journal of linguistic studies

…it is a little disappointing to learn that the general cultural influence of English
has so far been all but negligible. The English language itself is spreading
because the English have colonized immense territories. But there is nothing to
show that it is anywhere entering into the lexical heart of other languages.
The second observation is interesting to the same extent:
Ironically, even the name of the English capital originates from Celtic Llyn +
dun in which llyn is another Celtic word for “river” and dun stands for “a
fortified hill”, the meaning of the whole being “fortress on the hill over the river”.
Since most of inventions happened in English speaking countries, it is logical that
most of the computer-related items have English names. However, in this global process,
different target languages reacted differently, in the context of their openness to lexical
influence of the English language. If we consider situation related to Montenegrin, our
language received copious amount of lexical borrowings. One of the words from this
corpus is a word “driver”. This word meaning “a person operating vehicle” did not have
any sort of connexion to Montenegrin. However, together with information revolution,
the word was incorporated into Montenegrin, with its orthographical form “drajver”. So,
this word has changed its semantic field, from [+ alive] into [- alive] through the process
of natural lexical evolution, and afterwards ended up as a part of Montenegrin, thus
enabling our speakers to denote this new form of reality. This is what had happened to
thousands of other model words prior to their arrival into Montenegrin. This is the
ingredient which has created “computer jargon”.
Jargon can be any informal and mainly spoken variety of a language serving the
purpose of identification and communication within a particular socially defined group –
according to their profession, social status, age, etc. – where the members are brought
together by a common interest, with a possibility of being territorially defined.
Computer jargon is, for instance, new. If you listen to the communication, running
along its normal course, between two young people who spend a lot of time in from of a
computer, you can easily conclude it is full of computer jargon to that extent it may be
completely unintelligible to someone outside the computer world.
From these two paragraphs it can be easily concluded that digital technologies have
lead to major changes within a number of languages, including there Montenegrin. These
changes can be sometimes so radical that people who have not “updated” their vocabulary
may find it difficult to understand their “lexically updated” compatriot. Computer jargon
is now functioning as an independent linguistic part and possesses enough energy to
acquire even more words. Through time, computer jargon has become a powerful
linguistic tool, and it is not surprising most of the young people use it to make themselves
different form all of those who are not into it.
2. LOANWORDS IN MONTENEGRIN
The Montenegrin language, throughout centuries, has been borrowing different
lexical elements, not only from English, but from other languages as well. During the
past, those were Hellenisms and Latinisms (since they are used all over the world they are
sometimes called Internationalisms). We cannot deny the influence of Romance
languages (mainly Italian and French) onto Montenegrin. Both of these languages were
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