Gora Dialect - Distribution and Classification

Distribution and Classification

The dialect is spoken across the Gora region. It is spoken in 18 villages in Kosovo, 11 in Albania and 2 in the Republic of Macedonia. In Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonian it is written in either the Serbian or Macedonian Cyrillic Alphabets, whereas in Albania, the Latin Albanian alphabet is used. In the 1991 Yugoslav census, 54.8% of the inhabitants of the Gora municipality said that they spoke the Goranian language, roughly in proportion to the number who considered themselves ethnic Gorani. Then a little less than half from the inhabitants of Gora described their language as Serbian.

The dialect is related to the neighbouring Prizren-South Morava dialect area to the north-east, which comprises the Serbian/Torlakian varieties spoken in the southern half of Kosovo and in south-eastern Serbia, as well as to the northernmost dialects of Macedonia. In the context of Macedonian dialectology, it is described as having particular close links to the Lower Polog dialect of the Polog and Tetovo regions, which are situated just opposite the Gora area on the other side of the Šar Mountains.

Goranian has also been classified as a part of the Bulgarian dialect area, by Bulgarian, as well as some foreign anthropologists. In 2007 the Bulgarian 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.

On the other hand, former Yugoslav linguists Vidoeski, Brozović and Ivić identify the Slavic dialect of the Gora region as Macedonian. According to some sources in 2003 the Kosovo government acquired Macedonian language and grammar books to be taught in Gorani schools.