The First Congress Phenomenon: The Case Of Albanian
The First Congress Phenomenon: The Case Of Albanian

Summary/Abstract: Linguistic congresses present an interesting object of study to theorists of language planning. In this context, the "First Congress" phenomenon attracted the attention of J. Fishman, who led a project studying "First Congresses" of different languages around the world. According to Fishman, "the study of first congresses may constitute a conceptually and strategically worthwhile step forward in the ongoing efforts to better understand the entire language planning process flow" (Fishman, 1993: 2). To that effect, Fishman himself attended a number of "First Congresses", but many more need to be studied to arrive at conclusions about their nature and to define a sound topology. Among them he identifies the first congresses of languages such as Albanian, Basque, Cantonese, Frisian, Latvian, Mandarin, Romani, Serbo- Croatian, and Uzbek (Fishman, 1993: 348) While Albanian researchers have studied Albanian language congresses, to the author's knowledge there is no study extant on the first congress of Albanian for the Fishman project.

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