From Albanian to General Linguistics (The Difficult Case of Selman Riza)
From Albanian to General Linguistics (The Difficult Case of Selman Riza)

Summary/Abstract: What I intend to say in my report is somehow connected with the Dean of Albanian studies in America and one of the most important IE scholars - Professor Eric Pratt Hamp. He has carefully and in a fully comprehensive way followed the developments in the Albanian world since early ’50s of the 20th century, especially in linguistics and philology. Those developments, including concrete relations of Albanian albanologists to Eric, have had some difficulties. In this context, I would like to mention his meeting in Prishtina with our great dissident linguist Selman Riza during the early ’50s. According to both of them, they had planned a meeting for the following summer, probably 1956. After Eric’s return from his field research in Greece, this was no longer possible, because Riza had already been deported to Tirana in December 1955. During the late ’80s I had difficulties in arranging for the publication of Eric’s PhD and also with the common project with him and the University of Chicago for a contrastive analysis of Albanian and English. Eric’s PhD could still be published thanks to the engagement of our common friend professor Francesco Âltimari in Calabria, where Eric could enjoy Albanian hospitality without surveillance.

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