 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2013) |
| Torlakian | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania |
| Ethnicity | Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Krashovani, Gorani |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
srp-tor | |
| Glottolog | nort2595 Macedonian (partial match)piri1234 Pirin-Malashevotran1292 Transitional Bulgarian |
 Areas where Torlakian dialects are spoken. | |
| South Slavic languages and dialects |
|---|
Torlakian, or Torlak, is a group of transitional South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund. According to UNESCO's list of endangered languages, Torlakian is vulnerable.[1]
Torlakian is not standardized, and its subdialects vary significantly in some features. Yugoslav linguists traditionally classified it as an old Shtokavian dialect or as a fourth dialect of Serbo-Croatian along with Shtokavian, Chakavian, and Kajkavian. Bulgarian scholars classify it as a Western Bulgarian dialect, in which case it is referred to as a Transitional Bulgarian dialect.
In Bulgarian common speech, the Torlakian dialects are traditionally referred to as У-говори ("U-dialects"), referencing their reflex of old Slavic *ǫ being /u/ (compared to standard Bulgarian, where it is /ɤ/, or its nearby dialects, where it is /a/).
Torlakian is a Balkanized Western South Slavic dialect: The Serbo-Croatian continuum is represented by (a) the strongly Balkanized Prizren-Timok varieties spoken in Eastern Kosovo, Eastern and Southern Serbia (they make part of the so-called Torlak dialect area together with the South Slavic varieties spoken in northern parts of North Macedonia and in Western Bulgaria (Vuković 2021), and we refer to them as “Torlak” in the text); although some researchers tend to classify it as Eastern South Slavic.[2] According to the historian Ivo Banac during the Middle Ages, Torlak and the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect were part of Eastern South Slavic, but since the 12th century, especially the Shtokavian dialects, including Eastern Herzegovinian, began to diverge from the other neighboring South Slavic dialects.[3]
Some of the phenomena that distinguish western and eastern subgroups of the South Slavic languages can be explained by two separate migratory waves of different Slavic tribal groups of the future South Slavs via two routes: the west and east of the Carpathian Mountains.[4]
Speakers of the dialectal group are primarily ethnic Serbs, Bulgarians, and Macedonians.[5] There are also smaller ethnic communities of Croats (the Krashovani) in Romania and Slavic Muslims (the Gorani) in southern Kosovo.
- ^ a b "Torlak" at "UNESCO's list of endangered languages". Unesco.org. Retrieved 2013-03-24.
- ^ Balkan Syntax and Semantics, John Benjamins Publishing, 2004, ISBN 158811502X, The typology of Balkan evidentiality and areal linguistics, Victor Friedman, p. 123.
- ^ Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, 1988, ISBN 0801494931, p. 47.
- ^ The Slavic Languages, Roland Sussex, Paul Cubberley, Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 1139457284, p. 42.
- ^ Kortmann, Bernd; Auwera, Johan van der (2011-07-27). The languages and linguistics of Europe, Bernd Kortmann, Johan van der Auwera, Walter de Gruyter, 2011, ISBN 3110220261, p. 515. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110220261. Retrieved 2013-03-24.