Experience on the field!
Before delving deep into the next chapter, I would like to share my recent first-hand experience with the differences between ekavski and ijekavski. What’s better than passing the border with Croatia and testing one’s mettle directly?
Holiday in Croatia
We spent a week of holiday there, visiting several places, big and small, and I paid great attention to when long vocals got transformed (e.g., бело becoming bijelo (white, bianco). It was a good challenge to try to predict that, and I believe I started to build a system.
To my great surprise, and contrary to what the book said, these languages, while sharing the same origin and compatible grammar, they are very different from each other! So many unshared words, different use of language, syntax… I believe the best way one can try to describe this is by attempting an enhanced comparison between the various English variants (British, American, Australian, South-African, etc…). The people may understand each other, but the accent, the vocal inflection, the phrasing–yes, as a musician you hear all those things–is peculiar to each one of them!
We even had some fun diplomatic moments. We visited a museum once, and, after the guide started to talk, my partner came near to me and whispered in my ear:
Do not speak Serbian, I’ll explain later…
I feigned complete ignorance and spoke in mixed Italian/English, with our group translating everything for me as if I didn’t understand anything at all! It turned out the guide hadn’t really digested the Yugoslavian Independence Wars and blamed Serbians for everything wrong that had happened to Croatia in the last century or so. You know, in war seldom one side “is just right” and the other “is just wrong”, but blaming the central country of a federation you were part of without recognising the good things that were done is incoherent to say the least.
A similar scenario repeated itself a few days later, in the border town of Bjelovar, where indescribable acts of violence got consummated during those wars. Once more, I was kindly encouraged to speak as little as possible; they, who lived through all this in first person, clearly saw things that I could not understand, and thought best for me to play safe. From what I could see as a tourist who knew a bit of history, it looked as if time had just stopped, as if the entire city and their population were still in the 1990s. Every corner had a monument or an effigy dedicated to some “heroes” of the war or to celebrating the exodus forced on the Serbian people who were then residing there. This event, where tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes and obliged to march from Croatia to try to get to safety in Serbia, is something that, still today, is celebrated as a national holiday in Croatia, and as a day of mourning in Serbia.
I was a small boy when all these events happened, and I only travelled to Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, in 1997, to play with our school’s orchestra in the Pavarotti Center.
Everyday life in Belgrade
For a couple of years, I have felt comfortable enough to go out to the stores alone, to ask for things I need and to understand what I get told in reply.
I will never forget that time when I was getting up every morning to go to the bakery for the whole family. At the time, I was trying to diet to lose some of the excess weight I had been bringing alongside me for too long. That bakery had just too many temptations on display, but I had to be brave: six days of discipline and one day (Sunday) of freedom! Of course, the bakers knew of this, since I was always replying with a sad “Не, хвала!” (“No, thank you!” — “No, grazie!”) to their “Још нешто?” (“Anything else?” — “Desidera altro?”). When, one Sunday, I showed up with the biggest smile on my face, they exclaimed, without even waiting for me to say anything:
Јел дошла Недеља, Комшија?
That meant: “Has Sunday come, neighbour?” — “È giunta la domenica, vicino?”
This deserves some explanation: in Serbian “комшија” literally means “neighbour” – “vicino” but, in this case, it is a vocative exclamation reserved for those who are always going to buy at the same store they are assumed to live nearby!
Bottom Line
Enough of this short report of how I’m getting to practice the language!
Thank you for reading so far, I hope you liked it! In the next lesson, we will delve deep into PHONETICS! Be ready, it’s going to be tough!
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See you (hopefully soon) for another lesson.
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