Original scientific paper
AN ASPECT OF STUDYING THE PROBLEM OF THE SLAVIC WORD »NEŽIT«
Jasna Andrić
Abstract
The word »nezit« is of pan-slavic origin and has been found since Medieval period to mean some kind of disease. Philologists were dealing with this word, doctors were interested in its contents. This study (from an ethnological point of view) is based primarily on the data concerning South-Slavic areas. Regarding North Slavs, available data are fewer and originate from different reviews, summaries and dictionaries.
The word »nezit« does not always mean the same disease - it is often used to denote various inflammatory processes or some contagious diseases. These diseases can also have another name and it will not be easy to analyse thoroughly the relationship between different names for the same diseases on one hand and their diffusion on the other.
Although the word »nezit« is more widely spread in its meaning of a name for different diseases, its real meaning should be searched in other spheres. »Nezit
« might belong to the group of Slavic words in which by the negative particle the meanings are reduced and the contents are subdued. Its meaning may not be only »something that is not alive«. A group of ghosts in Russian folk mithology is sometimes called »nezit«, i.e. those who neither live nor die. Similar but subdued
meaning might be expected in some South Slavic phenomena and the idea of the condition between life and death might have its echoes in different customs and beliefs.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
213213
URI
Publication date:
1.5.1993.
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