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Czech language in Croatia

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2014

Abstract

The language of the Czech minority in Croatia is a result of specific conditions in development and language contacts: blending of Czech and Moravian dialects at the turn of the 19th and 20 century, the influence of literary language and contemporary colloquial Czech and particularly the constant influence of the language of the local majority population, Croatian. Interference can be seen in all language levels, but most of the changes subject vocabulary; therefore we will meet here various contact phenomena from calques, over loanwords, up to the new words.

The uncertainty in the meaning of words leads to their use in inappropriate contexts, which is most pronounced in the so-called contact homonyms or literal translations of words and in phrases that are used in Czech language in a different context or in a different meaning.