Challenges of the Albanian Language in the Internet Era

Abstract

Language is a live organism and as every other living being develops and is enriched with new words and terms, which enter the life of society together with the new tool, i.e. they enter in and mix with the order of Albanian words. Such a thing is inevitable and in some cases even useful, but every word that is lined up in the order of Albanian words must be well filtered. “The introduction of new words and exclusion of old ones is a natural process, and it happens in any language. This is what happened with the Greek borrowings in Latin, with the Arabic borrowings in Greek, with the Latin borrowings in many European languages, with the Persian borrowings in Turkish, with the Turkish borrowings in Albanian, etc.” - Prof. Hajri Shehu emphasizes in a scientific interview (Shehu, 2017). In recent decades, with the expansion of the Internet, many foreign words began to enter and be used in the Albanian language. English took up more space than expected; in addition to penetrating through various tool notions, it also replaced centuries-old native words of Albanian.

Keywords

• foreign words
• language threats
• internet era
• emoticons
• spelling/writing errors