May 26th, 1999

The difference between Serbians and ethnic Albanians

    Q: How can one tell who is a Serbian and who is an ethnic Albanian? Is the difference obvious by simply looking at someone? What of the people who are half Serbian and half Albanian?

Pat Gilmore from savellwilliams.com

    A: Most of the time, you can't tell. Fifty or twenty years ago, there were different dressing habits, a different traditional cap (Albanians wore a "keche", white half-spheric cap, while the Serbian "shajkacha" is a modified military cap, cyllindric and forming a loose M shape when seen from the front). The Albanians are mostly black haired, while the Serbs are a mixture of ancient-Slavic blonde and all the armies which passed by, from Byzantine, through the crusades, Turks and others. Some people may claim to recognize Albanians, but that probably doesn't work in more than 2% of the cases.

    The mixed-nationality people are few. It's funny though, because there are numerous examples of mixed marriages of Serbs with all the other nations who live here (for example, my kids have three ancestral branches), while there are fewer cases of mixed marriages with Albanians. Their families didn't like the idea, or what.