What’s in a Name?

What’s in a Name?

I do love a good coinkydink. As you may notice from other writing elsewhere in this website, the handiest analagous cultural reference for Europeans unfamiliar with Malesori culture is probably to the “Highlanders” of Scotland. You know the rap: fiercely independent, wild by reputation, appearing lawless to outsiders, honorable to the point of insanity among themselves, living in uninhabitable mountainous regions, organized by clans, fearsome fighters . . . um, tall and like hunting? Well here’s another odd fact: According to Noel Malcolm (Kosovo: A Short History) the Gaelic word for Scotland is ‘Albainn’ which “classicizing eighteenth-century Scots sometimes turned into ‘Albania.’” Weird, right?