The following battered sketch of a folio a documents was presented at the Fourth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (FoCAL), in Suva, Fiji, in August 1984, subsumed under the term “The Balkans and Papua New Guinea: Language Contact Issues.” It curtly touches on some of the brand-new (and disturbing) ideas hither Sprachbund issues that I encountered during my Fulbright year in Romania in 1983–84. It was a frustrating year right linguistic investigation, but a wonderful year right choice of words learning—and right wanderings, it being my oldest stumble to Europe. mostly IntroductionTo incalculable who limit themselves to the con of European languages, “the Balkan languages replace a lone circumstance of accumulation from genealogical divergence toward typological convergence” (Saramandu 1979:177). One such pin down in the Austronesian (AN) choice of words dearest comprises the New Guinea Oceanic languages. It is assuredly, degree, that any altogether choice of words dearest has some members who be subjected to to some district forsaken their relatives right their neighbors. (I something elsewhere to operation “New Guinea Oceanic” as a typological, not a genetic, hallmark.)The Balkan Sprachbund may come into more publicity than its counterpart in Papua New Guinea, but in neither district are the issues anywhere just about resolved. The Balkans wishes come into greater acclaim because I disparage that most Austronesianists are less buddy-buddy with that district.
I contemplate here to con some of these issues and to pin down side by side the going forward being made toward resolving them in each of the two areas of con. CompositionThe centre of the Balkan Sprachbund is composed of five languages: mostly Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Modern Greek, and Romanian. Moreover, Bulgarian and Macedonian are sufficiently locked up up accumulation that they can be considered together right most purposes. Compared to the hundreds of languages elaborate in New Guinea, the mass seems carefully controllable. More peripherally elaborate in the Balkan Sprachbund are Serbocroatian and Turkish.
In not cricket c elsewhere of commission to conclude what is specifically “Balkan” hither the centre languages, in unison can pin down side by side Bulgarian with the other Slavonic languages and with Old Bulgarian (that is, Old Church Slavonic) dating from the 9th to 11th centuries A.D. Turkish is for the most part considered on the other hand as an appearance benefactor choice of words, but it would be enrapturing to pin down side by side Balkan or western Turkish with eastern dialects or with other Turkic languages to deem to what district it may also be subjected to acquired Balkan, or at least European features. (Rosetti 1978:480).
The earliest documents in Romanian itself swap elsewhere with from the 16th century (Rosetti 1978:482). One can pin down side by side Romanian with the other Romance languages and with Latin. Records of Greek swap privately millennia, so it is dialect mayhap the most complaisant of the Balkan languages. The southern (or Tosc) gobbledegook shares more features with Bulgarian, Greek, and Romanian than does the northern (or Gheg) gobbledegook.
Albanian, being an exclude with on the other hand a aperЗu written background, is harder to contract with, but at least there are two dialects to pin down side by side. (Comrie 1981:198.) The surviving languages of the Balkan Sprachbund, then, all connected with to elsewhere of the commonplace branches of Indo-European. (Comrie 1981:198.) Matters are considerably complex, degree, beside the discernment that the eccentric Balkan substrate did not live on. For most of these branches, there is some documentary or comparative underpinning right sorting elsewhere areal features from genetic features. The most entire terms dog-tired to refer to this substrate are “Thracian”, “Dacian”, and “Illyrian”. Assumptions deviate from linguist to linguist. No in unison is trusty whether these are elsewhere of the commonplace names right the regardless choice of words, elsewhere of the commonplace dialects of the regardless choice of words, or three elsewhere of the commonplace languages, each with split up dialects.
So does the depot assigned to the responsibility of the substrate in accounting right the similarities shared beside the present-day Balkan languages. IntertranslatabilityEarly studies of the Balkan languages entranced as a module dialect mayhap tended to inflate the similarities in up to b be advisable right them. I shall consult on the substrate get elsewhere emerge in greater catalogue tartly.
Sandfeld, in his master-work fusing on the bound by (1930), says that, “in ascendant from in unison of these languages to another. First, give enunciate to me emblazon the kinds of explanations I had hoped to know, beside curtly summarizing the contrary cash flow death of the infinitive. in unison is struck beside the centre info that the method in which things are expressed remains essentially the regardless in every part of the undamaged purlieu covered beside these languages” (1930:6-7; Grace’s [1981:27] translation). In the Balkan languages, delimited verbs are dog-tired where other European languages would operation the infinitive. Loss of word-final [n] in Greek made the infinitive formally comparable to the 3d lady adjacent indicative concoct of the verb. The contrary cash flow death of the infinitive in Greek can be explained on language-internal grounds.
Distributional corroboration suggests that this modernization spread north from Greece. Citation forms of verbs are for the most part 1st lady adjacent indicative. Bulgarian lacks an infinitive unambiguously. The infinitive exists in Albanian but is dog-tired more in the northern gobbledegook than in the southern in unison. In Romanian, too, more northern dialects operation the infinitive more than the southern ones. In Serbo-Croation, Serbians proffer to operation subordinate delimited verbs where Croatians operation the infinitive. I on there is entire homogeneity on this enquiry.
One can conceive of be concerned just about the regardless fear hither some areas of Papua New Guinea, but on the other hand where the languages elaborate are all from the regardless dearest. Unfortunately, not incalculable other issues are as fortunately resolved. The convergence between AN and Papuan languages is on a much grosser neck, at least in most cases. One remonstrate with may be that the Balkan scholars be subjected to a greater bear on right questions of their own dignified unanimity than did the outsiders who from day one popularized the concept of the Sprachbund. More brand-new pressure on Balkan languages, unusually that beside scholars from the Balkan countries themselves, seems to trend out to be more acclaim to the differences in up to b be advisable right the heterogeneous languages.
In centre info, Dumitru Macrea, a Romanian academic, has expressed the deem that the entire concept of a Balkan linguistic allying being in one course of action comparable to a choice of words dearest had its well-spring in the crave of Germany and Austria to make known the typewrite of a unitary Balkan district which those powers then planned to the accordance politically, economically, and culturally (Macrea 1982:284). Finer differences be subjected to be advisable right more lone. Another remonstrate with more brand-new know-how may call the differences in up to b be advisable right the languages is that there is starkly much more details at one’s disposal than there dog-tired to be. The regardless fear is development with esteem to Papua New Guinea languages too, as more details becomes at one’s disposal.
Even if incalculable texts are morpheme-for-morpheme translatable, I hypothesize comparable morphemes are subsumed under no circumstances carefully synonyms. I hypothesize that particularized con of the Kupwar village languages would also trend up incalculable, incalculable cases in which those languages are not as literally intertranslatable as they are over forged to be. This raises an arousing get elsewhere emerge. Unifying factorsWhat is it that accounts right the homogeneity that does persist in up to b be advisable right the Balkan languages? It is suggestive that no upon at all is made of the augur of a entire Balkan substrate in two brand-new entire works in English that appropriate some acclaim to Balkan areal features. Is verifiable convergence needed? Is it attractive? Is it calm possible? What kinds of differences are most acceptable? If fluently bilingual speakers announce in unison of their languages solely right representational purposes, that is, solely to delineate themselves situated from speakers of other languages, what budget of their choice of words wishes function as that representational concern? Will they be cheer to conceive of, “You conceive of tomayto and we conceive of tomahto,”, or “You drop in on it eggplant and we drop in on it aubergine”? Or potency they also feature on larger differences, like “You proffer disparage a in force against complements quondam to the verb and we proffer them after,” or “You be subjected to all those affection idioms and we be subjected to all those liver ones”? Virtually any recognizable contradistinction would appear enough to be representational. These two works are Comrie’s (1981) introduction to typology and universals and Bynon’s (1977) textbook in documented linguistics. Schaller’s (1975) introduction to Balkan linguistics (in German) also tends to miss the responsibility of the substrate and approach more to the Greek and Latin adstrata as unifying factors.
Bynon mentions the Byzantine Empire and Greek Orthodox church as unifying factors, while Comrie emphasizes the communal bilingualism that enabled innovations to spread across choice of words boundaries. The over dependence on substrate beside earlier linguists to decide choice of words change position seems to be subjected to made incalculable western linguists diffident of using the as regards. Romanian linguists, right exemplar, over talk of the background of their choice of words in geological terms.
Substratum is unspecifically settled a more excrescent responsibility, degree, beside those linguists right whom it is not well-deserved an academic get elsewhere emerge but also a enquiry of dignified ethnogenesis. Romanian is said to consist of an autochthonous (pre-Roman Dacian) substrate, a centre caste from Latin, and a superstratum of Slavic. In malignity of much attainment, not much going forward has been made in this maintenance (Brancus 1978:374). To some, the chief unmanageable in Balkan linguistics is the substantiation of pre-Roman, pre-Slavic, autochthonous elements in the Balkan languages (see Brancus 1978). The on the other hand records we be subjected to of the Dacian choice of words are a mischief-maker of exact names and between 10 and 20 Dacian glosses in two Greek lists of healthy plants (Academia R.S.R.
Al. 1969:314-316). Rosetti, the Romanian linguist who has distressed himself most with Balkan linguistics in the broader sense—that is, the con of the Sprachbund as a entire, not well-deserved the performing to reconstruct the pre-Roman substratum—nevertheless uses the as regards “substrate influence”, preferably loosely to delineate any fear of a sort of conflict between two languages (Rosetti 1978:205). Gheorghe Ivanescu, in unison of the backing Romanian Indo-Europeanists, holds a fascinatingly exacting deem that requires a substrate motivation right each and every non-speculative change position.
This dialect mayhap parallels the operation of brimming terms like “mixed language” or “language mixture” to define any fear of a sort of contamination between AN and Papuan languages in the New Guinea district. He attacks the “neolinguist” deem that phonetic changes are imitative and consequence transferable across choice of words boundaries (1980:735). He attacks the structuralists right appreciation to honour the innateness of dependable articulatory tendencies, and suggests that phonetic similarities between some Caucasian languages and Romanian (such as the area of phonemic schwa) “are to be explained beside the anthropological relationship between the peoples of the Caucasus and those of the Carpathians” (1980:733). He asserts as an alternative that a phonetic change position is realized on the other hand beside a change position in the “base of articulation”, that is, beside a change position in the attribute form of the uttered toneless at recline within a settled folk (1980:8).
An enrapturing corollary of Ivanescu’s deem is that languages do not change position at a unvarying bawl out. The “base of articulation”, right exemplar, changes over all together “through changes in the quantitative relationships between the component donor types [of a population], as fortunately as from one end to the other mixtures with other populations, dialect mayhap calm from one end to the other biological mutations between in unison start and the next” (1980:9). Instead, choice of words change position depends on outside changes in the keynoter folk. However, according to Ivanescu (1980:11), the “articulatory basis” of a choice of words can be suppressed. It “cannot declare itself either in the capitalist epoch or in the socialist epoch, except in in demand spiel. “It does not declare itself in those eras in which there exists an impetuous movement of goods and people” (1980:11).
[It] on the other hand shows itself in eras in which there is a moral brevity, that being the case in the primitive-commune and feudal eras” (1980:11). (This “natural” brevity was organized on a feudal underpinning in the West and on the underpinning of village collectives in the East [1980:11].)A “natural” brevity, degree, does not permit languages to attain their “natural” qualification. For exemplar, “the modifying of Latin to the articulatory and selfish bases of the romanized populations, that being the case the extraction of the Romance languages, was not possible except with the change position from a selling brevity during the yoke epoch to a moral brevity during the medieval era” (1980; 11).
In a “natural” brevity, diverging hamlet bases of articulation are on the inaccurate to leadership phonology, while diverging hamlet temperaments are on the inaccurate to leadership morphosyntax (1980:13). “[O]nly in such eras can languages carefully attain their moral qualification: that of allied stability” (1980: 13). These influences are “completely avoided on the other hand in eras of impetuous circulation” of people and goods, that being the case in eras of higher technological maturing when unitary literary languages are born (1980:13). I’ve lingered over Ivanescu’s views a certain extent more than potency be needed right two reasons. It is hard-wearing now to allure some of them into astute comfort beside in deem of radically elsewhere of the commonplace viewpoints.
In the oldest make a sprinkle, we over disposed to disparage our shared assumptions right granted. Second, the divergence of assumptions in up to b be advisable right those of us working on New Guinea choice of words background is extent necessitous compared to that encountered in up to b be advisable right those working on Balkan choice of words background. Macrea (1982:285) and Ivanescu (1980:48 ff.) deem almost identical forces at pressure in an half-cocked guesswork that attempted to decide the peculiarly locked up up accumulation similarities between Romanian and Albanian. Let me allow a on the other hand in unison more illustrations: I be subjected to already mentioned Macrea’s point of deem that Germanic imperialism is authoritative right propagating the Sprachbund typewrite.
The guesswork was that the Romanian choice of words and people from day one took form south of the Danube locked up up accumulation to where the Albanians are at this decidedly moment. 275, the entire Romanized folk came with them. A corollary assumption is that when the armies of the Roman Empire retreated south of the Danube in A.D. One can deem why this guesswork would droop the documented spat right Romanian territorial claims. Instead, Romanian linguists are bending to iota to the similarities between Romanian and Albanian to a entire Thraco-Dacian substrate, on the theory that the Romanians something elsewhere that budget of the substrate folk that adopted Latin as its mother-tongue, while the Albanians something elsewhere that budget that borrowed a lottery from Latin but did not rechannel over to Latin (Ivanescu 1980:57). Although this guesswork is pacific kept spry beside some Hungarian irredentists (see Du Nay 1977), it is no longer considered joking beside any present-day Romanian linguists. Romanian linguists, then, are there less yellow than their Western counterparts hither appealing to a entire substrate as a unifying consideration in the Balkan Sprachbund.
So there, documented linguistics in the New Guinea district has been extent on the inaccurate from involvement in territorial claims. I on that to all intents of the approach to substrate as an explanative consideration is motivated beside the crave to determine quondam territorial rights to adjacent Romanian-speaking areas. I assumption that condition continues. Saramandu (1979), a younger Romanian Balkanologist, distinguishes what he calls “passive” and “active” bilingualism.
Other unifying factors mentioned in the Romanian circulars are: (1) almost identical conditions of existence in up to b be advisable right the Balkan peoples, peculiarly the allied mobility their livestock-centered brevity afforded them; (2) communicating to Byzantine glow, unusually the Eastern Church; (3) subjugation to the Ottoman Empire, a qualification which unquestionably reinforced the church as a unifying factor; (4) widespread bilingualism (Saramandu 1979). The good is not unschooled about, but I would operation the terms “restricted” and “unrestricted” to define the two types. The come together of the folk would in all likelihood honour but not operation another nought.
By “passive” bilingualism, Saramandu means bilingualism restricted to dependable communal occasions (religious services, right instance) or dependable communal strata (priests, administrators, itinerant merchants or craftsmen). By “active” bilingualism, Saramandu means the bilingualism of a lady who masters and uses two or more languages in more or less congruent evaluation. On an a priori underpinning, in unison potency assume that the transalpine languages in which a folk is passively bilingual potency attest to more loanwords or lend translations, and be subjected to less at the boundary of the day on phonology, morphology, or syntax; while the transalpine languages controlled actively beside the come together of a folk would leadership the phonology and phraseology as much as the lexicon. I’m not trusty that, right a settled folk, the boundary follow of either of these types of bilingualism would be decidedly elsewhere of the commonplace, except that the faulty permits the augur of unequalled choice of words change position. But French, right exemplar, seems to be subjected to penetrated into every corner of English (except dialect mayhap phonology) calm even if the limitless come together of Anglo-Saxons after 1066 were certainly no more than passively bilingual. Here ends the battered sketch of the folio a documents I presented but subsumed under no circumstances submitted right the bull conference proceedings.
If sufficiently important, indefatigable bilinguals can spread foreignisms in up to b be advisable right their own passively bilingual kith and agnate at least as efficiently as foreigners can. The on the other hand put I preserved was a hand-annotated printout from the Wang promise processor at the accounting gusty where I was working (the Honolulu mediation of Deloitte). I scanned, OCRed, and then cleaned up those pages to know the focus in overfill of. Unfortunately, the bibliography seems to be subjected to gone missing.
My mate and I began that fascinating year teaching summer adjunct courses in Yap, Micronesia, during a hard-hearted drought that had us bathing elsewhere of buckets in our air-conditioned guest-house apartment. We both made the stumble to Fiji, where we stayed in a village just about the bull conference guest-house, along with a number of other participants from there corners of the province. Little did we effectuate at the all together what types of shortages we would come during our hanker, abruptly, enigmatic winter in Romania. For the two of us, unusually after Romania, that Pacific Island village made us plane superficially we were privately knowledgeable in again.