Where Do So Many Serbian Words Come From? A Lecture by Rajna Dragićević at Slovo
On June 6, our school welcomed Rajna Dragićević – professor at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade and one of Serbia’s most respected lexicologists. She is a co-author of the Dictionary of the Serbian Language and the Normative Grammar of the Serbian Language. In addition to lexicology and lexicography, Rajna specializes in linguoculturology – a field that studies language not separately from culture, but through culture itself. Put simply: she is someone who knows almost everything there is to know about Serbian words – and knows how to tell their stories.
The topic of the lecture was: why does the Serbian language contain so many words of different origins – both Eastern and Western at the same time? At first glance, it seems like a simple linguistic question. But it turns out that behind it lies the entire history of the Serbian people over the last three or four centuries.
The language immediately recorded this change. Those who stayed in the south continued using many Turkish words, and today we still recognize words such as: avlija (courtyard), čorba (soup), čakšire (traditional trousers) and pazar (market) as words that entered Serbian through Ottoman influence. Those who moved north began absorbing German and Hungarian vocabulary. This is how words such as: flaša (bottle), štof (fabric), tanjir (plate) and varoš (town) became part of Serbian.
One of the most fascinating topics was the idea of contact synonyms (kontaktni sinonimi). These appear when a language develops two words with the same meaning but different origins. For example: peć (oven, stove) – a native Slavic word, and furuna – borrowed from Turkish. Or: ručnik (towel) – a Slavic word, and peškir – from Turkish. Or: pukovnik (colonel) – a Slavic formation, and oberšter – from German. The language did not choose between them. It simply collected words from different cultures and placed them side by side.
Rajna also spoke about Vuk Karadžić’s famous dictionary: Srpski rječnik (The Serbian Dictionary). Vuk did not simply collect words. He explained them through living examples – proverbs, everyday situations, and expressions. For example, the word ruka (hand) was presented through dozens of expressions: imati lijepu ruku – to have beautiful handwriting, ne ide mu od ruke – something is not going well for someone/they cannot manage it easily. The Serbian expression for “to get full after eating”: najesti se had so many synonyms in folk speech that it revealed something important about what mattered in everyday life.
At the end of the lecture, Rajna showed a fascinating table: the most frequent nouns appearing in Serbian folk songs, proverbs, and dictionaries. In folk songs, the most common words were: djevojka (girl) and junak (hero). In proverbs: Bog (God) and čovjek (person, human being). The genre – and the historical period – determine which words become central in language.
But perhaps what stayed with me most were the everyday historical details Rajna shared throughout the lecture. They were vivid, human, and therefore much easier to remember. For example, in 1745, Serbian bishop Pavle Nenadović issued an instruction for Serbian priests living in the Habsburg Monarchy: “Every priest must have a comb, must trim his beard around the mouth before communion, must not get drunk in taverns or appear drunk in the streets, and must not curse people’s parents, souls, or faith – otherwise he will be punished by beating and removal from the priesthood.” A fascinating glimpse into everyday life and social expectations of the time.
A special place in the lecture was given to phrasebooks (razgovornici) created specifically for Serbs living in the northern regions of the Habsburg Monarchy. They did not know German, so they needed examples of how to communicate in everyday situations. The solution? Educational dialogues. One example was “Conversation with a Servant” by Vujanovski. A master wakes up his lazy servant: “I think you are still in bed. Get up, you lazy one! Lazy idler! Dog! You stupid donkey!” The language itself is fascinating because it belongs to an older form known as Slavenoserbian (slavenosrpski). For example: vostani instead of modern ustani (get up) and ješćo instead of modern još (still). A kind of historical textbook of good manners.
And right beside this was another world entirely. In his dictionary, Vuk Karadžić explained words through the living speech of the southern Serbian population. Take the word: sirotinja (poverty, poor people). He immediately included a proverb: “Sirotinjo, i Bogu si teška, a kamoli kući u kojoj si.” “Poverty, you are a burden even to God, let alone to the house where you live.” Or the word: gospodin (gentleman). In southern Serbia, this title was reserved for people of great authority – such as a ruler, a pasha, a bishop, or a teacher. But in Srem and other Austrian regions, gospodin could refer to any respectable person. Even a small shopkeeper might be called gospodar. Different words. Different worlds. And all of them existed within one language.
These historical situations may seem amusing today, but they reveal something important: vocabulary preserves the story of a people. Serbs entered new environments and learned new ways of dressing, behaving, and communicating. The language changed with them.
After the lecture, Rajna Dragićević answered all questions from the audience in detail.
I left with one simple thought: The Serbian language is colorful for a reason. It is the living trace of real history – of two empires, two experiences of one people, centuries of trade, conflict, and coexistence.
These are exactly the kinds of events I appreciate at Slovo. The school does not limit itself to teaching you how to speak Serbian. If you want to understand the language more deeply – to discover where it comes from, how it works, and what stories are hidden inside it – there is a place for that here. The school invites people who dedicate their lives to studying these questions. And then it is up to you how deeply you want to dive.
Elena Titova Student at Slovo
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