Of Comparative And Areal Linguistics

Krashovani is the name for a Catholic Slavic minority which compactly resides in the territory of present-day Romania in multinational and multiconfessional historical region of Banat. Their idiom traces back to some archaic South Slavic Shtokovian dialect (or rather, a group of dialects), yet their ethnogenesis and hypothetic homeland still remain unknown. Furthermore, people from Iabalcea (one of the seven Krashovani villages) use the Romanian language in everyday communication. The sequence of their traditional wedding ceremony, as well as both Slavic/Krashovani and Romanian/Iabalcean wedding vocabulary show us how a common cultural code presented in the form of two different, but closely related language realizations can result from centuries-old language contact.

This paper focuses on the idiom spoken in one of the Krashovani villages in Romanian Banat – Iabalcea, whose residents identify themselves as Krashovani or Croats, but use the Romanian language in everyday conversation. History and ethnogenesis of this Catholic subethnos is sometimes labeled as an “ethnic enigma”. Using the untypical example of Iabalcea, we examine the possibility and mechanisms of language shift or language maintenance under the conditions of a contact with the majority language on the one hand, and of belonging to a relatively closed ethnic group, on the other hand.

The paper highlights several features characteristic for the lexicon of the standalone Albanian Tosk dialect of Ukraine that has been developing in close contact with Slavic and Turkic. Language contacts have influenced the lexicon of the said dialect aggregating both Albanian inherited lexical items and numerous loanwords of different origin, borrowing time and semantic class attribution.
The present paper describes the lexicon of the said dialect in comparison with the present-day Albanian and its dialects, pointing out lexical items common for all Albanian-speaking areas, as well as those related to the specific Albanian dialects (with the particular attention to the Northeast Tosk) or recently borrowed from Bulgarian, Gagauz and Russian. The paper outlines the areas of spread for some loanwords and traces the ways of borrowing the specific lexical items could take in different periods of the Albanian language history.

The paper describes one of the most prominent features of the Balkan syntax, object reduplication, represented in the Albanian subdialect of Ukraine. This subdialect has been in isolation from the main Albanian speaking area for several centuries. Object reduplication in the Albanian subdialect of Ukraine seems to be less grammaticalized and more dependent on various pragmatic factors compared to the present-day Albanian and its dialects. This feature of the Albanian subdialect of Ukraine resembles the north-eastern Bulgarian dialects that are relatively distant from the central and grammatically the most “balkanized” part of the Balkans.

This paper briefly describes the major stages of development that secondary Albanian diphthongs ua / ue, ye, ie go through, with reference to the old Albanian texts and present-day dialects. Special emphasis is given to the isolated Tosk subdialects of Bulgaria (village of Mandritsa) and the Ukraine where diphthongs follow very specific innovative ways of development, such as “Gheg” monophthongization in the subdialect of Ukraine and a variety of coexisting diphthong reflexes in Mandritsa.
As pointed out in the paper, most part of Tosk and Gheg subdialects tend to lose “true” diphthongs and develop a fixed stress falling either on the first or the second element of diphthong. This kind of change in Gheg subdialects seems to be a precondition for further conversion of diphthongs to monophthongs. A similar stress fixation on the first or second element of diphthong occurring in Tosk subdialects gives rise to the present-day local distinctions within the Tosk dialect area. The said feature of Tosk Albanian is said to be relatively late. However, data from various isolated and peripheral subdialects of Albanian, such as those of Chamuria, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, may well provide some grounds to consider this an archaism rather than a recent innovation.

Говор албанцев Украины представляет собой хороший пример островного говора албанского языка, на протяжении нескольких столетий существующего в отрыве от основного албаноязычного ареала. В настоящей статье некоторые фонетико-фонологические и морфологические особенности говора албанцев Украины интерпретируются с позиций истории албанского языка и с точки зрения современной диалектной ситуации, восстанавливаемой по данным Диалектологического атласа албанского языка (ДААЯ) и диалектологических описаний. Система говора рассматривается в ее историческом развитии; для этого проводится анализ  языкового материала, отражающего разные хронологические срезы, начиная с 10–20-х гг. ХХ века и вплоть до настоящего времени. Как показано в статье, и инновации, и реликтовые черты говора отличаются разноплановостью и хронологической неоднородностью. Учет этих факторов при описании данной диалектной системы позволит создать полное представление об ее эволюции в иноязычном окружении и вычленить те явления, которые релевантны для изучения характера и хронологии диалектных различий в албанском языке.
The Albanian dialect of Ukraine is a good example of an Albanian dialect existing in isolation from the main Albanian speaking area for several centuries. The present article highlights several specific phonetical, phonological and morphological features of the Albanian dialect of Ukraine, analyzing them from the point of view of the Albanian language history, as well as from the perspective of the current dialect situation in the Albanian speaking areas. The data about the latter are retrieved mainly from the Dialectological Atlas of the Albanian Language and the descriptions of Albanian dialects. While investigating the evolution of and current trends in the dialectal system under description, we analyze materials in the dialect dated back to the period starting from the beginning of the 20th century till the present time. As shown in the article, both innovations and archaisms in the Albanian dialects of Ukraine relate to different levels of language system, are of various origin and background, and differ chronologically. Consideration of these key factors while describing the given dialectal system is a way to develop a full picture of its evolution in contact and defi ne features relevant for further study of the nature and history of the Albanian dialectal differences in general.

The Albanian dialect of Ukraine is a good example of an Albanian dialect existing in isolation from the main Albanian speaking area for several centuries. The present article highlights several specific phonetical, phonological and morphological features of the Albanian dialect of Ukraine, analyzing them from the point of view of the Albanian language history, as well as from the perspective of the current dialect situation in the Albanian speaking areas. The data about the latter are retrieved mainly from the Dialectological Atlas of the Albanian Language and the descriptions of Albanian dialects. While investigating the evolution of and current trends in the dialectal system under description, we analyze materials in the dialect dated back to the period starting from the beginning of the 20th century till the present time. As shown in the article, both innovations and archaisms in the Albanian dialects of Ukraine relate to different levels of language system, are of various origin and background, and differ chronologically. Consideration of these key factors while describing the given dialectal system is a way to develop a full picture of its evolution in contact and defi ne features relevant for further study of the nature and history of the Albanian dialectal differences in general.

Italo-Albanian (Arbëresh) writing tradition dates back to the late 16th century, when the first Italo-Albanian written text and the second Albanian printed book E mbsuame e krështerë (Christian Doctrine) by Luca Matranga (Lekë Matrënga, an Arbëresh from Hora e Arbëreshëvet / Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily), a translation from Italian of the catechism of the Spanish Jesuit priest Jacob Ledesma, was published in 1592 in Rome. This first work of the Italo-Albanian literature actually had a purely pragmatic aim of bringing the Catholicism closer to the Arbëresh people, while the subsequent important Italo-Albanian texts belonging to the 18th — the beginning of the 20th centuries include true literary works created by genuine poets and remaining unique in early Albanian literature.
In this article we present some remarks on the project of Italo-Albanian Literary Corpus. It is supposed to be created as an integrative part of the Albanian National Corpus (Албанский национальный корпус / Korpusi nacional i gjuhës shqipe) and is able to become a powerful means of multifaceted studies of the texts created by the most prominent Arbëresh authors during the period of blossoming of the early Italo-Albanian literature.