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The Balkan Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2025

Victor A. Friedman  and
Brian D. Joseph
Victor A. Friedman
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Brian D. Joseph
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Type
Chapter
Information
The Balkan Languages , pp. i
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

The Balkan Languages

Southeast Europe’s Balkan peninsula is home to numerous languages that have come to converge structurally and lexically, due to complex social factors involving contact among speakers of these languages, constituting a sprachbund. This volume provides the first comprehensive, book-length survey of the Balkan languages in English. It covers the full range of languages involved in the Balkan convergence zone, including Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Judezmo, Macedonian, Meglenoromanian, Romani, Romanian, Torlak, and West Rumelian Turkish. Balkan convergences – “Balkanisms” – are presented, considering the grammatical domains of phonetics, phonology, morphology, morphosyntax, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and lexicon. It gives attention to relevant notions of contact linguistics and to the history of the field, while also introducing key conceptual innovations. Providing fresh data and perspectives on the most studied intense contact situation, this work is essential reading for anyone interested in Balkan languages and language contact. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Victor A. Friedman is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago and Honorary Associate at La Trobe University. Notable publications include Turkish in Macedonia and Beyond (2003), Studies on Albanian and Other Balkan Languages (2008), and Macedonian Studies II (2015).

Brian D. Joseph is Distinguished University Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, and The Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of South Slavic Linguistics, Emeritus, at The Ohio State University. Notable publications include The Synchrony and Diachrony of the Balkan Infinitive (1983), Morphology and Universals in Syntactic Change (1990), and Albano-Balkanological Observations (2020).

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