The Balkan Linguistic and Cultural Union: A Holistic Research Program

Abstract

The article proposes a new research program on the Balkan linguistic and cultural union (Balkan Sprachbund and Kulturbund), based on a novel definition of linguistic and cultural union as a group of non-related languages and cultures connected by regular functional correspondences, akin to the presence of regular sound correspondences between languages as a diagnostic feature in the theory of language kinship. It suggests considering diagnostic and union-forming features, correspondences in inventories and rules of distribution of functions of units and categories across different languages and cultures, to test the hypothesis of their inclusion in a linguistic and cultural union. After a brief overview of the current state of affairs in the scholarly literature on the subject, the article proposes a structured list of 160+ selected polyfunctional categorical features, pertaining to different structural levels of language and culture and presumably demonstrating regular interlinguistic and intercultural Balkan correspondences. The detection of regularity in correspondences and, consequently, the formulation of a hypothesis regarding the existence of a linguistic union with prognostic power is suggested as a possible avenue for resolving the theoretical issue of providing rigorous evidence, through methods of the humanities, of the existence in the history of humanity of a particular type of convergent development of idioethnic languages and cultures, and the observed result of such development — linguistic and cultural unions as distinct language groups (distinct from language families) and distinct cultural associations.