Arvanite Poetry

Mirëmbrema and greetings from Greece, vëllezër. I hope it’s ok if I post this here, as I’m not trying to advertise anything commercial, but I would like to point your attention to my latest project: the past year I’ve finally started doing research into my Arvanite heritage. While my relatives are all mostly convinced we have no relation with the Arvanites, because our grandfather claims that his grandfather changed his name to "Arvanitis" and hence they don’t consider it an indication of our origin.

The truth, however, is that my great-great-grandfather’s original name, "Kakisis" was even more incriminating, as it’s clearly an Arvanite name referring either to the name Kakia (which is an Arvanite nickname for Paraskevi, i.e. it would refer to the children of Kakja), or, maybe ka kishë (has a church, indicating that they didn’t want to convert to either Islam or maybe Catholicism, as my family comes from Southwest Morea, so most likely descend from Dredh/Arbëresh stock who fled Italy in the Middle Ages to avoid becoming Catholic). Regardless, all this information pushed me to do my research and try to learn the language on my own. Finding people to teach you Arvanitika is impossible in Greece, as even most native speakers only speak it partially), but, fortunately, there are a few books available (although you won’t believe the hoops I had to jump to even get my hands on them), and with the help of modern Albanian textbooks and dictionaries I’ve actually been making a lot of progress, I think. Nowhere near being able to speak it reliably, but I can at least translate and form coherent sentences in writing, which leads me to the topic of today.

As a way to practice the things I’ve been learning I’ve decided to start writing poetry again (I used to write extensively almost a decade ago before stopping) but this time in Arvanitika. I’ve started simple, writing haiku, senryu (basically a haiku, but not focused on scenery so much as human interaction and/or commentary etc.) and tanka (another japanese form similar to haiku but extended by two more verses), but have already made a major discovery in what could become a new, Arvanite form of poetry, called Ethëna (a saying, basically). Ethëna seems to have been a major social activity among Arvanite communities, by which one would invent a little verse or proverb based on some experience or insight and share it among their peers. In terms of poetry it’s still something I’m developing, and, while not all my ideas are groundbreaking by any stretch, I would say it mostly combines attributes of an aphorism with epigrammatic poetry, often with a healthy dose of satire.

Either way, I feel this is probably the most significant journey I’ve embarked upon, solely motivated by a desire to preserve and, better yet, hopefully enrich a language which has languished in neglect for far too long — as well as to master it for myself. For example, I wrote a poem about the word faleminderit, inspired by the fact that Arvanitika has no official word for "thank you"while both falem and nderi exist in our vocabulary. So I’m constantly on the lookout for words the Arvanites may have known, either from Albanian, Latin or Medieval Greek, the latter of which probably had the most significant influence on Arvanitika as we know it today, as all the dictionaries available in Arvanitika are woefully incomplete.

So anyway, if anyone’s interested, please check out the following link: https://gjuhaezogut.wordpress.com/

I’d love to hear any and all of your feedback, especially since I’m not a native speaker. Faleminderit.