Balkan linguistic union or Balkan sprachbund is a name given to the similarities in syntax, vocabulary and phonology found in the languages of the Balkans, term coined by the Romanian linguist Alexandru Rosetti.

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

• Albanian
• Modern Greek
• Romance languages (Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian)
• Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian Torlak)

The source of these features has been longly debated, early researchers thought that they were an entirely Greek influence, however some of them cannot be found in Greek, such as the postponed article.

Nowadays they are generally thought that they are not all from the same source and the influence was reciprocal: some of these can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly the features shared between Romanian, Albanian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after the Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept much of its original characteristics.

Contents

1 Grammatical features 1.1 Postponed article 1.2 Syncretism of genitive and dative 1.3 Future tense formation 1.4 Analytic perfect tense formation 1.5 Avoidance of infinitive 2 Morphology 2.1 Number formation 2.2 Clitic pronouns 2.3 Suffixes 3 Vocabulary 4 Phonetics 5 External links

Grammatical features

Postponed article

With the exception of Greek, all languages in the union have their definite article attached at the end of the noun, instead of before it. None of the related languages (like other Romance languages or Slavic languages) share this feature and it is thought to be an inovation created and spread in the Balkans.

However, each language created their 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.

Syncretism of genitive and dative

In the Balkan languages, the genitive and dative cases (or corresponding prepositional constructions) are merged.

Example:

Language	Dative	Genitive
English	I gave the book to Maria.	It is Maria's book.
Albanian	Ia dhashë librin Marias.	Është libri i Marias.
Bulgarian	Дадох книгата на Мария (Dadoh knigata na Mariya)	Книгата е на Мария; (Knigata e na Mariya)
Romanian	I-am dat cartea Mariei.	Este cartea Mariei.
Greek	Έδωσα το βιβλίο της Μαρίας.	Είναι το βιβλίο της Μαρίας.

Future tense formation

The future tense is formed using an auxiliary verb with the meaning "to want" or "to wish".

Analytic perfect tense formation

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, where the analytic perfect is formed with the verb "to be" and the past active participle: обещал - "who has promised" (past active participle); съм - "I am"; обещал съм - "I have promised" (lit. "I am one who has promised"), perfect tense.

Avoidance of infinitive

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

For example, "I want to write" in several Balkan languages:

• Albanian: "Dua të shkruaj"
• Bulgarian: "Искам да пиша"
• Modern Greek: "Θέλω να γράψω"
• Romanian: "Vreau să scriu" (as opposed to "Vreau a scrie")
• Serbian: "Želim da pišem" (as opposed to the form that is common in Croatian: "Želim pisati", where pisati is the infinitive)

Morphology

Number formation

The numbers between ten and twenty are composed in a manner similar to Slavic languages (like "one + on + ten" for eleven). Modern Greek does not follow this.

• Albanian: "njëmbëdhjetë" (një + mbë + dhjetë)
• Bulgarian: "edinadeset" (edin + (n)a + deset)
• Romanian: "unsprezece" (un + spre + zece)

Clitic pronouns

Direct and indirect objects are doubled by a clitic (weak) pronoun. This can be found in Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian.

For example, "I see George" in Balkan languages:

• Albanian: "shikoj Xhorxhin"
• Bulgarian: 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 coloquial speech: "Виждам го Георги." And the clitic is obligatory in case of a topicalized object (with OVS-word order), which serves also as the common colloquial equivalent of a passive construction. "Георги го виждам."

• Greek: "Τον βλέπω το(ν) Γιώργο"
• Romanian: "Îl văd pe George"

Suffixes

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

Vocabulary

Several hundreds of words are common to the Balkan union languages, the origin of most of them is either Greek or Turkish language, as the Byzantine Empire and later the Ottoman Empire had a strong influence on the culture and economics of this region.

Albanian, Romanian and Bulgarian also share a good deal of words of various origins:

• Latin "mensa" → Romanian: "masă" → Bulgarian/Macedonian: "маса" ("masa") meaning table
• Thracian or Illyrian → Albanian: "magar" ↔ Romanian "măgar" ↔ Bulgarian "магаре" ("magare") meaning donkey
• Slavic → Bulgarian: ливада ("livada") → Albanian: "livadhe" ↔ Romanian "livadă" ↔ Greek: "λιβάδι" meaning meadow

Phonetics

Unstressed /a/ turns into the schwa vowel /@/ (ë in Albanian; ъ in Bulgarian; ă in Romanian;) and unstressed /o/ turns into /u/.

Examples:

Latin "casa" → Romanian "casă" → Bulgarian "къща"

Latin "camisia" → Romanian "cămaşă" → Albanian "këmishë"

External links

• Orbis Latini: Balkan Linguistic Union (http://www.orbilat.com/Encyclopaedia/B/Balkan_Linguistic_Union.html)
• Balkan Linguistic Union (http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/dunay/dunay05.htm)
• Linguistic areas and language history (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~thomason/papers/areas.pdf) (PDF)
• Romanian and the Balkans: Some Comparative Perspective (http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~bjoseph/publications/1999roma.pdf) (PDF)
• The Balkan Sprachbund properties: An introduction to Topics in Balkan Syntax and Semantics, by Olga Mišeska Tomić (http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/GraduateProgram/LotSchools/Summerschool2003/Tomic.pdf)