Balkan sprachbund
The Balkan Sprachbund or Balkan language area is the ensemble of areal features—similarities in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among the languages of the Balkans. Several features are found across these languages though not all apply to every single language. The languages in question may belong to various separate branches of Indo-European or even outside of Indo-European. Some of the languages use these features for their standard language whilst other populations to whom the land is not a cultural pivot may still adopt the features for their local register.
While some of these languages may share little vocabulary, their grammars have very extensive similarities; for example they have similar case systems, in those that have preserved grammatical case and verb conjugation systems and have all become more analytic, although to differing degrees. Some of those languages mark evidentiality, which is uncommon among Indo-European languages, and was likely inspired by contacts with Turkish.
History
The earliest scholar to notice the similarities between Balkan languages belonging to different families was the Slovenian scholar Jernej Kopitar in 1829. August Schleicher more explicitly developed the concept of areal relationships as opposed to genetic ones, and Franz Miklosich studied the relationships of Balkan Slavic and Romance more extensively.Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Kristian Sandfeld-Jensen, and Gustav Weigand developed the theory in the 1920s and 1930s.
In the 1930s, the Romanian linguist Alexandru Graur 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 language area" 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 German, 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
- Hellenic
- Romance
- Balkan Slavic
- Indo-Aryan
| Language | Score |
| Balkan Slavic | 11.5 |
| Albanian | 10.5 |
| Greek, Balkan Romance | 9.5 |
| Balkan Romani | 7.5 |
Another language that may have been influenced by the Balkan language union is the Judaeo-Spanish variant that used to be spoken by Sephardi Jews living in the Balkans. The grammatical features shared 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 and Albanian as successive language
Since most of these features cannot be found in languages related to those that belong to the language area, early researchers, including Kopitar, believed they must have been inherited from the Paleo-Balkan languages which formed the substrate 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. The Albanian language originates from one of these languages.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 language area, lacking some important features, such as the postposed article. Nevertheless, several of the features that Greek does share with the other languages probably originated in Medieval Greek 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 calques" 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", 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, whereas others, particularly features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after Romanization or Slavicization. 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 Balkans, 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 drift 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.
Features
Grammatical features
Case system
The number of cases is reduced, several cases being replaced with prepositions, the only exception being Serbo-Croatian. In Bulgarian and Macedonian, on the other hand, this development has actually led to the loss of all cases except the vocative.A common case system of a Balkan language is:
- Nominative
- Accusative
- Dative / Genitive
- Vocative
Syncretism of genitive and dative
Example:
| Language | Dative | Genitive |
| English | I gave the book to Maria. | It is Maria's book. |
| Albanian | Librin ia dhashë Marisë. | Libri është i Marisë. |
| Aromanian | Vivlia lju dedu ali Marii. | Vivlia easti ali Marii. |
| Bulgarian | Дадох книгата на Мария | Книгата е на Мария |
| Romanian | I-am dat cartea Mariei. colloq. for fem. : I-am dat cartea lui Marian. | Cartea este a Mariei. colloq. for fem. : Cartea este a lui Marian. |
| Macedonian | Ѝ ја дадов книгата на Марија. | Книгата е на Марија. |
Greek | Έδωσα το βιβλίο στην Μαρία. or Έδωσα το βιβλίο της Μαρίας. | Είναι το βιβλίο της Μαρίας. |
Greek | Της το έδωσα 'I gave it to her.' | Είναι το βιβλίο της. 'It is her book.' |
Syncretism of locative and directional expressions
Note: In Romanian this is an exception, and it only applies when referring to individual countries, e.g. în Germania, în Franța, etc. The rule is that into translates as ”la” when trying to express destination, e.g. la Atena, la Madrid, la vale, la mare, etc but even in this case the same preposition is used to express direction and location.Verb tenses
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 fossilized literary Romanian voi and in Serbo-Croatian ću, ćeš, će, where the future marker is still an inflected auxiliary. In modern Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian, Aromanian, and spoken Romanian, decategoralization and erosion have given rise to an uninflected tense form, where the frozen third-person singular of the verb has turned into an invariable particle followed by the main verb inflected for person. Certain Torlakian dialects also have an invariant future tense marker in the form of the proclitic third-person-singular present form of the verb 'to want': će vidim 'I will see', će vidiš "you will see", će vidi 'he/she/it will see'.| Language | Variant | Formation | Example: "I'll see" |
| Albanian | Tosk | do + subjunctive | Do të shoh |
| Albanian | Gheg | kam + infinitive | Kam me pa |
| Aromanian | va / u + subjunctive | Va s'vedu / u s'vedu | |
| Greek | θα + subjunctive | Θα δω / βλέπω ; "I'll see / be seeing" | |
| Bulgarian | ще + present tense | Ще видя | |
| Macedonian | ќе + present tense | Ќе видам | |
| Serbian | хтети / hteti + infinitive | Ја ћу видети | |
| Serbian | хтети / hteti + subjunctive | Ја ћу да видим | |
| Romanian | voi, vei, va, vom, veți, vor + infinitive | Voi vedea | |
| Romanian | va + subjunctive | Va să văd | |
| Romanian | o + subjunctive | O să văd | |
| Romanian | a avea + subjunctive | Am să văd | |
| Balkan Romani | ka + 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 : έχω υποσχεθεί. However, a completely different construction is used in Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, which have inherited from Common Slavic an analytic perfect formed with the verb "to be" and the past active participle: обещал съм, obeštal sǎm / обећао сам, obećao sam - "I have 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. Macedonian also has a perfect formed with the verb "to be", like Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.Renarrative mood
The so-called renarrative mood is another shared feature of the Balkan languages, including Turkish. It is used for statements that are not based on direct observation or common knowledge, but repeat what was reported by others. For example, Патот бил затворен in Macedonian means "The road was closed ". A speaker who uses the indicative mood instead and states "Патот беше затворен" implies thereby that they personally witnessed the road's closure.Avoidance or loss of infinitive
The use of the infinitive 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 vernacular with Katharevousa resulted in the creation of the contemporary common Greek, where the infinitive, when used, is principally used as noun 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
- in Aromanian and Southern Serbo-Croatian 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 Serbo-Croatian, 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. However, in Romanian, the inherited infinitive form is now used only as a verbal noun.
- Turkish as spoken in Sliven and Šumen has also almost completely lost the infinitive, but not verbal nouns using the same grammatical form. This is clearly due to the influence of the Balkan sprachbund.
| Language | Example | Notes |
| Albanian | Dua të shkruaj | as opposed to Gheg me fjet "to sleep" or me hangër "to eat" |
| Aromanian | Vroi să scriu / ăngrăpsescu | |
| Macedonian | Сакам да пишувам | |
| Bulgarian | Искам да пиша | |
| Modern Greek | Θέλω να γράψω | as opposed to older Greek ἐθέλω γράψαι |
| Romanian | Vreau să scriu Vreau a scrie | The use of the infinitive is preferred in writing in some cases only. In speech it is more commonly used in the northern varieties than in Southern varieties of the language. The most common form is still the form with subjunctive. |
| 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 forms are grammatically correct in standard Serbian 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. |
| Balkan Romani | 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: for example 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. |
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. The second part of the examples, писа, я, зна and да, are relicts of what used to be an infinitive form. 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; some that don't coincide are highly unusual today, but do occur, above all in older literature. The last example is found only in some dialects. |
| Bulgarian | Недей да ядеш. | Недей я. | Don't eat. | The first part of the first three examples is the prohibitative element недей. The second part of the examples, писа, я, зна and да, are relicts of what used to be an infinitive form. 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; some that don't coincide are highly unusual today, but do occur, above all in older literature. The last example is found only in some dialects. |
| Bulgarian | Недей да знаеш. | Недей зна. | Don't know. | The first part of the first three examples is the prohibitative element недей. The second part of the examples, писа, я, зна and да, are relicts of what used to be an infinitive form. 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; some that don't coincide are highly unusual today, but do occur, above all in older literature. The last example is found only in some dialects. |
| Bulgarian | Можете ли да ми дадете? | Можете ли ми да? | Can you give me? | The first part of the first three examples is the prohibitative element недей. The second part of the examples, писа, я, зна and да, are relicts of what used to be an infinitive form. 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; some that don't coincide are highly unusual today, but do occur, above all in older literature. The last example is found only in some dialects. |
| Bulgarian | Немой чете | Don't read | The first part of the first three examples is the prohibitative element недей. The second part of the examples, писа, я, зна and да, are relicts of what used to be an infinitive form. 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; some that don't coincide are highly unusual today, but do occur, above all in older literature. The last example is found only in some dialects. |
Bare subjunctive constructions
Sentences that 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 одиш! | "Оди" in the imperative is more common, and has the identical meaning. |
| Bulgarian | Да си ходиш! | "Ходи си!" is the more common imperative. |
| Torlakian | 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, Ti mund të shkosh etc. |
| Modern Greek | Να πας! | |
| Romany | Te dža! | |
| Romanian | Să te duci! |
|
| Meglenian | S-ti duts! | |
| Aromanian | S-ti duts! |
Morphology
Postposed article
With the exception of Greek, Serbo-Croatian, and Romani, all languages in the union have their definite article attached to the end of the noun, instead of before it. None of the related languages share this feature, with the notable exception of the northern Russian dialects, and it is thought to be an innovation created and spread in the Balkans. It is possible that postposed article in Balkan Slavic is the result of influence from Balkan Romance languages during the Middle ages. However, each language created its own internal articles, so the Romanian articles are related to the articles in Italian, French, etc., whereas the Bulgarian articles are related to demonstrative pronouns in other Slavic languages.Numeral 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 | "unsprădzatsi", commonly, " unspră" | un + spră + dzatsi |
| Bulgarian | "единадесет" | един + а + десет |
| Macedonian | "единаесет" | еден + а + 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. |
| Serbo-Croatian | "jedanaest/једанаест" | jedan+ a+ est/један + а + ест. 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 doubled, in the verb phrase by a clitic pronoun, agreeing with the object in gender, number, and case or case function. This can be found in Romanian, 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 | "Гледам го Георги." |
| Macedonian | "Гo гледам Ѓорѓи." |
| Greek | "Τον βλέπω τον Γιώργο" |
| Romanian | "Îl văd pe Gheorghe." |
Note: The neutral case in normal word order is without a clitic: "Гледам Георги." However, the form with an additional clitic pronoun is also perfectly normal and can be used for emphasis: "Гледам го Георги." And the clitic is obligatory in the case of a topicalized object, which serves also as the common colloquial equivalent of a passive construction. "Георги го гледам."
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
- Albanian: më
- Romanian: mai
- Modern Greek: πιο
- Aromanian: ma
Suffixes
Also, some common suffixes can be found in the language area, such as the diminutive suffix of the Slavic languages "-ovo" "-ica" that can be found in Albanian, Greek and Romanian.Vocabulary
Loanwords
Several hundred words are common to the Balkan union languages; the origin of most of them is either Greek, Bulgarian or Turkish, as the Byzantine Empire, the First Bulgarian Empire, the Second Bulgarian Empire and later the Ottoman Empire directly controlled the territory throughout most of its history, strongly influencing its culture and economics.Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian also share a large number of words of various origins:
| Source | Source word | Meaning | Albanian | Aromanian | Bulgarian | Greek | Romanian | Macedonian | Serbo-Croatian | Turkish |
| Vulgar Latin | mēsa | table | mësallë ‘dinner table; tablecloth’ | measã | маса | — | masă | маса | — | masa |
| Thracian | romphea, rumpīa | polearm | colloq. rrufe ‘lightning bolt’ | rofélja | dial. руфия ‘thunderbolt’ | anc. ρομφαία | — | colloq. ровја and dial. рофја ‘thunder’ | — | — |
| Ancient Greek | κρόμμυον | onion | — | — | dial. кромид лук | κρεμμύδι | — | кромид | — | — |
| Byzantine Greek | λιβάδιον | meadow | colloq. livadh | livadhi | ливада | λιβάδι | livadă | ливада | livada ливада | — |
| Byzantine Greek | διδάσκαλος | teacher | obs. dhaskal/icë | dascal | colloq. даскал | δάσκαλος | rare dascăl | colloq. даскал | colloq. даскал | — |
| Byzantine Greek | κουτίον | box | kuti | cutii | кутия | κουτί | cutie | кутија | kutija кутија | kutu |
| Slavic | otter | vidër | vidrã | видра | βίδρα | vidră | видра | видра | — | |
| Slavic | scythe | kosë | coasã | коса | κόσα | coasă | коса | коса | — | |
| Turkish | boya | paint, color | colloq. bojë | boi | боя | μπογιά | boia | боја | boja боја | boya |
Calques
Apart from the direct loans, there are also many calques that were passed from one Balkan language to another, most of them between Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, Aromanian and Romanian.For example, the word "ripen" is constructed in Albanian, Romanian and in Greek, in Turkish pişmek by a derivation from the word "to bake".
Another example is the wish " many years":
Note: In Old Church Slavonic and archaic Eastern South Slavic dialects, the term сполай ти was commonly used in meaning thank you, derived from the Byzantine Greek εἰς πολλὰ ἔτη.
Idiomatic expressions for "whether one
This is also present in other Slavic languages, eg. Polish chcąc nie chcąc.
Phonetics
The main phonological features consist of:- the presence of an unrounded central vowel, either a mid-central schwa 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 developed from an unstressed
- **Example: Latin camisia "shirt" > Romanian cămașă, Albanian këmishë )
- *The schwa phoneme occurs across some dialects of the Macedonian language, but is absent in the standard.
- some kind of umlaut 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.
- **a central vowel is fronted before a front vowel in the following syllable.
- *Albanian: back vowels are fronted before i in the following syllable.
- The presence of /v/ or /ʋ/ but not /w/
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 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.