Gorani
našinski
Native to	Kosovo,Albania andNorth Macedonia
Ethnicity	Gorani
Native speakers	60,000 (2011 census[citation needed])
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Transitional Torlakian Gorani
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Kosovo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Area where Torlakian dialects are spoken. Number 4 (in southern Kosovo) indicates the Gora dialect area.
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TheGorani orGoranski, alsoNašinski ("Our language") language, is a regiolectal variety ofSouth Slavic spoken by theGorani people in the border area betweenKosovo,North Macedonia, andAlbania. It is part of theTorlakian dialect group,^[1] which is transitional between Eastern and Western South Slavic languages.^[2][3][4][5]

Spoken across theGora region in 19 villages inKosovo, 11 inAlbania, and 2 inNorth Macedonia. In Kosovo and North Macedonia, it is sometimes written in either theSerbian orMacedonian Cyrillic Alphabets, whereas in Albania, the LatinAlbanian alphabet is used. In the 1991Yugoslav census, 54.8% of the inhabitants of theGora Municipality said that they spoke the Gorani language, roughly in proportion to the number who considered themselves ethnic Gorani. In the same census, a little less than half of the inhabitants of Gora considered their languageSerbian.^[6]

Related to the neighbouringTorlakian dialect varieties spoken in thePrizren–South Morava area to the northeast, also spoken in the southern half of Kosovo and in southeasternSerbia, as well as to the northernmost dialects of North Macedonia. In relation to Macedonian dialectology, it is described as having particular close links to theTetovo dialect of thePolog andTetovo regions,^[7] which are situated just opposite the Gora area on the other side of theŠar Mountains.

Gorani has also been classified as a part of theBulgarian dialect area, byBulgarian^[8] as well as some foreignanthropologists.^[9] In 2007, theBulgarian Academy of Sciences sponsored and printed the first Gorani–Albanian dictionary (with 43,000 words and phrases) by Goranian researcher Nazif Dokle, who considers the language a Bulgarian dialect.^[10]

On the other hand, former Yugoslav linguists Vidoeski,Brozović andIvić identify the Slavic dialect of the Gora region asMacedonian.^[11] According to some sources, in 2003, the Kosovo government acquired Macedonian language and grammar books to be taught in Gorani schools.^{[citation needed]}

Gorani shares with standardSerbian, the northernmostdialects of Macedonian, and westerndialects of Bulgarian, the vocalisation of earlier syllabic /l/ in words likevuk ('wolf') (cf. Macedonianvolk, standard Bulgarianvǎlk). With Serbian it also shares the reflex of */tj, dj/ as /tɕ, dʑ/, as opposed tostandard Macedonian /c, ɟ/ (⟨ќ⟩,⟨ѓ⟩).^[12] With the westernmost Macedonian varieties, as well as most of the Bulgarian varieties, it shares the reflex of "big Yus" (*/ɔ̃/) as /ə/ (ǎ) in words likepǎt ('road') (cf. Macedonianpat, Serbianput). With standard Macedonian and some Bulgarian dialects it shares the reflexes of */ĭ, ŭ/ as /e, o/ in words likeden ('day') andson ('dream'). With standard Macedonian, standard Serbian and some Bulgarian dialects it shares the retention of syllabic /r/ in words likekrv ('blood').^[13]

• /ʋ/ may also be heard as a semivowel[w].

• Nasalized mid-vowels/ẽ,õ/ may also occur among different village dialects.^[14]

Morphology

The dialect makes a distinction between three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, instrumental) and two numbers (singular and plural).

Grammar

Nouns have threegrammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) that correspond, to a certain extent, with the word ending so most nouns with -a are feminine, -o and -e neuter, and the rest mostly masculine but with some feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun affects the morphology of other parts of speech (adjectives, pronouns, and verbs) attached to it. Nouns are declined into seven cases:nominative,genitive,dative,accusative,vocative,locative, andinstrumental.

Nominative: Dōmà ni je ubava. Our house is good. Šo?

Genitive: Dǒmà ni je ubava. Our house is good. Koj?

Dative: Dǒmī´je ubavo. The house is fine. Komu?

Accusative: Nacrtau negua Dōmā. He drew his house. Kogo?

Vocative: Dómā, ni trebe! We need a house!

Instrumental: Ja živuem so dǒmā. I live with a house. So šo?

Locative: Ja som (vo) Dōmá. I am at the house. Če de?

• Gorani people
• South Slavic languages

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