The Balkan sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among languages of the Balkans, which belong to various branches of Indo-European, such as Slavic, Greek, Romance and Albanian. While they share little vocabulary, their grammars also have similarities; for example they have similar case systems and have all become more analytic ; although to differing degrees. A Sprachbund (German for language bond, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area) is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity. ... In linguistics, an areal feature is any typological feature shared by languages within the same geographical area. ... Balkan redirects here. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprises all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. ... An analytic language is any language where syntax and meaning are shaped more by use of particles and word order than by inflection. ...

History

The earliest scholar to notice the similarities between Balkan languages belonging to different families was the Slovenian scholar Jernej Kopitar in 1829.^[1] August Schleicher (1850)^[2] more explicitly developed the concept of areal relationships as opposed to genetic ones, and Franc Miklošič (1861)^[3]studied the relationships of Balkan Slavic and Romance more extensively. Jernej Kopitar (born 21 August 1780 in Repnje, died 11 August 1844 in Vienna) was a Slovenian linguist. ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1829 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... August Schleicher August Schleicher (February 19, 1821 - December 6, 1868) was a German linguist. ... In linguistics, an areal feature is any typological feature shared by languages within the same geographical area. ... Franc MikloÅ¡ič Franc MikloÅ¡ič (de: Franz von Miklosich), (November 29, 1813 – March 7, 1891) was a Slovenian philologist, born at Ljutomer (German Luttenberg), Styria, Slovenia, then a part of Austria. ...

Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1923),^[4] Kristian Sandfeld-Jensen (1930),^[5] and Gustav Weigand^{[citation needed]} developed the theory in the 1920s and 1930s. Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy (Cyrillic ; Moscow, April 15, 1890 - Vienna, June 25, 1938) was a Russian linguist whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague School of structural linguistics. ... Gustav Weigand (1 February 1860-8 July 1930) held the position of a professor in Romance and Balkan languages at the University of Leipzig, his primary field of study being the eastern Romance languages - Romanian and Aromanian. ... The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually when speaking about the United States. ... The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known as the [[. In East Asia, the rise of militarism occurred. ...

In the 1930s, the Romanian linguist Alexandru Graur criticized the notion of “Balkan linguistics,” saying that one can talk about “relationships of borrowings, of influences, but not about Balkan linguistics”.^[6]

The term "Balkan linguistic union" was coined by the Romanian linguist Alexandru Rosetti in 1958, when he claimed that the shared features conferred the Balkan languages a special similarity. Theodor Capidan went further, claiming that the structure of Balkan languages could be reduced to a standard language. Many of the earliest reports on this theory were in German, hence the term "Balkansprachbund" is often used as well. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Jan. ...

Languages

The languages that share these similarities belong to five distinct branches of the Indo-European languages:

• Albanian
• Greek
• Indo-Aryan (Arli Romany/Gypsy)
• Romance languages (Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian)
• Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian — especially the Torlakian dialect which is transitional between Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian)

However, not all of these languages have the same number of features shared. That is why they are divided into three groups: The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic[1]) are a branch of the Indo-European language family. ... Romany (or Romani) is the language of the Roma and Sinti, peoples often referred to in English as Gypsies. The Indo-Aryan Romany language should not be confused with either Romanian (spoken by Romanians), or Romansh (spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland), both of which are Romance languages. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprises all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... Aromanian (also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach in most other countries; in Aromanian: limba armãneascã, armãneshce or armãneashti) is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe. ... Megleno-Romanian (known as VlăheÅŸte by speakers and Moglenitic, Meglenitic or Megleno-Romanian by linguists) is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian, and Romanian spoken in the Moglená region of Greece, in a few villages in the Republic of Macedonia and also in a few villages in Romania. ... Istro-Romanian is a Romance language - more specifically, an Eastern Romannce language - that is today still spoken in a few villages in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in what is now Croatia, but which was spoken in a substantially broader part of the...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... Geographical distribution of Torlakian dialect (exception of Bulgaria) Torlakian is the name used for the dialects spoken in Southern and Eastern Serbia (Serbia and Montenegro), Northwest Republic of Macedonia (Kratovo-Kumanovo) and Northwest Bulgaria (Vidin-Bregovo). ...

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

The Finnish linguist Jouko Lindstedt computed in 2000 a "Balkanization factor" which gives each Balkan language a score proportional with the number of features shared in the Balkan linguistic union.^[7] The results were: Aromanian (also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach in most other countries; in Aromanian: limba armãneascã, armãneshce or armãneashti) is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe. ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ...

Another language that may have been influenced by the Balkan language union is the Judeo-Spanish variant that used to be spoken by Sephardi Jews living in the Balkans. The grammatical features shared (especially regarding the tense system) were most likely borrowed from Greek. Not to be confused with Ladin. ... Sephardim (ספרדי, Standard Hebrew Səfardi, Tiberian Hebrew ardî; plural Sephardim: ספרדים, Standard Hebrew Sfaradim, Tiberian Hebrew ) are a subgroup of Jews, generally defined in contrast to Ashkenazim and/or . ...

Origins

The source of these features as well as the directions have long been debated, and various theories were suggested.

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), early researchers, including Kopitar, believed they must be inherited from the Paleo-Balkan languages (Thracian, Dacian and Illyrian) which formed the substrate for the modern Balkan languages. But since very little is known about any of these languages, it cannot be determined whether the features were present. The Paleo-Balkan languages were the Indo-European languages which were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times: Dacian language Thracian language Illyrian language Paionian language Ancient Macedonian language The only remnant of them is Albanian, but it is still disputed which language was its ancestor. ... The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians in South-Eastern Europe. ... The Dacian language was an Indo-European language spoken by the ancient people of Dacia. ... The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in pre-Roman times. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Greek

Another theory, advanced by Kristian Sandfeld in 1930, was that these features were an entirely Greek influence, under the presumption that since Greece "always had a superior civilization compared to its neighbours", Greek could not have borrowed its linguistic features from them. However, no ancient dialects of Greek possessed Balkanisms, so that the features shared with other regional languages appear to be post-classical innovations. Also, Greek appears to be only peripheral to the Balkan linguistic union, lacking some important features, such as the postposed article.

Latin and Romance

The Roman Empire ruled all the Balkans, and local variation of Latin may have left its mark on all languages there, which were later the substrate to Slavic newcomers. This was proposed by Georg Solta. The weak point of this theory is that other Romance languages have few of the features, and there is no proof that the Balkan Romans were isolated for enough time to develop them. Common Romanian is a hypothetical language considered to have been spoken by the Romanians after the breakdown of the Roman Empire and before it was broken into modern Balkan Romance languages and dialects: Romanian Aromanian Megleno-Romanian Istro-Romanian The place where this language was formed is still under debate... Georg Renatus Solta (1915-2005) was an Austrian Indo-Europeanist who specialized in Balkan linguistics. ...

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 the origin of these innovations in Aromanian. // In linguistics, a calque (pronounced ) or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word (Latin: verbum pro verbo) or root-for-root translation. ...

Multiple sources

The most commonly accepted theory, advanced by Polish scholar Zbigniew Gołąb, is that the innovations came from different sources and the languages influenced each other: some features can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept many of its original characteristics.

Several arguments favour this theory. First, throughout the turbulent history of the Balkans, many groups of people moved to another place, inhabited by people of another ethnicity. These small groups were usually assimilated quickly and sometimes left marks in the new language they acquired. Second, the use of more than one language was common in the Balkans before the modern age, and a drift in one language would quickly spread to other languages. Third, the dialects that have the most "balkanisms" are those in regions where people had contact with people of many other languages. Current political map of the Balkans. ... In linguistics, drift is the variation of speech. ...

Most likely areas of language contact

Image File history File links Balkan_links. ... Image File history File links Balkan_links. ...

Timeline of contacts

(under development)

Most likely the earliest contact was between the Proto-Romanians and Proto-Albanians, (1st century - 5th century AD) this theory being supported by the Albanian vocabulary borrowed from Balkan Latin, as well as the Romanian substrate, which has words cognate to Albanian words. The 1st century was that century that lasted from 1 to 100 according the Gregorian calendar. ... Europe in 450 The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ...

The exact area where contact occurred is under debate, ranging from Northern Albania to Transylvania. For more, see Origin of Romanians and Origin of Albanians. All Romanian varieties (from the Republic of Moldova to the Vlachs of Serbia) are part of the sprachbund, which shows that the contact happened before they diverged. This article is about the region in Romania. ... The Romanians (also sometimes referred to along with other Balkan Latin peoples as Vlachs) are a nation speaking Romanian, a Romance language, and living in Central and Eastern Europe. ... The origin of Albanians has been for some time a matter of dispute among historians. ... Motto: none Anthem: Limba noastră (Our Tongue) Capital ChiÅŸinău Largest city ChiÅŸinău Official language(s) Moldovan (Romanian) Government President Prime Minister Parliamentary Republic Vladimir Voronin Vasile Tarlev Independence  - Formation  - Independence August 27, 1991 August 2, 1940, August 27, 1991 Area  - Total  - Water (%)   33,843 km² (135th... It has been suggested that Official status of Romanian language in Vojvodina be merged into this article or section. ...

The invasion of the Slavs led to a period of migrations throughout the Balkans which created multi-ethnic communities and this led to the sprachbund beginning around the 8th century; most features were present by the 12th century, but in some parts it continued until the 17th century. (7th century — 8th century — 9th century — other centuries) Events The Iberian peninsula is taken by Arab and Berber Muslims, thus ending the Visigothic rule, and starting almost 8 centuries of Muslim presence there. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ...

Serbian was perhaps the last language to join, as shown by the low number of features, most of which were only in the Torlak dialect, a dialect intermediary to Bulgarian which emerged rather late, after most features were settled in the sprachbund.

Features

Grammatical features

Case system

The number of cases is reduced, several cases being replaced with prepositions, the only exception being Serbian. In Bulgarian, on the other hand, this development has actually led to the loss of all cases except the vocative. The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc. ...

A common case system of a Balkan language is:

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

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In linguistics, syncretism is the agreement in form of distinct morphological forms of a word. ... The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc. ...

Syncretism of genitive and dative

In the Balkan languages, the genitive and dative cases (or corresponding prepositional constructions) undergo syncretism. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... In linguistics, syncretism is the agreement in form of distinct morphological forms of a word. ...

Example:

(* Marija in the Nominative case)

Syncretism of locative and directional expressions

(* Grčka in the Nominative case)

Verb tenses

Future tense

The future tense is formed in an analytic way using an auxiliary verb or particle with the meaning "will, want", referred to as de-volitive, similar to the way the future is formed in English and originating with Greek innovation around the 1st century AD. This feature is present to varying degrees in each language. Decategoralization is less advanced in Romanian voi and in Serbian ću, ćeš, će, where the future marker is still an inflected auxiliary. In Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian, decategoralization and erosion have given rise to an uninflected tense form, where the frozen 3rd person singular of the verb has turned into an invariable particle followed by the main verb inflected for person.^[8] An analytic language is any language where syntax and meaning are shaped more by use of particles and word order than by inflection. ...

Analytic perfect tense

The analytic perfect tense is formed in the Balkan languages with the verb "to have". The origin of this language feature could be Latin. However, this does not apply to Bulgarian and Serbian, where the analytic perfect is formed with the verb "to be" and the past active participle: обещал - "who has promised" (past active participle); съм (Bul.); сам (Ser.) - "I am"; обещал съм; обећао сам (Ser.) - "I have promised" (lit. "I am one who has promised"), perfect tense. Constructions using the verb to have are characteristic of Macedonian language (Имам ветено./Imam veteno. = I have promised.).

Avoidance of infinitive

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

• in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Tosk Albanian, the loss of the infinitive is complete
• in demotic Greek, the loss of the infinitive was complete, whereas in literary Greek was not; the natural fusion of the demotic (vernacular) form with the literary (archaic) one resulted in the creation of the contemporary common Greek (Koine Neohellenic), where the infinitive is principally used as noun (e.g. λέγειν "speaking, fluency, eloquence", γράφειν "writing", είναι "being", etc.)
• in Aromanian 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 and Serbian, the infinitive shares many of its functions with the subjunctive. In these two languages, the infinitive will always be found in dictionaries and language textbooks. In Romanian, the long infinitives, which are identical to the Italian ones (-are, -ere, and -ire) can also be used in both formal and informal conversation.
• Turkish as spoken in Sliven and Šumen has also almost completely lost the infinitive, clearly due to the influence of the Balkan Sprachbund.

For example, "I want to write" in several Balkan languages: Sliven (Bulgarian: Сливен) is a town in southeast Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Sliven Province. ... Shumen (Bulgarian: ; Turkish: ) is a city in the northeastern part of Bulgaria, capital of Shumen Province. ...

But here is an example of a relict form, preserved in Bulgarian:

Imperative programming, as opposed to functional programming, is a sort of programming employing side-effect as central execution feature. ... Bulgarian verbs are the most complicated part of Bulgarian grammar. ...

Bare subjunctive constructions

Sentences which include only a subjunctive construction can be used to express a wish, a mild command, an intention or a suggestion.

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

Geographical distribution of Torlakian dialect (exception of Bulgaria) Torlakian is the name used for the dialects spoken in Southern and Eastern Serbia (Serbia and Montenegro), Northwest Republic of Macedonia (Kratovo-Kumanovo) and Northwest Bulgaria (Vidin-Bregovo). ... In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the subject and the direct object) are the same. ...

Morphology

Postposed article

With the exception of Greek and Romani, all languages in the union have their definite article attached to the end of the noun, instead of before it. None of the related languages (like other Romance languages or Slavic languages) shares this feature and it is thought to be either an innovation or Albanian borrowing spread in the Balkans. Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzards 1996 performance released on video and CD. The video/DVD and CD performances were both recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England. ...

However, each language created its 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. // Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference) that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ...

Number formation

The Slavic way of composing the numbers between 10 and 20, e.g. "one + on + ten" for eleven, called superessive, is widespread. Modern Greek does not follow this.

Clitic pronouns

Direct and indirect objects are cross-referenced, or doubled, in the verb phrase by a clitic (weak) pronoun, agreeing with the object in gender, number, and case or case function. This can be found in Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian. In Albanian and Macedonian, this feature shows fully grammaticalized structures and is obligatory with indirect objects and to some extent with definite direct objects; in Bulgarian, however, it is optional and therefore based on discourse. In Greek, the construction contrasts with the clitic-less construction and marks the cross-referenced object as a topic. Southwest Macedonia appears to be the location of innovation. Clitic doubling, or pronominal reduplication, in linguistics, is a phenomenon by which clitic pronouns appear in verb phrases together with the full noun phrases that they refer to (as opposed to the cases where such pronouns and full noun phrases are in complementary distribution). ... In linguistics, a clitic is an element that has some of the properties of an independent word and some more typical of a bound morpheme. ...

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 colloquial speech: "Виждам го Георги." And the clitic is obligatory in the case of a topicalized object (with OVS-word order), which serves also as the common colloquial equivalent of a passive construction. "Георги го виждам." In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO), is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. ...

Adjectives

The replacement of synthetic adjectival comparative forms with analytic ones by means of preposed markers is common. These markers are:

• Bulgarian: по-
• Albanian: më
• Romanian: mai
• Modern Greek: pió; though Greek has retained a few of the earlier synthetic forms.
• Aromanian: (ca)ma

Suffixes

Also, some common suffixes can be found in the linguistic area, such as the diminutive suffix of Slavic origin "-ica" that can be found in Albanian, Greek and Romanian.

Vocabulary

Loan words

Several hundred words are common to the Balkan union languages; the origin of most of them is either Greek or Turkish, as the Byzantine Empire and later the Ottoman Empire directly controlled the territory throughout most of its history, strongly ingluencing its culture and economics. Byzantine redirects here. ... Motto دولت ابد مدت Devlet-i Ebed-müddet (The Eternal State) Anthem Ottoman imperial anthem Borders in 1683, see: list of territories Capital Söğüt (1299–1326) Bursa (1326–1365) Edirne (1365–1453) Ä°stanbul (1453–1922) Government Monarchy Sultans  - 1281–1326 (first) Osman I  - 1918–22 (last) Mehmed VI Grand Viziers  - 1320...

Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian and Macedonian also share a large number of words of various origins:

Calques

Apart from the direct loans, there are also many calques that were passed from one Balkan languages to another, most of them between Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, Aromanian and Romanian. In linguistics, a calque (pronounced [kælk]) or loan translation (itself a calque of German Lehnübersetzung) is a phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word translation. ...

For example, the word "ripen" (as in fruit) is constructed in Albanian, Romanian and (rarely) in Greek (piqem, a (se) coace, ψήνομαι) by a derivation from the word "to bake" (pjek, a coace, ψήνω).^[9]

Another example is the wish "(∅/to/for) many years":

Idiomatic expressions for "whether one <verb> or not" are formed as "<verb>-not-<verb>".^[10]

Phonetics

The main phonological features consist of:

• the presence of an unrounded central vowel, either a mid-central schwa /ə/ or a high central vowel phoneme
  • ë in Albanian; ъ in Bulgarian; ă in Romanian; ` in Macedonian; ã in Aromanian
  • In Romanian and Albanian, the schwa is obtained via centralizing unstressed /a/
    • Example: Latin camisia "shirt" > Romanian cămaşă /kə.ma.ʃə/, Albanian këmishë /kə.mi.ʃə/)
  • The schwa phoneme occurs in most dialects of the Macedonian language, even in some cases in the western-central dialects, on which the standard is based (сл`нце, к`лбас, к`смет etc.)
• some kind of vowel harmony in stressed syllables with differing patterns depending on the language.
  • Romanian: a mid-back vowel ends in a low glide before a nonhigh vowel in the following syllable
  • Albanian and Bulgarian: back vowels are fronted before i in the following syllable.

This feature also occurs in Greek, but it is lacking in some of the other Balkan languages; the central vowel is found in Romanian, Bulgarian, some dialects of Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian but not in Greek or Standard Macedonian. The IPA symbol for the Schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean: An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. ... This article is about the modern Slavic language. ...

Less widespread features are confined largely to either Romanian or Albanian, or both:

• frequent loss of l before i in Albanian, Romanian, and some Romani dialects
• the alternation between n and r in Albanian and Romanian
• change from l to r in Romanian, Greek, Albanian, and very rarely in Bulgarian
• the raising of o to u in unstressed syllables in Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian and Northern Greek dialects.
• change from ea to e before i in Bulgarian and Romanian.

In linguistics, Alternation is when a set of morphosyntactic properties is phonologically expressed in two or more different ways in different words. ...

See also

• Paleo-Balkan languages
• Balkan languages
• Greek grammar
• Bulgarian grammar
• Macedonian grammar

The Paleo-Balkan languages were the Indo-European languages which were spoken in the Balkans in ancient times: Dacian language Thracian language Illyrian language Paionian language Ancient Macedonian language The only remnant of them is Albanian, but it is still disputed which language was its ancestor. ... This is a list of languages spoken in the Balkans. ... // General characteristics Syntax The predominant word order in Greek is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object), but word order is quite freely variable, with VSO and other orders as frequent alternatives. ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ...

Notes

References

• Batzarov, Zdravko "Balkan Linguistic Union". Encyclopædia Orbis Latini.  
• Du Nay, André (1977). The Origins of the Rumanians: Balkan Linguistic Union.
• Victor A. Friedman, "After 170 years of Balkan Linguistics: Whither the Millennium?", Mediterranean Language Review 12:1-15, 2000.PDF -- an excellent survey article
• Grey Thomason, Sarah (1999). Linguistic areas and language history (PDF).
• Joseph, Brian D. (1999). Romanian and the Balkans: Some Comparative Perspectives (PDF).
• Rosetti, Alexandru (1965–1969). History of the Romanian language (Istoria limbii române), 2 vols.. 
• Russu, Ion (1967). The Language of the Thraco-Dacians (Limba Traco-Dacilor). Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică. 
• Steinke, Klaus, Vraciu, Ariton (1999). Introducere în lingvistica balcanică (An Introduction to Balkan Linguistics). Iaşi: Editura Universităţii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza". 
• Thomason, Sarah G. Language Contact: An Introduction. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001, pp. 108-9.
• Tomić, Olga Mišeska (2003). The Balkan Sprachbund properties: An introduction to Topics in Balkan Syntax and Semantics (PDF).
• Andrej N. Sobolev (Ed.) Malyi dialektologiceskii atlas balkanskikh iazykov. Muenchen: Biblion Verlag, 2003-