It’s all Greek to me: Missed Greek Loanwords in Albanian

Albanian is a language that has borrowed words and patterns from various other languages with which it came into contact from time to time. One of the most prominent sources of loanwords and loan-structures in Albanian is Medieval and Modern Greek. This paper discusses cases of Albanian loanwords of obvious or probable Medieval or Modern Greek origin that fail to be identified as such in the relevant literature. The discussion starts with a brief sketch of the history, affinities and contacts of Albanian with special focus on Medieval and Modern Greek. Then a classification is attempted of the Greek loanwords usually missed on the basis of their treatment in various works, while exploring the reason(s) why the Greek origin of such loanwords was missed. The main conclusion is that most such etymological mishaps are due to the limited knowledge of the donor language in terms of phonology, lexis and morphology.


Introduction
This article discusses selected cases of Albanian loanwords that, although having obvious or probable Medieval or Modern Greek origin (notwithstanding their origin in Modern Greek itself), in the relevant literature they are either considered to be inherited or attributed to donor languages other than Modern Greek. Such languages are often the ones from which Modern Greek has borrowed the words in question (mostly Italian, Venetian and Turkish).
Albanian is an idiosyncratic member of the Indo-European language family, spoken as sole official language in the Republic of Albania, as co-official language in the partially recognized Republic of Kosovo, and in North Macedonia, while it has been recognized as a minority language in Serbia, Croatia, Italy and Romania. In Greece, Ukraine and Turkey there are some historically Albanophone communities, currently comprising mostly elderly speakers. Altogether, Albanian is spoken as first (and often sole) language by approximately 7.5 million people worldwide (Rusakov, 2017: 552). Two main dialectal continua are distinguished along the natural border of Shkumbin river: Gheg or Northern and Tosk or Southern (Gjinari, 1966;Sanz Ledesma, 1996: 25-29; (Morozova, Rusakov & Ovsjannikova, 2020: 279), with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility, with Tosk having provided the basis for modern Standard Albanian. Albanian could descend from some ancient language of SE Europe such as Illyrian, a view favored in Albania (Sawicka, 2013: 105-107) or Thracian (Vraciu, 1980: 27;Watkins, 1998: 31). Most recent trends speak rather of an "Albanoid" branch (Hamp, 2002: 249-250;Trumper, 2018: 379, 381, 385). Albanian shares most isoglosses with Baltic (Orel, 2000: 13, 212, 250-256) but is also a prominent member of the Balkan sprachbund (Sandfeld, 1930) and has been for centuries subject to the strong and direct lexical, phonotactic, morphological, and possibly syntactic influence of neighboring languages. In particular, Albanian has undergone the direct influence of Medieval and Modern Greek (especially the Tosk variants), Latin/Proto-Romance, Italian, Venetian, South Slavic (mostly Old Church Slavonic, Serbian and Bulgarian), and Ottoman Turkish and, later on, the indirect influence of learned Latin, learned Italian, French, German, Russian and, most recently, English. Minor influences also exist from such languages as Aromanian, Dalmatian, and Old Germanic. Albanian influence on other languages, such as Greek and South Slavic dialects is minor and virtually only lexical, although its numerous traits shared with Romanian could be due to early Albanian influence on Balkan Latin (Ismajli, 2012 and2015: 271-467;cf. Rădulescu, 1984;Gabinschi, 2012).

Method
Throughout this article, etymological information other than mine derives mostly from Meyer (2007Meyer ( [1891), Orel (1998) and Dashi (2013) and, to a lesser degree from Çabej (1976) and Topalli (2017). The loanwords selected fall under various categories according to the traits that suggest their missed Modern Greek origin. In some cases, the Modern Greek origin of an Albanian word that is not attributable to other donor languages is obvious only to those who are well acquainted with the Greek vocabulary and its history. In other cases, the Modern Greek origin is suggested by phonological changes that are not justified in Albanian in general or with respect to the particular donor language to which the loanword is attributed. For example, if a Turkish word that exists in Albanian is reported in the literature as being borrowed from Turkish but exhibits a phonological change that could be justified only in case of Modern Greek mediation (e.g. because Modern Greek does not have a Turkish sound shared also by Albanian), such loanword should count as a Modern Greek borrowing. In yet other cases it is the morphophonological treatment that suggests the Greek origin of a word in Albanian. Nouns, verbs and, to a lesser degree, adjectives undergo various morphophonological changes in order to be accommodated into the Albanian inflectional system, and the whole process is influenced by several perceived similarities and analogies between Albanian and the donor language. To find the origin of some loanwords in Albanian one has first to know the Albanian modalities of morphophonological adaptation, since they may vary depending on the donor language. Such variation is due to the fact that Albanian has many layers of loanwords that have entered the language in different periods usually marked by different linguistic phenomena. As far as inflected Albanian words are concerned, the distinction between indefinite and definite declension of nouns and the one between present and aorist stem of verbs are of crucial importance, as the respective treatment of loanwords can often reveal which the donor language is. In the case of non-inflected loanwords, the donor language can only be inferred by means of phonology, lexicon and/or semantics.
A useful methodological tool is the awareness that most borrowed indefinite nouns in Albanian are in fact back-formations, produced by spontaneously reinterpreting and resegmenting the definite singular form into an indefinite form and its postposed definite singular article. Such reinterpretation and re-segmentation is made on the basis of perceived (morpho)phonological similarities between the Albanian definite singular article and the eventual thematic vowel of the loanword. Thus, by removing the postposed definite singular article one obtains the indefinite singular form of the noun (see more in Kyriazis, 2001: 184-227, 261-264;Krimpas, 2007: 114-115;Krimpas, 2017: 433-434). When it comes to verbs, the morphophonological treatment of the loanword is inextricably connected to which the donor language is. This is particularly obvious in the different treatment of Slavic-borrowed and Modern Greek-borrowed verbs ending in -is and -as (cf. Kyriazis, 2001: 230-233;Krimpas, 2007: 115;Curtis, 2012: 72-73), with the pattern of the Greek-borrowed ones having been transferred also to Turkish-borrowed verbs.  [boʝaˈdizo]. In Modern Greek the d > t change is also triggered by the previous voiced labial [b], in other words it is due to dissimilation, a usual phenomenon in Modern Greek but not in Albanian, e.g., MGk καμπαρντίνα [kabarˈdina] 'a trench coat' < Fr gabardine > Alb gabardinë. Thus, it is obvious that the source of Alb bojatis is the abovementioned Modern Greek verb, in particular its perfective stem μπογιατίσ-[boʝaˈtis-], as is normal with Modern Greek verbs borrowed into Albanian (the same is true of all Balkan langauges). One would say that the suffix -is, itself of Modern Greek origin (Kyriazis, 2001: 230-233;Krimpas, 2007: 115;Krimpas, 2017: 434-435), points already to Modern Greek as a source; however, this deverbative suffix has become quite productive in Albanian, and indeed appears in almost all Turkish verbal loanwords, and hence it is not in itself suggestive of Modern Greek origin in such loanwords. This is why most Ottoman Turkish verbal borrowings in Albanian end in -dis/tis, e.g. Tk. dayanmak 'to endure > dayandι-(aorist stem) > Alb. dajandis 'I endure/to endure'; Tk. kavurmak 'to roast' > kavurdu-(aorist stem) > Alb. kaurdis 'I roast/to roast'; Tk. gezmek 'to go on a stroll' > gezdi-(aorist stem) > Alb. gjezdis, which Orel (1998: 134) viewed as a Slavic loanword from jezditi 'to ride', despite that its past tense stem (gjezdisa, -ise, -isi etc.) clearly suggested its non-Slavic origin (Slavic-derived verbs in -is have past tense stems in -ita, -ite, -iti etc., e.g. SSlav. habiti 'to destroy' > Alb. habis/habit 'to surprise, to astonish' > past tense habita, -ite, -iti etc.).
(c) cimë [ˈt͡ simə] 'mooring line, rope; cyme': As suggested ex silentio from Dashi (2013: 131) Greek is peculiar as to the absence of [ɫ] before front vowels and the treatment of voiced stops between vowels (also across words), since it has to 'support' them by a preceding nasal (Krimpas, 2019: 114-115). This phenomenon is currently rare in Standard Modern Greek (Arvaniti, 2007: 159-160) and Southern variants, but it was regular in all Modern Greek variants a century ago. Indeed, all Modern Greek words that are borrowed into Albanian and are currently pronounced without the nasal in Standard and Southern Modern Greek, always retain their original nasal in Albanian, e.g., αντάρτης [a(n)ˈdartis] 'a rebel, guerilla' > Alb andart; αφεντικό [afe(n)diˈko] 'a master, boss' > Alb afendiko. Moreover, the usual raising of unstressed /o/, typical of Northern Greek variants but sporadically found throughout the Greek-speaking territories is additional evidence that fundul was not borrowed from Tk fodul, but from non-standard MGk φουντούλης [fu(n)ˈdulis] (itself from Tk fodul), now surviving mostly as a Greek surname.
(i) ostrogarb [ostɹoˈgaɹb] 'SW wind': This rare word, which mostly belongs to the maritime jargon, was not borrowed from Ven ostro-garbin [ostɾogaɾˈbiŋ] as suggest the works cited by Dashi (2013: 312), since the suffix -in, which is stressed in Venetian, was not expected to be dropped in Albanian. If the word was a direct Venetian borrowing, the outcome would rather be *ostrogarbi(n) [ostɹogaɹˈbi(n)], since Albanian, being a language with a strong dynamic stress, never drops final-syllable vowels when stressed. This phonological fact leads directly to the regional MGk οστρογάρμπι [ostɾoˈɣaɾbi] as the source of Albanian ostrogarb, which is exactly the expected outcome from MGk οστρογάρμπι [ostɾoˈɣaɾbi], borrowed into Albanian as a definite noun ostrogarbi [ostɹoˈgaɹbi] 'the SW wind' and producing the back-formation ostrogarb 'SW wind' after dropping the suffixed definite article, cf. MGk γομάρι [ɣoˈmaɾi] 'donkey, ass' < Alb gomari [goˈmaɹi] 'the donkey, the ass' < gomar 'donkey, ass'; MGk καλάμι [kaˈɫami] (regional pronunciation of standard [kaˈlami]) 'reed; cane' < kallami [kaˈɫami] 'the reed; the cane' < kallam 'reed; cane'; MGk λητάρι [liˈtaɾi] 'rope' < litari [liˈtaɹi] 'the rope' < litar 'rope'. In other words, the thematic [i]-vowel of Modern Greek words is perceived as the Albanian masculine nominal definite article -i in contact situations (loanwords from other donor languages are treated in analogous ways). Interestingly, the regional Modern Greek word οστρογάρμπι [ostɾoˈɣaɾbi] is still current in Cephalonia, which lies in the wider Ionian-Adriatic region like Albania and was similarly (and for more time) under Venetian rule (on Venetian Albania see more in Schmitt, 2001).
(j) bundë [ˈbundə] 'strong, wet wind; cold caught in cold climates': As suggested ex silentio from Dashi (2013: 340), this word is generally considered as borrowed from Ven ponta (k) sigurt [ˈsiguɹt] 'sure, certain': According to Dashi (2013: 389-390) this Albanian word is borrowed from Ven seguro [seˈguro] and the stress shift from the [u] to [i] is a recent phenomenon. However, even if the stress shift is a recent phenomenon as argued by Dashi (2013: 389), when combined with the change of /e/ into /i/ in the same word it points to mediation of MGk (l) vardhë [ˈvaɹðə] 'guard': As suggested ex silentio from Dashi (2013: 442), this word is generally considered as borrowed from Ven varda [ˈvarda]. However, the change [d] > [ð], although documented in older loanwords in Albanian (mostly Slavic ones), is not the expected one in Venetian loanwords, given that they are more recent and the perception of the equivalence between Romance and Albanian [d] has not yielded to some phonological rule that would justify a different outcome in Albanian. On the other hand, this change is well-documented in Modern Greek, cf. Ven moneda 'coin' > MGk μονέδα [moˈneða] 'coin; money'; Ven corda 'string' > MGk κόρδα [ˈkorða], which suggests that the (now obsolete) MGk βάρδα [ˈvarða] 'guard' (still alive as a toponym in Peloponnese), itself from Ven varda, is probably the source of the Albanian word.

Conclusions
As the above examples clearly show, Albanian etymology is a rather complicated task, given: (a) the practically unknown early stages of this language due to its late documentation; and (b) the multiple substrate and superstrate layers that have accumulated on its core vocabulary and structure through the centuries. This means that even a small progress in Albanian etymology could be of particular importance for the reconstruction of its history. Modern Greek has had a profound lexical and morphological influence on Albanian, although less so than Latin/Proto-Romance and South Slavic. Therefore, it is important for the researcher to have a good command of Ancient, Medieval and Modern Greek, especially of non-standard varieties of the latter, in order to be able to discern possible Modern Greek borrowings in Albanian. The above discussion shows that Modern Greek should be one's first choice as possible etymological source of borrowed words that do not clearly originate in other well-documented donor languages. Non-standard varieties spoken in Epirus and the Ionian Islands are of particular importance in this connection, given that the whole Ionian-Adriatic region has always been marked by the co-existence of various linguistic groups, including Greek, Romance, Albanian, and Slavic. Generally speaking, Modern Greek borrowings in Albanian are not difficult to recognize once diachronic and diatopic evolution of Greek is mastered as solidly as possible. Their relatively recent date has not allowed for profound changes that could obscure their origin. The main reasons why the Modern Greek origin or mediation of some Albanian loanwords has been missed so far in the relevant literature lie mostly in phonological and morphological similarities among donor languages and/or defective mastery of non-standard Greek vocabulary and structure. More often than not, the Modern Greek etymology of an Albanian loanword is suggested by a combination of phonological and morphological traits. Most words with missed Modern Greek etymology are nouns and verbs, and more rarely adjectives.