Torlakian dialects

Torlakian, or Torlak is a group of 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

Native to Serbia, Bulgaria,

North Macedonia,
Kosovo, Romania
Ethnicity Serbs, Bulgarians,
Macedonians,
Krashovani, Gorani
Native speakers (undated figure of ca.
1.5 million)[1]
Language family Indo-European
Balto-Slavic
Slavic
South Slavic
Eastern (?)
Torlakian

Writing system Cyrillic

Latin
Language codes

ISO 639-3 –
Linguist List srp-tor (htt
p://multitree.or
g/codes/srp-to
r)
Glottolog None

Areas where Torlakian dialects are spoken.

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.

According to 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 neighbouring South
Slavic dialects.[2] 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.[3]

Speakers of the dialectal group are

primarily ethnic Serbs, Bulgarians, and
Macedonians.[4] There are also smaller
ethnic communities of Croats (the
Krashovani) 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,[5][6] 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.[7]
Previously, the designation "Torlakian" was
not applied to the dialects of Niš and the
neighbouring areas to the east and
south.[8]
Balkan sprachbund

The Torlakian dialects, together with

Bulgarian and Macedonian, 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 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,
which are only peripherally involved in the
convergence area.[7][9][10]
Balkan linguists

Serbian linguists

Most notable Serbian linguists (like Pavle

Ivić and Asim Peco) classify Torlakian
(Serbo-Croatian: Torlački / Торлачки,
pronounced [tɔ̌rlaːt͡ʃkiː]) as an Old-
Shtokavian dialect, referring to it as the
Prizren–Timok dialect.[11]

Pavle Ivić, in his textbook of Serbo-

Croatian dialectology (1956), treated the
"Prizren–Timok dialect zone" as part of
the overall Shtokavian zone.[12]
 Aleksandar Belić classified the Prizren–
Timok dialect as "fundamentally
Serbian", as well as claimed that the
Western Bulgarian dialects were
Serbian.[13]
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

classified the "Svrljig dialect" (Torlak) as
a different group from Shtokavian.[14]
Bulgarian linguists

Bulgarian researchers such as Benyo

Tsonev, Gavril Zanetov and the Macedono-
Bulgarian researcher Krste Misirkov[15]
classified Torlakian (Bulgarian: Торлашки,
romanized: 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.[16]

Macedonian linguists

In Macedonian dialectology, the Torlakian

(Macedonian: Торлачки,
romanized: Torlački) varieties spoken in
North Macedonia (Kumanovo, Kratovo and
Kriva Palanka dialect) are classified as
part of a northeastern group of
Macedonian dialects.[17]
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, Turkish, and Albanian in
the Gora region of the Šar Mountains. It
also preserved many words which in the
"major" languages became archaisms 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,
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
Slavs indigenous to the region are called
Krashovani 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 case. This is partly true of the
Torlakian dialect. In the northwest, the
instrumental case merges with the
accusative case, and the locative and
genitive cases merge with the nominative
case. Further south, all inflections
disappear and syntactic meaning is
determined solely by prepositions.

Lack of phoneme /x/

Macedonian, Torlakian and a number of

Serbian and Bulgarian dialects, unlike all
other Slavic languages, technically have no
phoneme like [x], [ɦ] or [h]. In other Slavic
languages, [x] or [ɦ] (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
and toponyms 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, Pelagonia 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, a dividing line separating Prilep
from Pehčevo in the Republic of North
Macedonia at the southern extreme, and
reaching central Serbia (Šumadija) 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 /l/, which, like /r/, can serve
the nucleus of a syllable. In most of the
Shtokavian dialects, the syllabic /l/
eventually became /u/ or /o/. In standard
Bulgarian, it is preceded by the vowel
represented by ъ ([ɤ]) to separate
consonant clusters. Naturally, the /l/
becomes velarized in most such positions,
giving [ɫ].[18] 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.

Krašovan (Karas) влк /vɫk/ пекъл /pɛkəl/ сълза /səɫza/ жлт /ʒɫt/

Northern (Svrljig) вук /vuk/ пекал /pɛkəɫ/ суза /suza/ жлът /ʒlət/

Central (Lužnica) вук /vuk/ пекл /pɛkəɫ/ слза /sləza/ жлт /ʒlət/

Southern (Vranje) влк /vəlk/ пекал /pɛkal/ солза /sɔɫza/ жлт /ʒəɫt/

Western (Prizren) вук /vuk/ пекл /pɛkɫ/ слуза /sluza/ жлт /ʒlt/
Torlakian
Eastern (Tran) вук /vuk/ пекл /pɛkɫ/ слза /slza/ жлт /ʒlt/

North-Eastern
влк /vlk/ пекл /pɛkɫ/ слза /slza/ жлт /ʒlt/
(Belogradchik)

South-Eastern
вук /vlk/ пекъл /pɛkəɫ/ слза /slza/ жут /ʒut/
(Kumanovo)

вук, vuk / пекао, pekao суза, suza жут, žut /

Standard Serbo-Croatian
ʋûːk/ /pêkao/ /sûza/ ʒûːt/

вълк жълт /
Standard Bulgarian пекъл /pɛkɐɫ/ сълза /sɐɫza/
/vɤɫk/ ʒɤɫt/

Standard Macedonian волк /vɔlk/ печел /pɛtʃɛl/ солза /sɔlza/ жолт /ʒɔlt/

English wolf (have) baked tear yellow

Features shared with Eastern South
Slavic

Loss of grammatical case as in

Bulgarian and Macedonian
Loss of infinitive as in Bulgarian and
Macedonian, present in Serbian
Full retention of the aorist and the
imperfect, as in Bulgarian
Use of a definite article as in Bulgarian
and Macedonian, lacking in Serbian
ə for Old Church Slavonic ь and ъ in all
positions: sən, dən (Bulgarian sən, den;
Serbian san, dan; Macedonian son, den),
including in the place of OCS suffixes
-ьць, -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 /ɲ/ and
/n/ 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
/grat/
*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
Transitional Bulgarian dialects
Kumanovo dialect
Gora dialect
Krashovani

Literature
Literature written in Torlakian is rather
sparse as the dialect has never been an
official state language. During the
Ottoman rule literacy in the region was
limited to Eastern Orthodox clergy, who
chiefly used Old Church Slavonic in
writing. The first known literary document
influenced by Torlakian[19] dialects is the
Manuscript from Temska Monastery from
1762, in which its author, the Monk Kiril
Zhivkovich from Pirot, considered his
language "simple Bulgarian".[20]

Ethnography
According to one theory, the name Torlak
derived from the South Slavic word tor
("sheepfold"), possibly referring to the fact
that Torlaks in the past were mainly
shepherds by occupation. Some Bulgarian
scientists describe the Torlaks as a
distinct ethnographic group.[21] Another
theory is that it is derived from Ottoman
Turkish torlak ("unbearded youth"),
possibly referring to some portion of the
youth among them not developing dense
facial hair.[22] The Torlaks are also
sometimes classified as part of the Shopi
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.[23]
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.[24] Other authors take a
different view and maintain that the
inhabitants of the Torlakian area had
begun to develop predominantly Bulgarian
national consciousness.[25][26][27][28] 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 Balkan
wars and World War I, 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
Shopi
Shtokavian dialect

References
1. "Torlak" at "UNESCO's list of endangered
languages" (http://www.unesco.org/cultur
e/languages-atlas/en/atlasmap/language-i
d-1026.html) . Unesco.org. Retrieved
2013-03-24.
2. Ivo Banac, The National Question in
Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell
University Press, 1988, ISBN 0801494931,
p. 47.

3. The Slavic Languages, Roland Sussex, Paul

Cubberley, Publisher Cambridge University
Press, 2006, ISBN 1139457284, p. 42.

4. 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 (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=vi_VCm51kpkC&
q=shopski+torlak&pg=PA519) .
ISBN 9783110220261. Retrieved
2013-03-24.
5. Friedman, Victor (1999). Linguistic
emblems and emblematic languages: on
language as flag in the Balkans. Kenneth E.
Naylor memorial lecture series in South
Slavic linguistics ; vol. 1. Columbus, Ohio:
Ohio State University, Dept. of Slavic and
East European Languages and Literatures.
p. 8. OCLC 46734277 (https://www.worldca
t.org/oclc/46734277) .
6. Alexander, Ronelle (2000). In honor of
diversity: the linguistic resources of the
Balkans. Kenneth E. Naylor memorial
lecture series in South Slavic linguistics ;
vol. 2. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State
University, Dept. of Slavic and East
European Languages and Literatures. p. 4.
OCLC 47186443 (https://www.worldcat.or
g/oclc/47186443) .

7. Concise encyclopedia of languages of the

world, Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, Elsevier,
2008, ISBN 0-08-087774-5, pp. 119–120 (ht
tps://books.google.com/books?id=F2SRqD
zB50wC&q=torlak&pg=PA129) . 6 April
2010. ISBN 9780080877754. Retrieved
2013-03-24.
8. Henrik Birnbaum; Victor Terras (1978).
International Congress of Slavists, 8 (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=CP0pAQA
AIAAJ) . Slavica Publishers. p. 473.
ISBN 978-0-89357-046-0. "Niš is located in
a dialect area called prizrensko-
južnomoravski; the name torlaški 'Torlak' is
now applied to the dialect of the Niš area
as well as to neighboring dialects to the
east and south."
9. Fisiak, Jacek (January 1985). Papers from
the 6-th International Conference on
Historical Linguistics, Current issues in
linguistic theory, Jacek Fisiak, John
Benjamins Publishing, 1985 ISBN
9027235287, p. 17 – Henrik Birnbaum:
Divergence and convergence in linguistic
evolution (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=itlREOzLnM0C&q=balkan+linguistic+u
nion+torlak&pg=PA17) . ISBN 9027235287.
Retrieved 2013-03-24.
10. Hickey, Raymond (2010-04-26). The
handbook of language contact, Blackwell
handbooks in Linguistics, Raymond Hickey,
John Wiley & Sons, 2010, ISBN
140517580X, p. 620 (https://books.google.
com/books?id=xGZedef70zAC&q=+torlak&
pg=PA620) . ISBN 9781405175807.
Retrieved 2013-03-24.

11. Ivić, Pavle (2001). Dijalektologija

srpskohrvatskog jezika. p. 25.; Pavle Ivić.
"Dijalektološka karta štokavskog narečja" (h
ttp://www.srpskidespot.org.rs/Mape/dijalek
tiStokavskogNarecja.htm) .

12. Archivum philologicum et linguisticum (http

s://books.google.com/books?id=whwpAQA
AIAAJ) . Vol. 7–9. Matica srpska. 1964.
p. 26.
13. Slavistische Beiträge (https://books.google.
com/books?id=oh0_AQAAIAAJ) . Vol. 67–
69. O. Sagner. 1973. p. 141. ISBN 978-3-
87690-076-6.

14. Janneke Kalsbeek (1998). The Čakavian

Dialect of Orbanići Near Žminj in Istria (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=5ExIm5OH
oO4C&pg=PA3) . Rodopi. p. 3. ISBN 90-420-
0712-5.
15. Мисирков, Кръстьо (1898). Значението
на моравското или ресавското наречие
за съвременната и историческа
етнография на Балканския полуостров.
Български преглед, година V, книга І, стр.
121–127; Мисирков, Кръстьо (1910,
1911). Бележки по южно-славянска
филология и история – Към въпроса за
пограничната линия между българския
и сръбско-хърватски езици и народи,
Одеса, 30.XII.1909 г. Българска сбирка.

16. Bulgarian dialectology, Stoyko Stoykov,

2002, p.163 (http://www.kroraina.com/knig
i/jchorb/st/st_2_b_zap_3.htm)

17. K. Koneski, Pravopisen rečnik na

makedonskiot literaturen jazik. Skopje:
Prosvetno delo 1999.
18. Josip Lisac. "Osnovne značajke torlačkoga
narječja" (https://web.archive.org/web/200
41116220303/http://www.matica.hr/Kolo/k
olo0401.nsf/AllWebDocs/torl) . Kolo.
Archived from the original (http://www.mati
ca.hr/Kolo/kolo0401.nsf/AllWebDocs/torl)
on 2004-11-16.

19. Българскиият език през 20-ти век.

Василка Радева, Издател Pensoft
Publishers, 2001, ISBN 954-642-113-8, стр.
280–281.

20. Василев, В.П. Темският ръкопис –

български езиков паметник от 1764 г,
Paleobulgarica, IX (1986), кн. 1, с. 49–72
21. Bŭlgarska etnografiia, Nikolaĭ Ivanov Kolev,
Izdatelstvo Nauka i izkustvo, 1987, p. 69;
Istoricheski pregled, Bŭlgarsko istorichesko
druzhestvo, Institut za istoriia (Bŭlgarska
akademia na naukite), 1984, p. 16.

22. Nişanyan Etimolojik Sözlük (Nişanyan

Etymological Dictionary), definition of
"torlak", Oct. 30th 2021,
https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/kelime/to
rlak
23. In "The Shaping of Bulgarian and Serbian
National Identities, 1800s–1900s, February
2003, Katrin Bozeva, Department of History,
McGill University, Montreal. Thesis to
fulfillment of the requirements of the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy, claims:
"The historical data examined demonstrate
that before the establishment of their
sovereign states ordinary Serbs and
Bulgarians had only a vague idea, if any, of
their national identity. The peasantry was
accustomed to defining itself in terms of
religion, locality and occupation, not in
terms of nationality. Once the nation state
was established peasants had to be
indoctrinated in nationalism. The
inculcation was executed through the
schooling system, military conscription, the
Christian Orthodox Church, and the press. It
was through the channels of these state
institutions that a national identity came
into existence... A recent trend in national
historiography presents many social
rebellions in the Serbian and Bulgarian
lands as early attempts to obtain
independence from the Sublime Porte... Yet
is as well to recall that, in their nascent
phases, the uprisings of the 19th century
tended to have social causes. Mass
national movements were only to be
developed when conditions permitted.
There is no evidence that earlier conflicts
between the Ottoman administration and
local Bulgarian and Serbian populations
were national in any sense at all."
24. According to Nenad Stefanov, PhD in
history at Humboldt University of Berlin, the
rebellions between 1836 and 1840 in the
area of Niš, Pirot and Belogradčik are
object of contention between a nationally
centered Serbian and Bulgarian historical
narrative, both sides claiming they to be a
manifestation of Bulgarian national
consciousness or respectively loyalty of the
rebels to Miloš Obrenović in a Serbian
national historiography. He claims, by
conceptualizing the relationship of
Obrenović to the rebellion not as the
protagonist of any national idea, but as one
political actor, acting in this concrete
context, is possible to avoid a strictly
nationalist views. A lot of sources related to
the activity of Prince Miloš, shows his
interaction and cooperation with the
Ottoman authorities, in order to restrain this
revolt. For more see: Revolutions in the
Balkans, Revolts and Uprisings in the Era of
Nationalism (1804–1908), Panteion
University of Social and Political Sciences,
Athens, pp. 27–28. and Südosteuropäische
Hefte, 3 (2014) 1, pp. 163–166.
25. According to Engin Tanir from Ankara
University in his thesis for the degree of
master of arts in history, called "The mid-
nineteenth century Ottoman Bulgaria from
the viewpoints of the French travelers", p,
70: The district of Nish was at the western
end of the Danubean Province. It was
subdivided into six districts which were
Nish, Pirot, Leskovac, Vranje, Prokuplje and
Iznebol. According to Ami Boué, who
traveled through the region in 1837, Nish
was a Bulgarian district and both in the
town and in the country Bulgarians formed
the great part of the population.
Nevertheless, Cyprien Robert claimed that
Serbs formed half of the town population.
In the Pirot and Leskovac districts,
Bulgarians were the main ethnic group,
especially in the villages disseminated on
the valleys. In the district of Prekoplie, the
main ethnic group was Muslim Albanians.
According to Boué, Albanians were placed
in the Nish sub-province by the Porte to
counterbalance the Christian majority and
to prevent periodic Bulgarian rebellions. In
Vranje, Bulgarians and Muslim Albanians
were equally distributed. Turks lived mainly
in the chief towns and formed a small
minority in the whole of this sub-province.
Bulgarians, Serbs and Muslim Albanians
were the main ethnic groups.
26. According to Mark Pinson's, "Ottoman
Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period — The
Revolts in Nish (1841) and Vidin (1850),"
published in peer reviewed journal Middle
Eastern Studies, Vol. 11, No 2 (May, 1975),
pp. 103–146, in Ottoman usage during the
period of the Tanzimat (1839–1876), the
district of Nish was included in the area
designated "Bulgaria" and describes all
rebellions in the area at that time, as
created by the Bulgarians.
27. According to Kyril Drezov, lecturer at the
Keele University and leading expert on
Balkan politics at the turn of the 20th
century, after had gained in 1878 the new
territories (between Nis and Pirot), Serbia
had successfully assimilated the local
transitional Bulgarians and turned its
attention to Macedonia. He cites professor
Henry Wilkinson's book "Maps and Politics
a Review of the Ethnographic Cartography
of Macedonia", Liverpool University Press,
1951. Wilkinson summarized dozens of
ethnographic maps which depicted the
demographics of the southern Balkans.
From them is apparent that up until the late
19th century the Slavs of today Eastern
Serbia were displayed predominantly as
Bulgarians. For more: J. Pettifer, The New
Macedonian Question, St Antony's, Springer,
1999, ISBN 0230535798, p. 53.
28. 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 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.

Sources

Български диалектален атлас (in

Bulgarian). София: Издателство "Труд".
2001. p. 218. ISBN 954-90344-1-0.
Sobolev, Andrey (1998). Sprachatlas
Ostserbiens und Westbulgariens: Texte (h
ttps://books.google.com/books?id=jBpK
AAAAYAAJ) . Biblion.
ISBN 9783932331107.
 Стойков, Стойко: Българска
диалектология, Акад. изд. "Проф.
Марин Дринов", 2006.
Aleksandar Belić (1905). Dijalekti istočne
i južne Srbije (https://books.google.com/
books?id=xJfEQAAACAAJ) . Sprska
Kraljevska Akad.

External links
A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian, and
Croatian (by Wayles Brown and Theresa
Alt) (http://www.seelrc.org:8080/gramm
ar/mainframe.jsp?nLanguageID=1)
Further reading
Friedman, Victor (2006). "Determination
and Doubling in Balkan Borderlands" (htt
p://mahimahi.uchicago.edu/media/facul
ty/vfriedm/220Friedman09.pdf) (PDF).
Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 1–4: 105–
116.
Friedman, Victor (2008). "Balkan Slavic
Dialectology and Balkan Linguistics:
Periphery as Center" (http://home.uchic
ago.edu/~vfriedm/Articles/213Friedma
n08.pdf) (PDF). American Contributions
to the 14th International Congress of
Slavists. 1:Linguistics: 131–148.
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