This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Albanau~enwiki (talk | contribs) at 23:51, 20 July 2005 (Arvanitika have no legall status therefore Arvanites have been unwilling or forbidden to learn the language... A VERY GOOD PHRASEMENT). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 23:51, 20 July 2005 by Albanau~enwiki (talk | contribs) (Arvanitika have no legall status therefore Arvanites have been unwilling or forbidden to learn the language... A VERY GOOD PHRASEMENT)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)error: ISO 639 code is required (help) Arvanitic (or Arvanitika, Arvanitic: Αρbε̰ρίσ̈τε / Arbëríshte, Greek: Αρβανίτικα / Arvanítika, Albanian: Arbërisht) is a variety of the Albanian Tosk dialect. It is not mutually intelligible with Gheg Albanian although both do mainly share the same roots. Arvanitic has 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 influenced by Greek over the centuries. Arvanitic is almost extinct as most descendants of Arvanites have been unwilling or forbidden to learn their language. Consequently it is only used by some senior citizens when trying to communicate with Albanian immigrants who have not learned Greek yet. Although it is traditionally a spoken rather than a written language, an Arvanitic alphabet adapted from the Greek alphabet has been developed for Arvanitic.