Arbëreshë people

The Arbëreshë are an ethnic and linguistic Albanian minority community living in southern Italy, especially the regions of Apulia, Basilicata, Molise,Calabria and Sicily.^[2] They are the descendants of the Albanian refugees fled Albania between the 15th and 18th centuries as a result of the Ottoman empire's invasion of the Balkans. They number betwen 80,000^[3] and 100,000 people.^[4] Their population in Italy was around 260,000 inhabitants in 1976,^[5] but many from them today are fully assimilated into the Italian society.^[6]

They settled in Southern Italy in the 15th to 18th centuries AD in several waves of migrations, following the death of the Albanian national hero George Kastrioti Skanderbeg and the gradual conquest of Albania and throughout the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Turks. Their culture is determined by the main features that are found in language, religion, traditions, customs, art and gastronomy, still jealously preserved, with the awareness of belonging to a specific ethnic group. Over the centuries, the Arbëreshë have managed to maintain and develop their identities, thanks to their stubbornness and cultural value exercised mainly by the two religious communities of the Eastern Byzantine Rite, based in Calabria, the "College Corsini" (1732) and then "College Sant'Adriano" of San Benedetto Ullano in 1794, and Sicily in the "Seminary Italo-Albanian" of Palermo (1735) then transferred to Piana degli Albanesi in 1943. Today, most of the fifty Arbëreshë communities still preserve the Byzantines belonging to the Italo-Albanian Church of Eastern Rite. They belong to two Eparchies: to Lungro for Arbëreshë in southern Italy, and that of Piana degli Albanesi for the Arbëreshë of Sicily. The Byzantine Eparchy is the most important for the maintenance of the characteristics religious, ethnic, linguistic, and traditional identity of the Arbëreshë community.

Albanian-Arbëreshë costumes 

The Arbëreshë speak Arbërisht, an old variant of Albanian spoken in southern Albania. The Arbëresh language is of particular interest to students of the modern Albanian language as it represents the sounds, grammar, and vocabulary of pre-Ottoman Albania. In Italy the Arbëreshë language is protected by the law n. 482 concerning the protection of the historic linguistic minorities.^[7]

They are scattered throughout southern Italy and Sicily, and constitute one of the largest linguistic minorities in Italy. To define their "nation", Arbëresh speakers use the term Arbëria.