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| Letters of the Alphabet of Elbasan |
The origin of the Glagolitic script in the Albanian language stands as one of the most significant cultural phenomena in the Balkans. Numerous scholars have delved into the Elbasan alphabet, and according to researcher Hahn, both it and the Greek alphabet shared a common Phoenician origin, local media say.
One of the contributors to the understanding of this alphabet is Professor Leopold Gajtler from the University of Zagreb in Croatia. In a correspondence with Dh. Kamarda in 1878, he wrote about the alphabet discovered by Hahn:
"As a Slavic scholar, I believe, based on my recent studies and those continued in Western Macedonia, that I have discovered that the original and ancient Slavic alphabet, called Glagolitic, originated from the original and ancient Albanian alphabet that Hahn distinguished first in Elbasan and made known. I am even convinced that the etymologically derived names of the Slavic letters have Albanian origins and can only be explained through the Albanian language."
In another letter from the same year, where he thanked Kamarda for copying and translating Hahn's fragments, he stated:
"The origin of the Glagolitic script of the Albanian language is one of the most important cultural phenomena in the Balkans."
These two letters were discovered by Italian scholar Gaetano Petrotta and were published in the book "Popolo, Lingua e Letteratura Albanese," translated into Albanian in 2008 by the publishing house "Almera."
The publication of these letters sparked a vigorous debate in Yugoslavia in 1932, the year of the first Italian-language book publication.