Nicknames Shqip

[Stephaine Zitzow]

ContemporaryAlbanian language employs a different ethnonym, with modern Albanians referring to themselves as Shqiptar and to their country as Shqipria.[3] Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym: one, derived the name from the Albanian word for eagle (shqiponj).[4] The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general, for example the flag of Skanderbeg, whose family symbol was the black double-headed eagle, as displayed on the Albanian flag.[5][6][7][8][4] The other within scholarship connects it to the verb 'pronounce' (shqiptoj), deriving from Latin excipere. In this instance the Albanian endonym like many others would originally have been a term connoting "those who speak [intelligibly, the same language]".[4] Attested from 14th century onward, the placename Shqipria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptar gradually replaced Arbria and Arbresh amongst Albanian speakers between the late 17th and early 18th centuries.[3][9] That era brought about religious and other sociopolitical changes.[3] As such a new and generalised response by Albanians based on ethnic and linguistic consciousness to this new and different Ottoman world emerging around them was a change in ethnonym.[3]

Arbn, Arbnesh, Arbnuer (as rendered in northern Gheg dialects) and Arbr, Arbresh, Arbror (as rendered in southern Tosk dialects) are the old native terms denoting ancient and medieval Albanians used by Albanians.[3][10][11] The Albanian language was referred to as Arbrisht (Gheg Albanian: Arbnisht).[12][13] While the country was called Arbni, definite: Arbnia and Arbri, definite: Arbria by Albanians.[3] These terms as an endonym and as native toponyms for the country are based on the same common root alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar.[1] The national ethnonym Albanian has derived from Albanoi,[14][15][16] an Illyrian tribe mentioned by Ptolemy with their centre at the city of Albanopolis,[3][12] located in modern-day central Albania, near the city of Kruj.[17][18] The alb part in the root word for all these terms is believed by linguists be an Indo-European word for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps.[2] The Lab, also Labe, Labi; Albanian sub-group and geographic/ethnographic region of Labri, definite: Labria in Albania are also endonyms formed from the root alb.[19] These are derived from the syllable cluster alb undergoing metathesis within Slavic to lab and reborrowed in that form into Albanian.[19]

Terms derived from all those endonyms as exonyms appear in Byzantine sources from the eleventh century onward and are rendered as Albanoi, Arbanitai and Arbanites and in Latin and other Western documents as Albanenses and Arbanenses.[1][20] The first Byzantine writers to mention Albanians in an ethnic sense are Michael Attaliates (in the book History) and Anna Comnena (in the book Alexiad), referring to them as Albanoi and Arbanitai, in the 11th century.[21][22] In later Byzantine usage, the terms "Arbanitai" and "Albanoi" with a range of variants were used interchangeably, while sometimes the same groups were also called by the classicising name Illyrians.[23][24][25] The first reference to the Albanian language dates to the year 1285.[26]

Arvanitis (Αρβανίτης), plural: Arvanites (Αρβανίτες); is a term that was historically used amongst the wider Greek-speaking population to describe an Albanian speaker regardless of their religious affiliations until the interwar period, along with Alvanoi (Αλβανοί).[39] The name was established in Greek language from the original ethnonym Alvanitis (Άλβανίτης), which in return derived from Alvanos (Άλβάνος).[40] The name appears as the ethnonym of Albanians in medieval Byzantine sources, originally as "Arbanitai",[41][42] (in Greek language the letter 'b' is pronounced as 'v'; hence "Arvanitai") and was rendered in modern Greek as "Arvanites".[43]

Today, the term Arvanites is used by Greeks to refer to descendants of Albanians or Arbresh that migrated to southern Greece during the medieval era and who currently self identify as Greeks, as a result of assimilation.[44][30][45] Sometimes its variant Alvanites may be used instead.[30] In the region of Epirus within Greece today, the term Arvanitis is still used for an Albanian speaker regardless of their citizenship and religion.[39] While the term Arvanitika (Αρβανίτικα) is used within Greece for all varieties of the Albanian language spoken there, whereas within Western academia the term is used for the Albanian language spoken in Southern Greece.[46][47] Alongside these ethnonyms the term Arvanitia (Αρβανιτιά) for the country has also been used by Greek society in folklore, sayings, riddles, dances and toponyms.[48] For example, some Greek writers used the term Arvanitia alongside the older Greek term Epirus for parts or all of contemporary Albania and modern Epirus in Greece until the 19th century.[49]

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries due to socio-political disturbances by some Albanians in the Balkans the term was used as an ethnic marker for Albanians in addition to the usual millet religious terminology to identify people in Ottoman state records.[50][54] While the term used in Ottoman sources for the country was Arnavudluk (آرناوودلق) for areas such as Albania, Western Macedonia, Southern Serbia, Kosovo, parts of northern Greece and southern Montenegro.[50][54][55] During the late Ottoman period, government officials used the terms Arnavudlar (Albanians) and Arnavud kavmı (the Albanian people) for the ethnic group, along with the terms Ghegs and Tosks for northern and southern Albanian ethno-cultural subgroups.[56] At the same time Albanian regions within the empire were referred to as Arnavudluk (Albania) and the geographic terms Gegalık (Ghegland) and Toskalık (Toskland) were also used in government documents.[56] In modern Turkish Arnavutluk refers only to the Republic of Albania.[57]

Albanese and Albanesi is an Italian surname meaning "Albanian", in reference to the Arbresh people (Italo-Albanians) of southern Italy.[61] Among people who have the surname it is common in southern Italy and rare elsewhere in the country.[61] In Venice, the term albanesoti (singular, albanesoto) was used in the 15th and 16th centuries for those Albanians and their descendants who had received Venetian citizenship and lived in Venetian territories in northern Italy.[62]

The term Albanesi was used for some Balkan troops recruited (mid 18th - early 19th centuries) by the Kingdom of Naples that indicated their general origins (without implying ethnic connotations) or fighting style, due to the reputation Albanians held of serving as mercenaries in Ottoman armies.[63]

Shqip()tar and Shqyptar (in northern Albanian dialects) is the contemporary endonym used by Albanians for themselves while Shqipria and Shqypnia/Shqipnia are native toponyms used by Albanians to name their country.[3] All terms share the same Albanian root shqipoj that is derived from the Latin excipere with both terms carrying the meaning of "to speak clearly, to understand".[4] While the Albanian public favours the explanation that the self-ethnonym is derived from the Albanian word for eagle shqipe that is displayed on the national Albanian flag.[4]

Learning Albanian names and nicknames is a great way to discover more about the culture. Names are subject to historical changes, so the most popular names are constantly shifting. For example, in 2021, the most popular first name for a baby boy was Noel and the most popular first name for a girl was Amelia.

For a side-by-side comparison, it is interesting to note the difference between ancient Albanian names, Albanian names of the 1970s, and modern Albanian names. When the communist naming policy came into effect, many parents gave their children names that had positive connotations in the Albanian language. For example, the most common names of the period were:

Once you have your base, you can start adding more and more levels to the pyramid. For example, perhaps you subscribe to an Albanian newspaper and commit to reading three new stories a day in Albanian form. Next, you could consider hiring an Albanian tutor on a website like Preply and perhaps even planning a trip to Tirana!

Albanians call themselves shqiptar, their country Shqipri, Shqipni (Gheg), but the nation is historically known worldwide, as already apparent, as Albanais, Albanese etc., and their country as Albanie, Albania. This double naming has it's own reasons. It is related with ethnographic circumstances in character, which are specific to Albania and its historic past.

Firstly it is a fact that in Albania the national name of the people shqiptar rules everywhere, and the name of the country is Shqipri, but on the other side of the Albanian colonies that are situated in Italy and Greece this name is unknown. The Albanians of southern Italy of Sicily, descendants of migratory movements from Albania mainly during the first Ottoman wars under the flag of Gjergj Kastriot (Scanderbeg) during the XV-th and XVI-th centuries, call themselves, and usually the people of their motherland, arbresh and the country Arbr, Arbri. The descendants of those Albanians who migrated earlier in the XIV-th and XV-th centuries towards Greece, do not use the name that dominates in Albania also; they also use regularly arbresh (arvanitas) for "shqiptar", arvanitika for "albanian language, shqip".

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