Through the lands of the Serb,

OF THE NORTH ALBANIAN 77 ably. It is a soft, not unpleasant-sounding tongue, full of double "shshshes" and queer consonant sounds; such queer ones that it fits no known alphabet, and he has never found out how to write it down. Quite recently several attempts have been made, mostly by foreigners, to tame this wild language to an alphabet, and three or four different systems have been evolved, all more or less unsatisfactory, as no alphabet unaided can cope with its peculiar sounds. One in which Roman letters are used and plentifully strewn with accents, both above and below, is the most favoured in North Albania, but the Turk does not allow Albanian as a school language, the mass of the people speak nothing else, and Albania remains a land without a literature, without a history, without even a daily paper. To possess and use an unwritten language in Europe in the twentieth century is no mean feat. It carries one back to remote prehistoric times, confronts one with blank unwritten days, and suggests forcibly that the Albanian is probably possessed of raw primeval and perhaps better-left-unwritten ideas. Our search for the live antique cannot take us much further. But the Albanians, in spite of their antiquity, are incredibly young as a people, and blankly ignorant of the outer world. They are still in the earliest stage of a nation's life history, and have not yet advanced beyond the tribal form of life. At an early date-some say as early as the fourth century, but this seems doubtful - the Albanians became Christian. I have failed to discover what man or men succeeded in thus powerfully influencing this very conservative people. It is a remarkable

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Title: Through the lands of the Serb,
Author: Durham, Mary E.
Canvas: Page 77
Publication: London,: E. Arnold,; 1904.
Subject terms: Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel.

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Collection: Travels in Southeastern Europe
Link to this Item: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001
Link to this scan: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/afg3925.0001.001/107

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Full citation: "Through the lands of the Serb,." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 28, 2025.

Through the lands of the Serb,

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