Balkan linguistic union: Encyclopedia - Balkan linguistic union

Balkan linguistic union

Balkan linguistic union or Balkansprachbund is a name given to the similarities in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology found in the languages of the Balkans, which belong to various Indo-European branches, such as Albanian, Greek, Romance and Slavic.

While the common vocabulary between each language is relatively small, the grammars of the languages have a high degree of similarity, among which the adoption of a standard case system and a movement toward analyzation.

Balkan linguistic union - History

The earliest scholar to notice the similarities between Balkan languages belonging to different families was the Slovenian scholar Jernej Kopitar in 1829 ^[1], but only in the 1920s and 1930s the theory was developed, with important contributions Gustav Weigand and Kristian Sandfeld-Jensen (Linguistique balkanique, 1930).

The term "Balkan linguistic union" was coined by the Romanian linguist Alexandru Rosetti in 1958, when he claimed that the shared features conferred the Balkan languages them a special semblance. Theodor Capidan went even further, claiming that the structure of the Balkan languages could be reduced to a standard language. Many of the earliest reports on this theory were in German, hence the term "Balkansprachbund" is often used as well.

Opponents of the theory (such as Alexandru Graur) claimed that the use of the term "Balkan linguistics" is inappropriate and that some of the properties could be explained by independent internal derivations in each language, while for others, it is a mere "lingustic reciprocity", which is not enough for claiming that there is a separate "Balkan linguistics", like there are "Romance linguistics", "Germanic linguistics", etc.

Balkan linguistic union - Languages

The languages that share these similarities belong to five distinct branches of the Indo-European languages:

• Albanian
• Modern Greek
• Indo-Iranian (Arli Romany/Gypsy)
• Romance languages (Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian)
• Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian Torlak)

However, not all of these languages have the same number of features shared. That is why they are divided into three groups:

1. Albanian, Romanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian have the most properties in common
2. Serbian (especially Torlak dialect) and Greek share with the others a lower number of properties
3. Turkish - shares mainly vocabulary and replacement of infinitive with subjunctive.

The Finnish linguist Jouko Lindstedt computed in 2000 a "Balkanization factor" which gives each Balkan language a score proportional with the number of features shared in the Balkan linguistic union. ^[2] The results were:

Another language that may have been influenced by the Balkan Language Union is the Judeo-Spanish variant that used to be spoken by Sephardi Jews living in the Balkans. The grammatical features shared (especially regarding the tense system) were most likely borrowed from Greek.

Balkan linguistic union - Origins

The source of these features as well as the directions have long been debated, various theories being suggested.

Balkan linguistic union - Thracian Dacian or Illyrian

Since most of these features cannot be found in languages related to those that belong to the linguistic union (such as other Slavic or Romance languages), the early researchers, including Kopitar, believed they had to be inherited from the ancient indigenous languages (Thracian, Dacian and Illyrian) which formed the substrate for the modern Balkan languages.

However, since there is very little information left about any of these languages, it cannot be determined whether the features were present.

Balkan linguistic union - Greek

Another theory, advanced by Kristian Sandfeld in 1930 was that they were an entirely Greek influence, the presumption being that since Greece "always had a superior civilization compared to its neighbours", Greek could not have borrowed its linguistic features from them. However, no ancient dialects of Greek bear these features and as such, the Balkanisms of Greek appear to be an innovation that occurred in Greek after the Classical and Byzantine period. Also, Greek appears to be only peripherical to the Balkan linguistic union, missing some important features, such as the postponed article.

Balkan linguistic union - Latin and Romance

The Roman Empire ruled all the Balkans and it would be possible that a local variation of Latin left its mark on all the languages of the Balkans, which later were the substrate to the Slavic newcomers. The weak point of this theory of Georg Solta is that only few of the features can be found in other Romance languages and there is no proof that the Balkan Romans were isolated for enough time to develop them.

An argument for this would be the structural borrowings or "linguistic calques" into Macedonian from Aromanian, which could be explained by Aromanian being a substrate of Macedonian, but this still does not explain what is the origin of these innovations in Aromanian.

Balkan linguistic union - Multiple sources

The most commonly accepted theory nowadays was advanced by the Polish scholar Zbigniew Gołąb and consists in the idea that not all the innovations are from the same source and that the influence between the languages was reciprocal: some of these can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly the features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after the Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept much of its original characteristics.

One argument in favour of this "multiple sources" theory is that the turbulent history of the Balkans lead many groups of people throughout its history to move toward another place, inhabited by people of another ethnicity. These small groups were usually assimilated quickly and sometimes they left marks in the new language they acquired. Another idea is that before the modern age, the use of more than one language was common in the Balkans and a drift in one language would quickly spread to other languages.

An argument that supports this point is that the dialects that have the most "balkanisms" are those in regions that where people had contacts with people of many other languages.

Balkan linguistic union - Timeline of contacts

(under development)

Most likely the earliest contact was between the Proto-Romanians and Proto-Albanians, (1st century - 5th century AD) this theory being supported by the Albanian vocabulary borrowed from Balkan Latin, as well as the Romanian substrate, which has words cognates to Albanian words.

The exact area where the contact occurred is under debate, ranging from Northern Albania to Transylvania, for more, see Origin of Romanians and Origin of Albanians. All Romanian varieties (from the Republic of Moldova to the Vlachs of Serbia) are part of the sprachbund, which shows that the contact was before they diverged.

The invasion of the Slavs led to a period migrations throughout the Balkans which created multi-ethnic communities and this lead to the sprachbund, which was initiated around the 8th century and most features were already present by the 12th century, although in some parts, it continued until the 17th century.

Serbian was perhaphs the last language to join, as shown by the low number of features, most of which were only in the Torlak dialect, a intermediary dialect to Bulgarian which emerged rather late, after most features were settled in the sprachbund.

Balkan linguistic union - Features

Balkan linguistic union - Grammatical features

The number of cases is reduced, several cases being replaced with prepositions, the only exception being Serbian.

A common case system of a Balkan language is:

• Nominative
• Accusative (using prepositions and the form in the nominative case)
• Dative / Genitive (merged)
• Vocative

In the Balkan languages, the genitive and dative cases (or corresponding prepositional constructions) are merged.

Example:

(Dadoh knigata na Mariya)

(Knigata e na Mariya)

colloquially also: Έδωσα το βιβλίο της Μαρίας.

The future tense is formed using in an analytic way using an auxiliary verb or particle with the meaning "will", similar to the way the future is formed in English.

The analytic perfect tense is formed in the Balkan languages with the verb "to have". The origin of this language feature could be Latin. However, this does not apply to Bulgarian and Serbian, where the analytic perfect is formed with the verb "to be" and the past active participle: обещал - "who has promised" (past active participle); съм (Bul.); сам (Ser.) - "I am"; обещал съм; обећао сам (Ser.) - "I have promised" (lit. "I am one who has promised"), perfect tense.

The use of infinitive (common in other languages related to some of the Balkan languages, such as Romance and Slavic) is generally replaced with subjunctive constructions.

• in Macedonian,Greek and Tosk Albanian, the loss of the infinitive is complete
• in Aromanian, Bulgarian and Southern Serbian dialects, it is almost complete
• in Gheg Albanian and Megleno-Romanian, it is used only in a limited number of expressions
• in standard Romanian, Serbian and Croatian, the infinitive shares many of its functions with the subjuctive
• Turkish as spoken in Sliven and Šumen has also almost completely lost the infinitive. This Altaic language then clearly belongs to the Balkan Sprachbund.

For example, "I want to write" in several Balkan languages:

Sentences which include only a subjunctive constructions can be used to express a wish, a mild command, an intention or a suggestion.

This example translates in the Balkan languages the phrase "You should go!", using the subjunctive constructions.

With the exception of Greek, all languages in the union have their definite article attached at the end of the noun, instead of before it. None of the related languages (like other Romance languages or Slavic languages) shares this feature and it is thought to be an innovation created and spread in the Balkans.

However, each language created their own internal articles, so the Romanian articles are related to the articles (and demonstrative pronouns) in Italian, French, etc, while the Bulgarian articles are related to demonstrative pronouns in other Slavic languages.

article

article

article

article

The numbers between ten and twenty are composed in a manner similar to Slavic languages (like "one + on + ten" for eleven). Modern Greek does not follow this.

Direct and indirect objects are doubled by a clitic (weak) pronoun. This can be found in Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian.

For example, "I see George" in Balkan languages:

Note: The neutral case in normal (SVO) word order is without a clitic: "Виждам Георги." However, the form with an additional clitic pronoun is also possible in coloquial speech: "Виждам го Георги." And the clitic is obligatory in case of a topicalized object (with OVS-word order), which serves also as the common colloquial equivalent of a passive construction. "Георги го виждам."

Also, some common suffixes can be found in the linguistic area, such as the diminutival suffix of Slavic origin "-ica" that can be found in Albanian, Greek and Romanian.

Balkan linguistic union - Vocabulary

Several hundreds of words are common to the Balkan union languages, the origin of most of them is either Greek or Turkish language, as the Byzantine Empire and later the Ottoman Empire had a strong influence on the culture and economics of this region.

Albanian, Romanian and Bulgarian also share a good deal of words of various origins:

Apart from the direct loans, there are also many calques that were passed from one Balkan languages to another, most of them between Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian.

For example, the word "ripen" (as in a ripen fruit) is constructed in Albanian, Greek and Romanian by a derivation from the word "to bake".

Another example is the wishing "for many years":

Idiomatic expressions for "whether one <verb> or not" are formed as "<verb>-not-<verb>". ^[3]

Balkan linguistic union - Phonetics

A common feature of the "core" Balkanic languages is the occurrence of the Schwa /ə/ phoneme. (ë in Albanian; ъ in Bulgarian; ă in Romanian;). In Romanian and Albanian, the schwa is obtained via a phonetic change from unstressed /a/. Another phonetic change found in those two languages is turning unstressed /o/ into /u/.

As an example, the Latin word for "shirt", ("camisia") undergone similar sound changes in Romanian and Albanian (Romanian "cămaşă" /kə.ma.ʃə/, Albanian "këmishë" /kə.mi.ʃə/).

See also

• Paleo-Balkan languages
• Balkan languages

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Balkan linguistic union", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki