#Albanian Royal Family

[royal-confessions]

“While everyone is distracted with Catherine, I actually want to know the juicy details of the Albanian crown princely couple's divorce?” - Submitted by Anonymous

#albanian royal family

[between-crowns-and-tiaras]

Princess Geraldine of Albania after her christening, on january 28th, 2023. She is the only child of Prince Leka II of Albania and his wife, Princess Elia. The little girl was was christened as Geraldine Sibilla Françeska Suzan Maria by Archbishop Arjan Dodaj. 

Geraldine: after her great-grandmother, Queen Geraldine of Albania.

Sibilla: after her godmother, princess Sibilla of Luxembourg.

Françeska: after pope Francis.

Suzan: after her grandmother, wife of prince Leka I.

(source: @princleka on Instagram).

#albania #royal children #princess geraldine #prince leka ii #princess elia #albanian royal family #leka ii #crown prince leka ii #crown princess elia #princess geraldine of albania #christening

[europesroyalsweddings]

✵ April 27, 1938 ✵

Countess Géraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Appony & King Zog I

#royal wedding #albanian royal family #albania

[albanyroyals]

THE ROYAL HOUSE | QUEEN IRENE SWORN IN AS THE NEW QUEEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF ALBANY

Earlier today, Queen Irene, along with other members of the royal family gathered in the throne room for the swearing-in ceremony. The event was attended by Queen Rosalie, the Queen Mother, His Royal Highness Prince James, Prince Consort, Their Royal Highness the Duke and Duchess of Lockwood, the Prime Minister, and other members of the House of Commons.

After a few signing of documents, a short photo op was held in the throne room together with the family and the young Queen.

Also a few minutes ago, Her Majesty Queen Irene spoke for the first time as the new monarch, take a look;

My fellow Albanians, we come together as a nation to mourn the death of my father, His majesty King Ryland. As my dear late papa would say "Leadership is for service, not Power", I will keep those words in my mind as I steer this nation and lead us all into a new tomorrow. Together as a country, we may have our ups and downs, but we can all get through it together as Albanians if we are united, and that will be my biggest challenge and goal, to unite us in times of division, to heal us in wounded times. Albany now is the time to grieve and celebrate, to grieve the death of our beloved King Ryland, who served this country for more than 40 years and to celebrate, celebrate a new tomorrow, a future much brighter than yesterday. My dearest Albanians, help me fulfill fulfil my duty as your Queen, and I shall, to the best of my ability, serve you until my last breath. Thank You.

The Queen's aura giving that speech had a sense of hope, she gave us a speech that is less emotional, not like past speeches. For the first time, she spoke to 104 million Albanians, not as the Crown Princess but officially as the Queen of Albany. God, save the Queen!

#ts4 royal family #ts4 royalty #ts4 royal legacy #ts4 legacy #ts4 story #ts4 royal simblr #the sims 4 royalty #the sims 4 royal family #the sims 4 royal #the sims 4 monarchy #the sims 4 royal simblr #albanyroyalstory #albany: chapter 1

[aikoiya]

DP AU - Family Legacy 1

The Fentons, Jack specifically, are descended from the half-blood son of Artemis & Orion that no one knew existed. After Artemis was tricked into killing Orion by her brother, she gave the boy away to keep him safe. That boy grew up to marry the half-blood daughter of Thanatos.

The resulting Legacy child was the start of the Nightingale line.

The Fentons instead came about when an Albanian Lugat had a Dhampir son. Eventually, the 2 lines mixed & began the Fenton-Nightingale line. (Side-Note: At some point, a son of the Fenton-Nightingale line broke off, abandoning the life of a hunter & began the Wayne family.)

The dhampir blood in his veins is actually where Danny's Ghost Sense originates from as dhampirs are known for being able to sense the supernatural. They are also known for wild, dark hair (charateristic of the Fenton & later, the Fenton-Nightingale line) & enhanced physicality.

Anyway, Danny's Ghost Sense is actually just a general supernatural sense amplified by ectoplasm. Jack has it too as shown in the cartoon. Anyway, this sense of his has sort of given him another power that he calls his Vibe-Check. It's exactly what you think it is.

Jack, specifically, has a sort of snub nose. However, I can't seem to find what ethnicity that relates to.

On Maddie's side of the family, she's got Norwegian blood & she's descended from Queen Anna & King Kristoff of Arendelle as well as the daughter of Despoina, the Goddess of Winter, & Boreas, the North Wind. Possibly even Atlantian to go with my Twins AU (because Iceland is close to Norway). I like to make my idea for Atlantis a mixture of the DC concept & the Disney concept with them originally being the land-dwelling Disney version, but after the kingdom sank they used the Heart of Atlantis to be like the DC concept & escape their prison. Then, they learned hydromancy & the ability to link minds with aquatic mammals & control sea creatures in order to survive underwater.

In Norway, there was a clan by the surname of Drekisson, they worshipped the great dragons that lived in the ocean nearby. It is said that their ancestor had fallen in love with an Ægir Dreki (Translates to either 'sea' or 'that of the river/water.') & had twins who became the first Drekissons in their clan.

Then, many years & generations later, there was the daughter of Despoina, the Greek Goddess of Winter, & Boreas, an Anemoi & Greek representation of the north wind. She went to Norway & married a Drekisson.

You can kinda get the idea that Maddie's got northern European ancestry based on the fact that she & her kids have upturned noses which were typical of colder areas & the noses there are shaped this way so that the nose can heat up the air you're breathing.

I would even make it so she had a psychic ancestor to go with my idea that Jazz could be a medium or have psychic potential. The Psychonauts specifically.

Anyway, Danny was born when kids stopped believing in Jack Frost. As a result, he sort of 'died' again & his soul kind of attached itself to the unborn Danny Fenton. I mean, it was only the children of a single small town that believed in him to begin with. Since Sandman made them all think it was a dream, it wasn't long before all but Jamie forgot. After all, kids tend to need their beliefs reinforced by the adults in their life to keep them going.

His soul went to Danny because of his dormant connection to both the night sky from being a descendant of both Artemis & Astraeus (the father of Boreas), which called to his past self as Nightlight, or Nyxluc, one of Astraeus' last Astra Efchés or Wishing Stars, & his connection to ice from the Arendelle royal family & Despoina. (There is this comic on DeviantArt about the origins of Nightlight & it's pretty cool. It's about how the hottest & brightest star was about to go supernova & fused with a collapsing black hole. The star overwhelmed the black hole & became a neutron star, but it began to shrink because of being mixed with a black hole. The end result was Nightlight & I find it a very cool idea.)

This is why Danny Phantom has cryokinesis (though it's actually more like cryoturgy & it takes time for it to manifest in his human form) & it will eventually lead to the manifestation of astromagy, a type of photomagy that focuses on starlight. Because of his unique physiology, his ice & light powers won't just be ectoplasm-based (because ectoplasm is made up of psychic energy according to my theory & so a lot of those elemental powers are kinetic in origin rather than magical), but also magic-based in a way unrelated to ghost or death magic, so blood blossoms or ectoranium or any other anti-ecto stuff won't be able to stop them as they are also innate to Danny Fenton & not just Danny Phantom.

Because of this, these powers become a problem for him because they don't work like his ghost powers do being of magical origin rather than psychic.

On another note, his Mediterranean lineage means that when he decides to protect Amity as a ghostly hero, he becomes a type of Tutelary spirit called a lar praestite which gives him a connection to the Greek goddess, Hestia, otherwise known as the Roman goddess, Vesta, as well. Lares are typically portrayed as wearing a chlamys or military cloak, holding a Greek dory or Roman pilum, & having a dog at their feet.

In a way, you could consider the hazmat suit the uniform of a ghost hunter. Once Cujo (who I hc as being a Cú-síth) bonds with Danny & sort of becomes his familiar, it gives the pup certain new powers of his own as a result. Likewise, once Danny develops a better hold of his ice powers, he begins to make a habit of forming a spear or lance out of his Ghost Ice unconciously.

Now, very briefly, a Cú-síth is a mythological Gaelic/Celtic dog that are believed to be a type of fae (though, keep in mind that fae doesn't just mean fairies &, in fact, can also include the dead as well). They are known to have green, shaggy fur & be the size of small cows. They are also known for ferrying the souls of the dead to the afterlife, thus making them a type of Psychopomp.

As Hereafterers, a.k.a. ghosts of the GZ, they have classifications just like Earthbound spirits, but Hereafterers can have multiple classifications much like humans can have multiple ethnicities, while Earthbounds can only have one. Because of the way they died, both Danny & Vlad are also a type of spirit called a Gatekeeper Ghost, meaning those who died in order to open a permanent doorway from one place to another. Because they specifically were killed to open doorways to the GZ, that makes them a subcategory of Gatekeeper Ghosts, called a Psychopomp which are spirits that guard the barrier between life & death & ferry spirits from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Both do their jobs in different ways. Danny behaves more like a police officer or border patrol, while Vlad lets anyone whose on his payroll through whenever it suits him.

While Danny can manipulate regular ice in a similar way to Jack Frost & Elsa, he can also create Ghost Ice which is nearly indestructible.

The rest of Team Phantom & Valerie are also Legacy children. Sam being descended from Zagreus, God of Rebirth & the son of Hades & Persephone on one side of her family & Hecate on the other. When Undergrowth took her over, it sorta awoke the dormant powers inside her because Undergrowth's powers are similar enough to a mix of Hades & Persephone's that like recognized like. This results in a form of atavism that turned Sam into a true half-blood. This mixed with the ecto-herpies that Vlad gave her results in her becoming a Halfa eventually & she's like a mix between Poison Ivy & Raven, powerwise.

On the other hand, she's also Jewish. The problem is, I don't know if it'd be just Jewish the religion or if it'd also be Jewish the ethnicity, but Imma go with both. I feel like Jeremy might have a Jewish ethnic background from his mother, Ida, though which tribe is difficult to say. Possibly Levi because that's the tribe I'm, personally, descended from. However, if Pamela is Jewish too, I'd say that she either converted or was raised in the Jewish beliefs, but isn't ethnically Jewish herself.

On her mother's side, she is descended from Hecate, as such, her family used to be a long line of powerful magic users until one of her ancestors, a witch, was burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials. Afterwards, they began to hide their magic, suppressing it to the point where members often became Obscurials. They did whatever they could to appear perfectly normal. (Some of the more zealous even becoming Scourers.) It's a closely-guarded family secret that they never talk about.

Pamela is especially wary of it because she worries that her own daughter is going down the same path that lead to her ancestor's destruction. Like, she's against the gothic aesthetic on principle, but her rejection of Sam's lifestyle choice is also fueled by generational trauma & genuine concern for her daughter's wellbeing, but the only way she knows how to express that is through nagging & trying to change her the way her own mother did to her. So, she's not just disregarding Sam out-of-hand. There's a reason behind it. Not to mention that Pamela is very likely raising Sam the same way she herself was raised. (In my mind, I generally consider the witches in Harry Potter to be wiccans instead of actual witches because in my mind witches are those who intentionally sell their souls for power. However, as per HP canon, that isn't the case with Rowling's characters. So, I go more for a DnD interpretation in which witches & warlocks are basically just what the books call dark wizards. Meanwhile, everyone else is either wizard or wiccan.)

Sam also has an upturned nose, so it's likely that she has northern European ancestry too. Her mom, however, appears to have more of a Nubian nose from the profile. So, make of that what you will. That or it could be Greek, but the end of her nose doesn't point downward enough to be a Greek nose. It could also be Nordid. That, or it's just an upturned nose like her daughter's, but it honestly doesn't look like it.

Meanwhile Sam's father has a very Roman, Semitic, or North American Indian-looking nose. It's most likely Roman or Semitic considering my theory of his ancestry. The fact that Jeremy has the nose he does is unsurprising because of his Jewish lineage. Oddly, Ida has a Greek nose, so that just lends credence to my theory.

Moving on, Tucker is descended from a half-blood daughter of Hephaestus who went to Egypt & married the son of Pharaoh Duul Aman, who was the son of Chay-Ara & Bashari from DC. And Bashari was descended from Ra. Anyway, Tucker might also have Hindu blood, but I don't know why I think that. He might also have dormant werewolf genes on his mother's side & could be part of why he's such a carnivorous person, but that's to be speculated. If those genes do reveal themselves, he might come out looking slightly more jackal-like than other werewolves. Or we could have his Thanagarian blood activate, causing a sort of atavism. Or we could have him do both?

That could be interesting as it'd give him an appearance similar to that of a bipedal Sīmurgh. Though, obviously, he wouldn't actually be one as Sīmurgh are always female according to myth. That, or males are just extremely rare. But either way, the imagery would be very interesting.

Valerie is the descendant of an Amazon warrior & captain in the Royal Amazon Military named Dihya, who had taken on the curse of Salmacis so that she could help her people have more pure-blood Amazonians. However, she fell in love with one of her male slaves that was given to her as a present from the kingdom of Wakanda. As a Warrior of Hermaphroditus, according to Amazonian law, she was supposed to either give her services to other Amazonian women to produce more Amazons or marry an Amazonian woman. She could have male slaves & even use them for pleasure, but she couldn't marry a man unless he pledged himself to the crown, became a warrior himself, & took on the Oath of Salmacis, thus giving him partial rights as a partial woman.

Even then, he'd need to buy his freedom by proving his merit as a warrior in battle. However, even if he did manage all of that, he'd still never be considered a true equal in Amazon society for having been born male &, as such, would only be given half rights as her spouse. As a result, Dihya would still be required to either act as a stud for Amazonian women or simply take an Amazon wife & she'd not only be given full rights as Dihya's bride, but she'd have more power in the household than Dihya's husband. Not only that, but any children Dihya & her male love had would be considered less than for having a father instead of 2 mothers. (The mother who bears is referred to as Foréas-Mitéra when speaking of her & Formḗtēr when addressing her; the mother who sires is refered to as Prógonos-Mitéra & Prómḗtēr when addressing her.)

Dihya didn't want that for her lover or their children, so they ran away back to Wakanda under the cover of night & got married there. Dihya lent her services as a warrior to the Wakandan King in exchange for asylum. They lived very happily together until a war broke out among the African tribes surrounding Wakandan borders. One such tribe belonged to an ally of Wakanda & Dihya died fighting off a battalion mostly on her own. She succeeded, but was injured to anextent that Wakanda's medical knowledge at the time could not heal. She is remembered as a hero.

Anyway, both Tucker & Valerie have similar noses, so it's possible that it's just the cartoon's representation of Nubian noses. Although, interestingly, their eye colors definitely suggest that they also have white-European blood in them.

Moving on, because they're all so far down the bloodline, none of their godly ancestors are really paying attention to them anymore.

Vlad isn't a Legacy child. He has deep European roots though, having Albanian, Romanian, Russian, & possibly even some Germanic blood as well as other Southern European ancestry judging by his Aquiline nose. (I wouldn't be surprised if he came from one of those Russian families that insist they're descended from Anastasia Romanov.)

I even just thought of something. You know, he has a very similar face shape to Eugene Fitzherbert from Tangled & especially Tangled the Series. Not to mention, a massive ego seems to run in the Dark Kingdom's (I call it Lacerna) royal bloodline. Who knows, he might be a descendant of Eugene & Rapunzel? Also, the ghosts of Lacerna's royalty bare a striking resemblance to Vlad's ghost form.

As such, his father was half-German on his father's side. Before they came to America, their name was 'Meisters,' but it was changed to 'Masters' upon arriving in America.

As for the classification of half-ghost he is, as I mentioned before, he's definitely a Psychopomp, though not a very good one. I'm not sure what else he could be though. Definitely something vengeful. Maybe a Revenant. At the same time, revenge is only one aspect of him rather than his Obsession. Rather, his true Obsession is having a family that loves & understands him.

It's possible that instead of being half-human, he's half some sort of vampiric entity. He certainly bares strong traits of both a Lugat & a Strigoi. Lugats return from the grave to pursue something they sought in life while Strigoi are known for draining away wealth as opposed to blood. So, it's very possible that he could be a mix of both. Or he could simply be descended from a non-Lugat vampire as he doesn't have the supernatural sense typical of Dhampiric legacies. Or all of the above.

If he is a Lugat, then he'd very specifically be Lugat instead of Dhampir & it'd be because he himself rose from the dead to pursue something instead of being the child of one.

However, something important to note is that Lugats very specifically have returned to life on sheer force of will, not due to being turned into one by another the way the Vampires of the Masquarade are. As such, due to Lugats being legitimately alive, yet still benefiting from a vampiric gift, damn near every vampire in the Masquarade hates them for one reason or another. Whether it be due to them being alive with powers that they were only able to obtain through death &, in many cases, relinquishing a large amount of freedom, independence, & individuality. Or the fact that they are still able to reproduce naturally or what-have-you.

Anyways, he's got retractable fangs in human form too because he's vampiric. He just thinks that it's a result of his ghost powers, but Danny's canines when he reaches Halfa Puberty only come out in human form when he's angry. Meanwhile, Vlad can just summon his fangs whenever he wants to. So, he just keeps them hidden. Sure, they also come out in certain situations like when he needs to feed on blood/ectoplasm or the muscles that allow them to come out are stimulated, but other than that, he has full control of them. Danny doesn't & they only come out in human form on instinct & he can't learn control of them either.

Because of this, he has some basic vampiric abilities that he doesn't know about. Such as being able to hypnotize people by staring into their eyes, turning into either a wolf or bat/swarm of bats, & turning into a cloud of mist.

Despite needing blood, both regular & ectoplasmic, to survive, biting someone doesn't turn them too because of his unusual geneological mix. Also, he sunburns easily, but it isn't to the point where he literally burns in the sun. (Perhaps being descended from Rapunzel gives him some resistance to the sun... or it could just be his ghost half...) Not unless he hasn't fed on blood in a long time. At which point, he will begin to legitimately, but slowly, burn in sunlight. As for mirrors, only silver ones work because of the metal being considered pure. It isn't just mirrors either, anything pure silver & reflective will show a see-through reflection of his ghost form. (If he were full Lugat, he simply wouldn't have a reflection & if he were half human instead of half ghost, his ghost half's reflection would only appear in bronze mirrors & it wouldn't be see-through; it's like his 2 halves made a compromise.) A stake through the heart will kill him, but only if it's made of, like, rowan which ghosts can't phase through.

He is also allergic to garlic now, which he hates because it means he can't enjoy Italian anymore. It's also a matter of smell, though. So, any really strong smelling vegetable will smell horrible to vampires. It's just that garlic is the worst. Though, for some reason, Vlad is okay with those other vegetables.

Because of his Neutral Evil alignment, holy symbols do affect him, but not as much as if he were a demon-possessed or Satan-aligned vampire. That means that holy water will give him a nasty burn, but it won't kill him. Churches & crosses make him feel very uncomfortable, in the "someone very big, very powerful, & very important is judging me & finding me wanting" kind of way & if he's on hallowed ground, it'll feel like some kind of dangerous predator is always watching him. Silver & palo santo both hurt like a son of a bitch because of his alignment.

If he weren't such an asshat, these things wouldn't hurt him quite so much.

Rowan, iron, & salt also hurt like hell, especially in ghost form. But that's more because of his ghostliness rather than his vampirism. Danny only really gets itchy from salt because of his Neutral/Chaotic Good alignment. However, other symbols of holiness & purity don't really affect Danny at all because of both his alignment & his status as a Tutelary spirit.

I like the idea that Vlad's lips in ghost form, as well as the ends of his fingers & toes, are blackened, as if burned. His lips aren't black as if painted, but more so as if to suggest that his insides are darker than his skin appears.

Anyway, I think I'll make it so Vlad also has a dragon ancestor very far down the line. Like, eons back.

As a last line of defense or something, he'll subconsciously tap into his draconic DNA & take on a sort of chimerical form with the appearance of an enraged gargoyle (from Disney's Gargoyles) & other features ranging from vampiric to ghostly.

This will increase his physical abilities 10-50 fold.

Think Plasmius, but his hair will fall down in charcoal black curtains with a strip of silver starting in the middle & tucked behind his ear, but the ends of his hair glow with a magenta gradient like burning embers, from his forehead will grow horns that starts the same teal color as his skin before turning coal black (they curve back over the top of his head before pointing upward to make a V-shape), which his skin is now thicker & more durable & covered in patches of thick, white scales, fangs become long & saber-like, fingers become talons, legs digitigrade with taloned feet, a long, tapered, lizard-like tail, ears remain the same, his cape becomes wings, his eyes have a firey light in them, his tongue long, thin, prehensile, & snake-like, & he towers at 8-10 feet.

Something like this:

His suit is left as little more than a loincloth with his belt holding it in place to reveal his teal body underneath. His gloves & boots are shredded as if his hands & feet had burst from their cloth prisons. Not to mention, his hair would be down instead of up in those weird devil horns & he's got an aquilin nose instead of an upturned one. This picture is by @kaezerdoodles. I do not own. Her art just very much resembles what I had in mind.

Edit: I finally have my own art of him!

Anyway, the problem is that, in this state, he's mostly instinct & starts out having no control of it. He's feral & animalistic, frequently switching from walking on 2 legs to 4 legs, but is still essentially Vlad inside, but he more so follows Vlad's true feelings & this acts as a good insight into his true psychological state. I imagine that his mannerisms in this state are strangely feline.

As it stands, he's never been hurt so badly that he takes on this form before.

When he's super angry in this form, his hair catches on fire, slitted pupils appear in his eyes, along with a fire, & the burnt look to the digits begin to climb up his body.

Like this:

The hair is inspired by @kaezer's picture of a very angry Vlad. It's very cool. You should totally go look at it.

(I can imagine a bit of a side-plot where Vlad manages to steal one of the Amulets of Mattingly & after putting it on, then getting angry & being transformed into a dragon, Danny fights him & manages to remove the amulet. However, the odd thing is, now Vlad takes on this partial dragon look whenever he loses his temper. This acts as a hint to his draconic lineage.)

The dragons of Harry Potter are actually drakes rather than true dragons as true dragons are both sentient, capable of magic, & able to take on human form much like the ones from DnD. Drakes are to dragons what monkeys are to humans. They are incapable of speech, live shorter lifespans, & despite being innately magical beings, the only magic they are truly capable of are their breath attacks.

True dragons are an ancient species separated into cardinal tribes & even further separated into elements. They are speculated to have left Earth for a universe where they could thrive.

There are, however, remnants of their species from when dragons & humans lived in harmony. Specifically in the form of humans with draconic blood such as the Welsh being the most commonly known example.

Vlad is descended from one of these dragons, a Vehement Sanguinobil specifically, (Malzeno from Monster Hunter is a regular Sanguinobil) as humans would be unable to breed with drakes.

Anyway, there's a story called "His Stolen Princess" that's really good, but twisted. In it, Vlad is descended from a long line of old money, Wisconsin dairy farmers & his uncle was the Dairy King. I just thought that was hilarious & decided to include that.

I'm gonna go with it having been Vlad's mother who was the Dairy King's sister.

Problem, because of the way the animators draw eyes & ears, I can't be sure what ancestry could be figured from that.

DP Character Masterlist

#dp #danny phantom #crossover #percy jackson #rotg #rise of the guardians #danny fenton #jack frost #nightlight #sam manson #tucker foley #valerie gray #lineage #fenton family #fenton-nightengale #frozen #elsa of arendelle #arendelle sisters #anna of arendelle #tangled the series #psychonauts #legacy au #aikoiya au #writing prompt #kaezer art #my art #aikoiya art

[gulnarsultan]

》 Mükrime Hatun 《

(In some sources, it is written as Mükerrem and Muharrem.)

Real name: Hüma

Date and place of birth : 1494 / Shkodër

Date of death and place: 05.09.1555 Edirne

Father: Skanderbeg (formerly / Prince Stephan Stanisha Chirnoevich)

Mother: Albanian Princess (probably Princess Arianiti)

Origin: Montenegro Royal family Chirnoyevich (Chernoyevich) dynasty

Spouse: 1 Süleyman

Marriage date : 12.1508 / Şebinkarahisar

Children: Şehzade Bayezid Meryem Sultan Neslihan Sultan Şehzade Murad

Mükrime Hatun lived in Edirne Palace since 1534. And after 1545, he lived in his own palace in Edirne.

◇ Photo is representative.◇

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #mukrime hatun #ottoman empire #ottoman history #sultans #sultan süleyman #sultan suleyman #suleiman the magnificent

[sciencespies]

Curse Words Around the World Have Something in Common (We Swear)

https://sciencespies.com/news/curse-words-around-the-world-have-something-in-common-we-swear/

Curse Words Around the World Have Something in Common (We Swear)

These four sounds are missing from some of the seven words you can never say on television, and the pattern prevails in other languages too, researchers say.

“Holy motherforking shirtballs!” a character exclaimed on “The Good Place,” a television show that took place in a version of the afterlife where swearing is forbidden (as it is in this newspaper, most of the time). In a way, this celestial censorship was realistic.

A study published Tuesday in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review found that curse words in several unrelated languages sound alike. They’re less likely than other words to include the consonant sounds L, R, W or Y. And more family-friendly versions of curses often have these sounds added, just like the R in “shirt” or “fork.” The finding suggests that some underlying rules may link the world’s languages, no matter how different they are.

“In English, some of the worst words seem to have common phonetic properties,” said Ryan McKay, a psychologist at Royal Holloway, University of London. They’re often short and punchy. They also tend to include the sounds P, T or K, “without giving any obvious examples,” Dr. McKay said. These sounds are called stop consonants because they interrupt the airflow when we’re speaking.

Dr. McKay teamed up with his colleague Shiri Lev-Ari to learn whether this familiar pattern went beyond English. They wondered whether it might even represent what’s called sound symbolism.

Sound symbolism is when a word sounds like what it means. One type is onomatopoeia; for example, words that describe a cat’s meow or a rooster’s crow are similar across many languages. Globally, words having to do with noses often include the nasal N sound, and words related to smallness often have an “ee” sound (as in “mini” or “teensy weensy”), like the squeaking of a small creature.

To look for patterns in swearing, the researchers asked fluent speakers of Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean and Russian to list the most vulgar words they could think of. Once they’d compiled a list of each language’s most frequently used epithets, the researchers compared these with neutral words from the same language.

In these languages, they didn’t find the harsh-sounding stop consonants that seem common in English swear words. “Instead, we found patterns that none of us expected,” Dr. Lev-Ari said. The vulgar words were defined by what they lacked: the consonant sounds L, R, W and Y. (In linguistics, these gentle sounds are called approximants.)

Next, the scientists looked for the same phenomenon using speakers of different languages: Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, French, German and Spanish. The subjects listened to pairs of words in a language they didn’t speak, and guessed which word in each pair was offensive. In reality, all the words were invented. For example, the researchers started with the Albanian word “zog,” for “bird,” and created the pair of fake words “yog” and “tsog.” Subjects were more likely to guess that words without approximants, such as “tsog,” were curses.

Finally, the researchers combed through the dictionary for English swear words and their cleaned-up versions, also called minced oaths (“darn,” “frigging” and so on). Once again, the clean versions included more of the sounds L, R, W and Y.

“What this paper finds for the first time is that taboo words across languages, unrelated to each other, may pattern similarly,” said Benjamin Bergen, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the study.

Unlike other cases such as cock-a-doodle-doos or words for “nose,” these words don’t share a meaning, but a function. They’re meant to offend. The results suggest that “not all sounds are equally suitable for profanity,” the authors wrote.

“That’s a new thing,” Dr. Bergen said. “Maybe the things that we want to do with words lead us to expect those words to have particular sounds.”

To make sure the pattern of approximants missing from curses isn’t an accident, it would be nice to find it in an even larger sample of languages, said Dr. Bergen, author of a book called “What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves.” It would also be nice to learn why those consonants are missing. “There may be some deeper explanation,” he said.

A 20th-century linguistic principle held that the sounds of words were arbitrary: Any word could have any meaning. “That’s really supposed to be one of the things that defines language,” Dr. Lev-Ari said. With profane words, though, as in other cases of sound symbolism, the sounds themselves seem to carry meaning.

“This can shape and change our understanding of how languages are formed,” Dr. Lev-Ari said.

French is an exception, she noted — swear words in French have just as many of the gentler consonant sounds as other words. Yet when native French speakers heard pairs of foreign-sounding words, they were still less likely to guess that words with L, R, W and Y sounds were curses.

“This is really something fundamental,” Dr. Lev-Ari said. “There’s something about the sounds that inherently sounds non-sweary.”

#News

#News

[sinnhelmingr]

Historical families Hel is known to have given her patronage to because I Cannot Shut The Fuck Up:

Made contact with and on her demise took the spirit of Hanka, the wife of a deposed Albanian Bey in the late 18th century. Haka proved a cunning and bold woman, one Hel would have been honored to count among her ranks. All Hanka asked in exchange was that Hel give her family power to reclaim their lands and avenge their lost patriarch, especially for the sake of her ten year old son, Ali. Hel granted certain favors to the band of brigands that the mortal woman assembled, and in turn pointed the eyes of the Empire towards the young lion that Ali would become as he came of age. After that, she needed to do little, as the man made a name for himself as a fierce warrior and vassal to the Sultan. Regardless of her lack of influence over his adulthood, she was a passing figure in Ali’s court, always welcomed as a valued guest when she traveled the north of Greece. When he was executed for his rebellion against the Empire in 1822, Hel turned her guidance towards his youngest child per RP lore. Haydee was especially doted upon and cherished by Hel upon the teenager’s arrival in Europe over a decade later, likely due to her resemblance in spirit to her fierce father and unrelenting grandmother. Well, that and one can debate endlessly how much of herself Hel saw in the dutiful daughter moving Heaven and Hell and enduring any indignity for the chance to avenge her beloved father. It is uncertain whether Hel continued to provide patronage to Haydee’s descendants, as all of her children were adopted, but given Hel’s own stance on blood bonds, it seems likely she continues to provide at least blessings towards the family into the modern era. The only exception to this would be if Hanka bound the pact to her own blood, at which point Haydee’s descendants are on their own regardless of Hel’s feelings.

Made contact with and offered succor to the daughter of a French executioner in the 17th century, keeping up an interpersonal relationship even after the young woman’s marriage to a soldier. When called upon to keep watch over her companions son and descendants, Hel accepted. This is how she became a patron of the infamous Sanson family of executioners. What details exist of this arrangement are scarce, but it can be assumed the goddess offered some knowledge, power, or protection to the family over the centuries that followed. Her most integral relationship of the Sansons might be with their best known member Charles-Henri, the Royal Executioner during the French Revolution. It is known that during the Terror, Hel kept to rooms that overlooked the scenes of executions, and she claimed she was conducting some research in her unflinching vigil over human ugliness. Charles-Henri might have been her favorite of the family, but the line continued as executioners through his son, an his grandson, before the family lost their role as executioners.  It is unlikely her patronage extended past this point, ending a 159 year arrangement between the divine and the wretched. It is also unlikely that Hel collected the souls of any of the Sansons for her army, but rather forged a deal for knowledge in exchange for whatever the family gained from her as their divinity incognito.

Both agreements came about in the same relative stretch of time, forged less than a century apart and both having potentially ended in the late 19th century. From this, one might assume she was only open to such arrangements during a very specific ‘dead’ period in her time on Midgard. However, this ignores that she had been attempting to make deals during the 9th century (Ivar the Boneless, exact deal status unknown) and in the 15th century (Vlad Dracula, who denied her offer for alliance.) It is more likely that Hel has been extending her hand to mortals across the centuries, and that Hanka and the Sansons are simply the most recent of her deals, and thus better recorded than those who came before them.

#they can't get into my head [HEADCANON]

[artatheartist]

Parashqevi Qiriazi, one half of the iconic “Motrat Qiriazi” duo, was born on June 2nd, 1880 in Monastir, Macedonia. One of ten children, she quickly followed in her brother Gjerasim’s and sister Sevasti’s footsteps by helping them teach students the written Albanian language at the Girl’s School (“Shkolla e Vashave”), that Gjerasim and Sevasti opened, when Parashqevi was only 11 years old.

After studying in Istanbul, Parashqevi worked as a teacher in Korçë, Albania with her sister Sevasti. In 1908, she was the only woman to participate in the Congress of Monastir (“Kongresi i Manastirit,” an academic conference held in Manastir from November 14-22, 1908, with the goal of standardizing the Albanian alphabet), and the following year, in 1909 she published a primer (“Abetare”), for Albanian elementary schools.

That same year, she helped found “Yll' i Mëngjesit” (Morning Star), a periodical which focused on politics, culture, history, literature, etc in Albania. She also organized local libraries as well as teaching sessions for children and night schools in southern Albanian villages.

Due to the fact that she was so out-spoken and politically active, Parashqevi traveled often, becoming a prominent figure in the Albanian-American community, after moving to New York. She even partook in the “Conference of Peace” in Paris, as a representative of the rights of Albanians, in 1919.

After returning to Albania in 1921, she and her sister founded the “Kyrias” institution, an all-girls foundation located in Tiranë that provided teachers for the newly developed schools in Albania.

In October of 1928, Parashqevi founded the organization “Gruaja Shqiptare" (The Albanian Woman). This was incredibly impactful, not only because it was it was backed by the Royal Albanian Family, but also because it promoted the idea of raising Albanian women to a higher level through charitable activities, education, etc. This organization pushed against the traditional conservative way of thinking and advocated for the emancipation and rights of Albanian women, both socially and politically.

Due to her staunch anti-fascist stance, Parashqevi and a number of her family members were imprisoned during WWII. She was eventually released and returned to Albania, where she died on December 17th, 1970.

Her legacy lives on in the organizations that still function to this day and carry her name, as well as the Abetares that are still used in Albanian schools across the globe.

#artatheartist #art #albanian #albanianartist #albanianart #playingcards #albanianplayingcards #shqiperiaetnike #8marsi #womanshistorymonth #Parashqevi Qiriazi #motrat Qiriazi

[royal-confessions]

“I just read that Prince Leka and Princess Elia of Albania are divorcing. My heart goes out to 3 year old Princess Geraldine, their only child. 💔 😭 💔” - Submitted by Anonymous

#albanian royal family

[between-crowns-and-tiaras]

The christening of Princess Geraldine of Albania took place on january 28th, 2023. The little princess was christened as Geraldine Sibilla Françeska Suzan Maria by Archbishop Arjan Dodaj. Geraldine is only child of Prince Leka II of Albania and his wife Princess Elia. She was born on 18th death anniversary of Queen Geraldine (her great-grandmother).

Princess Sibilla of Luxembourg is her Godmother.

(source: @royals_without_throne on Instagram).

#albania #princess geraldine #royal children #albanian royal family #luxembourg #princess sibilla of luxembourg #christening #princess geraldine of albania

[europesroyalsweddings]

✵ October 15, 2016 ✵

Elia Zaharia & Prince Leka Zogu of Albania

#albanian royal family #albania #Royal Wedding

[tiaramania]

Crown Princess Elia of Albania is at the Russian imperial wedding and I’m pretty sure the gala dinner tonight is going to be a tiaras for everyone dress code which means we’re very likely to see…A GOAT TIARA!

This is not a drill.  The gala starts at 7:00 PM in St. Petersburg and I am going to be on full goat tiara watch!  Everyone cross your fingers for the dress code and that we get good pictures.

#Tiara Talk #it’s my least favorite goat tiara but it’s still a goat tiara #Albania #Albanian Royal Family #Crown Princess Elia

[pokadandelion]

King Zog I of Albania and his wife Queen Geraldine

#king zog of albania #queen geraldine of albania #albanian royal family #albanian history #house of zogu

[europesroyalsjewels]

Albanian Sapphire Ram Tiara ♕ Crown Prince Leka II

#leka #crown prince leka #prince leka ii #albania #albanian royal family #albanian royal jewels #Diamond Jewelry #Diamond Tiara #tiara #diamond jewels #royal jewels #house of zogu #albanian ram tiara

[gabriellademonaco]

Royal Wedding Bouquets:

Princess Elia of Albania (2016)

#princess elia of albania #albanian royal family #royaltyedit #royal wedding #royal wedding bouquets #mine