Meshterski ( bg, мещерски) or Meshtrenski (мещренски) was a
cant
Cant, CANT, canting, or canted may refer to:
Language
* Cant (language), a secret language
* Beurla Reagaird, a language of the Scottish Highland Travellers
* Scottish Cant, a language of the Scottish Lowland Travellers
* Shelta or the Cant, a la ...
, or secret
sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acqui ...
, of the south
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
builders,
bricklayers and
masons. The name comes from the word мещра ''meshtra'', "master", from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''magister''. Meshterski served a linguistically isolating purpose, enabling the builders to communicate in secrecy, and a socially isolating purpose, emphasizing the builders' perceived supremacy over their contractors.
[Николов,]
Глава I
.
Distribution and vocabulary
The sociolect emerged among the Bulgarian masons in southwestern
Macedonia, adjacent to the
Albanian lands. As a result, it includes a large number of Albanian loanwords, e.g. бука ''buka'', "bread", from ''bukё''; гяхта ''gyahta'', "cheese", from ''djathë''; мерам ''meram'', "to take", from ''marr''. There are much fewer loans from
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 ...
(e.g. лашма ''lashma'', "mud", from λάσπη ''laspi''; карекла ''karekla'', "chair", from καρέκλα ''karékla'') and
Turkish (e.g. пиринч ''pirinch'', "rice", from ''pirinç''; сакал ''sakal'', "beard", from ''sakal'').
[Николов,]
Глава II
. Later, the language spread through migration to northeastern Macedonia (the region of
Gotse Delchev
Georgi Nikolov Delchev ( Bulgarian/ Macedonian: Георги/Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (''Гоце Делчев'', originally spelled in older Bulgar ...
), the
Rhodope Mountains around
Smolyan, and the areas of
Asenovgrad
Asenovgrad ( bg, Асеновград ) is a town in central southern Bulgaria, part of Plovdiv Province. It is the largest town in Bulgaria that is not a province center. Previously known as ''Stanimaka'' (; el, Στενήμαχος), it was ...
,
Kazanlak
Kazanlak ( bg, Казанлък , Thracian and Greek Σευθόπολις (''Seuthopolis''), tr, Kazanlık) is a Bulgarian town in Stara Zagora Province, located in the middle of the plain of the same name, at the foot of the Balkan mountai ...
and the
sub-Balkan valleys.
[
Although loanwords often remained semantically unchanged, the Bulgarian vocabulary in the sociolect was substituted with native ]metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
s, metonyms and words from different roots, so as to conceal the true meaning to outsiders, e.g. мокра ''mokra'' ("wet", fem.) for вода ''voda'', "water"; гледач ''gledach'' ("looker") for око ''oko'', "eye", обло ''oblo'' ("round", neut.) for яйце ''yaytse'', "egg".[ The lexis of Meshterski included not only professional terms and basic vocabulary, but also other words, including religious terms, such as Светлив ''Svetliv'', "Luminous", referring to ]God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
or a saint.
Meshterski also spread to other social areas: it was borrowed by tinsmith
A tinsmith is a person who makes and repairs things made of tin or other light metals. The profession may sometimes also be known as a tinner, tinker, tinman, or tinplate worker; whitesmith may also refer to this profession, though the same w ...
s in at least one village in the Rhodopes, although with a much reduced vocabulary and renamed to ''Ganamarski''.[Николов,]
Глава III
. Albanian words mediated through Meshterski have also entered informal Bulgarian; these included кекав ''kekav'', "weak, sickly" (from ''keq''); кинти ''kinti'', "money, dough" (from ''qind'', "hundred"), скивам ''skivam'', "to see, to take a look" (from ''shqyrtoj''), келеш ''kelesh'', "squirt, mangy fellow" (from ''qelesh'').
Examples
See also
* Banjački, the cant of bricklayers in Podrinje
Podrinje ( Serbian Cyrillic: Подриње) is the Slavic name of the Drina river basin, known in English as the Drina Valley. The Drina basin is shared between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, with majority of its territory being located in ...
, western Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
* Purishte, Albanian language sociolect spoken by masons of the Opar region
Footnotes
References
*
External links
Short dictionary of Meshterski
{{in lang, bg
Cant languages
Occupational cryptolects
Bulgarian language
Dialects of the Bulgarian language