In some areas of Southern Italy there are countries where the Albanian language is spoken. The reasons for this must be sought in the centuries ago, in particular in the waves of migration towards Italy of populations coming from Albania. The exiles founded several communities, in which since then a culture, a religion, traditions and a language different from the rest of the surrounding territories have been preserved.
We see which countries speak Albanian and why.
What is the history of the Albanians in Italy
L’Albaniatogether with other territories belonging to the Byzantine Empire located in the Balkans and today’s Greece, was progressively conquered by the Ottoman Turks. This happened starting from the 15th centuryespecially after the death of the Albanian national hero Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg.
The Albanians thus began to flee the country, giving rise to a real diaspora which continued for a long time, until the 18th century.
The refugees headed towards Southern Italyfounding several community which they have maintained up to the present day spoken and written Albanian languagebut also festivals, traditions, customs, gastronomy and, last but not least, the Byzantine religious ritecharacterized by icons and mosaics and the liturgy in Greek.
These communities are called “arbëreshë” and with pride they try to keep their traditions alive.
From a linguistic point of view, they constitute linguistic islands or alloglotsi.e. characterized by a different language than the surrounding Italian-speaking countries.
There The language still spoken today retains the morphological traits and vocabulary of the one used at the time of migrationthat is, it is an ancient Albanian, even if, as always happens, over the centuries it has undergone the influence of Italian, local dialects and the languages of the various subsequent rulers, at both a substratum and superstrate level.
Where Albanian is spoken in Italy
Albanian communities are found in Italy in the South and are distributed among different regions, viz Molise, Abruzzo, Basilicata, Puglia, Campania, Calabria and Sicily.
Calabria is the region with a greater number of arbëreshe communityand in particular they are concentrated in province of Cosenza.
It is estimated that i Albanian speaking citizens in Italy they are 100,000divided into approximately 50 countries: of these almost 60,000 reside in Calabriadistributed among 30 municipalities and 3 hamlets.
Towards UNESCO Heritage Sites
Starting from 1999, with law n. 482, the Albanian community is among the ethnic and linguistic minorities present on Italian territory that are recognized and protected. In the 2020 the Arbëreshe culture of Italy was candidate to join the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as an intangible asset.
READ ALSO: Why Greek is spoken in the village of Gallicianò, in Calabria
