Talk:Torlakian dialects

First section

I confess to publishing the entire article without any sources or references. I spoke from knowledge; it is difficult to find things sometimes. I did do a quick search on Alltheweb.com and Yahoo.com but found little of much use. I will endevour to seek refernces which I will later add. In the meantime, if anyone knows anything I don't, I hope that they add it; or if I am wrong about something, change it freely, I will not re-alter it without discussing it here first. My knowledge is based on material which I have read in books, not on websites, and much of it was learnt when I spent a good few years travelling backward and forward to Eastern Europe in the late 80's and early 90's. I have otherwise maintained strong links with people from Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia and I still visit these countries frequently on business. Celtmist 3-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

• No question of Torlak culture, and it has changed now into the same languages as Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia. My grandfather was from Preševo in todays southern Serbia, his wife, my grandmother was from Kumanovo in present day Macedonia. This was in first kingdom of Yugoslavia in late 1920s. He was travelling each day into Kumanovo by horseback when he met her and then after world war 2, a Macedonian state was established ruling Kumanovo inside Macedonia. Even before that, my grandfather always told me that people in both towns called themselves Torlaci and had naturally more common place with each other than had with different places more distant in Macedonia and further away in Serbia (but Serbian nationality was forced on them right from when Serbia was created in some time near 1830). I was born in Leskovac and I still speak a Torlakian form of the language, in Leskovac we don't use the definite article but my grandfather did use one because in Preševo, they did have it. But I still speak standard Serbian if I have to go to Belgrade or Novi Sad, that is the diglossia. Jordovan november 3, 2005

Good start Celtmist. I wikified the article somewhat and expanded on vocalic "L" as a feature; the table probably needs fixing as my knowledge on Bulgarian and Macedonian is inadequate (to put it mildly). Some sentences are still overly long, and frankly I didn't comprehend the long one about phoneme "h" so I just left it -- please clarify what you meant. Duja 14:19, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

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I know roughly what it means Duja. I lived in Macedonia until the break-up of Yugoslavia but I'm actually from Vranje. Basicly, where other Slavic dialects have 'H', Southern Serbian and Macedonian in standard form omit it. It has just melted away over the years. But they have to keep it because if they remove it from their literary language, Ohrid will be renamed Orid! That would be unfair to people in Ohrid and might even give their 'intellectuals' a motive to foment revolution in the future. And there has been enough of that in my sweet part of the world! :) Hrvoje nov10 05

I kind of understood it that way, but the sentence in question refers to Macedonian, and this article is about Torlakian; if that is the common feature, that should be mentioned explicitly. The sentence after it (This is actually a part of an isogloss...) is incomprehensible, and I'll try to fix it. Duja 12:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello to Duja and Hrvoje. I am glad to see you like the article. The problem I had when writing it was mostly nerves, I'm not actually from the Balkans and all my knowledge is secondhand. I frequently visit the Balkan countries however on business and have been doing so for years. What brought my attention to Torlački was peoples amusing attitudes. For example, in the Pelagonia plain in Macedonia, the locals dismiss the Kumanovans as being unintelligible when talking, saying that they 'turn towards Serbian'. In Northern Serbia however, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Smederevo etc. they point the finger on Kosovar Serbs and southerners by saying '...ah, they speak Macedonian!', so there is me thinking! 'Let me get this right, Northern Macedonians talk Serbian and Southern Serbs speak Macedonian!' But you get this everywhere where neighbouring countries speak related languages (Sweden, Norway, Denmark; Portugal, Spain, France etc). I've tried to mend the isogloss section but I might have made it worse, if either of you can tidy it up, it would be most appreciated. Celtmist 11-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

Frankly, I was surprised when I discovered you were a Welsh after I saw the article; you seem pretty well acknowledged with issues here. As a mild critics, your sentences tend to be verbose to the level of incomprehension; I speak English fairly well but I had problems following you, as when I reached the end of sentence I already forgot what the beginning was about (and I have a hunch that you forgot it few times too) :-). Please try to restrain yourself a bit in this regard, and keep up on good job. BR, Duja 08:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I am originally from Bulgarian city called Vidin. My grandparents still use old western Bulgarian dialect but our younger generation is slowly accepting the standard language from Veliko Turnovo oblast. In the time of Yugoslavia I know that the borders for republics did not mean very much, in same respect that our Bulgaria sector Macedonia is nothing special at its own borderpoint. It was once said that if you travel from Bulgaria to Serbia, to Macedonia, back to Bulgaria in the borderland corner, you can not really tell the linguistic difference. In Vidin, we use 'Ya' for the first person nominative. In Bulgarian, the word is 'Az'. We also pronounce the schwa more like 'a' and the Yakavitsa of Bulgaria, like Yekavitsa in Bosnia and Croatia is stuck on 'Ekavitsa'. We say 'Nema' not 'Nyama' for "there isn't". And it is true that we are accused of talking 'Srubski ezik!' (Serbian language) as they say to us in Varna and Bourgas. i don't care because everyone in Bulgaria likes Serbian folk pop music! Me include there! Brotadac

The Macedonian requires phonetical alterations: Wolf is 'Volk' and Hell is 'Pekol' so I am told...I don't have Cyrillic fonts sadly. Celtmist 12-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

Actually, I meant pekao = "baked" (past participle 3rd person sg.), and I choose that example because it belongs to relatively small class of Slavic verbs which have the root ending in consonant (Serb. infinitive pek-ti -> peći, P.P. 3rd person pekao, Pres. 1st person pek-jem->pečem; seći (cut) and reći (tell) behave the same, moći (can) similar). However, now that you mentioned "hell", it makes an interesting example too :-). I have to check the translations first though. Duja 09:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

OK - I mended the Macedonian version of the table :) Makedon

Good on you Makedon. I am sure that any linguist will appreciate the IPA transcriptions too. As for 'Pek' meaning 'Bake', well it is said that we learn something new every day. I knew that 'L' forms one past tense form in most Slavic languages but I thought that Duja was referring to Hell. Curiously enough, I am increasingly of the belief that the English 'Bake' and (to coin the term) Multi-Slavic 'Pek' variant, are cognates. It's a simple case of 1.Bilabial + 2.Back vowel + 3.Throat Stop (both times, K). Not worth mentioning in the article but I'll probably soon start an article on the postulated proto Balto-Slavic-Germanic language, said to have been one of the original four languages directly descended from Indo European. Celtmist 18-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

They might easily be cognates indeed; actually, it seems that pakao is also a cognate to pek-, as pek-ti has a wider meaning in Slavic, namely it can also mean to heat (sunce peče = The Sun heats). AFAICT, Bulgarian and Macedonian words for hell are homonyms with "baked/heated", while in Serbian it evolved into pakao. East Slavic languages use "had" or "ad" for hell (IIRC, of Hellenic origin), but in Czech it's peklo. Duja 10:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

The East Slavonic "had"/"ad" must surely be derived from Hadies, an archaic but biblical term for Hell. Seems right that as Hell has to do with burning, that the same word is used in Serbian. User:Nebojsa_485 nov18 2005

I like the additional information. I only wish to remind anyone that if we are to talk of a 'southern' Torlakian extreme, it would be in Bulgaria and Macedonia. Vranje if anything is more central. One needs to remove the national borders for this phenomenon. Torlakian is certainly 80% if not more in Serbia but of course, not entirely contained within Serbia's borders. The Kratovo-Kumanovo dialect of Macedonia is barely intelligible to the Central Pelagonian Macedonian speakers. West of Sofia in Bulgaria, the same thing occurs. Keep it up! Celtmist 18-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

True; the information I added was based on Lisac's article (and I kind of invented "subdialects" to fit into the table), which focused on dialects in Serbia. Someone should fix it and add information about dialect as used in Bulgaria and Macedonia, and classify information on "subdialects". Sources on web are scarce though. Duja 10:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

To say here, too: great work. I started to make some changes, but all of you did a great job. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 06:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Cases without flections

Just to note: Cases are not strictly related to flection. "of something" is genitive, too, even it doesn't have flection. (I can talk more about that...) --millosh (talk (sr:)) 12:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I thought so too. However, Declension page explains the situation:

In inflected languages, nouns are said to decline into different forms, or morphological cases. Morphological cases are one way of indicating grammatical case; other ways are listed below.

...

The following are systems that some languages use to mark case instead of, or in addition to, declension:
-Positional: Nouns are not inflected for case; the position of a noun in the sentence expresses its case.
-Prepositional/postpositional: Nouns are accompanied by words that mark case, but the noun itself is not modified.

So, the right thing to say is that Torlakian (and Bulgarian, Macedonian) lost Morphological case, (but not cases in grammatical sense), mostly in favor on prepositional/postpositional system. IMO "Case" more commonly refers to "Morphological case", but I'll rephrase the article. Duja 12:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes... In general, case is gramatical category which can be realized in different ways: using prepositions, postpositions, and flection (which is in this case "morphological case") or some combination of them. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 13:25, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

"More commonly" is just "what we was learning in school" ;) --millosh (talk (sr:)) 13:25, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the contributions Millosh. You and Duja are both totally correct about cases. A case need not have inflections to represent a seperate function. Many modern day Slavs may hate this, but the trend is that inflections are actually being dropped.

Until midway through the first millenium A.D, Latin had a case system in some ways resembling hat of most Slavic languages. The yielding of Latin into modern European languages now leaves Romanian dialects as the only language to maintain something of a case system. As for Spanish, French, and Italian, well they have ended up on the same road as modern Macedonian and Bulgarian. But this has not stopped there. Take Serbo-Croat (all its forms): there was a time when each noun had a distinct marker but over the decades, they too have pushed towards losing their identity. The Locative and Dative cases have now merged 100% to the point that some language books no longer class them as different; masculine and neutral nouns take the same form in the accusative as the nominative. These things were originally different everywhere.

The point I wanted to make was about an edit: Kajkavian and Čakavian being exceptions - to Torlakian's difference from Standard Serbian -as more different from Croatian. Does everyone follow? :-)

When I originally wrote that paragraph, I meant precisely that. Torlakian at its southern extreme within Serbia, has greater differences from Belgrade Serbian, than ALL forms of Croatian, that expressly means Kajkavian and Čakavian...now I for one have avoided joining the debate pages on Serbo-Croat, but I'll tell everyone that as an impartial outsider, I do not regard Neoshtokavian Serbian and Croatian as two languages. This annoys Croats more but I have linguistic reasons, none political. Now to explain why I say Torlakian is more different, I shall go to an even greater extreme, and jump straight over Croatia into the next Slavic country! Slovenia. Because Slovenes are at one end of the dialect continuum, no form of dialect contained within Croatia can be more different from Serbian than Slovenian, just as Macedonian is not geographicly positioned to have a language closer to Croatian than Serbian! There may be features which are similar but they all have roots in something.

So I hereby state that Standard Serbian is closer to Slovenian than it is Torlakian. If Torlakian had to be placed into a language category, I have to say it would be closer to Bulgarian and Macedonian though I can't say which (probably the former). The fact that Torlakian omits the inflections AND largely uses the definite article sets it far apart from Serbian, despite Serbian and Slovenian being reasonably different: the grammar says it all, it can change the entire structure of a language. And no form of language contained within Croatia is so different from Serbian that Slovenian is closer!

Anyhow, feel free to respond to me or make edits... Celtmist 23-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

In the sense of flection, Torlakian is more different from standard Serbian then Slovenian is. But, I (as well as any other person who live south of Belgrade in Serbia) would better understand Macedonian and Torlakian (and even Bulgarian, too) then Slovenian and Chakavian. Also, Kosovo-Resavian dialect and even Smederevo-Vrsacian dialect (where Belgrade belongs, too; but Belgrade has more differences from the basic dialect because it is a big city) are closer to Torlakian then to Chakavian because influence of Balkanization came up to Belgrade. Standard language is based on Eastern-Herzegovian (not on Shumadia-Vojvodian, even it is a myth), which is closer to Chakavian area. Also, dialect spoken in Nis area is fully understandable by all Neo-Shtokavian Serbs and Croats (even Croats like to make distance from this fact ;) ), unlike Luznica-Timok dialect (or "Pirotian"). --millosh (talk (sr:)) 13:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, Luznica-Timok dialect has a number of Latin influences. For example, people say "Ja govorim srpski a oratim po pirotski" which means "I talk Serbian but [oratim] Pirotian" which is clear Latin influence. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 13:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

But 60-70% of Serbia proper is under influence of Balkanization (including Belgrade area) as well as standard spoken language and it is very hard to say that standard Serbian is closer to Slovenian or Chakavian then to Torlakian. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 13:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, standard Bulgarian is based on Eastern Bulgarian dialects which is far of Torlak area. Yes, my grandfather from Pirot valey speaks in Sofia Torlakian as well as people from Sofia speak something very close to Torlakian, but it is not so close to Bulgarian standard. But, it can be said that Torlakian is closer to Macedonian standard then to Serbian standard. (But, again, Macedonian is closer to Serbian then Chakavian and Kaykavian. But, of course, contemporary Kaykavian and Chakavian are under strong influence of Croatian Neo-Shtokavian standard, as well as Torlakian is under strong influence of Serbian Neo-Shtokavian standard; which means that it is more possible that even speakers of Torlakian and Chakavian can understand each other well because they would use a lot from Neo-Shtokavian language system.) --millosh (talk (sr:)) 13:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

You talk a lot of sense Millosh! Who am I to disagree? Unfortunately, this is how it is when one of the contributors is not from the region in question. I really did always think that Serbia's standard language is based in Belgrade. So, it is based in Eastern Herzegovina, but based on the Ekavian accent in line with most people's speech in Serbia. That puts a different complection on everything. In this case, the speech of Belgrade and Vojvodina is where variation applies. So now we can agree that the variation in speech between those most adherent to Eastern Herzegovinian and those speaking in their dialect forms in the far north of Serbia at least places North Serbian dialects closer to the far western end of South Slavic languages (ie. Kaykavian as in Slovenia and Croatia) than Torlakian, but now it also fair to say that both Torlakian and Vojvodinian vary somewhat from the standard language.

As for standard Serbian, it's a hard one. Maybe it's position is stuck halfway between Torlakian and Standard Slovenian (after removing the Balkanization where possible.

So, here Millosh, is what I propose someone like you might be able to do. If you know some basic phrases in Slovenian, can translate them into Standard Serbian, and then into Torlakian (within Serbia, not beyond), then you can run this experiment itself. I'll leave the findings and the judgment to you; but as a word of advice, try not to (if possible) focus on your more familiar Pirot form. Pirot is in the east but because of Serbia's shape, the east-west variation isn't as strong as the north-south which is over 400 kilometres in distance. Use the speech of Preševo if possible - because we are looking to see how much variation there is WITHIN Serbia's borders. That will most certainly have more of the Macedonian/Bulgarian features than any other spoken within Serbia. In the meantime, you are right about Sofia and their speech. Eastern Bulgarians seriously dislike Sofians for their speech being what they call (Macedonian/Serbian) whilst being the capital. Bulgaria's language is based on Veliko Turnovo because it was the capital of the pre-Ottoman Slavic Bulgarian kingdom. This is more central but generally means that those slightly eastward speak the purest form of Bulgarian. Celtmist 26-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

More on Cases

Hi. Let me start by saying how good of a job I think you all did with this page. I have a comment to make about the case system though. Again, I'm not a linguist and my knowledge of Torlakian is intuitive (I was born and mostly raised in the area--S. Serbia). In any case, at least in the central parts of the north-south line between Nis and Vranje, I think there are actually two cases in use, namely Nominative and Accusative. Other cases are formed by prepositions that are added to the Accusative form in most cases. For example, a speaker from Leskovac would say: nom. terasa acc. na terasU gen. od terasu dat. na terasu etc. Also, and this is only valid for Serbia I suppose, the local speakers, besides acknowledging various local variants (some people can actually guess a village or an area within a small region someone is coming only based on the way that person speaks) still talk of three distinct overarching groups of dialects: from north to south they are Nis (nislijski), Leskovac (leskovacki), and Vranje (vranjanski). Pirot is usually exluded from this autoclassification by dismissing the language people speak there as "bugarashki" or Bulgarian-like (no offense to the people or Pirot or Bulgarians meant). I just wanted to add my two cents worth of thought to the discussion. ZT

You forgot vocative :) All Torlakian speeches have at least three morphological cases in singular: nominative, acusative and vocative. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 00:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

People from Pirot make clear distinction between Serbian and Bulgarian standards and Pirotian speech as well as they prefer Serbian vocabulary (if they don't have some word inside of their own vocabulary). --millosh (talk (sr:)) 00:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Again, the main problem with understanding speech of Pirot valey is that there are a lot of Latin (i.e. Romanized Thracian) influences which are not so usual in other Torlakian speeches. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 00:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Cheers ZT. It's a plain fact and you get it everywhere when people living in a borderland have a speech resembling the people over the frontier by those living more central, by this, I mean when the people accross the border are primary nationals of a related state: French and Spanish; Swiss and Austrian German; Norwegian and Swedish; Moroccan and Algerian Arabic etc. No Bulgarian will be offended except that along the Black Sea, they all think that in Pernik, the locals speak Serbian! No pleasing some! Celtmist Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

They are probably on their way in Southern Serbia to losing the cases all together; this is how it was with Bulgarian and Macedonian. OK, during the inception of modern Bulgarian and the acceptance of Macedonian as a language within Yugoslavia in 1944, the cases had long perished, but, the way that they reached this stage was a long process where-by in Old Slavic, there were distinct cases which yielded with time and in the end, there was one surviving Nominative and an alternative Accusative. Then, the accusative yielded to nominative. The loss of declension is like a virus eating away the noun cases and spreading northwards now having reached most of Serbia. Places like Nis, for instance, are currently partly affected. Give it another 50 years and we'll see the difference there too. Don't think that having a language academy will save grace. It never did this for the Romance language where-by in the western branch (that what includes ALL the popular languages, French, Spanish, Italian etc) the forces of nature cleansed all inflected cases there. Celtmist Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

We don't have a crystal ball so it's difficult to tell; however, cases are alive & well in shtokavian dialect, which has the tendency to spread southwards due to influence of official media. If there were a case-eating virus, I don't see it, quite the contrary. As I said, however, we cannot predict the future. Natural languages do have a certain tendency of simplification in the long run, but shtokavian case system still resists it pretty well, as far as I can see. Duja 08:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

As for the Vocative. This particular case is somewhat isolated from the rest of them in that it doesn't regularly appear throughout a text, and this has survived in Bulgarian and parts of Macedonia. Ridvan becomes 'Ridvane' when he is being called. Celtmist 28-11-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

I think I would agree that the cases are not receding at the moment but quite the contrary, at least in southern Serbia. It has, I think, little to do with linguistic reasons and much more with social ones plus the mass-media. Naturally, you can't really devide those two (i.e. lingustic and soc. reasons). Speaking of Nis as a case in point, the speach of Nis was previously much more in line with other Torlakian subdialects than it is today (contra Celtmist). There is a clear (at least seemed clear to me when I lived there) tendency of a 'caseification' of the way people speak in Nis (please, someone correct me if I'm wrong). I personally think it has something to do with the urban environment and the inferiority complex in comparison to other major center in Serbia like Belgrade and Novi Sad. Also, from my own experience, I have seen little code-switching among people from Nis studying in Belgrade during my own student days then among other southerners.

This is not to say that simplification of case system is not a general tendency among south Slavic languages, but I doubt it that it will follow the same dynamic it had in the Torlakian dialects.

All right, let me explain myself a with more clarity. It stands to reason that the speech of those of Niš will have been more in line with the southern languages without cases, only to develop cases in recent decades. This only happens where the Nish-citizen chooses the standard language, the result? some mixture between traditional Nish language and standard Serbian. In all Torlakian regions, the dialect is heavily influenced by the standard language for reasons of education, media, and social survival. The Torlakian dialect as traditionally spoken in many parts now remains only in spirit, old untranslated stories, other folklore, poems, songs, the occasional slang expression, often beyond the comprehension of the user. So, the modern Serbian langauge is largely based on the Vuk Karadzic reforms of the early 19th century. The next chapter in the language was the Serbo-Croat episode which lasted about 140 years. During this time, Nis and Leskovac were incoroprated within a Serbian state, be it Yugoslavia Mark One, Mark two, Kingdom of Slovenes Croats etc, or simply the pre-world War I Serbia. All along, Nis dialect is inadvertedly competing with a standard language without people realising. The standard language has come out on top and noun cases have made a comeback - nobody disagrees with you here. The general point is the following: the loss of inflections was a development happening over centuries. A sovereign Macedonian and Bulgarian state means that for now, they will not be returning to those regions. It could easily have returned to Macedonia too had Yugoslavia Mark II not given Macedonia language rights. But they had their linguistic autonomy and it joins Bulgarian in not having them. The loss of cases is said to have originated deep south in regions outside of Slav controlled zones, like Thessaloniki, where the Slavs were in some way influenced by Balkanization. The influence spread and was cutting into modern Serbia. But luckily for Case-lovers, an independent Serbia allowing a standard language of some kind did atleast save some grace. Either way, in the long run, disappearance of cases is the trend, and is likely because as was proved with French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, no linguistic academy has power to prevent popular usage. Sadly, loss of cases is just one long term process which has happened everywhere. What has happened in Nish is a temporary revival, but in the long run, nothing will reverse the course of nature. What will be, we'll have to wait and see... Celtmist 2-12-2005 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

I wonder, was there any attempt to include Torlakian on some of the official EU minority langages lists?ZT --dagobert 22:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Very unlikely Dagobert. First of all, there is no standardization as it were for Torlakian dialects. Macedonians of Kratovo have their dialect, Bulgarians of Bregovo theirs, and Serbs from Kosovo and Pirot theirs. All people who speak the dialect generally accept that they are Serb/Macedonian/Bulgarian by nationality, or Krashovans in Romania, and see the dialect as their local form of their own language, rather than something seperate. There is no movement within the regions to achieve a grater level of autonomy that I personally know about and few people really know the term 'Torlački' at the turn of the 21st century. The article has generally raised awareness that a dialect/languages does exist; is used to a degree, and the editors simply point out some of its features. Celtmist 2-12-05 Blocked sock:Moroccan Spaniard.

Great work Duja, Makedon, Celtmist - keep it up! Evlekis 25 December 2005 Blocked sock:Evlekis.

Latin Quo

It is a good observation but I now I realise that the Latin quo and the Slavic based kvo are not of common descent: firstly, they would be cognates rather than the Slavic languages borrowing from Latin. Latin words have made their way into Slavic speech, particularly South Slavic as the whole area was under Rome when Slavs arrived, hence the number of words we share with Romanian - not just the Romanian of the country - but Romanian as spoken in pockets accross the former Yugoslavia. A word for "what" is just too basic for one language to borrow it from another I guess. My point is that our word "kakvo" is related to "how?", and alone it actually means "what kind?" but it suffices for just "what/što" in pockets of Serbia and Bulgaria. As for Bulgaria, this habit travels accross their whole land, certainly far enough for it to be a part of Standard Bulgarian and not just Belogradchik-Tǔrn areas. Even so, most people generally know that Kakvo is not a variant translation of Što, I mean there is the vestige of even Bulgarian once having had Shto of some kind, as in their word "Zashto" (For what?) meaning Why. Not zakakvo as one might imagine...compared to Slovenian Zakaj along with areas of Croatia. That's why I'm sure that kvo and quo are unrelated. The other thing is, our words 'Ko' (think of Croatian, Polish Tko) as well as SHTO itself, are cognates with the English word What (earlier Hwat - compare to Norwegian Hvad). Jordovan february 23, 2006

About the last argument: quo has the same origin as 'shto/ko/hvad/what/who' (the difference between who and what is short i and short u in PIE), so we are talking about very related words between IE languages. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 11:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC) This is not the only word which can be treated as 'basic'. Words for family and talk (familija and oratiti) are words with clear Latin origin. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 11:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC) Latin culture made influence in Bulgaria, too. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 11:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC) Your theory is supported by Serbian linguists (maybe Bulgarian, too) and it is relevant. However, article should contain all relevant theories. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 11:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC) As I think, both facts (Latin 'quo' and Slavic 'kakvo') had influence in Torlakian 'kvo'. Slavic origin is supported by similar word (kakvo), but Latin origin is supported by the same word and the same function (note that 'kakvo' is related, but not so close with the meaining of 'ko/kvo/who'). Also, there is a possibility that 'kakvo' is younger form then 'kvo' (which should be researched). --millosh (talk (sr:)) 11:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Sorry for interfering. I'm Bulgarian, and my Bulgarian etymological dictionary supports what Jordovan said, namely that kakvo comes from kak (how) (apparently + adjectival suffix -v- ?) and not from kvo. So kakvo doesn't come from kvo, it's the other way round. Only if somebody finds an etymological dictionary or any scientific source that claims the opposite should an alternative theory be mentioned. Besides that, Latin quo is not the same word with the same function, because, contrary to what I myself used to believe before looking more closely at Latin, it doesn't mean "shto", it means "where(to)", "why" and such, as in "quo vadis" (where are you going). "What" is "quid". "Quod" also means a lot of things, but not exactly "what". Again, that's my Latin dictionary speaking (apart from my own limited experience with the language). --85.187.203.123 17:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm Bulgarian too and can confirm that kvo is merely a colloquial shortening of kakvo here. shto is also used in this meaning, but it is more commonly a shortening of zashto (why?). I don't think Latin has anything to do, this is basic Slavic vocabulary. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 16:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Personal “confirmation” is just statement of one’s own (possibly biased) opinion: could you state some academic work on the topic? 164.82.84.22 (talk) 00:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Kosovo Gorani learning Macedonian

Am I missing something or does that have anything at all to do with the subject of the article? I think it should be deleted. --85.187.203.123 10:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd keep it, it's useful because the Gorani, who are sandwiched between Albanian and FYROM territory are traditionally speakers of Torlački. Now they are about to make Standard Macedonian their language. I have no idea about the sources but it doesn't use too much space; it's good when an encyclopaedia entry embraces a slightly wider picture so long as it doesn't ride off on a bike! Evlekis 18 March 2006 Blocked sock:Evlekis.

Erm, it's still in there? User:Macedonia has spread it into several articles at a time, and I retained it only in Gorani (Kosovo), where it belongs. I'm gonna re-remove it. Duja 20:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Name change

The article was moved from Torlakian dialect to Torlakian without notice by User:Peter Isotalo. I already asked him why he did that; the article ought to have went through WP:RM. I'm going to put it there.. It turned out it was possible to move it back, so I did it. If anyone disagrees, please follow the process and use WP:RM. Duja 16:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I am a bit confused that it's called Torlakian dialect when Torlakian is described in the article as more than one dialect. In that regard, I can see why Peter may have changed it since in other instances where a name describes only the language (as in Sanskrit or Esperanto), the article title doesn't have "language". It's redundant. In addition, articles on dialects like Cantonese (linguistics) and General American don't have the word "dialect" in the title. If dialect is put in to emphasize that it's not considered a full language, I think that the article's discussion on that is sufficient. AEuSoes1 22:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much what Aeusoes1 said, except that I'm also going to point out that there's absolutely no need to go through RM if a move is uncontroversial or unproblematic. RM is a tool designed to be used when the consensus is less clear, and not as an arbitrator of routine moves. This move is neither controversial nor problematic. There's clear support for it both in practice and in actual guidelines. A general rule is to avoid using "XXX dialect" since it can lead to all sorts of POV-problems.

And the logical argument for having "XXX dialect" when there is nothing to disambiguate "XXX" from alludes me. Why add superfluous dismabiguators if they're not needed? If articles that could be named just "Torlakian" do appear, like for an ethnic group or similar, I suggest using Torlakian (linguistics).

Peter ^Isotalo 11:20, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Well... ok; I wasn't aware about that particular guideline, and all language articles I encountered (quite a few) had a "language/dialect" qualifier, probably because most are potentially ambiguous. Personally, I must say I don't like that guideline, but there you go... I got better things to do than to oppose it. Duja 19:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

O please

Stop wich spleeten the Serbian language. This languege is the mix language wich it was spocet during the Ottoman E. The Ottomans say for this Languege "Prizrend dialect"--Hipi Zhdripi 17:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The English is atrocious, so FYI "Stop wich spleeten" probably means "Stop with splitting" and "spocet" probably should be "spoken". 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 19:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Look at the date. That comment was a year ago. And don't feed the troll...--Hadžija 19:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

From User talk:Angr

Excuse me, why do you insist on previous version of the artical Torlakian, which is far more incorrect and full of notorious lies? Wikipedia is a place for trueth lovers, not blind nationalists.

--Luzzifer 13:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability. The criterion for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. The article does list its sources; they're at the end. If you disagree with the conclusions of those sources, you're welcome to find published sources that argue the contrary, and list them as well, but you are not welcome to remove sourced statements just because you don't like them. User:Angr 13:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

That's not the point. The map of Pavle Ivić does not say that what you wrote at all. As I said, everybody can publish something. Here, you, and everybody should use reviable sources --Luzzifer 14:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Luzzifer is new here and under influence of Serbian scholars. Also, it seems that he is well introduced in Serbian dialectology. So, a few notes:

1. If Bulgarians say that some parts of Bulgarian dialects are Torlakian, then it should be noted that they say so; also, a number of Serbian dialectologists (i.e. Belic, Ivic) say the same: Torlakian is present in Bulgaria, too. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 17:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
2. POV pushing claims like "but many linguistic facts clearly show that Torlakian vernaculars are vernaculars of Serbian language. Pavle Ivić, prooved taht using the methodes of linguistic geography." especially inside of controversal articles are not welcome on Wikipedia. This is not essay nor original research, but encyclopedy. So, all of your claims should be in the manner "this scientist said this [reference]; that scientist said that [reference]. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 17:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Again, look what User:Angr said: thruth or not, it should be verifiable. Also, you can't claim that "something is truth" if there are significant scholars with different oppinions. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 17:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Phoneme /h/?

What does this sentence refer to?

Macedonian, Torlakian and a number of Serbian and Bulgarian dialects, unlike all other Slavic languages,
technically have no /h/.

Don't all Slavic languages lack /h/ as a separate phoneme? In Slavic languages written in Latin alphabet, "h" generally means /x/. Apparently, for loanwords in Slavic languages using Cyrillic, it usually turns to х (/x/) or г (/g/), so I might be wrong, but it seems to be considered a free variation on these sounds. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 19:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, apparently Czech, Slovak, Belarussian and Ukrainian uses /ɦ/, the voiced counterpart to /h/ whereas most other Slavic languages uses /g/. Granted, /ɦ/ and /h/ are quite similar, but it'd require some rewriting. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 00:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It means that those dialects don't have /h/, /x/, /ɦ/ or any variation thereof; in most cases, they're mute compared with neighboring Slavic dialects (particularly, Štokavian, with which they form the dialect continuum), in others, it is replaced by /j/ or /v/. Duja► 07:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Moved to Torlak dialect

I was bold and moved the page to "Torlak dialect" from Torlak. While the naming convention for languages calls for undisambiguated title where suitable, I don't think it's quite appropriate in this case:

• There is article Torlaks, about the speakers of this language; there are also Torlak hill in Belgrade (rather notable, but no article yet) and Torlak (dog).
• While the intent of said convention was to discourage "language vs. dialect" politization, Torlakian has never been aspiring to a "language" status and, like it or not, remains a low-prestige, non-standardized dialect group (rather than a unified dialect). The SC books refer to it as "Torlački govor" or "torlački dijalekt". Duja► 08:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I am going to remove Serbian propaganda map, not related with Torlakian dialects. Jingby (talk) 07:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

What you are doing is spreading Bulgarian propaganda, plain & simple. 164.82.84.22 (talk) 00:13, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Moved to Torlaks

I have replaced the chapter Cultural marginalization and ethnic affiliation to the article about the Torlaks as more appropriate. Jingby (talk) 07:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

And who on Earth would the mentioned “Torlaks” be? 164.82.84.22 (talk) 00:14, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Characteristics shared with West-Southslavic

This section as it stands now actually describes the difference between Western and Eastern forms of South Slavic languages, not which forms are typical for Torlak dialects. Some of these occur there, other, however, don't. Still others occur in some dialects, but not in others. The section should be split in two: features shared with Western South Slavic, and Western South Slavic features shared by some dialects. I'm familiar only with those Torlak dialects regarded as Bulgarian so I would ask someone with more knowledge of Serbian to check whether those features actually occur there. Kostja (talk) 20:53, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The mentioned dialect is definitely a Balkanized Western South Slavonic dialect and not Eastern at all: proto Slavic *tj/*dj gave Western South Slavic reflexes ć/đ that turned into č/dž, and not the East South Slavic št/žd;

Futhermore, the easternmost Timok dialect still retains original proto Slavic consonant clusters tl/dl, so the dialect is plainly miscategorized for Prusku Political reasons. 164.82.84.22 (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Nonsensical phrasing

"Some features of Torlakian clearly show how Macedonian changes to Bulgarian"

I'm not sure this sentence can even in theory mean anything. This article is about dialects; I don't see what literary languages have to do with this. The political border between Macedonia and Bulgaria does not coincide with any dialectological discontinuities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.137.72.33 (talk) 14:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

To expand: it might be taken to refer to features charateristic to dialects spoken in Macedonia vs. ones spoken in Bulgaria, but there is again no such thing; the political boundary does not correspond to any divisions of Eastern South Slavic dialects; and it's not even a very smooth continuum, features are all over the place, Eastern South Slavic is more of a patchwork. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.137.72.33 (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't mean that one language literally changes to the other, which is just silly as both have a very recent common ancestor.It means East South Slavic varieties show a clinal change with Torlakian being between "Bulgarian" and "Macedonian" in a dialect continuum.--Monochrome_Monitor 00:19, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Dog

Torlaks means a dog in Turkish, and that is how Shops call the converters to other nationality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.202.248.93 (talk) 12:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Map

The French ethnographic map from 1860 is a complete joke. I am from Ioannina (Janina) a supposed albanian town according to the map. Unfortunately i never heard anyone mentioning such a thing, ever. I suppose the same reliability applies to the rest of the map, showing genuine Shtokavian areas as Bulgarians, etc...

My grand-grand parents had been born in Yoanina. I am Bulgarian. The map is referenced document, not related with you or my relatives, etc... Do not vandalize the article, please! Jingby (talk)

Dear Jingby, Gia sou file kai patrioti from Giannena. Marking as ethnic-albanian an area which was never close to anything albanian (Giannena being an albanian town is the biggest joke) is not a sign of credibility. Notice the incompatibility of Greeks and Albanians in the first place. And the same holds for areas like Leskovac or Nish in Serbia, traditional Old Serbian lands, whose language is the most ancient form of Stokavian. I think you try to pass your own greater Bulgaria agenda here, a Bulgarian editing an article about a subclass of Stokavian Serbs (Prizren-Timok dialect as it is called by linguists), and posting maps of those places showing them to belong in Bulgaria is an oxymoron, don't you think? I do not think you are the right person for the job. Either a Serb should take over this page, or a neutral researcher.

(upd) Its ok now i suppose.

Also, why the first map (the clearly bulgarian one) is portrayed as a ... source, while the official one is mark as the .... "serbian point of view"? I think the Official map should be place first, and if the second (useless as it is in Bulgarian language) is to be placed somewhere, then it should be second. The only info that the Bulgarian map gives, is that there is a Serbian population in Bulgaria, which apart from natural is not so important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.103.35.211 (talk) 07:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

POV

POV-pushing, the "Torlaks" have no historical or ethnical basis for that matter, it is merely a Bulgarian nationalistic fabrication for dividing people of Serbian nationality according to dialectal features. The word itself only means what the Bulgarian nationalists refer to; speakers of dialects in the borderlands of Serbia and Bulgaria. -- Zoupan (talk) 01:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

This article exists on Serbian language Wikipedia, also stop pushing here your POV. Jingby (talk) 04:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

So that is your answer? I'm afraid this is not enough for the fabrication of an article posing as an ethnic group, this is largerly an OR, and nationalistic POV view. The Serbian-wiki is a stub, without any sources or information, btw, it clearly states that it refers to speakers of "Torlakian". Stop your pushing, i will redirect the Serbian wiki aswell. --Zoupan (talk) 15:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

I did not claimed the Torlaks are a distinct ethnic group. This is your POV. Jingby (talk) 15:30, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Why are you then continuing to dismiss the redirection? "Torlaks" is no scientific term, in ethnical, national or cultural respect, it is only a term derived from the term coined by Bulgarian historians in the early 20th century amid the last years of the Principality of Bulgaria to denote those speaking transitional dialects (between standard Serbian and standard Bulgarian, including most if not all of Macedonian dialects), although the "Torlak dialect" is controversial, this is all-in-all nationalistic POV. The Torlak dialect is thus the groupname of the Prizren-Timok dialect (Serbian) and the Bulgarian Transitional dialects and most of the Macedonian language. I suggest you put you basis on such importance, as all that can be found is entries on Bulgarian forums. We can, if you want, have a disambiguation page with links to Demographics of Belogradchik, Chiprovtsi, etc, do you understand what i'm saying, it's misleading. Stop. --Zoupan (talk) 17:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

The term Torlaks was used by Serbian and international researchers as Jovan Cvijić, Vuk Karadžić, Felix Philipp Kanitz, Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui and others, during the 19th century. Even today, the term is used in Serbia, see: Владимир Живковиh. "Торлак". Пирот, 1994. Check Google books and revise your wrong biased opinion. Jingby (talk) 17:31, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Any possibility of solving this?

It would be good to find some way to solve this dispute. I actually agree with Zoupan, because all evidence sugest that we are talking just about a group of people named this way because they speak Torlakian dialect. Since the article on linguistics exists, this one (Torlaks) in my view has no reason neither enough subject to exist. However, I´m not going to involve myself in the dispute by reverting or editing this article, but I would rather listen to proposals that the involved editors may sugest on how to solve this. I proposed on the ANI report a 3th opinion. Any other ideas? FkpCascais (talk) 05:15, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Some scientists during the second half from the 19th and the early 20th century, described the Torlaks as a distinct ethnographic group, i.e. most of them had preserved certain distinguishing characteristics, such as a particular dialect and specific features of material and nonmaterial culture. Jingby (talk) 05:40, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

But should that be enough for a separate article? FkpCascais (talk) 05:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

It depends on the personal opinion and the historical perspective. Now it is a linguistic group, but 100 years ago it was only an ethnographic group. Jingby (talk) 08:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:3O then? I´ll just wait to see what Zoupan thinks. I´ll notify him about this discussion here. FkpCascais (talk) 15:01, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Give me examples of Torlaks being spoken of as an ethnographic group versus speakers of certain dialects, with specific features, etc, the word "Torlak" means vulgar, referring to the dialect, if as you say some Bulgarian nationalists postulate that Torlaks are an ethnographic group (similar to Shopi) - this still has no historical basis. "Torlaks" has only been used as a synonym to "Torlakian(dialect)-speaking people", and more appropriate is "Torlak Serbs" or "Torlak Bulgarians", but, as you understand, we can't start articles without any basis, the views of this articles is totally POV. The current article is giving the impression of a recognized nation, I sence a Bulgarian tone much alike the Torlakian dialect article. I suggest we make the correct move, redirecting it to Torlakian dialect. --Zoupan (talk) 20:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

Jingby, I actually agree with Zoupan on this. Also, many historians "100 years ago" used ethnography for political purpouses, and if those studies haven´t had continuing support until nowadays, it may be well taken in consideration that it was abandondoned because it lacked substance and credibility... They are definitely a linguistical group, and they already have the corresponding article. All you want to have in this article can be added there obviosly. FkpCascais (talk) 22:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

OK! I would propose the next text to be transfered to Torlakian:

Cultural marginalization and ethnic affiliation

The Torlak-speakers were called also Torlaks. According to one theory, the name Torlak derived from the South Slavic word "tor" ("sheepfold" in English), referring to the fact that Torlaks in the past were mainly shepherds by occupation. Some scientists describe the Torlaks as a distinct ethnographic group. The Torlaks are also sometimes classified to be a part of the Shopi population and vice versa. In the 19th century, there were no exact border between Torlak and Shopi settlements. According to some authors during the Ottoman rule, the majority of native Torlakian Slavic population did not have national consciousness in ethnic sense. Therefore, both, Serbs and Bulgarians, considered local Slavs as part of their own people, while local population was also divided between sympathy for Bulgarians and Serbs. Other authors from the epoch, take a different view and maintain that the inhabitants of Torlakian area had begun to develop predominantly Bulgarian national consciousness. 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 traditional Torlakian-speaking region was split several times between Serbia and Bulgaria. After World War II, a Macedonian national affiliation arose in the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia.

Footnotes

Compromise

OK, if Zoupan agrees we can move this to the Torlakian dialect article, and make this one a redirect. I haven´t checked the sources, but from what I read the text seems ok, and it could/should be placed under a new section, possibly named "History", or "Background", whetever you editors feel better :) FkpCascais (talk) 10:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

No compromise was reached. Zoupan did not answer to you FkpCascais, and insists in his blind reverts, deliting the whole article as you can see here: [2] Jingby (talk) 05:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

But he moved your text to Torlakian dialect as agreed, what are the problems in your view? FkpCascais (talk) 07:05, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

OK! I did not look this. Excuse me! Jingby (talk) 07:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

No problem :) FkpCascais (talk) 07:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Restored the language infobox and dubious "disputed" adjective, which was introduced by Zoupan. We can agree that there hardly was an ethno-regional denomination of "Torlaks", and that it was mostly based on the dialect, if anything. But then, you cannot deny the existence of such dialect group, and validity of its linguistic classification. It is true that different linguists called it different names, but "Torlak(ian)" is the most common one, witnessed by the vast body of literature, and I don't see anything controversial about it. No such user (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I only interfered to stop the edit warring without involving myself much with content, however I agree with you. FkpCascais (talk) 17:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Posing as language and expanding

My revision, has, other than clarifying what sources really says;

• Removed the "language"-box, since Torlakian is not classified as such, nor as a dialect, although i respect the views of it as a transitional speech.
• Added source of extensive research regarding history of the "Torlak area" with circumstances (which will be further expanded).
• moved the Kiril Zhivkovich to "Science" as it is not regarded a true classification of the dialect, only that Kiril called his language Bulgarian.

I see no faults in expanding the article, mainting the view of Bulgarian scholars, however, posing Torlakian as a language (which it is not) is false, as per Wiki standards. Sincerely, --92.32.45.19 (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Categories

I removed the following categories: Languages of Macedonia, Languages of Bulgaria, Languages of Serbia and Languages of Romania just because this is not a language. It is a coined term for group of Bulgarian and Serbian, and small number of Macedonian, dialects. Therefore, the categories Dialects of Macedonian language, Dialects of Bulgarian language and Serbian dialects are enough. Also, I removed the previous image and put new one. The old one was inaccurate because it shows Torlakian dialects are spoken till Stip in Macedonia, but in fact only in the border regions near Kumanovo and Palanla are spoken these dialects. Best--MacedonianBoy (talk) 14:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Jingy, the map is wrong.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 14:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

...На основу изложеног можемо се обазрети на северномакедонске говоре, коjи су, као што jе познато, генетски сродни са призренско-тимочкима...Iz srpskohrvatske dijalektologije, Том 2 от Selections, Издател Prosveta, 1991 г. стр. 212. Jingiby (talk) 14:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The old map needs to be corrected when Macedonia is concerned. Only Kumanovo and parts of Kratovo and Kriva Palanka are so called Torlak. The others aren't. I'll correct the map and translate in English. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 14:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

See also: ...Врз основа на презентираните диjалектни факти во последниот труд, Степановик значително jа поместил границата на призренско-тимочките говори... Literaturen zbor, Том 43, Društvo za makedonski jazik i literatura, 1996, 119. Jingiby (talk) 14:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Dialect divisions of Macedonian.

If I see, there is not a big difference between this map as showing Kumanovo-Kratovo dialect and its position on the Torlakian map. Jingiby (talk) 14:57, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

That's Northeastern group, not a particular dialect. Traditionally, only Kumanovo, Kratovo and Kriva Palanka are considered as Torlak. I am not sure about Kratovo though.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 15:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

It is not a problem what Misirkov said, the problem is he is mentioned as "old Bulgarian scientist", which in fact he is isn't Bulgarian.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 09:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Characteristics shared with West and East Southslavic

Apart from the fact that this section is not very clearly written, there is the problem that it doesn't really describe the relationship with West Southslavic, but rather with Serbo-Croatian (or more precisely Shtokavian). Many of the characteristics which are described as differences from West Southslavic languages are actually present in Slovenian, Kajkavian and Čakavian. Zocky | picture popups 15:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

That is utter construction: Western South Slavic Group is characterized by reflex ć/đ of proto Slavic *tj/*dj, and Eastern South Slavic with reflexes št/žd, not to mention that what is here called “Torlakian” dialect shares all phonetic features with standard Serbo-Croatian. 164.82.84.22 (talk) 00:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The origin of the word "Torlak"

I didn't read all of the text here in the "talk" section but I haven't found anything about the name origin. If I missed it and am repeating something you already know, I'm sorry.

I am from Nish in Serbia, and I have at home three books called: "Istorija Niša I,II,III".(History of Nish) and I've read them all. They are separated by periods of time. The first is the time from paleolite to 1878(Berlin congress, liberation), the second is from 1878 to WW2(I think), and the third is WW2-1980. That's when the books were written.

Now, in the first book on one or two pages they talk about the sects of islam in the 16th or 17th sentury. The Dervishi, something like monks that mixed Cristianity and paganism with Islam, specifically ones that used paganism were called TORLAKs, and those monks were not from Balkan but from Turkmenistan from where they were moved to modern southeastern Serbia by the Ottoman rule. There is also a part in which they mention the Shopi and Torlak population being moved by the authorities to Turkmenistan for a couple of decades and then being moved back. That was a common practice in the empire to fill the empty lands.

There is one wierd custom(now dead) here called "Стрнџање" (Strndžanye) related to premarriage sex (or everything close to it except sex) and I've read on the internet more than once that this custom was brought from Turkmenistan. This is not so important and it's not proven to be from there, but it was worth mentioning..

I am not in Nish at the moment but when I come in 2 days, i'll find the books and quote/translate the pages regarding the Dervish and the migrations.

If you want to find them yourself, here is some help:

published by GRADINA-PROSVETA, written by Danica Milić (with other people whose names I don't know) in Niš, 1983.

-Radishalivac (talk) 17:54, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Name

• "Торлачки" (83)
• "Torlak dialect" (42)
• "Torlakian dialect" (10)
• "Торлачко наречје" (3)
• "Торлачки дијалект" (2)
• "Торлачки говор" (2)

Gbook hits. Gscholar has "Torlak dialect" (32) vs "Torlakian dialect" (7).--Zoupan 06:41, 27 April 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

Using Google, not Google Books or Scholar, there are ~32,000 hits for "Torlakian dialect" and merely ~1,150 for "Torlak dialect". I've moved it back. If you want it moved use the requested move channel and see what comes out of that. --JorisvS (talk) 07:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, your Google hits are terribly wrong: "Torlak dialect" has 228 hits, while "Torlakian dialect" has 207 hits. Also, Google is inessential in this case, most of the hits being spam-sites (wiki-copies at forums, blogs, etc) – never a basis of common name. Based on this, I am reverting you as your claim is outright faulty.--Zoupan 21:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

I have now boldly moved it to Torlak dialect.--Zoupan 21:46, 30 April 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

And reverted. Making an "uncontroversial" move in the middle of a debate is dishonest. — kwami (talk) 22:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Not just that, it was already moved once by another editor who read Zoupan's message here. I contested this quick, undiscussed move, countering it with the normal Google's results. Such a second move, knowing it has already been contested, but claiming it is not, is very dishonest. --JorisvS (talk) 09:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no debate. JorisvS had one claim – that Google hits favoured the other – this claim was faulty. Why did you revert it, and please tell me, what about it is controversial?--Zoupan 22:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

You made it controversial, and I do not see why. Requesting move.--Zoupan 22:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

I don't know which Google you're using. Re-Googling it gives me now even more extreme figures: 4,370 for "Torlak dialect" and 202,000 for "Torlakian dialect". --JorisvS (talk) 09:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 30 April 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus for move (non-admin closure) Mdann52 (talk) 11:00, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

---

Torlakian dialect → Torlak dialect – WP:COMMONNAME. See previous section. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 19:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC) Zoupan 22:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

• Here is what I find:
  • Gbook hits: 40 confirmed "Torlak dialect" (sometimes in scare quotes), 10 "Torlakian dialect" (never in scare quotes), both with linguist use. Of course, in the real world the word is not always followed by "dialect".
  • ELL2 uses "Torlak", "Torlak dialects", etc.
  • Gscholar hits: 19 "Torlak dialect" (sometimes in scare quotes), 6 "Torlakian dialect" (never in scare quotes).

So, "Torlak" seems to be more common, including in linguistic use, but is not always treated as a legitimate name. — kwami (talk) 02:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

But using normal Google gives many more hits for "Torlakian dialect" (in scare quotes) than for "Torlak dialect" (in scare quotes). And what is "sometimes in scare quotes" supposed to mean? --JorisvS (talk) 09:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

What hits do you get? I have "Torlak dialect" has 228 hits, while "Torlakian dialect" has 207 hits. However, Google is inessential in this case, most of the hits being spam-sites (wiki-copies at forums, blogs, etc) – never a basis of common name.--Zoupan 09:48, 8 May 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

"Torlakian dialect" (in scare quotes): 32,500; "Torlak dialect" (in scare quotes): 1,240. A rather large difference to be attributed to wiki copies and the latter also finds this article. Adding "-wikipedia" to Google gives: 31,100 and 1,920. Although, strangely, the latter is a higher number, it is still overwelmingly in favor of "Torlakian dialect", and with pages that can hardly be said to be "inconsequential" to which name to use. --JorisvS (talk) 10:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Your google hits are impossible, please go to the last page of the search hits. Again, disregard Google search hits.--Zoupan 10:31, 8 May 2015 (UTC) Blocked sock:Ajdebre.

Says you, but it is what I'm getting. --JorisvS (talk) 10:45, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Presence or absence of "h" and the pronunciation of final "-st"

In standard (Shtokavian) Serbian the phonem "h" has been re-introduced, since in most (all?) Shtokavian dialects it had been replaced by either "v" or zero; there are however some words where "h" has not been re-introduced: suv, kuvati; kujna. There are other words where both versions are possible: gluv/gluh. In both Bulgarian and Macedonian final "-st" is pronounced "-s", even though the spelling retains the final "-t". This seems to be the case also in some (all?) Torlak dialects, whereas standard Serbian pronunciation is [st]:

žal za mlados'

http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/125/drustvo/1490358/vranje---zal-za-mlados-pogled-u-buducnost.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F07:91EF:FFFF:0:0:4F77:FA36 (talk) 14:09, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

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Balkan and Eastern South Slavic.

The Torlakian dialects, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, forming the East South Slavic languages subgroup, display many properties of the Balkan linguistic area. As a whole, Torlakian is closer to Macedonian than to Serbian, and falls into the Macedonian-Bulgarian diasystem. All these 3 languages were called Bulgarian till the 20th. century. Jingiby (talk) 17:58, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

This is presumably an explanation for this edit. What you're quoting is from Torlakian_dialect#Balkan_sprachbund, but this is apparently one view, and its flat ascription to ESS is contradicted by the paragraph immediately above, which states that "The Torlakian dialects are intermediate between the Eastern and Western branches of South Slavic dialect continuum, and have been variously described, in whole or in parts, as belonging to either group". I don't know much about the subject and I don't have a strong opinion, but if the article's text makes it clear that the dialect isn't uncontroversially classified into one or another subgroup then the infobox shouldn't claim that it is. – Uanfala (talk) 18:39, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi, please read the article Eastern South Slavic. Thank you. Jingiby (talk) 18:55, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Eastern South Slavic makes the following statement "This are [...] per some authors encompasses the south-eastern dialect of the Serbian language, the so-called Prizren-Timok dialect.[2] The last is part of the broader transitional Torlakian dialectal area.". It's unclear whether "this area" refers to Balkan Slavic or to Eastern South Slavic, but even in the latter case, this is clearly presented as one point of view. Also, I've had a look at the paragraph that you quoted above and as far as I could see, its sources do not make any assertion about the genetic classification of Torlakian (ESS or WSS). At this stage, what we do have sources for is the lack of consensus about such a classification. – Uanfala (talk) 19:37, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Rešetar

Question. I know that identity is a tinderbox for Serbians and Croatians, but was Rešetar a Croat or a Serb? On brief inspection of his article, he is a Dubrovnik-born Serb yet here on Torlakian dialect he has been designated a Croatian linguist. I know there are some people who for one reason or another qualify as both, such as Nikola Tesla, but if someone could provide some consistency and clarification here, he will be very helpful. --46.233.77.16 (talk) 16:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)