Old Printing Block

You're right, Greek is not closely related to Slavic languages.
I think they meant a group of languages from the entire Balkan, which includes the Slavic languages Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian.
Greece just happens to be part of the Balkan too, but not a Slavic part. Albania is also part of the Balkan, but not Slavic either.

 

Yes, the Balkans are quite diverse linguistically. Apart from the Slavic ones, here there are Turkish (Turkic), Romanian (Romance), Albanian (independent) and Greek (independent). For such a small territory it is quite a bit of languages.

I had a discussion with a lady from the Balkan Languages Dept at the University here. Actually, she pointed me some similarities shared by all Balkan languages that substantiate classifying them into a common linguistic group. I cannot explain them in either language but if you are interested, you can see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_sprachbund

 

The way I was taught it, and to say it very simply, most Balkan people originally had interrelated languages, but were influenced by other languages.

For instance, the Romanians used to speak a Slavic language, but Roman occupation influenced their original Slavic language to a large extent. But because they thought in a Slavic language, the construction remained Slavic, even though they used Latin-influenced Romance words.

Romani is a language that is basically an Indian language (Rajasthani-Pakistani roots), but it has picked up a lot of words on its travels. I know it has a strong Armenian (Hellenic) influence, and quite a few Persian words.
In Slavic regions Romani will also have picked up Slavic influences.
Our Romany peoples, the Sinti, have picked up German and Dutch influences. For instance they call a violin a 'gajge', from the German colloquial 'Geige'.

Influences between languages are normal. For instance, Dutch, though a Germanic language, has many words of Greek and Latin origin, and a notable French influence.
Since the introduction of television there is an increased English influence.
English, also Germanic, has a strong French influence, thanks to the Norman conquest.
French btw, was originally a Germanic language, but it has morphed into a Romance language. (Don't tell the French!)

 

Very interesting discussion, Any, at least for me What you said has a lot of logic. Of course, there is still a lot of unknown or unexplained things - for instance, I was taugh that the geographical spaces that are nowadays Romania and Bulgaria were inhibited by Thracians in antiquity who used to have quite develped organised societies and are mentioned in ancient Greek sources, eg. Iliad. They were not Slavs, Slavs came here much later, the Thracians were the local residents conquered by the Romans. There are numerous archelogocal artefact that prove the Thracians had quite developed civilisation, found in tombs (they used to make overground tombs) and underground, like gold and silver treasures, also many Roman artefacts, as these lands were governed by them for hundreds of years. Constantine the Great was born and grew up here, in Nish (present day Serbia). And thus a lot of treasure hunting and smuggling, even nowadays, takes place here.
Spartacus was a Thracian-Dacian (present day Romania), the name Dacia (of the car brand) comes from the ancient predecessors of Romanians. The problem with studying the Thracian culture is the lack of written by them texts, only indirect Greek or Roman sources. You know, "Verba volant, scripta manent'
Later the Slavs came, even later the Old Bulgarians came, they are not Slavs, of disputed origin (some say Persians, others - Tatars but the most recent genetic evidences show that we have very little in common with Tatar or Turkic genes, also not much in common with Slavs but mostly old Bulgarian genes, so most probably they were indeed Persians) and made a nice mix here with the Slavs and the remnants of the ancient Thracians The old Bulgarians (who spoke Persian or Turkic) accepted the Slavic language while in Romania the Slavs accepted the Romanic language. As Balkans are on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, a lot of mixing and population influxes occurred. B.t.w. we have a lot of Persian words in our language.
Francs were a Germanic tribe, as far as I know, so no surprise that they spoke German language.
As a conclusion - go figure how the present languages were formed!

 

Were the Bulgarian Persians Sarmatians? If so, they were related to the Scythians, and like them originally from Central Asia. Central Asian culture still has a strong Persian influence.

Yes they were, their seats of power were in present day Belgium, but they also lived in parts of the Netherlands and France, and still do. The dominant Dutch language is still mainly Frankish, with some Saxon influence.
Most Frankish areas were a mix of Franks and Celts. Celts originated from the Black Sea area, so we could be related. I am part-Persian btw, so that could bring our ancestry even closer.

European and Asian peoples were always on the move.
I was surprised to learn a few years ago that reserach showed that the first agriculturists in my part of the Netherlands (the high ground) came from Mesopotamia. Maybe that is one of many reasons there are many olive-skinned and dark-haired people in the southeast of the country.
Other reasons are simply that many European peoples moved westward over thousands of years, either because other peoples took their place in the east and south, because they were ethnic and religious refugees, or simply for economic reasons.
There is also a surprisingly high percentage of Berber genes among the Dutch, higher than among other West Europeans. No idea how that came about.

Our country was certainly a 'people magnet', which has resulted in a population of nearly 17.7 million people on a postage stamp.
When you only look at the records from 1600-now, 96% of Dutch people, many of whom thought of themselves 100% Dutch, are of foreign origin. Although there is such a thing as a Dutch nation and culture, there is hardly such a thing as Dutch ethnicity.

 

"French btw, was originally a Germanic language, but it has morphed into a Romance language. (Don't tell the French!)"
Too funny! I find the history of languages interesting (having studied Eng Lit and French at university). And thanks to DNA we can see how we are more related and similar than we previously thought! My husband and I had our DNA tested through Ancestry. No big surprises, but my husband seems to have some Welsh in his genetic make-up while the family always averred that there were no Welsh connections. Apparently, 1% of my genetic make-up is Portuguese and that makes me wonder where that little bit came from! How accurate any of this is, who knows. The reason that English is as successful a language as it is, is that the English were great explorers (or exploiters depending on your point of view!) and that English is a bit of a loose language -- it's quite happy to add words from other languages into general usage.

 

Any, yes, most historians now accept that the Old Bulgarians were related to Sarmatinas, and thus to Scyths. It is indeed interesting that the Dutch have that much mixed genes, I have always thought that your are mostly sort of Germanic. But you are right, given all the movement of people around Europe and Asia, it is quite logic to be so. And we can indeed be more related than we had thought I am of typical Med appearance, olive skin and Greek facial features but combined with blond hair (once blond, now mostly white..), I guess from mom's Slavic genes (mom was a typical light blond blue-eyed Slav). Never have done genetic testing, though.

Kentworld, I agree that English is quite flexible and relatively easy to learn to the extent to communicate in it (not to be fluent but just to communicate) but I think that its global domination is due mainly to the global power of one of its bearers - USA. In Bulgaria it gained popularity in the 1970s, the most studied Western language before that had been German. B.t.w. German has a revival here because of German economic power within EU, many young (and not so young) Bulgarians study in Germany, and then stay there to live. But German is much more difficult than English, IMO. Comparable to Russian, I would say.
I don't know either how accurate individual genetic testing is and how it should be interpreted - IMO 1 % Portuguese genes is negligible and can be attributed to the inaccuracy of the testing method.

 

Well, yes, as the US is the current "superpower" country, English is the language of business, but I do think that English exploration had much to do with the worldwide dissemination of English. And, the British settled North America along with the French and Spanish to a lesser degree. Canada is officially a bilingual country (English and French) and where I live there are some Spanish place names (eg, Quadra, Cordova) since this area was also explored by the Spanish. I hope that the Portuguese 1% gene isn't negligible because I want something a little different than Northern European (Norwegian-Scottish-Irish) in my genetic make-up, LOL!

 

Kentworld, I agree that English explorers and colonisers made English language so widespread. And there are other languages of explorers and colonisers also wide spread. As you pointed, Spain, France, Portugal as former empires spread their language among their colonies. But IMO this is not enough to become the lingua franca of the world, i.e. the language used by various foreign nations to communicate not only with the language speakers but also among themselves.
"A lingua franca is a common language serving as a regular means of communication relating to scientific, technological, and academic information between different linguistic groups in a multilingual speech community." (c.) Lingua franca becomes the language of the world's strongest power in any sense, economic, political and military.

 

Yes, I agree. So, if China is poised to be the next superpower I wonder how we're going to cope with Mandarin as the lingua franca!

 

Absolutely! I was about to write just the same that it will be hard for Indo-Europeans to cope with Chinese (Mandarin) as lingua franca IMO, there is still some time until this happens so I guess, it will affect the next generations but still....

So you have what you want