Deconstructing “Balkan Latin”

Kunčer, Dragana (2021) Deconstructing “Balkan Latin”. In: Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World,ed. Aaron W. Irvin. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, pp. 225-241. ISBN 978-1-119-63071-5

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Abstract

In the following chapter, the issues of typological, logical, and even ontological nature in the scholarship when using the term “Balkan Latin” will be listed. It will be pointed out that the possible solution to the confusing situation should rather be sought in artificiality of the term itself, than in the complexity of the real linguistic problem. Namely, it will be demonstrated that in the case of “Balkan Latin”, and contrary to the sequence of scientific categorization, first the category or linguistic type was created, and afterwards it was “filled up” with the evidence. It will be shown that the motivation for this reverse order is in the political and ideological profile of its creator, a linguist Petar Skok (1881–1856), who along with other intellectuals of the time, believed that the Balkan commonalities exist, and that they derive from the ancient past

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