Језик обичајнога права у Његошевим делима
Language of the Customary Law in Njegoš’s Works

Summary/Abstract: In this paper the author investigates the terminology and formulaic expressons of the customary law in the works of Petar Petrović Njegoš: vjera, dati / činiti / uhvatiti / držati / razrušiti / slomiti / razbiti vjeru / mir, sveto, vražda, sud, dug, nakaza, nakazati, umir. It is shown that in most cases we are dealing with terms and formulas inherited from Old Serbian and, further, Proto-Slavic and only rarely with dialectal innovations In the domain of legal terminology. This diachronic approach proves to be necessary in defining lexical layers in Njegoš’s work (Serbian, Church Slavonic, Russian), since it is shown that many lexemes that were thought to be Church Slavonic or Russian were actually inherited from Old Serbian legal tradition. Moreover, it helps defining polysemy of certain words, which preserved their Proto-Slavic meaning only in the language of the customary law, while having a new one in all other contexts, e.g. vjera: a) ‘alliance based on Truth and Justice’: b) ‘religion’.

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