Phraseological Units of Greek Origin in Albanian Spoken Language

Abstract

This research was conducted to note that Albanian and Greek languages have always imported and exported from one another. The close give-and-take relation of Albanian and Greek can be noticed in the field of phraseology amongst others. The phraseological units are produced and used in the spoken and written language to meet the needs of the society in relation to the function of language as a means of communication and they own the most salient features in every language. The microsystems of the Greek and Albanian phraseological units have specific features of their own in terms of semantics and structure, sources, frequency of usage, the history and geography of usage, stylistic reference, their word-building and lexicalization ability, etc. They are divided in two groups: the group of calque phraseological units as literally translated from Greek into Albanian and the group of calque phraseological units not literally translated from Greek into Albanian. Also, there are various ways and sources of the origin of phraseological units in the Greek language. Some phraseological units derived from the rich and ancient Greek mythology, some others have their source from the Bible, some others derived from philosophy, literature, etc. and some are associated with geography, history. The last important issue to be dwelled on is the existence of hundreds and thousands of parallel phraseological units of the same semantics and the same or almost the same lexical structure in both languages, which are to be found even in a wider geographical territory in the Balkans.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n1p635