The consonant h in the speech of Bosniaks in Albania

Abstract

The paper provides a description of the use of the consonant h in a dialectologically unstudied area, which represents a sort of linguistic oasis of the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect, surrounded on all sides by an Albanian organic idiom. Specifically, in the speech of Bosniaks in Albania, who have been living in Albania for over a century and a half in the district of Durrës, in the villages of Borak and Kodža, this consonant shows exceptional vitality and preservation, which is a characteristic feature of the original speech area from which the Bosniaks originate. However, it is not an unknown fact, as pointed out in earlier dialectological works, that the consonant h is an unstable consonant in the speech of the Štokavian dialect, where it appears in a highly diverse manner or has weakened frication or even disappears entirely in some Štokavian dialects. Previous research clearly indicates its stability in the speech of Bosniaks. Furthermore, it is also known that in the speech of other ethnic groups residing in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian linguistic area, this sound is not stable.. In addition to this criterion of ethnic affiliation, its representation will be shown in relation to its position in the word. Furthermore, examples of stable use of the h consonant will be provided both in words of Slavic origin and in words that do not belong to Slavic languages, considering the position in the words in which they occur. Given the dialectal origin of the Bosniaks in Albania, we did not expect substitutions of this consonant with other sounds, which was confirmed, and the recorded examples of replacing the consonant h with the consonant k in this speech reflect the influence of the Albanian linguistic environment. In the speech of Bosniaks in Albania, there are no significant deviations regarding the loss of the h consonant in comparison to the dialectal area from which the Bosniaks in Albania originate. The secondary nature of the h consonant is also evident in the use of this consonant in the studied speech. Additionally, there are examples in the corpus of the studied speech where the group hv becomes f, which is also a feature not unknown in the speech area from which the Bosniaks in Albania originate.