Working in IT? π©π»βπ» Would you call yourself an IT-ian, Hitechist or Startupist? These are literal translations of actual terms used to describe people working in IT. In Bosnian π§π¦, Croatian ππ·, Montenegrin π²πͺ and Serbian π·πΈ, people working in IT are known as “IT-jevac” (m), “IT-jevka” (f) and “IT-jevci” (p). Of course “IT” is […]
Back from a week researching around Montenegro π²πͺ, Bosnia and Herzegovina π§π¦ and Croatia ππ· with a writer friend of mine. An amazing time! π βοΈ For anyone working with languages, trips to “territory” (where those languages are spoken) are valuable for language maintenance and seeing and hearing what’s on trend linguistically, particularly slang. There’s […]
Watch out for the killer squirrels! πΏοΈWe’re very much in “silly season” right now in the UK π€ͺ Not long ago, a friend posted a link to a news item published the day before about an audacious missionary being killed by the uncontacted people of North Sentinel Islandhttps://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/man-killed-uncontacted-tribe-after-30620890 My immediate thought was “no, not another […]
Two more language directions have been added to my Institute of Translation and Interpreting profile (check it out here https://www.iti.org.uk/directory/member/mr-nick-nasev.html):β Bosnian to Englishβ Montenegrin to English That brings my total to six π. Some background… The breakup of Yugoslavia over 30 years ago transformed what was once one language, Serbo-Croatian, into four: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin […]
Did you hear about the man who collects “old-timers”? π΄π½Or that Frank Sinatra has many “evergreens”? π²Or the woman who was a rowing “recorder”? βΆOr how the best player on the field was the “goal man”? π―And how one unfortunate person was a victim of “mobbing” in the workplace? π₯ These are all actual examples […]
π° Words that look the same or similar in two languages but have two, at times radically, different meanings are called “false friends”. There are plenty of them in most languages, and particularly between Slovenian and the other Southern Slavic languages, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Serbian. ππ» A particular false friend I love […]
How do you say in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin or Serbian this: “Up there, the mountains burn worse”? π Gore gore gore gore. I’m not making this up π! This is a genuine sentence made up of four separate homonyms. And don’t bother checking it up on any machine translation tool or AIπ± as it won’t […]
Republic of Serbia π·πΈ, Republic of Croatia ππ·, Kingdom of Norway π³π΄, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland π¬π§, Oriental Republic of Uruguay πΊπΎ, Plurinational State of Bolivia π§π΄ … These are the long (official) forms of the names of these countries. The names of most countries have a long form and a […]
I’m about to fly off to Australia transiting through Munich Airport π©πͺ … so I’m preparing myself to be ready to speak in “naΕ‘ jezik” (“our language”). π So what is this “naΕ‘ jezik” (“our language”)?π And why is it spoken at Munich Airport? “NaΕ‘ jezik” is the euphemism used by people from ex-Yugoslavia in […]
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts today βͺοΈ For the past few years there has been debate in some countries over what to actually call the month. In Bulgaria, where over 10% of the population is Muslim, online forums have been going off about whether to call it ‘Ramazan’, the traditional Balkan way (originally […]
