Croatian in the Mediterranean context: language contacts in the Early Modern Croatian lexicography

Abstract

This paper offers an insight into the way language contacts in the Mediterranean context were dealt with in the Croatian lexicography of the 16th and 17th centuries. The first part provides the historical background of the contact situations from the 7th century up to the end of the 17th century, focusing on Dalmatia. The second part represents an analysis of Dalmatian-Romance, Italo-Romance and Turkish loanwords in five dictionaries (Vrančić, Kašić, Mikalja, Tanzlingher-Zanotti, and Ritter Vitezović), reflecting the results of the language contacts on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea and in its immediate hinterland. Positive and negative attitudes of the five authors towards language-borrowing are discussed, as some important differences can be observed, particularly with regard to Italo-Romance loanwords.