Albania was granted EU Candidate status in 2014. No national data is available on the number of deaf sign language users in Albania - the Albanian National Association of the Deaf (ANAD) refers to a 2016 survey study that reports that out of 5 300 deaf people, approximately 32% knew Albanian Sign Language (ASL), coming up to 1 696 ASL users. ANAD also outlines how ASL is a relatively young language - the development of a unified sign language was difficult up until the fall of communism in 1990, as the communist regime required deaf students to return to their families and homes in the countryside once they had completed their studies, making the formation of a collective deaf community difficult. Similarly, Standard Albanian is a relatively young language variety - based on the southern Albanian Tosk variety over the northern Gegh variety, which had once been of equal literary status, it was proclaimed official in 1972. The last national language census in Albania took place in 2025; according to this census, 97.7% of Albanians are able to speak Standard Albanian. Refer to Research Brief #2 for more in-depth information on Albania's census system and potential knowledge gaps.