The Balkan
sprachbundA Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among the languages of the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. Several features are found across these languages though not all need apply to every single language. The languages in question may be wholly unrelated as modern forms in that they belong to various branches of
Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
(such as
SlavicThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
,
GreekHellenic, as a technical term in historical linguistics, is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek . According to most traditional classifications, Hellenic contains only Greek as a single language alone in its branch, and is as such co-extensive with "Greek"...
,
RomanceThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
,
AlbanianAlbanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
and
Indo-AryanThe Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
) and also outside of Indo-European (such as
TurkishTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
). Also interesting is that some of the languages use these features for their standard language (ie. those whose homeland lies almost entirely within the region) whilst other populations to whom the land is not a cultural pivot (as they have wider communities outside of it) may still adopt the features for their local register; this is turn is viewed as non-standard by their respective peoples away from the region.
While they share little vocabulary, their grammars have very extensive similarities; for example they have similar
caseIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
systems and verb conjugation systems and have all become more analytic, although to differing degrees.
History
The earliest scholar to notice the similarities between Balkan languages belonging to different families was the
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n scholar
Jernej KopitarJernej Bartol Kopitar was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna...
in 1829.
August SchleicherAugust Schleicher was a German linguist. His great work was A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages, in which he attempted to reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European language...
(1850) more explicitly developed the concept of areal relationships as opposed to genetic ones, and
Franc MiklošičFran Miklošič , was a Slovene philologist.-Biography:Miklošič was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town of Ljutomer, then part of the Austrian Empire....
(1861) studied the relationships of Balkan Slavic and Romance more extensively.
Nikolai TrubetzkoyPrince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy was a Russian linguist and historian whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague School of structural linguistics. He is widely considered to be the founder of morphophonology...
(1923), Kristian Sandfeld-Jensen (1930), and
Gustav WeigandGustav Weigand , was a German linguist and specialist in Balkan languages, especially Rumanian and Aromanian. He is known for his seminal contributions to the dialectology of the Romance languages of the Balkans and to the study of the relationships between the languages of the Balkan...
(1925) developed the theory in the 1920s and 1930s.
In the 1930s, the Romanian linguist
Alexandru GraurAlexandru Graur was a Romanian linguist.Born into a Jewish family in Botoşani, Graur graduated from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris . He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Sorbonne...
criticized the notion of “Balkan linguistics,” saying that one can talk about “relationships of borrowings, of influences, but not about Balkan linguistics”.
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 a special similarity. Theodor Capidan went further, claiming that the structure of Balkan languages could be reduced to a standard language. Many of the earliest reports on this theory were in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, hence the term "Balkansprachbund" is often used as well.
Languages
The languages that share these similarities belong to five distinct branches of the Indo-European languages:
- Albanian
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
- Hellenic
Hellenic, as a technical term in historical linguistics, is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek . According to most traditional classifications, Hellenic contains only Greek as a single language alone in its branch, and is as such co-extensive with "Greek"...
(GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
)
- Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
(RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, AromanianAromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...
, Megleno-RomanianMegleno-Romanian is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian and Romanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language...
and Istro-RomanianIstro-Romanian is an Eastern Romance language that is still spoken today in a few villages and hamlets in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in what is now Croatia as well as in other countries around the world where the Istro-Romanian people settled after the two...
)
- Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
(BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, MacedonianMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
, SerbianSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
— especially the Torlakian dialectTorlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
which is transitional between Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian)
- Indo-Aryan
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
(RomaRomani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
/Gypsy & Balkan "Egyptian")
However, not all of these languages have the same number of features shared. That is why they are divided into three groups:
- Albanian
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
, RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, MacedonianMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
, AromanianAromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...
and BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
have the most properties in common
- Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
(especially transitional Torlak dialect) and GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
share with the others a lower number of properties
- Turkish
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
- 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. The results were:
| Language |
Score |
| Macedonian |
12 |
| Balkan Slavic |
11.5 |
| Albanian |
10.5 |
| Greek, Balkan Romance |
9.5 |
| Romani (Gypsy) |
7.5 |
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.
Origins
The source of these features as well as the directions have long been debated, and various theories were suggested.
Thracian, Illyrian or Dacian
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), early researchers, including Kopitar, believed they must have been inherited from the
Paleo-Balkan languagesPaleo-Balkan is a geolinguistic term referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times. Except for Greek and the language that gave rise to Albanian , they are all extinct, due to Hellenization, Romanization, and Slavicisation.- Classification :The following...
(Illyrian,
ThracianThe Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...
and
DacianThe extinct Dacian language may have developed from proto-Indo-European in the Carpathian region around 2,500 BC and probably died out by AD 600. In the 1st century AD, it was the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and, possibly, of some surrounding regions.It belonged...
) which formed the
substrateIn linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
for modern Balkan languages. But since very little is known about Paleo-Balkan languages, it cannot be determined whether the features were present. The strongest candidate for a shared Paleo-Balkan feature is the postposed article.
Greek
Another theory, advanced by Kristian Sandfeld in 1930, was that these features were an entirely Greek influence, under the presumption 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 possessed Balkanisms, so that the features shared with other regional languages appear to be post-classical innovations. Also, Greek appears to be only peripheral to the Balkan linguistic union, lacking some important features, such as the postposed article. Nevertheless, several of the features that Greek does share with the other languages (loss of dative, replacement of infinitive by subjunctive constructions, object clitics, formation of future with auxiliary verb "to want") probably originated in
Medieval GreekMedieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the beginning of the Middle Ages around 600 and the Ottoman conquest of the city of Constantinople in 1453. The latter date marked the end of the Middle Ages in Southeast Europe...
and spread to the other languages through Byzantine influence.
Latin and Romance
The Roman Empire ruled all the Balkans, and local variation of Latin may have left its mark on all languages there, which were later the substrate to Slavic newcomers. This was proposed by Georg Solta. The weak point of this theory is that other Romance languages have few of the features, 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
calqueIn linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...
s" into Macedonian from Aromanian, which could be explained by Aromanian being a substrate of Macedonian, but this still does not explain the origin of these innovations in Aromanian. The analytic perfect with the auxiliary verb "to have" (which Balkan languages share with Western European languages), is the only feature whose origin can fairly safely be traced to Latin.
Multiple sources
The most commonly accepted theory, advanced by Polish scholar Zbigniew Gołąb, is that the innovations came from different sources and the languages influenced each other: some features can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept many of its original characteristics.
Several arguments favour this theory. First, throughout the turbulent
history of the BalkansThe Balkans is an area of southeastern Europe situated at a major crossroads between mainland Europe and the Near East. The distinct identity and fragmentation of the Balkans owes much to its common and often violent history and to its very mountainous geography.-Neolithic:Archaeologists have...
, many groups of people moved to another place, inhabited by people of another ethnicity. These small groups were usually assimilated quickly and sometimes left marks in the new language they acquired. Second, the use of more than one language was common in the Balkans before the modern age, and a
driftThere are two types of linguistic drift, a unidirectional short-term and cyclic long-term drift.-Short-term unidirectional drift:According to Sapir, drift is the unconscious change in natural language...
in one language would quickly spread to other languages. Third, the dialects that have the most "balkanisms" are those in regions where people had contact with people of many other languages.
(Old) Albanian
According to the central hypothesis of a project undertaken by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Old Albanian had a significant influence on the development of many Balkan languages. Intensive research now aims to confirm this theory. This little-known language is being researched using all available texts before a comparison with other Balkan languages is carried out. The outcome of this work will include the compilation of a lexicon providing an overview of all Old Albanian verbs.
As project leader Dr. Schumacher explains, the research is already bearing fruit: "So far, our work has shown that Old Albanian contained numerous modal levels that allowed the speaker to express a particular stance to what was being said. Compared to the existing knowledge and literature, these modal levels are actually more extensive and more nuanced than previously thought. We have also discovered a great many verbal forms that are now obsolete or have been lost through restructuring - until now, these forms have barely even been recognized or, at best, have been classified incorrectly." These verbal forms are crucial to explaining the linguistic history of Albanian and its internal usage.
However, they can also shed light on the reciprocal relationship between Albanian and its neighbouring languages. The researchers are following various leads which suggest that Albanian played a key role in the Balkan Sprachbund. For example, it is likely that Albanian is the source of the suffixed definite article in Romanian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, as this has been a feature of Albanian since ancient times.
Timeline of contacts
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 cognate to Albanian words.
The exact area where contact occurred is under debate, ranging from Northern
AlbaniaAlbania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
to
TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
. For more, see
Origin of RomaniansThe origin of the Romanians – the ethnogenesis of the Romanian people – can be traced back to the region’s Romanized inhabitants living, within the Roman Empire, in the lands north of the Jireček Line The origin of the Romanians – the ethnogenesis of the Romanian people (speakers of a Romance...
and
Origin of AlbaniansThe origin of the Albanians has been for some time a matter of dispute among historians. Most historians conclude that the Albanians are descendants of populations of the prehistoric Balkans, such as the Illyrians, Dacians or Thracians...
. All Romanian varieties (from the Republic of Moldova to the Vlachs of Serbia) are part of the sprachbund, which shows that the contact happened before they diverged.
The invasion of the Slavs led to a period of migrations throughout the Balkans which created multi-ethnic communities and this led to the sprachbund beginning around the 8th century; most features were present by the 12th century, but in some parts it continued until the 17th century.
Case system
The number of cases is reduced, several cases being replaced with prepositions, the only exception being Serbian. In Bulgarian and Macedonian, on the other hand, this development has actually led to the loss of all cases except the
vocativeThe vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
.
A common case system of a Balkan language is:
- Nominative
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
- Accusative
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
- Dative
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
/ GenitiveIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
(mergedIn linguistics, syncretism is the identity of form of distinct morphological forms of a word. This phenomenon is typical of fusional languages....
)
- Vocative
The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
Syncretism of genitive and dative
In the Balkan languages, the
genitiveIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
and
dativeThe dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
cases (or corresponding prepositional constructions) undergo
syncretismIn linguistics, syncretism is the identity of form of distinct morphological forms of a word. This phenomenon is typical of fusional languages....
.
Example:
| Language |
Dative |
Genitive |
| English |
I gave the book to Maria. |
It is Maria's book. |
| Albanian |
Librin i'a (ja) dhashë Marisë. |
Libri është i Marisë. |
| Aromanian |
U-ded vivliapi Maria. |
Easte vivlia ali Marie. |
| Bulgarian |
Дадох книгата на Мария
[dadoh knigata na Marija] |
Книгата е на Мария
[knigata e na Marija] |
| Romanian |
I-am dat cartea Mariei.
colloq. for fem. (oblig. for masc.):
I-am dat cartea lui Marian. |
Este cartea Mariei.
colloq. for fem. (oblig. for masc.):
Este cartea lui Marian. |
| Macedonian |
Ѝ ја дадов книгата на Марија.
[ì ja dadov knigata na Marija] |
Книгата е на Марија.
[knigata e na Marija] |
Greek |
Έδωσα το βιβλίο στην Μαρία.
[édhosa to vivlío stin María]
or
Έδωσα το βιβλίο της Μαρίας.
[édhosa to vivlío tis Marías] |
Είναι το βιβλίο της Μαρίας.
[íne to vivlío tis Marías] |
Της το έδωσα
[tis to édhosa]
'I gave it to her.' |
Είναι το βιβλίο της.
[íne to vivlío tis]
'It is her book.' |
Syncretism of locative and directional expressions
| language |
"in Greece" |
"into Greece" |
| Albanian |
në Greqi |
në Greqi |
| Aromania |
tu Gârția |
tu Gârția |
| Bulgarian |
в Гърция (v Gărcija) |
в Гърция (v Gărcija) |
| Greek |
στην Ελλάδα (stin Elládha) |
στην Ελλάδα (stin Elládha) |
| Macedonian |
Во Грција (vo Grcija) |
Во Грција (vo Grcija) |
| Romanian |
în Grecia |
în Grecia |
Future tense
The future tense is formed in an analytic way using an auxiliary verb or particle with the meaning "will, want", referred to as de-volitive, similar to the way the future is formed in English. This feature is present to varying degrees in each language. Decategoralization is less advanced in Romanian voi and in Serbian ću, ćeš, će, where the future marker is still an inflected auxiliary. In Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian, decategoralization and erosion have given rise to an uninflected tense form, where the frozen 3rd person singular of the verb has turned into an invariable particle followed by the main verb inflected for person.
| Language |
Variant |
Formation |
Example: "I'll see" |
| Albanian |
Tosk |
"do" (invariant) + subjunctive |
Do të shoh |
| Gheg |
"kam" (conjugated) + infinitive |
Kam me pa |
| Aromanian |
|
"va" (invariant) + subjunctive |
Va s-ved |
| Greek |
|
"θα" (invariant) + subjunctive |
Θα δω / βλέπω (tha dho / vlépo); "I'll see / be seeing" |
| Bulgarian |
|
"ще" (invariant) + present tense |
Ще видя (shte vidya) |
| Macedonian |
|
"ќе" (invariant) + present tense |
Ќе видам (kje vidam) |
| Serbian |
(literary standard) |
"хтети/hteti" (conjugated) + infinitive |
Ја ћу видети (видећу) (ja ću videti [videću]) |
| (colloquial) |
"хтети/hteti" (conjugated) + subjunctive |
Ја ћу да видим (ja ću da vidim) |
| Romanian |
(literary standard) |
"a voi" (conjugated) + infinitive |
Voi vedea/vedere
(Note: Compare to Spanish "voy a ver") |
| (colloquial) |
"o" (invariant) + subjunctive |
O să văd |
| (colloquial alternate) |
"a avea" (conjugated) + subjunctive |
Am să văd |
| (archaic) |
"va" (invariant) + subjunctive |
Va să văd |
| Romani |
(Erli) |
"ka" (invariant) + subjunctive |
Ka dikhav |
Analytic perfect tense
The analytic perfect tense is formed in the Balkan languages with the verb "to have" and, usually, a past passive participle, similarly to the construction found in Germanic and other Romance languages: e.g. Romanian am promis "I have promised", Albanian kam premtuar "I have promised". A somewhat less typical case of this is Greek, where the verb "to have" is followed by the so-called απαρέμφατο ('invariant form', historically the aorist infinitive): έχω υποσχεθεί. However, a completely different construction is used in Bulgarian and Serbian, which have inherited from Common Slavic an analytic perfect formed with the verb "to be" and the past active participle: обещал съм, obeštal sǎm (Bul.) / обећао сам, obećao sam (Ser.) - "I have promised" (lit. "I am one who has promised"). On the other hand, Macedonian, the third Slavic language in the Sprachbund, is like Romanian and Albanian in that it uses quite typical Balkan constructions consisting of the verb to have and a past passive participle (имам ветено, imam veteno = "I have promised").
Avoidance or loss of infinitive
The use of the infinitive (common in other languages related to some of the Balkan languages, such as Romance and Slavic) is generally replaced with subjunctive constructions, following early Greek innovation.
- in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Tosk Albanian, the loss of the infinitive is complete
- in demotic Greek, the loss of the infinitive was complete, whereas in literary Greek it was not; the natural fusion of the demotic (vernacular) form with the literary (archaic) one resulted in the creation of the contemporary common Greek (Koine Neohellenic), where the infinitive, when used, is principally used as noun (e.g. λέγειν "speaking, fluency, eloquence", γράφειν "writing", είναι "being", etc.) deriving directly from the ancient Greek infinitive formation. But its substitution by the subjunctive form when the infinitive would be used as a verb is complete. Most of the times, the subjunctive form substitutes the infinitive also in the cases when it would be used as a noun (e.g. το να πας/το να πάει κανείς "to go, the act of going", το να δεις/βλέπεις "to see/be seeing, the act of seeing" instead of the infinitive "βλέπειν", etc.)
- in Aromanian 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 and Serbian, the infinitive shares many of its functions with the subjunctive. In these two languages, the infinitive will always be found in dictionaries and language textbooks. In Romanian, the long infinitives, which are identical to the Italian ones (-are, -ere, and -ire) can also be used in both formal and informal conversation.
- Turkish as spoken in Sliven
Sliven is the eighth-largest city in Bulgaria and the administrative and industrial centre of Sliven Province and municipality. It is a relatively large town with 89,848 inhabitants, as of February 2011....
and ŠumenShumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
has also almost completely lost the infinitive, clearly due to the influence of the Balkan Sprachbund.
For example, "I want to write" in several Balkan languages:
| Language |
Example |
Notes |
| Albanian |
"Dua të shkruaj" |
as opposed to Gheg me fjet "to sleep" or me hangër "to eat" |
| Aromanian |
"Voi să-ngrăpsescu" |
|
| Macedonian |
"Сакам да пишувам" [sakam da pišuvam] |
|
| Bulgarian |
"Искам да пиша" [iskam da piša] |
|
| Modern Greek |
"Θέλω να γράψω" |
as opposed to Ancient Greek "βούλομαι γράψαι" |
| Romanian |
"Vreau să scriu" (with subjunctive)
Vreau a scrie/scriere (with infinitive) |
The use of the infinitive is preferred in writing in some cases only. In speech it is more commonly used in the northern varieties (Transylvania The Transylvanian varieties of Romanian are a grouping of speech varieties of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect...
, BanatThe Banat subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect...
, and MoldovaThe Moldavian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language...
) than in Southern varietiesThe Wallachian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect. Its geographic distribution covers approximately the historical region of Wallachia, occupying the southern part of Romania, roughly between the Danube and the Southern...
(Wallachia) of the language. |
| Serbian |
"Želim da pišem"/"Желим да пишем |
as opposed to the more literary form: "Želim pisati"/"Желим пиcaти, where pisati/пиcaти is the infinitive. Both phrases are correct and do not create misunderstandings, although the colloquial one is more commonly used in daily conversation. |
| Bulgarian Turkish |
"isterim yazayım" |
In Standard Turkish in Turkey this is "yazmak istiyorum" where "yazmak" is the infinitive. |
| Romani (Erli) |
"Mangav te pišinav" |
Many forms of Romani add the ending -a to express the indicative present, while reserving the short form for the subjunctive serving as an infinitive: e.g. "mangava te pišinav". Some varieties outside the Balkans have been influenced by non-Balkan languages and have developed new infinitives by generalizing one of the finite forms (e.g. Slovak Romani varieties may express "I want to write" as "kamav te irinel/pisinel" - generalized third person singular - or "kamav te irinen/pisinen" - generalized third person plural). |
But here is an example of a relict form, preserved in Bulgarian:
| Language |
Without infinitive |
With relict "infinitive" |
Translation |
Notes |
| Bulgarian |
"Недей да пишеш." |
"Недей писа." |
Don't write. |
The first part of the first three examples is the prohibitative element недей ("don't", composed of не, "not", and дей, "do" in the imperative The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
). The second part of the examples, писа, я, зна and да, are relicts of what used to be an infinitive form (писати, ясти, знати and дати respectively). This second syntactic construction is colloquial and more common in the eastern dialects. The forms usually coincide with the past aorist tense of the verb in the third person singular, as in the case of писа; those that don't coincide (as in the last three examples) are highly unusual today, but do occur, above all in older literature. |
| "Недей да ядеш." |
"Недей я." |
Don't eat. |
| "Недей да знаеш." |
"Недей зна." |
Don't know. |
| "Можете ли да ми дадете?" |
"Можете ли ми да?" |
Can you give me? |
Bare subjunctive constructions
Sentences which include only a subjunctive construction 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.
| Language |
Example |
Notes |
| Macedonian |
Да (си) одиш! |
"Оди" [odi] in the imperative is more common, and has the identical meaning. |
| Bulgarian |
Да си ходиш! |
|
| Serbian |
Да идеш! |
"Иди!" in the imperative is grammatically correct, and has the identical meaning. |
| Albanian |
Të shkosh! |
"Shko!" in the imperative is grammatically correct. "Të shkosh" is used in sentence only followed by a modal verbs, ex. in these cases: Ti duhet të shkosh (You should go), Ti mund të shkosh (You can go) etc. |
|
| Modern Greek |
Να πας! |
|
| Romany (Gypsy) |
Te dža! |
|
| Romanian |
Să te duci! |
- compare with similar Spanish "¡Que te largues!"
- in Romanian, the "a se duce" (to go) requires a reflexive
In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
construction, literally "take yourself (to)" |
| Megleno-Romanian |
S-ti duț! |
| Aromanian |
S-ti duț! |
Postposed article
With the exception of Greek, Serbian and Romani, all languages in the union have their
definite articleDefinite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
attached to the end of the noun, instead of before it. None of the related languages (like other Romance languages or Slavic languages) share this feature and it is thought to be either an innovation or Albanian borrowing spread in the Balkans.
However, each language created its own internal articles, so the Romanian articles are related to the articles (and
demonstrativeIn linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
pronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s) in Italian, French, etc., while the Bulgarian articles are related to demonstrative pronouns in other Slavic languages.
| Language |
Feminine |
Masculine |
without
article |
with
article |
without
article |
with
article |
| English |
woman |
the woman |
man |
the man |
| Albanian |
grua |
gruaja |
burr |
burri |
| Aromanian |
muľare |
muľarea |
bărbat |
bărbatlu |
| Bulgarian |
жена |
жената |
мъж |
мъжът |
| Macedonian |
жена |
жената |
маж |
мажот |
| Romanian |
femeie
muiere |
femeia
muierea |
bărbat |
bărbatul |
| Torlakian Torlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
|
жена |
жената |
муж |
мужът |
Number formation
The Slavic way of composing the numbers between 10 and 20, e.g. "one + on + ten" for eleven, called superessive, is widespread.
Greek does not follow this.
| Language |
The word "Eleven" |
compounds |
| Albanian |
"njëmbëdhjetë" |
një + mbë + dhjetë |
| Aromanian |
"unăspră" |
ună + spră |
| Bulgarian |
"единадесет" |
един + (н)а(д) + десет |
| Macedonian |
"единаесет" |
еде(и)н + (н)а(д) + (д)есет |
| Romanian |
"unsprezece" or, more commonly, "unșpe" |
un + spre + zece < *unu + supre + dece; unu + spre; the latter is more commonly used, even in formal speech. |
| Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian |
"jedanaest/једанаест" |
jedan+ (n)a+ (d)es(e)t/један + (н)а + (д)ес(е)т. This is not the case only with South Slavic languages. This word is formed in the same way in most Slavic languages, e.g. Polish - "jedenaście", Czech - "jedenáct", Slovak - "jedenásť", Russian - "одиннадцать", Ukrainian - "одинадцять", etc. |
Clitic pronouns
Direct and indirect objects are cross-referenced, or
doubledIn linguistics, clitic doubling, or pronominal reduplication is a phenomenon by which clitic pronouns appear in verb phrases together with the full noun phrases that they refer to .Clitic doubling is found in many languages, including Albanian, Arumanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian,...
, in the verb phrase by a
cliticIn morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
(weak) pronoun, agreeing with the object in gender, number, and case or case function. This can be found in Romanian (although mostly optional), Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian. In Albanian and Macedonian, this feature shows fully grammaticalized structures and is obligatory with indirect objects and to some extent with definite direct objects; in Bulgarian, however, it is optional and therefore based on discourse. In Greek, the construction contrasts with the clitic-less construction and marks the cross-referenced object as a topic. Southwest Macedonia appears to be the location of innovation.
For example, "I see George" in Balkan languages:
| Language |
Example |
| Albanian |
"E shoh Gjergjin" |
| Aromanian |
"U- ved Yioryi" |
| Bulgarian |
"Виждам го Георги." (colloquial form; see note) |
| Macedonian |
"Гo гледам Ѓорѓи." |
| Greek |
"Τον βλέπω τον Γιώργο" |
| Romanian |
"Îl văd pe Gheorghe." or simply "Văd pe Gheorghe." |
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 colloquial speech: "Виждам го Георги." And the clitic is obligatory in the case of a topicalized object (with OVS-word order), which serves also as the common colloquial equivalent of a passive construction. "Георги го виждам."
Adjectives
The replacement of synthetic adjectival comparative forms with analytic ones by means of preposed markers is common. These markers are:
- Bulgarian: по-
- Macedonian: по (prepended)
- Albanian: më
- Romanian: mai
- Modern Greek: πιο (pió)
- Aromanian: (ca)ma
Macedonian and Modern Greek have retained some of the earlier synthetic forms. In Macedonian these have become proper adjectives in their own right without the possibility of [further] comparison (ex. виш, "higher, superior"; ниж, "lower, inferior").
Suffixes
Also, some common suffixes can be found in the linguistic area, such as the diminutive suffix of the Slavic languages (Srb. Bul. Mac.) "-ovo" "-ica" that can be found in Albanian, Greek and Romanian.
Loan words
Several hundred words are common to the Balkan union languages; the origin of most of them is either
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
,
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
or
TurkishTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, as the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, the
First Bulgarian EmpireThe First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in the north-eastern Balkans in c. 680 by the Bulgars, uniting with seven South Slavic tribes...
, the
Second Bulgarian EmpireThe Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...
and later the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
directly controlled the territory throughout most of its history, strongly influencing its culture and economics.
Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian and Macedonian also share a large number of words of various origins:
| Source |
Source word |
Meaning |
Albanian |
Aromanian |
Bulgarian |
Greek |
Romanian |
Macedonian |
Serbian |
Turkish |
| Latin |
mensa |
table |
mensa (tavolinë) |
masã |
маса (masa) |
- |
masă |
маса (masa) |
- |
masa |
| Thracian |
rompea |
spear |
- |
roféja |
руфия (rufiya) - dialectal, meaning "thunderbolt" |
ρομφαία (rhomphaía) |
- |
|
- |
- |
| Byzantine Greek |
λιβάδιον (libádion) |
meadow |
lëndinë |
livadã |
ливада (livada) |
λιβάδι |
livadă |
ливада (livada) |
livada
ливада (livada) |
- |
| Byzantine Greek |
διδάσκαλος (didáskalos) |
teacher |
- |
dascal |
даскал (daskal) (colloquial) |
δάσκαλος |
dascăl |
даскал (daskal) (colloquial) |
даскал (daskal) (colloquial) |
- |
| Byzantine Greek |
κουτίον (koutíon) |
box |
kuti |
cutii |
кутия (kutiya) |
κουτί |
cutie |
кутија (kutija) |
kutija
кутија (kutija) |
kutu |
| Turkish |
boya |
paint, color |
bojë (but also ngjyrë) |
boi |
боя (boya) |
μπογιά (boyá) |
boia |
боја (boja) |
boja
боја (boja) |
boya |
Calques
Apart from the direct loans, there are also many calques that were passed from one Balkan languages to another, most of them between Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, Aromanian and Romanian.
For example, the word "ripen" (as in fruit) is constructed in Albanian, Romanian and (rarely) in Greek (piqem, a (se) coace, ψήνομαι), in Turkish pişmek by a derivation from the word "to bake" (pjek, a coace, ψήνω).
Another example is the wish "(∅/to/for) many years":
| Language |
Expression |
Transliteration |
| Greek |
(medieval) |
εις έτη πολλά |
is eti polla |
| (modern) |
χρόνια πολλά |
khronia polla |
| Latin |
ad multos annos |
|
| Aromanian |
ti mulț ań |
|
| Romanian |
la mulţi ani |
|
| Albanian |
për shumë vjet |
| Bulgarian |
за много години |
za mnogo godini |
| Macedonian |
за многу години |
za mnogu godini |
| Serbian |
за многo годинa |
za mnogo godina |
Idiomatic expressions for "whether one
or not" are formed as "-not-".
| Language |
expression |
meaning |
| Bulgarian |
ще - не ще |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Greek |
θέλει δε θέλει |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Romanian |
vrea nu vrea |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Turkish |
ister istemez |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Serbian |
Hteo- ne hteo/хтео - не хтео |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Albanian |
deshti - nuk deshti |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Macedonian |
сакал - не сакал / нејќел |
"whether one wants or not" |
| Aromanian |
i vrei - i nu vrei |
"whether one wants or not" |
Phonetics
The main phonological features consist of:
- the presence of an unrounded central vowel, either a mid-central schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
/ə/ or a high central vowel phoneme
- ë in Albanian; ъ in Bulgarian; ă in Romanian; ã in Aromanian
- In Romanian and Albanian, the schwa is obtained via centralizing unstressed /a/
- Example: Latin camisia "shirt" > Romanian cămașă /kə.ma.ʃə/, Albanian këmishë /kə.mi.ʃə/)
- The schwa phoneme occurs across some dialects of the Macedonian language, but is absent in the standard
Standard Macedonian or Literary Macedonian is the standard variety of the Macedonian language and official language of the Republic of Macedonia used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
.
- some kind of vowel harmony in stressed syllables with differing patterns depending on the language.
- Romanian: a mid-back vowel ends in a low glide before a nonhigh vowel in the following syllable
- Albanian: back vowels are fronted before i in the following syllable.
This feature also occurs in Greek, but it is lacking in some of the other Balkan languages; the central vowel is found in Romanian, Bulgarian, some dialects of Albanian, and Serbian, but not in Greek or Standard Macedonian.
Less widespread features are confined largely to either Romanian or Albanian, or both:
- frequent loss of l before i in Romanian and some Romani dialects
- the alternation
In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a phoneme or morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant...
between n and r in Albanian and Romanian.
- change from l to r in Romanian, Greek and very rarely in Bulgarian and Albanian.
- the raising of o to u in unstressed syllables in Bulgarian, Romanian and Northern Greek dialects.
- change from ea to e before i in Bulgarian and Romanian.
See also
- Serbo-Croatian grammar
Serbo-Croatian is a South Slavic language with moderately complex verbal and nominal systems. This article deals exclusively with the Neo-Shtokavian dialect, the basis for the official standard of Yugoslavia and its present-day forms of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian.All Serbo-Croatian...
- Paleo-Balkan languages
Paleo-Balkan is a geolinguistic term referring to the Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times. Except for Greek and the language that gave rise to Albanian , they are all extinct, due to Hellenization, Romanization, and Slavicisation.- Classification :The following...
- Balkan languages
This is a list of languages spoken in regions ruled by Balkan countries. With the exception of several Turkic languages, Hungarian, and Circassian, all of them belong to the Indo-European family...
- Albanian grammar
- Greek grammar
The grammar of Standard Modern Greek, as spoken in present-day Greece and Cyprus, is basically that of Demotic Greek, but it has also assimilated certain elements of Katharevousa, the archaic, learned variety of Greek imitating Classical Greek forms, which used to be the official language of Greece...
- Bulgarian grammar
Bulgarian grammar is the grammar of the Bulgarian language. Bulgarian language is a South Slavic language, historically Bulgarian language evolved from the Old Bulgarian language, also known as Old Slavonic language which was the written norm for the Slavic languages in the Middle ages, and before...
- Macedonian grammar
Macedonian grammar refers to the morphology and syntax of the Macedonian language, which is, in many respects, similar to the grammar of some other Balkan languages – especially Bulgarian and Serbian...