# Bosnian (BCS):  ašk



## musicalchef

Hi,


I can’t find the word “ašk” in the online dictionaries. I see it mostly in Sufi music and poetry, such as in “Allah Allah ašk me ponese.” (Leptir by Hor Hazreti Hamza) Maybe it is a Turkish word, or an Arabic or Persian word (possibly via Turkish)? I thought it might come from Arabic “ishq” (love), or from Persian “ashk” (tear). I don’t know Turkish, so I don’t know what it could mean in that language.


Hvala lijepo.


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## slavic_one

"Aşk" in Turkish also means "love", and "ašk" means also "love" or "love charm/ecstasy".


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## musicalchef

Hvala lijepo; that makes sense!


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## Grosvenor1

_Aşk    _is indeed a common Turkish word.


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## slavic_one

Which in Turkish came from Arabian


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## Grosvenor1

slavic_one said:


> Which in Turkish came from Arabian


 
Probably. A lot of Turkish vocabulary is of Arabic or Persian origin.


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## MIODRAG

Usually written as "aš*i*k" in army-&-state-condoned dialects (aka: languages) that are heirs to Serbo-Croat. Not widely used until a recent Islamic revival in the Moslem-Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

There is also verb "aš*i*kovati" = "to be in love; have a courtship", but not "to make love" as in a sexual act, from which a verbal noun (Slavic gerund) "aš*i*kovanje" is derived. However, the noun itself is rarely used in regular declension: Dative=Locative would probably sound the least weird, but Instrumental=Sociative would be very odd, and regular Vocative in "-e" would definitely not be used, as it would require palatalisation of "-k-" to a hilarious effect due to homonymy.


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## Athaulf

MIODRAG said:


> Usually written as "aš*i*k" in army-&-state-condoned dialects (aka: languages) that are heirs to Serbo-Croat.



*Aşk*/*ašk* and *aşik*/*ašik* are actually two different words in both Turkish and Bosnian. 



> Not widely used until a recent Islamic revival in the Moslem-Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.


I wouldn't really say so. The word is indeed archaic and not used often in everyday speech, except perhaps in certain areas of Bosnia. However, it has been used widely in literature and poetry for generations by Bosnian writers of all ethnicities. I don't think its status nowadays is much different from what it was before the last war.


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## dudasd

MIODRAG said:


> Usually written as "aš*i*k"


 
Abdullah Škaljić, in his dictionary of Turkish loanwords in Serbo-Croatian language, puts "ašk" as a more common form. Though ašk and ašik esentially have the same meaning (passion, love extasy, yearning), ašk is used as noun only, while ašik can also take a role of adjective, like in "ašik se učinio" - "he became crazy with love". (Rough translation, sorry.)


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## musicalchef

In Arabic and Persian, 'ishq (usually spelled eshgh in "Roman" Farsi) is love, and 'ashiq (ashegh) is the lover, the one who is in love.  "Ashegh shodan" in Farsi means to fall in love.  Seems that in Bosnian, one builds on the loan word to make a verb, while in Farsi, they make it a compound verb.  Is that correct?  (about the Bosnian, I mean)


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## dudasd

In case of "ašk/ašik", the verb "ašikovati" is evidently derived, not compound, in contrast with "aşık etmek" - "to enamour" (lit.: to do love); in BCS there is a big number of verbs that have been made that way, from loanwords (loaned nouns). But in some cases foreign compound verbs entered the language keeping their construction; compare: (u)činiti zulum - zulmetmek (from the older compound form zulüm etmek - to do tyrrany = to tyrranize). Similar cases of both kind can be found amongst German loanwords as well, but the very topic is too wide now for this thread.


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