Social:Vithkuqi alphabet

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Short description: Alphabet for the Albanian language
Vithkuqi
Type
Alphabet
U+10570–U+105BF
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The Vithkuqi alphabet, also called Büthakukye or Beitha Kukju after the appellation applied to it by German Albanologist Johann Georg von Hahn, was an alphabetic script invented for writing the Albanian language between 1825 and 1845 by Albanian scholar Naum Veqilharxhi.[1]

History

Though the alphabet is sometimes erroneously claimed to be named after its inventor, as in Carl Faulmann's Das Buch der Schrift, the script's name is derived from Vithkuq, a village in the Korçë region where Veqilharxhi was born.

The alphabet never took hold because of its inventor's premature death and because of the prohibitive costs of cutting new type for the invented characters; nevertheless, a number of documents using the alphabet were published in the late 19th century. The alphabet was eventually overwhelmed by the Greek, Arabic and Latin scripts it had been designed to supplant, the latter becoming the official one in 1909. Other original alphabets used for Albanian were the Elbasan alphabet and the Todhri alphabet of the 18th century. These similarly failed to see prolonged widespread usage.

Description

The Vithkuqi alphabet was specifically designed to be as religiously neutral as possible, avoiding the duplication of Greek, Latin, or Arabic characters. It had a near-perfect correspondence between letters and phonemes, but lacked characters for modern Albanian "gj", "rr", "xh", and "zh". Additionally, modern "b" and "h" were each represented by two characters- the lesser-used characters in each pair are transliterated as "bb" and "hh" below. [1]

Capital letter Small letter Modern Albanian IPA
Image Text Image Text
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER A.svg 𐕰 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER A.svg 𐖗 a /a/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER BBE.svg 𐕱 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER BBE.svg 𐖘 bb /b/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER BE.svg 𐕲 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER BE.svg 𐖙 b /b/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER CE.svg 𐕳 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER CE.svg 𐖚 c /t͡s/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER CHE.svg 𐕴 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER CHE.svg 𐖛 ç /t͡ʃ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER DE.svg 𐕵 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER DE.svg 𐖜 d /d/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER DHE.svg 𐕶 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER DHE.svg 𐖝 dh /ð/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER EI.svg 𐕷 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER EI.svg 𐖞 e /ɛ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER E.svg 𐕸 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER E.svg 𐖟 ë /ə/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER FE.svg 𐕹 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER FE.svg 𐖠 f /f/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER GA.svg 𐕺 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER GA.svg 𐖡 g /ɡ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER HA.svg 𐕼 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER HA.svg 𐖣 h /h/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER HHA.svg 𐕽 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER HHA.svg 𐖤 hh /h/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER I.svg 𐕾 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER I.svg 𐖥 i /i/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER IJE.svg 𐕿 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER IJE.svg 𐖦 ie /iɛ̯/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER JE.svg 𐖀 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER JE.svg 𐖧 j /j/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER KA.svg 𐖁 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER KA.svg 𐖨 k /k/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER LA.svg 𐖂 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER LA.svg 𐖩 l /l/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER LLA.svg 𐖃 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER LLA.svg 𐖪 ll /ɫ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER ME.svg 𐖄 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER ME.svg 𐖫 m /m/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER NE.svg 𐖅 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER NE.svg 𐖬 n /n/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER NJE.svg 𐖆 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER NJE.svg 𐖭 nj /ɲ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER O.svg 𐖇 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER O.svg 𐖮 o /ɔ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER PE.svg 𐖈 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER PE.svg 𐖯 p /p/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER QA.svg 𐖉 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER QA.svg 𐖰 q /c͡ç/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER RE.svg 𐖊 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER RE.svg 𐖱 r /ɹ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER SE.svg 𐖌 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER SE.svg 𐖳 s /s/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER SHE.svg 𐖍 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER SHE.svg 𐖴 sh /ʃ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER TE.svg 𐖎 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER TE.svg 𐖵 t /t/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER THE.svg 𐖏 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER THE.svg 𐖶 th /θ/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER U.svg 𐖐 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER U.svg 𐖷 u /u/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER VE.svg 𐖑 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER VE.svg 𐖸 v /v/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER XE.svg 𐖒 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER XE.svg 𐖹 x /d͡z/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER Y.svg 𐖔 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER Y.svg 𐖻 y /y/
VITHKUQI CAPITAL LETTER ZE.svg 𐖕 VITHKUQI SMALL LETTER ZE.svg 𐖼 z /z/
The letters of the Vithkuqi alphabet matched to their Latin equivalents

Typeface

The books by Veqilharxhi were lithographed in Bucharest by George Venrich, as was recently discovered.[2] Though the alphabet was lithographed, in 1847 it was also cut for typographic use in Vienna, by the Austrian philologists and punchcutter Alois Auer. It was first used for a type specimen called Das Vaterunser in 206 Sprachen by the Imperial Printing Press (k.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei) in Vienna, under the direction of Auer. The same type was also used by Carl Faulmann in a different book a few years later. It is the first typeface to be cut for an original Albanian alphabet.[3]

Unicode

Main page: Vithkuqi (Unicode block)

Vithkuqi was added to the Unicode Standard in September 2021 with the release of version 14.0.

The Unicode block for Vithkuqi is U+10570–U+105BF:


See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Everson
  2. ↑ Yll Rugova (2022). Tipografia shqiptare 1555–1912, Varg & Berk, Prishtinë, p. 166-167
  3. ↑ Yll Rugova (2022). Tipografia shqiptare 1555–1912, Varg & Berk, Prishtinë, p. 170-177

Sources

  • Diringer, David. (1949). The Alphabet.
  • Десницкая, Агния Васильевна. (1968). Албанский язык и его диалекты. Leningrad: Nauka.
  • Десницкая, Агния Васильевна. (1987). Албанская литература и албанский язык. Leningrad: Nauka.
  • Elsie, Robert. (1995). The Elbasan Gospel Manuscript (Anonimi i Elbasanit), 1761, and the struggle for an original Albanian alphabet.
  • Faulmann, Karl. (1880). Das Buch der Schrift.
  • Skendi, Stavro. 1960. The history of the Albanian alphabet: a case of complex cultural and political development. Südost-Forschungen: Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Kultur und Landeskunde Südosteuropas 19:263-284.
  • Trix, Frances. 1997. Alphabet conflict in the Balkans: Albanian and the congress of Monastir. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 128:1-23.
  • Veqilharxhi, Naum. (1845). Evëtori Shqip Fort i Shkurtër.



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