Labro Koroloff paper on the dialect of Zhèrveni

Research Notes

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Заметки

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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.

Bulgarian alphabet

Writing appears at a certain stage of human development as the most important cultural achievement of mankind. It facilitates communi­cation between individuals and peoples; allows for the permanent storage of knowledge in mathe­matics, construction, medicine, history, geography, military science, astronomy, astrology; contri­butes to the deve­lop­ment of litera­ture, music and various art forms. This, in turn, creates conditions for rapid spiritual, cultural and technical progress of a society.

Battle of Pliska

The Battle of Pliska which is better known in Bulgaria as the Battle in Vъrbitsa Pass (Bulgarian: Битката във Върбишкия проход) was a series of battles between Bulgaria governed by knyaz Krum, and troops gathered from all parts of the Byzantine Empire led by the Emperor Nicephorus I Genik. The Byzantines plundered and burned the Bulgar capital Pliska which gave time for the Bulgars to block passes in the Balkan Mountain that served as exits out of Bulgaria. The decisive battle took place on July 26, 811, in some of the passes in the Eastern Balkan Mountain, most probably the Vărbitsa Pass. There, the Bulgars used the tactics of ambush and surprise night attack to effectively trap and immobilize the Byzantine Army, thus annihilating almost the whole army, including the Emperor. After the battle, Krum encased Nicephorus's skull in silver, and used it as a cup for wine-drinking. This is probably the best documented instance of the custom of the skull cup.

Bulgarian compared to other Slavic languages

Acad. Nikolay Sevastyanovich
Derzhavin (1877-1953)

Bulgarian language is the third written European language after Greek and Latin. It is a pre-Indo-European language that was formed at the time when Bulgarians (known by different names in the contemporary Greek and Latin literature: Thracians, Illirians, Getians, Dacians, Sclavini, Skythians, Bulgars) were formed as a people. According to Academician Nikolay Derzhavin, Bulgarians began to form as a people even before the formation of the Indo-Europeans (9800 years ago).[26] He reached these conclusions on the basis of paleolinguistic analysis. Recent genetic and genomic studies confirm his concepts.

Bulgarians are Bulgarians, not Turks, not Tatars, not Finns, not Huns, not Chuvash, not Slavs, and by their origin they belong to the most ancient pre-Indo-European peoples.

Until the 15th century, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs did not call themselves "Slavs". Until the Middle Ages, the Slavic language was defined as the language of the Bulgarians, not the language of Russians, Poles, Slovaks, Slovenes, etc. In 9 . and 10th century, the Bulgarians spread their writing among these peoples. From the Bulgarian books, these peoples adopted the Old Bulgarian language as their own. But after the conquest of Bulgaria by the Ottomans, these peoples did not want it to be known that they were writing and reading in the language of an enslaved people. That's why they renamed the Old Bulgarian language to Church Slavonic. In the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Preslav and Ohrid book schools spread Bulgarian books throughout Europe, there were no Slavs then. There is no written document from the 7th to the 12th century that speaks of Slavs. Slavs began to be talked about in the 17th century by Peter I and especially Catherine the Great. She could not bear the thought that someone else had given writing to the Russians and embraced the idea of the Benedictine monk of Dalmatian/Croatian origin, Mavro Orbini, that all peoples with similar languages should be called "Slavs". These are practically all the communities that received reading and writing from the Bulgarian literary schools. Thus the Bulgarian merits for the enlightenment of this vast sea of neighboring peoples were displaced and replaced. But then there was no Bulgarian state and there was no way for the Bulgarians to protect the truth.[26]

Bulgarian dialects

Bulgarian dialects (гòвори) are part of the South Slavic dialect continuum, linked with Serbian to the west and bordering Albanian, Greek and Turkish to the south, and Romanian to the north. All Slavic dialects spoken in the geographical regions of Macedonia, Thrace, Moesia, and Dobrudzha are dialects of the Bulgarian language. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Borders of Bulgarian language

The distribution of Slavic languages may be visualized by a chain of circles that cross and intermingle so that many transitive dialects arise. In this Slavic chain, Bulgarian is the south-most link which is located between Serbian and Russian. Because the interactions between Bulgarian and Serbian, on one hand, and between Bulgarian and Russian, on the other, are not equivalent, the similarities of Bulgarian to Russian and Serbian are not the same. While Bulgarians and Serbs lived very close to each other for a very long time on a long borderline, the connection between Bulgarian and Russian took place on a narrow strip along Dobrudzha which was populated with other foreign peoples and was interrupted by the wide and scarcely populated Danube delta. The relatively large similarity between Bulgarian and Russian can be explained by the former Russian-Bulgarian neighbourship in the old homeland of Bulgars and Bulgarian Slavs and with subsequent loans between Bulgarian and Russian.