Abstract
The focus of this article is the origins of (1) reduced vowels in languages of the Balkan Sprachbund,
(2) lenition of soft stops, (3) its (pre)nasalization, (4) the change of -n- into -r- in the Tosk dialect
of Albanian and a similar process in Old Romanian as well as the Istro‑
Romanian, Maramuresh
and Oltenian dialects of this language, a parallel change of Latin -l- into -r- in common Romanian
and certain Italian dialects.