Albania Culture & Language

Albanian culture was cut off for two generations and has been reconnecting since 1991, which gives it a mixture of the very old and the very new with little in between.

The language

Albanian is its own branch of Indo-European, with no close living relative — a fact Albanians will mention early and with pride. It has two main dialects, Gheg in the north and Tosk in the south, with the modern standard built largely on Tosk.

The Kanun

A body of customary law written down in the fifteenth century and attributed to Lekë Dukagjini, which governed the northern highlands in place of any state for centuries. Two of its concepts outlived it: besa, the unbreakable word, and the blood feud, which resurfaced in the 1990s and has not entirely gone.

Iso-polyphony

Southern Albanian singing in four parts, with a drone underneath two interweaving solo lines, is UNESCO-listed and unlike anything else in the region. It is performed at weddings and festivals and at the Gjirokastër folk festival.

Food

Ottoman and Mediterranean at once: byrek pastry, tavë kosi of lamb baked in yoghurt, fergese with peppers and cottage cheese, grilled fish on the coast, and raki distilled at home and offered constantly.

Bunkers

Between 1967 and 1986 the regime built concrete bunkers across the country — the figure usually given is around 170,000, though the true number is lower. They were never used, they are almost impossible to remove, and they are now cafes, storage, shelters and museums. Nothing else says as much about the period.

Albanian is the official language and is a branch of Indo-European all on its own, related to nothing nearby. It uses the Latin alphabet with thirty-six letters, including digraphs such as dh, xh and zh treated as single letters.

English is widely spoken by younger Albanians and in tourism. Italian is understood by a great many people over thirty, who grew up watching Italian television smuggled across the Adriatic during the dictatorship, and Greek is common in the south.

A few words are warmly received: përshëndetje for hello, faleminderit for thank you — which visitors mangle and Albanians enjoy — ju lutem for please, and gëzuar for cheers.

And the gesture: a nod means no and a shake means yes. Watch for it in shops and when asking directions, because it will catch you out.