The use value of Turkish loanwords in contemporary Serbian standard and colloquıal language

Abstract

Turkish loanwords are an indispensable part of the Serbian vocabulary, represented in literary language as well as in everyday communication. After the interlinguistic contact between the Serbian and Turkish language has ended, some turkisms became archaic; others remained unchanged, while some began to develop their semantic meanings according to the nature and logic of the Serbian language. The period of Serbian history as part of the Ottoman Empire has left deep traces, not only in the language, but also in the collective memory of the Serbian people. For those very reasons, the use of turkisms is of great importance for the stylistic and emotional-expressive markings of language utterances. The use values of lexemes of Turkish etymology are present at all levels of the language, and manifest itself especially in the non-standard language varieties, such as: vernacular, colloquial and slang. Also, a large number of those varieties have a slightly or completely different meaning from their equivalent in the standard Serbian language, and some of those semantic values are not even listed in dictionaries. These, and other characteristics that are outside the scope of normative standards of the Serbian language, are indicators of the complexity for the usage of turkisms and their value.