next segment. As

TABLE 2. Euclidian distances (Bark) broken down according to F1, F2, and F3

Albania–Kosovo

Albania–South Albania

Albania–Middle Albania

Albania–North Albania

0a0 - F1 0.6780 0.4494 0.1324 0.31710e0 - F1 0.1924 0.2226 0.2320 0.00940i0 - F1 0.1406 0.2862 0.1168 0.16940@0 - F1 0.4625 0.6952 0.5531 0.14210y0 - F1 0.3091 0.2719 0.1513 0.12060o0 - F1 0.5124 0.4536 0.4942 0.04060u0 - F1 0.2596 0.2938 0.3088 0.01510a0 - F2 0.8905 0.3470 0.1505 0.19650e0 - F2 0.7586 0.3258 0.1791 0.14670i0 - F2 0.4402 0.0999 0.0829 0.01700@0 - F2 0.2037 0.4286 0.4548 0.02620y0 - F2 0.2412 0.0008 0.0631 0.06390o0 - F2 0.0568 0.1641 0.4404 0.60450u0 - F2 0.4763 0.0509 0.5442 0.49330a0 - F3 0.0480 0.0625 0.0425 0.10500e0 - F3 0.2214 0.0830 0.0764 0.15950i0 - F3 0.3745 0.0122 0.0440 0.03180@0 - F3 0.1068 0.0849 0.0824 0.16730y0 - F3 0.2288 0.0760 0.0455 0.12150o0 - F3 0.1048 0.1367 0.0139 0.12290u0 - F3 0.1775 0.1795 0.0828 0.2623

Overall Mean 0.2290

Values higher than the overall mean are marked in bold.


figure 3. Vowel chart (F10F2 in Bark) of the mean values of all vowels in strong posi-tion. The speakers are grouped according to Albania (speakers from South � Middle �North Albania), Kosovo, South Albania, Middle Albania, and North Albania.

figure 4. Variability coefficients of all vowels (F1, F2) analyzed, pooled over all speakers.


an example, Figure 5 shows the sequence nuk 0nuk0 ‘not: adv’. The duration ofthe vowel is 70 ms; due to the alveolar place of articulation of the precedingsegment, F2 starts very high. Though F2 continuously drops, it does not ulti-mately reach the values for an adequate target for the vowel 0u0, due to the velarplace of articulation of the following segment. Cases such as these are, of course,well known in phonetics; in the current investigation, they account for the highvariability of the back rounded vowels 0o0 and 0u0. Therefore, the high variabil-ity of the back rounded vowels is phonetically motivated, consequently having nosociolinguistic impact and is therefore no longer of interest in this investigation.

The vowel 0a0. The high variability of the vowels 0a0 and 0@0, however,cannot to be explained very easily. In the previous section it has been shown thatthe vowel 0a0 exposes the most striking differences between the four geograph-ical regions. Yet, all speakers have a high range of within-speaker variability, aswell. To investigate this within-speaker variability, three zones have been definedfor both F1 and F2 of the vowel 0a0 (see Figure 6). For each formant, the meanvalue of all Albanian speakers has been calculated and set as the default value.Starting from this default value,60.5 Bark gave the default range. Values higherthan the default range were defined as either open (F1) or front (F2) articulation.

figure 5. Spectrogramm of nuk ‘not: ADV’ of a male speaker from Durrës (speaker 5).Bottom panel: waveform window; next to bottom panel: fundamental frequency (F0);middle panel: spectrogram window; left upper panel: waveform zoom window; right upperpanel: amplitude spectrum window.


Values lower than the default range were defined as either more closed (F1) orback (F2) articulation. For the vowel 0a0, this calculation gave a default range of560– 670 Hz for F1 and a default range of 1240–1440 Hz for F2.

Each region is represented to a different degree in each zone (see Figure 6)except for the low F1, which never occurs for the speakers from South Albania.The speakers from South Albania hardly ever articulate a back vowel [ö, O],whereas the speakers from Kosovo hardly ever articulate a front vowel [a]. Thedefault values are achieved most frequently by the speakers from Albania, thespeakers from Kosovo predominantly articulate a back vowel, which can be addi-tionally rounded. Nevertheless, both the back and the front configuration of thevowel 0a0 can be found in the realizations of all speakers from all geographicalregions. The differences between the geographical regions concern the quantita-tive distribution of a given configuration, but not the quality.

Furthermore, the observed variability is context-independent. It is not phonet-ically motivated and is not even consistent within one and the same item. Thoughthe stressed vowel 0a0 in thana ‘cornel: def’ is articulated as a back vowel twiceby speaker 6 (Middle Albania), he articulates it once as an open vowel and onceas a more closed vowel. The same speaker realizes the stressed vowel 0a0 in atá‘they: pron-masc’once as a back vowel and once as a front vowel. Figure 7 givesthe distribution of back, default and front articulation (in percent) of selecteditems.

It can be seen in Figure 7 that high agreement as regards front or back articu-lation can only be observed for two items: i0e bardhë ‘white: adj’ favors a clear

figure 6. The defined zones for the vowel 0a0. South Albania: black dots on white; Mid-dle Albania: black; North Albania: angular stripes on white; Kosovo: chessboard pattern.The first bar of each region represents F1, the second bar represents F2.


back articulation (78%) and larg ‘far: adv’ a clear front articulation (83%). Noteven a nasal environment triggers a back articulation of the vowel, as can beconcluded from the items lana ‘Lana (name of a river)’, malit ‘mountain: abl’,natë ‘night: indef’, and thana ‘cornel: def’. Therefore, it is not possible to deducewhich vowel quality will occur from either the item as such, or from the phoneticcontext.

However, one further trace should be considered. According to Beci (1995),the Gheg dialects discern four different low vowels: a short front vowel 0a0 anda long back vowel 0A:0. Both vowels can occur either as oral or nasal vowels. Asconcerns openness, the long and short vowel do not differ, the difference onlyaffects the front0back dimension. Average values for F1 and F2 for the oral vow-els according to the results of Beci (1995) are given in Table 3.

The results presented in Table 3 are consistent, that is, items with defined long0a0 vowels are always articulated as back vowels and items with defined short0a0 vowels are always articulated as front vowels.14

Following the line of traditional dialectology, the speakers grouped as Ghegspeakers are from NorthAlbania and Kosovo. Since the correlation of quantity andquality is described as a Gheg feature, it has been tested in the current investiga-tion, whereas the speakers from North Albania and Kosovo expose the same cor-relation between vowel duration and vowel quality. Figure 8 gives a duration0F2plot for all 0a0 vowels of the speakers from North Albania and Kosovo.

It can be seen from Figure 8 that there is absolutely no correlation betweenvowel duration and vowel quality for the speakers from North Albania (Pearson’sr � �0.13) or the speakers from Kosovo (Pearson’s r � 0.11).

figure 7. Itemized distribution of the defined zones of the vowel 0a0 in stressed positionas realized by the speakers from Albania. F2 , 1240 Hz: angular stripes on white; F2 �1240–1440 Hz: black; F2 . 1440 Hz: bricks.


Therefore, it can be concluded that the distribution as concerns the quality ofthe vowel 0a0 is independent of the phonetic context and that each vowel qualitycan be observed in each geographical region, though to a different degree.

The central vowel 0@0. The case of the central vowel 0@0 is similar to that of0a0. The variability both on the high0low dimension and on the front0back dimen-sion is large. The articulation of the schwa at its extremes reaches from a ratherhigh or a rather low back articulation [å, ö] to a mid or low front articulation [e,æ]. All intermediate steps can be observed in between, that is, on all dimensionsgraduality is given. It has to be emphasized that the back articulation is both

TABLE 3. Average values for F1 and F2 for threespeakers from Shkodër recorded in the late

seventies

0a:0 0a0

F1 (Hz) 727 725F2 (Hz) 1208 1479

Data from Beci (1995).

figure 8. Scatterplot duration 0 F2 of all 0a0vowels in stressed position of the speakers ofNorth Albania and of Kosovo.


[-round] and [-nasal] (except for nasal environment) for all speakers (Granser &Moosmüller, 2002), and therefore clearly differs from the Gheg dialect, whichshows a back, rounded, nasal vowel instead (Beci, 1995).15 However, a roundedvowel [œ]16 can be observed on the front dimension.

Three zones have been defined in the same way as for the vowel 0a0, resultingin a default (central) range of 445–560 Hz for F1 and of 1410–1640 Hz for F2. Itcan be seen from Figure 9 that all speakers of all four regions are represented ineach articulation zone, though, as it has been observed for the vowel 0a0, as well,to a different degree. Contrary to the results for the vowel 0a0, speakers fromKosovo do not diverge that much from the Albanian speakers.

In the same way as for the vowel 0a0, the variability of the schwa is context-independent; neither a phonetic motivation (e.g., consonantal environment) nor adependency on specific lexical items could be found. Figure 10 gives the distri-bution of the articulation of the 0@0 with respect to some selected items.

Only the item jastëkun ‘cushion: def–acc’ shows a relatively clear preferencefor front articulation; no clear preference can be observed for the other items.Some items completely lack either front (këllëf ‘cover: indef’or rrëzë ‘at the footof: prap’) or back ( jastëkun ‘cushion: def–acc’) articulation, but no item isrestricted to only one zone. The predominantly back articulation in këllëf mightbe additionally phonetically motivated, since both the plosive and the lateral arevelar consonants. However, no such motivation can be found for rrëzë, whichexposes a high amount of back articulation, as well. Therefore, in the same way

figure 9. The defined zones for the vowel 0@0. South Albania: black dots on white;Middle Albania: black; North Albania: angular stripes on white; Kosovo: chessboard pat-tern. The first bar of each region represents F1, the second bar represents F2.


as for the vowel 0a0, it can be concluded that the variability of the schwa isindependent of the phonetic context and that each vowel quality can be observedin each geographical region, though to a different degree.

The front vowels. The front vowels 0i, y, e0 expose the least amount of vari-ability, both between groups and within items. From a sociolinguistic point ofview, the differences are only relevant as concerns the speakers from Kosovo,who expose a different formant pattern.

D I S C U S S I O N

Traditional Albanian dialectology emanates from a dialectal continuum that isnot determined by political borders. This assumption cannot be made for ModernStandardAlbanian. There are striking differences between the speakers from Kos-ovo and speakers from the Republic of Albania, affecting all vowels of the Stan-dard vowel system. Given the fact that educational systems have a large impacton the adoption of Standard forms (Hernandez-Campoy & Jiménez-Cano, 2003)and the fact that from 1972 onwards Modern Standard Albanian has been taughtat all schools in the Republic of Albania, these results are not surprising. More-over, the importance of national borders, both for the creation and for the main-tenance of a Standard language, has often been pointed out (e.g., Barbour &Stevenson, 1990; Hernández-Campoy, 2003). The formation of a new nationlargely fosters the wish for a Standard language (see e.g., the formation of Aus-trian Standard German, Moosmüller, 1991).

figure 10. Itemized distribution of the defined zones of the vowel 0@0 in stressed positionas realized by the speakers of Albania. F2 , 1410 Hz: angular stripes on white; F2 �1410–1640 Hz: black; F2 . 1640 Hz: bricks.


Modern Standard Albanian is a young standard and, moreover, has not natu-rally or gradually evolved. Milroy’s (2001) definition of standardization beingthe imposition of a “legitimized” uniformity upon linguistic variation for prestigereasons might be questioned, especially for German (Kuhlmann, 1999); how-ever, on first sight, it seems to hold for the formation of the Modern AlbanianStandard. From 1972 onwards, the prescribed Standard language has been taughtin schools and has been used in the media and literature.

Methodologically and theoretically, one has to decide whether to analyze a Stan-dard variety in interaction with other (regional or social) varieties, or whetherto investigate the speech behavior of social elites across geographically definedregions, and consequently, remain within the same social variety. The first type ofinvestigation we find, for example, in Hernandez-Campoy & Jiménez-Cano (2003)on the spread of the Standard in Murcian Spanish, where the Standard variety“wins” over the local dialects.According to Trudgill’s (1986) definition, this wouldpoint to a case of diffusion. On the other hand, in dealing with the speech behaviorof regionally diverse social elites, leveling—again according to Trudgill (1986),the reduction or attrition of sociolinguistically marked variants—rather than dif-fusion can be observed (see e.g., the studies by Kerswill, 2001 or Fabricius, 2002,both on Received Pronunciation).

In the current investigation, being of the second type, things look a bit differ-ent. The high amount of variability of vowel production would point to a situationof diffusion (Kerswill, 2002). This would mean that the Tosk-based Standardwould diffuse in some way or other into the Gheg-based varieties. However, thisis not the case. No decrease of Standard vowel articulation from the South towardsthe North can be observed; on the contrary, the speakers from North Albaniaseem to be the least divergent from the defined default values (see Figure 2).Therefore, it cannot be said that the Tosk-based Standard variety is graduallyreplacing the Gheg variety of the cultural elite.

On the other hand, strictly speaking, neither can we say that it is a situation ofleveling, as observed for RP. In British English, there exists a well-defined andofficially accepted Standard variety which has its historically positioned speak-ers (the social elites). This variety simply undergoes certain changes.

Modern Standard Albanian is also well defined and officially accepted, how-ever, this variety lacks historicity. This opens the possibility for the speakers of allregions who work with the alleged variety, to take the prescribed Standard ratheras a frame within which one can move. It rather looks as if the North influencesthe South and the South influences the North, so that ultimately, a counter-balanced Standard variety might emerge. A further example will exemplify thisinterpretation.

In the Gheg varieties, final unstressed schwas are deleted. The modern Stan-dard variety, based on Tosk, prescribes the articulation of word-final schwa, ascan be seen from the following examples:

natë night: indef Gheg variety: [nA:th]Tosk and Standard variety: [na:t@]

poshtë below: adv Gheg variety: [poSth]Tosk � Standard variety: [poSt@]


However, word-final unstressed schwa is deleted even by the speakers from SouthAlbania, though to different degrees and dependant on the speech style (leastoften in the word list, more often in the reading list of sentences, see Table 4).Tworesults important for the hypothesis that word-final schwa deletion will be adoptedby Tosk speakers can be read from Table 4:

1. The eldest speaker (speaker 2) exposes the least amount of schwa deletion, and2. All speakers expose a higher amount of schwa deletion in reading sentences as

compared to reading the word list.

Therefore, it can be assumed that Modern Standard Albanian will adopt thisfeature traditionally ascribed to Gheg varieties.17 Furthermore, it is interesting todescribe in detail the way in which this feature spreads. The speaker with the leastamount of deletions realizes word final schwa with creaky voice twice andspeaker 2 once realizes an unvoiced schwa; both modes of realizations are pre-stages to deletion. Deletion is further impeded after voiced plosives (if at all,speaker 3 realizes the schwa after voiced plosives like in hundë ‘nose’, i0e rëndë‘heavy: adj’ and lëndë ‘material: indef’), in order to preserve the voicing of theplosive. In cases where the schwa has been deleted after a voiced plosive, thisplosive consecutively underwent final devoicing. Therefore, items with preced-ing voiced plosives will be the last to take over this process, preceded by itemswith preceding voiced fricatives, like rrëzë ‘at the foot of ’ (accomplished forspeaker 3, partly accomplished for speaker 1, and not carried out by speaker 2).

For the Gheg varieties, it is also described that the preceding stressed vowel islengthened by final schwa deletion (compensatory lengthening). This coupledprocess could, however, not be observed for any of the speakers. For the Toskspeakers, it could be tested whether there is a difference in vowel duration accord-ing to schwa deletion or schwa pronunciation. The Pearson correlation coeffi-cient reveals no such difference(r � 0.79). For the Gheg speakers (North Albaniaand Kosovo) minimal pairs of the type vete [vEte] versus vetë [vEt] have beencompared, again rendering no differences in the duration of the preceding stressedvowel (r � 0.65).

Therefore, it is not so much a spread or diffusion going from South to Norththat can be observed, but rather a counterbalance among the educated people ofthe whole of Albania to gradually form a Standard language on the basis of theprescribed variety.

TABLE 4. Percentages of word-final schwa deletion, according to threespeakers from South Albania

Deletion of word-final schwa (%)Speaker 2(Kolonjë)

Speaker 1(Pogradec)

Speaker 3(Korçë)

Word list 2.78 38.24 88.89Reading sentences 15.38 69.23 100


N O T E S

1. Hetzer (1995) gives a concise overview of the differences among the geographically divideddialects.

2. We thank the anonymous referee for this information.3. Before the proclamation of Modern Standard Albanian, two literary variants existed, a Gheg

variety and a Tosk variety. Those familiar with either the Tosk or the Gheg literary variants were therespective elites. The spoken language of these elites differed from the various regional dialects andis assumed to have been the spoken Standard language. “Standard Gheg,” therefore, refers to a lan-guage variety that has been spoken by the educated people of North Albania before the unifiedTosk-based Standard was proclaimed and pushed through.

4. Beci (1995), in his introduction, for example, describes the Gheg equivalent of the schwa as aback, rounded, and nasalized vowel 0Á0, however, the analysis of his speakers rendered an unroundedand nonnasal vowel.

5. Byron explicated that the “standardization of Albanian phonology is closely tied to regulariza-tion of orthography” (Byron, 1976:78).

6. Thereby, Albanians in Kosovo answered the Serbian threat of inventing a different Albanianlanguage called “shiftarski jezik” and stabilized their national identification with the rest of Albanians(Lloshi, 1999).

7. It has to be appended that basing the Standard Albanian language on the Tosk variety is not onlya communist invention. To take the Tosk variety as the basis has its root in the 19th century.

8. For an analysis of spontaneous speech and vowels in unstressed positions, see Granser andMoosmüller (2001).

9. As defined in endnote 3.10. See http:00www.kfs.oeaw.ac.at11. The variability coefficient is a percentual expression of the variance. It is calculated accordingto the equation: V � (100*s)0 Sx, where V � variability coefficient, s � standard deviation, and Sx �arithmetic mean. The variability coefficient allows a comparison of the variance of values with dif-ferent sizes.12. According to the calculations of Båvegård and Fant (1996), the constriction location of the [@]is approximately 6.4 cm from the incisors, that is, [@] is located near [u]. It has, of course, a differentconstriction degree and lip configuration.13. Modern Standard Albanian is a young standard, therefore, it is not yet clear which values todefine as default values for Modern Standard Albanian vowels. Due to cross-language differences, itis not admissible to take measurements of a language with a similar or even the same vowel inventoryas basis. Therefore, it has been decided to take the mean values of all Albanian speakers as startingpoint.14. Unfortunately, Beci (1995) did not give any values for duration; his distinctions are based ontheoretical assumptions.15. However, it has to be noted that the speakers analyzed by Beci (1995), who are educated speak-ers, do not use the so described dialect variant either, but articulate a back unrounded vowel. There-fore, even in the analysis conducted by Beci, social differences emerge, although they are not named.16. For many languages it has been observed that phonemic schwa vowels show a tendency towardsthe periphery, either front or back. Fronting has taken place in Québécois, where the schwa hasmerged with 0œ0 (Martin, 1998).17. One Northern Albanian speaker, when reading the word list, did not apply word-final schwadeletion. After having read the list once, he pondered upon the fact that, usually, this vowel is notpronounced in such position. He then replicated this reading task.

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the spread of standard albanian: an illustration based on an analysis of vowels

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