Albania 1

Listen to Albania 1, a 40-year-old man from Bolena, Vlorë, Albania. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.  

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/04/1985

PLACE OF BIRTH: Bolena, Vlorë, Albania

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Albanian

OCCUPATION: web developer

EDUCATION: bachelor’s degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has never lived outside Albania. He was raised in Bolena but lived in Gjirokastre, Albania, during high school.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject had Albanian friends at university who weren’t originally from Vlorë.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Haseeb Fazily

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/04/2026

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, I was born in Bolena. It’s a village more than fifty kilometers from Vlorë. It’s a mountainous, mountainous village, uh, where life was harsh in general. … We had — I was born around the time when communism fell, so I don’t remember anything, uh, from the life before communism. But, uh, what I remember is my villagers dismantling the — as, as an old kid, as a young kid — dismantling the, the institutions in a way of that communism left behind, in, even near in my village. Uh, they literally took apart every piece of material they, they could get [subject laughs] from those buildings.

And then it was mostly each family had its own goats or sheep. And they had a piece of land to work on, but the terrain made it hard to grow a big herd. And the land was too little to, to be enough for a good life. So, almost everyone was struggling and, uh, having to work very hard to survive.

Uh, also, there was a lot of immigration when I grew up. And it was one of the ways people used to, to get in better shape financially by getting remittances from, uh, their kids abroad. Or the, or the debts, for young, for young families. …

I used to be a, a, you know, goat kids. I used to shepherd the kids of my goats. I’ve done this for several years until I went to high school.

[The subject speaks in his first language, Albanian, with a Tosk dialect]: Kur, kur ika në shkollë të mesme ishte një eksperiencë e vështirë sepse ishte hera e parë që largohesha nga familja edhe atje rrija në konvikt. Shkolla e mesme ishte në Gjirokastër dhe ishte shumë larg nga fshati. Për të ikur në shkollë duhet të nisesha në mëngjes herët, marrja autobusin e fshatit të vija në Vlorë, pastaj nga Vlora duhet të marrja një furgon të shkoja në Fier, pastaj nga Fieri duhet të marrja një autobus tjetër të shkoja në Gjirokastër.

Pra duhet të ndërroja tre makina për të ardhur, për të shkuar në shkollë, po këtë mund ta bëja brenda ditës. Kurse kur isha në Gjirokastër ishte shumë e vështirë të vija brenda ditës nga Gjirokastra në fshat, në shtëpi, sepse në Vlorë mbërrija gjithmonë — përveç që duhet të ndërroja gjithashtu dy makina — në Vlorë vija gjithmonë mbrapa mesditës dhe furgoni i fshatit, autobusi i fshatit kishte ikur në atë kohë, kështu që duhet të flija diku këtu tek një i afërm, pastaj të nesërmen të shkoja në fshat.

[English translation: When, when I went to high school, it was a difficult experience because it was the first time I was leaving my family, and I stayed in a dormitory there. High school was in Gjirokastër, and it was very far from the village. To go to school, I had to leave early in the morning; I would take the village bus to come to Vlorë; then from Vlorë I had to take a furgon [minibus] to go to Fier, and then from Fier I had to take another bus to go to Gjirokastër.

So, I had to change three vehicles to get there, to go to school, but I could do that within one day. However, when I was in Gjirokastër, it was very difficult to come from Gjirokastër to the village, to home, within a single day because I always arrived in Vlorë, besides the fact that I also had to change two vehicles. I always arrived in Vlorë after midday, and the village furgon, [the village bus] had already left by then. So, I would have to sleep here at a relative’s house and then go to the village the next day.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Haseeb Fazily

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/04/2026

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.