Research Notes
Заметки
Notes on the Dialect of Zhèrveni, Kostur Region, as Spoken by Their Descendants in Mustafapaşa and Cemilköy, Turkey
Larry Labro Koroloff
Independent researcher, Canada
Abstract
The article dwells upon the dialect of the people of Bulgarian origin in Mustafapaşa and Cemilköy, Turkey, descending from the village of Zhèrveni in Kostur region (Aegean Macedonia). The general outline of some peculiarities of the dialect's phonology is presented as well as some lexical differences between the Christian dialect in the neighbouring villages and the Muslim dialect of Zhèrveni. Three songs in Zhèrveni dialect are published for the first time.Keywords
Slavic dialects in Greece, dialects of Muslim Slavs, South-Slavic dialectal phonology
Заметки о диалекте с. Жéрвени (район Костура) у переселенцев в Мустафапаше и Джемилькёй (Турция)
Ларри Лабро Королов
Независимый исследователь, Канада
Резюме
В статье рассматривается диалект болгарских переселенцев в Мустафапаше и Джемилькёй (Турция), которые происходят из с. Жéрвени в районе Костура (Эгейская Македония). Представлен очерк некоторых фонологических особенностей диалекта, а также описание лексических различий между диалектом мусульман из Жéрвени и христиан из соседних сёл. Впервые публикуются три песни на жервенском диалекте.Ключевые слова
славянские диалекты в Греции, диалекты славян-мусульман, южнославянская диалектная фонология
Published in the journal Slověne, issue No. 2, 2012
The village of Zhèrveni is located in the valley of the Bàbchor River north of Kostur (Καστοριά in Greek) on the eastern edge of the Korèshcha, the district northwest of Kòstur. The villages of Chərnòvishcha and Drenòveni are found to the southwest of Zhèrveni, Pozdìvishcha to the west, and Konòmladi to the north. All of these villages are also in the Korèshcha. To the south lies the village of Shestèvo, to the southwest is Vìsheni and to the northeast is Babchor. These latter villages belong to the district of the Popòleto. Since 1912, Zhèrveni has been in Greece. In 1927 Zhèrveni was renamed Agios Antonios by the Greek government.
The only linguist who has dealt with the Zhèrveni dialect is André Mazon, who visited Zhèrveni after the end of World War I and published some observations and three folk tales [Mazon 1923: 140–148 et passim].
The residents of Zhèrveni converted to Islam in about 1800 [Кънчов 1970: 342]. Their word for the Virgin Mary is Городѝца (< Богородѝца). This one term alone speaks volumes about their Christian origins. While in Zhèrveni, except for some of the men, they did not speak Turkish. In 1924, according to the Lausanne Treaty there was a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Large groups of Orthodox Christians in Turkey, whether Greek speaking or not were expelled to Greece and large groups of Muslims in Greece, Turkish speaking or not, were expelled to Turkey. Thus the people of Zhèrveni left their native village en masse and began their arduous journey to the village of Sinasos, later renamed Mustafapaşa, four kilometers to the south of the town of Ürgüp in Cappadocia, Turkey. A few Zhèrveni families settled in Cemilköy, eight kilometers to the south of Mustafapaşa.
The younger generation no longer speaks the Zhèrveni dialect. However,an interest has developed in their Zhèrveni heritage and in 2007 the community activist Süreyya Aytaş, the first woman of Zhèrveni heritage to receive a university degree, published the book “Bitmeyen Muhacirlik” (‘Unending Emigration’). In it she records the memories of the older generation about their grueling journey to a place where they did not know the language and received a less than a friendly welcome from the local population. The book is in Turkish, but there are some songs and proverbs in the Zhèrveni dialect transcribed in Turkish orthography. They are heavily influenced by the Turkish language, i. e. lack of agreement of the genders of the nouns and adjectives and the interference in the transcription of the dialect by Turkish vowel harmony. But by their inclusion in the book, they will remain as a memorial of the Zhèrveni folklore which will soon disappear.
The observations below were made during my visit to Mustafapaşa in July of 2007.
I was also able to record two songs from Cevdet Resùlov (Gümüssoy) of Cemilköy, one of the last living Zhervèntsi. He still has memories of his old neighbourhood in Zhèrveni or as he expressed it: Йа помèтвам мàалата! ‘I remember the neighbourhood!’ The songs are at the end of the article along with one sung by the men at the coffeehouse.
In the transcription the use of a colon after a vowel indicates a long vowel, which occurs where the consonant /h/ has been dropped: i. e. влà: < влах, снà:а < снаха.
In most of its features, the dialect of Zhèrveni agrees with the dialect spoken in the Korèshcha villages to its west. For example like the other Korèshcha villages, the Zhèrveni dialect preserves the older form of the third person singular of the present tense of the verb ‘to be’ ести, the more archaic forms of the clusters /чрь, чрѣ/, as чồрно, черèво, as well as a modified form of the Old Bulgarian nasal vowels in certain circumstances as shown below. It differs from its neighbours in the Popole to the east, whose village dialects all lack the forms ести and all use цъ̀рно, церèво.However, being located on the eastern edge of the Korèshcha, Zhèrveni speech does show a few features of the neighbouring Popole region. The most recognizible feature is the use of àрно instead of дòбре used by the Korèshcha villages with the exception of Konòmladi and Stàtitsa, which are also on the periphery of the Korèshcha.
With no intermarriages with its neighbouring Christian villages, the dialect of Zhèrveni no longer developed in tandem with that of its Christian neighbours. It has been frozen in time in some respects and has preserved archaic features lost by its neighbours. In other respects, it has diverged from its neighbours by developing a few new features independently.
The most notable differences are the independent developments of the Old Bulgarian back nasal vowel /ѫ/ and the groups /рь, ръ/ and /ль, лъ/.
1. Whereas in all the other Korèshcha and Popole villages /ѫ/ has developed into /ъ/, in the Zhèrveni dialect it has developed into a labial /ồ/ (The vowel /ồ/ is described by Blagoy Shklifov as a middle vowel, with the lips lightly rounded and the jaw tensed
[Шклифов 1973: 18–19]) or /ồн/ before voiced dental stop /д/ or /ồм/ before voiced bilabial stop /б/ [Шклифов 1973: 18-19]: пồт, зồмби, дồмбйа, ке-та испồнда, ке-ме-бие мồжо, шồшто [‘също’].
Mazon noted both /ъ/ and /o/ (not /ồ/ ) as developments of the back nasal vowel, with no rule as to when one was used or the other [Mazon 1923: 18]. Even the same root words could use one of these two vowels in the singular and the other in the plural. He also notes that /рь, ръ/ and /ль, лъ/ had developed into /ор/ and /ол/ and not /ôр/ and /ôл/. Perhaps at that time of Mazon’s visit, a process of the replacement of the phoneme /ъ/ by /ồ/ was underway and was only completed in their new home in Turkey. An /aр/ instead of/ồр/ is noted in in one of Cevdet’s folksongs: царква instead of цồрква. This suggests that the above hypothesis may be true. But we may not be certain, as folksongs travel from place to place and may contain outside influences. Or perhaps Mazon’s informants who were all men who had more contact with the neighbouring villages had been influenced by their speech.
Zhèrveni is the only village in the entire northern part of the Kostur region to have developed a labial /ồ/. However this feature is found in some villages in the southernmost part of the region – Nèstram and the Kosternariya (Èzerets, Snìcheni, Zhùzheltsi and others) [Шклифов 1973: 28]. Farther afield, this development occurs in some Dolna Prespa villages (Gèrman, Nìvitsi, Dòlno Dùpeni and others), in the Debar Region as well as in the Rhodopes of southern Bulgaria.
2. The Old Bulgarian front nasal vowel /ѧ/ has developed into /a/ in short form personal pronouns: Ма фàти, та у̀дри, са стòри.
This is a feature also found in much of the Popole region. But with regard to Zhèrveni’s immediate Popole neighbours, this development is found only in Vìsheni, but not in Shestèvo or Babchor.
In the lexeme антồрва (sister-in-law), the front nasal vowel /ѧ/ has changed to /an/. The nasality of the vowel /ѧ/ is preserved, having changed into the phoneme /n/. In the neighbouring Korèshcha villages the nasality of the vowel in this lexeme has been lost and the form is етъ̀рва. This is an example of Zhèrveni preserving archaic traits lost by their Christian neighbours.
3. The groups /ль, лъ/ and /рь, ръ/ have developed into /ôл/ and /ôр/: дồлго, вồлк; сồлза, вồлна; дồрво, вồрни, гồрми, вồрви; чồрно. Zhèrveni is the only village in southwestern Macedonia to develop /рь, ръ/ > /ôр/. It is only found far to the northwest in certain villages between Struga and Debar in the Republic of Macedonia, in Golo Bordo (most of Golo Bordo is found on Albanian territory), and even farther away, in some Rhodope dialects in southern Bulgaria.
4. The religious separation of Zhèrveni from the neighbouring Christian villages of the Korèshcha has caused Zhèrveni to develop a number of lexical differences unique to that village. The chart below shows some lexical differences between Zhèrveni and the neighbouring Korèshcha villages.
In Ottoman Turkish times, most children of Zhèrveni’s neighbouring villages attended Bulgarian schools. Before Bulgarian schools opened, education was in Greek, although education in Greek affected relatively few students. It is not unusual that the Bulgarians of the Kostur region adopted a few loanwords from literary Bulgarian, as well as earlier loanwords dealing with education from Greek. These loanwords are missing in the Zhèrveni dialect:
| Zhèrveni | Korèshcha | |
|---|---|---|
| кòмпир | кърту̀льа | ‘potato’ |
| шефтелѝя | прàска | ‘peach’ |
| бѝрян | кокòшка со òрис | ‘chicken and rice’ |
| бѝрек | бу̀рек | ‘pie’ (both are different modifications of the Turkish börek) |
| нòна (мàйка occurs in a folksong) | мàйка | ‘mother’ |
| пòкер | пòвеке | ‘more’ |
| мèтеп | скòлйе | ‘school’ (mektep comes from Arabic via Turkish) |
| кѝтап | кнѝга | ‘book’ (in Zhèrveni, kniga means a ‘letter’) |
| мàльум | дàскал | ‘teacher’ (мàльум comes from the Arabic muallim ‘learned’. The only school in Zhèrveni was a Koranic school which only boys attended) |
The past tense of the verb to say/tell has evolved into the forms йас кàжи, ние кажѝ:ме. This is transcribed in one of Mazon’s folktales [Mazon 1923: 141]. This development is unique in the whole of southwestern Macedonia (Kostur and Lerin regions). There, the form is Яс кàза, ния казà:ме.
Songs in the Zhèrveni dialect
Translation: |
|
|---|---|
1 |
Oh my, oh my and more oh my! |
2 |
Dear little girls, dear little souls, |
3 |
Don’t you miss, oh Stanka, |
References
1. Sureyya A., Bitmeyen Muharcirlik. Lozan Mubadilleri Vakfi Yayini, Istanbul, 2007.
2. Mazon A., Contes Slaves de la Macedoine Sud-occidentale, Paris, 1923.
3. Кънчов В., Избрани произведения, Том 2, София, 1970.
4. Шклифов Б., Костурският говор, София, 1973.
Labro Korolov – expelled with harsh words from MPO Canada because of Spaska
Labro Korolov is chairman of Macedonia – Switzerland in the Balkans, Toronto. His organization was part of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization for the United States and Canada, established back in 1921 to defend the Bulgarian language and culture in those distant lands. Being Bulgarian was a pride. Labro or Larry, as he is also called, is from Kostur, Aegean Macedonia, and his grandfather died at the front during the Balkan War to defend the freedom of Mother Bulgaria. With the help of Labro, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences published a book on the dialects in Aegean Macedonia, because those dialects are closer to the literary Bulgarian language than to the 'Macedonian language' created by decree. You can download the book here: http://macedonia.kroraina.com/shklifovi/index.html
The reason for being expelled by the MPO is the letter sent in support of Ms. Spaska Mitrova and the brutal injustice shown by the Macedonian judicial system to this young woman and mother. MPO is no longer the historical MPO of old, fighting with teeth and nails to preserve the Bulgarian spirit. Today it has become a PR of the false Macedonian rhetoric that confuses the destinies of Vardarians on their way to EU and NATO membership.
– Mr. Korolov, on behalf of the readers, thank you for this interview.
– What is happening in Canada, are there any other Bulgarians from Macedonia there?
– Bulgarian emigration here dates back to the end of the 19th century. Many came after the defeat of the Ilinden Uprising. In 1910, the Macedonian-Bulgarian Church of St. St. Cyril and Methodius was founded here by people mainly from Southwestern Macedonia: Kostur, Lerin and Kaylar. They were staunch Bulgarians, but today their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are completely assimilated. After 1960 here came many from Vardar Macedonia, who had a Macedonian identity. Today, there are only a handful of people, descendants of Bulgarians from Macedonia, who know who and what they are. We have been protected from Macedonianism by the native dialects we speak at home. For example, my native Kostur dialect, which is the most extreme southwestern Bulgarian dialect, is much closer to the literary language than to the "Macedonian" language. But the assimilated English-speaking descendants of the old Bulgarians cannot see and hear how Serbianized the "language" is and the Macedonianism has won the sympathy of some of them.
– What is the situation in the MPO?
– What I said above about Toronto has happened in the United States, but much stronger. There are not many members in the United States and those people who are members are there only for the folk dances at the parties. It is a big mistake that none of the Bulgarians who came to North America became members of the MPO.
– We are melting, then. Why did this happen?
– In the United States there is a strong policy for everyone to become only English-speaking Americans and the children did not keep the Bulgarian language. It's the same in Canada.
– Mrs. Alusheva expelled you publicly with insults and threats ... Is this a normal practice?
– That's how it happened. I have never heard such words from a woman.
– What position did you hold in the organization?
– I was a member of the Central Committee.
– How long?
– Two years now.
– Do you see a solution to the problem?
– MPO will not exist for long. There is no money and no members.
– How many Bulgarians are there in Canada who are from Vardar or Aegean Macedonia?
– No one knows the exact number. Originally from Aegean Macedonia, there should be about 15-20 thousand, but almost all who came after 1960 are Grekomans, and as many from Vardar Macedonia.
– How does the Bulgarian embassy treat them?
– Is there a Bulgarian embassy in Toronto? They are not very active.
– How is the Macedonian anti-Bulgarian policy in Canada financed? From the government in Macedonia? Private donations?
– From the government, too, and there are rich Macedonians.
– You financially supported BAS for the publication of studies on dialects in Aegean Macedonia. What motivated you? Tell us briefly about the project.
– I wanted it to remain a testimony to our Bulgarian dialects from Aegean Macedonia. Not to further the lie that they spoke there as in today's Skopje.
– Do you have other similar plans?
– I started writing an ethnographic-historical-linguistic book about Drenoveni, the village of my parents.
– Thank you very much.
– Me too.
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