https://doi.org/10.32798/zl.734
The Kosovan Gora region is a small mountainous area in the southern part of Kosovo, situated between Albania and North Macedonia. The Gorani are a Slavic Muslim community whose ethnolect, commonly referred to as našinski or našenski (‘our’, ‘local’), occupies an intermediate position between southeastern Serbian (Torlakian) and western Macedonian dialects, while also containing numerous Turkisms, Albanisms, and Romanisms. Like many South Slavic Muslim communities, the Gorani have been affected by the profound political, social, and cultural transformations that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia. Since 1999, competing national projects promoted by neighbouring groups have challenged traditional forms of Goranian self-identification and stimulated the emergence of different concepts of ethnicity, including a distinct Goranian identity as well as Bosniak-, Serbian-, Bulgarian-, or Macedonian-oriented identifications. This article focuses on the emergence of Bosniak identity among the Kosovan Gorani and examines its sociolinguistic dimension. Particular attention is paid to the adoption of Bosnian as a literary language by Bosniak-oriented Gorani and to the cultural and linguistic consequences of this process. The study demonstrates that language choice has become one of the key markers in the ongoing redefinition of Goranian ethnic identity.
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