Terms of Endearment

A few weeks ago we were eating lunch with a mixed group of expats and Albanians and near the end of the meal I said something like "Ok honey, I think we should be going now". One of the Albanian men turned to me and said "You know, it's sad but we really don't use those kind of words in Albanian". I was a bit puzzled but then he explained it to me. Apparently Albanians rarely use words like honey, dear, or sweetie. I also read recently that there is no word for love in this language. I'm not sure if that's true. I know there is a word that I hear a lot which is related to things of love and it is 'dashur', related to the verb 'do'. Dashur means wanted, desired, liked or loved, and 'do' means to want or to need. I've looked it up in my Albanian dictionary and there is something a bit strange about it. Several of the phrases listed under 'do' have to do with wanting something in a bad way.

Here are some examples:

E do me dru= to want it (a blow)(to one's head) with a thick stick, which means to be asking for severe punishment.

E do me kobure= to need a gun to one's head, meaning to need to be shown force.

E do me myke= to want a blow to one's head with a blunt instrument (you get the meaning)

and lastly... do qofte, and here's a phrase I love "to want it like a meatball"!

So you can see that this little word 'do' (pronounced DOE), isn't really the word I'd use if I loved someone. Two sweet Albanian girls were recently trying to teach me some Albanian and they said "when your husband comes home you should say "hello dashuri", and everytime I repeated the word they giggled and giggled. At the time I had no idea why they reacted like that, but now I do. Albanians just don't say sweet things to each other, especially not to those they do love.

Now my sweet Albanian readers, I invite you to shed some light on this subject!