Oh dear, 208 pages of Old Albanian as
spoken in 1210? I eagerly hope it isn't a canard -- it sounds almost
too great to be true! When the manuscript gets published it will be a
frabjous day not only for Albania and Albanian studies but for
Indo-European linguistics as well. Albanian evidence is often
neglected or underestimated precisely because the language is attested so late
and so imperfectly.
I wonder what else they hide in the vaults
of the Vatican: perhaps a Latin/Thracian bilingual -- just two or three pages,
please? The Lord's Prayer in Etruscan? A couple of Dacian poems signed by Ovid?
A ninth-century Greek-Valachian phrasebook? ... Oh well ... Great news,
anyway.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 10:00 PM
Subject: [tied] Albanian manuscript from 1210 AC
For those who might be interested.
According to
Albanian newspaper Gazeta Shqiptare, Albanian
reaserchers have found an
Albanian manuscript dated 1210 AC written
from somebody called Teodor
Shkodrani. The question is about an
autograph of 208 pages found in the
archives of Vatican, all written
in Albanian.
The oldest Albanian text
known until now was "Formula e Pagëzimit"
from 1462.