Slavic microlanguages

Slavic microlanguages are literary linguistic varieties that exist alongside the better-known Slavic languages of historically prominent nations. Aleksandr Dulichenko coined the term "(literary) microlanguages" at the end of the 1970s; it subsequently became a standard term in Slavistics.

Slavic microlanguages exist both as geographically and socially peripheral dialects of more well-established Slavic languages and as completely isolated ethnolects. They often enjoy a written form, a certain degree of standardisation and are used in a variety of circumstances typical of codified idioms—albeit in a limited fashion and always alongside a national standard language.

List of microlanguages

In genetic terms, each literary microlanguage is traced back to one of the major Slavic languages or has a close degree of kinship with it. Only Pannonian Rusyn poses a challenge in this regard.

South Slavic microlanguages

• Slovene
  • Prekmurje Slovene — Prekmurje (north-eastern Slovenia), neighbouring areas of Austria
  • Resian dialect — Resia Valley (Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy)
  • Veneto-Slovene
• Serbo-Croatian
  • Shtokavian
    • Slavomolisano dialect (Molise Croatian) — from the 15th to 16th centuries in the region of Molise (Italy), from Dalmatia.
  • Slavonic-Serbian
• Kajkavian
• Chakavian
  • Burgenland Croatian (Gradishan Croatian) — Burgenland (Austria) and surrounding areas of Hungary
• Bulgarian
  • Banat Bulgarian dialect — from the 18th century in Banat (Romania and Serbia)
  • Pomak — Bulgarian Muslims in Greece (Pomaks)
• Macedonian
  • Slavic dialects of Greece — Macedonians in Greece; the letter was published in 1925; it published periodicals and books in different countries, but nowadays, as far as is known, it does not function.

West Slavic microlanguages

• Slovak
  • Literary Eastern Slovak — the language of Protestants in eastern Slovakia since the mid-18th century
• Czech
  • Lach dialects — practically the language of one author — the poet Óndra Łysohorsky — based on the Silesian dialect
• Polish
  • Vichian — based on the Polish dialects of Lithuania, attempts since the late 1980s

East Slavic microlanguages

• Ukrainian
  • Rusyn (Carpathian Rusyn) — Rusyns in the Zakarpattia Oblast, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary
  • West Polesian (Sudovian/Yatvingian) — south-western Belarus
• Belarusian
  • Halshanish — in the late 1980s in Lithuania, based on local Belarusian dialects
  • West Polesian (Sudovian/Yatvingian) — south-western Belarus
  • Podlachian (their language) — Podlachia

Pannonian Rusyn (Yugoslav) — Rusyns of Vojvodina and Croatia; genetically refers to the Slovak linguistic massif, however, with a strong substrate and adstrate influence of East Slavic Rusyn dialects. Based on a set of criteria, this language occupies an intermediate position between microlanguages and the main Slavic languages.

Until recently, the only language area where literary microlanguages did not arise was Russian. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, several projects appeared in Russia, including Siberian and Pomor microlanguages. And at the beginning of the 20th century there were attempts to create the Don literary language in the Don Republic.

According to A.D. Dulichenko, the creation of new Slavic literary microlanguages continues today. Thus, at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Bunjevac literary norm was formed in Vojvodina on the basis of the Bunjevac dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language. Bunjevci (most likely Catholic Serbs who moved to Vojvodina from Dalmatia, who consider themselves a separate ethnic group or part of the Croatian ethnic group), created the "Nacionalni savet bunjevačke nacionalne manjine" and the "Bunjevačka matica". Some of the texts in the "Bunjevac Journal" (Bunjevačke novine) are printed in the Bunjevac dialect; in some primary schools, the Bunjevac dialect lessons are taught in places where Bunjevci are densely populated. New Slavic literary microlanguages can also be considered Silesian and Goral (Podhale). The movement for the creation of literary standards in Silesian and Podhale dialects has arisen in the south of Poland since the 1990s, these movements are characterised by a lack of unity, their representatives are united in different societies offering different options for writing, spelling and grammar. Nevertheless, attempts are being made in these languages to create literary works, periodicals, and the "Gospel", in particular, has been translated into Goral.

Insular and peripheral microlanguages

Native speakers of contemporary Slavic microlanguages either live among unrelated linguistic communities, thereby constituting an ethnic "island", or live on the geographical periphery of their historical ethnic group. Correspondingly, these microlanguages can be divided into insular and peripheral categories (the latter of which can also be called "regional languages"). The principal insular forms are: Rusyn, Burgenland Croatian, Molise Croatian, Resian dialect (which may also be characterized as "peninsular") and Banat Bulgarian. The main peripheral forms include Prekmurje Slovene, East Slovak, Lachian, Carpatho-Russian, West Polesian and others.

Functional characteristics

The precise hierarchical relationship between national standard languages and microlanguages can be ascertained by examining internal attributes, such as the disparity between strictly enforced standardisation in the case of the former and, in the case of the latter, a more relaxed standard. The national language often displays a standardised spoken form whereas such a regularity is absent from microlanguages (whose spoken form often consists of divergent dialects.) Likewise, the difference can be seen in external attributes such as extensive functionality and explored genres in the case of national languages, compared to the narrowness of genres and limited functional role of microlanguages.

As literary microlanguages are, in terms of functionality, more expansive than their corresponding dialects, they display a tendency toward standardised norms, which entails a significant enlargement of the lexicon and a more systematised, codified grammar, often by way of foreign borrowings, and recourse to a previous literary and linguistic tradition alien to vernacular dialects. In contrast to a dialect exploited for artistic purposes, every minor literary Slavic language is to a greater or lesser degree governed by an organised literary and linguistic process that provides for the establishment and development of a literary microlanguage, and which presents it as such.

In terms of location, Slavic microlanguages exist in both predominantly Slavic and non-Slavic areas, earning some the designation of linguistic "islands" resulting from a past migration, whereas others exist indigenously, having never been entirely separated from their genetic and geographic points of origin.

Ethnic factor

Behind the majority of Slavic microlanguages are not nations, but the so-called cultural-linguistic and ethno-linguistic groups as branches of large Slavic ethnic groups-nations.

Peripheral literary micro-languages function in the environment of cultural and linguistic groups that exist within the peripheral (ethnic) area and are distinguished within its framework only by local features of cultural-historical and linguistic (dialectal) nature - such are Chakavians, Kajkavians in Croatia, etc.; ethno-linguistic groups, that is, “insular”, which are national minorities, are behind insular literary microlanguages — such are the Burgenland Croats, Molise Croats, Banat Bulgarians, etc. (unlike cultural-linguistic groups, they are characterised by more tangible ethnic and linguistic separately). Both peripheral and island branches consider themselves to be an inseparable part of the corresponding Slavic ethnic nations: the Banat Bulgarians - the Bulgarians, the Chakavians and the Kajkavians, as well as the Burgenland Croats and the Molise Croats - the Croats, etc., but also as an independent Slavic language, as it is used by an ethnic group (community), claiming the role of nationality. However, the border between microlanguages and independent Slavic languages and in some other cases turns out to be indistinct: for example, the “insular” Sorbian, representing the Slavic national minority in Germany, and peripheral to the Polish Kashubian tradition established in Russian linguistics, are considered as separate languages.

History of occurrence

As conditions for the emergence of literary microlanguages are necessary: the presence of compactness of the environment and the associated isolation from the main dialect continuum, awareness of linguistic and ethnic specificity, complexity of the dialectal landscape, forcing you to look for your own literary language (especially during the formation of national literary languages) close dialect basis; the presence of literary-linguistic pre-tradition in a related or unrelated language, which provided the conditions for experiments on the use of native speech as a literary language; at the same time, the quantitative factor is not decisive, although it influences the potential possibilities of the literary-language process. Stimulating moments in the emergence of a number of Slavic microlanguages were Protestantism (16th century), the movement for the national revival of Slavic peoples (19th century), a subjective factor, that is, the presence of enlighteners who are able to give an impetus to the power of their example organisations of the literary-linguistic process in their dialect (dialect).

A peculiarity of peripheral literary microlanguages is that almost all of them already at the initial stage of their development (before the era of national revival) were regional variants that competed with each other to become the basis of the emerging national literary language.

See also

• Dialect or language
• Surzhyk
• Trasianka
• Russian dialects

Bibliography

• Dulichenko A.D. Malyje slavianskije literaturnyje jazyki (mikrojazyki) // Jazyki Mira: Slavianskije Jazyki. М.: Academia, 2005
• Dulichenko A.D. Slavianskije literaturnyje mikrojazyki. Voprosy formirovanija i rasvitija. Tallinn, 1981.
• Dulichenko A.D. Jazyki malyh etničeskih grupp: funkcionaljnyj status i problemy razvitija slovaria (na slavianskom materïale) // Modernisierung des Wortschatzes europäischer Regional- und Minderheitensprachen. Tübingen, 1999.
• Dulichenko A.D. Kleinschriftsprachen in der slawischen Sprachenwelt // Zeitschrift für Slawistik, 1994, Bd. 39.

References

• Resianica Materials on the Resian-Slovene language
• Ruska Matka An organisation seeking to preserve and develop the Pannonian Rusyn language in Serbia
• Gradišćansko-hrvatski Centar Cultural organisation of Burgenland Croats