Fonologjia historike e gegërishtes veriore

This book follows the development of the Northern Gheg phonological system from the earliest written attestations of the sixteenth century to the dialectological descriptions of the twentieth. It rests chiefly on the Franciscan archive manuscripts, a body of material little used in earlier scholarship, which allows a change to be followed through time rather than merely reconstructed.

The central argument is that the early split of /ɑ/ is not an internal development, as is usually accepted, but the result of contact with neighbouring varieties. The author defends this on chronological evidence: the split appears first in border areas and spreads inward, the opposite of what an internal explanation predicts.

The book addresses historical linguists and students of Albanian studies, but the chapters on sources are written to be read by historians working with the same manuscripts for other reasons. It includes an index of forms and a full bibliography of the Shkodër manuscript holdings.