Dear followers, as some of you have learned through Twitter or some other channel, I have been keeping myself busy learning modern standard Albanian. Since the Mastodon platform allows me, like any user, I reckon, to write rather lengthy posts (TOOTS!), I feel I could send out small (or rather: Not-so-small) bits of Albanian grammar and vocabulary for you to enjoy, or to contemplate and/or headdesk on. So, expect me from today to send out regular tw... toots with things I learned not so long ago on #Albanian #AlbanianLanguage
There are a few things to be said about phonetics in Albanian, but, since I am not a phonetics specialist, I will restrict myself to but a couple of remarks on it, by way of this single toot:
- In writing, a single [l] and double [ll] stand for two different phonemes. [l] is written in Albanian to represent the 'light' l (i.e. /l/, the sound featured on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental,_alveolar_and_postalveolar_lateral_approximants), whereas [ll] stands for the 'dark' l (i.e. /ɫ/, as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental,_alveolar_and_postalveolar_lateral_approximants#Velarized_alveolar_lateral_approximant). They are different phonemes, and certainly not allophones in Albanian!
- Likewise, a written single [r] stands in Albanian for the voiced retroflex flap /ɽ/, while a double 'r,' i.e. [rr] stands for a whole different phoneme, namely the voiced alveolar trill /r/.
#AlbanianLanguage #Albanian
When learning Albanian nouns one is to learn the following four forms each (except if one of such forms would not except or would not make much sense, such as given names or plurales tanum): Indefinite Singular Nominative, Definite Singular Nominative, Indefinite Plural Nominative, Definite Plural Nominative. The plurals can be formed in many ways, as there are many suffixes and noun stem changes that may occur. #AlbanianLanguage #Albanian