– TWO DIALECTS, ONE NATION: A DENIED RIGHT –
Memorie.al / Man created the infinitive verb in honor of the divine infinity of God. Therefore, the infinitive is the most powerful expressive tool of human thought. This truth proves to us that its absence is the most irreplaceable loss in the world, and the removal of the infinitive, the most unprecedented crime against linguistics. My conscience told me: even though you are not of this profile, fulfill your duty by giving your contribution in defense of this right, which constitutes the most fundamental requirements of national identity – just like the freedom of the Fatherland and a language as dignified as possible, in defense of which every speaker who has learned the word “language” should line up.
This defensive lining puts the nation’s intellectuals at the forefront, led by linguists. Join your voice, then, with the choir of the heralds of justice; even though the number of these heralds is small, service to the truth carries the echo of your voices much further in time than the echo of the volume of voices torn by the screams of injustice.
And we not only hope, but are also convinced that the future will make our goal and desire one, because God guarantees the triumph of the right, while delay only extends the time of shame for its causes. Enver Hoxha cut half of the Albanian language’s tongue with the scissors of his hideous ideology, because every word in Gheg sounded to him like a funeral march for his politics.
He intended to lock Gheg in an eternal prison and keep the keys to that prison in his hand even when he and Enverism were no longer. We recall that the only texts written in Gheg after the Orthography Congress of 1972 – those dedicated to Enver Hoxha and his party like: “Erdh Enveri kah malsia, me na pa e, ma na pvetë, e me na gzue” (Enver came to the highlands, to see us, to ask us, and to make us rejoice), and others like “Enver Hoxha tungjatjeta” and dozens of songs of that time – he allowed to be sung to his “glory.”
This proves irrefutably that; had all Gheg literature been communized with these kinds of texts, it would have become part of standard Albanian, just as the syllables forming that cruel word are part of the word “communist.”
During the days of the 1972 Congress, it seemed to most linguists as if the shadow of their bodies had been replaced by the shadow of the communist ghost, which controlled every word of those presentations using the method of Enverist terror.
This situation of violence gave the most indisputable assurance that if the communist power were ever to break its neck, the first decision to be abrogated would be that of the 1972 Congress; but to the strangest of surprises, the stance of our linguists after communism disappointed us in the most unexpected way, declaring themselves record-holders in defending communist principles, ignoring Shakespeare’s saying that: “One can fight even with broken weapons, but not with empty hands.” To this philosophical sentence, the dogmatic communist linguists countered with the slogan: “Communists never surrender.”
Thus, even if every other decision of communism were erased, the main decision – that of the 1972 Congress – remains eternally.
Hoping that the future will make our dialects the “lips of a single mouth of Albanian,” I take heart to add this modest contribution of mine to the contribution of those who, like me, insist on bringing the truth to light, and who are more capable than I at presenting convincing arguments for the scientific development of Albanian linguistics. Since many specialists of our language and letters denounce the decision of the 1972 Congress as illegal, I am quoting their thoughts here, taken from the magazine ‘Fenix’:
-Prof. Ardjan Ndreca: “Gheg was politically condemned to remain only a dialect. Should we still leave Gheg in humiliation?! It is known what future a dialect has when it is not taught in schools, even though two-thirds of Albanian speakers speak this dialect. This standard is nothing more than a normalization of Tosk. The European Union does not accept the discrimination of dialects!”
-Prof. Bahri Beci: “The 1972 Congress was called a victory of the Marxist line. Even if opponents of Gheg wanted to change their minds, their pride would not allow them to reject their previous theses. They found support in the regime until the nineties, and likewise in the power that came in 1997. This stance reminds us of Jacques Prévert’s saying: When the truth is not free, freedom is not true.”
-Androkli Kostollari: “To Enver Hoxha belongs the merit of the instructions and orders he gave to Albanian linguistics…!”
-Prof. (Canadian) Vladimir Orel: “I see the coexistence of Albanian dialects as a fortunate case for Albanian linguistics; therefore both dialects should be legalized with equal rights.”
-Professor (French) Danielle: “Tosk began to fill its dialect with the extraordinarily rich lexicon of the Gheg dialect. Enver Hoxha implemented the Stalinist theory. The dialect supported by the state defeats others until the disappearance of the defeated. Tosk was considered an expression of political power, while Kosovars sacrificed Gheg in a sign of so-called patriotism!” What policy was followed with Gheg can also be seen in the preface of the Albanian dictionary, where Androkli Kostollari writes: “We provide a fundamental Marxist solution to Albanian linguistics.”
Therefore, esteemed readers, to oppose this so-called standard language with a pen mean to oppose one of the greatest evils of communism, whereas to call this catastrophe ‘standardization’ means to defend the communist system. The war against Gheg is a great loss for Albanian culture.
Hans-Joachim Lanksch, translator and researcher of Albanian literature, states: “Sadly, I think the time for a fair examination of Albanian dialects will come only when the wolf coexists with the lamb!” At the beginning of this transition, pro-Ghegs like me rose against the unscientific forging of Albanian, which treated Gheg as a demodulated ‘highlander’ dialect. Those who signed the decision of the infamous congress refused to look at one of the brightest treasures of world poetry, because that fact meant saying “goodbye” to the communist past.
They do not want to accept the reality that only Martin Camaj’s grammar converges Gheg with Tosk. To give Gheg a push, literary competitions in the Gheg dialect should be announced, since only in this way would both variants enrich each other.
The well-known director Lec Shllaku stated: “Albania needs both dialects.”
In the year 1953, a famous Soviet linguist came to our country and after becoming acquainted with the linguistic claims of our state, he suggested a 50-year delay for establishing the standard language, for Albanian to be as mature as possible. This thought angered Enver Hoxha so much that he never allowed the Soviet linguist to come to Albania again.
It is very bad that we cannot avoid the great danger threatening our language – in syntax and in everything – damaging and transforming Gheg into a linguistic “Carthage.” Tosk brought with it rhotacism, which the great European languages erased even from sub-dialects as a negative linguistic phenomenon.
Albanologist Robert Elsie, researcher and translator of Albanian literature, writes: “Opponents of Gheg try to present Fishta as incomprehensible.” This tendency is true, but it is quite stale, because every “Great” one is difficult to understand. Gheg is necessary to be taught in schools.
Thus, unwritten in the press, unspoken in the media, it suffers the greatest cultural loss, since extremism brings a withered monoculture. I do not understand why there must be an official language. English does not have such a language, yet the English are no less unified than others.
In Switzerland, the local German and literary German are taught with equal rights. Why shouldn’t this happen in Albania too?! Martin Camaj writes: “Enver Hoxha is the godfather of the baptism of this anti-standard.” Gheg is fortunate to have all the grammatical structures that communism ignored documented. Enver Hoxha even went so far as to tell the well-known albanologist Maximilian Lambertz: “The issue of our language is a political problem.”
We must know that with Fishta, the development of the written Albanian language begins, stemming directly from the foundations of folk speech. Fishta’s experience and heritage in this direction is a foundation stone of the literary Albanian language without exception of trends, including those writers who are deep connoisseurs and enjoyers of modern Western literature.
Faik Konica: “To try to change the speech of a people means to try to change their character and destroy their personality.”
Vili Kamsi: “Gheg was fought so much that even its folklore was translated into Tosk, and this, naturally, is anti-scientific.” Homer’s Iliad, translated by Gjon Shllaku and then converted into Tosk, caused the addition of more than 300 verses, because the richness of Gheg could only be replaced with paraphrases. They say that Tosks cannot learn Gheg, but how can they learn a foreign language first?! One must not forget that this claim was a communist slogan!
Father Danjel Gjeçaj, speaking about the values of Gheg, says: “The language of Fishta smells like mountain pine and fir resin,” therefore Fishta’s vocabulary is not entirely easy, especially for those whose knowledge of the language limps and whose writing does not exceed the circle of journalism.
Fishta thought that the natural development of the two dialects, without imposition or taxative law, only with the contribution of writers of one and the other dialect would impose themselves on the country. With the passing of time, the Gheg coryphaeus Fishta would embrace the Great Naim of Tosk, merging the sweetness of the poetry “Bagëti e Bujqësi” (Livestock and Agriculture) with the power of “Lahuta…” (The Highland Lute), with the aroma of “Luleve të verës” (Summer Flowers) and the monumentality of “Mrizit të Zanave” and “Valles së Parrizit”.
“The flame of twigs burns the bread, while the embers of a slow fire bake it properly. A unified language without scholarly criteria and imposed by government dictates does violence to development without scientific criteria, transforming it only into a government language and never a national language.”
Don Lazër Shantoja: “Fishta’s language is the wind of the land of Albania, it is the color of its sky, the aroma of flowers, the gurgling of springs, the whistling of forests, and the shape of the mountains and hills of Albania; it is the movement of the rhythm of Albanian blood.”
Prof. Nikollë Daka, in his poem titled “The Koine of the Albanian Language,” writes: “The Fatherland stood frozen, when suddenly the orthography emerged as a koine, which was nothing else but full Tosk plus the word ‘ranishte’ (sand).
- The entire Congress shook from the roar, and Arbëresh and Kosovars, whom exile and longing for the fatherland had exhausted, cheered like infants with the others, without their minds grasping what the aim was!
- The language of three-quarters of our nation, ancient Gheg, lost its citizenship there. Without the right to school, press, stage, and word, it mattered not that it echoed so much and raised literature to the peaks of Albanian.
- One from the leadership declared it clerical.
- Language does not move forward with laws and decrees, nor with the decisions of half-baked linguists, who themselves have pale and few words, and for whom neither prose nor verse ever flows.” / Memorie.al
