"Kosovo's parliament has chosen a national anthem during a special session in Pristina.The new anthem is called Europe. It has no lyrics and was written by the Kosovo composer Mendi Mengjiqi. " -BBC News, June 10th, 2008A national anthem without words for a new country that might be better imagined first without language.
"Gjuha jonë, sa e mirë! Sa e ëmbël, sa e gjerë!" ["Our language, so good! So sweet! So vast!"]
Say something in Albanian and I am five years old again, the oldest granddaughter, sure of my place in a world of aproned women, and cigar-smoking men. "Q' është e bukur!" they say, and pinch my face. It means that I am beautiful. They say it to all the children. Only the Albanian-speakers say that I am beautiful. Perhaps I am only beautiful in Albanian.
Say something, anything, in that language and I'll start to cry, even if I don't understand it. The people who loved me in Albanian are dead now. In my new family, we love each other in American English, a language that lacks the enthusiastic self-regard and co-extensive patriotism of Albanian. For me, English is our instrumental-only national anthem, a little bit bland, but not without possibility. Gjuha jonë sa e ......?
In Kosova, newly independent, the new anthem is unlanguaged, and the new flag is light blue, like the sky. The old Albanian double eagle is missing, flown away in search of the blood-red ground he has always known. On the new flag, and in the new song, there is room for something else, for a new family, for multi-lingual memories. This is right and hopeful. And more than ever, the old language makes me cry.
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