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Which linguist will oppose Agron Dalipaj?

2022-06-24 22:08:07Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA ARISTOTEL SPIRO
Which linguist will oppose Agron Dalipaj?
Which linguist will oppose Agron Dalipaj?

Dear Agron,

I have to respond with a special and exclusive text to your comment in the post "Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929), The Proclamation of Linguistic Principles", which I had the pleasure to translate from the English version.

You declare that you are the author of a theory which you have termed the "embryomorpheme theory" and that you are the "author of seven etymological dictionaries."

From your post I am informed that you have also contacted the head of the Academy of Sciences of Albania and you have been given an answer as to why they are not dealing with the opposition of your writings. If so, I express my regret that you have been unlucky in finding an opponent. I also express my surprise that, although you have submitted to the academic authority of what you call "official linguistics", no one has deigned to give you at least an official written response.

You are already a media person and you have an acquaintance that not many linguists and linguists trained and specialized in and outside the country, whose publications bear the names of the most prestigious academic institutions of Albania, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia.

Thus, it seems to me a little surprising to the extent that you insist on being certified in an academic context, where objectively on a personal level you will not benefit from any greater media coverage. On the other hand, it seems silly to me that they did not give you an answer. With the media presentation and recognition you have, I consider it necessary for the official academic institutions to give you a dignified answer.

You are addressing me publicly to make an objection to one of your etymological dictionaries as a representative of "official linguistics".

But in the way of your expression there are some things that I do not understand and need to be clarified from the beginning. "Official Linguistics"? Which "official linguistics"? There is only one science of linguistics, which is not divided into formal and informal. It is true that traditional and modern linguistics have many currents (historical-comparative, structuralist, functional, generativist), schools and disciplines (general linguistics and language theory, philosophy of language, syntax, morphology, morphosyntax, phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics / semantics, lexicology, sociolinguistics, linguistic planning, language contact, linguistics of linguistic bodies, applied linguistics, bilingualism / multilingualism, cognitive linguistics, linguistic anthropology, linguistic ecology, legal linguistics, gender linguistics, stylistics, linguistic typology,

If by "official linguistics" you mean those linguistic disciplines that follow scientific principles tested and approved by the international academic community, I accept this with satisfaction and appreciation.

If by "official linguistics" you mean a place I might have in the educational or academic staff, unfortunately that does not apply to me. For personal reasons (doctoral studies abroad and business activity of official translations) for 30 years I have not received any salary from the Albanian state. Nevertheless, I never gave up studying Albanian. I have directed the publication of an international journal with contributions of scholars from several countries of the world, I have published books with studies, and recently the Academy of Sciences of Albania took over the publication of my life work "Knots in the Albanian language" (2021).

Scientific works, by their very nature, are read by a small number of specialists in the field. I too would like people to line up to buy my books, read and shout in astonishment "What a miracle!", Linguistic colleagues to fill scientific newspapers and magazines with reviews of scientific "my deeds". However, what we expect does not always happen. Scientific news is not immediately embraced by the academic community. In fact, they are usually not welcome at all. There are many reasons this happens. People are used to some kind of explanation and find it difficult to overturn it. Another reason is, even though we have invested a lot of time to offer a new explanation, it may not be at all or at all what you and I thought about a language phenomenon or any phenomenon.

I can not force my colleagues to deal with what I write. I can not force any academic institution. My writings and works are published. I have a definite opinion of them, of what I have written. But this thought does not match what others think of my writings and works. I could ask someone to write about my studies. But I never did that. And I do not have to do it. The less I think of addressing a person or institution forcing them to write for or against my theories.

Many of my theses and theories contradict what you might consider "official linguistics" (the theory of binary node presetting, the theory of emphatic syntagms, the phonological principle of spelling, the negation of the morphological principle of spelling, the 27-letter graphematic composition in Albanian writing system, etc.). From this point of view, I do not belong to the "official linguistics" but I am faithful only to linguistics. I do not have the impatience to be approved. I am sure however time will show the justice of those I think. But this time may be so distant that I may not be lucky enough to see it.

Now, let’s get to your case. You have published your books. There you announced your theories. And now you turn to the Academy of Sciences or the Center for Albanological Studies. I have the impression that you have confused the queue. You should have addressed those institutions before the publication of your books. There is a certain procedure and certain publishing policies. The institution decides whether there is interest in publishing a work or not.

Now that you have published your books, you just have to wait. It is not now the turn of the opposition. If there is really any interest in what you write about, someone will be found somewhere to write about you. But you can not decide that.

I have not read your books. And I'll most likely never read them. The reason for this is you. I have seen on television that you have led a protest in front of the Academy of Sciences of Albania, where you accused this institution of anti-Albanian activities, since the Academy of Albanological Studies has published "Etymological Dictionary of the Albanian Language" by Kolec Topalli, which confirms a fact quite well known, that most Albanian words have foreign etymologies. For linguists and average students of the Albanian language this is a very familiar and normal fact. If you think differently, it means that you do not know the axioms of linguistic contact, that is, that peoples receive and give from each other, that linguistic borrowing is the most normal thing in languages ​​and peoples who speak them, that languages ​​without borrowing there is no in the world, that the likelihood of a language being pure would testify to a culturally ill people and incapable of coming into contact with other peoples. But this is not the case for the Albanian people, a vital people, who over the centuries had the ability and dynamism to absorb from contact with other peoples cultural elements that have included it in the European family while maintaining its cultural identity and linguistic, which is proved primarily by grammar and much less by words. This is the essence of the words of the great linguist Baudouin de Courtenay: “Each of us has a duty to look with our own eyes. And if we consider with our own eyes the question of the mixing or non-mixing of languages,

If you do not take these simple things into account, then do not expect anyone from the academic world to take you seriously.

In the protest in front of the Academy of Sciences, you used a denigrating dictionary for figures of Albanian scholars, such as Eqrem Çabej, Kolec Topalli, etc. This has shocked me immensely, because I consider these indisputable figures of albanological science. I was also shocked by your participation, especially the media coverage of this "protest". This means that some media in Albania today are playing a very dirty game by stimulating a sick spirit of cultural self-isolation and banal ethnocentrism.

But the tragic part of this story is that the academic institutions of Albania and Kosovo, although they do not lack skilled professorship, are incapable of imposing emancipatory standards and red lines of intellectual thought in the public media. Also, any scientific standard code is missing or not applied in the Albanian public media. Shocking are the shows where in front of a well-known linguist stands an enthusiastic amateur, while the moderator manipulates conversations in front of an audience that is poisoned by banality.

If you insult such linguists as Eqrem Çabejn or Kolec Topalli, then you have not committed a scientific act, but a political act, with which I do not agree at all. And I will be against any personal publicity that will have as a condition the swearing and denigration of such figures.

Therefore, I am surprised how you were received at the Academy of Sciences, when you spoke publicly against this academy.

Your case reminds me of an "episode" in the Albanian language department of the University of Elbasan more than 30 years ago. A "comrade in arms" of yours, a retired teacher, had presented to the department a typed material in which he "proved" that the Albanian language is the oldest in the world and able to explain every word of every language in the world! The head of the department instructed me, as the lecturer of "Historical Grammar of Albanian", to read it and give him answers. Of course, I gave him a kind reply, explaining that these things do not happen in language, because etymologies are performed according to certain phonetic rules, and word changes are dictated in addition to phonetics, also by historical, ethnographic, cultural, administrative and especially by linguistic and interlinguistic contact.

As you can see, your case is not so original. Just as your colleagues in Greece are not at all original, who think that Greek is the mother of all the languages ​​of the world and everything is explained through Greek, or some popular Serbian "etymologists" who thought that Serbian is the mother of all the languages ​​of the world and every which is explained in Serbian.

In moments of hopelessness I have heard that even the most ardent atheist turns to God for a miracle. I am doing this now: I beseech the Lord to enlighten your way and your mind.

Of course, if you want to get to the truth. Of course, if you want to provide any language reader. Otherwise, you will always have the same anxiety and the same dissatisfaction from yourself that your readers will remain the same people who want to believe that Albanian is the oldest language in the world and that the words of all languages ​​of the world are explained by Albanian.

Kindly,

Aristotle Spiro


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

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