Elbasan Script

Albania has often been considered one of the most religiously diverse countries in Europe. Throughout history, we have had no shortage of proselytizers spreading Abrahamic religions from essentially every surrounding border. Catholics in the North, Orthodox in the South, as well as Muslims have pushed their religion onto the Albanian people. With religion comes culture, you cannot separate the two, and with each a language specific to that particular religion was adopted for practical reasons.

            Latin, Greek and Arabic were used across the country and a desire for an original, native Albanian alphabet arose. This may not seem like such a big issue, but we need to remember that illiteracy was rampant and most education occurred in religious schools, in the foreign language associated with these foreign religions. Historically, Albanians have an oral tradition, this is where our ballads and epic këngë me çifteli come from, so you can imagine the disconnect when multiple languages are introduced; communication suffers and conflicts begin to arise.

            Thus the desire for an authentic Albanian alphabet with no religious ties came to be. During the mid-18th century, many people set to work inventing them. This led to the creation of multiple Albanian scripts (more than 10), some of which were no more than altered Greek or Latin or Arabic letters, and others that were completely unique.

            Some of the more notable ones are the Elbasan Script (pictured), the Todhri Script and the Vithkuqi Script. Of the other alphabets, few original texts exist to this day in their complete form, unfortunately. Many were not preserved and the ones that stood the test of time were quickly abandoned for the Latin Alphabet we use today, with a few variations. I don’t know if any other countries experienced this level of orthographic diversity, especially in Europe, but it is a fascinating chapter in our history and worth sharing.