Polish language in an unknown Albanian damaskin from 19th century

Abstract

The Notebook of Simon Kazanxhiu comes from the first half of the nineteenth century. It is now preserved in the Albanian State Archives in Tirana. This Notebook, written primarily in Todhri script (the original Albanian alphabet), comes from Elbasan in central Albania where the Todhri alphabet was invented and used in the nineteenth century. It contains a variety of information: seemingly random lists of Albanian words and phrases, a one-page list of words and phrases in German with their Albanian translation, and more extensive glossaries of Venetian Italian-Albanian and of Polish-Albanian words and phrases, all written in Todhri. There are also financial records on the purchase and sale of merchandise, remedies for illnesses and recipes. The paper presents a preliminary analysis of the phonetics of the Polish words in the Notebook.