Turkish Loan-Words in Rural Dialects in Slavonia

The paper shows the proportion of Turkish loan-words in rural dialects in Slavonia. Works describing the Turkish-Orient cultural tradition on the territory of former Yugoslavia most frequently treated the Islamic population, whereas the area of Slavonia, being “atypical”, remained outside of the framework of interest. The goal of this paper was to isolate the vocabulary of Turkish origin that exists in rural dialects, and then to analyse the distribution and meanings of Turkish loan-words in every individual segment of rural life, to confirm the areas that were influenced by contact with Turkish civilisation, as well as the relative intensities of this contact on them. Loans mainly pertain to material culture, and therefore nouns are most frequent. In this regard, it is understood that adaptation of a new, foreign term or “label”, did not always imply adoption of the labelled “item”, although the process involved was certainly the result of intercultural contacts and influences. Analysis was based on the valuable case-study descriptions of the villages Otok (near Vinkovci) by Josip Lovretić and Varoš (near Slavonski Brod) by Luka Lukić, excellent sources for gaining an understanding of folk life and also, which is important for this, of rural dialects. The lists of Turkish loan-words given by Lovretić and Lukić only partially reveal the layer of Turkish loans that is alive in the rural speech of Slavonia. Even today it is possible to find a much larger number of them in rural dialects, although they are gradually being lost or suppressed, since rapid changes in the way of life have led to the disappearance of the items they pertained to. In future studies of this theme – more extensive, more basic and more systematic ones – ethnographica