Towards a Historical Linguistic Study of Balkan Anthropogeography. Review of the book: Sobolev, A. N. (2013). Osnovy lingvokulturnoi antropogeografii Balkanskogo poluostrova [Elements of the Linguocultural Anthropogeography of the Balkan Peninsula] (Vol. 1). Saint Petersburg: Nauka; München: Verlag Otto Sagner

Abstract

The paper briefly reviews the first volume of the series, which seeks to become a comprehensive study in the anthropogeography of the Balkans. Giving a high appraisal of the work as a whole, the reviewer specifically focuses on the historical and anthropolinguistic analysis of Balkan toponymy known for its extremely heterogeneous, multistratal nature, paying special attention to the presentation of the Paleo-Balkan data. The reviewed work significantly contributes to the overall understanding of thi particular complexity, though it contains some inaccuracies pointed out in the paper.

Keywords

• Paleo-Balkan linguistics
• toponymy
• etymology
• anthropogeography