A notice to conlangers on the Albanian endonym
Since toki pona, it has become stylish for a conlang to prefer, in all circumstances, to refer to a nation and its people using only that nation’s endonym. This is not appropriate in all circumstances.
The current Albanian endonym is used as an anti-Albanian slur throughout European countries that are not Albania. Regrettably, the term is often presented to foreigners in a kitsched-out manner which does not adequately explain either the history or the current usage of this word.
I do not want to be a part of your conlang community if it means running the chance of being called that.
The term “Albanian” is, at any rate, also an endonym. It is the evolution of the older term “Arnavut”, and is preferred by Albanians in all diplomatic contexts. It is not a foreign imposition. The Albanian people are rich in foreign impositions. This is not one of them. If you were to call us a slur, though, that would be.
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During the Cold War, when Albania maintained diplomatic relations with pariah states like Pol Pot’s Cambodia, we asked them to call us Albanians, and that remains the Khmer word for Albanian to this day. This was not a colonial imposition on us by the Cambodians. This was them doing as we asked.
If we can ask this of Pol Pot, I feel I should be able to ask this of you.
Please do not call me a slur in English or in your conlang.
I do know that the use of in-group terminology by outsiders is famously taboo to at least one group in the United States as well, and given how obnoxious you are about this, probably other smaller and less famous groups as well. I hear say from a Russian friend that she is not a huge fan, because of how the term was used when the Anglosphere was working tirelessly to overthrow the government of her country and usher in decades of fascist violence, as it did in Albania as well.
It may do well to re-evaluate the assumption that everyone wants you you to call them what they call themselves, and that they find this inoffensive.
Also, it’s Kosova, or Kosovë, not “Kosovo”.
