Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2026.101.02
Loss of German loanwords in Zagreb – Mythos or reality?
Maja Anđel
orcid.org/0009-0002-8835-0509
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
Following anecdotal reports about a gradual recession of German loanwords from the Zagreb urban
variety of Croatian, we conducted a small–scale lexical decision task with the main intention of gathering
quantitative confirmation of such claims. As a tentative indicator of this linguistic shift, we took the
differences in cognitive load of German loanword processing in younger, middle–aged and older Zagrebers,
with longer latencies indicating a higher processing load. In this manner, we wanted to determine whether
the perception of the disappearance of Germanisms from the Zagreb variety is based on measurable
foundations.
In order to obtain quantitative confirmation, we used the lexical decision method to examine 31 people
from Zagreb who also have deeper family ties to it, i.e., who have parents with a Zagreb background. Eight
respondents belonged to the younger, twelve to the middle–age and eleven to the older age group.. The
respondents were presented with 66 Germanisms divided into frequency groups, and another 66 standard
words in the control group.
Our results corroborate the assumption that German loanwords are nowadays less present in the mental
lexicons of the younger generation. By comparing latencies and number of errors on the lexical decision task
for the three groups of participants, we confirmed that, despite the quicker reaction times (in absolute
terms), the younger generation processes German loanwords significantly slower than the middle and older
groups. The results of this study point therefore towards a higher cost of cognitive processing of German
loanwords for younger participants and provide an indirect confirmation of our original hypothesis that
German loanwords, especially the less and average frequent ones, are gradually waning from the urban
variety of Zagreb with the younger and middle–aged generation of speakers.
Keywords
German loanwords; lexical decision; language shift; mental lexicon; cognitive processing
Hrčak ID:
349601
URI
Publication date:
21.7.2026.
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