- The Karakatšáni are, of course, a branch of the nomadic group known in Greece as Σαρακατσαναĩoι. It is my impression that the language here described is very close to the dialect described by C. Höeg in Les Saracatsans (Paris: Champion, 1925–6, in two volumes; my page references in subsequent footnotes are to volume I). According to the best information available to me, the Karakatšani came to the Slavic countries from the region of Jánina in Greece due to the disorders attendant upon the reign of Ali Pasha Tepeleni (see Wasil Marinow, “Die Schafzucht der nomadisierenden Karakatschanen in Bulgarien” in Viehzucht und Hirtenleben in Ostmitteleuropa 141–196, Budapest: Verlag der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1961, and Leposava Žunić “Sarakačni-‘Ašani’ na Goču” in Glasnik etnografskog instituta VII (1958), 87–108 [Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka].
- It is interesting that /fastík/ ‘peanut’ must have been borrowed directly from Turkish /fistík/, rather than through the mediation of Bulgarian /fisták/.
- See Charles E. Bidwell, Slavic Historical Phonology in Tabular Form, The Hague: Mouton, 1963, p. 21, item 2.
- This alternation is, of course, common in Greek dialects. I transcribe consistently /1n/ before /i/.
- Op. cit., p. 140–145, especially “—à mon avis, ce conservatisme est dû à une influence constante de la langue commune” (p. 144).
- I am not referring only to the alternation in the reflexes of Common Slavic /ě/, i.e. /mljáko/ ‘milk’ vs. /mléčen/ ‘of milk,’ but to replacement of /ja/ of other origin by [e] or [æ]; e.g., /murék/ for /morják/ ‘sailor.’
- My informant's speech contains numerous Bulgarian loanwords naturally absent from the variety described by Höeg. Höeg's Sarakatsan appears to contain a contrast /s ṡ š/ (op. cit. 185), e.g., škóp ‘staff’ (185): ṡkót ‘fig’ (130): skón (204) ‘powder, dust’; but this is not entirely clear from Höeg's careful but pre-phonemic description and I am inclined to be skeptical about the phonemic status of all three sibilants.
WORD
Volume 20, 1964 - Issue sup2: Papers in Memory of George C. Pappageotes