A Wasp's Journey to Serbia - part 2

Continuing the recount of my recent Serbian adventure...

Language
I pretty much speak Serbian at an infantile level. I can read cyrillic, count, and say basic vocabulary such as "house," "cat," "dog," and "beer."

I speak Italian fluently, and, unluckily for me, Serbian does not have its roots in Latin. There are a fair number of Latin cognates (nouns, mostly), and a surprising number of "Serbified" English words. What is "hemendeks," you ask? Why, that is "ham and eggs." "Bekendeks?" Bacon and eggs, of course. How does one say "parking service?" That would be паркинг сервис, or "parking servis." (Looks so exotic in cyrillic, doesn't it?)

Other hilarious Serbified words:

де ве де плејер, or de ve de plejer....DVD player

компјутер, or kompjuter...computer

це де плејер, or ce de plejer...CD player

хиларијус! (hilarijus)

For a linguaphile like me, Serbia is endlessly entertaining. Just riding in the car and reading signs is fun. My goal is to not read cyrillic like an idiot (you should hear me--the hub patiently listened while I read an entire children's book aloud). Imagine my delight to find that a bunch of symbols spell an English word phonetically.

Having spent a fair amount of time with my Serbian, Belgrader husband and his friends, I thought I might have enough grasp of the language to communicate on a basic level. I just parroted what I heard from him and tried these phrases:

When greeting an elderly neighbor in the hall, I tried out:
Ej bre, dobar dan. U pičku materinu.

When telling one of my new relatives that I would see them later, I said:
Ej bre, vidimose, kurac.

When toasting at dinner, I exclaimed
Ej, bre, živeli, bre, jebiga.

Oops. Apparently I was saying effity good morning, effity nice to meet you and effin' cheers, dude. Just kidding--I didn't really say those things. It's just par for the course in being married to a Belgrader and a Serb that the first Serbian words I learned were all cuss words, and "bre," or "man/dude." Serbs like to cuss. A lot. They have just about as many cuss words as regular words in their language. If you are a wasp, do not ever, ever attempt to cuss with or at a Serb. You will always, always lose.

If you are ever at a loss as to what to say in conversation, you can always try:
Da. Da da. Da da da. Super, jebiga! Pa da!

Did I mention that my husband is terrified that I will speak to the priest at the Serbian church?

But back to the language...and let's talk about vowels, or lack thereof. Did you know that some words in Serbian do not even contain vowels? It's true. Take prst, for example. You might say, "Ha ha! That's not really a word!" Oh yes, yes it is. "Prst" means "finger." If I ever break my finger in Serbia, I am jebiga-ed.

In Italian, the pronunciation is all about vowels and double consonants, with a relaxed mouth. To speak Italian well, pretend you're drunk (or be drunk).

In Serbian, as demonstrated by "prst," which I also happen to be using right now (to type, that is), it is all about the consonants. The hub asked me how Serbian sounds to me. I said it sounds like having a mouth full of rocks that you're trying to spit out. That's how I pronounce "prst." I pretend I'm trying to bean a passerby with imaginary rocks. Also, it helps immensely to yell, or as Serbs like to call it, "not yelling." When our house was full of Serbs after our wedding, our mild-mannered dog was often seen running out of rooms with his ears back because the decibel level had risen 200% in our household.

All kidding aside, Serbian is a very cool language, especially when you throw the cyrillic in. Being an independent person, and a person who loves languages, it kills me to sit and smile like an idiot at everyone, not having a clue what they're saying to me. I especially hate not even being able to buy something at the store out of fear that they'll ask me something (I've yet to purchase something in Belgrade without being asked for more exact change). So I'm hoping to improve my Serbian language skills beyond their current infantile level in advance of our next visit.

Stay tuned for part three of my Excellent Serbian Adventure...