The goal of the article is to explore the properties of bilingual and multilingual situations with balanced, or non-polyglossic, relationships between languages in the modern Balkans. A comparison with non-balanced, or polyglossic, settings aims at determining the factors that support balanced bilingualism in one Balkan community and result in different dominance configurations in the others.
Methodology:
We focus, on the one hand, on the community’s inner diversity and the variation in linguistic competence among its individual members, showing how the differences of the various groups of speakers contribute to the maintenance of bilingualism in the community across several generations. On the other hand, we consider speech community as a unit of study and see how factors such as geographical location, size, and presence or absence of ties with the surrounding region, contribute to the loss or maintenance of community bilingualism and multilingualism in different parts of the Balkan linguistic area.
Findings:
The main case that is scrutinized is the situation of “balanced language contact” in a small-scale village community of Velja Gorana (Montenegro). Its analysis is based on field observations made in the bilingual families of Velja Gorana in 2013 to 2015. Besides, we overview a range of Balkan bilingual and multilingual communities, based on the existing literature, and analyse the patterns of (socio)linguistic dominance of the languages spoken in each community.
Originality:
The article provides a description of a balanced situation in the modern Balkans and offers a model for understanding of the Balkan bilingualism and multilingualism, taking into consideration several factors interacting at different levels, from individual speaker to the speech community.
Implications:
The proposed model explains the diversity of bilingual and multilingual situations of the modern Balkans. This enables us to make predictions about the ways of development of these situations and suggest how the past Balkan situations could have been organized.
AikhenvaldA. Y. (2007). Grammars in contact. A cross-linguistic perspective. In AikhenvaldA. Y.DixonR. M. W. (Eds.), Grammars in contact. A cross-linguistic typology (pp. 1–66). Oxford University Press.
3.
AndersenR. W. (1982). Determining the linguistic attributes of language attrition. In LambertR. D.FreedB. F. (Eds.), The loss of language skills (pp. 83–118). Newbury House Publishers.
4.
BaraM.KahlT.SobolevA. N. (2005). Iuzhnoarumynskii govor sela Turia (Pind). Sintaksis, leksika, etnolingvistika, teksty [Southern Arumanian variety of the village Turia (Pindus). Syntax, lexicon, ethnolinguistics, texts]. Peter Lang GmbH. [In Russian.]
5.
DorianN. (1989). Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death. Cambridge University Press.
6.
DumitrescuA. C. (2016). Intermarriage and intergenerational transmission of Aromanian in the Central Balkans. Slavica Helsingiensia, 49, 103–114.
7.
FishmanJ. A. (1965). Who speaks what language to whom and when?La Linguistique, 1, 67–88.
FriedmanV.JosephB. (2017). Reassessing sprachbunds: A view from the Balkans. In HickeyR. (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of areal linguistics (pp. 55–87). Cambridge University Press.
10.
GołąbZb. (1997). The ethnic background and internal linguistic mechanism of the so-called Balkanization of Macedonian. Balkanistica, 10, 13–19.
11.
JosephB. (2010). Language contact in the Balkans. In HickeyR. (Ed.), The handbook of language contact (pp. 618–633). Wiley-Blackwell.
12.
JovićevićA. (1922). Crnogorsko Primorje i Krajina [Montenegrin Littoral and Krajina]. Srpski etnografski zbornik [Serbian ethnographic anthology], 23(1), 1–171. [In Serbian.]
13.
KhaninaO. (2021). Languages practices and ideologies at the Lower Yenisei (Siberia): Reconstructing past multilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(4), 1059–1080.
14.
KoniorD. V.MakarovaA. L. (2015). Osobennosti etnoiazykovoi situatsii v regione Karashevo (Rumyniia) [On ethnolinguistic situation in the community of Karashevo (Romania)]. Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, 8, 83–91. https://doi.org/10.14746/pss.2015.8.5 [In Russian.]
15.
LindstedtJ. (2016). Multilingualism in the Central Balkans in late Ottoman times. Slavica Helsingiensia, 49, 51–67.
MakarovaA. L. (2021). Mutual understanding among Albanians, Slavs and Aromanians in Prespa, North Macedonia: Perfect tense as a perfect tool. In SobolevA. N. (Ed.), Between separation and symbiosis: Southeastern European languages and cultures in contact (pp. 59–88). de Gruyter.
18.
MatrasY. (2009). Language contact. Cambridge University Press.
19.
McLaughlinB. (1978). Second language acquisition in childhood. Lawrence Erlbaum.
20.
Monstat. (2011). Popis stanovništva, domaćinstava i stanova u Crnoj Gori [Census of population, households and dwellings in Montenegro]. Press release. Statistical office, Montenegro. 12July2011. http://monstat.org/ [In Serbian.]
21.
MorozovaM. S. (2017). Albanskii govor ili govory Gorany? Genezis i funktsionirovanie [Albanian dialect(s) of Gorana: Genesis and functioning]. Vestnik SPbGU. Iazyk i literatura, 14(2) [Vestnik SPbSU. Language and Literature, 14(2)], 64–79. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu09.2017.207 [In Russian.]
22.
MorozovaM. S. (2018). Vybor iazyka i perekliuchenie kodov v balkanskom poliloge (na primere bilingval’nogo soobshchestva Velja Gorany, Chernogoriia) [Language choice and codeswitching in the Balkan polilogue: A case of the bilingual community of Velja Gorana, Montenegro]. In SedakovaI. A.MakartsevM. M.TsivjanT. V. (Eds.), Balkanskii polilog: kommunikatsiia v kulturno-slozhnykh soobshchestvakh. Pamiati V. V. Ivanova [Balkan polilogue: Communication in culturally complex communities. In the memory of V. V. Ivanov] (pp. 49–67). Institute of Slavic studies. https://doi.org/10.31168/2619-0842.2018.5 [In Russian.]
23.
MorozovaM. S. (2019). Language contact in social context: Kinship terms and kinship relations of the Mrkovići in Southern Montenegro. Journal of Language Contact, 12(2), 305–343. https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01202003
24.
MorozovaM. S. (2021). “Balanced language contact” in social context: Velja Gorana in Southern Montenegro. In SobolevA. N. (Ed.), Between separation and symbiosis. South Eastern European languages and cultures in contact (pp. 89–134). de Gruyter Mouton.
25.
MorozovaM. S.RusakovA. Y. (2018). Albansko-chernogorskoe pogranichie: v poiskakh “sbalansirovannogo iazykovogo kontakta” [Montenegrin-Albanian linguistic border: In search of “balanced language contact”]. Slověne, 7(2), 258–302. https://doi.org/10.31168/2305-6754.2018.7.2.10[In Russian.]
26.
MuyskenP. (2010). Scenarios for language contact. In HickeyR. (Ed.), The handbook of language contact (pp. 265–281). Wiley-Blackwell.
RossM. (2013). Diagnosing contact processes from their outcomes: The importance of life stages. Journal of Language Contact, 6(1), 5–47. https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-006001002
29.
RovinskiiP. A. (1897). Chernogoriia v ee proshlom i nastoiashchem [Montenegro in its past and present] (Vol. 2, Part 1). Imperatorskaia akademiia nauk. [In Russian.]
30.
RusakovA. Y. (2001). The North Russian Romani dialect: Interference and code switching. In DahlÖ.Koptjevskaja-TammM. (Eds.), Circum-Baltic languages (Vol. 1, pp. 313–337). John Benjamins.
31.
RusakovA. Y. (2007). Slavianskie iazyki na Balkanakh: aspekty kontaktnogo vzaimodeistviia [Slavic languages in the Balkans: Aspects of contact interaction]. In IvanovV. V. (Ed.), Areal’noe i geneticheskoe v structure slavianskikh iazykov. Materialy kruglogo stola [Areal and genetic in the structure of Slavic languages. Round table proceedings] (pp. 77–89). Probel. [In Russian].
32.
RusakovA. Y. (2011). Cyganskii iazyk (cyganskie dialekty Evropy) [Romani language (Romani dialects of Europe)]. In OranskaiaT. I.MazurovaJ. V.KibrikA. A.RusakovA. Y. (Eds.), Iazyki mira. Novye indoarijskie iazyki [Languages of the world: New Indo-Aryan languages] (pp. 680–775). Nauka. [In Russian].
SchmidM.YılmazG. (2018). Predictors of language dominance: An integrated analysis of first language attrition and second language acquisition in late bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, article 1306. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01306
35.
SeligerH.VagoR. (1991). The study of first language attrition: An overview. In SeligerH.VagoR. (Eds.), First language attrition (pp. 3–15). Cambridge University Press.
36.
Silva-CorvalánC.Treffers-DallerJ. (Eds.). (2016). Language dominance in bilinguals: Issues of measurement and operationalization. Cambridge University Press.
37.
SingerR.HarrisS. (2016). What practices and ideologies support small-scale multilingualism? A case study of Warruwi Community, northern Australia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 241, 163–208. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2016-0029
38.
SobolevA. N. (2015). Mrkovići (i Gorana): iazyki i dialekty chernogorskogo Primoria v kontekste novejshikh balkanisticheskikh issledovanii [Mrkovići (and Gorana): Languages and dialects of Montenegrin Littoral in the context of the recent balkanological studies]. In DemirajB. (Ed.), Sprache und Kultur der Albaner. Zeitliche und räumliche Dimensionen. Akten der 5. Deutsch-albanischen kulturwissenschaftlichen Tagung (5.–8. Juni 2014, Buçimas bei Pogradec, Albanien) [Language and culture of the Albanians. Temporal and spatial dimensions. Files from the 5th German-Albanian Cultural Studies Conference (June 5-8, 2014, Buçimas near Pogradec, Albania)] (pp. 533–556). Harrassowitz. [In Russian.]
39.
SobolevA. N. (2017). Iazyki simbioticheskikh soobshchestv Zapadnykh Balkan: grecheskii i albanskii v kraine Himara, Albaniia [Languages in the Western Balkan Symbiotic Societies: Greek and Albanian in Himara, Albania].Vestnik SPbGU. Iazyk i literatura, 14(3) [Vestnik SPbSU. Language and Literature, 14(3)], 420–442. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu09.2017.310 [In Russian.]
40.
SobolevA. N.MakarovaA. L.MorozovaM. S.KisilierM. L.KozakV. V.KoniorD. V.RusakovA. Y. (2018). Iuzhnoslavianskie dialekty v simbioticheskikh soobshchestvakh Balkan [South Slavic dialects in the symbiotic societies of the Balkans]. Acta linguistica Petropolitana. Trudy Instituta lingvisticheskikh issledovanii RAN [Acta linguistica Petropolitana. Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies], 14(2), 685–746. https://doi.org/10.30842/alpi23065737190818 [In Russian.]
41.
SobolevA. N.NovikА. А. (Eds.). (2013). Golo Bordo (Gollobordë), Albaniia: Iz materialov balkanskoi ekspeditsii RAN i SPbGU 2008–2010 gg. [Golo Bordo (Gollobordë), Albania. From the materials of the Balkan expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the State University of St. Petersburg in 2008–2010]. Nauka; Otto Sagner. [In Russian.]
42.
ThomasonS. G. (2001). Language contact. An introduction. Edinburgh University Press.
43.
VakhtinN. (2001). Iazyki narodov Severa v XX veke: Ocherki iazykovogo sdviga [Languages of the Far North in the XXth century: Essays on language shift]. Dmitrii Bulanin. [In Russian.]
44.
van CoetsemF. (1988). Loan phonology and the two transfer types in language contact. Foris Publications.
45.
van CoetsemF. (1995). Outlining a model of the transmission phenomenon in language contact. Leuvense Bijdragen, 84, 63–85.
46.
VujovićL. (1969). Mrkovićki dijalekat (s kratkim osvrtom na susjedne govore) [Mrkovići dialect (with a short overview of the neighbouring speeches)]. Srpski dijalektološki zbornik [Serbian dialectological anthology], 18, 73–399. [In Serbian.]
47.
VydrinaA. (2021). Fouta-Djallon linguistic ecology: Between polyglossia and small-scale multilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(4), 959–978.
48.
WeinreichU. (1953). Languages in contact. Findings and problems. Linguistic Circle of New York.
49.
YipV.MatthewsS. (2007). The bilingual child: Early development and language contact. Cambridge University Press.
50.
YlliX.SteinkeK. (2008). Die slavischen Minderheiten in Albanien (SMA) [Slavic dialects in Albania]. Vol. 2. Golo Bordo — Herbel — Kërçishti i Epërm. Kubon & Sagner. [In German.]
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
