I wrote a few years ago about Turkish in Serbian. Since this time I've certainly encountered a lot more of the Turkish feeling in Serbian and in Serbia, and indeed I've even got a feeling for just what words are Turkish. Typically, words ending in "ir" or "uk" or other untypical endings give things away, and also a slight feeling that the word is also more Serbian than Croatian. For example, šešir (hat) certainly feels like it ought to be Turkish, and I have the feeling that it is more common in Serbia, but I can't trace this to Turkish (but I haven't tried very hard). Elsewhere, I have a Croatian colleague that I joke with in Serbian, and he once pointed out that Croats don't say čebe for blanket, but the quite clearly German-derived word deke.
Anyway, I compiled a list:
I don't pretend that this is complete, nor that these are what all Croats/Serbs/Turks use exclusively today. As I mentioned before, a lot of the words seem to be down to comforts that possibly didn't exist in pre-conquest Serbia (pillows?) and note that a lot of the words are still used in Croatian (those not in bold).
Anyway, I compiled a list:
English
|
Croatian
|
Serbian
|
Turkish
|
garden
|
vrt
|
bašta
|
bahçe
|
money
|
novac
|
pare
|
para
|
sock
|
sokne
|
čarape
|
çorap
|
duvet
|
poplun
|
jorgan
|
yorgan
|
towel
|
ručnik
|
peškir
|
pîşgîr (old Turkish)
|
blanket
|
deke
|
čebe
|
kebe (old
Turkish)
|
spoon
|
žlica | kašika
|
kaşık
|
sponge
|
spužva
|
sunđer
|
sünger
|
pillow
|
jastuk
|
jastuk
|
yastik
|
come on / let's go
|
hajde
|
hajde
|
hadi
|
colour
|
boja
|
boja
|
boya
|
boot
|
čizma
|
čizma
|
çizme
|
slippers
|
papuče
|
papuče
|
pâbûc (old Turkish)
|
soap
|
sapun
|
sapun
|
sabun
|
paint/dye/colour
|
boja
|
boja
|
boya
|
cotton
|
pamuk
|
pamuk
|
pamuk
|
I don't pretend that this is complete, nor that these are what all Croats/Serbs/Turks use exclusively today. As I mentioned before, a lot of the words seem to be down to comforts that possibly didn't exist in pre-conquest Serbia (pillows?) and note that a lot of the words are still used in Croatian (those not in bold).
I was particularly intrigued by hajde which one hears absolutely all the time in the former Yugoslavia. It isn't completely clear, but this word probably comes from Turkish via Arabic (or possibly the other way around) as Arabs also say something similar for the same purpose (if you Google it you eventually find various discussions about the etymology). Oddly, this word was the very first word my daughter said. We used to shout it all the time to our dog, and she picked it up when she was about nine months old. Fitting, somehow, that she picked this pan-Jugo word with an ancient eastern origin.