Fehim Bajraktarević o rečima istočnjačkog porekla u srpsko-hrvatskom jeziku

Abstract

Only four of Fehim Bajraktarevic's papers are specifically dedicated to Oriental loan- words in Serbo-Croatian. The first one, entitled The Influence of Oriental Languages on Serbo-Croat, communicated at the VIIIth International Congress of Linguists in Oslo, offers a general survey on different levels and fields of influence of Oriental languages on Serbo-Croatian. Three other articles are reviews of Abdulah Skaljić’s Dictionary of Turcisms in Serbo-Croatian. Two of them deal with the first, lithographic edition of this dictionary (1957) and were published in 1960 and 1961 in the prominent journal Prilozi za književnost, jezik, istoriju i folkior. The third one appeared in the same journal in 1966 and presents some additional remarks regarding new edition of Skaljić's dictionary from 1965.

Comparing hundreds of articles and works in the rich bibliography of Fehim Bajraktarević with the number of above mentioned papers, it may seem as though the problem of studying loan-words of Oriental origin was not a matter of substantial importance for this great orientalist and the founder of oriental studies at the Belgrade University. Nevertheless, this paper tries to point out the considerable contribution of Fehim Bajraktarević on different fields of study of words of oriental origin in Serbo-Croatian. As an ,,old school" philologist and orientalist in the true sense of the word, Bajraktarević was aware of how deep and widespread was the influence of oriental languages on Serbo-Croatian and how important study and understanding of this significant heritage was for our history, literature and language. Even though lexicography did not feature among his primary topics of interest, Bajraktarević meticulously analysed the material of Skaljić's Dictionary giving numerous methodological and technical remarks and suggestions, as well as new etymological solutions. The evi| dence of how useful and worthy these ob- servations were is the fact that Skaljić included most of them in the following edition of his Dictionary. As a result of this Bajraktarević's indirect contribution, we have had an opportunity to use it as a more reliable etymological lexicon.