engleski

Language in folk rituals

The richness of every language, including Croatian, manifests in a large number of idioms through which that language is realized in different geographical regions. Also, language is a living organism influenced by interlinguistic, but also extralinguistic conditions. Croatian language, being one of south Slavic languages, is spoken by seven million people. It is stratified in time and space: there are three vernaculars: stokavian, kajkavian and chakavian, sixteen dialects and many local speeches. Because of distinctiveness and language regularities which are manifested in grammar and lexis of every dialect, in this paper, language in folk rituals of Slavonian dialect, belonging to stokavian vernacular, will be analyzed. Slavonian dialect is characterized by using a lot of turk, hungarian and german loanwords, absence of infinitive ending –i, making third person of present tense by ending –eju, changing consonant set –st in –šć, using nominative instead of locative and genitive instead of accusative case. Folk rituals are usually connected to specific periods in calendar and church year, to feasting specific saints but also feasting of specific events that marked some region in the history. Very often, so called language formulas are used in folk rituals, which are used the way they were in the past and were transferred from one generation to other. Very often those language formulas, used in certain rituals (for example: Christmas Eve- “I treat you with bread and wine and you treat me with happiness and peace”), were written in decasyllable and could serve as folk sayings (Saint Catherine –snow is waiting ; Saint Catherine, November, 25). In this paper language formulas which are used in folk rituals will be listed and described, their grammar content, semantics and lexeme choice will be analyzed, and extralinguistic conditions where we can find those language formulas or language forms will be described. It is expected that this paper will enrich Croatian language expression as one of an important parts of Croatian identity and culture.

Croatian language; identity; culture; language expressions; language formulas

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