PËR KRONOLOGJINË E DISA DUKURIVE FONETIKE NË TË FOLMEN E ARBËNESHËVE TË ZARËS
On The Chronology of Some Phonetic Phenomena in The Arbëresh Sub-Dialect of Zara

Summary/Abstract: Displaced Albanians from the regions of Northern Albania founded the Arbëreshi settlement of Zara in Croatia in the eighteenth century. This linguistic branch, that has broken relations with its trunk and does not partake in the linguistic developments of the mother tongue, has preserved some early features of Albanian while it has also developed other features that are not present in the language from which it has been detached. Among the early phonetic phenomena that bring the language of this settlement close to the language of the early authors of the North, notice the preservation of the vowel groups /uo/ and /ie/, the nasal-palatal sonant /nj/ and the consonant groups /mb/, /nd/, /ng/, /ngj/. Some other phenomena bring the language of this settlement close to that of the first author of Albanian writing, as regional features. Such are the disappearance of the fricative consonant /h/ in many positions and the disappearance of consonant /j/ when near vowel /i/. Some other phonetic phenomena that have developed later in the Gheg territory are also found in the Zara sub-dialect. Such are the disappearance of vowel /ë/ in final position and in the word body, the transition of the interdental /dh/ into the velar /ll/, etc. Other linguistic phenomena unknown or very little known in current Gheg have developed in this dialect. This means they are innovations developed in the new location of the displaced Arbëreshi, or they have developed more in this linguistic island than in the land of the mother tongue. Among these innovations notice the transition of vowel /a/ into /o/ in many positions; the shift of the accent position in some compound words; the reduction of the labiodental fricative /f/ into the interdental /th/; the transition of the flapped double sonant /rr/ into the simple /r/; the change of consonant /j/ into /q/; the absence of using consonant /j/ to avoid the hiatus formed especially in unstressed syllables; the frequent cases of the metathesis, the dissimilation, the epenthesis, especially of the nasal and liquid sonants, etc. All these phenomena attest the great role of this linguistic island in the study of Albanian, especially in the field of the history of language and dialectology.

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