Cergat's Blog

The Greek concept of nomos "rule, order, law" used by Carl Schmitt in the sense of World Order in his work The Nomos of the Earth (see especially, Part V, Ch. 2), finds its anti-civilizational black double and radical other in the Albanian Nëma e Tokës "the Curse of the Earth", which, in this sense, must be understood in relation to smundë e tokës "the sickness of the earth; epilepsy".

nëmë namë f. "curse"; nëm nam, namësój "to curse". Similar to the Greek νομος "law" νέμεσις "wrath, divine vengeance", and Old Irish námae "enemy". (Çabej SE vi, 51).

Differently from what is generally assumed as a result of its more known Greek counterpart, however, the word is not precisely a divine decree, for it is formed by metathesis from emën "name", hence from an obliteration of the Name of the Father (Nomine Patris). The German and English Name and Latin nomine, of course, reassert its opposite connotation, as evinced by the religio-psychoanalytic concept.