TIRANA, Nov. 24 – The archaic Albanian language that the Arberesh community in southern Italy has preserved for more than 500 years since the Skanderbeg era when they left the country is in danger of extinction in some community areas, especially among younger generations.
Lucia Martino, the president of the “Vorea” Arberesh Association in Frachineto, of the Province of Cesenza in Calabria, has called on Albanian authorities to do something so that Albanian is taught at local community schools.
“I have two nieces who don’t speak Arberesh because it is not taught at school. It is very important that they learn it at school because only this way they can come into contact with the language and preserve our language and culture,” Martino, an activist of Albanian language has told local Albanian media.
“We preserved the Arberesh language for 500 years, now it is you who should do something for us. To the Arberesh people, Albania is a country where they nostalgically return, but today’s challenges are tougher and stronger cooperation is required so that the special ties remain strong,” she says.
“We still preserve some dishes and costumes Albania no longer has,” says Martino, who is promoting the learning of Albanian among the younger generation through theatrical ‘performances and tours as more effective methods to attract their attention.
Arbersh community
In southern Italy, there is a small but well-established Albanian-speaking minority, the so-called Arbà«resh, or Italo-Albanians. These are the descendants of refugees who fled Albania after the death of Scanderbeg in 1468. As a linguistic group, the Arbà«resh now consist of about 90,000 speakers, most of whom live in the mountain villages of Cosenza in Calabria and in the vicinity of Palermo in Sicily. The Arbà«resh speak an archaic dialect of Albanian, which differs substantially from the Albanian now spoken in the Balkans, to the extent that communication is difficult if Arbà«resh speakers are not familiar with standard literary Albanian, says Robert Elsie, a Canadian specialist in Albanian studies.
Today, there are about 50 towns scattered throughout the mezzogiorno where Albanian is still to be heard. These communities, comprising an estimated Albanian-speaking population of up to 90,000 are located in several regions such as Abruzzi, Molise, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily.
Though the Albanian language is by no means moribund in Italy after 500 years, Italian is gaining the upper hand even in these often isolated mountain villages. In a number of the above-mentioned communities, Albanian is still spoken by virtually all the inhabitants. In other settlements, the adult population is bilingual and the children speak only Italian. In still other communities, it is only the old people who understand Albanian. Several factors have contributed to the gradual transition from Albanian to Italian in these villages: the compulsory use of Italian in all schools, the lack of support by the Italian government, the discontinuity of Albanian-speaking territory, the Italian-language mass media and, in particular, seasonal emigration due to chronic unemployment in southern Italy. For written communication, Albanian has only been used by an intellectual minority as school education and external cultural stimulation have always been in Italian. The substantial difference between the Albanian dialects spoken in southern Italy and the standard literary language of Albania has also made it difficult for the Arberesh to adapt to standard Albanian for written communication.
The Arberesh are not to be confused with the large numbers of new Albanian immigrants who have arrived from the Balkans to settle throughout Italy in the last two decades.
