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Multilingualism Geography Sociolinguistics Historical Linguistics

The Balkan Sprachbund: A Linguistic Melting Pot

Estimated read time 6 min read

What happens when unrelated languages live side-by-side for centuries? In the Balkans, languages as different as Albanian, Greek, and Romanian started borrowing each other’s grammar, creating a unique “Sprachbund”—a linguistic area where neighbors sound more alike than distant relatives. This linguistic melting pot reveals a fascinating story of how human contact can reshape the very structure of language.