Eqrem Çabej, a renowned Albanian academic, was born in Turkey on August 6, 1908.

Çabej completed his primary education in Gjirokastër and secondary school in Klagenfurt, Austria. After leaving medical studies in Rome, he pursued philology at the University of Graz and completed his studies at the University of Vienna.

Returning to Albania, Çabej taught at the Gymnasium of Shkodër, the Normal School of Elbasan, and the Lycée of Tirana, and briefly worked at the Ministry of Education.

In 1940, he embarked on his ambitious project to develop the Albanian Linguistic Atlas. Following World War II, he became a member of the Institute of Sciences, a professor at the University of Tirana, and a founding member and academician of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.

Çabej specialized in Indo-European comparative linguistics and made significant contributions to linguistics, folklore, ethnography, and literary history. His work encompassed etymology, historical lexicology, dialectology, onomastics, and the codification of literary language. He played a crucial role in the etymological explanations for the Albanian Language Dictionary, published in Tirana in 1980. Çabej was honored with the “Nderi i Kombit” (Honor of the Nation) order.

He passed away on August 13, 1980, shortly after his 72nd birthday, in a clinic in Rome.

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