I have recently discovered that both Czech and Slovenian use the word "seznam" to denote a list or register. What is the origin of this word, and how come they are identical in both languages? Did it develop from a common Slavic root, or is it a loan from Czech to Slovenian or vice versa?
Slavic languages, seznam
- Thread starter Ben Jamin
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Awwal12
Senior Member
Russian
Se-znam? Se- looks like a vocalized counterpart of s- in Czech (cf. Rus. so-). -m might have come from reanalyzing *-mę < *-men (cf. znamię). Just guessing, hopefully native speakers or specialists will know more.
dihydrogen monoxide
Senior Member
Slovene, Serbo-Croat
According to the Slovenian Etymological Dictionary, the word is a loanword from Czech and it's se vocalized counterpart and znam 'known', a passive form.
Awwal12
Senior Member
Russian
Ah, that possibility slipped my mind somehow. Thanks.
Thanks! It is what I guessed.
Slovak has borrowed it from Czech as well, and like thousands and thousands of bohemisms it went through the slovakisation process, so it looks "zoznam" now.
Do you know where I can find a list of bohemisms in Slovenian.
dihydrogen monoxide
Senior Member
Slovene, Serbo-Croat
I don't know if there is such a book out there, but I know there is a book of false friends between Slovene and Slovak. From my university days, I remember that an old word for grammatical number was čislo.
OBrasilo
Senior Member
Brazil, Brazilian Portuguese
Which is a bit strange, since Slovenian also has other such se- words, such as seznaniti (se), sestopiti, sestreliti, etc. Are they all loaned from Czech?
Ne vem.
They all obviously appear in Czech as well: seznámit se, sestoupit, sestřelit (and correspond to zoznámiť sa, zostúpiť, zostreliť in Slovak).