North America South America Oceania Šokci (Serbo-Croatian: Šokci / Шокци, pronounced [ʃǒkt͡si], SHOCK-tsee; singular masculine: Šokac / Шокац, feminine: Šokica / Шокица; Hungarian: Sokácok) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to historical regions of Baranya, Bačka, Slavonia and Syrmia.

The term Šokac (masculine), Šokica and Šokčica (feminine), is used for the part of Croatian Ikavian speakers native in Slavonia, Baranja, Bačka and Bosnia.

[5] Ćiro Truhelka derived it from Albanian shoq < Latin sočius, but comparison to Montenegrin surname Šoć makes it dismissive.

In his unfinished etymological dictionary published in 1973, the editors considered most reasonable the Romanian şoacăţ with primary meaning a mouse, and secondary meaning a mockery for Western Europeans (especially Germans) who dressed in urban fashion, from which derives adjective şoacăfesc (German), abstraction įoacăţie.

[7] The Šokci in Baranja are considered to be descendants of settlers from a mass migration of Croats from an area near Srebrenica, Bosnia into the region after the Ottoman retreat in the 18th century.

[18] Since the late 16th century began Franciscans missions (mostly on iniciative of Ragusan priests) in Slavonia, Srijem and Podunavlje (including Bačka).

[20] Four years later, Marin Dobrojević recorded that in that area of the Southern Pannonian Plain there's many Catholics who are "almost all of Slavic language, who are usually called Šokci".

[20] A 1615 Ottoman ferman by sultan Ahmed I prohibited Serb Orthodox metropolitans from taking various fees from [Catholic] "Hungarian and Šokci infidels".

[22] They are also mentioned in the documents of the Roman Catholic Church where they requested Jeronim Lučić to become the bishop of Bosnia and Slavonia in 1635, a military court case regarding Serbian Patriarchate of Peć in Bosnia (with "Latin and Šokci dhimmi" of Motike and Dragočaj near Banja Luka, Kotor, Jajce),[22] and in one writing from the time when Eugene of Savoy invaded Ottoman territory down to Sarajevo in 1697.

[citation needed] In the 1702 census of Đakovo, one of the cities that was retaken from the Ottoman Empire following the Treaty of Karlowitz, there were 500–600 inhabitants described as Catholic Slav/Slavonian (Latin: Slavi catholicae fidae).

According to the 1840 data, the population of Croatia, Slavonia and Serbian Vojvodina numbered 1,605,730 people, of which 777,880 (48%) were Croats, 504,179 (32%) Serbs, and 297,747 (19%) Šokci.

[citation needed] The Šokci were concentrated in the Požega, Virovitica, and Syrmia counties, and in the Slavonian Military Frontier.

[29] In general, the number and the percentage of the Šokci has decreased because of an unwritten policy that each family should have only one child, because they did not wish to divide their estate and other riches in each following generation.

Many of the traditions of the Šokci are influenced by their environment – they live in the fertile Pannonian plain where they cultivate grains and corn in large fields surrounding their villages.

The villages often have one main street (šor) where each subsequent family house has auxiliary buildings and a spacious yard, as well as a water well.

The abundance in which they have traditionally lived has made the Šokci a naturally merry people, who pay a lot of attention to folklore.

A rich Šokac girl would have a large number of dukati weaved onto her chest not only as a decoration but as a clear sign that she comes from a wealthy family.