Re: [tied] Re: Balkan linguistic geography

Jim Rader wrote:

> I hesitate to generalize about Balkan linguistic geography, but some
> areas became a linguistic mosaic due to relatively recent migrations
> (e.g., of Geg Albanian speakers into Kosovo, of Serbs across the
> Danube in the late 17th century), combined with state-controlled
> immigration (e.g., of Turkish speakers into a number of areas, of
> Germans into Vojvodina). The shading of one dialect into another with
> considerable divergence at greater distances that we find in much of
> western Europe is not so characteristic of the Balkans. The South
> Slavic language with the most remarkable dialectal variation relative
> to speech area is undoubtedly Slovene, culturally and geographically
> at the fringe of the Balkans.
>
> I'm out on a limb here with so many natives of the Balkans on the
> list, so I ought to put on my flameproof suit. I would be genuinely
> interested in reaction, though. Modern linguistic geography is not
> without relevance to ancient linguistic geography (or is it?).
>
> Jim Rader

Normaly the modern linguistic geography should at least have
interference/contact points with ancient linguistic geography. The
problem is that we don't know too much . The spare testimonies of the
ancient people about languages spoken in Balkan are in most of the part
deconsidered by actual shcolars.
The another dificulty is that we are not sure if the names of all
folks/tribes mentioned in Balkans have been just simply denominations
for one or two linguistic groups or if indeed we have to deal with a lot
of languages.
After a time the Romans came, then Germans, some turanic people, then
the Slavs, then turks and so on. The question should be here in which
timeline do we have to put the markers for conecting the ancient
languages with the modern languages. And that won't be too easy.

Alex