Representing Dialectic and Regional Lexicon in Explanatory Dictionaries of Albanian Language

Abstract

Dialectic and regional lexicon has been and would continue to be a precious and inexhaustible resource for the standard literal Albanian language. Albanian language has got two dialects the Gheg and the Tosk. Both dialects meet together along the Shkumbin river, respectively on the right the Gheg dialect is spoken and on the left prevails the Tosk dialect. Both dialects are similar and alike to each other, so that they have always been Albanian language variants, used to write different works. This situation continued until the period of consolidation of Albanian language with the Orthographic Congress in 1972. The main principal of the Albanian language Congress was to represent the Albanian language with a common variant, with the same language for all Albanians in and out of the country borders. This could be done only with the standard literal language. The Orthographic Congress, with its achievements, makes an important irreversible turn in the history of the Albanian language. On the other hand, the processing of the standard Albanian language, did not have a negative affect upon the improvement and the development of dialects and regional language. All these changes have been clearly represented in explanatory dictionaries of Albanian language. Presentation of dialectisms and regionalisms from one dictionary to another, has been different because of the time and the linguistic circumstances on which they have been published. If we drop a look on all explanatory dictionaries of Albanian language, on a comparative plan, we will notice clear differences.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2016.v5n3s1p61