Said in a Kamenitza dialect
Ethno-linguistic book design and illustrations
This book is the first complex ethno-linguistic research of the once Kamenitza village, nowadays a neighborhood of the town of Velingrad, Bulgaria.

For the first time information about all linguistic levels of the so important for the dialectology and the history of the ancient Kamenitza dialect has been presented for the needs of linguistics.
What makes the research of the dialects in this area extremely interesting and significant is the fact that the Chepinno valley is the boundary between the “ya” (я) and „e” dialects, which are important for the classification of the Bulgarian dialects.

Thus the Kamenitza dialect, being a part of these archaic Rhodope‘s dialects,  creates the link between the eastern - Bulgarian and western – Bulgarian dialects in the southern part of the country.

The most important peculiarities and regularities of the dialect system are being studied within the contemporary stage of its historical development on the basis of an abundant material, personally collected in the area by the author during the last ten years. This dialect area has been projected over the geographical map of the Bulgarian language as well.

The task of this research is to present in its maximum completeness of the colorful lexical abundance , unknown up to this moment to the linguistics.

The system of first names, family names and nicknames has been covered and some information about the local geographical names in the Kamenitza area has been provided as well.

The reader eager to learn will find some very interesting and important geographical, historical, demographic and ethnographical information about the Chepino valley and Kamenitza in this work.

The book is not a strictly specialized scientific study, but with its reach and authentic material will indisputably be of interest to Bulgarian and foreign scientists and culture specialists, as well as to a wider range of readers, specializing in Bulgarian language, Balkan languages, Slav languages, language history, ethnology, sociolinguistics and all others showing interest in the roots of their own origin and language.

Book design and illustrations by Simeon Genew.


This project is supported by:
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for Bulgarian Language
University of Forestry Sofia, Bulgaria
City of Velingrad, Bulgaria
In loving memory of prof. Georgi Pouhalev.


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