Reflections on the Use of Turkish Elements in the Archive of Ali Pasha of Ioannina (Late 18th Century)

Abstract

The present contribution studies the use of Turkish lexical elements in a specifically selected corpus of petitions (αρζουχάλια, arzuhal) from the Archive of Ali Pasha of Ioannina in terms of sociolinguistic function and the structural adaption of the words. The material includes letters written in Greek between 1792 and 1798 by various supplicants, both Christians and Muslims, addressed to Ali Pasha and his court. From the analysis of the Turkish elements, conclusions can be drawn about the sociolinguistic and cultural-historical background of the texts and the complex di(tri)glossic and multilingual situation in Epirus during the end of the 18^th century. The importance of Greek as a cross-cultural and cross-religious L1 may thus be linked to the function of Turkish as a H-variety and prestige language. What is more, the linguistic analysis of the data contributes to the knowledge of the diachronic and diatopic distribution of Balkan Turkish.