LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.12.01 (01) [E]

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01 December 2005 * Volume 01
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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <Ben.Bloomgren at asu.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.30 (12) [E]

Ron and all,

Suffixed definite (and indefinite) articles also turn up in Scandinavian
languages whereas all other Germanic languages put them at the front.  Is
this an ancient IE feature that Scandinavian retains while other Germanics
changed, or did the Scandinavians re-invent it?

Albanian and, from what I've heard, ancient Thratian had suffixed definite
articles too. "Një hoxhë, hoxha" meaning Imam or Crier in a mosque. I have
not studied IE itself, but it appears as though the ancient feature is more
plausible than the reinvention.
Ben

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.30 (12) [E]

To give another example of a feature of that Balkan Sprachbund, next to
the appearence of a definite article: all those languages have the loss of
infinitive, instead of 'give me to drink' it is 'give me that I drink'

Mod Greek   dhos mu na pjo
Albanian    a-më të pi
Bulgarian   daj mi da pija
Rumanian    dâ-mi sâ beau    (with hacek, not circumflex)

Btw this Sprachbund includes South Eastern Serbian, and Macedonian.
The latter is sometimes considered a variety of Bulgarian, or vice versa.

Compared with older Greek, Old Church Slavonic (=Old Bulgarian/Macedonian),
Romance etc that do not have these characteristics, one has to conclude
that the Sprachbund languages developped them together, and in cohesion.
I myself suspect that Albanian, or its ancestor Illyrian, played a role in
this, and the fact that these Balconian languages were not territorially
separated - as we are used to in Western Europe - but spoken mishmash
through each other, often in multilangual situations, mostly in the former
Ottoman Empire.

Ingmar

>From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
>Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.11.30 (08) [A/E]
>
>Never heard of the Balkan Sprachbund?
>A couple of languages of "totally" unrelated families, i.e. Bulgarian,
>Romanian, Modern Greek, Serbian and I think Albanian too, share a number
>of grammatical features that languages of their own families don't have.
>Of course, all of these languages are found in the same area.
>Ingmar
>
>R H:
>>All right.  Since it's you, I'm backing you up.  Indeed, Bulgarian has a
>>suffixed definite article.  It is by many believed to go back to the old
>>Bulgar language.  If they mean by that the Turkic Bolgar language that
>>developed into Chuvash farther northeast, I have to disagree, since
Turkic
>>has no articles -- though it is true that Bulgarian has Turkic substrates
>>and influences.  I rather suspect that, if it has not been inspired by
>>Romanian (which, like Latin, has suffixed definite articles), it is a
>>preserved ancient feature. 

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