Albanian Literary Commission

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Albanian Literary Commission
Komisija Letrare Shqipe
HeadquartersShkodër, Principality of Albania
Official language
Albanian
Key people
  • Gjergj Fishta
  • Luigj Gurakuqi
  • Gjergj Pekmezi
  • Hil Mosi
  • Mati Logoreci
  • Ndre Mjeda
  • Aleksandër Xhuvani

The Albanian Literary Commission (

literary standard and orthographic rules for the Albanian language which were lacking at the time, in order to encourage the publication of schooltexts
.

History

The commission started officially on 1 September 1916 with the initiative of the Austrian diplomat August Ritter von Kral. Some of the notable members were Gjergj Fishta, Luigj Gurakuqi, Hil Mosi, Aleksandër Xhuvani, Maximilian Lambertz, Gjergj Pekmezi, Ndre Mjeda, Sotir Peci, and Mati Logoreci.[1] The members agreed on the necessity of having an orthography standard "as phonetic as possible" and a unified literary language which would preserve what the Albanian dialects had in common and leave out any stigmatized regional forms.[2]

Facsimile of one of the process-verbals of the commission. Session held on 16 September 1916 (date shows on top of the document)

Fishta played a leading role in the commission. He tried hard to push for the dialect of

Aleksander Xhuvani who proclaimed that "the unity of the language is the unity of the nation" (Albanian: Njisia e gjuhes asht njisia e kombit.), the commission accepted the dialect of Elbasan to be used as the basis for standard Albanian.[4] While being a Gheg dialect, it is a southern one and closest possible to the Tosk dialect. The standard was adopted by the Educational Congress of Lushnje in 1920.[2]

The commission published a reader for middle schools in 1920.[2] However, since there no official grammar or dictionary were published in the new language standard, it did not succeed. Moreover, most of the works and translations created during the Albanian National Awakening (1870–1912) and the early 20th century were written in Tosk dialect.[4]

Afterwards

The efforts for language standardisation would continue after

Yugoslavia at the expense of the Gheg dialect.[5] The Tosk-based current standard would be established by the Albanian Orthography Congress
of 1972.

See also

References

  1. OCLC 454375231
  2. ^
    OCLC 682895095
  3. OCLC 62131578
  4. ^
    OCLC 694393712
  5. OCLC 8417661
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