Linguistics
Ledi Bilali still remembers the smell of the pizzeria across the street when he first arrived in Greece as a child from Albania. As a bilingual child, he learned Greek very quickly, while at the same time unintentionally internalizing a fear of speaking Albanian in public. He studied in the Department of Philology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, specializing in language contact, and later pursued a PhD on Arvanitika—compiling a dictionary and seeking out some of the last remaining speakers of the language in Greece. Today, he works on revising the Dictionary of Standard Modern Greek, while also co-managing with Artemis Valyraki the Instagram profile e.x.i.s, where they present word etymologies in creative ways. Through linguistics, he argues, we can not only understand the structures of language but also explore social and cultural phenomena—especially when it comes to issues of minorities, identity, and heritage.
“Mission Possible”, featuring Ledi Bilali, PhD graduate of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and researcher at the Manolis Triantafyllidis Institute.
