Most of central institutions in Pristina send invitations and announcements exclusively in Albanian language to Serbian media in Kosovo, thereby violating the Law on Use of Languages, according to which the Serbian language is one of the two official languages. Most of the documents issued by different departments are in incorrectly written Serbian language.
Serbian journalists and their association in Kosovo are protesting lauder because of the violation of language rights, during the events in which Serbian translation was not provided. In the show Dogovor, the journalist of the online portal Gračanica, Ivan Miljković says that such a problem did not happen in previous years when the UNMIK administration organized press conferences.
-We have never received Serbian translation of a press release from the Ministry of Culture of Kosovo, the Ministry of Agriculture and what’s most important from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Government itself. From the Assembly of Kosovo we started receiving with delay of one day, on a rather good Serbian language, said Miljković.
Miljković says that despite the existence of the Commissioner for languages within the Government of Kosovo, their powers are limited and the problem is that the law is not observed. He also says that things have changed a bit because media are reporting on the violation of the Law on Use of Languages.
Professor of Serbian language and literature in the Economic and Trade school in Laplje Selo, Ivana Arsić, believes that the larger problem “what will happen to us” and not with the Serbian language in Kosovo.
“If we allow that another impose its language, we would allow our language to disappear slowly from these institutions. We will allow the Albanian language to be the only official language. You should always react. It is obvious that someone deliberately does it, this is not accidentally or because they do not know Serbian language, but because intention is to suppress the Serbian language,” she notes.
The interlocutors agreed that learning Serbian language in Albanian schools and Albanian in the Serbian schools would probably contributed a better understanding among the communities living in Kosovo, but that it takes time and mutual will.
However, Ivan Miljković says that whatever happens suddenly meets resistance, and thus it would be and with the introduction of language learning. “First you have to create many other things in order to relax the life, to increase the tolerance, to create the rule of law and strengthen the fight against corruption, then the language and communication among people would come in itself.”
