The Albanians () and their country Albania (Shqipëria) have been identified by many ethnonyms. The native endonym is Shqiptar. The name "Albanians" (Latin: Albanenses/Arbanenses) was used in medieval Greek and Latin documents that gradually entered European languages from which other similar derivative names emerged. Linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps. Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar, the term in Albanian became rendered as Arbëreshë () for the people and Arbëria () for the country.
Contemporary Albanian language employs a different ethnonym, with modern Albanians referring to themselves as Shqiptarë and to their country as Shqipëria. Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym. One connects it to the verb 'pronounce' (shqiptoj), deriving from Latin excipere. In this instance, the Albanian endonym, like many others, would originally have been a term connoting "those who speak [intelligibly, the same language]"; that is, "those who speak shqip," with shqip referring to the Albanian language itself. The other one derives the name from the Albanian word for eagle (shqiponjë). The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general; for example, the flag of Skanderbeg, whose family's symbol was the black double-headed eagle, as displayed on the Albanian flag.Elsie 2010, "Flag, Albanian", p. 140: "The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general. It is also said to have been the flag of Skanderbeg...As a symbol of modern Albania, the flag began to be seen during the years of the national awakening and was in common use during the uprisings of 1909-1912. It was this flag that Ismail Qemal bey Vlora raised in Vlora on 28 November 1912 in proclaiming Albanian independence."
Attested from 14th century onward, the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria and Arbëreshë amongst Albanian speakers between the late 17th and early 18th centuries. That era brought about religious and other sociopolitical changes. As such a new and generalised response by Albanians based on ethnic and linguistic consciousness to this new and different Ottoman world emerging around them was a change in ethnonym.
Arbënesh/Arbëresh (Albanian)
Arbën, Arbëneshë, Arbënuer (as rendered in northern Gheg dialects) and Arbër, Arbëreshë, Arbëror (as rendered in southern Tosk dialects) are the old native terms denoting ancient and medieval Albanians used by Albanians."Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia" Jeffrey E. Cole - 2011, Page 15 The Albanian language was referred to as Arbërisht ()."Everyday Arberesh" Martin Di Maggio While the country was called Arbëni, definite: Arbënia and Arbëri, definite: Arbëria by Albanians. These terms as an endonym and as native toponyms for the country are based on the same common root alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar. The national ethnonym Albanian has derived from Albanoi,... an Illyrian tribe mentioned by Ptolemy with their centre at the city of Albanopolis,. "Albanian is an Indo-European language, but like modern Greek and Armenian, it does not have any other closely related living language. Within the Indo-European family, it forms a group of its own. In Albanian, the language is called shqip. Albania is called Shqipëri, and the Albanians call themselves shqiptarë. Until the fifteenth century the language was known as Arbërisht or Arbnisht, which is still the name used for the language in Italy and Greece. The Greeks refer to all the varieties of Albanian spoken in Greece as Arvanitika. In the second century AD, Ptolemy, the Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer and geographer, used the name Albanoi to refer to an Illyrian tribe that used to live in what is now central Albania. During the Middle Ages the population of that area was referred to as Arbanori or Albanon. It is clear that the words Arbëresh, Arvanitika, and even Albanian and Albania are all related to the older name of the language." located in modern-day central Albania, near the city of Krujë.Malcolm 1998, p. 29. "Nor is there any mystery about the origin of this name. In the second century Ptolemy referred to a tribe called the 'Albanoi', and located their town, 'Albanopolis', somewhere to the east of Durres."Ramadan Marmullaku - 1975, Albania and the Albanians - Page 5 The alb part in the root word for all these terms is believed by linguists be an Indo-European word for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps.. "Linguists believe that the ‘Alb-’ element comes from the Indo-European word for a type of mountainous terrain, from which the word ‘Alps’ is also derived." The Lab, also Labe, Labi; Albanian sub-group and geographic/ethnographic region of Labëri, definite: Labëria in Albania are also endonyms formed from the root alb. These are derived from the syllable cluster alb undergoing metathesis within Slavic to lab and reborrowed in that form into Albanian.. "Die besondere ethnische Stellung der Labëri tritt auch in den Benennungen lab 'Labe', Labëri, Arbëri hervor, die von der Wurzel *alb-/*arb- gebildet sind und die alte Selbstbenennung der Albaner enthalten. Der Bewohner von Labëri wird auch jetzt lab, best. labi genannt, eig. ‘der Albaner’. Der Wandel *alb- > lab zeigt die für das Slawische typische metatheseerscheinung. [The particular ethnic position of Labëri emerges also in the names lab, 'Labe', Labëri, Arbëri that from the root *alb-/*arb- formed and included the old self-designation of the Albanians. The residents of Labëri is also now lab, spec. labi called proper 'the Albanians'. The change *alb>lab shows the typical metathesis for the Slavic.]"
Terms derived from all those endonyms as exonyms appear in Byzantine sources from the eleventh century onward and are rendered as Albanoi, Arbanitai and Arbanites and in Latin and other Western documents as Albanenses and Arbanenses.. "Their traditional designation, based on a root *alban- and its rhotacized variants *arban-, *albar-, and *arbar-, appears from the eleventh century onwards in Byzantine chronicles (Albanoi, Arbanitai, Arbanites), and from the fourteenth century onwards in Latin and other Western documents (Albanenses, Arbanenses)."Malcolm, Noel. "Kosovo, a short history". London: Macmillan, 1998, p.29 "The name used in all these references is, allowing for linguistic variations, the same: 'Albanenses' or 'Arbanenses' in Latin, 'Albanoi' or 'Arbanitai' in Byzantine Greek. (The last of these, with an internal switching of consonants, gave rise to the Turkish form 'Arnavud', from which 'Arnaut' was later derived.)" The first Byzantine writers to mention Albanians in an ethnic sense are Michael Attaliates (in the book History) and Anna Comnena (in the book Alexiad), referring to them as Albanoi and Arbanitai, in the 11th century.Michaelis Attaliotae: Historia, Bonn 1853, p. 8, 18, 297Comnena, Anna. The Alexiad, Book IV, 7-8, Bonn 1836, p. 215‑221 and p. 293-294. In later Byzantine usage, the terms "Arbanitai" and "Albanoi" with a range of variants were used interchangeably, while sometimes the same groups were also called by the classicising name Illyrians.Mazaris 1975, pp. 76–79.N. Gregoras (ed. Bonn) V, 6; XI, 6.. The first reference to the Albanian language dates to the year 1285.
The country was known in Byzantine sources as Arbanon (Άρβανον) and in Latin sources as Arbanum. In medieval Serbian sources, the ethnonym for the country derived from the Latin term after undergoing linguistic metathesis was rendered as Rabna (Рабна) and Raban (Рабан), while the adjective was Rabanski (Rабански).. "Die Albaner hatten im Verlauf des Mittelalters keinen eigenen Staat, doch besaßen sie ein kompaktes, mit einem Ethnonym versehenes Mutterland (Arbanon, Arbanum, Raban, Regnum Albaniae, Albania). [The Albanians had during the Middle Ages no state of their own, but they had a compact area, that provided with an ethnonym for the motherland (Arbanon, Arbanum, Raban, Regnum Albaniae, Albania).]". "у наведеном цитату привлачи пажњу чињеница, да је Стефан Немања запосео ,,од Рабна оба Пилота’’. Назив ,,Рабна’’ или ,,Рабан’’, као што је већ у исторнографији истакнуто, изведен је метатезом од именнце ,,Арбаном’’ или ,,Арбанум’’, за које знају грчки и латински извори ис XI и XII века. [in the above quotation draws attention to the fact that Stefan Nemanja possessed ,,Rabna of both Pulats’’. The name ,,Rabna’’ or ,,Raban’’, as has already been pointed out in histriography, is derived from the metathesis of the term ,,Arbanom’’ or ,, Arbanum’’, which is known from Greek and Latin sources during the eleventh and twelfth century.]. "За време стварања српске државе Стефаном, сином Немањам, око 1215 год, област Arbanum (спр. Рабан), у којој је био и овај арбанашки Београд [During the creation of the Serbian state Stefan, son of Nemanja, around 1215, the area Arbanum (Sr. Raban), in which this Albanian Berat was]"; p.744. "Наши облици Рабан и рабански постали су без сумње од лат. Arbanum на исти начин као што је Rab постало од лат. Arba… [Our forms Raban and rabanski come without doubt from the Latin. Arbanum in the same manner as Rab came from the Lat. Arba...]" From these ethnonyms, names for Albanians were also derived in other languages that were or still are in use. In English Albanians; Italian Albanesi; German Albaner; Greek Arvanites, Alvanitis (Αλβανίτης) plural: Alvanites (Αλβανίτες), Alvanos (Αλβανός) plural: Alvanoi (Αλβανοί); Turkish Arnaut, Arnavut; South Slavic languages Arbanasi (Арбанаси), Albanci (Албанци) and so on.. "The ethnic name shqiptar has always been discussed together with the ethnic complex: (tosk) arbëresh, arbëror, arbër — (gheg) arbënesh, arbënu(e)r, arbën; i.e. [arbën/r(—)]. p.536. Among the neighbouring peoples and elsewhere the denomination of the Albanians is based upon the root arb/alb, cp. Greek ’Αλβανός, ’Αρβανός "Albanian", ‘Αρβανίτης "Arbëresh of Greece", Serbian Albanac, Arbanas, Bulg., Mac. албанец, Arom. arbinés (Papahagi 1963 135), Turk. arnaut, Ital. albanese, German Albaner etc. This basis is in use among the Arbëreshs of Italy and Greece as well; cp. arvanit, more rarely arbëror by the arbëreshs of Greece, as against arbëresh, arbëresh, bri(e)sh (beside gjegj — Altimari 1994 (1992) 53 s.). (Italy) (Kr. ?) árbanas, (Mandr.) allbanc, (Ukr.) allbanc(er) (Musliu — Dauti 1996) etj. For the various forms and uses of this or that variant see, inter alia, also Çabej SE II 6lss.; Demiraj 1999 175 ss. etj. The term Arbëreshë is still used as an endonym and exonym for Albanians that migrated to Italy during the Middle Ages, the Arbëreshë."The Indo-European Languages"; Mate Kapović, Anna Giacalone Ramat, Paolo Ramat; 2017, page 554-555 It is also used as an endonym by the Arvanites in Greece. Within the Balkans, Aromanians still use a similar term, , in the Aromanian language for contemporary Albanians... "The Vlachs call the Albanian-speaking Orthodox Christians Arbinéši, and it was under this name that the ancestors of the modern Albanians first appeared in the Middle Ages."
Arbanasi