LINGUIST List 33.411
Fri Feb 04 2022
Review: Sociolinguistics: Sobolev (2021)
Editor for this issue: Amalia Robinson <amalialinguistlist.org>
Date: 12-Jan-2022
From: Giustina Selvelli <giustina.selvelli
gmail.com>
Subject: Between Separation and Symbiosis
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EDITOR: Andrey N. Sobolev
TITLE: Between Separation and Symbiosis
SUBTITLE: South Eastern European Languages and Cultures in Contact
SERIES TITLE: Language Contact and Bilingualism
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2021
REVIEWER: Giustina Selvelli, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
SUMMARY
The book, edited by Andrey N. Sobolev, brings together experts in Balkan linguistics based at the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, with the addition of Professor Brian D. Joseph from the Ohio State University.
This stimulating volume deals with the topic of language contact in Southeast Europe, focusing on patterns of separation and symbiosis/convergence among ethnic groups and their languages in different settings of the peninsula: the Croatian island of Krk in the Kvarner gulf, the Sephardic Jewish diaspora, Southern Albania, Eastern Albania, Southern Montenegro, Prespa (Republic of North Macedonia), Romanian Banat, and the Tsakonia area in Peloponnese, Greece.
The languages examined belong to the following groups: Greek (Tsakonian and Himariotika), Albanian (Dibra dialect, Laberia dialect, the Ana e Malit idiom, the Prespa idiom), Romanian (the Iabalcea idiom), Aromanian (Prespa idiom), Macedonian (the Golo Brdo dialect, the Prespa dialect), Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (the Krashovani dialect, the Mrkovići idiom, Old Croatian) and Judezmo. Thus, all language groups belonging to the Balkan Sprachbund are here considered, except for Balkan Romani and Turkish variants.
The major levels of language structure such as phonetics/phonology of L1 and L2, morphology, lexica of L1 and L2) of the idioms of multilingual and multiethnic communities in different sites of the Balkans are investigated according to the research framework of the functional linguistic approach. The methodology of data collection is based on the analysis of data gathered through prolonged ethnographic fieldwork, the use of questionnaires, as well as the investigation of written sources (as in the case of the Krk Glagolitic texts). Examples of code-switching/mixing and other features are provided through transcribed texts in the local languages and dialects concerned.
In trying to critically assess the validity of the Balkan Sprachbund (that is the existence of a series of common functional features shared among the languages of the Balkan Peninsula due to reciprocal influence), a series of theoretical and methodological challenges are explored, contributing to reconstructing a highly complex picture of the multilingual and multiethnic settings of interaction among communities.
In the introductory chapter, “Contemporary Language Contacts in the Balkans: Situations and Outcomes”, Alexander Yu. Rusakov offers an overview of the language paradigms and environments studied in this book, employing the latest theoretical framework of contact linguistics. He argues that they represent remnants of earlier situations of language contact and multilingualism that characterize the linguistic ecology of the Balkan Peninsula. In addition, the concepts of language maintenance (characteristic of most of the situations analyzed in this book) and language shift are discussed, pointing also to the importance of the notion of (socio-)linguistic dominance for understanding these two phenomena, as well as to the relative difference between the non-polyglossic situations of small-scale multilingualism (in which 'balanced language contact'' occurs) and the polyglossic ones (characterized by hierarchical relations between languages). Finally, the main linguistic consequences of language contact are presented, consisting mainly in semantic and structural calques.
Chapter Two, “Separation and Symbiosis between Slavs and Albanians as a Continuum of Linguistic Contact Situations: New Challenges for New Data”, by Andrey N. Sobolev, focuses on the concept of the Sprachbund as a linguistic continuum and addresses issues such as interference, integration, and dis-integration. An important part of the chapter is devoted to illustrating the paradigms of field research in situations of non-dominant bilingualism, which includes on-site interviews to capture individual narratives, observation of the public linguistic landscape, etc. The research is based on data on Slavic/Albanian language contact and bilingualism collected in the Macedonian Muslim community in Gollobordë/Golo Brdo, Eastern Albania, and in the Montenegrin/Albanian community in the area of Mrkovići in Southern Montenegro. The analysis of phonetics, grammar and lexicon in the languages of both communities shows that in the case of Gollobordë the two languages are hierarchically related, with a clear dominance of Macedonian and a strong separation between the two ethnic groups, all features of a polyglossic community. As for the second situation, the analysis of the linguistic features proves that the Montenegrins and Albanians form a symbiotic polylingual community.
Chapter Three by Anastasia L. Makarova, “Mutual Undestanding among Albanians, Slavs and Aromanians in Prespa, North Macedonia: Perfect Tense as a Perfect Tool”, focuses on verbal past tense systems in the dialects of the three main languages spoken in the multi-ethnic border region on the Macedonian side of Lake Prespa: Macedonian (Prespa dialect), Aromanian (a dialect related to Krushevo Vlachs) and Albanian (Tosk dialect). Fieldwork was carried out in the three localities of Resen, Arvati and Krani, which made it possible to obtain data from grammatical and ethnolinguistic questionnaires. In assessing the problem of separation and/or symbiosis between the communities concerned, the author argues that the geographical isolation of the Prespa region allowed close and intimate contact between these communities, as a result of which these languages developed a convergent grammatical system. The contact phenomena among these languages are thus analyzed at the morphosyntactic level.
Chapter Four, by Maria S. Morozova, “Balanced Language Contact in Social Context: Velja Gorana in Southern Montenegro” deals with the paradigms of Albanian/Slavic language contact in Velja Gorana. In this small village, Muslim Slavic, Muslim Albanian, Orthodox Slavic and Catholic Albanian communities live side by side, with exogamic practices (marriages with Albanian women) playing a particular role in the past and present phenomena of bilingualism. At home, children from mixed families learn both Albanian (a Gheg subdialect) and the local South Slavic dialect in a situation of balanced language contact, although there are large differences in the degree of knowledge and use of these languages among community members. The paradigms of phonetic/phonological, grammatical and lexical interference in the local dialectal variety of the Slavic-speaking Muslim community of Mrkovići are therefore analyzed. By examining the sociolinguistic conditions that supported phenomena of language contact in the bilingual microcontext of Velja Gorana, the author also speculates on the patterns of their possible existence in the past in other villages of the Mrkovići Muslim ethnic group that are today monolingual.
The Fifth chapter, “Symbiosis Suspectus: Palasa in Himara, Albania”, by Andrey N. Sobolev, deals with the little-studied Greek dialect of Palasë, spoken in the village of Himarë in southern Albania. Sobolev describes the region of Epirus and southern Albania as paradigmatic cases that offer insights into the theory of linguistic and cultural unions in the Balkans. The author hypothesizes the past existence of a symbiotic Albanian-Greek society in this region, embodying a linguistic and confessional borderland, based on the analysis of data from lexical material and personal narratives of the Greek-speaking minority in the Albanian village of Palasë. The equal competences in both languages of Greek and Albanian speakers in the village indicate patterns of non-dominant, balanced bilingualism (Albanian in its Tosk variant and Greek in both the Himariote dialect and the standard form). Moreover, it is argued that the two languages enter in relations of ‘fusion and hybridization’ (p. 149), displaying traits of contact both in the lexical system, at the level of traditional oral narrative, and even at the graphic level, as in the example of the mixed Greek/Latin characters on a tombstone.
In Chapter Six, “Minority within a Minority: Iabalcea and Carașova in Romania”, Daria V. Konior presents the case of the Slavic-speaking Catholic community of the Krashovani in the historically multi-ethnic Banat region of Romania and examines the linguistic and cultural links between the minority and majority groups that contribute to making this a symbiotic environment. The author argues that the Krashovani, whose origins and ancestral homeland are disputed, may represent a case of Slavic/non-Slavic symbiosis in the Balkans. They speak an archaic Serbo-Croatian dialect, which displays features of language contact with Romanian, although a process of Croatianization was initiated as early as the 19th century, with both practical (use of Croatian in church liturgy) and ideological implications. The cases studied come from the villages of Carașova and Iabalcea and show differences in terms of language use: While most Krashovani people in the former village (as well as in the five remaining ones) use the Krashovani dialect as L1 and Romanian as L2, the members of this community in Iabalcea have Romanian as their dominant language and for the most part only a passive knowledge of the Slavic dialect, a fact which, however, does not affect their sense of belonging to the Krashovani group.
Chapter Seven, “Evidence for Past Coexistence: The Romance Stratum in Croatian Glagolitic Sources from Krk, Croatia” by Vyacheslav V. Kozak explores Slavic/Romance contacts on the Croatian island of Krk (which is also considered representative of the entire Kvarner region or northern Dalmatia) through a number of written sources: parts of the Vrbnik Statute in Old Croatian (Čakavian variant) and in the Glagolitic Script dating to the 16th Century, and Old Glagolitic inscriptions from different periods, from the 10th to the 18th Centuries. Borrowed vocabulary is analyzed from semantic, etymological, grammatical and quantitative points of view with the aim of reconstructing the interactions between the different groups during the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The main results show the presence of cultural and onomastic borrowings from Romance languages, especially in the areas of power, economy and religion. The author claims that, despite the evidence of a certain Slavic/Romance convergence, the proportion of lexical borrowings in these sources investigated is rather small and is not sufficient to support the thesis that the cultures and their languages on the island of Krk had features of symbiosis, but seems to prove, on the contrary, that they rather stood in separation from each other.
Chapter Eight, “Reconstructing Past Coexistence: Problems and Mysteries in the Multilingual History of Tsakonia, Greece”, by Maxim L. Kisilier, examines the endangered Tsakonian dialect in the Peloponnese in the light of a contact-oriented approach to phenomena of the past. Tsakonian (divided into two varieties, Northern and Southern) is considered by many to be a direct descendant of ancient Greek Doric Laconian, exhibiting features not found in any other modern Greek dialect. However, the author argues that contrary to the idea that it was isolated from other languages in the past, the development of Tsakonian was instead characterized by language contact, not only with standard Modern Greek, but also with the languages of the Slavs, Albanians, Aromanians, Italians (Venetian dialect), as evidenced by a number of toponyms and lexical borrowings. In addition, the existence of a series of (seasonal) migration and mobility practices to Constantinople, Russia, France, Egypt, and Italy is discussed, refuting the notion that speakers of Tsakonian lived in complete isolation from other communities and places. Finally, the author shows that both phonetic changes and morphology share common features with Standard Modern Greek and Modern Greek dialects.
Chapter Nine, “Convergence and Failure to Converge in Relative Social Isolation: Balkan Judezmo” by Brian D. Joseph examines a number of Balkanisms in terms of lexical (especially ‘Essentially-rooted-in-conversation loans’) and morphosyntactic patterns that Judezmo (or Judeo-Spanish/Ladino), the language of Sephardic Jews, shares with other languages of the Balkan Sprachbund (such as Greek, Albanian, Balkan Slavic, Turkish, and Balkan Romance) as a result of patterns of multilingualism and language contact that characterized the Balkans. The author describes the peculiarities of this Romance language, which, due to the changes it has undergone in the diaspora, is considered a separate language from Iberian Spanish, making it both a member of the Balkan linguistic league and an ‘un-Balkan’ one (p.276). It also examines a series of features (such as evidentiality) that this language has in common with the varieties of Spanish spoken in Latin America, whose split from Iberian Spanish coincided quite closely with the time of the departure of Sephardic Jews from Spain and whose development followed similar paths. Finally, Joseph reflects on the importance of qualitative research into the features of language contact in the Balkan Sprachbund in relation to the complex sociocultural environment of interaction in the peninsula.
The concluding chapter, “Balkan Sprachbund Theory as a Research Paradigm” by Andrey N. Sobolev, is a theoretical chapter that insists on the necessity of adopting an innovative (including dialectological and geolinguistic) perspective and comparative-historical and areal-typological methods in relation to the study of contact-induced correspondences in the languages of the multilingual areas of the peninsula, with the aim of producing comprehensive descriptions of linguistic realities. It is argued that the Balkans represent an area of linguistic and cultural convergence that has enabled both the identity and the ethnolinguistic diversity of the various groups living there to be preserved. The author further reflects on the socio-cultural and anthropological conditions and effects of language contact, maintaining that linguistic theories and hypotheses related to such phenomena must be accompanied by a perspective that privileges consideration of the concrete reality of speakers over abstract constructions and mere linguistic descriptions, avoiding any political or ideological interference. Finally, a series of concepts such as linguistic boundary, creolization and others are assessed.
EVALUATION
This volume contributes in a significant way to the research field of language contact in the peninsula: surprisingly, topics of language contact in the Balkans have been covered in relatively few volumes of linguistic studies in the last thirty years (these include Fraenkel & Kramer 1993, Gehl & Purdela Sitaru 1994, Tsitsipis 1998, Kappler 2002, Dahmen 2006, Tomić 2006, Kahl 2007, Nikolova 2006, Tzitzilis & Papanastasiou 2019, Abercrombie 2020). The distinctive character of this book is that it focuses on the patterns of contact between linguistic communities at specific hotspots of convergence in the Balkans, paying particular attention to the linguistic and sociocultural ecology of specific symbiotic groups, an aspect which appears to be quite under-researched. Moreover, many of these languages, such as the Krashovani dialects and Tsakonian, have not yet been studied from the perspective of contact linguistics or sociolinguistics. The rich linguistic data from oral and written texts provide a rich source for analysis and may be of valuable use for future research studies on these topics.
Especially important is the consideration not only of the interlinguistic but also of the intercultural features that characterize the environment of linguistic balkanization, with sensitivity to ethnographic methods of data collection and to cultural and folkloric aspects of social life. While approaching the development of linguistic phenomena generated by contact, the authors of this volume do not take a deterministic approach to the possibility of finding an all-encompassing linguistic theory that would allow generalization rules, and instead focus on the exceptions and variability of results under similar contact conditions in the same communities (see, for example, the case of Slavic/Romance contact in the villages of Carașova and Iabalcea in Chapter 7). Thus, this book proves that identifying the sociolinguistic conditions that make possible the emergence of language contact phenomena is a rather difficult undertaking, and no simple laws of ‘cause and effect’ can be established for the situations of convergence or lack thereof.
The wide comparative perspective is confirmed as an essential condition that leads the authors to adopt a highly ‘inclusive’ approach in relation to the investigation and reconstruction of the settings of language contact: “[…] there is absolutely no reason to exclude any dialects spoken in the Balkans and adjacent territories outside the scope of interests of Balkan linguistics” (p.6). As mentioned above, most of the language groups of the Balkan Sprachbund are treated in this volume (Romance, Slavic, Greek, Albanian, Judezmo) leaving out only the Balkan Romani and Turkish variants, a shortcoming that is explicitly regretted on page VIII. As far as the comparative perspective is concerned, nevertheless, it would have been beneficial if the volume had included an explanation on the possibilities of comparison between the Balkan Sprachbund and examples of language leagues and language contact phenomena in other parts of the world. It is indeed not clear whether the methodology and research framework adopted in the volume could prove useful for investigating similar patterns elsewhere (e.g. in the Caucasus, Anatolia, or even further) or what the reasons for the impracticality of such comparative work would be.
As claimed by the editor (p. 22), the situations of language contact described in this volume do not reflect all possible types of past scenarios that existed in the peninsula, but it may be assumed that they are fairly representative of those phenomena. The most recognizable merit of the book is to show that studies on a micro-level of language contact can be extremely useful for the purpose of reconstructing the hypotheses of how the situations of multilingualism in the past looked like at a larger scale. Furthermore, of high importance is also the attention for contact language phenomena which, although to different extent and with exceptions, are threatened with disappearance, especially in the case of small-scale multilingualism and polyglossia. Finally, many of the languages and dialects treated in the various chapters correspond to (highly) endangered languages, such as Judezmo, Tsakonian, Karashani, etc.
By exploring the composite circumstances of language contact in various multilingual ecologies of the Balkans and their effects on the linguistic practices and behaviors of the community members involved, the authors of this volume have provided excellent evidence of the apparent paradox that characterizes sociocultural expressions in this part of Europe. It consists in the non-dualistic reality that in “[…] Balkan societies, linguistic and cultural convergence subsists alongside the preservation of ethnic and linguistic identity” (p. 51). It is thus to be hoped that this work will inspire further research studies on the irreducible sociolinguistic and cultural complexity of the Balkan peninsula.
Finally, and similarly to what already noted elsewhere (Selvelli 2021), I believe that the possibility of visualizing the locations concerned in the studies on a map is always very helpful, especially in the cases of places situated in proximity of borderlands, a fact which in the case of contact phenomena acquires even stronger relevance. In the case of this volume, two maps are provided (at Chapter four and Chapter five), which is already a good start, but others are missing.
REFERENCES
Dahmen, Wolfgang (ed.). 2006. Lexikalischer Sprachkontakt in Südosteuropa: Romanistisches Kolloquium XII. Tübingen: G. Narr.
Fraenkel, Eran & Kramer, Christina E. (eds.). 1993. Language Contact: Language Conflict. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Gehl, Hans & Purdela Sitaru, Maria (eds.). 1994. Interferenzen in den Sprachen und Dialekten Südosteuropas. Tübingen: Institut für donauschwäbische Geschichte und Landeskunde.
Kahl, Thede. 2007. Hirten in Kontakt: Sprach- und Kulturwandel ehemaliger Wanderhirten (Albanisch, Aromunisch, Griechisch). Wien; Berlin; Münster: Lit.
Kappler, Matthias. 2002. Turkish language contacts in South-Eastern Europe. Istanbul: Isis Press.
Nikolova, Nadka. 2006. Bilingvizmat v balgarskite zemi prez XV-XIX vek. Shumen: Shumen University Publisher Konstantin Preslavski.
Selvelli, Giustina. 2021. “The Romance-Speaking Balkans. Language and the Politics of Identity”. Review appeared on Linguist List 32.3626, Tue, Nov 16, 2021.
https://linguistlist.org/issues/32.3627/ Tomić, Olga Mišeska. 2006. Balkan Sprachbund. Morpho-syntactic Features. Dordrecht: Springer.
Tsitsipis, Lukas D. 1998. A Linguistic Anthropology of Praxis and Language Shift: Arvanítika (Albanian) and Greek in Contact. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tzitzilis, Christos, Papanastasiou, Giorgos. 2019. Language contact in the Balkans and Asia Minor. 1st Volume. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Giustina Selvelli is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, with a project on the patterns of “post-imperial” multilingualism in three cities of the Balkan Peninsula. She has lectured on topics related to the ethnolinguistic minorities of Southeast Europe from the perspectives of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology at the University of the Aegean in Mytilene, the Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, the University of Klagenfurt and at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her research interests include script choice and biscriptality, language ideologies, language policy, language and diaspora, literature and media of ethnolinguistic minorities, language activism.
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