Case report

On German-Croatian and Italian-Croatian Language Contact

Zrinjka Glovacki-Bernardi
Mirna Jernej

Abstract

Croatia has always been a multilingual environment. The influence of German and
Italian was empowered through direct political influence. During the second part of the
18th and in the 19th century native speakers of German and Italian used Croatian as a
second language carrying out their duties at work. This bilingualism can tentatively be
referred to as bureaucratic bilingualism. Native Croatian speakers used Italian and
German as a second language in certain social areas. Such bilingualism can tentatively
be called civic bilingualism. It can be assumed that starting with the 1960s civic German
and Italian bilingualism no longer existed. Language contact within the daily life
results in German and Italian loanwords in Croatian which are still actively present
and used in daily communication.

Keywords

loanwords; language contact; culture; bilingualism; daily communication; Croatian; German; Italian

Hrčak ID:

27931

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/27931

Publication date:

24.6.2004.

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