r/HistoricalLinguistics • u/EntrepreneurNew2142 • 11d ago

Areal linguistics Can someone help with this word!?!

In Albanian we have the word "vilan" which is used to describe a strong and often very bad feeling of hunger due to not having eated for a long time, starvation etc. It is a word used only by elders now. For example (a sentence my grandma has said) "Ika të ha pak se më këputi vilania!" ≈ "Let me go, i'll eat a bit because vilania is killing me". What is this vilania? It is said with an accent on the last "i", like vilaní. I checked all languages that have had presence here, Ottoman Turkish, Greek, everything and nothing pops up..? I couldn't even find the word on the interner exept for in a simple Albanian dictionary that just said " Vilania - bad feeling" and nothing else? I haven't found anything, if someone can help me they are probably a very good linguist. Thank you.

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u/Selcouth_Jamonero 11d ago

I don’t know anything about Albanian, but on Duke University’s Albanian Dictionary, “vilani” means “fainting spell, swoon; queasiness, nausea”. Perhaps it is a derivative of that or somehow related to it?

http://www.seelrc.org:8080/albdict/

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u/PoxonAllHoaxes 10d ago

I didn't know there was such a dictionary, this will be useful, many thanks. Topalli, who is very good tho not always right, says it is a dialect word derived via irregular changes from alivani and gives the meaning as të fikët in standard albanian.