1. INTRODUCTION
In 1809, the famous Souliote fighter Markos Botsaris compiled at a young age a Greek - Albanian (or Rhomaic - Arvanitic, as it was originally titled) dictionary. Questions have been aroused regarding the nature of the Albanian dialect recorded, the reason of the lexicon's compilation and the possibility of Markos Botsaris being the actual author. Although a carefull study of the lexicon can answer these questions, propagandists give their own interpretations. For example, an Albanian propagandist could be satisfied by the title alone and the presence of the word "Albanian"/"Arvanitic". According to him/her, language is the only factor defining ethnicity, even though in other cases the phrase "blood is what matters" would suit better for them (usually when they argue if modern Greeks are really Greeks). In other cases, the propagandist will simply assume that Markos Botsaris compiled a dictionary for his fully Albanian-speaking soldiers in order to help them learn Greek, "the language of trade and prestige". Lastly, in a more rare scenario, an Albanian propagandist would actually try to study the lexicon - especially the Albanian part - but the dissapointment would lead him/her to deny the fact that a Souliote was the actual author.
2. THE REASON OF COMPILATION
Most of these wonderings have been answered by Titos Jochalas, editor and publisher of the dictionary, but also prominent Albanologist and researcher of Arvanite history ¹. Jochalas dismisses one of the aforementioned myths while examining the actual reason of compilation:
«It has been argued that Markos, through this work, sought to provide the other Souliotes, who were illiterate or only partly literate, with the means to learn the Greek language and thereby facilitate communication between themselves and the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Corfu. This view appears rather unlikely. First, because the Souliotes spoke Greek as well as Albanian. Second, because the vocabulary of the Dictionary refers very little to those areas of everyday life in which the Souliotes might have needed practical assistance.» ²
Jochalas' suggestion is that the Greek-Albanian Dictionary was compiled primarily at the initiative of the French diplomat and historian François Pouqueville, who was extremely interested in the Albanian language. His interest is indicated by the fact that between pages 227 and 229 of the volume containing the Dictionary, there is inserted, as we have seen, a short study of the Albanian language under the title De la langue Albanaise ou Schype ("On the Albanian or Shqipe Language"), together with a brief French-Albanian glossary. Both of these texts were written by Pouqueville and this French-Albanian glossary constitutes, as regards its Albanian translations, an abridged version of the Dictionary of Botsaris, with only a few additions. The fact that Pouqueville took the trouble to extract and complete Botsaris's Dictionary, translating the Greek entries into French and transcribing the Albanian words written in the Greek alphabet, demonstrates the French historian's interest in the Albanian language and his intention to present a French-Albanian dictionary or French-Albanian glossary ³. Pouqueville did indeed publish such a glossary in his work Voyage dans la Grèce, volume 2, Paris, 1820, pp. 617–623. It is therefore clear that the French diplomat encouraged Botsaris and his relatives to write a lexicon for his own use.
3. THE ALBANIAN PART OF THE DICTIONARY
Titos Jochalas listed another important reason why such a lexicon would have been useless for making easier the communication between Greek and Albanian speakers:
«It is a question of whether an Albanian from Albania could understand most of the Albanian part of the lexicon, which is full of Greek words [loans]» ³
Indeed, the Albanian part of the dictionary contains 1494 terms of which more than 33.5% are clearly of Greek origin. Jochalas listed a 10-page list of Greek loans and notes the following:
«The large number of Greek words appearing as linguistic borrowings in the Albanian section of the Dictionary is striking. Some of these Greek words may be regarded as older borrowings, introduced into Albanian before the migration of the Albanians southward and their settlement in Greece (that is, before the 14th century AD). Others, however, are more recent borrowings, and some of these are specifically dialectal» ⁴
What is most notable are the cases where Albanian phrases follow syntax and grammar that are not common in Albanian but are identical in Greek. For example, adjectives are used before the noun, as in (modern) Greek, and not after as in Albanian. Such instances are:
• [Soul.] i shkurtë (adj.) kuvunt (n) ~ [Gr.] σύντομος (adj.) ομιλία (n) instead of [Alb.] kuvunt (n) i shkurtë (adj.)
• [Soul.] i bukurë (adj.) enë (n) ~ [Gr.] όμορφο (adj.) αγγείο (n) instead of [Alb.] enë e bukurë
• [Soul.] i drejtë (adj.) kupi (n) ~ [Gr.] ίσο (adj.) κουπί (n) instead of [Alb.] kupi (n) i drejtë (adj.)
Another remarkable Greek-like feature is the occasional omission of the article typically used in Albanian before adjectives. Such cases are:
• [Soul.] kafshë keqe instead of [Alb.] kafshë e keqe
• [Soul.] mollë bardha instead of [Alb.] mollë e bardhë
• [Soul.] kartë trashë instead of [Alb.] kartë e trashë
• [Soul.] peshk lerë instead of [Alb.] peshk i lerë
• [Soul.] maça shtipisë instead of [Alb.] maça i shtepisë
Jochalas notes that «in Albanian syntax, it is necessary to insert the article between a noun and an adjective» ⁵.
We also observe inconsistencies in grammatical gender between nouns and the adjectives modifying them. In these cases, adjectives and their articles follow their Greek correspondents.
For example, the phrase “new world” is rendered as dunja i ri, although the word dunja is feminine in Albanian and should therefore be accompanied by an adjective in the feminine form, dunja e re. Here, Botsaris is clearly influenced by the masculine gender of the corresponding Greek word, ὁ ντουνιάς or ὁ κόσμος (“the world”). Likewise, the phrase “heavy rain” is rendered as shi e madhe instead of shi i madh, because the word shi (“rain”) is masculine in Albanian but feminine in Greek. The same applies to the word “storehouse”, translated as odha i stolisurë instead of e stolisurë, evidently under the influence of the masculine gender borne by the word ὀντάς (“room” or “chamber”) in Greek.
The presence of these phenomena of Greek syntax in the Albanian idiom of the Dictionary can be explained in two ways according to Jochalas ⁶:
a) The native language of Botsaris and his collaborators may have been Greek, since, as is well known, they were people of limited education who thought primarily in their native language. It is observed that syntactical errors were not noted in the Greek section of the Dictionary, nor were there influences of Albanian upon Greek syntax.
b) It is also possible that the influence of the Greek language upon Albanian, also spoken by the Siouliotes, was so great (a fact which is particularly evident in the vocabulary of the Dictionary) that it even affected its syntax.
4. COMMENTS
Jochalas' first proposed scenario is the most plausible. Botsaris and his relatives who contributed to the dictionary's compilation were basically illiterate, but "coincidentally" the Albanian is full of "mistakes" that "coincidentally" again correspond to Greek syntax and grammar. At the same time, such "mistakes" are not found in the Greek part of the lexicon (coincidentally again).
Because Greek professors are usually accused for being bad propagandists, paid by the Greek state to harm the neighbouring Illyro-Pelasgian greatness, Jochalas for the sake of neutrality proposed a scenario B. This second scenario basically explains that the aforementioned Souliote-Greek structural similarities are due to a brain-affecting virus these pure Albanians caught from Greek speakers. The infection made their brains think in Greek when speaking Albanian.
Ironies aside, Scenario B is generally possible, but hardly in the case of the Souliotes. Firstly, because Greek speakers continuously inhabited Epirus before the Albanian speakers enter the region in late middle ages ⁷. Secondly, because the linguistic influence is mutually asymmetrical. In modern linguistics, the original language (L1) of a bilingual population is lexically influenced by its second language (L2), while L2 is both lexically and structurally influenced by L1. In Peru, for instance, certain Quechua - Spanish bilinguals shows heavier lexical interference and less structural interference in their Quechua (their L1), but heavier structural interference and fewer loanwords in their Spanish (their L2). Similarly, in Qinhai, China (formerly northern Tibet), bilingual speakers of the Turkic language Salar and Chinese have much lexical borrowing but only moderate morphosyntactic and phonological borrowing from Chinese in Salar, their L1, while they have weak lexical interference, strong morphosyntactic interference, and moderate phonological shift-induced interference in their Chinese, their L2 ⁸. Looking at the Souliotes, their Greek does not have structural influence from Albanian, while their Albanian has both lexical and structural influence from Greek. Therefore, we can assume that Greek was Botsaris' native language (L1), while Albanian was his second language (L2).
5. AN INTERESTING SURVEY OF HELLENIC ANTI-PROPAGANDA BLOG
While reading Jochalas' position concerning the difficulty an Albanian would have while studying the Dictionary, we were curious to ask Tosk speakers their opinion about the Albanian Siouliote entries. Three Tosk speakers from Northern Epirus were presented the Siouliote Albanian phrases and were asked to comment on them. The most notable comments were the following:
• «I' ve never heard of these phrases in my region»
• «Theses phrases don't make any sense»
• «It's like a foreigner trying to imitate Albanian speech»
• «Genders are not used correctly»
• «The syntax makes it just nonsense»
Unfortunately, no continuous texts in Botsaris' Siouliote Albanian dialect exist. It would be easier for researchers to draw clearer conclusions on the mutual intelligibility between proper Albanian dialects and the Souliote dialects and form a less cloudy image.
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References:
¹ T. Jochalas studied Classical Philology at the University of Athens, completed his postgraduate studies in Linguistics, Albanian Language, and Literature at the University of Palermo, followed by a PhD (1968) and a postdoctorate in Balkan History and Albanology at the University of Munich.
² Titos Jochalas (1980). Τὸ ἑλληνο-αλβανικὸν λεξικὸν τοῦ Μάρκου Μπότσαρη (φιλολογικὴ ἔκδοσις ἐκ τοῦ αὐτογράφου). Πραγματείαι της Ακαδημίας Αθηνών. Vol. 46. Αθήνα: Γραφείον Δημοσιευμάτων της Ακαδημίας Αθηνών, p.40
³ Jochalas 1980, ibid. , p.41
⁴ Jochalas 1980, ibid. , p.76
⁵ Jochalas 1980, ibid. , p.52
⁶ Jochalas 1980, ibid. , p.53
⁷ For the presence of Greek and Albanian in Epirus you can read these articles
⁸ Sarah Thomason, How to establish substratum interference, p.320
