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THE GREEK ALPHABET AND ITS OFFSHOOTS 489 Albanian, called Veso Bey, belonging to the family of Alisot Pasha, gave information about this script to the Austrian consul Hahn about 1850.
All the three scripts seem to have been formed on the basis of Greek cursive writing, with various modifications, such as omissions and additions, and particularly ligatures of two or three letters, and borrowings from other scripts. It is still uncertain when and how these scripts were invented. In my opinion, they were cryptic, being in some sort national scripts of the Albanian population who needed a special means of communication in order to avoid the Turkish authorities.
The Albanian scripts had very little, and only local, importance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Crispi, Memoria sulla lingua albanese, Palermo, 1836,
F. G. von Hahn, ia "SITZUNGSR, DER K. AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCH. ZU WIEN," 1849; Bemerkungen ueber das albanesische Alphabet, the same journal, 1850; Albanesische Studien, Vienna, 1853, and Jena, 1854.
F. Miklosich, Albanische Forschungen, Vienna, 1870. L. Geitler, Die albanesischen und slatischen Schriften, Vienna, 1883.
G. Pekmezi, in "ANZEIGER DER PHIL. HIST. CLASSE DER K. AKAD. DER WISSENSCH.," etc., 1901: Albanische Bibliographie, the same journal, 1909; Grammatik der albanerischen Sprache, Vienna, 1908.
E. Legrand and H. Guys, Bibliographie albanaise, Paris-Athens, 1913.
G. Weigand, Albanerische Grammatik, Leipsic, 1913: Das albanische Alphabet. etc., "BALKAN-ARCHIV," Leipsic, 1925.
L. von Thalloczy, Myrisch-albanische Forschungen, 2 vols., Munich-Leipsic, 1916.
E. Vaina, La nazione albanese, 2nd ed., Catania, 1917.
R. Nachtigal, Die Frage einer einheitlichen albanischen Schriftsprache, Graz, 1017: On the Elbasan Script, etc., in Slovenian, "ARCHIV ZA ARBANASKU STARINU," Belgrade, 1923.
ALPHABETS OF WESTERN EUROPE
The main offshoot of the Greek alphabet was the Etruscan alphabet (see next Chapter), which, through its descendant, the Latin script (see Chapter X), has become the prototype of all the modern alphabets of western Europe.
