Faleminderit is "thank you" in Albanian - I looked it up. I did a small, not-very rigorous experiment, and discovered to my shock that almost nobody from the former Yugoslavia knows how to say this or anything else in Albanian. I only asked about ten people from Serbia or Croatia, but I strongly suspect that the trend will hold if I asked dozens more.
What possessed me to do this was the observation that a 2002 Economist World Summary booklet - something I got free with a subscription, and picked up again when thinking about moving the bookshelf - listed Albanian as the second language (indeed the only significant language listed other than Serbian) for the then about-to-be renamed Yugoslavia. I suspect they only listed languages spoken by more than a million people, and weren't clouded by notions of officialdom. In addition to this, I suppose I was driven by the frequent observation of Albanians all over Croatia and Serbia. As far as I can tell, they run a great fraction ice cream parlors and bakeries, and people seem immediately to spot the accents. And with all the discussion of Kosovo lately, it has certainly emerged that one of the issues Kosovo Albanians have is the fact that they learn (or at least learned) Serbian and nobody ever learns (or learned) Albanian.
I've often asked G. about what school was like under Communism, with the normal fascination of a free-worlder who remembers the early eighties well (did you really wear red? what was it like to be a commie? wasn't it terrible? really?) Whenever we drive through Slovenia - me struggling to read signs in a language that is half-recognisable to a bad Serbian-speaker - I ask about languages they learned in the former Yugoslavia. As I remember from what she told me, it consisted of a few weeks a year covering the other two languages, meaning Macedonian and Slovenian. When I asked anybody about Albanian, even G. who absolutely hates nationalism, said "no" first almost as if to suggest that it was a silly question, but then uttered something like "huh" - as if to imply that it had been a little strange. A little unfair.
But why not? Why wouldn't one at least know one word spoken by what was - even in the former Yugoslavia - the second most widely spoken language (just by a hair)? Anyway, whatever your opinions about Kosovo are, remember that knowing Faleminderit might just be one of the first few baby steps towards racial harmony.
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3 comments:
Well Faleminderit for this interesting observation. I was thinking now whether I know any word in Albanian and the answer is "Nope". Although I know the word for news in Albanians. During the 90's Serbian TV was broadcasting the news in Albanian called Laymet and I was watching it as a girl, was funny to me cause this was the only program in foreign language without subtitles.
I agree with you that general public in Serbia never was (until the final stage of Kosovo conflict) much familiar with Albanian language as well as with any other aspect of their culture. I was brought up in a town about 200 km far from Kosovo but from our perspective, it was like different universe. Generally people knew a lot about social patterns in US but in Albania...well not more than what they knew about life in Iran.
I think that general habit of "turning a blind eye" on everything that may potentially disturb you, have cost a lot Serbian people in past decade, and probably Faleminderit would be a useful word in our book then, or at least worth trying. Nice blog, anyway ;)
Update: I spoke about this to one of G's cousins on the weekend, and he claimed that Serbs in Kosovo do speak Albanian. Is this true?
I've just today stumbled on this blog. This is an interesting post. It is quite strange/amazing that we (rest of ex-Yugo people) never paid any attention to Albanian language, given that it was spoken by a large minority group. As Ljiljana reader wrote, I also only know "laymet" and for the same reason, cause of the news. I know the words "Koha Ditore" also because of the news, but I don't know what they mean. And with that, that is all I know of Albanian. I even hate to say it, but I'll most likely forget "Faleminderit". I think we can 'thank' Aleksandar Rankovic for suppressing anything and everything Albanian in ex-Yu. And the spirit still lives on! :(
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