later stages as a part of the Proto-Albanian vocabulary and within its phonological system. Albanian is one of the oldest languages that came into contact with Latin and adopted Latin vocabulary. It has preserved 270 Latin-based words which are found in all Romance languages, 85 words which aren't found in Romance languages, 151 which are found in Albanian but not in Balkan Romance and its descendant Romanian, and 39 words which are found only in Albanian and Romanian. The contact zone between Albanian and Romanian was likely located in eastern and southeastern Serbia. The preservation of Proto-Albanian vocabulary and linguistic features in Romanian highlights that at least partly Balkan Latin emerged as Albanian-speakers shifted to Latin. The other layer of linguistic contacts of Albanian with Latin involves Old Dalmatian, a western Balkan derivative of Balkan Latin. Albanian maintained links with both coastal western and central inland Balkan Latin formations. Hamp indicates there are words that follow Dalmatian phonetic rules in Albanian, giving as an example the word drejt 'straight' < d(i)rectus matching developments in Old Dalmatian traita < tract. Romanian scholars Vatasescu and Mihaescu, using lexical analysis of Albanian, have concluded that Albanian was also heavily influenced by an extinct Romance language that was distinct from both Romanian and Dalmatian. Because the Latin words common to only Romanian and Albanian are significantly less than those that are common to only Albanian and Western Romance, Mihaescu argues that Albanian evolved in a region with much greater contact with Western Romance regions than with Romanian-speaking regions, and located this region in present-day Albania, Kosovo and Western North Macedonia, spanning east to Bitola and Pristina. The Christian religious vocabulary of Albanian is mostly Latin as well, including even the basic terms such "to bless", "altar," and "to receive communion". It indicates that Albanians were Christianized under the Latin-based liturgy and ecclesiastical order which would be known as "Roman Catholic" in later centuries. Slavic The contacts began after the South Slavic migrations of the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. The modern Albanian lexicon contains around 250 Slavic borrowings that are shared among all the dialects. Slavic settlement probably shaped the present geographic spread of the Albanians. It is likely that Albanians took refuge in the mountainous areas of northern and central Albania, eastern Montenegro, western North Macedonia, and Kosovo. Long-standing contact between Slavs and Albanians might have been common in mountain passages