trajanje

Trajanje is a noun used in several South Slavic languages, including Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian, to denote the length of time something lasts; in other words, the duration of an event, process, or interval. It answers questions such as how long something lasts and for how much time. The term is common in everyday speech, journalism, and formal writing.

Etymology and scope: Trajanje derives from the verb trajati, meaning “to last” or “to endure.” It is often used with phrases indicating specific time spans, such as trajanje filma (the duration of a film), trajanje sastanka (the length of a meeting), and trajanje putovanja (the duration of a trip).

Usage in everyday life: In ordinary contexts, trajanje describes durations of films, meetings, trips, tasks, or other activities. It can be modified by numerals or adjectives to convey longer or shorter time spans, for example, “long trajanje” or “trajanje od tri sata.”

In linguistics and related fields: In academic contexts, trajanje may refer to the temporal length of sounds or phonetic segments, such as vowel length or consonant duration, and it can be a factor in prosody, rhythm, and speech analysis. The specific interpretation can vary by discipline and language.

Measurement and expression: Durations are typically expressed in standard time units (seconds, minutes, hours) or described relative to a reference point (e.g., “a project duration of six months”). The term emphasizes the temporal extent rather than the moment at which an event begins or ends.