Turning night into day: Milieu and semantic change in Albanian

. We bring to light here two case studies from Albanian that show interesting semantic change, and we argue that in order to understand the particular changes involved, the concept of “milieu” (Christiansen and Joseph 2016: 56-7) should be invoked.

2. Albanian gjëmë ~ gjâmë 'lament'.In Modern Albanian gjëmë means 'lament'.In the northern Albanian Geg dialect, the form is gjâma [ɟɔ ːma] and it is used specifically for the gjâma e burrave 'lament of men', a death rite performed by men for another man, a fallen hero.The death rite consisted of two stages.In the first stage, the men place their hands on their hips.One of the men begins twisting sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right, bending over and striking the ground with his feet.In unison then, all the men raise their hands putting one to their mouth and the other to their ear, calling out the name of the deceased in a loud and long voice.
In the second stage, they rush towards the deceased stopping before the body.When the leader begins, all the men continuously yell "hou hou hou!"They lift up their hands making fists and they chant i mjeri unë për ty! (literally: "Poor me for you!").Then they begin beating their chest and again yell "hou hou hou!" 1  The first recorded instance of the gjâma was made by Marlin Barleti, a Catholic priest from Shkodër, in Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarvm principis published in 1504.Here Barleti tells us of the gjâma e burrave that took place during the death of the Albanian hero Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) in 1468.A fellow feudal lord known as Lekë Dukagjini, upon hearing of the death of Skanderbeg, went out and began beating his chest and pulling out his hair and beard, which from then on was referred to as gjâma e burrave të Dukagjinit 'the lament of men from Dukagjin'.
In Malësia e Madhe, where the tradition survived until the 1960's,2 the locals believed that several days after the body was buried, the gjâma e orëve 'The lament of the Ora's' would begin (Shkurtaj 2021: 372).The Ora's were mythological goddesses that decide the fate of mankind (Elsie 2001: 88).The anthropologist Reiner Schulz in 1937 was fortunate enough in an expedition to see the gjâma e burrave at the funeral of Ujk Vuksani from Theth.Below are pictures taken at the funeral by Schulz.The gjâma e burrave appears to date further back than medieval Albania.A recent discovery was made at the Kamenica fort in Kosovo of a stela representing a funeral procession.The stone has been dated from anywhere between 100-500 BC.During this period of history, the Paleo-Balkan ethnic group the Dardanians lived in the area.On the stela, the procession is led by a woman, who is followed by a man's coffin and a group of mourners.The stela mirrors, with great accuracy, the gjâma e burrave.The mourners appear to be raising their hands, beating their chests, and grabbing their heads, lamenting the deceased.The importance of this stela is that this specific lamentation tradition for the dead appears to date not just to medieval Albania with the death of Skanderbeg, but to classical antiquity.
Various etymologies have been proposed for gjëmë 'lament'.Miklosich (Rom.Elemente 30) and  treat it as based on a verb borrowed from Latin gemere 'to cry, to shout', while Orel (1998: 134) cites Latin clāmāre 'to cry, shout' as the source.Problematic for such accounts is the Albanian variant glëmoj, since the initial glis inconsistent with both the gjof gjëmë and the clof Latin clāmāre.While Albanian gjcan be from glj, as in dialectal gljuhë 'language; tongue' (vs.Standard Albanian gjuhë), glëmoj has glnot glj-, and for the Latin to be a suitable source, one would need to posit the occurrence of the prefix en-, to explain the voiced gin glëmoj; there is, however, no direct evidence for the use of enwith this verb.5 Another verb in Albanian which has become homophonous in form is gjëmojë 'to thunder', a more likely borrowing from Latin gemere, from which, for Orel (idem) the noun gjëmë 'thunder, shout, illness' is taken as a deverbative formation.In Old Albanian (16 th AD) the initial clusters gland klare preserved.But the oldest Geg Albanian author Gjon Buzuku, in his Meshari (1555), has gjamnë e atyne 'their mourning' (Topalli 2017: 597), where gjamnë [ɟamnə] is written with a voiced palatal stop <gj> [ɟ], and not <gl> [gl].The same is seen in the texts of the oldest Tosk author Luca Matranga in his La Dottrina Christiana (1592), tue gjumuarë e tue klarë '(while) mourning and weeping' (Sciambra 1964: 47).
These facts tell us that the forms glëmojë and gjëmojë are clearly from two different etymological roots, for it is expected that the old authors would have preserved the initial cluster gl-.It is also not surprising to find a semantic shift of 'lamenting' > 'thundering', as the noun for 'thunder' is bubullin, a form found in Buzuku: një bonbullim ën qiellit 'a thunder from heaven', as if the heavens are lamenting or wailing.It is clear that the secondary form of the noun gjëmë 'thunder' is derived from 'lament'; the form glëmojë, despite our misgivings above, may somehow reflect a loan from Latin clāmāre 'to cry, shout'.
2017/1899: 1205), and possibly Ancient Greek ὕμνος, which means 'song, hymn',7 but also, perhaps importantly, 'elegy'.Hittite išḫamai 'sings' shows the verbal root at the basis of these nouns.In the Dardanian stela, it is clear that the funerary procession is over the deceased who held high societal prestige, judging from the number of mourners represented.Likewise, in Geg Albania, the gjâma e burrave is a 'lament of men' that is given to those of high respect and prestige, such as the 15 th century Albanian hero Skanderbeg.
Going from 'song' > 'lament' appears to be more than just simple semantic shift.The meanings are close enough so that one might assume a specialization, but the concept of "milieu" here helps identify the social and cultural setting in which such a linguistic change is motivated.In this case the cultural practice of a song of praise specifically in a funeral procession is the milieu in which the shift from 'song' to 'lamentation song' would be triggered. 8here is a further geographic aspect to the milieu that is noteworthy, in particular, the rugged mountainous terrain of Northern Albania.This geography contrasts with southern Albania where the mountains rise steeply from the plain and from the sea, making passage to the interior more difficult (Wilkes 1992: 16-7).The mountainous terrain is generally considered to be the reason why the population succeeded in retaining their native idiom and ethnic identity during the Roman empire (S.Demiraj 2006: 26).Historian Fine states that during the Slavic invasions of the 6 th century in southeastern Europe, the minority groups were able to take refuge in the mountains to escape conquerors and retain their identities.Thus, indigenous tribes were able to retreat into the mountains at that time and maintain themselves as Albanians and Vlachs (Fine 1991: 2).We find a similar situation during the Ottoman rule of Albania (15 th to early 20 th century).The highlanders referred to as 'Malsors' under the Ottoman empire lived in virtual autonomy according to their tribal laws, with little Ottoman control (Gawrych 2006: 29).
The concepts of tribal law, respect, and honor were the most important aspects of social life in northern Albania.Edith Durham, in her travels through northern Albania, points out that for Malsors "tribal instinct is far stronger than Church law" (Elsie 2015: 86-7).Scaldaferri (2021: 16) cites the summary of Zumthor's formulation noting that "the (Albanian) epic tends toward the "heroic,"' and that 'it finds its most fertile grounds in border regions where there exists a prolonged hostility between two races, two cultures".In a region where peace is historically unusual, the practice of the gjâma e burrave honors those who have died as heroes.It is such a cultural milieu for the gjâma e burrave that sheds light on the shift from PIE *sh2óm-n̥ 'song' > Albanian gjâma.

Albanian natë 'night' => nate 'morning'.
Albanian provides also a second case where looking to the milieu in an apparent semantic shift gives a more insightful account.In particular, alongside Albanian natë [natə] 'night', we find in the Geg dialect, primarily in northwestern subdialects, the form nate [nɔːtɛ] in the meaning 'morning', thus an apparent semantic shift involving an innovative opposite meaning.These two Albanian forms natë 'night' and nate 'morning' are cognate with Greek νύξ, Sanskrit nákta-, and Latin nox, all meaning 'night', and Hittite nekuz (genitive) 'of the evening'.In the northernmost region of Malësia e Madhe the form found is nate 'morning' (Shkurtaj 2021: 635-36), whereas south of the area in the cities of Shkodër and Lezhë one can hear nade with a voiced intervocalic [d].In the Northeastern Geg subdialect in some regions of Kosovo and Tropojë, the rare form used is mnatje 'morning' with a prefix më- (Topalli 2017(Topalli : 1027)).Where other regions also use mëngjes for 'morning', presumably from the influence of the standard language (based on Tosk), only Malësia e Madhe predominantly uses nate for 'morning'.
In older Albanian, the form for morning is only found in the work of Geg authors who historically come from isolated regions.The Old Geg writer Pjetrë Budi (17 th century) wrote the form ndënatje 'in the morning' and Gjon Nikollë Kazazi (18 th century) wrote the form në nate 'in the morning' (Topalli 2017(Topalli : 1027)).Pjetrë Budi was from Guri Bardhe, a mountainous town in the Mat valley, and Kazazi was from Gjakovë, which borders the mountainous region of Tropojë where the form mnatje is found.The writer Frang Bardhi (17 th century) from the northwestern Geg region in Dictionarium Latino Epiroticum (1635) also wrote the form <ndenatenete> 'in the morning'.
Natë 'night' and nate 'morning' are certainly related, but the question is how to make sense of this relationship.The term nate 'morning' has survived in the mountainous northern areas.It is completely absent in Tosk and as noted, only a few Geg writers of the 17 th and 18 th century have used the form.We can make sense of this distribution and the unusual meaning of a form based on 'night' by reference to the Northwestern Geg milieu.In particular, the lifestyle of the Northwestern Gegs has been historically based on agriculture, especially the raising of livestock.Berishaj (2013: 97-107, vol.2) cites the detailed classification of livestock from the region of Malësia e Madhe, where there are thirteen distinct types of goats, ten types of sheep, ten types of bulls, etc. 9 The farmers in the region typically awaken in the early hours of the morning when it is otherwise dark.Natë 'night' is semantically associated with the dark hours of the night, whereas the early morning hours nate are also dark but transitioning to daylight. 109 Just for goats there is: kocere 'black goat', lacë 'spotted goat', mushkere 'dark colored goat', kuqele 'red colored goat', sjapole 'goat with big horns', shegla 'pomegranate colored goat, thile 'gray colored goat', balë 'goat with a spot on its forehead', gjesh'la 'goat with a white line that runs across its body and red shoulders', shytë 'goat without horns', viderr 'multi-colored goat', bardhë 'white goat', kracë 'goat that is not completely black' (distinct from a kocere) (Berishaj 2013: 98, vol.2). 10 A phrase recorded in Berishaj (2013: 47, vol.2) has both the definite form nata 'night' and natja 'morning': Kur te thonë: natja e mire, ik se të zuni nata.'When you are told good morning, flee, for the night will catch you'.The shift from 'night' => 'morning' may thus be an innovation in the milieu in which one rises in the morning hours when it is still night-like, i.e. dark.But at the same time, it may also reveal an archaism in view of the fact that the Hittite cognate, nekuz (genitive) means 'of evening'; that is, the Hittite form suggests for the reconstructed noun *nok w t-s (nominative) / *nek w t-s (genitive) an original meaning 'transition period between day and night', and not simply 'night' (as in Standard Albanian and the rest of Indo-European).Nonetheless, we claim that the development of 'night' > '(the morning part of the) day' reflects this traditional pastoral social milieu (though in light of the Hittite nekuz, treating nate 'morning' as an archaism cannot be ruled out).

Conclusion.
The concept of milieu, therefore, has great utility in these case studies, offering a basis for seeing the factors that motivate a semantic shift, and thus allows the analyst to go beyond just a description of the shift.We anticipate that once recognized through case studies such as those given here as playing a role in semantic change, this notion will prove useful in other instances in which the semantic range associated with a given word undergoes a shift. 3

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.A Geg man posing for the photographer beside his oxen drawn cartload (Photo: Carleton Coon 1929) 11