Greek loanwords in Serbian vernaculars on the territory of Vojvodina
Authors: Vlajic-Popovic Jasna 
Published: February 2012

This paper presents a pilot version of a more comprehensive study on Greek
loanwords in Serbian vernaculars which will deal with their identification,
distribution, periodisation, and adaptation. The materials excerpted from the
presently existing dialectal dictionaries will be compared with the data from
three classical sources on the topic: VASMER, POPOVIC 1953-1955, and SKOK. In
this phase our goal was to find out whether there is any point in proceeding
with the study of Greek loanwords in Serbian, after the results that have
been reached by the three abovementioned authors. Our choice for the pilot
analysis is Recnik srpskih govora Vojvodine (RSGV) because of its size,
representativeness and actuality: it is the largest single dictionary (ten
volumes comprising over 2,000 pages), it has covered the vastests continual
territory (at the same time most distant from the line of contact with Greek,
and also beyond the borders of the Balkan linguistic unity), it falls in the
number of the most up-to-date ones (published in the period 2001 to 2011).
The paper offers not just a linear inventory of Grecisms from RSGV, but a
classification of types of divergencies from the standard body of Grecisms.
It features primarily novelties - be they represented by new words (ponomarh
?cleric?, mironisati ?to pray in the church?, parasnik ?unruly person?), by
new semantics (buklijas ?horse ridden by the man who carries buklija?, Grk
?shopkeeper?, katarka ?long pole onto which knife for cutting the fishing-net
is poised?, kolaba ?structure for drying meat in the attic?, kondir ?bucket
for cattle; mode of cutting wine?, krevet ?laundry; chair; the lower layer of
sheaves in a stook?, liman ?underwater source?, mira ?extract produced by
cooking large amounts of fish in little water, used as an additon to
fish-stew?, paripa ?horse farm?), by new formation (krevetnjaca ?a solid
piece of wood fencing a straw-mattress?, limaniti ?to make a whirlpool?,
talasnjaca ?rigging (on the boat)?, sulundariti se ?to precipitate?), by new
phonetics (ararh : jerarh, bukrijas : buklijas, kolaba : koliba, mengule :
mengele, raoma/revoma/reoma /roma : reuma, tridofla
/trndofl/trndofli/trandofil : trandafil, celerak : ciler), as well as certain
archaisms (disage ?saddlebags?, koram ?belly?, trpan ?sickle, pruning hook?;
parasiti (se) ?to give up, stop doing something?, komat ?piece of bread?,
pironj ?big nail?; dgunja ?quince?, sektembar ?September?), and some semantic
rarities (kutlaca ?cooking spoon?, litanija ?scolding?, mengule ?troubles?,
psaltirac ?pupil who studies psaltir?, trpeznik ?tablecloth?). Since the body
of some two hundred Grecisms in RSGV contains not only a number of them with
considerable phonetic, formative and semantic shifts, but also some rarely or
nowhere registered words or meanings, it can be expected that in more
Southern parts of the Serbian language territory such finds will be even more
abundant. Therefore, it can be concluded that it certainly does make sense to
proceed with studying Greek loanwords in Serbian vernaculars in future.