“Where do I Find the Words to Describe”: Plant Phenomena and Phytonyms in Himara

Abstract

In the contact zone in the Albanian-Greek border area, the recording of phytonyms is a complex scientifi c task. On the one hand, our key informants who own or declare fl uency in both languages are often able to name four lexemes that defi ne a particular plant: in standard Greek, in the Greek dialect of the region, in standard Albanian and in the Albanian dialect. On the other hand, there are frequent cases when the “translated” names of common and important cultivated plants cannot be attributed to any particular linguistic varieties. The study is dedicated to such diffi culties of translation