13 Facts About Kostandin Kristoforidhi

Kostandin Nelko, known as Kostandin Kristoforidhi, was an Albanian translator and scholar.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi is mostly known for having translated the New Testament into Albanian for the first time in the Gheg Albanian dialect in 1872.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi provided a translation in Tosk Albanian in 1879 thereby improving the 1823 tosk version of Vangjel Meksi.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi was born in Elbasan and from 1847 studied at the Zosimea Greek college in Ioannina, where he became friends with Johann Georg von Hahn by helping him learn Albanian and write a German-Albanian dictionary.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi went to Istanbul in 1857, and drafted a Memorandum for the Albanian language.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi stayed in Malta until 1860 in a Protestant seminary, finishing the translation of The New Testament in the Tosk and Gheg dialects.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi was helped by Nikolla Serreqi from Shkoder with the Gheg version of the Testament.

Nikolla Serreqi was the proponent for the use of the Latin alphabet, which had already been used by the early writers of the Albanian literature and Kristoforidhi embraced the idea of a Latin alphabet.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi went to Tunis, where he worked as a teacher until 1865, when a representative of the British and Foreign Bible Society contracted him to work for the company to produce Bible translations into Albanian.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi published in 1866 the first Gheg translation of the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; for the many years to come, he continued his work, publishing in the Tosk and Gheg dialects The Psalms ; The New Testament, Genesis and Exodus ; Deuteronomy ; The Proverbs and the Book of Isaiah.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi became a member of the Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights which was a group of Albanian intelligentsia based in Istanbul advocating for the territorial integrity and unity of Albanian inhabited areas in the Ottoman Empire.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi viewed the development of the Albanian language as important for the preservation of the Albanian people and devoted much of his lifetime toward studying and recording the language by traveling throughout Albania to collect material.

Kostandin Kristoforidhi knew Albanian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, English, Italian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Arabic, French and German.