Talk:Burrel, Albania

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The "most terrible old prison" seems a bit awkward. Perhaps it should be rephrased. What is the source for this info (there were many prisons, I don't know whether this one was the worst)? Also, did you mean to say Besnik Shehu (instead of Mehmet)? You should probably keep in mind that the Shehu family was also responsible for terrible attrocities, so perhaps they shouldn't be made into too big of a victim. There were many more innocent people that were persecuted. Dori 13:49, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes you are right, of course Shehu's father was very much guilty himself, and his atrocities began from the war time and continued specially in 1948, and he was the "main henchman" afterwards. But I think this diesn't mean that his son was guilty or that he wasn't an enemy at least of Hoxha's but also of the regime.

I am not saying that he son was necessarily guilty, but I am saying that prior to his father's death he was probably treated much, much, much better than the rest of Albanians, at their expense. Seeing as he was part of the elite, he might have even been directly guilty of human rights violations (Just a conjecture based on how the elite acted on the population). I am just saying that we should take what Bashkim Shehu says with a grain of salt. Dori 14:27, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that he was much better off than most Albanians before his father's death. And of course we should be critical about what he is saying now. But the only thing I can be suspicious of so far is the time and the exact nature of his dissent. I'll try to search more on what he actually said. In any case, dissent among the communist elite's children seems to be not unusual, good conditions even favouring it if they happen to be intelligent. So I am trying to avoid prejudice but of course also credulity. Andres 16:31, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The reason I mentioned these two writers is that they have described that prison in literary form. Sure this should be reworded and made clear.

Yes, the phrase "most terrible old prison" is not clear. What I meant is that 1) the prison was old and small and this made the conditions in it worse; 2) that prison was hold to be the worst place where to be inprisoned.

If you know more and more precisely and if the present wordings suggest inadequate impressions then please correct the wordings. As for now I am not able to correct this.

My source:

http://membres.lycos.fr/dnthines/al.html

OK, I'll give it a try. Dori 14:27, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Andres 14:16, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

See [1] The prison is described as "infamous", "place of horror" and "This place is called Burel, where one can get in, but can not get out". Andres 05:40, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am sorry, I inadvertently wrote "Mehmet Shehu" instead of "Bashkim Shehu" whom I meant. Andres 14:20, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No need to apologize, I just wanted to make sure before I corrected it. Dori 14:27, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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There are other alternate forms Bureli, Burrelë, Burele. I am not sure how seriously they should be taken and whether they deserve mentioning in the main text, anyway I notice them here.

Is it normal in Albanian that names are written in alternate forms or is it an anomaly to be avoided? Andres 19:10, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The way the albanian language works (I don't know what it's called in English but I am sure there is an article on it somewhere here in Wikiland), names can get different endings. For example, you might have "I live in Burrel." or "I have seen Burrelin" -- the italics being the albanian form that would be present if the sentences were in albanian, they don't make sense in English. These spellings are both valid. Because everything is spelled as it sounds, and some people might "hear" it a bit more differently so you also have invalid (i.e. grammatically incorrect) forms such as Bureli (I think, I'm not sure myself sometimes :). This has to do with sounds that are similar such as l and ll, or e and ë, nj and ni, and so on. I mentioned a similar thing when discussing Mehmet Shehu's article. You then also have to factor in the dialect of the person (see tosk and geg in the Albanian language article). I think I should aggregate the info on the Albanian language article as it might be of interest to someone else, but first I need to find out what the technical terms are (which is why I didn't do this sooner). You'll notice that in the city articles I have put two terms of spelling which are more common in the language. There are many more that are valid, but it probably would not be usefuly to include all of them any more than you would include all the conjugational form of a verb. Dori 22:35, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I am aware of the basics of the Albanian grammar, and I can help writing about Albanian language. The basic terms are "definite form" and "indefinite form" and "cases" (such as nominative and accusative).

But I wonder how it comes that people write names in different forms (not flexions but variants). Is it because they have never seen how they are written? Another hypothesis is that as they pronounce them differently (and there is no pronunciation norm) they write them according to their different pronunciations, the pronunciation being primary, not the written form. Is there such a thing as the norm of writing (the "correct" form)? I am not aware of any other modern language with such a variation in the orthography of names. What I suspect is also that the way foreign names are written according their pronunciation is somehow connected with this issue. Andres 23:03, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Taking it to the Talk:Albanian language page as it is more appropriate there. Dori 03:05, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)