In his Researches in Greece, William Martin Leake, following his extensive travels through the region, made a remarkably clear statement about the identity and language of the Suliotes:
“The Suliotes were not Greeks but Albanian Christians. They always used the Albanian language at home; but being borderers, all the men and many of the women could speak Greek. Most of the places at Suli and in the neighbourhood had two names, one Greek and the other Albanian.”
This is an exceptionally important statement. Leake was not merely recording that the Suliotes happened to know Albanian. He explicitly identified them as Albanian Christians and stated that Albanian was the language they consistently used at home. Greek, meanwhile, was a language they acquired because of their position in a border region and their contact with Greek-speaking populations.
Leake’s testimony therefore presents a clear distinction between ethnic identity, native language and bilingualism.
Leake’s Correction of Hobhouse
Leake’s statement becomes even more significant when compared with the account of another British traveller, John Cam Hobhouse.
In his A Journey through Albania, and Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, During the Years 1809 and 1810, published in London in 1813, Hobhouse wrote on page 172:
“The Sulliotes are all Greek Christians, and speak Greek, but wear the mountain habit, and have a much greater resemblance to the Albanian warrior than the Greek merchant.”
Hobhouse therefore described the Suliotes as Greek Christians who spoke Greek, while merely observing that their appearance and clothing resembled those of Albanian mountain warriors.
Leake’s account directly challenges this interpretation.
Rather than accepting the assumption that Greek-speaking Christians were therefore Greeks, Leake distinguished between the language used in the home and the additional language acquired through regional contact. His conclusion was unequivocal: the Suliotes were not Greeks, but Albanian Christians.
This is not a minor difference in terminology. It represents two fundamentally different interpretations of the same population.
Hobhouse interpreted the Suliotes primarily through their Christianity and their ability to speak Greek. Leake, drawing on his own observations, placed their Albanian language and Albanian identity at the centre of his description.
The Language of the Suliotes
The most revealing part of Leake’s statement is perhaps the simplest:
“They always used the Albanian language at home.”
The word “always” is significant. Leake was not describing Albanian as a marginal or occasional language. He was identifying it as the domestic language of the Suliotes.
At the same time, he explicitly acknowledged their knowledge of Greek:
“being borderers, all the men and many of the women could speak Greek.”
This provides an important insight into the linguistic reality of the region. Speaking Greek did not, in Leake’s understanding, make the Suliotes Greeks.
Instead, Greek was a language of wider communication, while Albanian remained the language of the household and, consequently, a fundamental marker of their identity.
This distinction is particularly important when studying the Balkans, where multilingualism was widespread and where the ability to speak another language cannot automatically be equated with ethnic or national identity.
Albanian and Greek Place-Names
Leake’s observation about place-names is equally remarkable:
“Most of the places at Suli and in the neighbourhood had two names, one Greek and the other Albanian.”
This means that the linguistic duality was not confined to individuals. It was reflected in the geographical landscape itself.
The existence of parallel Greek and Albanian names indicates a region in which two linguistic traditions were simultaneously present and actively used.
Toponymy is particularly valuable in this context because place-names can preserve linguistic evidence even when populations later change language or when political circumstances change.
Leake therefore provides evidence not only for Albanian-speaking inhabitants but also for an Albanian linguistic landscape.
William Martin Leake Was No Ordinary Traveller
William Martin Leake (1777–1860) was far more than a passing traveller.
He was a British military officer, topographer, diplomat and antiquarian whose work became highly important for understanding the historical geography, archaeology and political conditions of Greece, Epirus, Albania and the European territories of the Ottoman Empire.
Leake was one of the pioneers of systematic topographical research in the region.
Between 1804 and 1810, he travelled extensively through mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Macedonia and Epirus. He did not simply visit famous monuments. He systematically examined the landscape and attempted to reconstruct the geography of the ancient world through direct observation.
He identified ancient settlements, compared archaeological remains with the writings of Pausanias and other classical authors, examined ancient roads and mountain passes, collected inscriptions and coins, studied rivers and mountain systems, and attempted to establish the locations of ancient cities.
At the same time, he recorded the political, economic and social conditions of the populations he encountered.
His observations on the Suliotes therefore need to be understood in the context of a much broader and systematic investigation of the region.
Leake and Albania
Leake’s importance for Albanian history is particularly great because he travelled through the region before the creation of the modern Albanian state.
He encountered Albanian-speaking communities while they were still living within the Ottoman imperial system, recording their languages, religious affiliations, local authorities, social structures and regional identities.
During his journeys in 1804, Leake travelled through areas including Vlora, Kanina, Saranda, Delvina, Gjirokastër, Tepelena, Himara, Butrint, Nicopolis, Preveza, Arta and Ioannina.
In 1805, he again travelled through the region, including Macedonia, Devoll, Korçë, Moscopole, Berat, Apollonia, Këlcyre and Përmet.
His travels gave him direct and extensive knowledge of the people and territories of Epirus and Albania.
Leake as a British Military and Intelligence Officer
Leake’s position as a British military officer makes his testimony even more significant.
His missions were not undertaken solely for antiquarian curiosity. Britain had a strategic interest in understanding the Ottoman territories of the eastern Mediterranean, particularly during the period of rivalry with Napoleonic France.
Leake therefore paid close attention to military geography: roads, ports, mountain passes, fortifications, rivers, mountains, distances and the movement of armies.
His work effectively created an important body of British geographical intelligence concerning the Ottoman Balkans.
This matters because Leake’s observations of local populations were made by an individual whose professional training required close attention to geography, communications, political authority and the characteristics of the territories through which he travelled.
He was therefore documenting much more than picturesque landscapes.
Why His Testimony Matters for Albanian History
For Albanian history, Leake’s testimony is invaluable precisely because it predates the political frameworks that later shaped national narratives.
He was observing the population of Epirus and neighbouring regions at the beginning of the nineteenth century, decades before the modern Albanian state existed and before the modern borders between Greece and Albania were established.
His description of the Suliotes is therefore particularly important.
He did not write that they merely resembled Albanians. He did not merely state that they wore Albanian-style clothing.
He wrote explicitly:
“The Suliotes were not Greeks but Albanian Christians.”
He then immediately explained the linguistic basis of his conclusion:
“They always used the Albanian language at home.”
And he clarified why they also spoke Greek:
“being borderers, all the men and many of the women could speak Greek.”
The structure of Leake’s argument is therefore unmistakable. Albanian was their domestic language and their underlying identity; Greek was an additional language acquired through geographical proximity and contact.
Before the Modern Greek State
Chronology is essential when interpreting Leake.
His travels took place before the establishment of the modern Greek state. The Greek War of Independence began in 1821, while the independent Kingdom of Greece was established later in the nineteenth century.
Leake was therefore observing the region before the political borders and national institutions of modern Greece and Albania existed.
This is important because later national classifications cannot simply be projected backwards onto the populations Leake encountered.
The Ottoman Balkans were multilingual, multi-confessional and politically fragmented. Communities could be Orthodox Christians while speaking Albanian; they could speak Greek without necessarily identifying as ethnically Greek; and they could operate within cultural spaces shared by several linguistic communities.
Leake’s account of the Suliotes provides a direct example of this complexity.
The Importance of the Suliote Evidence
The testimony of William Martin Leake is consequently much more significant than a simple traveller’s remark.
It provides three interconnected pieces of evidence:
First, Leake explicitly identified the Suliotes as Albanian Christians.
Second, he stated that Albanian was their domestic language, while Greek was widely spoken because of their position as border inhabitants.
Third, he recorded the existence of parallel Albanian and Greek place-names in Suli and its surrounding region.
Taken together, these observations point toward a clearly established Albanian linguistic and cultural presence in Suli and its neighbourhood.
The evidence also demonstrates why language and identity must be distinguished from religion. The Suliotes were Orthodox Christians, but Leake did not therefore classify them as Greeks. Instead, he regarded their Albanian language and Albanian identity as fundamental.
Conclusion
William Martin Leake’s testimony is one of the most important early nineteenth-century descriptions of the Suliotes.
Writing after extensive first-hand travels through Epirus and the Albanian territories of the Ottoman Empire, Leake explicitly rejected the characterization of the Suliotes as Greeks and identified them instead as Albanian Christians.
His explanation is equally clear: they used Albanian at home, while Greek was spoken because they lived in a border region where contact with Greek speakers was unavoidable.
His observation that most places around Suli possessed both Greek and Albanian names further demonstrates that the Albanian presence was not merely personal or familial but was reflected in the linguistic geography of the region itself.
Leake’s account therefore provides important contemporary evidence for an Albanian-speaking Christian population in Suli before the emergence of the modern Greek and Albanian states.
His testimony also serves as a reminder that the ethnic and linguistic landscape of the early nineteenth-century Balkans cannot simply be reconstructed through the national categories that became dominant later.
Leake was looking at the region before the modern borders, before the modern national states and before later nationalist narratives had reshaped the interpretation of its population.
His conclusion was direct:
“The Suliotes were not Greeks but Albanian Christians.”
And his linguistic explanation was equally direct:
“They always used the Albanian language at home.”
