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Language Variation – European Perspectives VIII: Selected papers from the Tenth International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 10), Leeuwarden, June 2019
Edited by Hans Van de Velde, Nanna Haug Hilton and Remco Knooihuizen
[Studies in Language Variation 25] 2021
► pp. 247–268

Chapter 11
Dialect contact in the vowel system of Mišótika Cappadocian

ORCID logo | University of Patras | Ghent University
ORCID logo | University of Patras
ORCID logo | Ghent University

This study focuses on changes in the vowel system of contemporary Mišótika Cappadocian. It presents an acoustic analysis of the vowels of Mišótika, based on recordings of 16 native speakers from two different Cappadocian communities in Northern Greece. Our analysis shows that the current vowel system diverges from the one attested a century ago. Moreover, there are significant differences between the two Cappadocian speech communities, which are the result of dialect contact under different sociolinguistic conditions. Finally, gender also seems to be a significant sociolinguistic parameter, as male speakers seem to be one step ahead in the process of linguistic change.

Keywords: Mišótika, Cappadocian, vowel system, linguistic change, dialect contact, gender
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Historical and linguistic background
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Neo Agioneri
    • 4.2Xirochori
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The vowels [œ, y, ɯ, æ]
      • Hypothesis 1
      • Hypothesis 2
    • 5.2The vowels [i, e, a, o, u]
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 16 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.25.11vas
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