33.411, Review: Sociolinguistics: Sobolev (2021)

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Subject: 33.411, Review: Sociolinguistics: Sobolev (2021)

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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2022 15:33:36
From: Giustina Selvelli [giustina.selvelli at gmail.com]
Subject: Between Separation and Symbiosis

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-2605.html

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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