East Ethnia: Good work if you can get it

2006-08-19

Good work if you can get it

A Croatian company has put out an advertisement seeking 400 translators from Serbian to Montenegrin.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...: Holly smoke.
That was trully funny.; 20/8/06 04:26
cãorafeiro said...: great! It means that I am learning four languages for the prive of one!

it will look great on my resumé :-); 20/8/06 15:41
cãorafeiro said...: I meant price...; 20/8/06 15:41
Katja R. said...: Yeah I had a good laugh too! and yeah it will look great on a resume! Unless someone who knows what's what interviews you and reads the resume! :); 20/8/06 22:16
Eric Gordy said...: I actually do put the whole list on my resume, but all on the same line.; 20/8/06 23:11
cãorafeiro said...: well, yashima, in my country the balkans are seen as a veeeery far away place, almost as if it's in another planet...

anyway, you have a point, we never know if the person beside you on the bus is one of the half-dozen that happens to know where that planet is (some days ago, I went to a swimming pool, and there was a serbian family, they were so convinced that nobody could understand them that they always talked really loud.

but i don't want to discriminate any of the peoples that spekes what was once known as serbo-croatian, so I think i'll just do as eric did...

eric, did you put montenegrinean as well?; 21/8/06 14:57
Eric Gordy said...: Heh, I suppose I could add Montenegrin, haven't done it yet. Maybe it would be a good idea to list all of the English dialects I can use as well.; 21/8/06 15:43
cãorafeiro said...: «Maybe it would be a good idea to list all of the English dialects I can use as well.«

yeah, good idea!

I can add also brazilian, angolan, mozambiquean, capeverdian, and so on...

but the truth is that, when I went to monenegro, many people asked me where I had learnt:
-montenegrian;
-the local language;
-and, last but not least «jugoslovensko» (this was a muslim woman)

nobody asked me wher I had learnt serbian, but I must say that I didn't talk to anybody that was against independence...; 21/8/06 17:47
Katja R. said...: Languages spoken
1. Spanish
2. English
3. Lowland Scots Dialect
4. Irish Jailtacht Dialect
I can read normal Irish
5 Intermediate proficiency in Scots Gaelic
6 Bosnian
7 Croatian
I can't count Serbian because I'm still bad with cirilici!
So anyway that's my language inflated languages part of the resume.
Left out that I can say 'hello' 'goodbye' and call someone something nasty that comes out of pigs in Navajo.; 21/8/06 18:01
Katja R. said...: at Caorafeiro, yeah I love that when someone speaks a language I know well and says things that would embarrass the Hell out of them if they knew anyone else understood!; 21/8/06 18:03
Anonymous said...: They are either spiteful or ignorant. As one Serb I showed this to commented, 'trust the Croats to want to rub things in!' Still, it is a stupidly costly way of making such a point. Alternatively, it can be taken as evidence that they obviously never got to know their Montenegrin compatriots during the years they spent living as Yugoslavs. To employ people to translate between Serbian and 'Montenegrin' is just plain moronic!; 21/8/06 21:26
Bg anon said...: Yes I wrote a little about this at my Serbia blog.

It is amusing but I still cant explain what they mean by the Bosniak language.

Do you understand it Eric? Do you think its a mistake or do you know Bosnians who say they speak Bosniak?; 22/8/06 19:38
Eric Gordy said...: What I've seen in the literature is that "bosanski" refers to people or things from the territory of Bosna, while "bošnjački" refers to things particular to ethnic Muslims (whether or not they are on the territory of Bosna, which explains the Bošnjački population of the Sandžak, for example. Kind of the opposite of "srpski" and "srbijanski." But I do not remember where I saw this, or where it derives from, or how long the convention has been in use.; 22/8/06 19:57
Bg anon said...: Its a pretty recent development, or should say that until the Bosnian war I never heard the word Bosniak. I dont think more divisions will foster a more united Bosnia. But thats the wider point. In the end people are free to call themselves whatever they want.

There is also that thing about srpski (Serb) presednik and srbijanski (Serbian) presednik. The Belgrade media tend to use the former and the Croatian media always use the latter.

Some Serbs dont like Srbijanski and claim it is pejorative in some way. I think its an ugly word (structure not meaning).

Croatians (Croats?) obviously dont like Srpski President because it implies the President of Croatian Serbs too.

There is always a sensible solution to avoid the argument. 'Presednik Srbije' should always be used. But the numbskulls dont settle for the best option do they?

But to the original issue. I have the original advert taken out in Blic. It clearly states that it seeks translators for Bosnjacki or the Bosniak language. That I imagine means that Bosnian Serbs and Croats need not apply - unless they are claiming that Bosnjacki is the official language of Bosnia.

Maybe this is a (mistakenly IMO) politically correct Croatian thing. Perhaps somebody from Croatia or Bosnia could explain it.; 23/8/06 14:04
Eric Gordy said...: I think that the official bureaucratic formulation for BH is that it has "three official languages." It also has a constitution in English, which is not one of the three. The whole business about every entity having an official language is someone's "državotvorna" idea which has very little to do with language, and a lot to do with the popular reception of some 19th century theories of nationhood.; 23/8/06 14:13
Bg anon said...: Thanks for that Eric I quite agree. And now I sort of get the point - with its own warped logic.; 23/8/06 18:48
Anonymous said...: Yakima_Gulag said...

Languages spoken
1. Spanish
2. English
3. Lowland Scots Dialect
4. Irish Jailtacht Dialect
I can read normal Irish
5 Intermediate proficiency in Scots Gaelic
6 Bosnian
7 Croatian
I can't count Serbian because I'm still bad with cirilici!

You are equaly bad with latinici...
And by the way, how do you learn to speak Serbian in cyrillic?; 24/8/06 09:19
Unknown said...: Incredible...
I am studying serbian, so also croatian, bosnian, and finally montenegrian!!
I am polyglot, knowing yet the languages of italy, republic of san marino and vatican city!; 4/9/06 15:25

East Ethnia

2006-08-19

Good work if you can get it

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