AtDtDA23: The Ancient Code of the Region

[Dave Monroe]

"The ancient code of the region, known as Kanuni Lekë Dukagjinit ..."
(AtD, Pt. III, p. 653)


"Ramiz, the Albanian"

Ramiz
Language of origin: Arabic
Gender: male
Meaning/translation: honored, respected (?)
Female form: Ramiza
Variants: Ramiz  Arabic, Turkish, Albanian

http://www.aboutnames.ch/albanian.htm#gnRamiz
http://www.aboutnames.ch/albanian.htm


Kanuni Lekë Dukagjinit

should be "Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit". "Kanuni" is Albanian for "code".

Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit, The Code of Lekë Dukagjini, is a set of laws
developed by an Albanian prince, Lekë Dukagjini (1410-1481), who
fought against the Ottoman Empire. These laws were used mostly in
northern Albania and Kosovo from the 15th century until the 20th
century and were revived recently after the fall of the communist
regime in the early 1990s. Some of the most infamous rules specified
how murder was supposed to be handled (resembled the Italian vendetta)
and it often led to blood feuds that lasted until all the men of the
involved families were killed.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_653

Kanun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanuni_i_Lek%C3%AB_Dukagjinit

Lekë Dukagjini

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lek%C3%AB_Dukagjini

N.B. ...

Gjakmarrja

In line with Albania's ancient social code known as Kanuni i Lekë
Dukagjinit or simply Kanun (English: The Code of Lekë Dukagjini),
someone is allowed to kill another person to avenge an earlier murder.
Gjakmarrja (meaning "Blood feud" or "Revenge Killing") refers to this
practice....

[...]

The Albanian writer Ismail Kadare considers Gjakmarrja to be not an
exclusive Albanian characteristic, but a historical one of the Balkans
as a whole. The Brazilian film Abril Despedaçado based on Kadare's
novel Broken April deals with the subject of an ancestral blood feud
between two landowning families. The storyline has been transplanted
from rural Albania to the Brazilian badlands in 1910.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjakmarrja


The League of Prizren

The League of Prizren (Albanian: Lidhja e Prizrenit) was an Albanian
political organization founded on June 10, 1878 in Prizren, Kosovo. It
aimed at defending the Albanian-inhabited lands from being annexed by
Slavic countries in the Balkans and sought autonomy for Albania under
the Ottoman Empire....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Prizren

1908

Albanian intellectuals meet in Manastir (Bitolja, Macedonia), at the
Congress of Manastir to standardize the Albanian alphabet using the
Latin script. Up to now, Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic script had been
used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Prizren#1908

Cf. ...

N.T.A.

339; New Turkic Alphabet; written language imposed on Central Asia by
Russians; 341; Cyrillic NTA, 354; plenary session, 355; "first Central
Asian fuck you signs," 355 ...

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/n.html#nta
http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=N


"Jetokam, jetokam!"

I'm alive (Albanian).

"Më fal"

Sorry (Albanian).

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_654