The term
Olbanian is an alteration of
Albanian, although Albanian is not used to create Olbanian slang.
Learn Olbanian! (
Russian: Учи олбанский!) is a popular phrase that was coined in a 2004 incident in
LiveJournal when an
English language user found a post written in Russian, which he didn't understand and was unable to translate. He asked what language was being used. He was jokingly told that the post was in Albanian. He questioned why people were posting messages in Albanian by saying: Because? It's LIVEJOURNAL. An American website. Not an albanian; (#*!@()! site. Plus, being an American means that the rest of the world should have to cater to me. But that's just mypointofview. In reaction to this comment, an
Internet meme started, urging the English language user to
Learn Albanian! and flooding him with email messages, text messages, and calls to his personal cell phone. Eventually, the English language user wrote an apology in Russian, explaining that he had mastered the Albanian language. Since then, the request to "Learn Olbanian!" became a friendly response to anyone using incorrect grammar or when saying something that doesn't make sense. An invitation to "Learn Olbanian!" was directed at
Madonna in 2006, when in her blog she used an electronic translator to address her Russian fans and called them "Russian ventilators" by mistake (i.e. by confusing "
fan (person)" and "
fan (machine)", while the latter is
ventilyator in Russian). == Use and development==