Names of the Albanians and Albania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Albanians (Albanian: Shqiptarët) and their country Albania (Shqipëria) have been identified by many ethnonyms. The native endonym is Shqiptar. The name "Albanians" Latin: Albanenses/Arbanenses) was used in medieval Greek and Latin documents that gradually entered European languages from which other similar derivative names emerged.[1] Linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps.[2] Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar, the term in Albanian became rendered as Arbëreshë (Gheg Albanian: Arbëneshë) for the people and Arbëria (Gheg Albanian: Arbënia) for the country.[1][3]
Contemporary Albanian language employs a different ethnonym, with modern Albanians referring to themselves as Shqiptarë and to their country as Shqipëria.[3] Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym: one, derived the name from the Albanian word for eagle (shqiponjë).[4] The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general, for example the flag of Skanderbeg, whose family symbol was the black double-headed eagle, as displayed on the Albanian flag.[5][6][7][8][4] The other within scholarship connects it to the verb 'pronounce' (shqiptoj), deriving from Latin excipere. In this instance the Albanian endonym like many others would originally have been a term connoting "those who speak [intelligibly, the same language]".[4] Attested from 14th century onward, the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria and Arbëreshë amongst Albanian speakers between the late 17th and early 18th centuries.[3][9] That era brought about religious and other sociopolitical changes.[3] As such a new and generalised response by Albanians based on ethnic and linguistic consciousness to this new and different Ottoman world emerging around them was a change in ethnonym.[3]