Patterns and Mechanisms of Lexical Changes in the Languages of Symbiotic Communities: Kinship Terminology in Karashevo (Banat, Romania)

Abstract

This article deals with the ethnolinguistic situation in one of the most archaic areas of language and cultural contact between South Slavic and Eastern Romance populations —  the Karashevo microregion in Banat, Romania. For the first time, the lexical-semantic group of kinship terms in the Krashovani dialects from the Slavic-speaking village of Cara șova and the Romanian-speaking village of Iabalcea is being analysed in a comparative perspective as two separate linguistic codes which “ serve ” the same local culture. The main goal of the research was to investigate patterns of borrowing mechanisms which could link lexical (sub) systems of spiritual culture under the conditions of intimate language contact in symbiotic communities. It will be shown that, in such situations, the equivalent translation becomes relevant as a specific strategy of linguistic code interrelationships. Even though kinship terminology in closely contacting dialects has the potential to help linguists trace back the socio-historical conditions and outcomes of language contact (such as marriage patterns), linguistic methods have their limitations in the case of poorly documented vernaculars. These limitations could be overcome by compiling more data on “isocontacting” communities and, possibly, by analysing this data using quantitative tools. DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2020.9.1.14