The 19th-century cultivation, both for purely scientific purposes and in the framework of Romantic Nationalism, of the Albanian language took place in three main spheres: the German-speaking countries, Italy (mostly due to the effort of scholars of Arbëresh, i.e. Italo-Albanian extraction), and the Balkans (by Ottoman Albanian literates and patriots).

The origins of this preoccupation go back to 17th- and 18th-century scholars and lexicographers, beginning with the Dictionarium latino epiroticum (“Latin-Albanian dictionary”, Rome, 1635) by the Albanian Catholic bishop Frang Bardhi (Lat.: Franciscus Blancus, 1606–1643). A string of dictionaries and grammars, written by Catholic clergy, followed: the unpublished Albanian-Italian/Italian-Albanian dictionary by the Arbëresh Greek-Catholic priest Nilo Catalano (1637–1694), or the Osservazioni grammaticali nella lingua albanese (“Grammatical observations on the Albanian language”, Rome, 1716) by Francesco Maria Da Lecce, a Franciscan friar of non-Arbëresh extraction, who also authored an Italian-Albanian dictionary in 1702. This clerical involvement was occasioned by Church efforts both to improve pastoral activities among Catholic Albanian-speakers in the Ottoman Empire (endangered by the spread of Islam), and to undertake missionary activities among the Balkan Orthodox. Religious and pedagogical commitment also motivated dictionaries penned by Orthodox clergymen, such as an Albanian-Aromanian-Greek lexicon, part of a 1770 Greek-language textbook Protopeiria (“Primer”) composed by the Orthodox priest Theodor Kavalliotis (1718–1789). In northern Europe, interest for the Albanian language was manifested by Leibniz, who in his letters started to reflect on the relationship between Albanian and the other European languages, and by the Swedish linguist Johann Erich Thunmann (1743–1788). Thunmann’s study “Über die Geschichte und Sprache der Albaner und der Wlachen” (part of his 1774 Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der östlichen europäischen Völker) is the first secular study in Albanian linguistics.

The interest in Albanian among German scholars gained fresh momentum in the 19th century, no doubt also due to the increasing involvement of the Austrian and German empires in the Balkan area. A sizeable group of diplomats-turned-linguists gave their contribution to Albanian studies, alongside professional scholars like Franz Bopp, who was establishing the taxonomy of the Indo-European language family (Über das Albanesische in seinen verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen, 1855). Noteworthy are the Bavarian Joseph von Xylander (1798–1854), the Frankfurt-born Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn (1811–1869), and the Austrian scholar Gustav Meyer (1850–1900). They relied on textual material like the Albanian Bible translation of Vangjel Meksi (1770–1821). Non-German scholars include the English diplomat William Martin Leake (1777–1860), who in his 1814 Researches in Greece outlined the grammar of several Balkan languages, including the Southern Albanian dialect (Tosk).

In Italy, Romantic Nationalism was first propagated among the Italo-Albanians by Girolamo (Jeronim) De Rada (1814–1903), whose intense cultural activism also involved the cultivation of the language. Highlights of his linguistic production were the publication, in 1840, of the amateurish study Divinazioni pelasgiche (“Pelasgian divinations”), which aimed to show the linguistic continuity of the Albanian language from its putative pre-classical forefathers the Pelasgians, and the 1869 Grammatica della lingua albanese (published under the name of his son Giuseppe). Another grammar, the 1864 Saggio sulla grammatologia comparata della lingua albanese (“Essay on the comparative grammar of the Albanian language”) was written by the Arbëresh Greek-Catholic priest Demetrio Camarda (1821–1882). Remarkably, Camarda did not write his Saggio in support of Uniate denominational interests, but as a conscious act of Albanian cultural nationalism – as he himself spelled out in the book’s introduction. However, none of these Italo-Albanian grammars managed to establish a unifying linguistic standard for the Albanians on the two sides of the Adriatic.

Among Balkan Albanians, the early-19th-century cultivation of the language was largely confined to ecclesiastical lexicographers such as Daniel of Moscopole (also known as Danil Voskopojari, 1754–1825) with his Albanian-Aromanian-Bulgarian-Greek dictionary (1794). Ottoman authorities were wary of the written use of Albanian, since Albanians, regarded as a Muslim people, were bound to use the languages of Islam – a policy which was implemented with particular intensity by Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909). This situation changed dramatically as nationalism took hold among Balkan Albanians, both Christians and Muslims. A major problem for Albanian cultural activists was the highly diffracted and unregulated state of the language, due to the lack of any central authority or of a strong shared tradition. Catholics mostly used the Latin alphabet, Orthodox the Greek, and the Muslims the Arabic. For this reason, the League of Prizren (Lidhja e Prizrenit, 1878-81; a political association created by Albanian patriots to oppose the Montenegrin annexation of Ottoman Albanian lands as decided at the 1878 Congress of Berlin) promoted the creation of a unified Albanian alphabet. An early attempt at creating a totally new alphabet by the Orthodox Naum Veqilarxhi (1797–1854) met with no success. Many other alphabets were created in the second half of the century, one of the most promising being the so-called “Istanbul alphabet” devised by the Bektashi Muslim scholar Sami Frashëri (Turk.: Şemseddin Sami, 1850–1904). Sami was a member of the Istanbul Society for the Printing of the Albanian Language (Shoqëria e të Shtypurit me Shkronja Shqip, 1879-85), an association of Constantinople-based Albanian intellectuals promoting the cultivation of the Albanian language and literature (eventually closed down by Ottoman authorities).

The alphabet question was resolved at the 1908 Congress of Manastir/Monastir (today Bitola, Republic of Macedonia), where a joint commission of Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim scholars agreed on a variant of the alphabet devised by the Shoqnia e Bashkimit të Gjuhës Shqipe (“Society for the Unity of the Albanian Language”), founded in Shkodër in 1899 by Catholic clerics. It was basically the Latin alphabet with some additions for the peculiar sounds of Albanian.

In the matter of a standard grammar, however, no agreement was reached during the Rilindja period, although some grammars were laid out by authoritative scholars like Kostandin Kristoforidhi (1827–1895) or Sami Frashëri himself. Grammar systematization remained an open question, which was only solved during the Communist period by the Congress of Orthography (Kongresi i Drejtshkrimit, Tirana, 1972), which imposed the Tosk dialect as the basis of the standard language.