journal of language contact 12 (2019) 305-343

brill.com/jlc

Language Contact in Social Context: Kinship Terms

and Kinship Relations of the Mrkovići in Southern
Montenegro
Maria S. Morozova
Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russia
[email protected]

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the linguistic evidence of Slavic-Albanian lan-
guage contact in the kinship terminology of the Mrkovići, a Muslim Slavic-speaking
group in southern Montenegro, and to demonstrate how it refers to the social con-
text and the kind of contact situation. The material for this study was collected during
fieldwork conducted from 2012 to 2015 in the villages of the Mrkovići area. Kinship
terminology of the Mrkovići dialect is compared with that of bcms, Albanian, and the
other Balkan languages and dialects. Particular attention is given to the items borrowed
from Albanian and Ottoman Turkish, and to the structural borrowing from Albanian.
Information presented in the article will be of interest to linguists and anthropologists
who investigate kinship terminologies in the world’s languages or do their research
in the field of Balkan studies with particular attention to Slavic-Albanian contact and
bilingualism.

Keywords

Mrkovići dialect – kinship terminology – language contact – bilingualism – borrowing –

imposition – BCMS – Albanian – Ottoman Turkish

© maria s. morozova, 2019 | doi:10.1163/19552629-01202003

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306 Morozova

1 Introduction

Interaction between Slavs and Albanians in the Balkans has resulted in numer-
ous linguistic changes, particularly for those dialects that were in immediate
contact with one another. The change is especially apparent when it comes to
lexicons and lexical borrowings from Slavic to Albanian and from Albanian to
Slavic. One semantic field of particular interest is kinship terminology, which
has long been one of the most popular subjects for linguists and anthropolo-
gists, with its focus on how different peoples classify relatives and how these
classifications relate to actual social structure.
This article will examine the kinship terminology and kinship concepts of
the Mrkovići, a Muslim Slavic group in southern Montenegro. Before enter-
ing in medias res, we give an overview of the historical and social setting of
Slavic-Albanian contact in southern Montenegro, provide brief background
information about the Mrkovići and their dialect, as well as some general re-
marks about lexical borrowing from Albanian into Slavic, and describe the
data, sources and methodology applied in this study. The central aspect of the
article is an analysis of the consanguineal and affinal kinship terminology in
the Mrkovići variety of bcms, with special attention given to items borrowed
from Albanian and the cultural information transmitted along with these bor-
rowings. In the concluding remarks, we provide an analysis of the sociolinguis-
tic setting and the type of contact situation, in which borrowings pertaining
to the field of kinship terminology were transferred into the Mrkovići variety.
The Appendix to the article gives comparative data about consanguineal and
affinal kinship terminologies employed in the modern bcms (Hammel, 1957;
Bjeletić, 1994), Albanian (Žugra, 1998; Thomai et al., 2002), and Turkish (Spen-
cer, 1960).

1.1 Historical and Political Setting of Albanian-Slavic Contact in

Southern Montenegro
The Albanians and Slavs of southern Montenegro have a rich history of re-
lationships. Slavs first appeared in the western Balkans after their large-scale
invasion from across the Danube at the end of the sixth and the beginning of
the seventh century, and came into contact with the local pre-Slavic popula-
tion. In particular, the peoples called Serbs and Croats who presumably gave
these names to the larger number of Slavs came to the Balkans in the second
quarter of the seventh century and were mentioned as such in Constantine
Porphyrogenitus’s De Administrando Imperio created in the late 940s or early
950s. During the Early Middle Ages, they converted to Christianity (Byzantine
Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism) and established their first states along

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Language Contact in Social Context 307

the Adriatic coast and in its hinterland. An early medieval state of Serbs that
emerged in the area roughly corresponding to modern southeastern Monte-
negro was known as Duklja.1 The name Duklja was derived from Dioclea, the
name of the capital city of the Illyrian tribe of Diocleatae that lived in what is
now Montenegro. Through the eleventh century, Duklja was the leading Ser-
bian state with its capital at Scodra (modern bcms Skadar / Alb Shkodër in
the Republic of Albania). Later the whole region was referred to as the princi-
pality of Zeta, named after one of the Dukljan districts (bcms2 župa) located
near the Zeta river. At the turn of the twelfth century, the Byzantine campaign
against Zeta and the civil war weakened the principality and forced its rulers to
recognize the overlordship of Byzantium (Fine, 2008: 34–38, 203–247).
In the 1180s, Stefan Nemanja (1168–1196), the founder of the Serbian dynasty
of Nemanjići, annexed Zeta and integrated it into his state. After the death of
the most powerful king from Nemanjići, Stefan Dušan the Mighty (1308–1355),
in 1356, Zeta was incorporated into the state of Balšići and remained part of
it until 1421. During the extensive Ottoman raids that overran parts of Zeta in
1386, George ii Balšić accepted Ottoman suzerainty. By the end of the fifteenth
century, during the rule of the Crnojevići noble family, the Ottomans took pos-
session of almost all of Zeta, or Montenegro, as it was more commonly known
at the time. In 1571, they conquered the ports of Bar and Ulcinj, which had
belonged to the Venetian Republic, and exercised control over southern Mon-
tenegro for more than three centuries (Fine, 2009: 49–53, 389–392, 414–421,
595–603). Throughout this period, a part of the Slavic and Albanian population

1
2

1 The toponyms and anthroponyms in this article are given in bcms Latin alphabet when
they are of Slavic origin and in standard Albanian script when they come from the Albanian
language. If toponyms differ in bcms and in Albanian, both variants are cited in their cor-
responding orthographies (bcms / Albanian). Dialectal words (from the Mrkovići variety,
Northwestern Gheg Albanian, etc.) are transcribed using the orthographic symbols of the
standard alphabets. Since the goal of the paper is the discussion of the vocabulary, and no
special attention to the disputable phonetic issues is given, orthographic symbols are used as
least qualifying.
2 Abbreviations for languages used in the article are: Alb – Albanian, Ar – Arabic, Arom – Aro-
manian, bcms – Bosnian / Croatian / Montenegrin / Serbian, Bg – Bulgarian, Cr – Croatian,
Eng – English, Fr – French, Germ – German, Gk – Greek, Meg – Megleno-Romanian, Mk –
Macedonian, Mne – Montenegrin, Pl – Polish, Rom – Romanian, Sr – Serbian, Tr – Turkish,
Ukr – Ukrainian. Other abbreviations: Acc. – accusative, Def. – definite form (in Albanian,
where nouns have the category of definiteness), f. – feminine, Gen. – genitive, m. – mascu-
line, Pl. – plural, Reg – regional word (in pronunciation or use) or local variety of a language,
Voc. – vocative.

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308 Morozova

Figure 1 Montenegro Map. UN Cartographic Section. 2006

in the area retained their allegiance to Orthodoxy (Montenegrins) and Catholi-

cism (Albanians), while the other part gradually converted to Islam.
In 1878, Montenegrins seized Bar and incorporated it into their independent
state. The town of Ulcinj and its surroundings became part of an independent
Montenegro in 1880. After the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, the border between
Albania and Montenegro was established on the river Bojana / Bunë, encom-
passing the territory to the west of the river, which was populated mostly by
Albanians and Muslim Slavs, into Montenegro. During World War ii, border
areas in southern Montenegro, together with the other regions of Yugoslavia
inhabited by Albanians, were placed under the authority of Albania.
After the war, the Albanian borders were returned to their 1913 positions and
remain as such until today. The Socialist Republic of Montenegro became one
of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In 1992–2003, it was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and later of the
State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. In 2006, Montenegro became an inde-
pendent state (see Fig. 1). The overwhelming majority of the population of the
Republic of Montenegro identify themselves as Montenegrins (44.98%) and
Serbs (28.73%). Albanians constitute 4.91% of the population and live mainly
in its southeastern part, in the municipalities of Ulcinj, Bar, Plav, Podgorica,

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Language Contact in Social Context 309

and Rožaje (Monstat, 2011). The 2007 Constitution declared Montenegrin to be

the official language of the state, and proclaimed that Serbian, Bosnian, Croa-
tian, and Albanian shall also be in official use.

1.2 Socio-Cultural Background: Population Shifts and Albanian-Slavic

Kinship Ties in Southern Montenegro
Serbian and Croatian historians and anthropologists argue that the pre-Slavic
peoples of the western Balkans (e.g. the Illyrians) and the Early Medieval Slavs
were organized in tribal formations that were shattered with the arrival of Ro-
mans or dissolved through the influence of Byzantium and the South Slavic
medieval states (Cvijić, 1987: 84–88; Erdeljanović, 1978 [1926]: 575). In the Late
Middle Ages, the crisis of the Slavic states and the Ottoman conquest led to
the reawakening of old customs and the revival of traditional lineage-based,
as well as village-community based forms of social organization in the western
Balkans (Erdeljanović, 1978 [1926]: 470; Banović, 2015: 41–43). We hereinafter
use the bcms term pleme to refer to the Montenegrin patrilineages and the
Albanian term fis for similar decent groups in northern Albania.
The medieval Montenegrin pleme, as well as the Albanian fis, was a large
clan that occupied a certain area and claimed to be descending from one
common male ancestor. In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries
in Montenegro and in the neighbouring regions of northern Albania and east-
ern Hercegovina, Albanian, Slavic and Vlach (Romance-speaking) shepherds’
mountain villages, which were primarily kinship organizations, consolidated
into closely bounded groups that were further referred to as fis and pleme
(Đurđev, 1963: 143–170; Cvijić, 1987: 85; Banović, 2015: 42). The Ottoman inva-
sion and the revival of institutions such as common law and blood vengeance
brought about significant population shifts in this part of the Balkans. Alba-
nian and Slavic-speaking people fled to more remote and mountainous areas,
where the Ottoman administration and the enemies had very little access, in
order to escape blood feuds, islamization, or conflicts with the Ottoman beys
in their native provinces (Rovinsky, 1897: 135; Boehm, 1986: 43–44). The new-
comers mixed with the native population and adopted their ethnic identity.
The best-known example in Montenegro is the case of Kuči, which had been
an Orthodox Serbian pleme until the fifteenth century. From the beginning of
the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century several Albanian (Catho-
lic) and Serbian (Orthodox and Catholic) groups from other regions settled in
the territory occupied by Kuči and joined to the pleme. The population in the
area had been a long time (partially) bilingual in Albanian and bcms, but after
the gradual slavicization of Albanians, most part of the pleme Kuči became
bcms-speaking; the only exception is the small area of Koći / Kojë, which is

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310 Morozova

inhabited by Albanians and albanized local Serbs (Erdeljanović, 1981 [1907]:

117, 158–172).
Close relations of medieval Albanians and Slavs in what is now southern
Montenegro and northern Albania have been attested in folk tales and leg-
ends. Oral tradition says that a Montenegrin pleme and an Albanian fis could
be common in ancestry. For example, legends say that the Montenegrin pleme
Piperi, together with Ozrinići and Vasojevići, and the Albanian fises Krasniqe
and Hoti descend from five brothers (Šufflay, 1925: 60).
Non-related Albanian and Slavic families often established lasting bonds
through marriage. Strict marriage exogamy was a long time effective in sev-
eral areas of southern Montenegro, obliging members of a Montenegrin pleme
to take wives from the other pleme or from an Albanian fis. For example,
Vasojevići and Kuči were exogamous at least until the end of the nineteenth
century, and Kuči had matrimonial relations not only with the neighbouring
Slavic groups, but also with Albanians (Rovinsky, 1897: 239). Similar patterns
of marriage relations existed among the fises of the Northern Albania. Two
non-related fises from different areas exchanged wives or, alternatively, a fis
from one area took wives from another and sent marriageable girls to the third
fis, which never served as a source of young brides for the first one (Ivanova,
1988: 184). Among the majority of South Slavs in Montenegro, Serbia and Her-
cegovina, marriages also could be contracted between descent groups, even if
they belonged to a single pleme and lived in one village. As Stoianovich (1994:
162) supposes, such inbreeding during Ottoman rule tended to inspire a sense
of solidarity among the members of a pleme against its perceived intruders. In
Bulgaria, this kind of matrimonial “endogamy” was still practised as late as the
1920s (Todorova, 2006: 51).
Bonds established through women (relation through marriage) were con-
sidered weaker and more fragile than the agnatic ones. In this connection,
Albanians and Slavs traditionally created various kinds of fictive, or symbol-
ic kinship ties, which were viewed as relations equal to true kinship. In the
range of such kinship practices, godparenthood, initially adopted in the Bal-
kans as a Christian ritual (godparenthood at baptism and at marriage, bcms
kršteno kumstvo and venčano kumstvo), was of the greatest significance. The
so-called “haircut godparenthood” (bcms šišano kumstvo) was widespread
among the Balkan Muslims, but also practiced by the Christian population
(Kaser, 2008: 51–52). For example, in Otok (Croatia, Roman Catholics) the des-
ignated friend of the family undertook the first haircut (bcms šišanje) of the
newborn and thus became his godfather, while in Zavala (Montenegro, Ortho-
dox pleme Piperi) the first haircut was done by the person who baptized the

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Language Contact in Social Context 311

child (­Sobolev, 2005: 232–233). Also “kinship by milk”, a kind of relationship

initiated by the (ritual) breast-feeding of a baby by a wet nurse, was practiced
throughout the Balkans, especially in regions with dense Muslim population
(Kaser, 2008: 52). The woman who suckled the child was considered his/her
second mother, her children became brothers and sisters of the newborn, and
they were therefore not allowed to intermarry. Finally, brothership in blood
was an important strategy of fostering symbolic kinship, e.g. for Catholic Alba-
nians and Orthodox Serbs in the northern Albania and southern Montenegro,
but cases of establishment of such kind of relationship are also known among
Muslims. Towards the end of the twentieth century the ceremony of drinking
a drop of one another’s blood to become brothers still existed in the northeast-
ern Albanian region of Golo Brdo inhabited by Slavic and Albanian-speaking
Muslim population (Morozova, 2013: 93).
In religiously and ethnically diverse regions such as southern Montenegro,
the connections of Muslims through spiritual kinship often involved Chris-
tians. According to our fieldwork data, several families of the Muslim Mrkovići
pleme in the south of Montenegro still maintain bonds established through
spiritual kinship with those Orthodox families whose members gave the
first haircut to their male children. In accordance with the tradition, a per-
son remains a godfather (bcms kum, Alb kumbar and Reg Gheg kumar) for a
Mrkovići family until his death (after which his duties are then passed down to
his son) and is an honoured guest at family ceremonies, such as circumcisions
or weddings of his godchildren. Brothership in blood also remained one of the
strategies for establishment of spiritual ties between the local Muslim Slavs,
Orthodox Montenegrins and Catholic Albanians up to the twentieth century.
The ancestors of some of our respondents in the Mrkovići pleme had Catho-
lic Albanians as brothers in blood (in the local varieties of bcms and Alba-
nian brother in blood is called pobratim, cf. Standard bcms pobratim and Alb
vëll­am, probatin), while their children do not maintain the tradition nowadays.
As for “kinship by milk”, the people from the Mrkovići area cannot remember
any cases, and it is likely that this practice was never performed in the area.

1.3 The Mrkovići Pleme in Southern Montenegro

1.3.1 Area
The bcms-speaking pleme Mrkovići / Mrkojevići, also known as Mërkot (in
Albanian), inhabits the highlands in the south of Montenegro, between the
towns of Bar and Ulcinj (see Fig. 2). The majority of the Mrkovići converted to
Islam while under Ottoman rule in Montengro, and now only a few Orthodox
families remain in the village of Dobra Voda.

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312 Morozova

Figure 2 The Mrkovići pleme in southern Montenegro. The map is drawn by myself using
the sas.Planet (v. 190707.9476 Stable) and Inkscape (v. 0.92.1 r15371) software. The
coordinates of the settlements are taken from The Interactive Map https://map-
carta.com/.

Bar and Ulcinj are the main urban centers of this region with ethnically and
religiously diverse population. The rural area near Bar is inhabited by Slavic-
speaking Muslims (Tuđemili, Poda), while the other areas to the west of the
town are populated mainly by Orthodox Montenegrins. In the Ulcinj munici-
pality, the Albanian-speaking population dominates the areas of Kraja and
Shestani in the north, Ana e Malit in the east, and the Ulcinj area in the south-
east. Albanians of Kraja and Ana e Malit are Muslim, while in Shestani they are
mostly Catholic. The villages of the Ulcinj area are either Muslim or Catholic,
with several exceptions like Klezna / Këlleznë in Ana e Malit inhabited by both
Muslim and Catholic Albanians. Some villages, such as Kruče / Krute, have a
mixed Albanian Catholic and Slavic Muslim population.
Most Mrkovići villages are situated in the northwest of their area, close to the
Rumija and Lisinj mountains and include: Dobra Voda, Pečurice, Grdovići, Velje
Selo (together with the hamlet Lunje), Dabezići (with the hamlet Dapčevići),
Ljeskovac, and currently abandoned Međureč, Mali and Velji Mikulići. The in-
habitants of this area refer to themselves as pravi Mrkovići ‘true Mrkovići’.

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Language Contact in Social Context 313

The settlements in the southeastern part – Kunje, Gorana (including Mala

Gorana and Velja Gorana), Vukići, and Pelinkovići – are located near the
Možura mountain range. The inhabitants of Gorana insist that they belong to
the Mrkovići community. On the other hand, in Velja Gorana the people often
use the name Mrkovići, when they need to refer to the “true Mrkovići” villages
only, for example: žena mu je bila iz Mrkojevića ‘his wife was from Mrkojevići’
(about a man from Velja Gorana whose wife comes from the “true Mrkovići”
village of Velje Selo).

1.3.2 Origin and Marriage Patterns

The Mrkovići pleme comprises a number of descent groups (bcms bratstvo,
Gheg Alb vllazni) of different origin, listed with a striking thoroughness in the
description of Crnogorsko Primorje and Krajina by Andrija Jovićević (1922).
Several modern Mrkovići families originate from the old Orthodox bcms-
speaking population of the area, which converted to Islam during the last two
centuries of Ottoman rule in the town of Bar.
The 1485 Ottoman census mentions the village “Mrkojeviqi” in “Nahija
Mërkodlar” (Nahija of the Mrkovići)3 and lists the heads of households, whose
names are predominantly of (South) Slavic origin: Milosh, Ivza, Ivan, Gjuro, An-
drija, Damjan, Dabzhiv / Dabo / Dabza, Nikëza etc. (cf. Dabezići, the name of one
of the “true Mrkovići” villages, and the modern surnames Nikezić and Andrić in
Mala Gorana). On the other hand, the census shows that some people from the
Mrkovići had Albanian Catholic names, such as Lekëza and Kolza, or could be
of Albanian origin, for example Radiç Kolzini, where Kolzini is an Albanian sur-
name, and Nuliçi, i biri i Bukmirit ‘Nulič, son of Bukmir’ (Pulaha, 1974: 141–143).
Thus, an Albanian element existed in the Mrkovići area in historic times, but
after a few centuries these Albanians assimilated and intermingled with the
local Slavic-speaking population. Names clearly evidence that in the end of the
fifteenth century the population of the Mrkovići area had not yet converted to
Islam. The only person with an Islamic, though a non-Quranic, name that can
be found in the list is Shaini, i biri i Branurës ‘Shahin, son of Branura’ (Tr Şahin,
a name of Iranian origin that means ‘falcon’).
The other Mrkovići kins descend from non-related persons and families
who came from various areas of Montenegro and settled in the Mrkovići area
in the nineteenth century, when the local population to the most part convert-
ed to Islam. For example, Mujići, Maručići and Morstanovići in Mali Mikulići

3 The names in this paragraph are cited in accordance with the Albanian transcription of the
Ottoman manuscript published by Pulaha (1974).

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314 Morozova

came from Shestani. The ancestors of Ivanovići and Lakovići in Dobra Voda
were related to the Kuči pleme. Dapčevići arrived to Dabezići from Cetinje,
Dibre in Dobra Voda migrated from the Macedonian Dibra in approx. 1840, and
Rackovići derived from Lješanska Nahija after 1878, when the Montenegrins
took control of Bar and its surroundings (Jovićević, 1922: 77–85).
The newcomers were eventually engaged in the existing social networks and
marriage relations. From the point of view of marriage patterns, the Mrkovići
pleme, being an ideological and territorial rather than a kin-defined entity, has
been mostly endogamous. Affine kinship relations exist between the Dapčevići
(from Dabezići) and the Lunići (from Velje Selo), the Metanovići (Mala Go-
rana) and the Kovačevići (Velja Gorana), the Kovačevići and the Vučići (Velja
­Gorana), and other descent groups. This pattern survived the increasing waves
of rural-urban internal migration and the external migration from Montenegro
to Western Europe, the usa and Canada. Young men from migrant families of-
ten come to their villages from abroad in order to take a wife from their neigh-
bourhood and bring her to their new place of residence.
On the other hand, historically, men from the Mrkovići tended to bring
wives from the other regions of Montenegro, while marriageable girls often get
married outside the pleme. Highland villages in the northwestern part of the
Mrkovići area, such as Dobra Voda and Pečurice, have strong ties through mar-
riage with the neighbouring Slavic-speaking Muslim regions of Tuđemili and
Poda. A part of the Mrkovići, much like the Kuči, has had matrimonial relations
with Albanians (Morozova and Rusakov, 2018). According to Jovićević (1922:
113), men from the villages of Pelinkovići, Vukići, Klezna (now completely Alba-
nian), and partially of Gorana used to marry girls from the neighbouring Ana e
Malit. Over time, exogamous ties with Albanians became more g­ eographically
diverse, with preference given to Muslim Albanian communities. Nowadays
one can meet Albanian women from Shestani, Kraja and Ulcinj, as well as from
northwestern Albania, in the Mrkovići villages. While explaining their “ethnic”
and “linguistic” exogamy, most respondents from the Mrkovići say that having
the same religion is more important in making a marriage work than ethnic or
linguistic conformity.

1.3.3 Linguistic Features of the Area

In Serbian and Croatian dialectology (see Fig. 3), the variety of the Mrkovići is
classified as a local variety of the Old Shtokavian (bcms štokavski ‘Shtokavian’
is the bcms dialect spoken in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Hercegovina,
most part of Croatia and in the Austria’s Burgenland; the Old Shtokavian subdi-
alects preserve the older accent system of bcms) Zeta-Sjenica, or Zeta-Lovćen
subdialect spoken in southeastern Montenegro and southwestern Serbia (Ivić,

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Language Contact in Social Context 315

Figure 3 Dialects of Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. A map taken from
(Hraste, 1956). Original title: Karta dijalekata hrvatskoga ili srpskoga vezika ‘Map
of the dialects of Croatian or Serbian language’.

1994: 191; Sobolev, 2014). According to Vujović, who conducted the dialectologi-
cal fieldwork in the Mrkovići area in 1930–1940s, this variety survived the dia-
lect mixing that was characteristic of the rest of Old Montenegro territory, and
preserved specific features in phonology, morphology and syntax, with minor
effects from the influence of neighbouring dialects (Vujović 2012 [1969]: 16).
One of the major features of the Mrkovići variety is the Ekavian development
of the long jat /ĕ/, which is closer to Serbian rather than to the general Monte-
negrin: dete / dei̯te ‘child’ (cf. Serbian Ekavian dete, where /ĕ/ > e, and general
Montenegrin Ijekavian dijete, where /ĕ/ > ije). Main phonological innovations
include the reflex of the Proto-Slavic semivowel *ь > ea (*dьnь > dean ‘day’,
bcms dan), the loss of t and d in consonant clusters (sesra ‘sister’, selo ‘saddle’,
cf. bcms sestra, sedlo), and others (Vujović, 2012 [1969]: 26, 82–84).
Contact with non-Slavic languages played an important role in the devel-
opment of the Mrkovići variety. As Vujović (2012 [1969]: 16, 60–64) argues,
a few lexical borrowings of Romance origin and probably the labialized

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316 Morozova

­ ronunciation of the long a (zlaoto ‘gold’, bcms zlato) may pertain to the peri-
p
od of Venetian rule in the town of Bar (1402–1412, 1422–1429, 1443–1571). During
the Ottoman rule in the region of Bar (1571–1878), the variety of the Mrkovići
adopted a considerable number of Turkish loanwords related to different se-
mantic groups: household, food, dishes and utensils, clothes, kinship, religion,
etc. Some phonological and structural changes in the Mrkovići variety, such as
the innovative distribution of the bcms lateral approximants l and lj, and the
emergence of the construction with the preposition ge that takes nominative
case (ge kuća ‘at home’, cf. Alb te shtëpia), result from the influence of North-
western Gheg Albanian, which is spoken in the south of Montenegro and the
northwest of Albania. The innovations may have appeared due to the presence
of an Albanian element in some of the Mrkovići villages and the (partial) bi-
lingualism of the people in the Mrkovići area, who shepherded livestock in the
same areas as Albanians, went to the markets of Bar and Shkodra, and estab-
lished kinship ties with their Albanian-speaking neighbours.
Nowadays, specific features of the Mrkovići variety occur mainly in the
speech of the middle-aged and older generations. The linguistic choice of the
younger generation is affected by public institutions, such as education and
media, and by communication with non-Mrkovići speakers outside their native
villages. Consequently, they tend to speak crnogorsko ‘Montenegrin’, the Eastern
­Hercegovinian variety of Ijekavian Neo-Štokavian spoken across most of Mon-
tenegro and used as the basis for the standardized Montenegrin language.
bcms-Albanian bilingualism is characteristic of the Mrkovići villages locat-
ed next to the Albanian area of Ana e Malit. For example, most of the popula-
tion in Velja Gorana is bilingual in bcms and Albanian, and almost all male
and female children learn Albanian from their mothers and grandmothers
who originate from Ana e Malit, Ulcinj, and from other nearby parts of Albania
(Morozova, 2017: 67). Similar observations were made by Serbian scholars of
the last century in Pelinkovići, Međureč, Ljeskovac, Vukići, and “the lower part
of Gorana” (Jovićević, 1922: 113; Vujović, 2012 [1969]: 20), and we may conclude
that in the bordering part of the Mrkovići area this situation is constantly re-
produced within generations (Sobolev, 2015: 545). In the rest of the Mrkovići
settlements, only women from Albanian and mixed villages of the area are bi-
lingual in Albanian and bcms. They are expected to use the local variety of
bcms and not to speak Albanian to their children, members of their house-
hold or neighbours.

1.4 Lexical Borrowings from Albanian to Slavic: General Remarks and

the Case of the Mrkovići
Since philologists such as Franz Miklosich and Gustav Meyer first drew atten-
tion to Slavic loanwords in Albanian in the nineteenth century, contacts of

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Language Contact in Social Context 317

Albanians and South Slavs and the mutual influence of their languages have
received a wide range of interpretations by scholars both from the Balkans and
from outside the region. An exhaustive reference to earlier developments in
this field is given, for example, in the recent works of Curtis (2012a), Omari
(2012), and Sobolev (2013). Slavic vocabulary in Albanian has been the topic
of considerable research, including classical investigations into language and
cultural contact (Seliščev, 1931), recent works on geographic distribution of
Slavic loanwords (Ylli, 1997), and dictionaries and etymological studies (for
more information, see bibliography in Sobolev, 2012). Conversely, scholarship
on Albanian influence in the South Slavic languages is less comprehensive, al-
though still valuable. Most recently, this topic has been dealt with in mono-
graphs by Murati (1990), Stanišić (1995), Hoxha (2001), Blaku (2010), and Omari
(2012). Table 1, below, shows some examples of Albanian borrowings in Mace-
donian dialects and in the bcms dialects of Kosovo, Montenegro and Southern
Serbia.4
It has been systematically shown that Albanian influence in the South Slav-
ic lexis is most visible in the semantic fields associated with crop farming and
cattle breeding, animal names, vegetation, and the landscape (Çabej, 1970: 11).
Albanian borrowings have also added terms to semantic areas related to ethi-
cal qualities of people, for example, besa ‘oath, word of honour’ and tremnija
‘bravery’. A number of loanwords have been incorporated into the semantic
fields consisting of universal concepts that are typically expressed by indig-
enous words in practically every language, and thus are typologically least
amenable to borrowing, such as kinship, body parts, and sense perception
(Tadmor, 2009: 64–65).Transfer of new lexemes along with new concepts (the
so-called cultural borrowing) is said to be one of the most important reasons
for borrowing (Haspelmath, 2008: 50). However, many of loanwords proper
from Albanian in the South Slavic languages do not stand for objects or con-
cepts new to the Slavic cultures (see the examples like kodra ‘hill’ and kećav
‘bad’ in Table  1) and cannot be treated as cultural borrowings, in contradis-
tinction to the numerous attested words from Ottoman Turkish or Greek in
different South Slavic languages and dialects. Rather, they add alternative lexi-
cal items for the denomination of concepts already familiar to Slavic speakers.
This is salient also for borrowings from South Slavic into Albanian, which are
much larger in number (Curtis, 2012b: 11), and for similar contact situations
within bilingual communities of the Balkans, where the Albanian language is
involved. For example, the Greek dialect of Palasa, a village in the southern
4

4 Abbreviations used in this table: Kos – Kosovo, Mk – Macedonia, Mne – Montenegro, S. Srb –
Southern Serbia.

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318 Morozova

Table 1 Borrowings from Albanian in the dialects of South Slavic languages, based on
(Murati, 1990; Stanišić, 1995; Hoxha, 2001)

semantic field meaning Slavic Albanian

cattle breeding whey ira (Mne, Kos) hirrë, Def. hirra

cow with reddish- kućeša (Mne, Kos) kuqeshë, Def. kuçesha
brown hair
abstract nouns soul špirta (f.) (Kos) shpirt, Def. shpirti
oath besa (Mne, Kos, S. (m.)
Srb, Mk) besë, Def. besa

bravery tremnija (Kos) Reg Gheg trimni, Def.

trimnija
nature and hill kodra (Mne) kodër, Def. kodra
landscape bat ljakurić (Mne) lakuriq, Def. lakuriqi
material culture household goods teša (Kos) tesha (Pl.)
characteristics of friend mik (Kos) mik, Def. miku
people deaf person šurlan (Kos) shurdh, Def. shurdhi
social organization descent group fis (Mne, Kos, Mk) fis, Def. fisi
and family son bir (Kos, Mk) bir, Def. biri
daughter-in-law nusa (Mk) nuse, Def. nusja
godfather kumbara (Kos) kumbarë, Def.
kumbara
verbs make a mistake gabonjat (Mne) gaboj
adjectives bad kećav (Mne, Kos) i keq
other words only več (Kos) veç
that (complementiser) ći (Kos) që, Reg Gheg qi

Albanian Himara district, shows a moderate but substantial number of core

borrowings from Albanian, i.e. words for body parts: supi ‘shoulder’ from Alb
sup, Def. supi; with skep ‘shoulder’ in the local Albanian and Standard Greek
ώμος ‘shoulder’ (Sobolev, 2017).
Bilingualism of the local rural communities was the main prerequisite
for structural borrowing from Albanian into the dialects of the South Slavic
language spoken in the Western Balkans. Idiomatic phrases calqued from Al-
banian are found in the dialects of Macedonian and in the varieties of bcms
spoken in Kosovo and particularly in Montenegro. Cf. ne je mi oko, a calque
from Alb s’ma ha syri ‘I do not think I can do it’ (lit. ‘my eye does not eat it’),

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Language Contact in Social Context 319

and konjski kamen ‘blue vitriol’ (lit. ‘horse’s stone’) from Alb gurkali where the
second part kal ‘blue’ was interpreted as bcms konj ‘horse’ because of its simi-
larity with Alb kalë ‘horse’, and others (Omari, 2012: 389). As Curtis (2012a: 74)
suggests, the very fact that, unlike the lexical borrowings, Albanian gave about
an equal number of idiomatic phrases to Slavic as it took, may be explained “by
the different linguistic processes involved in phrasal semantics and in borrow-
ing and the different sociolingustic settings that encourage the incorporation
of structural material.”
Table  2, below, takes a closer look at the vocabulary of the variety of the
Mrkovići in southern Montenegro. Most examples are extracted from the first
description of the dialect (Vujović, 2012 [1969]), where over 100 borrowings of
Romance, Ottoman Turkish and Albanian origin are listed. As Vujović (2012
[1969]: 291) argues, borrowings often coexist with the native words of similar
meaning, and this is shown in the table. Examples of loanwords related to the
semantic fields “costume” and “body parts” come from the most recent contri-
butions to the study of the Mrkovići lexicon (Sobolev, 2015; Novik and Sobolev,
2016).
Borrowed items fall into different semantic fields and sometimes more than
two lexemes of different origin and similar meaning coexist in the dialect. In-
direct borrowing is a possible scenario for some of the words, such as domatija
‘tomato’, which was possibly borrowed in the Mrkovići variety through Alb
domate, Def. domatja (as it is seen from the Table 1, feminine Albanian nouns
are regularly borrowed into Slavic in their definite form in -a and become iden-
tified with the Slavic feminine nouns in -a). Turkic kinship terms like dajo ‘ma-
ternal uncle’ and words like zagar ‘hunting dog’ and damar ‘vein’ may have
either Ottoman Turkish or Albanian as an immediate source for the variety of
the Mrkovići, cf. Alb dajë, zagar, damar. Oriental loanwords for clothes listed
in the Table 2 refer to the Muslim female costume, which was adopted by the
Mrkovići after their convertion to Islam and had celebratory functions in this
community (Novik and Sobolev, 2016: 22); thus they can be probably treated
as cultural borrowings. On the opposite, the words borrowed from Albanian
contribute to the lexical variety of the dialect, rather than introduce a new
way of life. Some of them are better known in the bilingual than the mono-
lingual “true Mrkovići” villages, cf. damar ‘vein’ registered in Velja Gorana and
the corresponding native word veana in Lunje (Sobolev, 2015: 556), Albanian
borrowing kaprcol ‘steps’ used mostly in Mala and Velja Gorana, and mulatarti
‘tomato’ found only in Vukići (Vujović 2012 [1969]: 291–292).
The cited works provide almost no evidence for calquing in lexicon and
phraseology of the Mrkovići variety. Vujović (2012 [1969]: 293) and Sobolev
(2015: 544) give a rare, but valuable example of the names of the autumn

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 320 Morozova

Table 2 Lexical borrowings in the Mrkovići variety, based on (Vujović 2012 [1969]; Sobolev,
2015; Novik and Sobolev, 2016)

semantic field meaning Mrkovići origin

kinship terms grandfather đet bcms ded / đed

đuš Alb gjysh
maternal uncle ujak bcms ujak
dajo Tr dayı
crop farming and tomato paradajz Sr, Mne paradajz, from Germ.
vegetation Austr. Paradeiser
domatija Alb domate, Def. domatja
from Gr ντομάτa (borrowing
from Spanish tomate in most
European languages)
frenk Tr Frenk ‘foreigner’
mulatarti Gheg Alb mollatart, Def.
mollatarti ‘tomato’ (“golden
apple”), from It pomodoro
names of animals hunting dog peas bcms pas
bidzin Unclear origin
zagar Tr zağar
household terms steps preslo bcms preslo
skala It scala
kaprcol Alb kapërcell
water tank pus Alb pus
bisternja It cistern
kuj Tr kuyu
aus Tr havuz
sarandža Tr sarnıç, Acc. sarnıcı
clothes waistcoat džamadan Tr camedan ‘wardrobe’
silk belt (pas) trbulus Ar Ṭarābulus and Tr Trablus
‘Tripoli’
body parts vein veana bcms vena
dammar Tr dammar

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Language Contact in Social Context 321

months prvi jeseni ‘September’, drugi jeseni ‘October’, and treći jeseni ‘Novem-
ber’ (lit. ‘first / second / third of autumn’), which are obviously calques from Al-
banian vjeshtë e parë, vjeshtë e dytë, and vjeshtë e tretë. Our field observations in
the bilingual village of Velja Gorana indicate that loan translations, or calques
often emerge (maybe spontaneously) in the speech of its natives and the Al-
banian women. Cf. truškaju se babi, a calque from Albanian shkunden plakat
‘snow falls heavily (about the weather deterioration in the end of March)’ (lit.
‘old women are shaking’), cited also in (Sobolev, 2015: 545), and ne cepam glavu
from Albanian nuk çaj kokën ‘I don’t care’ (lit. ‘I do not split my head’).

2 Data, Sources and Methodology of the Study

The main data for this study were collected during fieldwork in the area of
the Mrkovići located in the municipality of Bar in southern Montenegro. From
2012 to 2016 several field trips to this area were conducted by Andrej Sobolev
(Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ils ras)
and SPbSU), Aleksandr Novik (Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and
Ethnography “Kunstkamera” (mae ras) and SPbSU), myself, Maria Morozova
(ils ras and SPbSU), Denis Ermolin (mae ras), Aleksandra Dugušina (mae
ras), and Anastasia Makarova (ils ras). The research team focused on the
linguistic and cultural study of the local community and its relationship with
the neighbouring communities; for more information about the project, see
(Sobolev, 2015; Novik and Sobolev, 2016; Morozova, 2017).
The material on kinship terms was gathered using the questionnaire of The
small dialect atlas of the Balkan languages (kbsa / MДAБЯ), which consists
of 2,050 vocabulary items divided into 12 semantic fields (Domosileckaja and
Žugra, 1997). The field Family and family etiquette contains 180 items, including
consanguineal, affinal and ritual kinship terminology, terms associated with
family structure, and forms of address to family members. The author inter-
viewed four female and three male speakers, aged 65 to 80, in Lunje, Dabezići,
Dobra Voda, and Velja Gorana. Most of them were born in these villages, except
for two female speakers who came to the Mrkovići area through marriage and
have been living about 50 years in the community. The information about the
use of kinship terms in everyday communication was obtained mainly through
participant observation.
The comparative data for analysis of lexical borrowings is based on the dic-
tionaries of Albanian (Çabej, 1976–2014; Orel, 1998; Thomai et al., 2002; Diz-
dari, 2005), bcms (Tolstoj, 1957; Škaljić, 1966; Skok, 1971–1973; Stevanović et al.,
1990 [1967–1976]; Loma, 1998–2008) and other languages (Scurtu, 1966; Geor-
giev et al., 1971–2010; Holiolčev et al., 2012), The small dialect atlas of the Balkan

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322 Morozova

­languages (Sobolev, 2005; 2006), The dialectological atlas of the Albanian lan-
guage (Gjinari et al., 2008), and the related literature (Hammel, 1957; Trubačev,
1959; Bjeletić, 1994; 1995; Žugra, 1998).
Although the previously collected lexical data from the area of the Mrkovići
include mainly loanwords proper of different origin, it is likely that the socio-
lingustic and historical setting in this area encouraged different types of trans-
fer phenomena. In most studies on language contact, such phenomena are
classified into those due to borrowing, or transfer of lexical material, and those
due to imposition of linguistic structures, as in (van Coetsem, 1988; Winford,
2005), or divided from the point of view of the other classical dichotomy bor-
rowing vs. interference through shift by (Thomason and Kaufman, 1988), with
the emphasis on the socio-historical aspect of contact. Obviously, these theo-
retical types hardly exist in pure form in the bilingual societies of the world. In
the regions where the populations intermingle through mixed marriages and
have other close social relations since historic times, linguistic results of con-
tact situations may “come about either through borrowing or through shift, or
(perhaps most likely) through a combination of the two processes” (Thomason
and Kaufman, 1988: 68).
This article attempts to trace different linguistic results of bcms-Albanian
contact, related to either material or structural borrowing, in the semantic field
of kinship terms of the Mrkovići variety. In accordance with Martin Haspel-
math’s definition, “[m]aterial borrowing refers to borrowing of soundmeaning
pairs (generally lexemes, or more precisely lexeme stems, but sometimes just
affixes, and occasionally perhaps entire phrases), while structural borrowing
refers to the copying of syntactic, morphological and semantic patterns (e.g.
word order patterns, case-marking patterns, semantic patterns such as kinship
term systems)” (Haspelmath, 2009: 38–39). We assume that a number of loan-
words that can be referred to as material borrowing, calques (or loan transla-
tions) that are an important type of structural borrowing, as well as transfer of
semantic patterns can be expected in the kinship terminologies of this area,
with the constant presence of some Albanian speakers shifting to bcms. We
assume that some of the changes in the kinship terminology of the Mrkovići
are due to imposition from Albanian, which is spoken mainly by women and
transferred to their bilingual children. Given the fact that the proportion of
borrowings from Albanian and their usage is subject to variation within the
Mrkovići variety, we attempt to show how it relates to the situation in the cur-
rently monolingual and bilingual villages of the Mrkovići area. In addition, we
discuss the role of the Ottoman Turkish in the way of life and languages of the
Muslim communities in southern Montenegro, because Turkic borrowings ap-
pear to be typical for the system of kinship terms we analyse here.

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Language Contact in Social Context 323

3 Kinship Terminology of the Mrkovići: Borrowing versus Imposition

The kinship terminology of the Mrkovići variety is generally comparable with

that of the bcms, which is structured differently from those of Albanian and
Turkish (see Appendix). The kinship terminlology of bcms represents an ex-
ample of a highly diverse Slavonic system, which distinguishes generation lev-
els and makes further distinctions within these levels on the basis of criteria
such as lineality and collaterality, sex of the relative, sex of the linking relative,
and sometimes sex of the speaker (Hammel, 1957; Bjeletić, 1994; Sobolev, 2006).
The bcms terminology is a variant of the Sudanese, or descriptive system, one
of the six major kinship systems identitfied in Lewis H. Morgan’s anthropo-
logical work on systems of consanguinity and affinity (Morgan 1871). Several
groupings of relatives in bcms are inconsistent with the Sudanese type. For
example, bcms distinguishes patrilineal and matrilineal uncles but merges
mother’s sister and father’s sister in one term, while in Sudanese all kins have
separate designations.
Contact influence from other languages and cultures, particularly Albanian
and Turkish, is mostly responsible for the specific features in the kinship ter-
minology of the Mrkovići. Turkish and Albanian systems (see Appendix) dis-
tinguish patrilineal and matrilineal uncles and aunts, and merge brother and
sister’s children into one term.

3.1 Consanguineal Kinship and Terminology

Most of the words specific for the Mrkovići variety in our sample relate to the
terminology used for referring to and addressing the elder blood relatives.
Elderly speakers claim that these terms, which are not typical for the neigh-
bouring bcms dialects, were used within the Mrkovići community during
their childhood in the first half of the twentieth century, and evaluate them as
“old”, “correct and pertaining to our language”: pravo mrkovsko ‘true Mrkovići
[word]’, pravo goransko ‘true Gorana [word]’, star izrek ‘old expression’.
In most cases, the “true Mrkovići” lexemes do not completely substitute the
general bcms terms, and the two words designate one and the same kin (see
Tables 3 and 6). However, the members of such pairs often follow the typologi-
cally common pattern that is “for one member to be more frequent in vocative
and egocentric uses” (Dahl and Koptjevskaja-Tamm, 2001: 217). Speakers prefer
the “true Mrkovići” words when addressing their relatives, while the bcms na-
tive lexemes are used predominantly for reference. Parents, their siblings and
grandparents are normally addressed with kinship terms, while younger gener-
ations are usually addressed with personal names. Like in Albanian and bcms,
the Mrkovići kinship terms for the closest relatives can be used for addressing

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324 Morozova

Table 3 Terms for lineal relatives

meaning Mrkovići bcms

father oteac, otac otac

baba, Voc. babo baba
mother majka, Voc. majko majka
neana, nana nana, nena
son sin, Voc. sine sin
daughter ćerka, kćer ćerka
grandfather đet, deda, Voc. dedo ded
đišo (only Voc.) -
grandmother baba, Voc. babo baba
grandson unuk unuk
granddaughter unuka, unukica unuka
great-grandfather prađet praded
great-grandmother prababa prababa
great-grandson praunuk praunuk
great-granddaughter praunuka praunuka
great-great-grandfather šukunđet čukunded
great-great-grandmother šukunbaba čukunbaba
ancestor šukunđet čukunded
đetprađet -

the affinal relatives and non-relatives. For example, women in the Mrkovići use
the terms for mother and father in talking to their in-laws.
The comparative data in the Table 3 shows that most of the terminology for
the closest relatives in the direct line is not subject to the contact. Instead, the
variety of the Mrkovići preserves archaic forms (kćer ‘daughter’) and typical
bcms address models (Voc. sine is used by elder people as a form of address
to a grandson or granddaughter, and to a young male or female person). Al-
though the elaborate kinship system of bcms includes specific terminology
for the fifth and further ascending and descending generations, these terms
are not found in the dialect (cf. the use of šukunded ‘great-great-grandfather’
to refer to the more remote ancestors). Evidence from other areas also shows
that most bcms speakers do seldom use or forget them completely: people do
not keep thorough genealogies, and the corresponding words become obsolete
(Bjeletić, 1994: 200).
Bilingual natives of Velja Gorana, where the bcms-Albanian contact is on-
going, regularly used the word đetprađet, a calque from Albanian gjyshstërgjysh

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Language Contact in Social Context 325

‘ancestor’ (gjysh ‘grandfather’ + stërgjysh ‘great-grandfather’), when talking

about remote ancestors. An Albanian borrowing đišo (Alb gjysh ‘grandfather’)
in the Slavic form of Vocative, according to our observations, appears as a form
of address to the grandfather only in the speech of children in Velja Gorana.
The terms baba and neana are treated as “true Mrkovići” words for father
and mother, and frequently appear in vocative uses. As it is well known from
the literature, such kinship terms may converge even throughout historically
unrelated languages, as different languages tend to develop them on the ba-
sis of nursery forms (Murdock, 1959; Trubačev, 1959). To that extent, it is not
clear if the term neana / nana ‘mother’ is a native or borrowed item in the
variety of the Mrkovići. Words with the same root and similar meaning can be
found in Albanian, bcms and the other Slavic languages, as well as in Turkish.
Cf. Tr nine ‘mother; grandmother’; Alb nënë, Def. nëna (Gheg nãn, Def. nãna)
‘mother; grandmother; old woman’ (Gjinari et al. 2008: 220–221); bcms nana,
nena ‘idem’, Ukr nenja ‘mother’, Reg Bg nane, Reg Pl nana ‘mother’, and others
(Trubačev, 1959: 30).
As for baba ‘father’, etymologists consider it to be a Balkan Turcism, from the
Turkish nursery form baba ‘father; old man; grandfather’ (Skok, 1971: 83; Çabej,
1976: 119–120; Bjeletić, 1995: 206). Cf. bcms baba; Alb baba, Def. babai (Gheg
bab, Def. baba); Bg and Mk baba; Gk μπαμπάς; Rom babac(ă), babaie. Since
bcms has native Slavic babblewords tata ‘father’ and baba ‘grandmother’, bor-
rowing of baba ‘father’ from Turkish, directly or indirectly through Albanian,
seems to be a plausible explanation for the emergence of this word in it, as well
as in the Mrkovići variety.
A phenomenon that attracts attention in the Mrkovići variety is the innova-
tive distinction between terms for older relatives on the father’s and mother’s
sides. The terms used for the distinction are either native or borrowed com-
pounds composed of a noun and an adjective. Terms for paternal grandpar-
ents, babostari and nanastara, show the Balkan Slavic semantic pattern ‘old +
mother / father’, originally standing for grandparents in general in Bulgarian
and bcms, but a non-Slavic structure. The adjective follows the noun, which is
a typical word order for noun phrases and the related compounds in Albanian:
babamadh ‘paternal grandfather’, nanamadhe ‘maternal grandmother’ (Gjinari
et al., 2008: 234-237).
The alternative term for paternal grandfather, babovejlji, follows the seman-
tic pattern ‘big + father / mother’, which is widespread in the non-Slavic lan-
guages of the Balkans and beyond. One may suppose that either Turkish or
Albanian could have an effect on the variety of the Mrkovići. Given the lack of
semantically and structurally similar words in the dialects of the other bcms-
speaking Muslims (in Montenegro, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Kosovo, etc.) and
the order of elements in the Mrkovići compound with the adjective f­ ollowing

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326 Morozova

Table 4 Terms for paternal and maternal grandparents

meaning Mrkovići semantic pattern comparative data

paternal grandfather babostari ‘old’ + ‘father’ bcms stariotac, staritata

‘grandfather’
Bg star bašta, stari tato
‘grandfather’
stari ‘old’ bcms stari ‘grandfather’
babovejlji ‘big’ + ‘father’ Alb babamadh ‘paternal
grandfather’
Rom tata mare
‘grandfather’
Tr büyük baba
‘grandfather’
Eng grandfather, Fr grand-
père, Germ Großvater
paternal grandmother nanastara ‘old’ + ‘mother’ bcms staramajka,
staramati, staramama
‘grandmother’
Bg stara majka
‘grandmother’
stara ‘old’ bcms stara ‘grandmother’
nanababa ‘mother’ + ‘father’ Gheg Alb nanbabe, Def.
nanbabja
maternal grandfather babodajn ‘father’ + ‘maternal Gheg Alb babdaj, Def.
uncle’ babdaja
maternal grandmother dajna ‘maternal uncle’ + Cf. bcms strina ‘wife
-na ‘wife of’ of paternal uncle’ (stric
‘paternal uncle’ + -na)

the noun, Albanian influence is the more plausible explanation. The term
nanababa ‘paternal grandmother’ seems to be motivated by Albanian nanbabe
‘idem’, which is specific for the town of Shkodra and the area to the north of it
(Gjinari et al., 2008: 234–235).
The nomination for maternal grandfather, babodajn, where babo is ‘fa-
ther’ and daj(i)n is a possessive adjective from daja ‘uncle on the mother’s
side’, seems to be borrowed from or motivated by Albanian babdaja ‘maternal
grandfather’. This term occurs in the Northwestern Gheg dialect of Albanian
to the south of Shkodra, while in the other northern Gheg dialects this relative

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Language Contact in Social Context 327

can be referred to just as daja (Gjinari et al., 2008: 240-241). The Mrkovići term
for maternal grandmother, dajna, is probably derived from the correspond-
ing term for her husband by means of an andronymic affix -na, much like the
South Slavic stric ‘paternal uncle’ – strina ‘wife of the paternal uncle’.
A similar contact-induced lexical enrichment in the field of kinship
­terminology is observed in some other varieties of bcms, Bulgarian and
Macedonian spoken in bilingual communities. For example, the variety
­
of Macedonian spoken in Golo Brdo in the northeast of Albania makes use of
various terms for grandparents: dedo / babo star / babođiš ‘grandfather’, baba /
staramajka / nəna stara / nənađiša ‘grandmother’ (Morozova, 2013: 99-103). The
words babođiš and nənađiša originate from the local Albanian variety, where
they stand only for paternal grandparents (Sobolev, 2006: 96–97; Gjinari et al.,
2008: 236–237). The native term staramajka ‘grandmother’ is used along with
babo star ‘grandfather’ and nəna stara ‘grandmother’, both following the Alba-
nian structural pattern with the adjective following the noun. None of these
terms expresses the distinction between paternal and maternal side. By con-
trast, in the Mrkovići variety, the borrowing of lexical material occurred to-
gether with the imposition of the associated structural and semantic patterns,
and resulted in changes within the system of kinship terms.

Table 5 Terms for siblings and their children

meaning Mrkovići bcms Albanian

brother brat, Voc. brate brat vëlla

sister sesra, sestra sestra motër
nephew unuk unuk ‘grandson’ nip ‘grandson; nephew’
bratanić bratanić ‘son of the nip ‘grandson; nephew’
female speaker’s
brother’
sesrić sestrić ‘son of the nip ‘grandson; nephew’
female speaker’s sister’5
niece unuka unuka ‘granddaughter’ mbesë ‘granddaughter;
niece’
5

5 This part of the questionnaire was completed only by female speakers. Therefore it does not
reflect the bcms distinction of nieces and nephews based on the sex of the speaker (sinovac
‘son of a male person’s brother’ vs. bratić ‘son of a female person’s brother’, nećak ‘son of a
male person’s sister’ vs. sestrić ‘son of a female person’s sister’), if it exists at all in the Mrkovići
variety.

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328 Morozova

The terms for siblings (brothers and sisters) and their children (nieces and
nephews) are only native in the variety of the Mrkovići. However, the native
terms bratanić ‘brother’s son’ and sesrić ‘sister’s son’, with the suffix -ić indicat-
ing the descent, occur in this meaning rarely and only in the speech of the
non-native inhabitants of the Mrkovići area. In referring to the brother’s and
sister’s children, the native Mrkovići most frequently use constructions with
possessive adjectives derived from the corresponding terms for siblings, such
as bratov sin ‘brother’s son’.
In the Mrkovići variety, grandchildren and nephews often merge into one
term, which is not characteristic of the Slavic languages. Similar structural
change is attested only in those Slavic-speaking areas where contact with non-
Slavic languages was or is in place. Some evidence from the bcms dialects spo-
ken in the areas of Slavic and Romance convergence is provided in (Bjeletić,
1994: 200). In the variety of Klokotić / Clocotici (Romania), the Romanian se-
mantic pattern was copied: unuk means both ‘grandson’ and ‘nephew’, cf. Rom
nepot ‘grandson; nephew’. The variety of Split in Croatia demonstrates both
material and pattern borrowing under the Romance (Dalmatian?) influence:
neput ‘grandson; nephew’. Also in some Macedonian and Bulgarian dialects
the native terms mnuk ‘grandson’ and mnuka ‘granddaughter’ have developed
additional meanings of ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’, according to (Sobolev, 2006: 104–
105, 136–145).
In the case of the Mrkovići variety, on the one hand, one may also assume
that the use of one and the same term for grandchildren and nephews is due
to the Romance influence that took place during the Venetian rule in Monte-
negro, at least among the old-time population. On the other hand, this seman-
tic pattern could be copied into the Mrkovići variety from Albanian, where
­grandchildren and siblings’ children are also merged into one term: Alb nip
‘grandson; nephew’, mbesë ‘granddaughter; niece’. The historical prevalence of
mixed marriages with Albanians in a part of the area, which resulted in the
presence of Albanian women in many Mrkovići families, points at a higher
possibility of the latter hypothesis.
The variety of the Mrkovići uses pairs of native bcms and borrowed terms in
referring to and addressing the mother’s and father’s siblings, with borrowings
occurring more frequently in vocative use. The borrowed terms adža ‘paternal
uncle’, daja ‘maternal uncle’, ala ‘paternal aunt’, and teza ‘maternal aunt’ in the
Table 6 derive from Turkish amca, dayɩ, hala and teyze ‘idem’. Loanwords of this
kind are found elsewhere in the Balkan Slavic and in non-Slavic languages, as
the comparative data in the Table 6 shows. The widespread emergence of bor-
rowings from the politically dominant Turkish language could be influenced
by the factors outlined in Friedman (2005: 28): “while Turkish functioned as a

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Language Contact in Social Context 329

Table 6 Terms for mother’s and father’s siblings

meaning Mrkovići comparative data

paternal uncle sric, stric bcms stric

adža, Voc. adžo Tr amca (Reg amɩca, amuca)
Gheg Alb axhë, Def. axha
bcms adža, adžo, amidža
Bg amudža, Mk adžo
maternal uncle ujak bcms ujak
daja, Voc. dajo Tr dayɩ
Alb dajë, Def. daja
bcms daidža, daja
Bg daja, dajčo
Meg daiă
aunt tetka bcms tetka
paternal aunt ala Tr hala
Alb hallë, Def. halla
bcms ala ‘aunt’
Bg ale, hala ‘maternal (sic!) aunt’
‘maternal aunt’ teza Tr teyze
Alb teze, Def. tezja
bcms teza, teze ‘aunt’
Bg tejza, teze ‘aunt; husband’s sister’

marker of urban identity in the [Ottoman] Empire, in rural areas it also func-
tioned as a marker of Muslim identity among groups who adopted Islam with-
out a language shift. This is especially salient in the case of Slavic-speaking
Muslims (Pomaks and Torbeš) as well as Albanian-speaking Muslims.” This is
true also for the Mrkovići who converted to Islam in the e­ ighteenth century
(Vujović, 2012 [1969]: 16).
As demonstrated in Table 6, in addition to the native bcms distinction of pa-
ternal and maternal uncles, the variety of the Mrkovići has developed a distinc-
tion between paternal and maternal aunts, which is expressed only by means
of the Turkish borrowings ala and teza. Bjeletić (1995: 208–209) notes that both
ala and teza mean simply ‘aunt’ in most bcms dialects where they occur, and
it is only the varieties of the Mrkovići and of the village Janjevo in Kosovo that
distinguish between the father’s and mother’s side. It is ­noteworthy that both

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Table 7 Terms for cousins

meaning Mrkovići semantic pattern comparative data

male cousin bratić ‘brother (not full)’ bcms bratić

‘brother’s son’
Cr bratić ‘male
cousin’
bratanić ‘brother (not full)’ bcms bratanić
‘brother’s son’
brat od ujaka ‘brother from the side bcms brat od ujaka
of the maternal uncle’
dajin sin, dete dajino ‘maternal uncle’s son’ Gheg Alb djali dajs
female cousin sesrica ‘sister (not full)’ bcms sestrica,
diminutive of ‘sister’
sesra od ujaka ‘sister from the side of bcms sestra od ujaka
the maternal uncle’
dajina đevojka ‘maternal uncle’s Gheg Alb vajza dajs
daughter’
cousins adžovci (only Pl.) ‘related through bcms stričevići
paternal uncle’ (and adžovci
used in Muslim
communities)
ujaci (only Pl.) ‘related through bcms ujčevići
maternal uncle’
tetkinčići (only Pl.) ‘related through aunt’ bcms tetići, tetkići

dialects exist in close contact with Albanian, which has adopted the original
Turkish distinction of paternal and maternal aunts.
The variety of the Mrkovići generally preserves the bcms terminological
pattern, where siblings are distinguished from cousins, and different terms are
used for cousins depending on their sex and on the linking relative. The elder
informants born in the different villages of the Mrkovići area also report the
use of bratić and bratanić for denomination of cousins, while the younger in-
formants and people who do not originate from the Mrkovići use these terms
to denote nephews, as in general bcms (cf. Table 5 with comments). A similar
merger happens in Croatian, according to (Hammel, 1957: 48). In most other
bcms varieties, these terms refer to a person who descends from the speaker’s

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Language Contact in Social Context 331

brother, with the descent marked by the suffix -ić (Skok, 1971: 200). In the case
of the variety of the Mrkovići, the suffix, probably, loses its original meaning
and only indicates the idea that a person called bratić or bratanić is different
from brat, i.e. he is not full brother.6 The same can be said about sesrica ‘female
cousin’, where -ic loses its meaning as a diminutive suffix.
Many native bcms terms of common Slavic origin like stričević ‘son of pater-
nal uncle’ and stričev(ić)ka ‘daughter of paternal uncle’, ujaković / ujčević ‘son
of maternal uncle’ and ujčev(ić)ka ‘daughter of maternal uncle’, tetić / tetković
‘aunt’s son’ and tetićna ‘aunt’s daughter’ are not used by the Mrkovići variety
speakers. Our interviews showed that most of the speakers know these terms
only passively. Some of them occur only in plural, such as ujaci ‘cousins, one of
which is the son or daughter of the other’s maternal uncle’ and tetkinčići ‘cous-
ins, one of which is the son or daughter of the other’s aunt’. The native deriva-
tion pattern is also used with non-native terms, which are fully integrated into
the Mrkovići lexicon, for example, adžovci from adža ‘paternal uncle’.
On the other hand, the variety of the Mrkovići makes extensive use of ana-
lytical constructions for denomination of cousins, which follow two different
semantic patterns. The first pattern, ‘brother / sister from uncle’s / aunt’s side’
is characteristic of the native bcms expressions structured as genitival phrases
with the preposition od ‘from’: brat od ujaka ‘brother from the maternal uncle’s
side’. The second construction is of the kind ‘uncle’s / aunt’s son / daughter’
and includes possessive adjectives derived from terms for aunts and uncles
by means of the suffixes -ov and -in: dajin sin ‘maternal uncle’s son’. The latter
semantic pattern compares with that of Albanian, where the terminology for
cousins includes only general terms kushëri ‘male cousin’ and kushërirë ‘female
cousin’, while further distinction is drawn by means of genitival phrases of the
kind ‘son / daughter of uncle / of aunt’: djali dajs ‘son of maternal uncle’ in the
local variety of Gheg Albanian.

3.2 Affine Kinship and Terminology

The affine kinship nomenclature of the Mrkovići variety contains the entire set
of common Slavic terms for in-laws, with internal differentiation depending on
whether the link is through a husband or a wife. Borrowings from Turkish are
few, while material and structural borrowings from Albanian, with its less di-
verse affine terminology (see Appendix), do not occur in the Mrkovići variety.
The term badžanak in the Mrkovići variety derives from Turkish bacanak
‘wife’s sister’s husband’ and is widely borrowed throughout the Balkans, as
6

6 Cf. vëllam ‘brother in blood’ derived from vëlla ‘brother’ in Albanian.

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332 Morozova

Table 8 Affinal kinship terminology

meaning Mrkovići comparative data

husband’s father sekər / svekər bcms svekar

wife’s father tašt bcms tast
husband’s mother sekrva / svekrva / sekrvica bcms svekrva
wife’s mother tasta bcms tašta
husband’s brother dever / đever bcms dever
wife’s brother šura bcms šura
husband’s sister zeava / zaova bcms zaova
wife’s sister svastika bcms svastika
bealdeza bcms balgaza, balduza
Bg bald”za
Mk baldaza
husband’s brother’s wife jetrva bcms jetrva
wife’s sister’s husband badžanak Alb baxhanak
Arom bîginac
bcms, Bg and Mk badžanak
Gk μπατζανάκης
Meg băginac and bădzănac
sister-in-law neavesta / nevesta bcms nevesta
snaha bcms snaha
daughter-in-law neavesta / nevesta bcms nevesta
snaha bcms snaha
đeljina Bg gelina

shown in Table 8. It retains its original meaning of in all recipient languages,

including bcms and its varieties (Sobolev, 2006: 182–183). The word bealdeza,
from Turkish baldız ‘sister-in-law’, is borrowed mainly in the Balkan Slavic lan-
guages, such as Bulgarian, Macedonian, and bcms. In bcms balgaza, balduza
has acquired an additional meaning of ‘daughter-in-law’ (Bjeletić, 1995: 206)
and stands for two types of in-laws, replicating the semantic pattern for the
corresponding native terms nevesta and snaha ‘daughter-in-law; sister-in-law’.
The last Turkish word in the sample, đeljina from Tr gelin ‘bride; daughter-
in-law’, is not widespread in the Balkan languages (cf. only Bg gelina in the dia-
lect of Pomaks, the Rhodope area) and does not occur in bcms. In the Mrkovići
area, it was used in the old times to address the young d­ aughter-in-law, ­together

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Language Contact in Social Context 333

with the native terms neavesta / nevesta and snaha. A similar term gjelinë ‘bride;
newly-wed woman’ is found in the neighbouring Albanian varieties of Monte-
negro and in the variety of Shkodra in Albania (Dizdari, 2005: 302). Whereas
the origin of this borrowing in the Mrkovići variety is undoubtedly Turkish, the
immediate source may be either Turkish, or Albanian. The word belongs to the
common lexical stock of the Mrkovići variety and the neighbouring Albanian
dialects. Together with the other Ottoman Turkisms listed above, it makes part
of the linguistic evidence for the common cultural and historical development
of the Islamic population in the southern Montenegro and northwestern Alba-
nia during Ottoman times.

4 Conclusion

A brief overview of historical, ethnographic and sociolinguistic evidence of

Slavic-Albanian contact in the area of the Mrkovići pleme in southern Monte-
negro shows that the social context in which linguistic convergence took place
was favourable both for borrowing and imposition processes in the varieties
in contact. The intensity and character of social interaction between the local
ethnic groups, on one hand, and between the “old-timers” and “newcomers”
who settled in the area due to the population shifts of the Ottoman period,
on the other, varied over space and time. One of the general patterns (rather
idealized than existing) included a more or less equal relationship between the
two groups, the Mrkovići and Albanians, and a degree of mutual bilingualism,
which was confined to the individual speakers with full competence in both
languages. On the other hand, the processes of language shifts were possible at
small group (e.g. family) level as well as at individual level.
The analysis of Mrkovići kinship terminology presented in the article allows
us to observe how the two main mechanisms of contact-induced language
change developed in this part of lexicon, which involves high-frequency words
tightly connected to the conversational interactions of bilingual speakers in
everyday communication.
Borrowing, or adoption of lexemes from Ottoman Turkish in the Mrkovići
variety is moderate and restricted to the words for parents’ siblings and some
affine kinship terms, which are found in almost all Balkan languages, with
a particular inclination to the speech of bcms-speaking and Macedonian-
speaking Muslims. Considering the past social and political situation in the
south of Montenegro, we may assume that these items should have entered the
lexis of the Mrkovići variety and of the local Albanian variety mainly during

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334 Morozova

the seventeenth and eighteenth century, when the population of the area was
in the process of converting to Islam. Interestingly, along with the all-Balkan
traces of the Ottoman heritage in the variety of the Mrkovići we found some
specific borrowings (đelina / gjelinë) shared only by the Mrkovići and the Alba-
nian community of southern Montenegro and northwestern Albania. This fact
points at close relations of the two ethnic groups within what a topographi-
cally and politically single community, at least until the beginning of the twen-
tieth century and the establishment of the modern political borders.
Albanian influence in the kinship terminology of the Mrkovići variety main-
ly consists in loan translations, or calques, and copying of semantic patterns.
Among the semantic patterns of the Albanian kinship system adopted by the
Mrkovići, it is worth mentioning here the innovative distinction of grandpar-
ents from the father’s and mother’s sides, non-differentiation of grandchildren
and siblings’ children, and the denomination of cousins as ‘uncle’s / aunt’s
sons / daughters’. The inverse word order in the constructions for describing
paternal and maternal grandfathers is an example of calquing. Structural in-
novations are deeply rooted in the Mrkovići variety, as they were reported both
in monolingual and bilingual villages. We may assume that the emergence of
such innovations in the kinship terminology of Mrkovići is due to the influ-
ence of Albanian speakers (women married in the Mrkovići villages or other
Albanian-speaking people in the Mrkovići area) who acquired the Mrkovići
variety as second language. These speakers imposed properties from their dom-
inant (first, or native) language onto the language in which they were less pro-
ficient. The local bilingual speakers who extensively used Albanian since their
childhood then adopted the new terms and semantic patterns. Endogamous
ties and everyday communication between the families of the Mrkovići pleme
played a role in further distribution of the newly adopted structures within the
dialect.
Albanian borrowings, or loanwords proper, within the semantic group of
kinship terms are not substantial in number. The same is true for the com-
plete lexical stock of the Mrkovići variety and this complies with the situation
in the other Slavic varieties developing in contact with Albanian. According
to the observations made by different researchers in the area of the Mrkovići
(Vujović, 2012 [1969]; Sobolev, 2015; Novik and Sobolev, 2016), such borrow-
ings do not stand for new concepts, and only coexist with native words. They
emerge in the speech of bilinguals due to the sustained bilingualism and usage
of both languages in everyday communication. Consequently, their proportion
is higher in Velja Gorana and the other bilingual villages on the “border” with
Albanians than in the monolingual villages of the Mrkovići area.
Certainly, the analysis of a single semantic field, no matter how thorough,
will be insufficient to reconstruct the whole picture of linguistic interaction in

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Language Contact in Social Context 335

the area. Hence, further research should focus on a comprehensive investiga-

tion of lexicon, phonetics and phonology, and syntax of the Mrkovići variety
and the neighbouring Albanian dialects. The results will contribute to the un-
derstanding the history and sociolinguistic setting of Slavic-Albanian contact
in the territory of Montenegro and in the Balkans as a whole.

Acknowledgment

I wish to express my thanks to prof. Aleksandr Rusakov (ils ras, SPbSU), prof.
Andrej Sobolev (ils ras, SPbSU), the anonymous reviewers, and to the editor-
in-chief of the journal Henning Schreiber for their insightful comments on an
earlier draft of this article. This research was supported by the Russian Science
Foundation (Grant No. 14-18-01405).

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Appendix

The following abbreviations are used for convenience: F – father, M – mother,

B – brother, Ss – sister, S – son, D – daughter, H – husband, W – wife. Combina-
tions of abbreviations mean: MM – mother’s mother, HSs – husband’s sister,
fbw – father’s brother’s wife, etc. For collaterals, an additional abbreviation
(Masc.) is applied to show that the speaker who forms the central reference
point is male, while (Fem.) implies a female speaker. The tables do not entirely
show the dialectal diversity of the bcms and Albanian kinship terminologies,
e.g. the Turkish borrowings found in the bmcs dialects are not included.

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Language Contact in Social Context 341

Table 1 Consanguineal kinship terminology

abbreviation Serbian Albanian Turkish

F otac atë, baba baba, ata

M majka emë, nënë anne, ana
FF, MF ded gjysh dede, büyük baba
FF - babamadh -
MF - babagjysh, dajë -
FM, MM baba gjyshe nine, büyük anna
FM - nanëmadhe, nanbabe babaanne
MM - nënëdajë, joshë anneanne
FB stric ungj, xhaxha, axhë amca
MB ujak ungj, dajë dayı
FSs, MSs tetka emtë -
FSs tetka hallë hala
MSs tetka teze, teto teyze
S sin bir oğul
D ćerka bijë kız
SS, DS unuk nip torun
SD, DD unuka mbesë torun
B brat vëlla kardeş
Ss sestra motër kardeş
BS, SsS - nip yeğen
BS (Masc.) sinovac - -
BS (Fem.) bratan(ac), - -
brat(an)ić
SsS (Masc.) nećak - -
SsS (Fem.) sestrić, sestran - -
BD, SsD - mbesë yeğen
BD (Masc.) sinovica - -
BD (Fem.) bratan(ic)a, - -
brat(an)ična
SsD (Masc.) nećakinja - -
SsD (Fem.) sestrička, sestrana - -
fbs stričević, bratučed, kushëri, djali i xhaxhait amcazade
brat od strica

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342 Morozova

abbreviation Serbian Albanian Turkish

fbd stričevična, kushërirë, vajza e xhaxhait amcazade

bratučeda,
sestra od strica
mbs ujčević, kushëri, dayızade
brat od ujaka djali i dajës
mbd ujčevična, kushërirë, vajza e dajës dayızade
sestra od ujaka
FSsS tetić, kushëri, halazade
brat od tetke djali i hallës
FSsD tetična, kushërirë, vajza e hallës halazade
sestra od tetke
MSsS tetić, kushëri, tezak, djali i tezës teyzezade
brat od tetke
MSsD tetična, kushërirë, vajza e tezës teyzezade
sestra od tetke

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Language Contact in Social Context 343

Table 2 Affinal kinship terminology

abbreviation Serbian Albanian Turkish

H muž burrë, shoq koca

W žena grua, shoqe karı
HF svekar vjehërr (Def. vjehrri) kayınbaba, kaynata
WF tast vjehërr (Def. vjehrri) kayınbaba, kaynata
HM svekrva vjehërr (Def. vjehrra)kayınanne, kaynana
WM tašta vjehërr (Def. vjehrra)kayınanne, kaynana
HB dever kunat kayın
WB šura kunat kayın
HSs zaova kunatë görümce
WSs svastika kunatë baldız
SsH zet kunat enişte
FSsH tetak burri i hallës enişte
MSsH tetak burri i tezes enişte
BW nevesta, snaha kunatë yenge
fbw strina xhaxheshë, yenge
gruaja e xhaxhait
mbw ujna dajeshë, gruaja e yenge
dajës
DH zet dhëndër damat
SW nevesta, snaha nuse gelin
WSsH (reciprocal to the badžanak baxhanak bacanak
speaker)
hbw (reciprocal to the jetrva kunatë elti
speaker)

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