Suvremena lingvistika, Vol. 64 No. 2, 2007.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
In search of older Croatian pseudo-arabic loanwords
Žarko Muljačić
Sažetak
In the majority of European languages, including Croatian, there are only indirect Arabic loanwords
(etymologia remota), that is, pseudo–Arabic loanwords. In the old age, before the first great
invasions of the Ottoman army (after the year 1450), the Croatian lexicon contained almost no
Turkish loanwords of the Arabic origin.
This paper will deal with the Romance loanwords of Arabic origin, which have been imported
into Croatian through the Arabic loanwords from the colonial Venetian, or Southern Italian Arabic
loanwords. The possibility of Arabic loanwords being imported via two languages (e. g. Greek loanwords
of Arabic origin in Venetian) is left for further investigation. The only thing that we can be
sure about is that Venetian, being the language of the most powerful maritime force in the Eastern
Mediterranean (and the adjoining seas), which reached the curve connecting Constantinople,
Crete, Alexandria, Palestine and Cyprus, had many contacts with speakers of Greek and Arabic.
As for some of the dialects of Southern Italy (and entire Sicily), they had for long been under Arab
government, of which they freed themselves (as well as linguistically Arabic Malta) in the secondhalf of the 11th century. A proof of the Venetian strength in Constantinople and Levant after 1204
is the title given to the Venetian Doge: dominator quartae et dimidae partis totius Imperii Romaniae
(statistically, 37,5% of the former Byzantine Empire; and the Muslim Seljuqs had dominated
a big continental part of the Central Anatolia even before 1204).
The author has adhered to the principle melius abundare, especially in the second chapter, in
order to deal with the problem as a part of the issue of linguistic contact and conflict between the
three continents. The final chapter contains the analysis of two representative pseudo–Arabic loanwords
in Croatian: orsani (“arsenal”) and Marulić’s hapax sapran (“šafran”) – the unexpected phonetic
change is probably due to a conscious alliteration. In the conclusion, the author has tried to
answer the question of the reasons for the great success of some pseudo–Arabic loanwords in a
number of Romance languages, even though these lexemes were not necessary, because there were
adequate lexemes for certain “things” in Latin as well. This was due to the prestige of Arabic and
other Eastern products (not only luxury goods). Therefore, the reason is comparable to the one
that has nowadays to the predominance of the neologism “hit” over “šlager” (of the season).
Ključne riječi
pseudo–Arabic loanwords; etymologia remota; loanwords; history of language; Croatian
Hrčak ID:
19489
URI
Datum izdavanja:
14.12.2007.
Posjeta: 2.698 *