The Balkan Languages and Balkan Linguistics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2295267
AutoresVictor A Friedman (0000-0003-1872-8959, University of Chicago, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen40
Número1
Páginas275-291
Fecha de publicación2011-10-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnnual Review of Anthropology (BOOK_SERIES)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0084-6570 • E-ISSN: 1545-4290
EditorialAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev-anthro-081309-145932
OpenAlexW2163604999
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas55

The Balkans were the first linguistic area (sprachbund) to be identified as such. The concept was originally proposed to explain diffusion among languages that were genealogically unrelated or distantly related in terms of normal linguistic change as opposed to notions of corruption and impurity. The fact that the sprachbund cannot be as neatly bounded as the traditional language family has led to some calls for abandoning the concept, but it remains a useful heuristic referring to the results of historical and social processes of language contact. Recent conflations of areal linguistics and typology miss these processes, which are themselves grounded in speaker interaction. Issues of causation in the emergence of sprachbunds involve both language shift and language maintenance, influenced by various social factors playing roles. This review examines both the history and the current state of Balkan linguistics as a part of the study of language

Applied linguistics · Causation · Epistemology · Historical linguistics · Language change · Language contact · Language family · Language shift · Linguistics · Quantitative linguistics · Sociology · Typology · Anthropology · Gender Studies in Language · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism