Albania is an ethnically homogeneous country, where the overwhelming majority of the population speaks Albanian, which is also the official language.

Although many ethnic Albanians (from within Albania and the wider Balkans and diaspora) around the world speak more than two languages and have been recognised as polyglots, Albania is the fourth highest nation in Europe in terms of the percentage of monolingual inhabitants, with 59.9% speaking only one language.

Gheg is spoken in the north and also by Kosovo Albanians and in Croatia Arbanasi, Upper Reka dialect, Istrian.

[4][5] Other notable varieties, all of which are sub-dialects of Tosk, include Lab, Cham, Arbëresh spoken in Italy and Arvanitika, Arvanitic in Southern Greece.

[8] In addition, many Albanians have knowledge of Greek, mainly due to past immigration to Greece.

[15] Serbo-Croatian is mostly spoken and understood in northern Albania, near the border of former Yugoslavian countries of Serbia and Montenegro.

The results of the Adult Education Survey, released in May 2018, showed that the 39.9% of the 25–64 years old is able to use at least one foreign language.

[18] Italian is by far the best-known foreign language in Albania and used to have official status when the country was a protectorate of Italy.

[17] During the late communist regime, Albanians living in the towns along the Adriatic Sea coast had access to Italian television.

[24] The language came to Albania in 1921, when the Albanian Vocational School started to teach English with the sponsorship of the American Red Cross.

[27] Russian began to be taught in schools and universities in the 1950s, when it was lingua franca of the Eastern Bloc countries.

After the collapse of communism in Albania in 1991, many young Albanians also traveled to China for education and learned the language.

This is primarily due to the large Albanian diaspora that exists in Europe as well as strong emphasis on foreign languages in education.