ARBERIAONLINE

I have used Albanian or a modified Albanian orthography to show the sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Albanian. These are mostly my own personal theories although I have based much of them on the work of other linguists. I still have used my own intuition on how I think some sounds changed. This is a step by step change. The first step would be earlier in time and time goes on as one goes down the numbers. Now, the exact order of the consonant and vowel changes may actually be at different times, but this gives a nice general overview.

Notes:
The letter g after a number means Gheg while a t means Tosk.
Here are some orthographic notes:
kk = a voiceless uvular stop
‘ = a glottal stop
. = a syllabic marker
kh = a voiceless velar fricative
bh = breathy voiced bilabial stop
ph = voiceless bilabial fricative
ä = a vowel between “a” and “e” phonetically
ö = a front rounded vowel phonetically akin to French “eu”

The word "five".
1. penkwe (PIE form)
2. penke
3. penkje
4. penqe
5. pençe
6. pence
6. pense
7, pensë
8. pêsë
9g1. pês (Those Gheg dialects with the nasal vowel)
9g2. pesë
10g2. pēs (Those Gheg dialects without the nasal vowel)
9t. pesë (Those Tosk dialects with the final -ë pronounced)
10t. pēs (Those Tosk dialects without the final -ë pronounced)

I am not sure if the Gheg subdialects without the nasal vowel for this word occurred after step 8, step 9g1 or after the 9g2... It seems that many Gheg subdialects have a long vowel in this word which would make it seem that a final -ë dropped. Although the ê in this word may actually be long in some dialects? I think there are some. The actual situation is much more complicated than any data I have with which to theorize.

The word "six".
1. kksweks (PIE form)
2. ‘sweks
3. sweks
4. seks
5. sekhs
6. sehs
7. ses
8. shesh
9. shäsh
10. shash
11. çash
12. xhash
13. gjash (+të)
14g. xhash (+të) (Those Gheg dialects which have merged gj with xh)

The change from PIE *s to Albanian gj had to have taken many steps and I find the voicing interesting.

The word "seven".
1. septm. (PIE form)
2. septn.
3. septen
4. septê
5. septe
6. septä
7. septa
8. sephta
9. sëphta
10. sëhta
11. sëta
12. sta
13. shta (+të)

The word "eight".
1. h3ektōh3u (PIE form)
2. oktōu
3. oktō
4. aktō
4. akhtō
5. ahtō
6. atō
7. atö
8. ëtö
9. ëte
10 te (+të)

The word "tooth".
1. gombh (PIE form)
2. g'jomb
3. gjombh
4. gjambh
5. gjamb
6. xamb
7. dhamb
8. dhâmb (Those Gheg dialects which kept the mb cluster)
9g. dhâm (Those Gheg dialects which do not keep the mb cluster)
9t. dhëmb (Some of the Transitional and all of the Tosk dialects denasalize the nasal vowels)

The Gheg and Transtional vowels for â vary greatly by subdialect. As well consonant clusters in Gheg and Transitional vary greatly by subdialect.

Jay, I beleive the noun dhëmb(tosk) or dhamb(geg) derives directly from the verb dhëmb=hurts(pain), because a tooth is a synonym to the pain, where it gets the name from.

Albanian dhemb (hurts) is related to dhëmb (tooth). It is from a well attested Indo-European root It has cognates with Greek: gomphos, English: comb, Irish: gob, Welsh: gwp, Tocharian A: kam, Russian: zub, Armenian: tsamel, Sanskrit: jambha, etc. Sanskrit also has jambhate for destroy.

Jay I assure you that words dhëmb(hurts) and dhëmb(tooth) are not only related but sprang from each other:
Më dhëmb koka shumë---I have a great headache
I ka dalë një dhëmb tjetër--Another tooth come out (in his mouth)

The only possible cognate is only in Sanskrit, even that not very persuasive.

Hurt in standard Albanian is dhemb while tooth is dhëmb. There were semantic shifts in PIE *gombh before the proto-language split. They did not spring from each other in Albanian; it would have been much earlier than that, All of the forms are cognates. The sound correspondences are very regular. These are not in dispute.

What I do see disputed is that dhemb and dhëmb may be from two different roots. Both roots have cognates in other Indo-European languages though.

The Gheg form for dhëmb which is dhâmb demonstrates that these aren't the same word as dhemb is not *dhâmb in Gheg.

Other cognate for dhemb includes Lithuanian žembiù.

Forget about standard Albanian, the best way to judge is using the dialects.

Tosk hurt---> dhëmb tooth---> dhëmb.

Geg hurt--> dhamb tooth--> dhamb

They are excactly the same in both dialectes.

Hurt is "dhem(b)" in Gheg. never as *dham(b). "dhëmb" for hurt in Tosk must be a later development in some Tosk dialects. Vowel changes like that are not uncommon. Also, "dhemb" could have been influenced/assimilated by "dhëmb" or perhaps even the word "dëm"? English words like bridegroom and sandblind have had similar assimilation/influence properties. As well, the aching of teeth may have further pushed the association.

No in geg is dhômbje where ô is a sound very similar to a:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=dho ... =&aq=f&oq=

while in Elbasan dialect is a clear a: me dhamb=it hurts

My Gheg dictionary has dhemb for hurt. In any event, both dhemb and dhëmb are Indo-European roots even if they are related roots or not. Both have cognates in Sanskrit, Slavic languages, and Baltic languages. dhëmb by itself has cognates in nearly all of the branches. Orel has a proto-form *dzemba: for dhemb and *dzamba for dhëmb. These two words were distinct in Proto-Indo-European even if they came from the same root as Baltic, Slavic, and Sanskrit show us. Umlaut is a very common in Proto-Indo-European to alter meanings.

As I have stated Albanian shares a lot of interesting relatively close relationships to all of the other branches of Indo-European. It is about the only branch of IE that does in an intimate way. It wouldn't be surprising that Albanian would retain this feature from the proto-language.

OK, I found the variants here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=xZftQt ... bh&f=false

from Demiraj.

For dhemb:
dhëmb- forms are Southern Tosk varieties only. Gheg forms can have dhêmb- as well.

Hello!
First I want to clarify one thing, I'm not a linguist! Reading the posts for the language in this forum,
I don't understand very well how gjashtë came from "sex"?
Is it possible to think that "gjashtë" means approximately "G asht" or "Gi asht" Or "Gji asht" ? Because if someone use sticks to design the number 6, the number seems the letter "G"
If so, can we have Gji(ni) = "sex"?

For number 5 (Five) the same thing! If we use sticks to form the number 5, it seems the letter "S".

I had this funny idea reading in this website:
http://web.unife.it/altro/tesi/A.Montanari/grecia.htm

Albanian "gj" is a regular outcome from Proto-Indo-European "s" in many positions. If you read a book on historical linguistics about Indo-European and Albanian, you will find more words where Albanian "gj comes from PIE "s" such as Albanian gjarpër from PIE *serpe-, gjysmë from PIE *semi-. etc. The "-të" on the end of gjash- originally was a suffix. The numerals we use in Europe were borrowed via the Arabs who borrowed them from India. The language forms long predate the numeral symbols.