Matthew C. CURTIS (The Ohio State University)
The allolinguistic status of the Albanian palato-alveolar affricate xh
Despite the calls of Joseph 1994 for surveys of sound symbolism for all Balkan
languages, and the potential for comparative study between Balkan languages, observations of
sound symbolism in Balkan languages remains contained to sporadic, singular observations such
as Friedman 2002 “Vocalic /r/ occurs in final position only in a few foreign and onomatopoetic
words.” Joseph 1994’s work on the status of ts in Modern Greek shows some of the possibilities
of studying the affective and expressive symbolism of particular phonemes within a language.
A useful notion from this literature is that of “allolanguage” (Wescott 1975, Joseph
1994), which recognizes two main components of language generally, “microlanguage”, which
is the part of language that depends less on context, is oriented toward quantifiable factual
information, and values the precise and specific, while “allolanguage” - including infantile
speech, interjection, speech deformation, and artistic language - depends much more on context,
is oriented toward emotion and expressivity, and cannot be parsed sensibly. Although studies on
allolanguage may have had little impact on our understanding of more formal patterns of
language, they can provide insight on the patterns of expressive, affective, and onomatopoeic
strategies within a language and creative linguistic tendencies of the speakers themselves.
In this paper, I argue that the palato-alveolar affricate (<xh>) in Albanian has a special
allolinguistic status, marking expressive and affective speech. Much of this can be determined
historically, perhaps as a late borrowing from Turkish and other languages, but not as a direct
reflex of any Proto-Indo-European sound. Diachronic provenience aside, I claim that <xh> can
be considered as a synchronic marker of allolinguistic speech by its high frequency in colloquial
and affective expressions, compared to a low frequency in “microlinguistic” use. Such affective
and expressive expressions include xhaxha, ‘uncle, mister’ xhan, ‘spirit, soul, dear one’ xham
‘cool’ (slang), and bëj xhambaz “to swindle someone.” In addition, alternations such as xheder ~
qeder ‘give up’ may show the phonological instability, hence phonological uniqueness of <xh>.
Furthermore, in semantic doublets such as penxhere vs. dritare ‘window’ and tenxhere vs. kosi
‘pot,’ etc, it appears in the forms that are more colloquial and familiar.
The expressive sound symbolism of <xh> in Albanian also raises important questions for
other Balkan languages. Do these same sounds have a similar allolinguistic status in other
Balkan languages? If this status is the result of borrowing from Turkish or other languages, what
is the relationship between the historical origin of the sounds and their contemporary status as
markers of colloquialness? (Kazazis 1972) What does this reveal about the languages’ and the
language communities’ interaction with Ottoman Turkish and within the Ottoman Empire?
Friedman, Victor A. 2002, Macedonian. Languages of the World/Materials 117. LinCom Europa.
Kazazis, Kostas. 1972 “The Status of Turkisms in the Present-Day Balkan Languages,” Aspects of the
Balkans: continuity and Change H. Birnbaum & S. Vryonis, eds. Mouton.
Joseph, Brian D. 1994 “Modern Greek ts: beyond sound symbolism.” In Sound Symbolism, L. Hinton, J.
Nichols, & J. Ohala, eds.. Cambridge University Press.
Sawicka, Irena. 1997. The Balkan Sprachbund in the Light of Phonetic Features. Studia Humanitatis 2,
Irena Sawicka and Wacław M. Osadnik, eds. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Energia.
Wescott, Roger. 1975. “Allolinguistics: Exploring the Peripheries of Speech”, in P. Reich, ed., The
Second LACUS Forum. The Hornbeam Press, pp. 497-513.