Promotion of the Serbian-Albanian dictionary in Tirana: A great contribution to Balkan linguistics

In the Albanian Academy of Sciences in Tirana, the promotion of the Serbian-Albanian dictionary, authored by the doyen of journalism and publicist from North Macedonia Rexhep Zllatku, was held, at which it was assessed that this work would be very important both for the entire Balkans and for linguistics on a global level.

The idea to create this capital work, as Zllatku told Kosovo Online, had been born in his early youth, when in the boarding school in Pristina, where he left his native Tetovo to continue his education in his native Albanian language in 1953, he had met for the first time with the Serbian language.

"I met the Serbian language for the first time, first of all in a boarding school with Serbs and Montenegrins with whom I was in the same room and we got along perfectly. The same in high school, because we Albanians studied with Serbs at the Ivo Lola Ribar High School in Pristina until 1957, and then I moved to Skopje, so I finished journalism school in Belgrade at the Yugoslav Institute of Journalism, and then the Law Faculty in Skopje," Zllatku said.

The dictionary, as a kind of inventory of words and expressions, with grammatical and syntactical explanations, is usually the work of a team of academics, extremely extensive, long-term work, which requires professional commitment, preparation, and a strong language culture, according to the professionals, but Zllatku did it alone.

"I had known even before I started dealing with the dictionary that the Serbian language is a rich language, rich with phraseologies, but the Albanian language is also very rich. I didn't have any great difficulties, I had plenty of work to do, I worked for so many years and I think that I can still do so much; there is still work to be done in the language. I was able to translate every phraseology that exists in the Dictionary of the Serbian language published in 2007, the entire dictionary, not a single word is missing, not a single word at all," Zllatku explained.

Professor at the University of Pristina, Academician Ali Aliu said that this work would remain monumental as a personal stamp of long-term work of special dedication and professionalism of a journalist, writer, and linguist.

"This is a very important event for both nations of both languages, and I am happy that this work, this dictionary, the pinnacle of language science, arrived at the promotion in Tirana in the hall of the Albanian Academy of Sciences, and I think that there should be more and more events like this. It will be better for Albanians and for Serbs, the Balkans, and humanity in general," Aliu believes.

Albanian journalist and analyst Ben Andoni said that this work was capital for the profession.

"Each new dictionary is a new window into the culture and a new opportunity for all of us young people, journalists, and translators because it is a language that unites us and gives us a new opportunity to better communicate and understand each other. Once upon a time, the premise of how many languages you know determines your worth, I hope that this dictionary will be useful to many people," Andoni believes.

The Serbian-Albanian dictionary, which contains 80,000 words and expressions, was printed by the publishing house "Logos-A" from Skopje, and the chief editor is Xhevat Lloshi.