angellon and angelos

From: Abdullah Konushevci
Message: 35745
Date: 2005-01-02

As was once mentioned by Piotr, accent in Albanian language is
usually preserved, not only in inherited words, but also in Greek
and Latin loans. Sometimes, the position of accent is crucial, like
in these Greek loans: Ngjela, very common Albanian patronymic (cf.
Spartak Ngjela, Thanas Ngjela), loaned from Greek <ho
angéllon> `messenger', through aphaeresis of unstressed syllable /a/
and diphthongation of stressed /é/ in /ie/ > /je/ and regular rule
ll > l / V_V. So we have (a)ngiell-on > ngjel-a, where Greek ending
was replaced by Albanian feminine ending /a/.
Second example is ho ángelos `prophet, angel' with stressed /a/ and
unstressed /e/ and with single /l/, which due to rule l > ll/V_V
palatalized lateral liquid /l/ became velarized lateral liquid /ll/.
In second word we haven't aphaeresis of syllable /a/, for it is in
stressed positon, until second /e/ yields also /ie/ > /je/: angjëll
and definite form <angjelli> caused the well-known i-Umlaut, to have
the final result <engjell/ engjlli>, but plural is <engjëj <
engjëli, due to li > lj > j> that show us that final sound was /l/
as in original.
We may deduce that plural form in Albanian is much more archaic than
singular one.

Konushevci