Purism is a widespread phenomenon in all the Slavic languages but is particularly evident in Slovene, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, and the Sorbian languages. Its effects are mostly to be seen in the vocabulary of the respective standard languages, where there has been a concerted effort to censure and replace words of foreign origin. This often leads to a marked difference between the standard language and the vernacular in this and other respects. Some languages, however, have been more concerned w…