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From: peter@statsci.com (Peter Schumacher)
Subject: Re: Serbo-Croatian difference
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References: <Qs4vl4zYhLPU079yn@jagor.srce.hr> <3s1o46$l7s@agate.berkeley.edu> <VF7wl4zYhb55079yn@jagor.srce.hr> <3sbvc4$21r@transend.com.tw>
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 09:26:59 GMT
Lines: 47

matthews@transend.com.tw (Robert M. Matthews) writes:

 >Denis Pleic (dpleic@jagor.srce.hr) wrote:  
 
 >: about living languages, not Latin or Greek. The examples for Serbian
 >: (first column) are taken from a "Serbo-Croatian (sic!) - Russian"
 >   dictionary,
 
 >: Srpski          Hrvatski
 
 >: abazur  -       sjenilo
 >: avijacija-      zrakoplovstvo
 >: avion   -       zrakoplov
 >: advokat -       odvjetnik
 >: adjutant-       pobocnik
 >: aerodrom-       zracna luka
 >: azot    -       dusik
 >: alabaster -     bjelokost
 
 >: akrep   -       skorpion
 
 >Is it true that Serbian is much more receptive to loans from (mostly) West
 >European languages, or were these examples chosen to emphasize how much
 >more typically Slavic Croatian is (i.e. foreign loans in Croatian were
 >ignored - deliberately or unconsciously)? The only West European loan 
 >word seems to be <skorpion>.

I think we need a few thousand more differences before we can legitimately
use the intensifier "much" twice in the same sentence here. And those
should be real Croatian-only words, not chosen from the set of politically
correct new replacements currently being invented in Croatia, like the
word for helicopter. The most interesting example of these artificial and
self-conscious concoctions is the replacement for "tie", the accessory
worn with a suit by men. I don't remember what the word is in Newspeak
Croatian, but several European languages seem perfectly happy with
cravat/Kravatte etc., which derives of course from Napoleonic times, when
French soldiers observed the Croatians wearing them. Cravat <- Hrvat.
Hrvat being the Serbo-Croatian stem for "Croatian". This amusing anecdote
courtesy of a Croatian friend of mine.


Peter Schumacher
peter@statsci.com
-- 

Peter Schumacher
peter@statsci.com
