THE EPITHETS IN KISAC AS CULTURAL AND TRADITIONAL HERITAGE

Abstract

     The occurrence of epithets is an ongoing sociolinguistic process. Our aim was to record all existing epithets, preserved by current inhabitants of Kysáč (Kisac).

     The results of our research can be summarized as follows: 165 recorded surnames contain 742 epithets in total, some ramulose families have many epithets; although monomial models are most frequent, binomial descriptive models also exist; in some cases a person has two epithets; some epithets refer to several persons; the relationship between the epithets and the person they refer to is, most commonly, positive, whereas in certain cases, the epithets occur because of animosity.

      The role of the epithet is not only to identify the person it refers to, but it is also an important psychological, sociolological and historical factor. Epithets are a nonmaterial – cultural and traditional heritage in some way reflecting the history of our towns describing the life of the people of the time and the place.

     The local community stabilizes its values, norms and knowledge through generation transmission. However, there is a continuous decline of population in our local community, because of the mortality of old people and moving-away of the young. Furthermore, it is supposed that in the future decreased direct communication and, at the same time, increased technological communication, also in microgroups, such as local town communities, will create global crisis of social communication. For these reasons, our aim was to capture and record the information about epithets, which are still preserved by the inhabitants of Kysáč (Kisac) and to keep them for future generations.