Torlak is a group of transitional South Slavic dialects spoken across southeastern Serbia, southern and eastern Kosovo, northern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlak, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund.
Torlak is not standardized, and its subdialects vary significantly in some features. Serbian linguists traditionally classified it as an old Shtokavian dialect or as a fourth supradialect of Serbo-Croatian along with Shtokavian, Chakavian, and Kajkavian. Bulgarian scholars classify it as a Western Bulgarian dialect, in which case it is referred to as a Transitional Bulgarian dialect. According to UNESCO's list of endangered languages, Torlak is a vulnerable distinct language."Torlak" at
In Bulgarian common speech, the Torlak dialects are traditionally referred to as U-dialects (), referencing their reflex of old Slavic *ǫ being (compared to standard Bulgarian, where it is , or its nearby dialects, where it is ).
The Serbo-Croatian linguists maintain that Torlak is a Balkanized Western South Slavic dialect together with the South Slavic varieties spoken in northern parts of North Macedonia and in Western Bulgaria (Vuković 2021). Other researchers tend to classify it as Eastern South Slavic.Balkan Syntax and Semantics, John Benjamins Publishing, 2004, , The typology of Balkan evidentiality and areal linguistics, Victor Friedman, p. 123. Motoki Nomachi maintains that the Torlak dialects are foreign to standard Serbian in many cases.The Serbian Language as Viewed by the East and the West: Synchroniy Diachrony, and Typology (Slavic Eurasian Studies, Vol 28), Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Sapporo, 2015, p. 36. According to the historian Ivo Banac, during the Middle Ages, Torlak and the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect were part of Eastern South Slavic, but since the 12th century, especially the Shtokavian dialects, including Eastern Herzegovinian, began to diverge from the other neighboring South Slavic dialects.Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, 1988, , p. 47.
Some of the phenomena that distinguish western and eastern subgroups of the South Slavic languages can be explained by two separate migratory waves of different Slavic tribal groups of the future South Slavs via two routes: the west and east of the Carpathian Mountains.The Slavic Languages, Roland Sussex, Paul Cubberley, Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2006, , p. 42.
Speakers of the dialectal group are primarily ethnic Serbs, Bulgarians, and Macedonians. There are also smaller ethnic communities of Croats (the Krashovani in Romania, Janjevci in Kosovo) and Slavic Muslims (the Gorani and Bosniaks) in southern Kosovo.
Classification The Torlaks have been distinguished from other South Slavic languages since at least the 16th century and their dialects form an intermediate between the Eastern and Western branches of South Slavic dialect continuum, and have been variously described, in whole or in parts, as belonging to either group. In the 19th century, they were often called Bulgarian, but their classification was contested between Serbian and Bulgarian writers. Previously, the designation "Torlak" was not applied to the dialects of Niš and the neighbouring areas to the east and south.
Balkan sprachbund The Torlak dialects, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, display many properties of the Balkan linguistic area, a set of structural convergence features shared also with other, non-Slavic, languages of the Balkans such as Albanian, Romanian and Aromanian. In terms of areal linguistics, they have therefore been described as part of a prototypical "Balkan Slavic" area, as opposed to other parts of Serbo-Croatian, which are only peripherally involved in the convergence area. The Dutch linguist Willem Vermeer describes Torlak as a creole language influenced by Albanian and Romanian.
Balkan linguists Serbian linguists Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, one of the most important reformers of modern Serbian language, defines a Torlak as "a man who speaks neither Serbian nor Bulgarian well". Serbian linguists (like Pavle Ivić and Asim Peco) classify Torlak (, ) as an Old-Shtokavian dialect, referring to it as the Prizren–Timok dialect.;
Pavle Ivić, in his textbook of Serbo-Croatian dialectology (1956), treated the "Prizren–Timok dialect zone" as part of the overall Shtokavian zone. Aleksandar Belić classified the Prizren–Timok dialect as "fundamentally Serbian", as well as claimed that the Western Bulgarian dialects were Serbian. Dejan Krstić in his scientific paper "Ideas of the Pirot region population that concern the term the Torlaks" has claimed that the term Torlaks was and is used to refer to the bilingual Vlachs in Pirot and Timok area.Dejan Krstić, Ideas of the Pirot region population that concern the term the Torlaks, Pirotski zbornik, January 2019
Bulgarian linguists Bulgarian researchers such as Benyo Tsonev, Gavril Zanetov and the Macedono-Bulgarian researcher Krste MisirkovМисирков, Кръстьо (1898). Значението на моравското или ресавското наречие за съвременната и историческа етнография на Балканския полуостров. Български преглед, година V, книга І, стр. 121–127; Мисирков, Кръстьо (1910, 1911). Бележки по южно-славянска филология и история – Към въпроса за пограничната линия между българския и сръбско-хърватски езици и народи, Одеса, 30.XII.1909 г. Българска сбирка. classified Torlak () as dialect of the Bulgarian language. They noted the manner of the articles, the loss of most of the cases, etc. Today Bulgarian linguists (Stoyko Stoykov, Rangel Bozhkov) also classify Torlak as a "Belogradchik-Tran" dialect of Bulgarian, and claim that it should be classified outside the Shtokavian area. Stoykov further argued that the Torlak dialects have a grammar that is closer to Bulgarian and that this is indicative of them being originally Bulgarian.Ст. Стойков: Българска диалектология [Stoyko Stoykov, Bulgarian dialectology], 2002, p.163
Macedonian linguists In Macedonian dialectology, the Torlak () varieties spoken in North Macedonia (Kumanovo, Kratovo and Kriva Palanka dialect) are classified as part of a northeastern group of Macedonian dialects.K. Koneski, Pravopisen rečnik na makedonskiot literaturen jazik. Skopje: Prosvetno delo 1999.
Features
Vocabulary Basic Torlak vocabulary shares most of its Slavic roots with Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian but also over time borrowed a number of words from Aromanian, Greek, Turkish, and Albanian in the Gora region of the Šar Mountains. It also preserved many words which in the "major" languages became archaisms or changed meaning. Like other features, vocabulary is inconsistent across subdialects, for example, a Krashovan does not necessarily understand a Goranac.
The varieties spoken in the Slavic countries have been heavily influenced by the standardized national languages, particularly when a new word or concept was introduced. The only exception is a form of Torlak spoken in Romania, which escaped the influence of a standardized language which has existed in Serbia since a state was created after the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire. The Slavs indigenous to the region are called Krashovani and are a mixture of original settler Slavs and later settlers from the Timok Valley in eastern Serbia.
Cases lacking inflections Bulgarian and Macedonian are the only two modern Slavic languages that lost virtually the entire noun case system, with nearly all nouns now in the surviving nominative case. This is partly true of the Torlak dialect. In the northwest, the instrumental case merges with the accusative case, and the locative and genitive cases merge with the nominative case. Further south, all inflections disappear and syntactic meaning is determined solely by prepositions.
H-dropping Macedonian, Torlak and a number of Serbian and Bulgarian dialects, unlike all other Slavic languages, technically lack the phonemes , or . In other Slavic languages, or (the latter from Proto-Slavic *g in "H-Slavic languages") is common.
The appearance of the letter h in the alphabet is reserved mostly for loanwords and toponyms within the Republic of North Macedonia but outside of the standard language region. In Macedonian, this is the case with eastern towns such as Pehčevo. In fact, the Macedonian language is based in Prilep, Pelagonia and words such as thousand and urgent are and in standard Macedonian but and in Serbian (also, Macedonian , vs. Bulgarian , (folk dance, beautiful)). This is actually a part of an isogloss, a dividing line separating Prilep from Pehčevo in the Republic of North Macedonia at the southern extreme, and reaching central Serbia (Šumadija) at a northern extreme. In Šumadija, local folk songs may still use the traditional form of I want being oću (оћу) compared with (хоћу) as spoken in standard Serbian.
Syllabic /l/ Some versions of Torlak have retained the syllabic , which, like , can serve the nucleus of a syllable. In most of the Shtokavian dialects, the syllabic eventually became or . In standard Bulgarian, it is preceded by the vowel represented by ъ () to separate consonant clusters. Naturally, the becomes velarized in most such positions, giving . In some dialects, most notably the Leskovac dialect, the word-final -l has instead shifted into the vocal cluster -(i)ja; for example the word пекал became пекја (to bake). Word-medially however the syllabic /l/ remains unaltered.
TorlakKrashovan (Caraș) влк пекъл сълза жлт Northern (Svrljig) вук пекал суза жлът Central (Lužnica) вук пекл слза жлт Southern (Vranje) влк пекал солза жлт Western (Prizren) вук пекл слуза жлт Eastern (Tran) вук пекл слза жлт North-Eastern (Belogradchik) влк пекл слза жлт South-Eastern (Kumanovo) вук пекъл слза жут Standard Serbo-Croatian вук, vuk пекао, pekao суза, suza жут, žut Standard Bulgarian вълк пекъл сълза жълт Standard Macedonian волк печел солза жолт English wolf (have) baked tear yellow
Features shared with Eastern South Slavic Loss of most grammatical cases as in Bulgarian and Macedonian (some Torlak dialects, however, retain the accusative case, while Bulgarian and Macedonian do not). Loss of infinitive as in Bulgarian and Macedonian, present in Serbian. Full retention of the aorist and the imperfect, as in Bulgarian. Use of a definite article as in Bulgarian and Macedonian, lacking in Serbian (Torlak uses three definite articles like Macedonian, a feature lost in standard Bulgarian). ə for Old Church Slavonic ь and ъ in all positions: , (Bulgarian , ; Serbian , ; Macedonian , ), including in the place of OCS suffixes -, - (Bulgarian -, -; Serbian -, -; Macedonian -, -). Lack of phonetic pitch and length as in Bulgarian and Macedonian, present in Serbian. Frequent stress on the final syllable in polysyllabic words, impossible in Serbian and Macedonian (Bulgarian , Serbian and Macedonian ). Preservation of final , which in Serbian developed to (Bulgarian and Macedonian , Serbian ). Comparative degree of adjectives formed with the particle as in Eastern South Slavic , Serbian . Lack of epenthetic l, as in Eastern South Slavic , Serbian Use of pronoun meaning what, as in Eastern South Slavic rather than as in standard Serbian ( also preserved in some Croatian dialects) and of the standard Bulgarian (often shortened to ).
Features shared with Western South Slavic In all Torlak dialects: ǫ gave rounded u like in Shtokavian Serbian, unlike unrounded ъ in literary Bulgarian and a in Macedonian vь- gave u in Western, v- in Eastern *čr gave cr in Western, but was preserved in Eastern Distinction between Proto-Slavic and is lost in Eastern (S.-C. njega, Bulgarian nego). Voiced consonants in final position are not subject to devoicing (Serbian grad (written and pronounced), Bulgarian/Macedonian pronounced