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Torlakian, or Torlak is a group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia,
Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a international recognition of Kosovo, partiall ...
, northeastern
North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
, and northwestern
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
, falls into the
Balkan Slavic linguistic area The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic lin ...
, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund. According to
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
's list of endangered languages, Torlakian is vulnerable."Torlak" at Torlakian is not standardized, and its subdialects vary significantly in some features. Yugoslav linguists traditionally classified it as an old
Shtokavian dialect Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric language, pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian language, Serbian, Croatian l ...
or as a fourth dialect of
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
along with
Shtokavian Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...
,
Chakavian Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , sh-Latn, čakavski proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmat ...
, and
Kajkavian Kajkavian (Kajkavian noun: ''kajkavščina''; Shtokavian adjective: ''kajkavski'' , noun: ''kajkavica'' or ''kajkavština'' ) is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats in much of Central Croatia, Gorski Kotar and no ...
. Bulgarian scholars classify it as a Western Bulgarian dialect, in which case it is referred to as a Transitional Bulgarian dialect. According to Ivo Banac, during the Middle ages Torlak and the
Eastern Herzegovinian dialect The Eastern Herzegovinian dialect (, Serbo-Croatian: ''istočnohercegovački'' / источнохерцеговачки) is the most widespread subdialect of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian, both by territory and the number of speakers ...
were part of
Eastern South Slavic The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic li ...
, but since the 12th century, especially the Shtokavian dialects, including Eastern Herzegovinian, began to diverge from the other neighbouring South Slavic dialects. 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 South Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austri ...
via two routes: the west and east of the Carpathian Mountains.The Slavic Languages, Roland Sussex, Paul Cubberley, Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2006, , p. 42. Speakers of the dialectal group are primarily ethnic
Serbs The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian Cultural heritage, ancestry, Culture of Serbia, culture, History of ...
,
Bulgarians Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe. Etymology Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely underst ...
, and Macedonians. There are also smaller ethnic communities of
Croats The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic ...
(the
Krashovani The Krashovani ( ro, Carașoveni, hr, Krašovani) are a Croat community inhabiting Carașova and Lupac in the Caraș-Severin County within Romanian Banat. They are Catholic by faith and speak the Torlakian dialect. Glottolog lists "Karashevski ...
) in Romania and Slavic Muslims (the Gorani) in southern Kosovo.


Classification

The Torlakian dialects are intermediate between the Eastern and Western branches of South Slavic
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...
, and have been variously described, in whole or in parts, as belonging to either group. In the 19th century, they were often called ''Bulgarian'', but their classification was contested between Serbian and Bulgarian writers. Previously, the designation "Torlakian" was not applied to the dialects of
Niš Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names in other languages) is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, whi ...
and the neighbouring areas to the east and south.


Balkan sprachbund

The Torlakian dialects, together with Bulgarian and
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
, display many properties of the Balkan linguistic area, a set of structural convergence features shared also with other, non-Slavic, languages of the Balkans such as Albanian,
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
and Aromanian. In terms of areal linguistics, they have therefore been described as part of a prototypical "Balkan Slavic" area, as opposed to other parts of
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
, which are only peripherally involved in the convergence area.


Balkan linguists


Serbian linguists

Most notable Serbian linguists (like
Pavle Ivić Pavle Ivić ( sr-cyr, Павле Ивић, ; 1 December 1924 – 19 September 1999) was a Serbian South Slavic dialectologist and phonologist. Biography Both his field work and his synthesizing studies were extensive and authoritative. A few of ...
and
Asim Peco Asim Peco (; sr-Cyrl, Асим Пецо; 24 May 1927 – 7 December 2011) was a renowned Bosnian linguist, academician, professor, author and editor. Peco's work is credited for the development of Bosnian and Herzegovinian linguistics. His area ...
) classify Torlakian (
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
: / , ) as an Old-Shtokavian dialect, referring to it as the
Prizren–Timok dialect The Prizren–Timok dialect (Serbo-Croatian: Призренско–тимочки дијалекат / ''Prizrensko–timočki dijalekat'') is the name given by Serbian linguists to a specific part of Shtokavian dialects, spoken in Eastern and S ...
. * Pavle Ivić, in his textbook of Serbo-Croatian dialectology (1956), treated the "Prizren–Timok dialect zone" as part of the overall Shtokavian zone. * Aleksandar Belić classified the Prizren–Timok dialect as "fundamentally Serbian", as well as claimed that the Western Bulgarian dialects were Serbian. * Dejan Krstić in his scientific paper "Ideas of the Pirot region population that concern the term the Torlaks" has claimed that the term Torlaks was and is used to refer to the bilingual Vlachs in Pirot area.


Croatian linguists

* Croatian linguist
Milan Rešetar Milan Rešetar (February 1, 1860 – January 14, 1942) was a linguist, historian and literary critic from Dubrovnik. Biography Rešetar was born in Dubrovnik. After the gymnasium in Dubrovnik, he studied classical philology and Slavic languages i ...
classified the "Svrljig dialect" (Torlak) as a different group from
Shtokavian Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...
.


Bulgarian linguists

Bulgarian researchers such as
Benyo Tsonev Benyo is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Richard Benyo Richard Stephen Benyo (born April 20, 1946 at Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, United States) is an American journalist and veteran distance runner. He is the editor of ''Mara ...
,
Gavril Zanetov Gavril Tanasov Zanetov ( bg, Гаврил Танасов Занетов) was a lawyer, historian, publicist and literary critic. He was a close associate and adviser to Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov. He graduated from the Bolhrad High School ...
and the Macedono-Bulgarian researcher Krste Misirkov classified Torlakian ( bg, Торлашки, Torlashki) as dialect of the Bulgarian language. They noted the manner of the articles, the loss of most of the cases, etc. Today Bulgarian linguists ( Stoyko Stoykov, Rangel Bozhkov) also classify Torlakian as a " Belogradchik- Tran" dialect of Bulgarian, and claim that it should be classified outside the Shtokavian area. Stoykov further argued that the Torlakian dialects have a grammar that is closer to Bulgarian and that this is indicative of them being originally Bulgarian.


Macedonian linguists

In Macedonian dialectology, the Torlakian ( mk, Торлачки, Torlački) varieties spoken in North Macedonia (
Kumanovo Kumanovo ( mk, Куманово ; also known by other alternative names) is a city in North Macedonia and the seat of Kumanovo Municipality, the largest municipality in the country. Kumanovo lies above sea level and is surrounded by the Kar ...
, Kratovo and Kriva Palanka dialect) are classified as part of a northeastern group of
Macedonian dialects The dialects of Macedonian comprise the Slavic dialects spoken in the Republic of North Macedonia as well as some varieties spoken in the wider geographic region of Macedonia. They are part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages that ...
.


Features


Vocabulary

Basic Torlakian vocabulary shares most of its Slavic roots with Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian but also over time borrowed a number of words from Aromanian,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, Turkish, and Albanian in the Gora region of the Šar Mountains. It also preserved many words which in the "major" languages became
archaism In language, an archaism (from the grc, ἀρχαϊκός, ''archaïkós'', 'old-fashioned, antiquated', ultimately , ''archaîos'', 'from the beginning, ancient') is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a hi ...
s or changed meaning. Like other features, vocabulary is inconsistent across subdialects, for example, a Krashovan does not necessarily understand a Goranac. The varieties spoken in the Slavic countries have been heavily influenced by the standardized national languages, particularly when a new word or concept was introduced. The only exception is a form of Torlakian spoken in
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, which escaped the influence of a standardized language which has existed in Serbia since a state was created after the withdrawal of the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
. The Slavs indigenous to the region are called
Krashovani The Krashovani ( ro, Carașoveni, hr, Krašovani) are a Croat community inhabiting Carașova and Lupac in the Caraș-Severin County within Romanian Banat. They are Catholic by faith and speak the Torlakian dialect. Glottolog lists "Karashevski ...
and are a mixture of original settler Slavs and later settlers from the Timok Valley in eastern Serbia.


Cases lacking inflections

Bulgarian and Macedonian are the only two modern Slavic languages that lost virtually the entire noun case system, with nearly all nouns now in the surviving
nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...
case. This is partly true of the Torlakian dialect. In the northwest, the
instrumental case In grammar, the instrumental case ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the ''instrument'' or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or a ...
merges with the
genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
, and the
locative In grammar, the locative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...
and
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
cases merge with the
nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...
. Further south, all inflections disappear and syntactic meaning is determined solely by
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s.


Lack of phoneme /x/

Macedonian, Torlakian and a number of Serbian and Bulgarian dialects, unlike all other Slavic languages, technically have no phoneme like , or . In other Slavic languages, or (the latter from Proto-Slavic *g in "H-Slavic languages") is common. The appearance of the letter h in the alphabet is reserved mostly for
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
and
toponyms Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
within the Republic of North Macedonia but outside of the standard language region. In Macedonian, this is the case with eastern towns such as Pehčevo. In fact, the Macedonian language is based in
Prilep Prilep ( mk, Прилеп ) is the fourth-largest city in North Macedonia. It has a population of 66,246 and is known as "the city under Marko's Towers" because of its proximity to the towers of Prince Marko. Name The name of Prilep appea ...
,
Pelagonia Pelagonia ( mk, Пелагонија, Pelagonija; el, Πελαγονíα, Pelagonía) is a geographical region of Macedonia named after the ancient kingdom. Ancient Pelagonia roughly corresponded to the present-day municipalities of Bitola, Pri ...
and words such as ''thousand'' and ''urgent'' are ''iljada'' and ''itno'' in standard Macedonian but ''hiljada'' and ''hitno'' in Serbian (also, Macedonian ''oro'', ''ubav'' vs. Bulgarian ''horo'', ''hubav'' (folk dance, beautiful)). This is actually a part of an
isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major ...
, a dividing line separating Prilep from Pehčevo in the Republic of North Macedonia at the southern extreme, and reaching central Serbia (
Šumadija Šumadija (, sr-Cyrl, Шумадија) is a geographical region in the central part of Serbia. The area used to be heavily covered with forests, hence the name (from ''šuma'' 'forest'). The city of Kragujevac is the administrative center of ...
) at a northern extreme. In Šumadija, local folk songs may still use the traditional form of ''I want'' being ''oću'' (оћу) compared with ''hoću'' (хоћу) as spoken in Standard Serbian.


Syllabic /l/

Some versions of Torlakian have retained the syllabic , which, like , can serve the nucleus of a syllable. In most of the Shtokavian dialects, the syllabic eventually became or . In standard Bulgarian, it is preceded by the vowel represented by ъ () to separate consonant clusters. Naturally, the becomes
velarized Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four d ...
in most such positions, giving . In some dialects, most notably the Leskovac dialect, the word-final -l has instead shifted into the vocal cluster -(i)ja; for example the word пекал became пекја (''to bake''). Word-medially however the syllabic /l/ remains unaltered.


Features shared with Eastern South Slavic

* Loss of
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
as in Bulgarian and Macedonian * Loss of
infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...
as in Bulgarian and Macedonian, present in Serbian * Full retention of the aorist and the imperfect, as in Bulgarian * Use of a
definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
as in Bulgarian and Macedonian, lacking in Serbian * ə for
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
ь and ъ in all positions: ''sən'', ''dən'' (Bulgarian ''sən'', ''den''; Serbian ''san'', ''dan''; Macedonian ''son'', ''den''), including in the place of OCS suffixes -''ьцъ'', -''ьнъ'' (Bulgarian -''ec'', -''en''; Serbian -''ac'', -''an''; Macedonian -''ec'', -''en'') * Lack of phonetic pitch and length as in Bulgarian and Macedonian, present in Serbian * Frequent stress on the final syllable in polysyllabic words, impossible in Serbian and Macedonian (Bulgarian ''že'na'', Serbian žena'') * Preservation of final ''l'', which in Serbian developed to ''o'' (Bulgarian and Macedonian ''bil'', Serbian ''bio'') * Comparative degree of adjectives formed with the particle ''po'' as in Eastern South Slavic ''ubav, poubav'', Serbian ''lep, lepši''. * Lack of epenthetic ''l'', as in Eastern South Slavic ''zdravje/zdrave'', Serbian ''zdravlje'' * Use of ''što'' pronoun meaning what, as in Eastern South Slavic rather than ''šta'' as in standard Serbian (''što'' also preserved in some Croatian dialects) and of the standard Bulgarian ''kakvo'' (often shortened to ''kvo'').


Features shared with Western South Slavic

In all Torlakian dialects: * ǫ gave rounded ''u'' like in Shtokavian Serbian, unlike unrounded ''ъ'' in literary Bulgarian and ''a'' in Macedonian * vь- gave ''u'' in Western, v- in Eastern * *čr gave cr in Western, but was preserved in Eastern * Distinction between Proto-Slavic and is lost in Eastern (S.-C. ''njega'', Bulgarian ''nego''). * Voiced consonants in final position are not subject to devoicing (Serbian ''grad'' (written and pronounced), Bulgarian/Macedonian pronounced ' * *vs stays preserved without metathesis in Eastern (S.-C. ''sve'', Bulgarian ''vse'', simplified in Macedonian to ''se'') * Accusative ''njega'' as in Serbian, unlike old accusative on O in Eastern (''nego'') * Nominative plural of nomina on -a is on -e in Western, -i in Eastern * ''Ja'' 'I, ego' in Western, ''(j)as'' in Eastern * ''Mi'' 'we' in Western, ''nie'' in Eastern * First person singular of verbs is -m in Western, and the old reflex of *ǫ in Eastern * suffixes *-itjь ('' -ić'') and *-atja (''-ača'') are common in Western, not known in Eastern In some Torlakian dialects: * Distinction between the plural of masculine, feminine and neuter adjectives is preserved only in Western (S.C. ''beli'', ''bele'', ''bela''), not in Eastern (''beli'' for masc., fem. and neutr.), does not occur in Belogradchik area; in some eastern regions there is just a masculine and feminine form. * The proto-Slavic *tj, *dj which gave respectively ''ć'', ''đ'' in Serbo-Croatian, ''št'', ''žd'' in Bulgarian and ''ќ'', ''ѓ'' in Macedonian, is represented by the Serbian form in the west and northwest and by the hybrid ''č'', ''dž'' in the east: Belogradchik and Tran, as well as Pirot, Gora, northern Macedonia. The Macedonian form occurs around Kumanovo.


Dialects

*
Prizren–Timok dialect The Prizren–Timok dialect (Serbo-Croatian: Призренско–тимочки дијалекат / ''Prizrensko–timočki dijalekat'') is the name given by Serbian linguists to a specific part of Shtokavian dialects, spoken in Eastern and S ...
*
Transitional Bulgarian dialects The Transitional Bulgarian dialects are a group of Bulgarian dialects, whose speakers are located west of the yat boundary and are part of the Western Bulgarian dialects. As they have most of the typical characteristics of the North-Western B ...
* Kumanovo dialect *
Gora dialect The Gorani or Goranski, also Našinski ("Our language") language, is the variety of South Slavic spoken by the Gorani people in the border area between Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Albania. It is part of the Torlakian dialect group,Browne ...
*
Krashovani The Krashovani ( ro, Carașoveni, hr, Krašovani) are a Croat community inhabiting Carașova and Lupac in the Caraș-Severin County within Romanian Banat. They are Catholic by faith and speak the Torlakian dialect. Glottolog lists "Karashevski ...


Literature

Literature written in Torlakian is rather sparse as the dialect has never been an official state language. During the
Ottoman rule Ottoman is the Turkish spelling of the Arabic masculine given name Uthman ( ar, عُثْمان, ‘uthmān). It may refer to: Governments and dynasties * Ottoman Caliphate, an Islamic caliphate from 1517 to 1924 * Ottoman Empire, in existence fro ...
literacy in the region was limited to
Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
clergy, who chiefly used
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
in writing. The first known literary document influenced by Torlakian dialects is the
Manuscript from Temska Monastery Temska Manuscript ( bg, Темски ръкопис, sr, Темски рукопис/Temski rukopis) is a collection of writings from 1764, compiled by monk Kiril Zhivkovich (1730–1807) in the Temska Monastery near the village of Temska, in Pir ...
from 1762, in which its author, the Monk
Kiril Zhivkovich The male name Kiril (or Кирил or Кирилл) is a common first name in the Orthodox Slavic world, in particular in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Russia. It is also well known in Greece but in different forms like Kyriakos. (Note that in m ...
from
Pirot Pirot ( sr-cyr, Пирот) is a city and the administrative center of the Pirot District in southeastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the urban area of the city has a population of 38,785, while the population of the city administrative are ...
, considered his language "''simple Bulgarian''".


Ethnography

According to one theory, the name ''Torlak'' derived from the South Slavic word ''tor'' ("
sheepfold A pen is an enclosure for holding livestock. It may also perhaps be used as a term for an enclosure for other animals such as pets that are unwanted inside the house. The term describes types of enclosures that may confine one or many animal ...
"), possibly referring to the fact that ''Torlaks'' in the past were mainly
shepherd A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' ' herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, ...
s by occupation. Some Bulgarian scientists describe the Torlaks as a distinct
ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...
group. Another theory is that it is derived from
Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...
''torlak'' ("unbearded youth"), possibly referring to some portion of the youth among them not developing dense facial hair. The Torlaks are also sometimes classified as part of the
Shopi Shopi or Šopi ( South Slavic: Шопи) is a regional term, used by a group of people in the Balkans. The areas traditionally inhabited by the ''Shopi'' or ''Šopi'' is called ''Shopluk'' or ''Šopluk'' (Шоплук), a mesoregion, roughly ...
population and vice versa. In the 19th century, there was no exact border between Torlak and Shopi settlements. According to some authors, during Ottoman rule, a majority of the Torlakian population did not have national consciousness in an ethnic sense. Therefore, both Serbs and Bulgarians considered local Slavs as part of their own people and the local population was also divided between sympathy for Bulgarians and Serbs. Other authors take a different view and maintain that the inhabitants of the Torlakian area had begun to develop predominantly Bulgarian national consciousness.The Serbian newspaper, Srbske Narodne Novine (Year IV, pp. 138 and 141-43, May 4 and 7, 1841), described the towns of Niš, Leskovac, Pirot, and Vranja as lying in Bulgaria, and styles their inhabitants Bulgarians. In a map made by
Dimitrije Davidović Dimitrije "Mita" Davidović (Zemun, Habsburg monarchy, 12 October 1789 – Smederevo, Principality of Serbia, 24 March 1838) was a Serbian politician serving as the Prime Minister of Serbia, Minister of Education and chief secretary of cabinet ...
called „Territories inhabited by Serbians” from 1828 Macedonia, but also the towns Niš, Leskovac, Vranja, Pirot etc. were situated outside the boundaries of the Serbian race. The map of Constantine Desjardins (1853), French professor in Serbia represents the realm of the Serbian language. The map was based on Davidović‘s work confining Serbians into the limited area north of Šar Planina. For more: G. Demeter et al., "Ethnic Mapping on the Balkans (1840–1925): a Brief Comparative Summary of Concepts and Methods of Visualization" in (Re)Discovering the Sources of Bulgarian and Hungarian History. pp. 65–100.
With Ottoman influence ever weakening, the increase of nationalist sentiment in the Balkans in late 19th and early 20th century, and the redrawing of national boundaries after the
Treaty of Berlin (1878) The Treaty of Berlin (formally the Treaty between Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire for the Settlement of Affairs in the East) was signed on 13 July 1878. In the aftermath of the ...
, the
Balkan wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and def ...
and
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, the borders in the Torlakian-speaking region changed several times between Serbia and Bulgaria, and later the Republic of North Macedonia.


See also

* Balkan language area * Gorani *
Krashovani The Krashovani ( ro, Carașoveni, hr, Krašovani) are a Croat community inhabiting Carașova and Lupac in the Caraș-Severin County within Romanian Banat. They are Catholic by faith and speak the Torlakian dialect. Glottolog lists "Karashevski ...
*
Shopi Shopi or Šopi ( South Slavic: Шопи) is a regional term, used by a group of people in the Balkans. The areas traditionally inhabited by the ''Shopi'' or ''Šopi'' is called ''Shopluk'' or ''Šopluk'' (Шоплук), a mesoregion, roughly ...
*
Shtokavian dialect Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric language, pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian language, Serbian, Croatian l ...


Notes


References


Sources

* * * Стойков, Стойко: Българска диалектология, Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов", 2006. *


External links


A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian (by Wayles Brown and Theresa Alt)


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Torlak Dialect South Slavic languages Dialects of Serbo-Croatian Serbian dialects Dialects of the Macedonian language Dialects of the Bulgarian language