Balkan linguistic union

However, not all of these languages have the same number of features shared. That is why they are divided into three groups:

1. Albanian, Romanian and Bulgarian have the most properties in common
2. Serbian (especially Torlak dialect) and Greek share with the others a lower number of properties
3. Turkish - shares mainly vocabulary.

Another language that may have been influenced by the Balkan Language Union is the Judeo-Spanish variant that used to be spoken by Saphardi Jews living in the Balkans. The grammatical features shared (especially regarding the tense system) were most likely borrowed from Greek.

Origins

Thracian, Dacian or Illyrian

Since most of these features cannot be found in languages related to those that belong to the linguistic union (such as other Slavic or Romance languages), the early researchers believed they had to be inherited from the ancient indigenous languages (Thracian, Dacian and Illyrian) which formed the substrate for the modern Balkan languages.

However, since there is very little information left about any of these languages, it cannot be said whether the features were present or not.

Greek

Another theory was that they were an entirely Greek influence, the presumption being that since Greece "always had a superior civilization compared to its neighbours", Greek couldn't have borrowed its linguistic features from them. However, no ancient dialects of Greek bear these features and as such, the Balkanisms of Greek appear to be an innovation that occurred in Greek after the Classical period. Also, Greek appears to be only peripherical to the Balkan linguistic union, missing some important features, such as the postponed article.

Latin and Romance

The Roman Empire ruled all the Balkans and it would be possible that a local variation of Latin left its mark on all the languages of the Balkans, which later were the substrate to the Slavic newcomers. The weak point of this theory is that only few of the features can be found in other Romance languages.

An argument for this would be the structural borrowings or "linguistic calques" into Macedonian from Aromanian, which could be explained by Aromanian being a substrate of Macedonian, but this still does not explain what is the origin of these innovations in Aromanian.

Multiple sources

The most popular theory nowadays is that not all the innovations are from the same source and that the influence between the languages was reciprocal: some of these can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly the features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after the Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept much of its original characteristics.

One argument in favour of this "multiple sources" theory is that the turbulent History of the Balkans lead many groups of people throughout its history to move toward another place, inhabited by people of another ethnicity. These small groups were usually assimilated quickly and sometimes they left marks in the new language they acquired. Another idea is that before the modern age, the use of more than one language was common in the Balkans and a drift in one language would quickly spread to other languages.

Features

Grammatical features

Case system

The number of cases is reduced, several cases being replaced with prepositions, the only exception being Serbian.

A common case system of a Balkan language is:

• Nominative
• Accusative (using prepositions)
• Dative / Genitive (merged)
• Vocative
  

  =Syncretism of genitive and dative=

Example:

Verb tenses

=Future tense formation=

=Analytic perfect tense formation=

=Avoidance of infinitive=

The use of infinitive (common in other languages related to some of the Balkan languages, such as Romance and Slavic) is generally replaced with subjunctive constructions.

• in Macedonian and Tosk Albanian, the loss of the infinitive is complete
• in Aromanian, Greek, Bulgarian and Southern Serbian dialects, it is almost complete
• in Gheg Albanian and Megleno-Romanian, it is used only in a limited number of expressions
• in standard Romanian, Serbian and Croatian, the infinitive shares many of its functions with the subjuctive

Bare subjunctive constructions

This example translates in the Balkan languages the phrase "You should go!", using the subjunctive constructions.

Morphology

=Postponed article=

With the exception of Greek, all languages in the union have their definite article attached at the end of the noun, instead of before it. None of the related languages (like other Romance languages or Slavic languages) share this feature and it is thought to be an inovation created and spread in the Balkans.

However, each language created their own internal articles, so the Romanian articles are related to the articles (and demonstrative pronouns) in Italian, French, etc, while the Bulgarian articles are related to demonstrative pronouns in other Slavic languages.

=Number formation=

=Clitic pronouns=

For example, "I see George" in Balkan languages:

Note: The neutral case in normal (SVO) word order is without a clitic.
"Виждам Георги."
However, the form with an additional clitic pronoun is also possible in coloquial speech:
"Виждам го Георги."

And the clitic is obligatory in case of a topicalized object (with OVS-word order), which serves also as the common colloquial equivalent of a passive construction.
"Георги го виждам."

=Suffixes=

Vocabulary

Loan words

Albanian, Romanian and Bulgarian also share a good deal of words of various origins:

Calques

For example, the word "ripen" (as in a ripen fruit) is constructed in Albanian, Greek and Romanian by a derivation from the word "to bake". Another example is the wishing "to many years", which can be found in Albanian ("për shumë mot"), Bulgarian ("za mnogo godini"), Greek ("kai xronia polla") and Romanian ("la mulţi ani").

Phonetics

Examples:
:Latin "casa" → Romanian "casă" → Bulgarian "къща" ("kəshta")
:Latin "camisia" → Romanian "cămaşă" → Albanian "këmishë"

References