The Albanian-Macedonian border and its language influence of Dibra/Debar

• Applicant: Dr. Lumnije Jusufi
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 252836226

The recent research about the language consequences of political and state border demarcation has largely neglected the south-eastern European periphery so far, although reconvergence processes can be observed in laboratory quality because of the multiple instants of nation and state building as well as ethnic demarcations after the collapse of Yugoslavia. The politically most explosive case is that of the "Albanian question" which could result in further border shifts in Southeastern Europe: Thus, the focus concentrates on the long-term consequences of the Yugoslavian experiment for the Albanian-speaking population, of which about 40% stayed outside the newly built Albanian state in 1912 and which was assimilated and under the roofing of various leading signs (the Serbian monarchy, the monarchistic Yugoslavia between the wars, Tito's Yugoslavia) in the South Slavic Macedonian and Kosovar area.Based on the solid dialectological preliminary work of Jusufi 2011, the project will at first systematize the language divergence and non-intercomprehensibility along the Albanian-Macedonian state border, using the example of the Debra-Region on the levels of phonetics/phonology, grammar and lexis, so that with the help of perception studies and attitude research the potential of the Albanian pluricentrity and the development of a Gheg standard (rather archaic and contact-induced through the Slavic languages) can be fathomed. This aspect is extensively debated on in the Albanian-Kosovar feuilleton, whereas the Albanian linguistics has not freed itself from that taboo until now.The micro-study about the language divergence and vertical advergence since the 1980s in the Dibra/Debar region is of high representative value for the contingency of the Balkan state borders. Precisely because of the choice of a less political and rather peripheral area of the Albanian ethnic cohesion, the study gains its high indicative value for the role language played in the "reunification" process of the Albanian, Kosovar and Macedonian Albanian speakers.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants