Užican dialect


The Užice dialect or Zlatibor dialect is a subdialect of the Shtokavian dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language. It is part of the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialects. It is traditionally spoken by c. 500,000 peoplethe Bosniaks and Serbs of the regionin the Zlatibor and Moravica Districts in the Užice region in the southwestern part of Serbia.

Names

One of the earliest mentions of the local dialect of Užice region is found in Ottoman geographer Evliya Çelebi's record on his visit to the Užice nahiya in 1664. In his travelogue, the language of Užičans is called the Bosnian language.
Today Orthodox people in the Užice region usually say they speak Serbian, whereas Muslims say they speak Bosnian. The name Serbo-Croatian was also used during the Yugoslav era.

Classification

The Užice dialect is a Neo-Štokavian dialect with Ijekavian accent. It is characterized by an Eastern Herzegovinian accenting system consisting of four pitch accents with long vowels following accented syllables, and a case system using full declension. Today many people in the Užice region, especially in urban areas, use the Ekavian accent in speech and writing, instead of the traditional Ijekavian. Nevertheless, the original Ijekavian forms of local toponyms such as Bioska, Đetinja, Prijepolje, Bjeluša, Kosjerić, Drijetanj etc., are usually preserved, as these are the names used in official documents and other publications. However, there is also a number of toponyms which were Ekavized in the written language, although their original Ijekavian forms have often survived in the spoken language. These include Donja Bela Reka / Gornja Bela Reka, Kriva Reka, Seništa and others, which can often be heard as Bijela Rijeka, Kriva Rijeka, Sjeništa etc. in conversation among the locals.
In the Central South Slavic dialect continuum, the Užice dialect forms a transition between the neighbouring dialects of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the dialects of Serbia. Some of its characteristics are shared with either dialects, but many of them are common with the Bosnian vernacular rather than the dialects of the rest of Serbia; including the traditional Ijekavian reflex of yat, the reduction of short unaccented vowels in speech, and other characteristics of the local phonetics, morphology, and lexis, the latter manifested primarily in many loanwords from Turkish, Persian, and Arabic languages, which are, however, suppressed and less used in the modern language. The connections between the Užice region and Bosnia were even stronger in the past, as parts of this region once belonged to the mediaeval Bosnian state, and the mediaeval local population were followers of the Church of Bosnia.

History

The local population descends from the Slavs who mixed with Illyrian and Celtic tribes in the early Middle Ages, and therefore the dialect in its earliest mediaeval form has been rather influenced by the Celtic and Illyrian languages, the remaining of which are some local toponyms of Illyrian or Romanized Celtic etymology, such as Tara Mountain, Negbina, Murtenica, Čigota etc., or the mediaeval Užican personal name Brajan of Celtic origin.
Mediaeval records of local toponyms show Ikavian characteristics of the local Slavonic vernacular, similarly to the mediaeval Bosnian language. These toponyms include Bila Rika, Siča Rika, Biluša, and others, which are today known as Bela Reka or Bijela Rijeka, Seča Reka, and Bjeluša.
The dialect’s vocabulary was later influenced by the Ottoman Turkish language. A mention of the respectable Turkish influence on Užican language and mentality is also found in the novel Došljaci by a notable Užice writer Milutin Uskoković:
During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the Užice region was mostly populated by the migrants from Herzegovina, Montenegro, and other Dinaric regions. Most of the present-day Užičans descend from these settlers. The local dialect was then influenced by the Younger Ijekavian dialects of Herzegovina and Montenegro, and thus became one of the Eastern Herzegovinian dialects.

Characteristics

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bilabiallabio-
dental		dental &
alveolar		post-
alveolar		alveolo-
palatal		palatalvelar
plosive
Nasal
fricative
affricate
trill
approximant
lateral approximant

Literature

The significant portion of the Užican vernacular literature consists of local anecdotes and proverbs, as well as the epic and lyric poems, both of which are usually sung according to a common metric system consisting of ten units, and often performed with gusle. The hero of all Užican anecdotes is called Ero, who is portrayed as a most clever, witty, and hospitable person, although he is just a simple Zlatiborian peasant. In these short anecdotes, he always succeeds to trick the others at the end, even though they hold a higher position in the society or are often considered smarter than him. Characters similar to smart and clever Ero are found in anecdotes across the Balkans: in the stories about Nasredin Hodža, of oriental origin, or Karagiozis in the Greek and Turkish literatures.
The written literature, on the other hand, usually stuck to the standard language; that is Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic in the Middle Ages, and later the standard Serbian language. The first Užican printed book, Rujansko četvorojevanđelje, was printed in Church Slavonic in 1537. Other Church Slavonic books printed in the Užice region include Psalter printed in Mileševa monastery in 1544, and Evangelion and Pentecostarion printed in Mrkša’s Church in 1562 and 1566, respectively. After the printing centres in Užican monasteries were demolished by the Ottoman Turks, a manuscript culture arose in the Rača monastery. The manuscripts produced in Rača were written in Church Slavonic, but they contained many elements of the Užican vernacular. The first works compiled in the local dialect by literate Užičans appeared in the 19th century. They include Miladin Radović's chronicle Samouki rukopis, and the Prophecy of Kremna which was told by Zechariah Zaharić, the protopope of Kremna.