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Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5292 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 65 of 96 19 January 2012 at 9:29am | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
I have a phonetics question -- In Bosnian, is the h pronounced like the Russian x or like the
German ch in Bach? Or does it depending on surrounding vowels? |
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It is stronger than English but weaker than Russian, Polish, German, etc.
I notice no difference in pronunciation based on the surrounding sounds. The "h" in hrana, uhvatiti, uho, hleba,
hiljada, hartija, vazduh, bdah, pleh, etc. is all the same sound.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5422 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 66 of 96 19 January 2012 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
I lived in Serbia my entire life. Technically I was born in Socialist Yugoslavia, but
when I was 4 the country fell apart. Living next to Serbs all my life, but not being a
Serb, and not speaking Serbian every day, just with friends, relatives, classmates, co-
workers and other acquaintances, I still speak the language almost perfectly, I can
express myself better than most natives even and it's hard for most people to tell that
I'm not a native.
But not being a Serb gave me a unique observational position. I know the language of
the Serbs, and the Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrin, but I have no close feelings
attached to this language, yet I share the same history, the same experience these
people went through with their language in the last 20 years. And being quite an anti-
nationalist and against ethnic or in this case linguistic pride, my opinion on the
matter may seem very brutal and un-emphatic to most people.
From my knowledge and experience I can tell you that the difference between Serbian,
Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are trivial and largely unimportant. They are just or
even less as noticeable as are difference between different varieties of English. The
difference is that in their own arrogance, pride and stupidity these countrymen of mine
have created an abomination they refer to by different names. IT'S THE SAME LANGUAGE!
And after years and years I grew tired of listening to their squabbles and pig-ignorant
arguments.
So I just refer to the language as New Illyrian, given the fact that it was called
Illyrian for thousands of years, stemming from an erroneous belief that it was the
descendants of Ancient Illyrian, but if calling it Illyrian is incorrect then we should
start calling French as Gallo-Romance, or something like that. The name Illyrian was
abandoned in mid-19th century due to poor familiarity amongst the illiterate masses.
Well, these illiterate masses have no right of protest. Maybe a bit elitist of me, but
who ever asks an ignorant person for any kind of advice on any matter in real life
anyway?! They did what they were told back then and now when they are "free" they think
it was their opinion all along!
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5400 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 67 of 96 19 January 2012 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
I have a phonetics question -- In Bosnian, is the h pronounced like the Russian x or like the
German ch in Bach? Or does it depending on surrounding vowels? |
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It is stronger than English but weaker than Russian, Polish, German, etc.
I notice no difference in pronunciation based on the surrounding sounds. The "h" in hrana, uhvatiti, uho, hleba,
hiljada, hartija, vazduh, bdah, pleh, etc. is all the same sound. |
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I'm afraid this leaves more confused than before -- I can only think of 3 possible sounds: Russian x, English h or German/Scottish ch. I was referring to the type of sound it is, not how strong or weak it is, which is rather meaningless.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5075 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 68 of 96 19 January 2012 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
What's the difference between Scottish ch and Russian x?
Anyway, the Russian sound is a good approximation and creates no confusion.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5400 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 69 of 96 19 January 2012 at 4:24pm | IP Logged |
Марк wrote:
What's the difference between Scottish ch and Russian x?
Anyway, the Russian sound is a good approximation and creates no confusion. |
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Russian x is further to the front (as in horosho [forgive the spelling]). Maybe it's palatalized?
1 person has voted this message useful
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5075 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 70 of 96 19 January 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
Maybe it's palatalized?
It is palatalized before и and е. Very rarely in foreign words it is palatalized before other vowels, like Хёд (Scandinavian god). Otherwise it is not palatalized.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7175 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 71 of 96 19 January 2012 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
Whatever wrote:
Dude....when you say stuff like that you only discourage people from learning it. I get having national pride and I do want Croatia to be distinguished from Serbia as much as possible but the language is practically the same. Bottom line, if people said what you wrote the Croatian way in Serbia, they'd be understood...and vice versa. No one will mind if a foreigner speaks it the Serbian way in Croatia.... He might get politely corrected here and there but no big deal, 95 % of it will still be right and appropriate in both Serbia and Croatia.
The important thing for people here is to learn the language, they don't care about the political stuff so emphasizing differences doesn't help here and it only discourages people.
Bottom line people, learn it any way you can if you're interested in learning it. Anyway it's good and it"ll get you through and make you understood. Don't worry about the differences, for you as foreignes who want to learn the language the differences are completely irrelevant. If you should worry about that at anytime, it's if and when you already master the language. Worrying about it before you master the language will only get you distracted and discouraged so don't bother with it. |
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This post reminds me of what this American living in Sarajevo had to deal with when confronted with nationalist prescriptions - a confusing and disjointed politicized mess that makes the process like walking through a set of booby traps rather than something rewarding or meaningful.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5292 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 72 of 96 20 January 2012 at 6:00am | IP Logged |
Delodephius wrote:
I lived in Serbia my entire life. Technically I was born in Socialist Yugoslavia, but
when I was 4 the country fell apart. Living next to Serbs all my life, but not being a
Serb, and not speaking Serbian every day, just with friends, relatives, classmates, co-
workers and other acquaintances, I still speak the language almost perfectly, I can
express myself better than most natives even and it's hard for most people to tell that
I'm not a native.
But not being a Serb gave me a unique observational position. I know the language of
the Serbs, and the Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrin, but I have no close feelings
attached to this language, yet I share the same history, the same experience these
people went through with their language in the last 20 years. And being quite an anti-
nationalist and against ethnic or in this case linguistic pride, my opinion on the
matter may seem very brutal and un-emphatic to most people.
From my knowledge and experience I can tell you that the difference between Serbian,
Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are trivial and largely unimportant. They are just or
even less as noticeable as are difference between different varieties of English. The
difference is that in their own arrogance, pride and stupidity these countrymen of mine
have created an abomination they refer to by different names. IT'S THE SAME LANGUAGE!
And after years and years I grew tired of listening to their squabbles and pig-ignorant
arguments.
So I just refer to the language as New Illyrian, given the fact that it was called
Illyrian for thousands of years, stemming from an erroneous belief that it was the
descendants of Ancient Illyrian, but if calling it Illyrian is incorrect then we should
start calling French as Gallo-Romance, or something like that. The name Illyrian was
abandoned in mid-19th century due to poor familiarity amongst the illiterate masses.
Well, these illiterate masses have no right of protest. Maybe a bit elitist of me, but
who ever asks an ignorant person for any kind of advice on any matter in real life
anyway?! They did what they were told back then and now when they are "free" they think
it was their opinion all along!
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You're pretty much preaching to the choir here. Most Serbs would be inclined to consider it one language, even to
call it Serbo-Croatian. That's what I used to do always and oftentimes still do. And most are perfectly OK with
using Latin script just as much as Cyrillic. Perhaps less so in Republika Srpska, but in Serbia itself and particularly
the cities you'll see Latin as often as Cyrillic. You sure as hell won't see Cyrillic in Croatia or Croat parts of Bosnia
anymore, or even the Muslim parts of Bosnia (despite the fact that Muslims used Cyrillic quite frequently in the
past). The language purging has been quite complete.
But it takes two to tango. As I have repeatedly had to deal with the nationalistic crap coming from the other side
(primarily Croatian, but also Muslim BS), which pretends that these are totally different languages (and of course
Serbian variants are worse, ugly, blablabla), I have come to feel that saying "Serbo-Croatian" is perhaps an easy
way out, a way to be "inclusive" and not nationalist, a way to deflect the impending judgment I'll face if I confess
my ethnicity.
Just like saying my parents were from ex-Yugoslavia was a way to evade saying they are Serbian, because saying
that in educated circles in the oh-so-tolerant US in the 1990s and even today was pretty much tantamount to
confessing membership in a Waffen SS division. So virulent was the propaganda and hostility.
So nowadays I say I speak Serbian and that my parents are Serbian (even though my dad is only half). Just as
Yehudi Menuhin's mother decided to proudly name her son "Jew" as a way to confront antisemitism.
At the end of the day, it was their decision to smash a unified language and country to pieces, so I have no need
to weep over the shards. I'll collect what's mine and move on.
For me to say "I speak Serbian" today is not a statement that I speak a different language from that spoken by
Croats and Muslims and the newly-manufactured Milonegrins. I could care less to distinguish myself from them
in that regard. I think the more native speakers there are, the better. But what it's really about, in the end, is that
I have no need to prop up a Yugoslav identity in front of myself or even diffuse my own language into a PC
"Serbo-Croatian" or the odious acronym BC(M)S. I am Serbian and I'll call my language as such, so that those
who would be inclined to hate or despise me can do so right away without harboring any doubts.
1 person has voted this message useful
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