What the plate shows
A distribution of names
The plate groups local answers into name families. Green shows the urda family, red the izvara family and H the absent referent.
Dialect map · urda and izvara
A Cheese
Is a Map
On a Bulgarian dialect map, urda and izvara name a product made from whey. In a comparative reading of the atlas, the same form, urda, also appears on a map for a product made from milk. That changes the question: before you trace a word across the Balkans, you have to know what was in the pot.
- L25
- urda from whey
- L26
- urda from milk
- H
- referent absent
- 4
- models to compare
L26 appears in Nicolae Saramandu’s comparative reading. S8
one product · two maps · four models
01
Why this map matters
A whey product connects a recipe to the geography of words.
In Romanian, it is urdă. On L25, the green area groups urda forms across western and southern Bulgaria; red groups the izvara family across much of the north and east. The question becomes concrete: did the name and the technology travel together?
The comparison starts with three checks: what the term names, how the product is made and how the atlas built the coloured area. Chronology, sound history and social history can then help us weigh the possible routes.
The historical question
What route did the word take?
Chronology, sound history, meaning and social history can separate borrowing, shared inheritance and repeated circulation. Each explanation needs different evidence.
02
Plate L25, up close
What does this map show?
The Bulgarian title names a product made from the whey left after cheese-making. The legend groups local answers, and H marks places where the product is absent as a referent.
КАРТА № Л 25plate artifact
direct observation
Start with the plate
The title, legend and frame show what the atlas set out to map. The plate stays beside the explanation so each step can be checked.
source S1
lexical reading
Izvara points to boiling. Urda asks for a different history.
Izvara, odvara, podvara and izvarka point through their forms to boiling and extraction. Urda has a less transparent history in Bulgarian. It may be a term introduced through contact or retained from an older layer. The map gives the distribution; chronology must explain how it got there.
source S1
cartographic method
Colour groups local points
Colour is a cartographic generalisation based on local answers. H marks the absent referent. The point network, question and drawing rules show how the answers were grouped.
source S1
Plate legend
- извара · odvara · podvara · izvarka
- влашик · vlašik
- нор · nor
- ишумик · ishumik
- урда · urda
- H · absent referent
03
Two maps, one form
The same name can cover two products.
Nicolae Saramandu notes that the atlas has two maps for urda: L25 for the product made from cheese whey and L26 for the product made from milk. The scan here is L25. Choose between the two recipes and see how the question about the name changes.
L25 · from whey / The product made from leftover whey
The same name can cover different products.
the plate we can see
The product made from leftover whey
Milk is coagulated for caș, and the remaining whey is heated again. Soluble proteins rise and can be gathered. This is the recipe described by plate L25.
source S1
the map cited by S8
Starts directly from milk
The second map cited by Saramandu asks about urda made from milk. The form УРДА appears on both maps, but the recipe changes the product being compared. Meaning, process and distribution have to be read together.
source S8
04
Three checks for one form
A word must be compared with the product it names.
A form resembles another only after we check what it names, how the product is made and how the answer was collected.
AWORD
How is it used?
We compare spelling, pronunciation, derivatives and how speakers use the term.
BPRODUCT
What is in the pot?
Fatty whey? Whey left after caș? Milk added? The product after a second heating? The recipe tells us whether we are talking about the same thing.
CSOURCE
How did the answer reach the map?
Year, question, localities, points and grouping rules show how local answers became a coloured area.
Word, product, process and local classification need to be checked together.
05
From milk to urda
The recipe tells us what the map names.
On L25, the whey left after the first cheese is heated again. Its soluble proteins coagulate and can be gathered. Press a step to see the product take shape.
Now in the pot
01 / Milk
01
matter
Milk
The raw material may be sheep, cow or goat milk. Species, season and local economy can change the recipe from the start.
02
technology
The milk coagulates
Milk is coagulated for caș or another product. The first coagulation leaves the whey named in the atlas question.
03
classification
The whey remains
Whey is the liquid left after the curd is removed. Some households heat it again; others use it differently. This choice determines whether the product appears as a distinct category.
04
transformation
A second heating
When heated, soluble proteins denature and coagulate. This step explains the product. The history of the word requires a different kind of evidence.
05
visible transformation
The proteins rise
Soluble proteins form clusters that rise and can be strained. This is where the product becomes visible, before each community gives it a name.
06
lexicon
A community uses a name
This is where social history begins: who used the name, who kept it and who adapted it? A practice can travel while its name changes from one community to another.
Each stage can be read on its own; the button above joins them into one transformation.
06
From plate to explanation
How much can one colour tell us?
Choose a level and see what each step adds: a local answer, an area, a relationship between forms, a contact direction, a social network or an origin hypothesis. Each step needs new evidence.
Observation
An answer appears at a point
An informant, in a locality and a survey, supplied a form for the atlas question.
What the map shows
This level needs the point record: what the informant said, where and under what conditions.
Evidence needed for this step
The transcription, date, exact question and interview conditions.
Area
The atlas groups answers into an area
The green colour shows that atlas editors assigned the area to the urda family.
What the map shows
The plate shows the area; the point network and drawing rules show how the answers were grouped.
Evidence needed for this step
The point network and drawing rules.
Relationship
The forms may be historically related
urdă, urda and urdhë resemble each other enough to demand historical comparison.
What the map shows
The distribution gives us a strong reason to compare them.
Evidence needed for this step
Sound correspondences, morphology, aligned meanings and comparable attestations.
Direction
One variety borrowed from another
We can propose a direction: Romance to Slavic, Albanian to Romance or another route.
What the map shows
A direction needs chronology, sound paths and differences in contact between communities.
Evidence needed for this step
Historical distribution and evidence that one side could transmit the form to the other.
Transmission
Pastoral communities may have carried the term
Shepherds, traders, seasonal workers and bilingual communities enter the hypothesis.
What the map shows
Mountain geography shows where circulation could have taken place.
Evidence needed for this step
Social history, migration, pastoral economy, documents and local networks.
Origin
The word enters an origin hypothesis
An older-population hypothesis links a word to a homeland, continuity or ethnic origin.
What the map shows
At this level, the comparison needs an archive wider than plate L25.
Evidence needed for this step
Independent evidence from history, archaeology, demography and historical philology.
The form on the plate opens a question about the people who carried it. These six levels show what evidence must be added to move from observation to origin.
map cited at levels 1–2 S1
07
The etymologist’s bench
An etymology is built from several tests.
Choose a question and place the product, map, archive, sounds and social networks side by side. Each test answers a different part of the same question.
01 / Product
six tests01
Product
Are we talking about the same thing?
L25 asks about urda made from cheese whey. A Romanian description also records a version with milk added. Comparing recipes comes before comparing forms.
semantic alignment
L25 fixes the whey product, while the Romanian description documents variation. Matching the product is the starting point for the comparison.
02
Map
What does the colour show?
L25 assigns an area to the urda family; H keeps the absent referent. Colour is the atlas’s interpretation; the detail comes from points, the question and drawing rules.
observation + generalisation
The plate shows the area assigned by its editors. Points, the question and drawing rules show how it was built.
03
Archive
How old is the trace?
A study cites a written attestation from 1550 for urdă. A comparison brings together Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, Greek, Serbian and Turkish dialect forms. The area is wide, and the documentation is uneven.
Forms cited in the Balkan comparison
- Bulgarian · Rhodopesурда · хурда · вурда
- Romanianurdă
- Albanianudhos · hurdë
- dialectal Greekούρда
- Serbianурда · вурда
- Turkishurda
plus forms in Czech, Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and Hungarian
chronology + gaps
1550 fixes a Romanian written mention. Albena Mircheva shows that dictionaries and studies propose different etymologies. An attestation and a hypothesis have to be read at different levels.
04
Sound
Does the sound path fit?
urdă, urda and urdhë resemble each other in writing and sound. A full model must explain vowels, consonants, stress, inflection and local adaptation.
phonetic test
Formal resemblance starts the comparison. Sound correspondences can support a route.
05
Network
Who could have carried it?
Pastoral terms can travel with people, practices and markets. Saramandu notes such terms on atlas maps. A concrete route needs social evidence and chronology.
social context
Geography shows the setting for circulation. Chronology and social history show which communities could make the route plausible.
06
Layer
Romanian + Albanian: which layer?
Dan Ungureanu separates “substrate” from the label “Dacian” and shows that Romanian–Albanian resemblance can have several explanations. For urdă, the comparison must distinguish substrate, borrowing, inheritance and contact.
comparative rule
A shared word may come from substrate, an old loan, shared inheritance or contact. Each possibility needs its own evidence.
The bench rule: resemblance starts the comparison. Evidence chooses the explanation. S9
08
Four explanations for one map
One distribution can have four explanations.
The same area can come from different histories. Each model below names the evidence that would separate it from the others.
01Romance sourceRomanian or Balkan Romance as sourceplausible · to verify
The term travelled from Romance varieties to Slavic, Greek or other neighbours, perhaps with pastoral activity.
What supports the model
Integration in Romanian and Aromanian; southern-Danubian forms; possible pastoral contact.
What would distinguish it
The earliest attestations in each language, sound paths and a demonstrated historical centre.
02Albanian sourceAlbanian as source or reservoirpossible · to verify
The comparison between urdă and dialectal Albanian urdhë may point to an Albanian route or an older contact zone.
What supports the model
Formal resemblance and scholarship that discusses the forms together.
What would distinguish it
Historical distribution, chronology and an account of every sound and meaning change.
03Shared Balkan inheritanceA shared older inheritanceattractive · to test
The forms may preserve an older Balkan layer, before modern standards and borders.
What supports the model
The areal pattern and the technical character of the vocabulary.
What would distinguish it
Phonological and distributional predictions that distinguish substrate from borrowing.
04CirculationA technical term transmitted more than oncestructural model · provisional
The word travelled with a practice, was borrowed repeatedly, adapted, replaced locally and preserved in pastoral communities.
What supports the model
The area crosses several borders; occupational vocabulary travels readily.
What would distinguish it
Field data, historical documents, mobility networks and a verifiable chronology.
Circulation becomes an explanation when we can say who transmitted the term, when, along which route and through what changes.
09
What dictionaries keep
Standard languages kept different names.
Romanian kept urdă as its ordinary term. Standard Bulgarian chose извара, while урда remained regional. Modern dictionaries therefore preserve different traces of contact.
Romanian standard term
urdă
Romanian dictionaries define the product through boiled and coagulated whey, and DEX marks the etymology as unknown. Urdă is ordinary in standard Romanian; older contact forms have to be sought in historical and dialect dictionaries.
Bulgarian standard term
извара
The izvara family is transparent to a Slavic speaker through its link with boiling. The meaning is clear today; the term’s age requires historical evidence.
Standardisation leaves regional, competing and forgotten words outside common vocabulary. Those words may hold important evidence about contact.
10
Sources and open questions
Read the map beside its sources.
Here you will find the atlas, dictionaries, contact studies and the etymological comparison. Each source answers a different question: a recipe identifies the product, a map shows distribution and etymology compares forms through time.
S1primary
Atlas of Bulgarian Dialects. Generalising volume. Vol. I–III
The institute’s official page describes the generalising volume on phonetics, accentuation and lexicology, published in Sofia in 2001. Plate L25 is the artifact this dossier starts from.
Open sourceS2lexicography
Urdă · DEX, MDA and etymological records
The entry defines the product through boiling and coagulating fatty whey. DEX marks the etymology as unknown; MDA records a comparison with Albanian.
Open sourceS3scholarship
Graiurile aromânești din Peninsula Balcanică
It discusses Aromanian urda, Albanian urdhë and Greek forms as part of a contact history. Alongside chronology and sound paths, it proposes a route worth testing.
Open sourceS4method
Realizarea hărților interpretative din ALDRo
It shows how a modern atlas separates the linguistic survey-point database from the geographic database and generates interpretive maps from them.
Open sourceS5context
Езикът на българската кухня
It provides context for how Bulgarian culinary projects treat linguistic territory, cultural exchange and food technology.
Open sourceS6provenance
The plate scan and the question that prompted it
The plate is reproduced as a visual artifact; its bibliographic identification comes from the atlas’s official page. The image opened the question about the word and the product.
Declared provenanceS7food technology
The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries
Describes whey products made by heat-coagulating soluble proteins; the coagulated proteins gather at the surface and drain through cloth.
Open sourceS8comparative reading
Despre elementul romanic în limbile slave meridionale
Notes that the Bulgarian atlas gives urda two maps: L25 for the whey product and L26 for the milk product, with the same form УРДА reported in a recurring area. Saramandu describes L26; the image here reproduces L25.
Open sourceS9method
Cuvinte de substrat? Da. Cuvinte dacice? Nu.
Separates substrate from the label “Dacian” and treats Romanian–Albanian resemblance as a starting point for comparison. It includes urdă in a list of historical proposals.
Open sourceS10historical lexicography
Din terminologia brânzeturilor românești
Cites a written attestation from 1550 for urdă and records a version in which milk is added to the whey product. It dates a written mention and documents recipe variation; the word’s origin needs other sources.
Open sourceS11comparative etymology
Pan-Balkan and Paleo-Balkan Lexicon in Bulgarian
In a critical survey of Balkan vocabulary, it places Bulgarian dialect forms урда, хурда, вурда beside Romanian urdă, Albanian udhos and hurdë, dialectal Greek ούρδα, Serbian урда/vурда and Turkish urda. It compares Dacian, Turkic, Paleo-Balkan and Romanian hypotheses and shows that a wide area needs chronology, sound history and social history before it can support an etymon.
Open sourcemain sources
These sources keep atlas data, dictionary entries, methodological papers and contact studies distinct. The supplied image stays beside the atlas bibliography as the visual source object.
how to read the plate
Observation, area, relationship, direction, transmission, origin. Each level adds a different test.
What stays in view