Linguistic Areas of Transfer: the European Diffusion Area and the Balkan Sprachbund

Abstract

This article focuses on the concept of linguistic area as it is reflected in research concerned with the Balkan and the European Sprachbunds. Both these diffusion areas have been identified or understood as Other in relation with the West and in the world-wide context, respectively. Several distinctive features that characterise the areas under scrutiny and identify them as Sprachbunds are dealt with in this paper. Our research briefly touches upon the way in which several historical circumstances have affected the cultural contact that lead to language change in these two linguistic areas.