Methods of Digital Linguistic Geography in Research on the Borders Between Closely Related Languages (Dialects of Eastern Serbia and Western Bulgaria)

In the study, the latest computer methods of clustering and visualization are applied to reliable and quantitatively relevant intralinguistic and extralinguistic data on adjacent crossborder dialects of two closely related South Slavic languages, Serbian and Bulgarian, for the first time in Slavic linguistic geography. The survey is a pilot experimental one. The objectives of the study are the correct machine conversion of the existing analog primary data into a digital format, the development of digital tools for processing and clustering the primary data, and the generation of trial combinatorial linguistic maps. It is assumed that as a result of applying the methods of systematization, analysis, synthesis, and visualization of the geographical distribution of clusters of linguistic and extralinguistic data, a cartographic explication of objective boundaries between closely related languages is possible. The primary data for the study were obtained by a machine digitizing of a part of the South Slavic dialect materials from the second volume of the Dialeclological Allas of Easlern Serbia and Weslern Bulgaria (DAESWB). The immediate tasks of digitalization included the compilation of an electronic geographic grid of the surveyed sites; the digitization of three linguistic maps from DAESWB (on reflexes of the Proto-Slavic *dj, *ǫ, *ь); the development of digital linguogeographic tools and their functions in the R programming language in RStudio; the introduction to the study of extralinguistic information on the altitude of each site above sea level; the creation of combinatorial physical-geographical and linguistic maps using geometric shapes and color scales. A map was generated combining information about reflexes *dj with data on the altitude of sites above sea level, as well as a map clustering reflexes *dj>dž, *ǫ>u, *ь>ǝ. The generated experimental maps demonstrate the clustering of reflexes * dj>dž, *ǫ>u, *ь>ǝ and the contrast of the delimitation of their distribution area from neighboring areas, as well as their direct correlation with the altitude location of the corresponding settlements in the Stara Planina mountain range on both sides of the state border between Serbia and Bulgaria. The working hypothesis about the possibility of a cartographic explication of objective boundaries between closely related languages, in particular between Serbian and Bulgarian, can be considered confirmed. In the future, the study will reliably verify the linguogeographical observations on the delineation of closely related languages.

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