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NIKOLA TUTEK Descriptions of women in "Ihe Albanian Virgin" follow the usual patterns set in descriptions of patriarchal societies. Women are described as absolutely subservient to men, separated from them physically and practically. Albanian women in Munro’s descriptions are simply servants, important for the functioning of society, but deprived even of the right to decide their own marriage choices. It is interesting that Munro seemingly makes no comment on the position of women in traditional Albanian society but a comment is rather achieved by contrasting the life of Lottar and the liberal lifestyle of the narrator. However, after reading the story, I was under the impression that the women from traditional Albanian society found more happiness in life than the narrator. Names in “The Albanian Virgin” are extremely important for the analysis of cultural re-interpretation. First of all, if we accept the idea that Charlotte and Lottar are one and the same person, then we have to assume that the name Lottar is, as noted in the story, how the locals heard and interpreted the name Charlotte. There are two possible problems with this. Firstly, the name Charlotte exists in the Albanian language, and there it is used as Sharlota or possibly an Italianised version Karlota (Carlota). There is no reason why the villagers in Albania, especially in a Catholic village, would have any problem adopting the name Charlotte. It is possible that, because of the English pronunciation, the villagers heard only the ending of the name (as it often happens in communication), which sounded like ‘lot’, and then it became Lottar. There is a problem with that, too. In the Albanian language, the sound /l/ is written with double ll (even at the beginning of words), while one / connotes the soft /K/ sound (palatal lateral approximant; which is not really present English). Hence, the spelling of the name should be Llottar. Of course, it is possible that Lottar is short for the already Albanized form of Sharlota. However, the ending with -r still remains a bit odd as most of the Albanian given female names follow the (predominant phonetic Indo-European languages’) pattern of -a/-e/-é endings. If it was Munro’s intention to name her character Lottar (with the soft /A/ sound in the beginning), there is a possible semantic parallel to the Albanian word with the root lot- (lot, pl. lotét), meaning teardrop or the word luftétar meaning fighter. This surely is a bold observation but, I believe, an interesting one, taking into consideration Munros inclination to literary characterization through the use of given names. Similar to Lottar, both Tima and Gjurdhi seem to be invented names not attested to in the Albanian language. In that respect, the name Gjurdhi is very interesting because it contains two typically Albanian graphemes gj and dh. The Albanian word gjunjézuar (from gju(r)-) depicts the adjective kneeling, and that could be brought into direct connection with Gjurdhi’s previous life of Franciscan priest. Furthermore, the word dhi depicts a goat. In that sense, the name Gjurdhi could easily be explained as ‘the kneeling goat.’ This « 88 *
