LANGUAGE PURISM

Abstract

The paper deals with the notion of language purism and its forms. By purism one usually understands exclusivism: its negative conotations are placed first and are considered undesiderable phenomena. Purism, however, has also a positive face, as it was in a large number of periods the factor for preserving language identity, which acted stimulatively agitating latent language potentialities in creating expressions of its own for inovations not belonging to language. In the paper puristic tendencies are being presented in some European languages as well as in the history of the Croatian language, especially in relation to foreign influences and in relation to the facts of the Croatian language: kaikavisms and chakavisms. Elementary purism results from the nature of the language norm, and is therefore more or less a companion of each standard language. Positive forms of purism are not opposition to loan-words, but, first of all, in its stimulus to create its own expressions enriching itself and not taking over finished foreign solutions. The Croatian language is traditionally puristic, but is not xenophobic. In the Croatian language purism is based on the value system, which was traditionally being built, and on sensitivities for functional and stylistic stratification.