B1 — intermediate Loanword layers
Layers of loanwords
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Layers of loanwords: how to tell where a word comes from
The Serbian vocabulary is a cross-section of Balkan history: five centuries of the Ottoman Empire, two centuries of the Habsburgs, the Venetian Adriatic, Hungarian Vojvodina, French fashion, church books brought from Russia and, today, English. Recognising a layer is a practical skill: it tells you where a word came from and also its register , the situation it belongs to: a chat with the neighbour, a business letter, or only an old song.
Definition
This lesson gives you a map of the layers and their areas of life, the tell-tale forms (suffixes and sound combinations that give a layer away at a glance) and, most important of all, which words to use yourself and which you only need to understand .
Tip
A loanword in Serbian is not a “spoiled” word. šećer “sugar”, kafa “coffee”, sat “hour, clock” and džep “pocket” all came from Turkish, and there is no “more Slavic” synonym for any of them. Some loanwords, however, do have a home-grown twin, and there your choice of word already signals the register.
Turkisms: the deepest layer
A Turkism is a word that came through Turkish. The Ottoman presence lasted from the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th, and it left the largest trace of all. Many “Turkish” words were themselves borrowed by Turkish, from Arabic (kafa, džep ) and from Persian (šećer, čarapa ). English coffee and sugar go back to the same sources. Here the Turkish layer is one among several; the lesson “Words from Turkish” looks at it from the inside.
Examples
Area Serbian English house and household jastuk, jorgan, dušek, sanduk, kutija pillow, quilt, mattress, chest, box crafts čekić, makaze, kašika, bakar, boja, zanat hammer, scissors, spoon, copper, colour (paint), craft clothing čarapa, čizma, dugme, torba, pamuk sock, boot, button, bag, cotton food and drink šećer, kafa, čorba, sarma, burek, kajmak, rakija sugar, coffee, thick soup, stuffed cabbage rolls, filled pastry, clotted cream, fruit brandy town and people komšija, kapija, avlija, čaršija, dućan, sokak neighbour, gate, courtyard, old market street, shop, lane feelings and character inat, merak, budala, baksuz spite, defiance, delight, fool, jinx
Kupi šećer, kafu i jedno pakovanje čarapa. Buy sugar, coffee and a pack of socks.
Komšija je iz inata ofarbao kapiju u plavo. The neighbour painted the gate blue out of sheer spite.
In register the layer is not uniform, and that matters most:
Examples
Neutral, with no replacement : use them freely: jastuk, čarapa, šećer, kafa, sat, džep, boja, kutija, makaze, čekić, kašika, torba, dugme, čizma, bubreg (the last one is “kidney”).Colloquial, with a twin : fine in speech, but the twin goes in a document: komšija — sused “neighbour”, pare — novac “money”, dućan — prodavnica “shop”, avlija — dvorište “yard”, ćošak — ugao “corner”, džabe — besplatno “for free”. You met komšija — sused and avlija — dvorište in the lesson “Synonyms & antonyms”.Old-fashioned and poetic : recognise them only: čaršija, sokak, barjak, pendžer, fildžan, mehana (old market street, lane, banner, window, small coffee cup, inn).The second key to the layer is the suffix. -džija names a person by their trade (see the lesson “Noun-forming suffixes”): kafedžija, tobdžija , the keeper of a coffee house and a gunner. -lija names a person by their place or pursuit: Sarajlija, zanatlija, meraklija , someone from Sarajevo , a craftsman, a connoisseur of life’s pleasures. -luk makes abstract nouns: komšiluk, bezobrazluk, budalaluk , the neighbourhood, impudence, foolishness. And -ana names a place, as in kafana , the Serbian tavern.
Deeper history
Five centuries and eight thousand words Ottoman rule over the Serbian lands is usually dated from the fall of Smederevo in 1459, and it was brought to an end by the Congress of Berlin in 1878. For all that time Turkish was the language of power, the army, taxes and the town market. The size of the layer was measured by the Bosnian lexicographer Abdulah Škaljić : his dictionary Turcizmi u srpskohrvatskom jeziku (Sarajevo , 1966) collected about eight thousand words. Škaljić stressed that the label “Turkism” names the go-between, not the source.
Deeper etymology
Foreign suffixes on native roots There is one sure sign that a layer has stopped being a guest: its suffix starts working on native stems. Serbian peeled off the Turkish -cı , -lı and -lık and put them to work. šaljivdžija “joker” is built on the Slavic šala “joke”, bezobrazluk on the Slavic bezobrazan “impudent”, and ciglana “brickworks” joins cigla “brick”, German by origin, to -ana , Turkish by origin (from Persian -hane “house”). Later the French -age behaved the same way: as -aža it stuck to a non-French stem in kubikaža “engine size”, from kubik “cubic centimetre”. English did the same with -age in shortage and mileage .
Watch out
The calque: a loanword that looks familiar must mean what it means in English. So desert on a Serbian menu would be a sandy wasteland, a footballer’s dres would be a dress, and a penal on the sports page would have something to do with prisons. Why it is wrong: each language steered the meaning its own way. Serbian desert (from French dessert ) is the sweet course, and the sandy kind is pustinja ; dres is a sports shirt or a team kit, while a dress is haljina ; penal is a penalty kick. The older layers work the same way. Turkish saray “palace” gave Sarajevo and the bookish saraj “palace, mansion”; a garden shed is šupa . Turkish çardak gave čardak , a house with its living quarters upstairs; the attic is tavan . The right way: a shared source does not guarantee a shared meaning. Check a familiar-looking loanword in a dictionary.
Germanisms: the workshop, the kitchen, the office
Another large layer came from the north: the Habsburg Military Frontier, Habsburg-ruled Vojvodina, craftsmen, the army and the town kitchen. Its source is most often not standard German but the Austrian variety: that is why a tomato in Serbia is paradajz (Austrian Paradeiser ).
Examples
Area Serbian English kitchen and table paradajz, krompir, viršla, šnicla, štrudla, kifla, šlag, flaša, šporet tomato, potato, frankfurter, schnitzel, strudel, crescent roll, whipped cream, bottle, stove house and home špajz, veš, pegla, šminka, tašna, cimer pantry, laundry, iron, make-up, handbag, roommate workshop and car šraf, šrafciger, farba, auspuh, gepek screw, screwdriver, paint, exhaust pipe, boot (US trunk) town šalter, cigla, kelner counter window, brick, waiter
Dodaj mi šrafciger, otpao je šraf sa police. Pass me the screwdriver, a screw has come out of the shelf.
Cheat sheet The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Layers of loanwords The layer tells you origin and register. Many loanwords have no replacement (šećer, kafa, sat, džep ); some have a home-grown twin, the norm in writing.
Map of the layers Examples
layer areas words Turkish, 15th–19th c. house, clothes, food, town, feelings jastuk, jorgan, dušek, sanduk, kutija, čekić, makaze, kašika, boja, zanat, čarapa, čizma, dugme, torba, šećer, kafa, čorba, sarma, burek, komšija, kapija, avlija, inat, merak German (Austrian) kitchen, home, workshop paradajz, krompir, viršla, šnicla, štrudla, kifla, šlag, flaša, šporet, špajz, veš, pegla, šminka, cimer, šraf, šrafciger, farba, gepek, šalter, cigla Italian (the coast) sea, trade, food, music barka, mol, kapetan, pijaca, kasa, banka, salata, torta, pršut, opera, arija, violina Hungarian (Vojvodina) farm, people, food soba, gazda, salaš, ašov, bunda, cipela, tanjir, lopov, bitanga, varoš, gulaš, paprikaš, palačinka French, 19th–20th c. city, fashion, arts bulevar, trotoar, plaža, garaža, restoran, bife, kupe, sos, desert, parfem, žanr, žiri, atelje, ambasada, šansa Greek and Church Slavonic church, books, daily life manastir, ikona, anđeo, đavo, jevanđelje, kaluđer, ćelija, krevet, tiganj, livada, hartija, trpeza, sveštenik, opšti, uopšte, Vaskrs, vaspitanje, vazduh Latin and Greek roots school, science kultura, univerzitet, fakultet English, now tech, work, sport sajt, mejl, fajl, link, onlajn, softver, printer, menadžer, marketing, biznis, budžet, fudbal, gol, penal, meč, tim
Marks of form Examples
mark layer examples -džija, -lija, -luk, -ana Turkish kafedžija, zanatlija, komšiluk, kafana š before a consonant (German schr-, sp-, st- ); ending -la German šraf, špajz, štrudla, viršla, pegla -aš, -oš, -ov Hungarian gulaš, paprikaš, varoš, lopov, ašov -aža (French -age ); masculine nouns in -e French garaža, montaža, bife, kupe, atelje št instead of ć ; vaz- /vas- instead of uz- Church Slavonic sveštenik beside sveća ; Vaskrs beside Uskrs ; vazduh j for a diphthong, dž for English j ; ending -ovati English mejl, sajt, menadžer, lajkovati
Register Examples
colloquial bookish, written meaning pare, dućan, avlija, ćošak, šofer novac, prodavnica, dvorište, ugao, vozač money, shop, yard, corner, driver šrafciger, farba, veš, gepek odvijač, boja, rublje, prtljažnik screwdriver, paint, laundry, car boot kompjuter, printer, pasvord, akaunt računar, štampač, lozinka, nalog computer, printer, password, account
Recognise only: čaršija, sokak, barjak, pendžer, fildžan, mehana, varoš, salaš, pandur, konoba (pandur : now “cop”).
Watch out
Two mistakes. First, trusting a familiar look: desert is dessert, dres a sports kit, penal a penalty kick; saraj is a palace (a shed is šupa ), čardak a house with living quarters upstairs (the attic is tavan ). Second, carrying street words into writing: pare , dućan , šrafciger , kompjuter do not belong in a document. garaža , plaža are feminine: u garaži , na plaži . And the irony: the neutral boja is a Turkism, the colloquial farba a Germanism.