# Balkan "Stock" Vocabulary



## Slavista

Hello Everyone!

I'm writing to see if any native or virtually fluent speakers of Balkan languages, such as Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, or even Hungarian would like to supply some truly Balkan shared words by different speech communities, such as:

*oblak *meaning "window" in Slovak and Hungarian.
*pohar *meaning "cup" in Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian, and Turkish.
*skup/scump* meaning "*expensive" in Serbo-Croatian and Romanian.
*soba* meaning "room" in Croatian, Macedonian, and Hungarian.

It's very interesting how there exists a plethora of words in the Balkan Sprachbung which do not originate from Proto-Slavic and yet they're shared throughout the whole of the sprachbund (incorporated into the grammars of each language).

THANK YOU!


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## robbie_SWE

Slavista said:


> Hello Everyone!
> 
> I'm writing to see if any native or virtually fluent speakers of Balkan languages, such as Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, or even Hungarian would like to supply some truly Balkan shared words by different speech communities, such as:
> 
> *oblak *meaning "window" in Slovak and Hungarian.
> *pohar *meaning "cup" in Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian, and Turkish.
> *skup/scump* meaning "inexpensive" in Serbo-Croatian and Romanian.
> *soba* meaning "room" in Croatian, Macedonian, and Hungarian.
> 
> It's very interesting how there exists a plethora of words in the Balkan Sprachbung which do not originate from Proto-Slavic and yet they're shared throughout the whole of the sprachbund (incorporated into the grammars of each language).
> 
> THANK YOU!


 
*Pohar* does not mean "cup" in Romanian. Are you referring to *pahar *("glass")? 

*Scump* means "expensive" in Romanian. 

PS: this thread should actually be moved to another forum, since some of these languages aren't Slavic (Hungarian, Romanian and Turkish).

 robbie


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## b_fly

robbie_SWE said:


> PS: this thread should actually be moved to another forum, since some of these languages aren't Slavic (Hungarian, Romanian and Turkish).


 
Well it has to be somewhere.


Just to correct:


> *oblak *meaning "window" in Slovak and Hungarian.


I don't know for that, but it means _cloud_ in Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian etc.



> *skup/scump* meaning "inexpensive" in Serbo-Croatian and Romanian.


_Skup_ means _expensive_, and _jeftin_ means _inexpensive_.


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## robbie_SWE

b_fly said:


> Well it has to be somewhere.
> ...


 
I agree, but what about the "Etymology and History of Languages" forum? 

 robbie


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## Zsuzsu

Slavista said:


> Hello Everyone!
> 
> I'm writing to see if any native or virtually fluent speakers of Balkan languages, such as Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, or even Hungarian would like to supply some truly Balkan shared words by different speech communities, such as:
> 
> *oblak *meaning "window" in Slovak and Hungarian.
> *pohar *meaning "cup" in Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian, and Turkish.
> *skup/scump* meaning "inexpensive" in Serbo-Croatian and Romanian.
> *soba* meaning "room" in Croatian, Macedonian, and Hungarian.
> 
> It's very interesting how there exists a plethora of words in the Balkan Sprachbung which do not originate from Proto-Slavic and yet they're shared throughout the whole of the sprachbund (incorporated into the grammars of each language).
> 
> THANK YOU!



It's not that I can come up with any brilliant idea, but you might want to know the correct forms of these Hungarian words:

*ablak - *window*
pohár - *glass*
szoba - *room


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## b_fly

> but you might want to know the correct forms of these Hungarian words


 
Well, in the history of our languages, Croatian has influenced on Hungarian a lot more times than Hungarian had influenced on Croatian language. 

We have a lot of hungarisms, but mostly in Slavonian dialect. But official Hunagrian language has many basic words which are originally from Croatian.

I do not guarantee that this is the same case, but it's bigger posibility.

(My God, how my English is bad! )


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## Duya

According to this [hanibal] lector, there is about 40 hungarisms in the "proper" (i.e. excluding archaisms and dialectalisms) Croatian vocabulary. Here's a shorter list. I don't know the other way round (i.e. croatisms/slavicisms in Hungarian)

However, we're drifting off-topic -- Croatian and Hungarian are not part of "Balkan stock" as commonly defined (Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, (A)Romanian, to an extent Greek, Turkish and south Serbian), which was the original topic of this thread.


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## b_fly

I don't know. For me, just words _bunda, cipela, čizma, kip, lopov, soba_ and some other are in official Croatian language and in often use also. Other words are or in standard language, but not used often, or they are used only in dialect or jargon.
But, when you look Hungarian, it has even more Slavic words, than we have Hungarians in their standard language. It's probably because Slavs were living in Hungarian region during the past.

*Lopta*, as I know, is Croatian word in Hungarian.  
More exact, proto-Slavic word.

Wikipedia is crazy thing.  She's often wrong.


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## slavic_one

Slavista said:


> Hello Everyone!
> 
> I'm writing to see if any native or virtually fluent speakers of Balkan languages, such as Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, or even Hungarian would like to supply some truly Balkan shared words by different speech communities, such as:
> 
> *oblak *meaning "window" in Slovak and Hungarian.
> *pohar *meaning "cup" in Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian, and Turkish.
> *skup/scump* meaning "*expensive" in Serbo-Croatian and Romanian.
> *soba* meaning "room" in Croatian, Macedonian, and Hungarian.
> 
> It's very interesting how there exists a plethora of words in the Balkan Sprachbung which do not originate from Proto-Slavic and yet they're shared throughout the whole of the sprachbund (incorporated into the grammars of each language).
> 
> THANK YOU!



I don't know what this topic is all about but..

as b_fly already said:
*oblak *in Slovak (as in Croatian) means "cloud" (window is on Croatian "prozor" and on Slovak "okno")
*skup *in Croatian and Serbian means "expensive" ("cheap" is "jeftin")

But I know that in Zagorje (part of Croatia) they say *oblok* for window (there is popular traditional song "Klinček stoji pod oblokom").
Many words in kajkavian and chakavian dialects are more similar to Czech, Russian or Polish than literate Croatian, even in grammer.



b_fly said:


> Well, in the history of our languages, Croatian has influenced on Hungarian a lot more times than Hungarian had influenced on Croatian language.



You red that somewhere or..? I don't know Hungarian, but I never heard sth like that.
Hungarian are surrounded with Slavic languages from south and north so it's imminent to take some words, but still they were ruling in Croatia so many people should know Hungarian and many words took their place in mainly Slavonia, as well as many Germanism, and most of all I think Turkisms!


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## b_fly

slavic_one said:


> You red that somewhere or..? I don't know Hungarian, but I never heard sth like that.
> Hungarian are surrounded with Slavic languages from south and north so it's imminent to take some words, but still they were ruling in Croatia so many people should know Hungarian and many words took their place in mainly Slavonia, as well as many Germanism, and most of all I think Turkisms!


 
Yes, I think even some linguist said that (Brabec or someone...)

Nevermind, but just to add, I was talking about standard Croatian language and words that are in often use, and I'm not from Slavonija so I do not use most of those words which were on the list. 

Hungarian didn't influence our standard language, because our standard language is not based on Slavonian dialect. 

So just few words from Hungarian is in it.


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## slavic_one

b_fly said:


> Yes, I think even some linguist said that (Brabec or someone...)
> 
> Nevermind, but just to add, I was talking about standard Croatian language and words that are in often use, and I'm not from Slavonija so I do not use most of those words which were on the list.
> 
> Hungarian didn't influence our standard language, because our standard language is not based on Slavonian dialect.
> 
> So just few words from Hungarian is in it.



Yes the thing is that those words really isn't in out standard Croatian, so in that case your statement can be easily true!

Yes here in Primorje there isn't much Hungarian and Turkish words (but many Italian) but I know all words from this list: http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarizam and I use them normally because I was born in Slavonija.

Well not that it's some Slavonian dialect taken as a standard Croatian, but štokavština which is spoken in Slavonija the most!


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## Maja

slavic_one said:


> *skup *in Croatian and Serbian means "expensive" ("cheap" is "jeftin")


"Skup" also means (in Serbian): 
- meeting, gathering, assembly 
- group, crowd
- set (math.).


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## slavic_one

Maja said:


> "Skup" also means (in Serbian):
> - meeting, gathering, assembly
> - group, crowd
> - set (math.).



Yes in Croatian too.


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## Kanes

In Bulgarian:

скъп = expensive
облък = cloud
соба is dialectual


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