Исторически промени на вокалите в един български говор в Албания
Historical Changes in the Vowels of a Bulgarian Dialect Spoken in the Republic of Albania

Summary/Abstract: The analysis is centred on a Bulgarian dialect located outside Bulgaria. It is the dialect of the village of Vrubnik in Albania which is located within the language area of Kostursko situated in the peripheral South-West of the Bulgarian language territory. The general tendency in the Bulgarian language towards reducing the number of vowels that can be observed since the Old Bulgarian period is characteristic of the dialect of Vrubnik as well. The phenomenon is a result of the development of some basic Old Bulgarian vowels. The main aim of the paper is to trace the historical development of the Old Bulgarian vowels. The historical development of the vowels that are analysed identifies the dialect of Vrubnik as a typical representative of the peripheral South-West Bulgarian dialects. Its specifics are based on the phonemic, characteristics of West Bulgarian dialects, but they also display some East Bulgarian peculiarities. Some of the archaic features are of considerable interest. Among them the most important are the remains of nasality in the continuants of the two Old Bulgarian nasal vowels. On the basis of the latter the area of rhinesm on the territory of the Bulgarian language is delimited. In addition to that the general characteristics of the development of the Bulgarian vowel system are adduced in order to identify the position of the Vrubnik dialect in the Bulgarian language area.

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