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Revision as of 15:11, 18 July 2005 by Albanau~enwiki (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)error: ISO 639 code is required (help) Arvanitic (Greek: Αρβανίτικα, Arvanitic: Αρbε̰ρίσ̈τε/Arbëríshte) is a variety of Tosk Albanian that have been spoken by the Arvanite people of Greece for more than five centuries.
The approximately 150,000 speakers inhabit more than 300 villages in Greece. There are no monolingual Arvanitic-speakers; all are bilingual in Greek, and the language has been heavily influenced by Greek over the centuries. Usage of Arvanitic is almost extinct as most descendants of Arvanites have been unwilling to learn the language. Consequently it is only used by some senior citizens when trying to communicate with Albanian immigrants who have not learned Greek yet. Although traditionally an oral rather than a written language, an Arvanitic alphabet adapted from the Greek alphabet has been developed for Arvanitic.