# Serbian (BCS): keep quiet -- different from other Slavic lingua



## zilic

How comes that "remain silent" or "keep quiet"
in Serbian ćutati whereas in
Russian: молча́ть
Slovenian:molčati 
Bulgarian: мълча
Polish: milczeć

Is ćutati maybe of Turkish origin?


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## Selyd

In Ukrainian:
Looking that you want to underline.
Мовчи,  Замовчи,  Змовкни,  Замовкни, Німуй, Цить!, Нишкни, Дотримуйся тиші, Стиш себе, Вгамуйся, Стули пельку.


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## iobyo

HJP says _šutjeti_ is of Slavic origin, and also gives a synonym: _mučati_, also Slavic.

Macedonian has continuations of both forms: _ќути_, _молчи_.


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## zilic

iobyo said:


> HJP says _šutjeti_ is of Slavic origin, and also gives a synonym: _mučati_, also Slavic.
> 
> Macedonian has continuations of both forms: _ќути_, _молчи_.



Now I remebered that Croatian has also the form: umukni
Thank you


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## Duya

Skok in his _Etimologijski rječnik_ devotes a whole page to the entry _ćutjeti_, from which modern _ćutati_ (chiefly Serbian) and _šutjeti_ (chiefly Croatian) are derived. _Ćutjeti_, in itself, also means "to sense", although it is now poetic/archaic. He also briefly speculates how it come to the shift of the meaning (first there was an extension of the meaning, and now it is practically the full shift):


> Razvitak značenja _sentire > tacere_ objašnjava se zakonom rezultata (sinegdohe): tko dugo ćuti »osjeća, trpi, a nikome ne kaže to«, taj šuti. Dok _šutjeti_ »tacere« postoji samo u hrv.-srp., za _ćutjeti_ nalazimo paralele u stcslav. _stufiti_ pored _iuţiţi_ »fühlen«, _študь_ pored _čudь_, češ. _cit, cititi, cud, cudny_, polj. _cud, cucić_, ukr. _oščuščaly_, [...] rus. ščutiţi, oščutiť, oculili' sja. Glagol _ćutjeti_, stari prez. _tutu_, danas _ćutim_, sveslavenski je iz praslavenskog doba.



(There are some OCR errors above that I don't know how to fix, but you get the gist.)


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## francisgranada

For curiosity, in East Slovak dialects _čuc _means "to feel" (in some regions including "to hear"), while the Slovak standard _čuť _(arch., today rather _počuť_) means only "to hear" and *cítiť  *"to feel". To keep quiet (tacere) is *mlčať*.


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## ilocas2

francisgranada said:


> For curiosity, in East Slovak dialects _čuc _means "to feel" (in some regions including "to hear"), while the Slovak standard _čuť _(arch., today rather _počuť_) means only "to hear" and *cítiť  *"to feel" (Czech: cítit). To keep quiet (tacere) is *mlčať* (Czech: mlčet).


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## Azori

francisgranada said:


> For curiosity, in East Slovak dialects _čuc _means "to feel" (in some regions including "to hear"), while the Slovak standard _čuť _(arch., today rather _počuť_) means only "to hear" and *cítiť  *"to feel". To keep quiet (tacere) is *mlčať*.


There is also the verb _*čušať  *_(to be quiet, to keep silent) in standard Slovak.


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## francisgranada

Azori said:


> There is also the verb _*čušať  *_(to be quiet, to keep silent) in standard Slovak.



It's true indeed , though etymologically it seems not to belong neighter to _čuť _nor to _cítiť. _


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## chernobyl

In some Bulgarian dialects we have кютя (kyutya) which sounds related to the Serbian one. I don't know where it comes from, but almost all our words starting in "_кю_" are from Turkish origin, so maybe this one is Turkish too.


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## Christo Tamarin

I agree with *chernobyl*. Both Serbian *ćutati* and Bulgarian dialectal кютя are from Turkish origin. 

küt
kütük
kötürüm


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## Duya

I disagree. That does not explain Croatian _šutjeti_ and the pretty obvious relation with _ćutati_ 'sense', with parallels in other Slavic languages. Turkish _küt_ and _kütük_ do not even have a similar meaning. That Serbo-Croatian semantic drift is unusual indeed, but it's not an uncommon process in Slavic world.


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## Christo Tamarin

Duya said:


> I disagree. That does not explain Croatian _šutjeti_ and the pretty obvious relation with _ćutati_ 'sense', with parallels in other Slavic languages. Turkish _küt_ and _kütük_ do not even have a similar meaning. That Serbo-Croatian semantic drift is unusual indeed, but it's not an uncommon process in Slavic world.


I did not try to explain Croation _šutjeti_: that has been already done by *iobyo:
*


iobyo said:


> HJP says _šutjeti_ is of Slavic origin, and also gives a synonym: _mučati_, also Slavic.
> 
> Macedonian has continuations of both forms: _ќути_, _молчи_.



Note: кюти and мълчи can be found in Bulgarian also.

The words _ćutati_ and _šutjeti _cannot be related: there is no explanation of the sound changes.

The following semantic shift occurred in Turkish dialects and can explain both Bulgarian кюти and Serbian _ćutati_: *blunt your desire to speak*.


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## Duya

Do you have any references for that theory? For mine, I quoted Skok above, which is an old (pre-WWII) but still respectable author.


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## Vanja

Christo Tamarin said:


> The words _ćutati_ and _šutjeti _cannot be related: there is no explanation of the sound changes.



They are related. Šutjeti (Croatian) - šutati (in some parts of BiH) - ćutati (Serbian). Šutnja - ćutnja (silence, hush)
(Š, Č, Ć, Đ, DŽ could be mixed up)

Mukati in Srb means "to moo" (cows moo, moo-sound). _Mukanje krave, krava *muče*_, mukanje > mučanje could be heard too

There are umuknuti, umući, zamući, zamuknuti (замолчите, замолчи), utajiti (утаивать), ne govoriti (неговорить), onemiti, zanemiti (онеметь)
(similar sounds, I'm not sure do the verbs mean the same, I don't know Russian very well)


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## Lanmi

I've only heard the perfective forms "muknuti" and "umuknuti" in Serbian - the first isn't common in literature but is heard dialectically (at least in southeastern Serbia) while the other is more common. Both are more informal than "(u)ćutati", while "ćuti!" is rude, too.

The "ol" cluster in verbs such as in "молчать" is always realised as "u" in Serbian. Another example of it is "vuk" (wolf)


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## Enchy

Umukni is more offensive than 'ćuti' or 'ućuti'. Ćutati is more common than 'umukni'.


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