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Books in "Serbian" or "Croatian"? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5348 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 1 of 18 24 October 2014 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There have been many discussions here regarding the actual differences between these two languages (or dialects), but in practical terms, when ordering books should one look for specific editions? For example for Serbian writers like Слободан Селенић or Борислав Пекић, would it make any difference if the edition is in Cyrillic or Latin characters? Is anything changed when Serbian books are sold in Croatia and vice-versa, like in the case of Scandinavian languages where they are translated from and to each other despite their closeness?
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 18 24 October 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting question! I only know that modern bestsellers are generally translated and published separately in each country. (I wonder about Montenegro and Bosnia?) I sure hope they don't translate older works to fit the modern standard language(s) unless it's absolutely necessary. Also, the only BCSM Cyrillic book that I own is labelled Serbo-Croatian, not Serbian. (and it's a modern edition)
But whatever the answers are, they won't prove much. Brazilian books are also translated into European Portuguese (at least Coelho, I suppose in many cases it's just not worth it). Edited by Serpent on 24 October 2014 at 8:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 18 24 October 2014 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I recently bought a dictionary for this language (it's one language with two dialects in
my opinion) and it simply says Servisch en Kroatisch - Nederlands (Serbian and Croatian to Dutch). In effect, with the exception of a few things codified for each country, I don't think the differences should prove to be so huge. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4586 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 4 of 18 24 October 2014 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have been reading books in both languages for the Super Challenge (and counting both
as Croatian!) and Serpent is completely right that modern books are being translated separately to be sold in each country. I recently compared a Serbian translation of Ken Follett's thriller 'Eye of the Needle' to the Croatian audiobook version of the same novel and I found massive stylistic differences which had nothing to do with the small amount of different vocabulary specific to each language or even the ijekavian/ekavian spelling differences, but simply reflected the fact that two different people with different personalities and preferences had separately translated the book. From experience of being in a several bookshops in Belgrade this summer, I would say that over 75% of the books on the shelves were in the Latin alphabet, which surprised me because I was actually looking to buy a few things in Cyrillic. My experience was that all books translated from English were in Latin characters and that Cyrillic books were either in the children's department (where the split between alphabets was probably more like 50:50) or in a special section of Serbian classics. I really struggled to find a modern book in Cyrillic which didn't look too difficult and yet wasn't a picture book aimed at 8 year olds. Interestingly a couple of the books I bought in Belgrade turned out to be Croatian translations when I later inspected them more carefully :) Having focussed on learning exclusively Croatian, the first novel I read in Serbian felt like a bit of a struggle for me. This was mainly due to my unfamiliarity with the ekavian spellings and only slightly to do with a few bits of vocabulary which I only knew the Croatian for. Having read about six books in Serbian now I have got completely used to it and it doesn't bother me at all which language I read in. Given how difficult it is to get hold of books in either variant outside of the countries where they are spoken, I would personally buy whichever edition of a book is cheapest or easiest to find. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5348 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 5 of 18 24 October 2014 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Radioclare, from your experience would you say there is any chance that a book in Latin characters from a Serbian author has been modified in any form?
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| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4586 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 6 of 18 24 October 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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No, I don't think there would be any modifications; I think it would be the same words
just written in a different alphabet. There were so many Latin-alphabet books when I was in Serbia that I think some Serbian authors simply choose to write in that alphabet and a lot of Serbian readers choose to read in it. However if you are worried that a specific book might have been 'translated' into a Croatian version then you could double-check the name of the publisher and look them up online to see which country they are based in. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5348 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 7 of 18 24 October 2014 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you for your help!
There are actually a couple of sellers offering Serbocroatian books on Amazon, so they might not be that difficult to obtain. Reading works of literature in their original version is why I learn languages, so I didn't want to end up buying the wrong edition. I will also try to identify separate online bookstores located in Serbia and Croatia and see if they are selling the same edition of a given work. I haven't actually begun learning the language, though I hope my Russian will be of help. Would you say there is a benefit in choosing either Croatian or Serbian and exclusively using learning resources specific for it, or does mixing them up carry no complications? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4586 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 8 of 18 24 October 2014 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Laguna seems to be quite a popular publisher and book-seller in Serbia. If you look at the 'Domaći autori' section of their website you will see what I mean about the mix of alphabets even in books by Serbian authors. Superknjizara seems to be a popular website for buying books in Croatian.
I think it depends whether you are more interested in one country culturally. If you only want to travel to Serbia or read Serbian literature, then it makes sense to start with Serbian resources. I was only interested in travelling to Croatia originally so have used only Croatian resources, but once I got to a basic level in Croatian it wasn't difficult to learn about the differences to Serbian. If you are interested in all the languages in the region and the differences/similarities between them then I recommend using these books by Ronelle Alexander. They are really expensive (slightly cheaper if you get the electronic versions) but in my opinion worth the money, because every dialogue is reproduced three times (in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) and there is a mixture between Serbian Latin and Serbian Cyrillic. In the wordlists new vocabulary is clearly marked if it is more likely to be used in one country than another. Of course not everything is so black and white as the book makes out and a Croatian may choose to use a word which is marked as 'Serbian' or vice versa, but I think it gives you a really good indication of what the differences are and it is definitely the most comprehensive resource I have seen for these languages in English. The only decision I would say it is worth making from the start is whether you want to use ekavian or ijekavian spellings when you speak/write yourself. Ekavian spelling is used mainly in Serbia; ijekavian spelling is used in most of Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and a bit of Serbia too. So if you use Serbian resources the spelling will almost certainly be ekavian whereas if you use Croatian ones it will be only ijekavian. The difference just concerns some words containing the letter 'e', so in ekavian spelling the word for 'river' is 'reka' whereas in ijekavian it is 'rijeka'; in ekavian the word for body is spelled 'telo' whereas in ijekavian it is 'tijelo' etc. Both spellings and pronunciations are equally intelligible everywhere and it isn't even a marker of ethnicity, but any given speaker will either exclusively spell in the ekavian way or exclusively spell in the ijekavian way, so I think it's important as a learner to choose one and be consistent (though it probably doesn't matter which you choose). Chung is the great authority on all matters relating to Serbian and Croatian and can probably add more :) 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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