The Roles of Women in the Lexicon of the Albanian “Code of Skanderbeg” (Kanuni I Skanderbegut)

Abstract

A lexical analysis of the so-called Kanuni i Skanderbegut, an Albanian collection of customary laws, provides an insight to understand women’s social role in traditional communities living in the northern area of Albania. In the use of specific terminology one can notice a clear separation between the two sexes which is reflected in the distribution of roles and in using a structured terminology that designates not only roles and conditions, but also other aspects of social life.

Keywords

• etholinguistics
• sociolinguistics
• anthropology
• balkan studies