Prime Minister Edi Rama attended Thursday a jubilee conference marking the 50th anniversary of Albanian Orthography Congress, a major linguistic event held in 1972 that for the first time established the unified orthographic rules of the Albanian standard language.

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Honourable attendees!

Not long ago, Ismail Kadare wrote: “Language is a difficult pact, the most difficult of pacts people have ever made among themselves.” And it seemed to me this quote best coincides with these flags, considering how a long way we have gone for these three flags to stand here today together as flags that embody, among others, also a difficult pact such as language.

We know it very well, but we seriously risk to take this for granted, as something that has always been there, regardless of how difficult, strenuous and impossible it seemed, not many centuries ago, but just a few years ago, for the Albanian language to be spoken, written and accepted freely as the most fundamental right of Albanians, not only in Albania, but also in Kosovo and North Macedonia.

Meanwhile, I would like to thank the Academy of Science for hosting this conference, which serves to recall quite the opposite, to remember that the almost -unanimous consensus on the unified orthographic rules 50 years ago was amazing if we are to consider the bloody conflicts and the long exhausting processes other languages ​​have gone through to achieve their unity and become the core of the whole structure of social peace. Suffice to take a look at our southern neighbours and remember the sharp centuries-old rift between the “Demotic ” and the Katharevousa, and history teaches us that spelling and unified language are nothing but a process of consolidation of the spirit and letter of a nation, of the being of a nation.

The Congress of Manastir organizers embarked on their work, being convinced that a unified alphabet proves that our nation has become one as a nation. And the nation cannot subsist for long time on mysticism and myths alone, and therefore rational synthesis is needed, this continued codification of a unifying semiotic, and for this reason the unified orthography rules and unified language are constantly subjected and impossible to happen otherwise, even some kind of public or state arbitration. But even in the cases when they were arbitrary, they were later ratified over the time and by the unhindered use. Practically, these arbitrations have been justified and turned into institutions, turned into laws that for the whole continental liberal tradition, as Rousseau puts it, are considered as an expression of the nation’s common will, no matter how cacophonous the minority is and no matter how right the minority is entitled to oppose them.

The unification of the orthographic rules of the Albanian language and its standardization is one of the historical processes that, fortunately for the Albanians, have similarly loomed and followed the processes of the unification of European languages.

However, I can’t help but state that when you open these last pages and read out the names on it and when you seek out and find those resembling any of these who are no longer in our daily lives, you can’t help but feel a deep anxiety, because with all due respect, but the equivalents of Eqerem Çabej, Mahir Domi, Androkli Kostallari, Alex Buda, and so on, and not only those who have departed, but it is also very difficult to find the likes of the new generation, such as professor Emili.

The Society for printing the Albanian Writings in 1879, the Congress of Manastir in 1908, to the Albanian Literary Commission in 1915 and 1916, Prishtina’s Language Consultancy in 1968 and the very Congress we commemorate today are all an embodiment of bright Albanian minds, incredible talents, remarkable characters that the new century couldn’t brought all together, despite all the changes that have taken place, and this is, I think, one of the biggest questions on our path to the future.

The Congress advised that taking notice of the changes that the literary and the language undergo in the course of development, as well as the new issues arising from the linguistic practice, the orthographic rules should be made when improvements and appropriate additions are necessary in the future. This is precisely where the fundamental importance of the orthographic rules lies, both in purely linguistic terms and in cultural and social terms. This requires that the Albanian language orthography takes into account, not only the state of today’s literary language, but also the main trends of its further development, and indeed, I feel like I am going to burst into laughs as an unwavering Albanian language “lover”, given the status I’m speaking here today with, and that’s why I wished to came to attend this event here today, that I neither can, nor want to, nor do I have to cry when I follow this fantastic debate, with the Orthography Congress being reprimanded as an unforgivable sin that questions the Congress itself, because of the fact that it took place under the patronage of an absolute regime.

The resolution adopted by the Congress notes that orthography is not only a scientific issue, but also an important social problem, since it expresses head-on the unity of the national literary language, which plays a first-hand role in strengthening the national consciousness and the progress of mental life.

 The truth is that at the time when the Orthography Congress was held, these research institutions and this academic world, not only it was not negligible, but it  met the European standards, since we learned this phrase in this new phase and, indeed, back then and under those conditions, either under a monarchy, a dictatorship or under a liberal republic, the result would have been this because of those people, because of those institutions and because of that great 20-year work to reach that point.

The Albanian language dictionary, which is one of the by-products of the Albanian Orthography Congress, and its lexicological and phraseology richness, are seriously questioned today and I am very happy to take advantage of this moment to say that the Academy of Sciences has paved the way to the dictionary spelling. And it took for “a communist” to be at the helm of the Academy of Science to resume a fundamental work, for the sake of truth and don’t worry at all about what the anti-communists will say after this speech of mine in the coming days, as they are the most terrible legacy that the communists actually left behind.

Speaking about the dictionary, I very much hope that we succeed in compiling and releasing a new dictionary, just like we hope this would be also the case with the history book of Albanians, the work about which is already underway, and then an encyclopaedia, work about which is underway too.

They are three essential books that have been missing for so many years. Unfortunately, over all these years, we have lost many of the human resources that would have ensured the quality of these three fundamental books. Yet there is still hope, there are still people who can do this, and the main responsibility and the challenge facing the current Albanian government and any future government is to employ serious and correct “guardians”, capable of protecting the treasure we inherit from those who signed the resolution of the Orthography Congress.

Thank you!