“Linguistic History of Albanian Place Names” is a project in cooperation with the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (IHB), financed by FWF, led by Dr. Joachim Matzinger as principal investigator, running since January 2021 for four years. The ACDH-CH team provides the technical expertise and infrastructure, to develop and host a digital edition a web application for digital data collection and publication of the data at hand according to current best practices in the field.
In a European Region that is historically afflicted by upheavals, the linguistic development of Albanian place names offers a research approach that enables the historical dynamics to be derived from different linguistic bases that have emerged over time. The aim is a diachronic-linguistic analysis of the documented place names of the Albanian national territory (macrotoponyms). The temporal delimitation is broad and includes relevant linguistic changes in place names from antiquity to modern times. A determination of the phonological form of place names that is as original as possible is one of the aims of the project, in addition to changing Albanian pronunciation and their effects on place names. The investigation of Albanian place names will reveal connections between place names and assignments to languages as well as their geographical distribution.
The outcome of this research is a handbook on Albanian toponymy and a digital edition in the form of a web application. In addition to an alphabetically arranged list of place names and their territorial allocation in municipalities, the digital edition allows the places to be visualized on an interactive map. All recorded places will be accompanied with further information about the place names as well as with bibliographical references to relevant literature.
Joachim Matzinger, Austrian Academy of Sciences | Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (IHB)
FWF 10.55776/P33706
01/2021–12/2024