# Albanian: Shqipe



## tilla79

I have searched everywhere on the net for the actual pronunciation of this name. I found sites that told the name's origin and meaning but no sites that actually sad how to pronounce it. I have also found sites that actually speak the name to you but my speakers are out of order.

My fiance went to school with a girl named Shqipe and he cannot remember how to pronounce it. His 10 year High School is coming up and he needs to know how to say this name. She moved to Illinois from Germany. Not too sure that the name is actually German.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## sokol

"Shqip" is the Albanian name for Albania(n); I am not sure if "Shqipe" is Albanian though - but I am sure that it isn't German. Albanian pronunciation should be something like as you would pronounce an English word written "Shkeep".


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## tilla79

Thank you so very much!


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## sokol

Oh - sorry: the pronunciation of "Shkeep" I suggested above would be for "Shqip"; "Shquipe" then would be "Shkeepe" (the final "e" being a shwa), the final "e" should be pronounced: that is, if this really is an Albanian name, and if you pronounce it according to Albanian standard language rules.


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## opjeshke

Shqipe means Albanian as the feminine adjective. It is also a synonym for the word "eagle". It is an Albanian name used more frequently by the Albanians of Kosovo, than from the ones of Albania, even though you can run into it even in Albania. The pronunciation is not so easy by an English speaker, cause the "q" in Albanian is pronounced like the Germans pronounce "ch", for example in "sprechen", but it is even stronger. So it is sh-ch(let's say German-style)-ipe, but just to be sure you can pronounce it Shkipe as you read it. Hope it is quite clear...


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## Dromonod

As a Shqiptar (Shh-chip-tar) I agree with opjeshke with the meaning and I am an an Albanian from Kosovo (ko like cool) (so the O is pronounced how you sound it when saying the alphabet) and (vo like woh). Shqipe in my native is (shh-cheap-eh) I hope that was beneficial. As for its relation to German there might be one but none that I'm aware of. At least none that I found in the years I studied German (deutsche).


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## lindi

Shqipe could be a female name or "Tung shqipe" / Hi man! (kind of slang). so shqipe could be also Albanian guy.


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## fdb

opjeshke said:


> Shqipe means Albanian as the feminine adjective. It is also a synonym for the word "eagle".



It would be better to say "homonym", not "synonym". The origin of the national name Shqip has been much discussed in the scholarly literature and is controversial.


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## srita

I know a Shqipe at work - she is Kosovan Albanian.  Most of her colleagues call her 'Sheep-ay', but she says the closest in English is S-cheep-ay, which she prefers.


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## sotos

tilla79 said:


> I have searched everywhere on the net for the actual pronunciation of this name.


It's pronounced "skip" (like the eng _keep _with an s in front_)_


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## lindi

sotos said:


> It's pronounced "skip" (like the eng _keep _with an s in front_)_



It's wrong, its pronunciation is more like English word "cheap" with the "sh" in front, so it would be sh-cheap-e


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## jakubisek

Lindi, the reason, why Sokol writes "K" as in "keep" and you find it totally out of place is, that the Tosk Albanian (anything in the South, including Albanian in Greek Epiros) pronounces the phoneme q as a palatalized stop    (not really similar to English k, but closer to English k than to English "ch") while in your Geg variety of the language q is pronounced as palatal affricate or even merged with the letter c in "cdo" (I cannot type it here . That is why both of you are right. In Kosovo, and much of northern Albania, you will say "shchip", but what they say in the south is conveniently transcribed by the almost-identical sound of my mother tongue (Czech) as "Ť". In English, that sound is often approximated by "K" as in the name of a particular type of black tea "Keemun" which comes from Chinese qi-men.


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