Acceso usuarios
Although Shkodra, the biggest city of the Northern part of Albania, is regarded as a stronghold of Catholicism, the two other religions of Albania (Islam and the Orthodox Church) are represented there as well. In Venetian sources, Shkodra was described as a Catholic town until 1479, when it was conquered by the Turks. During this period a number of the native Catholics emigrated to Venice, while another, smaller part of them was forcefully converted to Islam. Since then, the population of the city of Shkodra has always been dominated by a higher percentage of Muslims. Currently, 65–70% of the population are Muslims, 25–30% are Catholic, and a smaller percentage consists of Orthodox Christians. These historical events and the corresponding demographic changes have favored the formation of some distinctions in customs, clothing, and speech between the Catholic and Muslim population groups. The aim of this article is to present the linguistic distinctions in the speech of these two population groups, on the phonetic level.
