The article describes the sociolinguistic situation of Christian Slavic-speaking groups in Aegean Macedonia and Muslim Slavic-speaking groups in Western Thrace. The failed integration of both groups into the Greek nation-state during 20th century (ethnic cleansing, repression, assimilation in Macedonia, and marginalization and stigmatization in Thrace) has led to different scenarios of language shift in the communities. The two case studies challenge the leading model of language death as developed by Hans-Jürgen Sasse in 1992 and try to identify the unique selling points of the case studies from the Southern Balkans. Sasse as a typologist tends to neglect the sociopolitical context relevant for the emergence of linguistic loyalty/disloyalty. In the case of the Pomak minority, we see a rare case where attempts at codifying a minoritized language contribute to its death – a finding that clearly contradicts the sociolinguistic state of the art.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.