Review article
SUPPLEMENT TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRESENT-DAY SPLIT VERNACULAR ON LEXICAL LEVEL
Radovan Vidović
; Split
Abstract
The continous and ever increasing inflow of the štokavian speaking people form the nearer and farther neighbourhood of Split, especially after the bloody Venetian-Turkish wars in 17th and 18th centuries, the Split vernacular was losing quickly more and more of its chakavian characteristics. After the downfall of Venice, during the Austrian government and in 20th century these processes quackened and intensified so that in the second half of this century the Split venracular, especially in the speech of the younger generation, cannot be called chakavian, semi-chakavian idiom. The migration processes in the first half of our century showed already that the newcomers, that is those who were not born in Split, would prevail very soon over the natives, which happened completely after the second world war.
The studies of the questionnaires with 200 concepts filled in by a group of 137 students (1988/1989) show that only somewhat over a half of them were born and living in Split. In a group of 111 students of the 1990/91 academic year 63 % were born in Split of paretens born elsewher. In the first sample the most numerous (about 42 %) were those whose test contained abous 20-40 % lexemes preserved from an older layer. The second analysis shows that the old lexis is falling into disuse very quickly from one generation to another. By comparing seven students from each generation these differences are shown: 1076 positive points in favour of the old lexis for 1988/1989, and only 671 for 1989/1990.
A number of students alternate (double) their vocabulary using, in different situations, phrase from an older and newer lexeme layer. One analyzed test out of 200 questionnaires alternates 141 lexemes twice and 13 lexemes even thee times. A chosen group of individual characteristic chakavian words was tested on a larger sample of students. It corroborated our knowledge that in Split, particularly in the vocabulary of the yung ones, the chakavian characteristices are being abanded very quickly, even by those who have an unmistakable Split biography (i.e., both parents were born in Split). In that sense the chakavian idioms has been better preserved by some students from Kaštel-Sućurac.
The most frequent greetings of Split’s students is č a o / b a o (27.5 %), followed by b o g (25.5 %), a d i o (22.5 %), z d r a v o (18 %), etc. The č a o / b a o greeting enterd the Split vernacular probably from the vernacular of the larger cities inland (students think from Beograd). These greetings are neither from Italian nor the substratu, for the Split idiom of older generations did not know them. The few students whose biography makes them unmistakably citizens of Split are in favour of the greeting a d i o and b o g.
The data referring to the pronoun č a are very indicative also in its prepositional phrases: 96% use only š t a / š t o, and only three students use č a (islanders). Č a in prepositional phrases is used also only by islanders.
A daughter (student in Split) of the second generation when talking with her mother in her place on the island of Brač will not use more than about 10 % of the lexis that her mother uses when chatting with her coevals from the same place. The picture changes thoroughly when the tested student describes her lexis when talking with her frinds in Split (who are not from the student’s island): more than a half of the lexeme in the list of 200 words are changed, a lot of Italansms are abandoned, her new, this time the Split vernacular, consists of 90 % standard Croatian words.
A group of about 60 students was marking a comic text written in the Split idiom. Each of them had to mark their understanding the text first from the linguistic point of view and then from the humoristic point of view. The result was surprisingly high: both mean marks were 4.1.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
126165
URI
Publication date:
3.7.1991.
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