Justin Rrota, a philologist and linguist, cleric, and Teacher of the People, passed away. He was born in Shkodra in 1889. He completed high school in his hometown and pursued higher theological studies in Austria. In 1911, he was ordained as a priest. For about 25 years, he worked as a teacher of Albanian language and Latin at the “Illyricum” high school in Shkodra. After the war, due to illness, he lived in the Franciscan Friars’ Convent in Shkodra and, as a collaborator of the Institute of History and Linguistics, he mainly worked on the compilation of the extensive work “Gjuha e shkrueme ase vërejtje gramatikore”(“The Written Language with Grammatical Notes”), which deals with the phonetics, lexicology, morphology, and syntax of the Albanian language, as well as a brief history of Albanology; the work was published by the Academy of Sciences and the Albanian Franciscan Province (Shkodra, 2006). Justin Rrota was particularly involved in the tracing and critical publication of texts by ancient authors, transcribing them and providing comments. From the field of literary history, he published “Letratyra shqype” (“Albanian Literature”) (1925, supplemented edition 1934). As a literary figure, he published a collection of stories, novels, and memoirs titled “Rreth votrës” (“Around the Hearth”) (1945). Justin Rrota brought to Albania for the first time, in 1929, three photographic copies of Gjon Buzuku’s “Meshari” (“The Missal”) and continuously engaged in the study of the language of this work, publishing several scholarly articles, where he also addressed the historical-cultural circumstances of the time when the first Albanian book was published. (In the photo: Justin Rota)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2285-2286.
Photo: © https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Rrota
Graphic processing: AHCF
