A large number still speak the Albanian language; many of the older men, and a considerable proportion of the women, even in the neighbourhood of Athens, are ignorant of Greek.
After the division of the Roman empire, the lands inhabited by the Albanian race became provinces of the Byzantine empire; northern Albania from Scutari to Berat formed the thema or province of Dyrrachium (Durazzo, Albanian Dourtz), southern Albania and Epirus the thema of Nikopolis.
A further fact of great prospective importance was the immigration, after an abortive rising against the Turks, of some 30,000 Slav and Albanian families into Slavonia and southern Hungary, where they were granted by the emperor Leopold a certain autonomy and the recognition of the Orthodox religion.
After the Turks were driven from the city in 1878, it was in many respects modernized; but something of its former character is preserved in the ancient Turkish palace, mosque and fountain, the maze of winding alleys and picturesque houses in the older quarters, and, on market days, by the medley of peasant costumes - Bulgarian, Albanian and Rumanian, as well as Servian.
On the S., Albanian territory was curtailed owing to the acquisition of the Arta district by Greece (May 1881), the river Arta now forming the frontier.