Torlakian dialects explained

Torlakian
States:Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania
Ethnicity:Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Krashovani, Gorani
Speakers:ca. 1.5 million
Date:no date
Familycolor:Indo-European
Fam2:Balto-Slavic
Fam3:Slavic
Fam4:South Slavic
Fam5:Transitional
Map:Torlak dialects map en.png
Script:
Mapcaption:Areas where Torlakian dialects are spoken.
Isoexception:dialect
Glotto:nort2595
Glottoname:Macedonian (partial match)
Glotto2:piri1234
Glottoname2:Pirin-Malashevo
Glotto3:tran1292
Glottoname3:Transitional Bulgarian
Linglist:srp-tor
Notice:IPA

Torlakian, or Torlak, is a group of transitional South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund. According to UNESCO's list of endangered languages, Torlakian is vulnerable.[1]

Torlakian is not standardized, and its subdialects vary significantly in some features. Yugoslav linguists traditionally classified it as an old Shtokavian dialect or as a fourth dialect of Serbo-Croatian along with Shtokavian, Chakavian, and Kajkavian. Bulgarian scholars classify it as a Western Bulgarian dialect, in which case it is referred to as a Transitional Bulgarian dialect.

In Bulgarian common speech, the Torlakian dialects are traditionally referred to as ("U-dialects"), referencing their reflex of old Slavic *ǫ being /u/ (compared to standard Bulgarian, where it is /ɤ/, or its nearby dialects, where it is /a/).

Torlakian is a Balkanized Western South Slavic dialect: The Serbo-Croatian continuum is represented by (a) the strongly Balkanized Prizren-Timok varieties spoken in Eastern Kosovo, Eastern and Southern Serbia (they make part of the so-called Torlak dialect area together with the South Slavic varieties spoken in northern parts of North Macedonia and in Western Bulgaria (Vuković 2021), and we refer to them as “Torlak” in the text); although some researchers tend to classify it as Eastern South Slavic.[2] According to the historian Ivo Banac during the Middle Ages, Torlak and the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect were part of Eastern South Slavic, but since the 12th century, especially the Shtokavian dialects, including Eastern Herzegovinian, began to diverge from the other neighboring South Slavic dialects.[3]

Some of the phenomena that distinguish western and eastern subgroups of the South Slavic languages can be explained by two separate migratory waves of different Slavic tribal groups of the future South Slavs via two routes: the west and east of the Carpathian Mountains.[4]

Speakers of the dialectal group are primarily ethnic Serbs, Bulgarians, and Macedonians.[5] There are also smaller ethnic communities of Croats (the Krashovani) in Romania and Slavic Muslims (the Gorani) in southern Kosovo.

Classification

The Torlakian dialects are intermediate between the Eastern and Western branches of South Slavic dialect continuum,[6] [7] and have been variously described, in whole or in parts, as belonging to either group. In the 19th century, they were often called Bulgarian, but their classification was contested between Serbian and Bulgarian writers. Previously, the designation "Torlakian" was not applied to the dialects of Niš and the neighbouring areas to the east and south.[8]

Balkan sprachbund

The Torlakian dialects, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, display many properties of the Balkan linguistic area, a set of structural convergence features shared also with other, non-Slavic, languages of the Balkans such as Albanian, Romanian and Aromanian. In terms of areal linguistics, they have therefore been described as part of a prototypical "Balkan Slavic" area, as opposed to other parts of Serbo-Croatian, which are only peripherally involved in the convergence area.[9] [10] [11]

Balkan linguists

Serbian linguists

Most notable Serbian linguists (like Pavle Ivić and Asim Peco) classify Torlakian (Serbo-Croatian: Torlački / Торлачки, pronounced as /tɔ̌rlaːt͡ʃkiː/) as an Old-Shtokavian dialect, referring to it as the Prizren–Timok dialect.[12]

Croatian linguists

Bulgarian linguists

Bulgarian researchers such as Benyo Tsonev, Gavril Zanetov and the Macedono-Bulgarian researcher Krste Misirkov[17] classified Torlakian (Bulgarian: Торлашки|Torlashki) as dialect of the Bulgarian language. They noted the manner of the articles, the loss of most of the cases, etc. Today Bulgarian linguists (Stoyko Stoykov, Rangel Bozhkov) also classify Torlakian as a "Belogradchik-Tran" dialect of Bulgarian, and claim that it should be classified outside the Shtokavian area. Stoykov further argued that the Torlakian dialects have a grammar that is closer to Bulgarian and that this is indicative of them being originally Bulgarian.[18]

Macedonian linguists

In Macedonian dialectology, the Torlakian (Macedonian: Торлачки|Torlački) varieties spoken in North Macedonia (Kumanovo, Kratovo and Kriva Palanka dialect) are classified as part of a northeastern group of Macedonian dialects.[19]

Features

Vocabulary

Basic Torlakian vocabulary shares most of its Slavic roots with Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian but also over time borrowed a number of words from Aromanian, Greek, Turkish, and Albanian in the Gora region of the Šar Mountains. It also preserved many words which in the "major" languages became archaisms or changed meaning. Like other features, vocabulary is inconsistent across subdialects, for example, a Krashovan does not necessarily understand a Goranac.

The varieties spoken in the Slavic countries have been heavily influenced by the standardized national languages, particularly when a new word or concept was introduced. The only exception is a form of Torlakian spoken in Romania, which escaped the influence of a standardized language which has existed in Serbia since a state was created after the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire. The Slavs indigenous to the region are called Krashovani and are a mixture of original settler Slavs and later settlers from the Timok Valley in eastern Serbia.

Cases lacking inflections

Bulgarian and Macedonian are the only two modern Slavic languages that lost virtually the entire noun case system, with nearly all nouns now in the surviving nominative case. This is partly true of the Torlakian dialect. In the northwest, the instrumental case merges with the accusative case, and the locative and genitive cases merge with the nominative case. Further south, all inflections disappear and syntactic meaning is determined solely by prepositions.

H-dropping

Macedonian, Torlakian and a number of Serbian and Bulgarian dialects, unlike all other Slavic languages, technically lack the phonemes pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/. In other Slavic languages, pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ (the latter from Proto-Slavic *g in "H-Slavic languages") is common.

The appearance of the letter h in the alphabet is reserved mostly for loanwords and toponyms within the Republic of North Macedonia but outside of the standard language region. In Macedonian, this is the case with eastern towns such as Pehčevo. In fact, the Macedonian language is based in Prilep, Pelagonia and words such as thousand and urgent are Macedonian: iljada and Macedonian: itno in standard Macedonian but Serbian: hiljada and Serbian: hitno in Serbian (also, Macedonian Macedonian: oro, Macedonian: ubav vs. Bulgarian Bulgarian: horo, Bulgarian: hubav (folk dance, beautiful)). This is actually a part of an isogloss, a dividing line separating Prilep from Pehčevo in the Republic of North Macedonia at the southern extreme, and reaching central Serbia (Šumadija) at a northern extreme. In Šumadija, local folk songs may still use the traditional form of I want being oću (оћу) compared with Serbian: hoću (хоћу) as spoken in Standard Serbian.

Syllabic /l/

Some versions of Torlakian have retained the syllabic pronounced as //l//, which, like pronounced as //r//, can serve the nucleus of a syllable. In most of the Shtokavian dialects, the syllabic pronounced as //l// eventually became pronounced as //u// or pronounced as //o//. In standard Bulgarian, it is preceded by the vowel represented by ъ (pronounced as /link/) to separate consonant clusters. Naturally, the pronounced as //l// becomes velarized in most such positions, giving pronounced as /link/.[20] In some dialects, most notably the Leskovac dialect, the word-final -l has instead shifted into the vocal cluster -(i)ja; for example the word пекал became пекја (to bake). Word-medially however the syllabic /l/ remains unaltered.

TorlakianKrašovan (Karas)влк pronounced as //vɫk//пекъл pronounced as //pɛkəl//сълза pronounced as //səɫza//жлт pronounced as //ʒɫt//
Northern (Svrljig)вук pronounced as //vuk//пекал pronounced as //pɛkəɫ//суза pronounced as //suza//жлът pronounced as //ʒlət//
Central (Lužnica)вук pronounced as //vuk//пекл pronounced as //pɛkəɫ//слза pronounced as //sləza//жлт pronounced as //ʒlət//
Southern (Vranje)влк pronounced as //vlk//пекал pronounced as //pɛkal//солза pronounced as //sɔɫza//жлт pronounced as //ʒəɫt//
Western (Prizren)вук pronounced as //vuk//пекл pronounced as //pɛkɫ//слуза pronounced as //sluza//жлт pronounced as //ʒlt//
Eastern (Tran)вук pronounced as //vuk//пекл pronounced as //pɛkɫ//слза pronounced as //slza//жлт pronounced as //ʒlt//
North-Eastern (Belogradchik)влк pronounced as //vlk//пекл pronounced as //pɛkɫ//слза pronounced as //slza//жлт pronounced as //ʒlt//
South-Eastern (Kumanovo)вук pronounced as //vuk//пекъл pronounced as //pɛkəɫ//слза pronounced as //slza//жут pronounced as //ʒut//
Standard Serbo-Croatianвук, vuk pronounced as //ʋûːk//пекао, pekao pronounced as //pêkao//суза, suza pronounced as //sûza//жут, žut pronounced as //ʒûːt//
Standard Bulgarianвълк pronounced as //vɤɫk//пекъл pronounced as //pɛkɐɫ//сълза pronounced as //sɐɫza//жълт pronounced as //ʒɤɫt//
Standard Macedonianволк pronounced as //vɔlk//печел pronounced as //pɛtʃɛl//солза pronounced as //sɔlza//жолт pronounced as //ʒɔlt//
Englishwolf(have) bakedtearyellow

Features shared with Eastern South Slavic

Features shared with Western South Slavic

In all Torlakian dialects:

In some Torlakian dialects:

Dialects

Literature

Literature written in Torlakian is rather sparse as the dialect has never been an official state language. During the Ottoman rule literacy in the region was limited to Eastern Orthodox clergy, who chiefly used Old Church Slavonic in writing. The first known literary document influenced by Torlakian[21] dialects is the Manuscript from Temska Monastery from 1762, in which its author, the Monk Kiril Zhivkovich from Pirot, considered his language "simple Bulgarian".[22]

Ethnography

According to one theory, the name Torlak derived from the South Slavic word tor ("sheepfold"), possibly referring to the fact that Torlaks in the past were mainly shepherds by occupation. Some Bulgarian scientists describe the Torlaks as a distinct ethnographic group.[23] Another theory is that it is derived from Ottoman Turkish torlak ("unbearded youth"), possibly referring to some portion of the youth among them not developing dense facial hair.[24] The Torlaks are also sometimes classified as part of the Shopi population and vice versa. In the 19th century, there was no exact border between Torlak and Shopi settlements. According to some authors, during Ottoman rule, a majority of the Torlakian population did not have national consciousness in an ethnic sense.[25]

Therefore, both Serbs and Bulgarians considered local Slavs as part of their own people and the local population was also divided between sympathy for Bulgarians and Serbs.[26] Other authors take a different view and maintain that the inhabitants of the Torlakian area had begun to develop predominantly Bulgarian national consciousness.[27] [28] [29] [30] With Ottoman influence ever weakening, the increase of nationalist sentiment in the Balkans in late 19th and early 20th century, and the redrawing of national boundaries after the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the Balkan wars and World War I, the borders in the Torlakian-speaking region changed several times between Serbia and Bulgaria, and later the Republic of North Macedonia.

See also

References

Sources

External links

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. "Torlak" at Web site: UNESCO's list of endangered languages . Unesco.org . 2013-03-24.
  2. Balkan Syntax and Semantics, John Benjamins Publishing, 2004,, The typology of Balkan evidentiality and areal linguistics, Victor Friedman, p. 123.
  3. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, 1988,, p. 47.
  4. The Slavic Languages, Roland Sussex, Paul Cubberley, Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2006,, p. 42.
  5. Book: The languages and linguistics of Europe, Bernd Kortmann, Johan van der Auwera, Walter de Gruyter, 2011, ISBN 3110220261, p. 515 . 2011-07-27 . 9783110220261 . 2013-03-24. Kortmann . Bernd . Auwera . Johan van der . Walter de Gruyter .
  6. Book: Friedman, Victor . Victor Friedman . 1999 . Linguistic emblems and emblematic languages: on language as flag in the Balkans . Kenneth E. Naylor memorial lecture series in South Slavic linguistics; vol. 1 . Columbus, Ohio . Ohio State University, Dept. of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures . 8 . 46734277.
  7. Book: Alexander, Ronelle . 2000 . In honor of diversity: the linguistic resources of the Balkans . Kenneth E. Naylor memorial lecture series in South Slavic linguistics; vol. 2 . Columbus, Ohio . Ohio State University, Dept. of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures . 4 . 47186443.
  8. Book: Henrik Birnbaum. Victor Terras. International Congress of Slavists, 8. 1978. Slavica Publishers. 978-0-89357-046-0. 473. Niš is located in a dialect area called prizrensko-južnomoravski; the name torlaški 'Torlak' is now applied to the dialect of the Niš area as well as to neighboring dialects to the east and south..
  9. Book: Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world, Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, Elsevier, 2008, ISBN 0-08-087774-5, pp. 119–120 . 6 April 2010. Elsevier . 9780080877754 . 2013-03-24.
  10. Book: Papers from the 6-th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Current issues in linguistic theory, Jacek Fisiak, John Benjamins Publishing, 1985 ISBN 9027235287, p. 17 – Henrik Birnbaum: Divergence and convergence in linguistic evolution . January 1985. 9027235287 . 2013-03-24. Fisiak . Jacek . John Benjamins .
  11. Book: The handbook of language contact, Blackwell handbooks in Linguistics, Raymond Hickey, John Wiley & Sons, 2010, ISBN 140517580X, p. 620 . 2010-04-26 . 9781405175807 . 2013-03-24. Hickey . Raymond . John Wiley & Sons .
  12. Book: Ivić, Pavle. Dijalektologija srpskohrvatskog jezika. 2001. 25.
    Web site: Pavle Ivić. Dijalektološka karta štokavskog narečja.
  13. Book: Archivum philologicum et linguisticum. 7–9. 1964. Matica srpska. 26.
  14. Book: Slavistische Beiträge. 67–69. 1973. O. Sagner. 978-3-87690-076-6. 141.
  15. Dejan Krstić, Ideas of the Pirot region population that concern the term the Torlaks, Pirotski zbornik, January 2019
  16. Book: Janneke Kalsbeek. The Čakavian Dialect of Orbanići Near Žminj in Istria. 1998. Rodopi. 90-420-0712-5. 3.
  17. Мисирков, Кръстьо (1898). Значението на моравското или ресавското наречие за съвременната и историческа етнография на Балканския полуостров. Български преглед, година V, книга І, стр. 121–127; Мисирков, Кръстьо (1910, 1911). Бележки по южно-славянска филология и история – Към въпроса за пограничната линия между българския и сръбско-хърватски езици и народи, Одеса, 30.XII.1909 г. Българска сбирка.
  18. Bulgarian dialectology, Stoyko Stoykov, 2002, p.163
  19. K. Koneski, Pravopisen rečnik na makedonskiot literaturen jazik. Skopje: Prosvetno delo 1999.
  20. Osnovne značajke torlačkoga narječja . Josip Lisac . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20041116220303/http://www.matica.hr/Kolo/kolo0401.nsf/AllWebDocs/torl . 2004-11-16 .
  21. Българскиият език през 20-ти век. Василка Радева, Издател Pensoft Publishers, 2001,, стр. 280–281.
  22. Василев, В.П. Темският ръкопис – български езиков паметник от 1764 г, Paleobulgarica, IX (1986), кн. 1, с. 49–72
  23. Bŭlgarska etnografiia, Nikolaĭ Ivanov Kolev, Izdatelstvo Nauka i izkustvo, 1987, p. 69; Istoricheski pregled, Bŭlgarsko istorichesko druzhestvo, Institut za istoriia (Bŭlgarska akademia na naukite), 1984, p. 16.
  24. Nişanyan Etimolojik Sözlük (Nişanyan Etymological Dictionary), definition of "torlak", Oct. 30th 2021, https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/kelime/torlak
  25. In "The Shaping of Bulgarian and Serbian National Identities, 1800s–1900s, February 2003, Katrin Bozeva, Department of History, McGill University, Montreal. Thesis to fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, claims: "The historical data examined demonstrate that before the establishment of their sovereign states ordinary Serbs and Bulgarians had only a vague idea, if any, of their national identity. The peasantry was accustomed to defining itself in terms of religion, locality and occupation, not in terms of nationality. Once the nation state was established peasants had to be indoctrinated in nationalism. The inculcation was executed through the schooling system, military conscription, the Christian Orthodox Church, and the press. It was through the channels of these state institutions that a national identity cameinto existence... A recent trend in national historiography presents many social rebellions in the Serbian and Bulgarian lands as early attempts to obtain independence from the Sublime Porte... Yet is as well to recall that, in their nascent phases, the uprisings of the 19th century tended to have social causes. Mass national movements were only to be developed when conditions permitted. There is no evidence that earlier conflicts between the Ottoman administration and local Bulgarian and Serbian populations were national in any sense at all."
  26. According to Nenad Stefanov, PhD in history at Humboldt University of Berlin, the rebellions between 1836 and 1840 in the area of Niš, Pirot and Belogradčik are object of contention between a nationally centered Serbian and Bulgarian historical narrative, both sides claiming they to be a manifestation of Bulgarian national consciousness or respectively loyalty of the rebels to Miloš Obrenović in a Serbian national historiography. He claims, by conceptualizing the relationship of Obrenović to the rebellion not as the protagonist of any national idea, but as one political actor, acting in this concrete context, is possible to avoid a strictly nationalist views. A lot of sources related to the activity of Prince Miloš, shows his interaction and cooperation with the Ottoman authorities, in order to restrain this revolt. For more see: Revolutions in the Balkans, Revolts and Uprisings in the Era of Nationalism (1804–1908), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, pp. 27–28. and Südosteuropäische Hefte, 3 (2014) 1, pp. 163–166.
  27. According to Engin Tanir from Ankara University in his thesis for the degree of master of arts in history, called "The mid-nineteenth century Ottoman Bulgaria from the viewpoints of the French travelers", p, 70: The district of Nish was at the western end of the Danubean Province. It was subdivided into six districts which were Nish, Pirot, Leskovac, Vranje, Prokuplje and Iznebol. According to Ami Boué, who traveled through the region in 1837, Nish was a Bulgarian district and both in the town and in the country Bulgarians formed the great part of the population. Nevertheless, Cyprien Robert claimed that Serbs formed half of the town population. In the Pirot and Leskovac districts, Bulgarians were the main ethnic group, especially in the villages disseminated on the valleys. In the district of Prekoplie, the main ethnic group was Muslim Albanians. According to Boué, Albanians were placed in the Nish sub-province by the Porte to counterbalance the Christian majority and to prevent periodic Bulgarian rebellions. In Vranje, Bulgarians and Muslim Albanians were equally distributed. Turks lived mainly in the chief towns and formed a small minority in the whole of this sub-province. Bulgarians, Serbs and Muslim Albanians were the main ethnic groups.
  28. According to Mark Pinson's, "Ottoman Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period — The Revolts in Nish (1841) and Vidin (1850)," published in peer reviewed journal Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 11, No 2 (May, 1975), pp. 103–146, in Ottoman usage during the period of the Tanzimat (1839–1876), the district of Nish was included in the area designated "Bulgaria" and describes all rebellions in the area at that time, as created by the Bulgarians.
  29. According to Kyril Drezov, lecturer at the Keele University and leading expert on Balkan politics at the turn of the 20th century, after had gained in 1878 the new territories (between Nis and Pirot), Serbia had successfully assimilated the local transitional Bulgarians and turned its attention to Macedonia. He cites professor Henry Wilkinson's book "Maps and Politics a Review of the Ethnographic Cartography of Macedonia", Liverpool University Press, 1951. Wilkinson summarized dozens of ethnographic maps which depicted the demographics of the southern Balkans. From them is apparent that up until the late 19th century the Slavs of today Eastern Serbia were displayed predominantly as Bulgarians. For more: J. Pettifer, The New Macedonian Question, St Antony's, Springer, 1999,, p. 53.
  30. The Serbian newspaper, Srbske Narodne Novine (Year IV, pp. 138 and 141-43, May 4 and 7, 1841), described the towns of Niš, Leskovac, Pirot, and Vranja as lying in Bulgaria, and styles their inhabitants Bulgarians. In a map made by Dimitrije Davidović called „Territories inhabited by Serbians” from 1828 Macedonia, but also the towns Niš, Leskovac, Vranja, Pirot etc. were situated outside the boundaries of the Serbian race. The map of Constantine Desjardins (1853), French professor in Serbia represents the realm of the Serbian language. The map was based on Davidović‘s work confining Serbians into the limited area north of Šar Planina. For more: G. Demeter et al., "Ethnic Mapping on the Balkans (1840–1925): a Brief Comparative Summary of Concepts and Methods of Visualization" in (Re)Discovering the Sources of Bulgarian and Hungarian History. pp. 65–100.

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