Dialect
Cham Albanians speak the Cham dialect (Çamërisht), which is a subbranch of the Tosk Albanian dialect. The Cham dialect is the second southernmost dialect of the Albanian language, the other being the Arvanitic dialect of southern Greece, which is also a form of Tosk Albanian. As such, Arvanitika and Cham dialect retain a number of common features.
Albanian linguists say that this dialect is of great interest for the dialectological study and the ethno-linguistic analysis of the Albanian language. Like Arvanitika and the Arbëresh varieties of Italy, the dialect retains some old features of the Albanian, such as the old consonant clusters /kl/, /gl/, which in standard Albanian are q and gj, and /l/ instead of /j/.
| Cham Albanian | Standard Albanian | Tosk Albanian | Arvanitika | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kljumësht | Qumësht | Qumësht | Kljumsht | Milk |
| Gluhë | Gjuhë | Gjuhë | Gljuhë | Language |
| Gola | Goja | Goja | Gljoja | Mouth |
Linguists say that these features give the Cham dialect a conservative character, which is due to the close proximity and its continuous contacts with the Greek language. They argue that this conservative character, which is reflected in a number of peculiar features of the dialect, is endangered, as are the Albanian toponyms of the region, which are no longer in use, and which have provided valuable material for research into the historical evolution of Albanian.
Read more about this topic: Cham Albanians
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“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)