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The pre-Slavic population in this territory served as a border zone between the early Serbs and Bulgarians which created a division between the Serbo-Croat language and the Bulgarian-Macedonian one. The Torlak dialect is also considered to have Albanian and Romanian influence. A transitional dialect, the Torlak dialect, is considered to have developed later when the Serbo-Croat speakers expanded into the region in the late medieval period and came in contact with Bulgarian speakers. Expansion of Slavs into the region is thought to have led to the spread of the Vlachs (Romanian and Aromanian) into other areas of the Balkans.

During the 1980s, ethnic tensions continued with frequent violent outbreaks against Yugoslav state authorities, resulting in a further increase in emigration of Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups. Kosovar Albanians responded with a non-violent separatist movement, employing widespread civil disobedience and creation of parallel structures in education, medical care, and taxation, with the ultimate goal of achieving the independence of Kosovo. The Yugoslav leadership tried to suppress protests of Kosovo Serbs seeking protection from ethnic discrimination and violence. Inter-ethnic tensions continued to worsen in Kosovo throughout the 1980s. In 1989, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, employing a mix of intimidation and political maneuvering, drastically reduced Kosovo’s special autonomous status within Serbia and started cultural oppression of the ethnic Albanian population.

Demetrios Chomatenos is the last Byzantine archbishop of Ohrid to include Prizren in his jurisdiction until 1219. Stefan Nemanja had seized the area along the White Drin in 1185 to 1195. The ecclesiastical split of Prizren from the Patriarchate in 1219 was the final act of establishing Nemanjić rule. Stefan Dušan using Prizren Fortress as one of his temporary courts for a time. During the 13th and 14th centuries, Kosovo was a political, cultural and religious centre of the Serbian Kingdom. Konstantin Jireček concluded, from the correspondence of archbishop Demetrios of Ohrid from 1216 to 1236, that Dardania was increasingly populated by Albanians and the expansion started from Gjakova and Prizren area, prior to the Slavic expansion.