A Linguistic Anthropology of Praxis and Language Shift : Arvanitika (Albanian) and Greek in Contact

Lukas D. Tsitsipis explores a case of linguistic shift in the Balkans. He focuses on Arvanitika, an Albanian variety spoken in Greece which is under threat through a process of attrition. Various factors relating the linguistic to the non-linguistic aspects of the shift are examined in detail. The emphasis is on both the macro-processes responsible for the shift as they emerge from the broader sociopolitical conditions of the Greek nation-state, and on the local communities' discourse as a complex response to the former.