The origins of the word

Ottoman markets can be singled out from other modern markets of Balkan towns partly by their names. Today, as during the Ottoman Empire, oriental words are used; they have been adapted according to the conventions of different alphabets and the jargon of local languages. Čaršija for the Serbo-Croat-Bosnian areas, çarshija for Albanian speakers, чаршија for Macedonians. The term comes from the Turkish çarş that means precisely “market”. The same public spaces are also called pazars, a word that most probably has its origin in the Persian bāzār ( بهاچار) - literally “the place of prices ”.