The Cham Albanian dialect (Albanian: Çamërisht, or Dialekti çam) is the dialect of the Albanian language spoken by the Cham Albanians, an ethnic Albanian minority in the Epirus region of northwestern Greece.
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The Cham dialect is part of the Tosk Albanian dialect.The Cham dialect is the second-southernmost dialect of the Albanian language, the other being Arvanitika, which is also part of Tosk Albanian. As such, Arvanitika and Cham dialect retain a number of common features.[1]
Like Arvanitika in southern Greece and Arbëresh in Italy, the Cham dialect retains some conservative features of Albanian, such as the old consonant clusters /kl/, /gl/, which in standard Albanian are q and gj, and retention of /l/ instead of /j/.[2]
| Cham Albanian | Standard Albanian | Tosk Albanian | Arvanitika | Arberesh | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kljumësht | Qumësht | Qumësht | Kljumsht | Klumsht | Milk |
| Gluhë | Gjuhë | Gjuhë/Guhë | Gljuhë | Gluhë | Language/Tongue |
| Gola | Goja | Goja | Golja | Gojë | Mouth |
The first Greek-Albanian dictionary was written by Markos Botsaris (in Albanian: Marko Boçari), which contains the first features of the Cham dialect.[3] Based on this evidences, scholars have agreed that the Albanian language spoken by Souliotes was the a subbranch of the cham dialect.[4] During the 19th century, Cham Albanians, started creating bejtes, which was a new kind of poems, mainly in Southern Albania. The most well-known bejtexhi was Muhamet Kyçyku (Çami), born in Konispol. He is the only poet in Albania that had written in the Cham dialect and, as it seems, was the first Albanian author to have written longer poetry.[5]