Albanian Language Competition Final/Kumbaro, message: Don't give up Albanian, it makes you unique

2026-04-16 11:52:00, Aktualitet CNA

Albanian Language Competition Final/Kumbaro, message: Don't give up

The final of the fourth edition of the Albanian Language Competition is being held today, between the "Edith Durham" and "Besëlidhja" schools in Lezha, an event that has become a tradition that celebrates and promotes the values ??of our language and turns it into an educational priority.

Minister of Education Mirela Kumbaro greeted and thanked all students, teachers and parents for their dedication, commitment and participation, while the Minister of Education and Science of Kosovo, Hajrulla Çeku, also participated in this final.

"We have been together every day since January, when we opened the Albanian Language competition, and today we all gather together to celebrate the success of this journey in spring, where everything outside is green, vibrant and renewed, as you renew the Albanian language with your passion. There are very beautiful words in the Albanian language for this season and you have used all of them."

I am very happy that today, with my invitation, I also have my friend Harjulla Çeku, Minister of Education and Science of Kosovo, whom I am very pleased to welcome on his first official visit as Minister of Education in Tirana. I am also happy to share the news that in our schools we are starting the first joint Olympiad with Kosovo, as a chain that has begun and continues and will not know any borders between us because we are connected by language, nation, blood. This event adorns our national mosaic of the Albanian language.

"Our powerful weapon is our antiquity, tradition, culture, roots and identity, as well as our youth... We want and seek democratic ways to accept us for who we are without harming anyone," said Ibrahim Rugova, one of the greatest defenders of issues of identity and our national cultural sphere.

Believe me, even though I am not a minister who comes from the field of letters, translation, linguistics, literature, I have great emotions today, emotions that you have given me, at all levels of this competition: during the moments of debate, recitation, projects, questions and answers, but also of a tear that escaped when you did not win that competition. It has been a pleasure, emotion and true pride to listen to you. A very deep gratitude should be shared by all of us also towards your teachers who have stood by your head during the preparation, thank you, because you have put your passion, we have done it overtime, as we have already called "After School". Therefore, today we close a final that unites your responsibility, knowledge and citizenship.

This competition is precisely one of those initiatives that turn the Albanian language into an educational priority. We are also building a system that gives your peers in the Diaspora the opportunity to learn Albanian as an institutional language, certified, recognized by the European Framework of Languages, to speak it not only in the family, but also as a working language and in any other type of communication.

You are growing up in a global reality that tends to standardize, simplify communication and generalize everything, including words, but you must always be aware of your language, what lexical, folkloric, dialectal wealth you have as a gift from your ancestors, grandparents, parents and face that great temptation when we write those “flm” messages. But when we speak Albanian, this is the Albanian that you face today in the competition. Don't give up Albanian! Everyone speaks English today. But Albanian!

Albanian is written in our genetic code, which is why we are who we are today and why we are here.

"I don't want to add anything more, except to wish you success and to fly as high as possible, clinging to the ribbon that connects you to the roots of the Albanian language," were the words of Minister Kumbaro./ CNA