Gunnar Svane

Last updated
Gunnar Svane
Born25 September 1927
Died22 June 2012(2012-06-22) (aged 84)
Occupation Philologist

Gunnar Olaf Svane (25 September 1927 - 22 June 2012) was a distinguished Danish linguist, professor, and scholar specializing in Albanology and Slavic studies. His academic career was primarily associated with Aarhus University in Denmark, where he served as a professor of Slavic studies from 1965 until his retirement in 1994. Svane's expertise extended to medieval Slavic languages and South Slavic languages, but he is particularly renowned for his research on Slavic loanwords in the Albanian language. [1]

Contents

Career and contribution

Svane's significant contributions to Albanology include his book *"Slavische Lehnwörter im Albanischen"* (Slavic Loanwords in Albanian), published in Aarhus in 1992, which provided an in-depth analysis of the influence of Slavic languages on Albanian. This work is considered a crucial resource in understanding the linguistic interactions between Slavic and Albanian speakers.

In addition to his studies on Slavic loanwords, Svane dedicated considerable effort to the works of Pjetër Budi, a significant figure in Albanian literature and history.

Svane's work on Budi involved transliterations and the creation of concordances, which were vital for modern scholars studying early Albanian literature. His dedication to this area of research has had a lasting impact on the field of Albanology.

Throughout his career, Svane was recognized for his contributions to linguistics and was an external member of both the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, [2] the Academy of Sciences of Albania [3] and Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His scholarly legacy continues to influence the study of Slavic and Albanian languages.

Publications

Related Research Articles

The Albanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used to write the Albanian language. It consists of 36 letters:

The origin of the Albanians has been the subject of historical, linguistic, archaeological and genetic studies. The first mention of the ethnonym Albanoi occurred in the 2nd century AD by Ptolemy describing an Illyrian tribe who lived around present-day central Albania. The first attestation of Albanians as an ethnic group is in the 11th century.

Albanian literature stretches back to the Middle Ages and comprises those literary texts and works written in Albanian. It may also refer to literature written by Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian diaspora particularly in Italy. Albanian occupies an independent branch within the Indo-European family and does not have any other closely related language. The origin of Albanian is not entirely known, but it may be a successor of the ancient Illyrian language.

Albanians in North Macedonia are ethnic Albanians who constitute the second largest ethnic group in North Macedonia, forming 446,245 individuals or 24.3% of the resident population. Of the 2,097,319 total population in the 2021 census, 619,187 or 29.52% are Albanians.

Perëndi is an Albanian noun for God, deity, sky and heaven. It is used capitalized to refer to the Supreme Being, and uncapitalized for "deity", "sky" and "heaven".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pjetër Budi</span>

Pjetër Budi, was an Albanian Catholic bishop and a prominent Old Albanian author. He is known for his first work "Doktrina e Kërshtenë", an Albanian translation of the catechism of Robert Bellarmine, which was published in Rome in 1618. In 1599 Pjetër Budi was appointed Vicar General of the Catholic Church in Serbia, a position he held for seventeen years. Later he was appointed bishop of Diocese of Sapë and Sarda.

Proto-Albanian is the ancestral reconstructed language of Albanian, before the Gheg–Tosk dialectal diversification. Albanoid and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. Whether descendants or sister languages of what was called Illyrian by classical sources, Albanian and Messapic, on the basis of shared features and innovations, are grouped together in a common branch in the current phylogenetic classification of the Indo-European language family. The precursor of Albanian can be considered a completely formed independent IE language since at least the first millennium BCE, with the beginning of the early Proto-Albanian phase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosovo Albanians</span> Ethnic group in the Balkans

The Albanians of Kosovo, also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuči (tribe)</span> Historical tribe and region in eastern Montenegro

Kuči is a tribe of Albanian origin, historically located in modern central and eastern Montenegro, north-east of Podgorica, extending along the border with Albania. Processes of Slavicisation during the Ottoman era and onwards facilitated ethno-linguistic shifts within much of the community. As such, people from the Kuči today largely identify themselves as Montenegrins and Serbs, with a minority still identifying as Albanians. In other areas such as the Sandžak, many Muslim descendants of the Kuči today identify as Bosniaks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albanian language</span> Indo-European language

Albanian is an Indo-European language and the only surviving representative of the Albanoid branch, which belongs to the Paleo-Balkan group. It is the native language of the Albanian people. Standard Albanian is the official language of Albania and a co-official language in Kosovo, where it is the native language of the vast majority of the population. It is also a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro, where it is the primary language of significant Albanian minority communities. Albanian is recognized as a minority language in Italy, Croatia, Romania, and Serbia. It is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania. Albanian is estimated to have as many as 7.5 million native speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boboshticë</span> Village in Korçë, Albania

Boboshticë is a village in the former Drenovë Municipality of the Korçë County in southeastern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became part of the municipality Korçë.

Wacław Cimochowski was a Polish philologist who specialized in Indo-European linguistics, especially in Albanology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spani family</span> Noble family from Albania

The Spani family was a noble Albanian family that emerged in the 14th century. They owned large estates in and around the fortified town of Drivasto and in neighbouring Scutari. During the late 15th century, a faction of the family settled in Venetian territories, primarily Venice itself and Dalmatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upper Reka dialect</span> Albanian Gheg dialect

The Upper Reka Albanian dialect is a member of the wider northern Gheg subgroup of the Albanian language spoken by northern Albanians. Speakers of the dialect are mainly located within the territory of the sub-region of Upper Reka in north-western North Macedonia. Due to the geographical isolation of the Upper Reka region, the Upper Reka dialect also developed linguistic peculiarities that differentiate it from other varieties of Albanian. Within the Gheg dialects, the Upper Reka dialect is classified as a Central Gheg dialect, along with the dialects of the Kruja, Mati and Dibra regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels</span> Linguistic contact research

The Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels are subject of historical and contact linguistic research applied to the Albanian and Eastern Romance languages. It has also been studied to understand the history of Albanian and Eastern Romance speakers. The common phonological, morphological and syntactical features of the two language families have been studied for more than a century. Both are part of the Balkan sprachbund but there are certain elements shared only by Albanian and Eastern Romance languages that descended from Common Romanian. Aside from Latin, and from shared Greek, Slavic and Turkish elements, other characteristics and words are attributed to the Palaeo-Balkan linguistic base. Similarities between Eastern Romance and Albanian are not limited to their common Balkan features and the assumed common lexical items: the two language families share calques and proverbs, and display analogous phonetic changes, some of the latter especially shared between Tosk Albanian and Common Romanian.

Arbanaška vera was a 14th-century Serbian antonomasic denunciation of Catholic Albanians in Shkodër, Zeta, Kosovo, Macedonia and other regions modern day Northern Albania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kryethi</span> Albanian tribe based in northern Albania

Kryethi was an Albanian tribe (bashkësi) of the Middle Ages in the coastal areas of northern Albania and southern Montenegro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mat (region)</span> Region of North-central Albania

Mat is a region in north-central Albania, referring to the valley of the Mat river and its surrounding mountains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bytadosi</span>

Bythëdosi was a historical noble Albanian tribe (fis) in the Middle Ages. They inhabited the Cem valley in the Brda (Montenegro) area in south-eastern Montenegro, north-east of Podgorica.

Albanoid or Albanic is a branch or subfamily of the Indo-European (IE) languages, of which Albanian language varieties are the only surviving representatives. In current classifications of the IE language family, Albanian is grouped in the same IE branch with Messapic, an ancient extinct language of Balkan provenance that is preserved in about six hundred inscriptions from Iron Age Apulia. This IE subfamily is alternatively referred to as Illyric, Illyrian complex, Western Paleo-Balkan, or Adriatic Indo-European. Concerning "Illyrian" of classical antiquity, it is not clear whether the scantly documented evidence actually represents one language and not material from several languages, but if "Illyrian" is defined as the ancient precursor of Albanian or the sibling of Proto-Albanian it is automatically included in this IE branch. Albanoid is also used to explain Albanian-like pre-Romance features found in Eastern Romance languages.

References

  1. Mikkelsen, Hans Kristian; Nørgård-Sørensen, Jens (2013). "Gunnar Svane in memoriam". Scando-Slavica. 59 (2): 261–263. doi:10.1080/00806765.2013.855474. ISSN   0080-6765.
  2. "In memoriam". Studia Albanica (in French) (1): 161–167. 2012. ISSN   0585-5047.
  3. Kraja, Mehmet (2018). Fjalor Enciklopedik i Kosovës, L-ZH [Encyclopedic Dictionary of Kosova, L-ZH] (in Albanian). Vol. 2. Akademia e Shkencave dhe e Arteve e Kosovës. pp. 1552–1553. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  4. Svane, Gunnar (2021). "Si të lexojmë veprën e Budit "Speculum Confessionis"?". Studime Filologjike (in Albanian) (3–4): 5–34. doi:10.62006/sf.v75i3-4.1103. ISSN   2960-0057.
  5. Budi, Pjetër (1986). Speculum confessionis: (1621) : text (in Albanian). Translated by Svane, Gunnar. Institut for Lingvistik, Aarhus Universitet. ISBN   978-87-88948-02-8.