An essential socio-linguistic feature of Croatian maritime language is an emphasized difference between spoken and written equivalent. Spoken language is based on dialects where Italian terms are very frequent. Italian terms used in our maritime language are called ?nostromisms? and the term itself derives from a dialect word ?nostromo?. These are the professional words spoken by Croatian seamen without equals in other languages. They definitely have their stylistic value, so they are very suitable for spoken language presentation of our seamen. But, most of these terms existed at the time of sailing – boats, and since they disappeared, many nostromisms disappeared with them too. In fact, nowadays the seamen even do not know the exact meaning of some of these terms. These nostromisms, which were still used not so long ago and do not exist in the speech of our seamen anymore, are called ?bosmanisms?. The word ?bosmanism? derives from the abandoned term ?boatswain? (bosun) – synonym for the term ?nostromo?. Therefore a question is asked if it is more appropriate to use bosmanisms in literature nowadays than standard terminology because bosmanisms are not used any more, and some of them cannot be understood even by the men of the sea, not to mention an average reader.
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