Sherefedin MUSTAFA Feb 28, 2009:

My 2 cents Albanians are one. They speak the same language, share the same culture and tradition, profess three different religions and more than the half of them live outside the country called Albania.
There are no Albanian Albanians, Kosovo Albanians, Macedonian Albanians, Montenegro Albanians, Boston Albanians etc. It is true that Albanians call themselves, in Albanian, “shqiptarë” but in the course of the Balkan history the variant of this denomination, “Šiptar”, used in some Slavic languages has become offensive and we all now what I mean by saying that.
It is absolutely not true that “Šiptar” is used as a neutral designation for Kosovo Albanian!
The illustration proposed by bpetrov in his discussion entry: “when I was a kid, we had occasionally "shiptars" helping my folks in Belgrade with bringing us heating oil for our stove and around the garden” explains it all.

Come on, people, let’s try to finally look each other straight in the eye!

Lingua 5B Feb 27, 2009:

Derogatory and disapproving When mirrored to the term " Albanian", "Šiptar" is definitely negatively colored. I like the Mark's example " Romi- Cigani ". That'd be an equivalent.

Šiptar is commonly used colloquially.

Here are some semantic features for Šiptar :

- colloquial
- disapproving
- refers strictly to Kosovo Albanians ( in the Serbian language)
- pejorative in a certain context ( not always)
- will be found more offensive by uneducated people who don't know what "Šiptar" actually means in the Albanian language ( the word etymology)

Another example : Bosnian Serbs are sometimes called " Vlasi" by Bosnian Muslims, and it is regarded offensive. All these terms have historical-political background, more or less.

Mark Daniels Feb 27, 2009:

Best avoided I would say that the word is used to refer primarily to Kosovo Albanians, probably because, I suppose, those are the Albanians that Serbs have mostly come into contact with, but if they came across an Albanian Albanian they would probably use the same term. I also agree that it is almost always used in the hostile context you mention and it is hard to imagine a non-pejorative usage. I know what Miomira means - some in Serbia would claim it was not pejorative, like some term of "affection" but to be honest those are usually the same people who would use the word "Cigani" when "Romi" would be quite adequate, and likewise claim they were not being offensive. So it may be used in ignorance, but I don't think that would stop it being offensive, certainly to an Albanian.

Pavle Perencevic Feb 27, 2009:

It's definitely offensive. That's what I've been told by my Albanian friends in Belgrade, and, AFAIAC, that's the end of the argument. The fact that there is a similar-sounding word in Albanian and that it means "sons of eagles" or whatever is irrelevant. By the same logic, it would be ok for a white person to use the "N" word because some African Americans may use it among themselves and it derives from the Latin word for "black".

Anira Feb 27, 2009:

Offensive I would not dare call my Kosovo Albanian friends Siptars. Although the root of the word is benign in the Albanian language, they consider the word derogatory as it has often been used with a negative connotation.

Bogdan Petrovic Feb 27, 2009:

With time, it has become derogatory, although the word is acually an Albanian one ("son of the eagle"). I agree that it depends, I remember more than 30 years ago, when I was a kid, we had occasionally "shiptars" helping my folks in Belgrade with bringing us heating oil for our stove and around the garden. We did call them that and we didn't mean anything bad. But this was in the seventies, in the meantime a lot of things happened and the tone of the word also changed perhaps... I wouldn't call it offensive. Personally, when I say shiptar, I mean a Kosovo Albanian, that's all.

Miomira Brankovic Feb 27, 2009:

Not necessarily offensive The term is colloquially used in Serbian to denote a member of the Albanian population – not necessarily with a negative connotation. However, it seems that it is considered pejorative by the “Shqiptar”, who prefer to be referred to as Albanians. I might be wrong, but I think that the term “Šiptar” is used for any Albanian, whether from Albania or Kosovo or anywhere else.