Elbasan alphabet

The Elbasan script is a mid 18th-century alphabetic script used for the Albanian language. It was named after the city of Elbasan where it was invented. It was mainly used in the area of Elbasan and Berat.

The primary document associated with the alphabet is the Elbasan Gospel Manuscript, known in Albanian as the Anonimi i Elbasanit (The Anonymous of Elbasan). [1] The document was created at St. Jovan Vladimir's Church in central Albania, but is preserved today at the National Archives of Albania in Tirane. Its 59 pages contain Biblical content written in an alphabet of 40 letters[1]

Another original script used for Albanian, was Beitha Kukju's script of the 19th century. This script did not have much influence either.

Unicode

There is a current proposal for adding the Elbasan script to Unicode.[2]

Sources

  1. ^ a b Elsie, Robert (1995). "The Elbasan Gospel Manuscript ("Anonimi i Elbasanit"), 1761, and the Struggle for an Original Albanian Alphabet" (PDF). Südost-Forschungen (Regensburg: Südost-Institut) 54: 105–159. ISSN 0081-9077. http://www.elsie.de/pdf/articles/A1995ElbasanMs_Fig.pdf. 
  2. ^ Everson, M.; R. Elsie (2011). Proposal for encoding the Elbasan script in the SMP of the UCS. 

External links