South Slavic languages


The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of Austrian German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers.

History

The first South Slavic language to be written was the variety of the Eastern South Slavic spoken in Thessaloniki, now called Old Church Slavonic, in the ninth century. It is retained as a liturgical language in Slavic Orthodox churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions.

Classification

The Slavic languages are part of the Balto-Slavic group, which belongs to the Indo-European language family. The South Slavic languages have been considered a genetic node in Slavic studies: defined by a set of phonological, morphological and lexical innovations which separate it from the Western and Eastern Slavic groups. That view, however, has been challenged in recent decades.
Some innovations encompassing all South Slavic languages are shared with the Eastern Slavic group, but not the Western Slavic. These include:
  1. Consistent application of Slavic second palatalization before Proto-Slavic *v
  2. Loss of *d and *t before Proto-Slavic *l
  3. Merger of Proto-Slavic *ś with *s
This is illustrated in the following table:
Several isoglosses have been identified which are thought to represent exclusive common innovations in the South Slavic language group. They are prevalently phonological in character, whereas morphological and syntactical isoglosses are much fewer in number. list the following phonological isoglosses:
  1. Merger of yers into schwa-like sound, which became in Serbo-Croatian, or split according to the retained hard/soft quality of the preceding consonant into , or
  2. Proto-Slavic *ę >
  3. Proto-Slavic *y >, merging with the reflex of Proto-Slavic *i
  4. Proto-Slavic syllabic liquids *r̥ and *l̥ were retained, but *l̥ was subsequently lost in all the daughter languages with different outputs, and *r̥ became in Bulgarian. This development was identical to the loss of yer after a liquid consonant.
  5. Hardening of palatals and dental affricates; e.g. š' > š, č' > č, c' > c.
  6. South Slavic form of liquid metathesis
Most of these are not exclusive in character, however, and are shared with some languages of the Eastern and Western Slavic language groups. On that basis, argues that South Slavic exists strictly as a geographical grouping, not forming a true genetic clade; in other words, there was never a proto-South Slavic language or a period in which all South Slavic dialects exhibited an exclusive set of extensive phonological, morphological or lexical changes peculiar to them. Furthermore, Matasović argues, there was never a period of cultural or political unity in which Proto-South-Slavic could have existed during which Common South Slavic innovations could have occurred. Several South-Slavic-only lexical and morphological patterns which have been proposed have been postulated to represent common Slavic archaisms, or are shared with some Slovakian or Ukrainian dialects.
The South Slavic dialects form a dialectal continuum stretching from today's southern Austria to southeast Bulgaria. On the level of dialectology, they are divided into Western South Slavic and Eastern South Slavic ; these represent separate migrations into the Balkans and were once separated by intervening Hungarian, Romanian, and Albanian populations; as these populations were assimilated, Eastern and Western South Slavic fused with Torlakian as a transitional dialect. On the other hand, the breakup of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, followed by formation of nation-states in the 19th and 20th centuries, led to the development and codification of standard languages. Standard Slovene, Bulgarian, and Macedonian are based on distinct dialects. The Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian are based on the same dialect. Thus, in most cases national and ethnic borders do not coincide with dialectal boundaries.
Note: Due to the differing political status of languages/dialects and different historical contexts, the classifications are arbitrary to some degree.

Dialectal classification

The South Slavic languages constitute a dialect continuum.
The dialects that form the eastern group of South Slavic, spoken mostly in Bulgaria and Macedonia and adjacent areas in neighbouring countries, share a number of characteristics that set them apart from other Slavic languages:
Bulgarian and Macedonian share some of their unusual characteristics with other languages in the Balkans, notably Greek and Albanian.

Bulgarian dialects

  • Eastern Bulgarian dialects
  • Western Bulgarian dialects

    Macedonian dialects

  • Southeastern Macedonian dialects
  • Northern Macedonian
  • Western Macedonian dialects

    Torlakian dialect in Serbian

  • Torlakian dialects in southeast Serbia are only spoken and unstandardized, as Serbian literary language only recognizes the Shtokavian form

    Transitional South Slavic languages

Torlakian dialects

Torlakian dialects are spoken in southeastern Serbia, northern North Macedonia, western Bulgaria, southeastern Kosovo, and pockets of western Romania; it is considered transitional between the Western and Eastern groups of South Slavic languages. Torlakian is thought to fit together with Bulgarian and Macedonian into the Balkan sprachbund, an area of linguistic convergence caused by long-term contact rather than genetic relation. Because of this some researchers tend to classify it as Southeast Slavic.

Western South Slavic languages

History

Each of these primary and secondary dialectal units breaks down into subdialects and accentological isoglosses by region. In the past, it was not uncommon for individual villages to have their own words and phrases. However, during the 20th century the local dialects have been influenced by Štokavian standards through mass media and public education and much "local speech" has been lost. With the breakup of Yugoslavia, a rise in national awareness has caused individuals to modify their speech according to newly established standard-language guidelines. The wars have caused large migrations, changing the ethnic picture of some areas—especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in central Croatia and Serbia. In some areas, it is unclear whether location or ethnicity is the dominant factor in the dialect of the speaker. Because of this the speech patterns of some communities and regions are in a state of flux, and it is difficult to determine which dialects will die out entirely. Further research over the next few decades will be necessary to determine the changes made in the dialectical distribution of this language group.