Transitional Bulgarian dialects

The Transitional Bulgarian dialects are a group of Bulgarian dialects which are located west of the yat boundary and are part of the Western Bulgarian dialects. On Bulgarian territory, the Transitional dialects occupy a narrow strip of land along the Bulgarian border with Serbia, including the regions of Tran, Breznik, Godech and Belogradchik. They also cross the border to include the dialects or subdialects of the Bulgarian minority in the Western Outlands (the regions of Tsaribrod and Bosilegrad), Bulgarian territories transferred to Serbia by the Treaty of Neuilly as punishment for Bulgarian participation in World War I on the side of the Central Powers. The Transitional dialects are akin and closely related to the Torlak dialects spoken in southwestern Serbia and are part of the gradual transition from Bulgarian to Serbian. The Bulgarian Transitional dialects and the Serbian Torlak dialects are characterised by mixed, predominantly Serbian phonology and predominantly Bulgarian morphology.

Phonological characteristics

* Old Bulgarian Unicode|ѣ (yat) is always pronounced as IPA|ɛ vs. formal Bulgarian я/е (IPA|ʲa/IPA|ɛ) – "бел/бели"
* ч/дж (IPA|ʧ/IPA|ʤ) for Proto-Slavic IPA|*tʲ/IPA|*dʲ (as in Serbian) - "леча, меджу" (lentils, between). Partial manifestation of reflex IPA|ʒd for Proto-Slavic IPA|*dʲ (as in Bulgarian) in words like "чужд" (foreign) [] . The future tense particle is "че"
* у for Old Bulgarian Unicode |ѫ (yus) (as in Serbian): "мука" vs. Standard Bulgarian "мъка" (sorrow)
* IPA|ə for Old Bulgarian ь and ъ in all positions (as in Bulgarian): "сън" (sleep)
* Complete loss of consonant х (IPA|x) in all positions (preserved in both Bulgarian and Serbian): "мъ" vs. Standard Bulgarian "мъх" (moss)
* Preservation of final l (as in Bulgarian): "бил" (was)
* Articulation of voiced consonants at the end of the word (as in Serbian) in some areas/subdialects (Tran, Breznik) and devoicing (as in Bulgarian) in others (Bosilegrad, Tsaribrod, Godech, Belogradchik) []
* Lack of phonetic pitch (as in Bulgarian)
* Lack of phonetic length (as in Bulgarian)
* Frequent stress on the final syllable in polysyllabilic words (as in Bulgarian, not possible in Serbian): "жен'а" (woman)
* Complete loss of consonant f. It does not exist even in new words where it is usually repaced by v: "венер" vs. Standard Bulgarian "фенер" (lantern)

Grammatical and morphological characteristics

* Definiteness realised with post-positive articles (as in Bulgarian). The definite articles are usually -ът, -та, -то, -те as in Standard Bulgarian
* Break-up of the Old Bulgarian case system (as in Bulgarian). Apart from the nominal forms, there is an agglomerative form only for masculine animate names and feminine names
* Loss of the infinitive (as in Bulgarian)
* Full retention of the aorist and the imperfect (as in Bulgarian)
* Doubling of objects with an additional object pronoun (as in Bulgarian)
* Ending -e for plural of feminine nouns and adjectives (as in Serbian): "жене" (women)
* The plural endings of adjectives vary from three (for each gender, as in Serbian), to two (one for masculine and neuter and one for feminine) and one (as in Bulgarian), depending on dialect/subdialect
* Ending -мо for 1st person pl. present time (as in Serbian): "носимо" (we carry)
* Ending -ше for 3rd person pl. past tense (vs. -ха in Bulgarian and -аху in Serbian): "плетоше" vs. Standard Bulgarian "плетоха" (they knitted)

For the phonological and morphological characteristics of the individual dialects included in the dialectal group, cf. individual articles.

ources

* Стойков, Стойко: Българска диалектология, Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов", 2006 [http://www.promacedonia.org/jchorb/st/st_2_b_izt_1.htm]
* Sussex, Roland and Cubberley, Paul: "The Slavic Languages", Cambridge, 2006

Notes