Petrit Latifi

“Two friendly peoples / Dy popuj miq…”

“It has already been stated, that the Albanian language is the common dialect of certain districts in Greece; as of the islands of Poros, Hydra, and Spetsæ, and of the Argolie peninsula below Epidaurus. It is spoken by more than half of the inhabitants of Argos, by those of about twenty villages between Calabryta and Patras, of several villages in thé neighborhood of Paloumpa, of a number on the plain of Lacus and in the district of Helos, and between Monembasia and Leonidi.

It is also the language of about ten villages in the island of Andros. It is corrupted from the proper Albanian, and is considered, even by those who use it, as a vulgar dialect. To discourage its use, it is forbidden to be spoken in the schools of Argos and Hydra, and I believe in the Lancasterian schools generally.

This fact explains the remark above, borrowed from the Greek newspaper, respecting the zeal of the Cranidiotes. Albanian is too much corrupted in liberated Greece, to allow the translation, which has been made of the New Testament into that language, to be of much use there.”

Reference

“Observations Upon the Peloponnesus and Greek Islands” from in 1829.