German Grammatical Influence on Steinmetz’s Description of Northern Gheg Albanian

This study examines the possible influence of the German grammatical model on Karl Steinmetz’s description of Northern Gheg Albanian in his Albanische Grammatik (Nordalbanische Mundart), published in Sarajevo in 1913. Rather than providing a general account of the morphological categories presented in the grammar, the article investigates how Steinmetz classifies and organises Albanian grammatical structures for a German-speaking readership. The analysis focuses on three closely related areas: the treatment of the article, the organisation of the case system, and the classification of selected personal-pronoun forms. A descriptive-comparative approach is adopted, combining evidence from Steinmetz’s grammar with Albanian grammatical and dialectological descriptions, as well as relevant accounts of the German case system. Particular attention is devoted to the absence of the ablative as an independent case category and to forms such as mejet, tejet, nesh, and jush, which Steinmetz classifies under the genitive despite their functions being more closely associated with the Albanian ablative. The comparison suggests that the possible influence of German grammatical categories on Steinmetz’s description of Albanian is most apparent at the level of grammatical classification and analytical organisation rather than in the linguistic forms themselves. At the same time, the study avoids interpreting every divergence from later or standard descriptions of Albanian as evidence of German influence, since Steinmetz’s classificatory choices may also reflect Northern Gheg dialectal usage, contemporary grammatical conventions, and the practical and pedagogical purposes of his grammar. The findings demonstrate that Steinmetz’s work is significant not only as a historical record of Northern Gheg Albanian but also as a case study in the methodological challenges involved in describing one language through grammatical categories inherited from another linguistic tradition.