Terminological standardization in the social sciences and humanities – the case of Croatian anthropological terminology

The paper presents the construction of anthropological terminology in the Croatian language. It focuses, on one hand, on some specific challenges that Croatian, as a “non-dominant language”, is facing in the process of developing and standardizing its scientific terminology. These challenges arise as a result of the small size of the Croatian scientific community and its limited influence on the development of particular disciplines, which means that concepts are frequently adopted from work by scholars writing in dominant languages, such as English. On the other hand, the paper addresses issues that necessarily arise when strict terminological standardization principles and ideals are applied to anthropology, as an interdisciplinary humanistic discipline using a wide array of often ambiguous terms which are difficult to fit into the rigorously organized conceptual system stipulated by traditional terminology.