“ Why Gypsies and Albanians Do Not Have Their Own Letters ” . Greek Attitudes Towards Neighbouring Languages During the 19

This work was supported by the Ministries for Culture, Education and Religious Affairs of Greece. Competing interests: no competing interests have been declared. Publisher: Institute of Slavic Studies PAS. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 PL License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/), which permits redistribution, commercial and non­ ­commercial, provided that the article is properly cited. © The Author(s) 2015. Doris Kyriazis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The Albanian returned to the Palace of God and asked for more letters.However, God was left only with Gypsy letters.«I'm not taking those letters, God.Not even if you turn them into gold.», said the Albanian.«I wanted to give you better ones but I don't have any others» was how God answered the man.«If things are like this then let it be.I'd rather be left without any let ters», replied the Albanian.«And how is your tribe going to manage without an alphabet?»,asked God.«We are going to used borrowed ones» decided the Albanian and left.Since then, the Albanians use and live with our Greek script".
While the fact that the lack of a unique Albanian alphabet is interpreted as a random event, it is generally understood that this was what God wanted and what God chose!It also works as a reminder of the cultural debt the Albanians owe to the Greeks, as well as a means of proving the Greek superiority.
How can a traditional folk myth evolve into a carrier of such messages?The analysis suggests that we are probably dealing with an ad hoc adaptation of an older myth as well as with the dissemination of the official ideology in the popular mentality.
In other words, the prospective establishment of political frontiers in Epirus -bearing in mind that we are talking about the late 19 th century -strongly required the establishment of linguistic frontiers in the region.Such frontiers, as can easily be understood, were not that clear.
The cultural influence of the Greek language in the Balkans, a heritage that goes back many centuries including the prenational era, greatly exceeded the ethnological frontiers of the Greeks, whose determination became an issue along with the creation of the Modern Greek nationstate.Furthermore, the Great Idea (Μεγάλη Ιδέα) that had emerged in the mid19 th century, sought for a perfect match of these frontiers, creating expectations among the Greeks while also causing conflicts with the neighboring peoples.In our opinion, under these conditions, Greece may have grown significantly geographically, but the Greek language simultaneously lost a great part of its "cultural ter ritories" (Κυριαζής, 2013, p. 91)1.
The text above has marked heavily the national Albanian narration.In his work, entitled "Albania: what it was, what it is and what it will be" (1899) and widely considered as a manifesto for the Albanian National Movement, Sami Frashëri makes a direct reference to it as follows: "…the Albanians are considered as savages and uneducated, while everybody makes fun of them saying that their books have been eaten by a cow" (Frashëri, 1988, p. 36)2.
Additionally, Sami expresses himself in a brutally realistic manner as far as the situation that prevailed in the late 19 th century Balkans is concerned: "The world has changed, people have woken up, nations have been enlightened, with each one of them trying to go one step further, caring only about how it will grow in number and territory while conquering smaller and weaker nations" (Frashëri, 1988, p. 48)3.
I wouldn't like to dwell on this period any longer since it is fairly well known for its goals as well as for its results.Actually, I think that the decades before the Greek Revolution, known also as the period of maturity for the Modern Greek Enlightenment, deserve more of our attention and concern.
Let me begin with Adamantios Korais, a leading figure of the latter phase of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, who is directly related to the French Enlightenment due to the fact that he lived in Paris.The findings that are presented next are taken from a letter by Korais to the bookseller and scholar Alexandros Vasileiou, whose origin was from Argyrokastro and who was one of the closest people to Korais.Due to the publishing of the Geographics by Strabo -geography was an important topic again -Korais asks Vasileiou about the current linguistic situation in Epirus, where, according to Strabo, there was bilingualism in Antiquity: «Ένιοι δε και ΔΙΓΛΩΤΤΟΙ είσι».What he asks next is if the situation is similar to that of the ancient MacedonianΕpirotic bilingualism, where Macedonian (that is to say the Greek or the Greek dialect) was the language of the good people, of the educated "upper class"; whereas, the Epirotic was the language of the common people, the lower class.For the latter, he also adds that "it may possibly be the mother of the Albanian spoken nowadays" 4.
Korais doesn't know many details about the current linguistic situation in Epirus, but compares it and makes parallelisms to the bilingualism observed in France: "I explain the term 'bilinguals', basing myself on what I saw in Mon pellier where the good people who had been fairly well educated speak French to each other; whereas, as I previously noted, they speak Patois Languedocien with servants and common people.Nonetheless, many of the commoners sometimes also speak French and only very few of them (at least in the cities) don't speak French at all.To cut a long story short, they are indeed bilinguals" (Κοραής, 1966, p. 546).
A second element that is worth focusing on is the kind of Albanian words -look at the way he concentrates on the vocabulary!-Korais seeks to learn about: "The words that I'm interested in are firstly, the ones related to religion such as: God, angel etc.; next, the names of the domestic animals (des animaux domestiques) and last, several words describing grass and trees that are used for our nutrition" (Κοραής, 1966, p. 546)5.
Unfortunately we do not have Vasileiou's answer to Korais, which would enable us to find out more about this list of words of the Albanian language.In a later letter Korais says to his friend that: "Thank you for the time you spent and the effort you made to write down the words of Epirus" (Κοραής, 1979, p. 3).
Interesting information as far as the relations among the Epirotic, the Illyrian, the Albanian as well as the Slavonic languages are concerned, is to be found in several texts by Athanasios Psalidas (1767Psalidas ( -1829)), especially in his works Η Τουρκία κατά τας αρχάς του ΙΘ΄ αιώνος (Turkey during the early 19 th century) (Ψαλίδας, 1931) and Αρχαιολογία των Αρβανιτών (The archaeology of the Albanians) (Ψαλίδας, 1941).As an eminent figure of the Greek Enlightenment, Psalidas basically describes the territories of European Turkey denouncing the "lack of education" and the "lack of crafts" of the indigenous peoples -Greeks included -which, according to the author, is due to "inadequate leadership".
Psalidas, in this way, works not only as a geographer but also as a person who records and analyzes the psychology and the ethos of the era.His broader linguistic views are presented through several random references he makes on the languages of the Balkan peoples.According to Psalidas, "The peoples … that live in the European part of Turkey are Turks, Slavons, Greeks and Vlachs.
Psalidas believes that languages change, are affected and damaged as time goes by and as other languages interact with them.For example, the Greeks, "who are now called Romaioi, also live […] in Epirus where they live side by side with the Albanians, by whom they have been deformed" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 44)7.And further "In the Illyrian territory, although the provinces were Greek, […] the Greek language is spoken, neither in towns nor in villages.There is only one seaside village called Arta, located close to the remains of Apollonia, where Greek is spoken.However, what happened to the rest of the Greek settlers?Of course, they could have been enslaved or could have spread out to other places, they could have left or mingled with the fairly populous Taulantioi or Gegides.Consequently, as time went by, they lost their language as well as the name of their peoples…" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, pp. 59-60)8.Regarding the Vlachs, they «live in Vlachobogdania and speak in a version of distorted Italian using Slavonic letters and many Slavonic words»9.
According to Psalidas, the 'deformed' languages are as a rule also 'incom plete'.He writes that "language [of the Albanians] is deformed and incomplete, being made up of words of Illyrian, Greek, Pelasgic, Latin and Turkish origin" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 46)10.As for the liturgical books of Vlachs, they "are all translated into the Vlach language, which is mixed with the Slavonic, due to the fact that the Vlach language is incomplete and had borrowed a lot of ele ments from the Slavonic" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 44)11.
Psalidas, in his short text entitled The Archaeology of the Albanians pres ents similar views, developing his view on the close relation between Albanian and the Slavonic.According to Psalidas' perception the "uneducated" nations also have "imperfect" languages; whereas, on the other hand, the "perfect" languages constitute an advantage of the "educated" people.In the following quote: "So, this Albanian tribe must have come from the northern parts of Europe during the time that the Slavons, being free and adequately educated (the latter is proven by the old Slavonic language which is perfect), came down to Thrace, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Carniolia, Bohe mia, Albania…" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, p. 220) always an educated tribe even if they didn't have any letters; since at the end of the 10 th century […] all the Greek liturgical books were translated into the Slavonic language without being mixed with words from foreign languages; and this proves that the Slavonic language was and still remains rich, efficient and easy to combine and, consequently, it doesn't constitute the language of an uneducated and savage nation…" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, pp. 221-22)13.
On the contrary, "the Illyrians inhabited Albania in a scattered manner, located in several different small centers and they have continued to live like this until today.As a result, they lost their own authentic language and all of its words, making their language so poor (the once rich Illyrian language14) that it could be compared to that of a savage nation.And this is the extent to which the prudent and united nation of the Slavons was degraded in Albania" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, p. 223)15.
It is high time to recall that G. Frantzis wrote about "the worst and utterly unavailing nation of the Arvanites… [who] instead of using the term κώμας or άστεα (small town or urban center) they used the term κάστρας (castles) in their barbarianlike language" (Φραντζής, 1838, p. 391)16 in the middle of the 15 th century, introducing in this way a tradition that relates the "worst" of a nation with the "barbarianism" of the language it uses.
With the ability of a person who knows many languages Psalidas notes that "I observed [in Albania] too many Illyrian, many Asian, many Greek and many Latin words" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, p. 224) ascertains that the character of a language is not defined solely by its vocabu lary: "The weird thing is that it is formed and pronounced differently and has a different syntax from all the others that I have mentioned; this fact that can be clearly perceived by a person who speaks Albanian as well as two or three of the other languages I mentioned" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, p. 224)18.
He observes that "although the Albanian language adopted many foreign words, it has always been poor and imperfect and the language of an uneducated nation", and notes also that "in Albanian, words such as: human/person/man, humankind, humanity, humanizes, humanitarian, humanism, distinguish, distinction, discrete, please, pleasure, ungrateful etc. are virtually impossible to translate exactly" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, p. 224)19 .Psalidas attributes this decadence to the fact that "it lost both the word composition and derivation of the Illyr ian from which it could have been enriched, if the nation had been educated" (Ψαλίδας, 1941, p. 224)20.
21 Actually, the view related to the identification of the Illyrian (and the Albanian) with the Slavonic languages was widespread at least since the mid 1700s and not only among Greek scholars.See Gounarēs, 2007, pp. 38-39, where one of G. Fatzeas' works is also being mentioned (Γ.Φατζέα, Γραμματική γεωγραφική … Βενετία, 1760), which was based on wellknown work of Patrick Gordon, Geography Anatomiz'd: or, a Compleat Geographical Grammar (Γούναρης, 2007).
without any additions or foreign words, and as it was pronounced in the past" (Γούναρης, 2007, p. 39).
If we tried to reformulate this presentation, we would observe that in both cases the "uneducated" status of the Albanians is interpreted as the consequence of a loss.Unlike the other nations, they lost the letters God gave them and "since then, they use our Greek alphabet"; "they [also] lost their Slavonism" and their language remained "poor and imperfect".
Nonetheless, there is a critical difference between those two interpreta tions.The first one perpetuates a certain situation, considering it as a choice by God; whereas, the second, in spite of its inconsistencies, expresses the faith of the prophets of the enlightenment in the potentiality of humankind for progress.This progress will be a result of the dissemination of education and the revival of the virtues through which, according to Psalidas, the Ancient Greeks "enlightened Europe, and consequently, showed to the world the degree of perfection they could achieve, becoming a prototype of this perfection" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 46)23.
The close and careful reading of this quotation cannot leave us confused or failing to understand in any way.Even when he considers that the Ancient Greeks constitute "a scale of virtue for the rest of the nations" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 46), Psalidas doesn't dissimulate when faced with the bad situation his people has fallen in: "In all of the Peloponnese area there are no signs of education; however, there are magnificent remains of the antiquity" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 66)24.
He hopes that the people of his nationality will "soon be receptive towards all those virtues that embellished their ancestry" (Ψαλίδας, 1931, p. 46).We are actually dealing with the promotion of a "paradigm" that could be sought not only by Greeks but also by other Balkan nations.
of the 19 th century.Referring to the plethora of neologisms that were acquired by modern Greek during the 19 th century, he observes that the rest of the nations didn't follow the same paths and didn't made the same choices.The Serbians, for instance, "…while having a naturally rich and workable language… didn't coin new words … [but] were limited to just borrowing foreign words" (Κουμανούδης, 1998, pp.XΙV-XV)25.
In this article several aspects of the Greek attitudes towards neighbouring lan guages during the 19 th century have been presented and analyzed.The issue needs to be further investigated26 and the written resources from the specific time must be exhaustively researched in order for us to form a broader view of the situation.
In our opinion, the observation is still appropriate that "After the Greek Revolution and the creation of the Greek State a sudden interruption of interest in the rest of the Balkan nations is noticeable.The Greek nation folded back, turned itself exclusively towards the study of its past while looking for those elements that would reinforce (its) national consciousness" (Νυσταζοπούλου Πελεκίδου, 1976, p. 215).
Nonetheless, this introversion was not so intense in the period of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, during which two trends can be observed that are symbolically represented by the writings of Rigas and Korais, on the one hand, and by the work of Neofytos Doukas on the other27.And we believe that the fact that the former was closer to the popular language whereas the latter despised it is definitely not coincidental.
It is also true and worth noting that the views of Kopitar and Miklosich regard ing Balkan linguistics didn't have any effect on Greek scholars.The Greek (and the Balkan) 19 th century was characterized mostly by the delimitation of otherness and not so much by research into the common (linguistic) network of the Balkan nations.26 Amongst the most recent work we could single out that of K. Giakoumis (2011), where the stance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate towards the Albanian language, in connection with the needs and the pursuits of both the Greek and the Albanian factor, is being reexamined in an innovative way.

"Why Gypsies and Albanians Do Not Have Their Own Letters". Greek Attitudes Towards Neighbouring Languages During the 19th Century
In this article several aspects of the Greek attitudes towards neighbours' languages during the 19 th century are presented and analyzed.We believe that the decades before the Greek Revolution, known also as the period of maturity for the Modern Greek Enlightenment, deserve more of our attention and concern.The issue needs to be further investigated and the written resources from the specific time must be exhaustively researched in order for us to form a broader view of the situation.