[Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian] Discussion Group

[kibo]

hey, I have a question, possibly the one that may sound silly to you lot, BUT...
I'm starting a university in October and I was thinking about choosing slavic filology as my major (I myself am polish). That means I'd study bulgarian, czech, russian, english and serbian. I don't know any of thses apart for english and a very (VERY) basic russian. I was wondering, do you think Serbian is in any way similar to russian/polish? An is it easy to learn? And are the signs the same as russian?
ANY information is welcomed here.

Yes, of course, they all belong to the same language familly, and I don't think it would be a problem for you to learn it. Of course, you do have to make an effort, there are differences which shouldn't be taken for granted.

We use both the cyrillic and the latin alphabet. You have to know both. The variant of the cyrillic alphabet we use is bit different than others (i.e. we have some letters that russians and others don't, and they have some letters we don't use)

You can see the Serbian Cyrillic and Latin alphabets here and here.

[Brazilian dude]

That means I'd study bulgarian, czech, russian, english and serbian.

I never knew English was a Slavic language

Brazilian dude

[kama]

thanks a bunch, Bugi :*

duh, everyone knows english is a slavic langauge xP jks

[Brazilian dude]

Bugi?

Brazilian dude

[Guest]

Hi kama,

Where are you considering studying? My knowledge of philology is somewhat sketchy I study Serbian, Russian and Japanese here in the UK and have an extremely basic knowledge of Polish.

Well, you've got two West Slavic languages there (Czech and your native Polish), two South Slavic (Bulgarian and Serbian) and Russian's Eastern Slavic. All in all that means good coverage. What's more, all these languages have enough literature (both fictional and philological) for comparitive study as opposed to the more minority languages. As for historical linguistics, Russian's been thoroughly examined and you'll find a lot of resources. I think the same can be said for Serbian and Croatian but I don't speak enough of either to understand any of the texts on this in our library

Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian all use variants of Cyrillic, although as Bugi said, Serbian also uses the Latin alaphabet, as does Czech. After a few weeks studying Serbian you probably won't notice which alphabet you're using. In the opinion of my Polish friends, knowledge of Polish helps considerably with Czech grammar and from my experience, if your knowledge of Russian includes being able to read Cyrillic that's definitely going to be useful You'll find a lot of words are similar, but watch out for false friends. You need to be prepared for a lot of work and have a good brain for vocab, but then again, you probably already know that!

Oh, and English is Germanic. That's why I can understand a lot of, but not speak a word of German But its great that you're continuing with English ...though I might be slightly biased!

Kate

[Brazilian dude]

Oh, Bugi is a guy's name, I see now. I thought it was some Serbian word

Brazilian dude

[Nukalurk]

It's the short version of his surname, which is indeed a Serbian word. It means Bulgarian.

[kama]

Where are you considering studying?

Well, I was thinking of choosing this polish university in Torun, as it's quite close to my home town, yet far enough to get some privacy at last

Oh, and English is Germanic.

yeah, I do realize it, but ever since practically everyone in Poland is learning English at school, I assume it is a good idea they want us to continue the studies. I mean, knowing the slavic languages will make it easier to have any contacts with the West, and with the English knowledge, you can basically conquer the East I guess that might be why they put the english language there. then again, ey, whatever floates their boats!
Obviously, along with a philology they also put Latin there, but since I've been doing that one in high school for 3 years, I don't think of it as a problem.

I find learning languages incredibly interesting (I have also been studying German for, what, 5 years now. But since I'm not a fan of that one, I haven't really become fluent, or anywhere near it for that matter xP), plus I'm really into the Slavic stuff, so when I found this major, I fell head over heels in love with it. Now I can only pray to pass my Polish and English exam well enough to get accepted.
And yeah, I do know cyryllic, as I've been trying to teach myself russian. Due to the lack of time, I'm still stuck at the basic phase.

Yet again, thank for all of the help.

[kama]

sorry, I meant knowing Slavic gives the ability to contact EAST, and English - the WEST.
I have tendency to mess those up.

[Guest]

sorry, I meant knowing Slavic gives the ability to contact EAST, and English - the WEST

Don't worry, I gotcha. Although with English you can conquer Japan and China (if you're planning for world domination that is )

Obviously, along with a philology they also put Latin there

Rather you than me! Gave up Latin as soon as I could after two years.. Likewise German

I'm trying to pick up some Polish for this summer for when I'll leading a English language camp over there, but I can't pronounce half the words of your beautiful language I taught out in Nysa two years ago, then toured Krakow, Zakopane, Warsaw and rafted along the Dunajec. Don't know where I'll be teaching or touring this summer tho, its a surprise!

I chose my university partly for the same reasons as you. Torun is.....Copernicus' home town? One of my students a couple of years ago (that sounds strange when I say that, since I'm a student myself) was going to go there, its supposed to be very prestiguous I think. She also said something about a plague of frogs and a fiddler in the town history

Anyway, good luck with yur exams, let us know how they go,

Kate

[kama]

if you're planning for world domination that is

My goal exactly To take over the world but shh for now, still got plenty to do.

I can't pronounce half the words of your beautiful language

to be honest with you, there are certain words that even for me are very troublesome. My brother used to mock me about me being absolutley not able to pronounce the name of this country in Asia.

Yup, Toruń is the town of copernicus. And I guess the university is somewhat prestigeous, especially if it comes to the humanistic majors.

Anyway, good luck with yur exams, let us know how they go,

No, thank you! <-polish superstition (sp). You shall never say thank you if someone wishes you good luck, otherwise you won't ever achieve the goal.
I'm gonna know for sure in July I guess, so there's still plenty of time. But I will let you know, especially since, if I get accepted, I'm probably going to need your help

[kama]

PS I hope we're not gonna get told off for going a bit off-topic.
*raises right hand* promise to get better!

[kibo]

Oh, Bugi is a guy's name, I see now. I thought it was some Serbian word

Brazilian dude

It's my nick, and I doubt anyone else has that name here.

kama, tell us more about the Serbian studies at that uni. I'm intrigued You (and Kate and everyone else) are welcomed to come and practice here; maybe we should open a new thread where students can practice talking about different topics. What do you think?

[projetdefleur]

I've noticed that not many Serbian websites use the Cyrillic Serbian script, do you guys not use it much, or is that more of a Croatian thing? I personally prefer the Cyrillic.

[Nukalurk]

Maybe it's easier switching between the languages; e. g. I never write English with an English keyboard layout, I use the German one.

[kama]

kama, tell us more about the Serbian studies at that uni. I'm intrigued

well, to be honest with you, I don't really know much myself. Shame on me From what I've heard, you can choose one of the three languages (bulgarian, serbian and czech) to be the main one, but it varies every year, the word is in 2005 you can go either for czech or bulgarian, it kind of sucks if you ask me cause I'd rather pick serbian. I'm not 100% sure about that though, gonna find out all of the details in late June or early July.
Anyway, no matter which language you chose to be the main one, you still have to learn all of these, so there you have serbian, english, russian and latin on first year, plus stuff typical for any filology like logistic, knowledge of language and literature, then knowledge about slavic filology, serbian culture and history of serbia. All in all 10 subjects, which is almost half less than in high school (niiice ).
on the 2nd year, youve got czech, bulgarian , russian, english and this weird language that I don't really know anything at all about, it's something like the old-cerkiev-slavic language (might've translated it wrong due to the fact I have never, ever heard about it. I assume it is one of the "dead" languages, alike latin). Then there's history of czech literature, descriptive czech gramma, history of philosophy, and unfortunatley PE (like I'm gonna need to be an athelt whereas I plan to be a translator or something like that, sure.)
The 3rd year is czech, serbian, russian, english and some history of gramma.
Then it also gives two years more, but to be honest with you, I have no idea about what would we do then 'cause I wasn't able to find any information on that. Guess I'll have to wait to get there

all in all, the major sounds incredibly exciting to me, plus it might give some good chances to get a well job, since hardly anyone can 'show off' with the knowledge of serbian, bulgarian, czech and russian in here. Due to the huge amount of the unemployment, the job aspect is very important for me. Plus, I would, for once, be doing something that I actually like.

[Nukalurk]

You mean Old Church Slavonic.

[Guest]

You mean Old Church Slavonic.

honestly, shame on me, but I wouldnt even know if that's what I meant xP *slaps self* I only know the polish name of this language, and that one I only found out a few months ago.
But if you say so, then most probably that's what I meant Thanks so much

[Guillem]

Bugi, what can you tell me about Serbian stress? Because I'm a bit confused on this topic...

[kibo]

Bugi, what can you tell me about Serbian stress? Because I'm a bit confused on this topic...

Well, the only rule I can give you is that the stress can be on any syllable except for the last one. I know it's not very encouraging, especially because this rule is broken when it comes to some foreign words. For instance, i say asistEnt, konsultAnt, even though it should be asIstent, konsUltant. It's just that nobody says it that way.

So the serbian stress is relatively unpredictable. I say relatively because there are ways to know. Almost all derived words keep the stress location from the original word. It's pisati (to write), and it's also zapisati (to write down), prepisati (to copy; to prescribe), potpisati (to sign). The diminutive of kuća is kućica. So not all is so dark At least you know how to stress the words with only two syllables.

There is also the thing about the stress quality, but I always advise students to forget that and pretend it doesn't exist.

If you have any other (more specific) doubts, don't hesitate to ask, guillem. ^^