Not content to watch Serbia and Croatia fight it out over Serbo-Croatian, Montenegro now wants its own language.
"Montenegrin is different in many ways…Take the word for 'milk', for example. In Serbian it's 'mleko', in Croatian 'mljeko' and in Montenegrin 'mlijeko'."
Yeah, totally different. So different, in fact, that it’s hard to understand how Yugoslavians were ever able to communicate with each other. Ask for 'mleko' in Split and someone might just hand you an toilet brush.
"In Serbian, they say 'dinja' for melon, but in Montenegrin, that actually means 'watermelon.'"
Excellent point.
It might also explain why Yugoslavia disintegrated. I ordered watermelon!
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Its not like the ethnic tensions based on language in other parts of the world. In Cornwall, Ontario people get a Tim Hortons coffee when they stop for gas. But other people come driving down the 401 and say, 'Where is my St. Huberts chicken or poutine avec le gasoline? This is an insult to French Quebecers!' The whole region is in turmoil.
Quite right, Montenegro.
English is spoken only in a 10 mile radius of Warwick, all other languages like Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cockney, Liverpool or Cornish are just vague approximations of English.
The Scots, Welsh, Irish, Canadians, Australians and Americans all speak their own languages which we barely recognise in Warwick.
True, chrisstevens. But we in Canada are learning English from reruns of Blackadder. We have a short attention span for this. We are constantly thinking: What is this show? It is not about a German Shepherd that walks across the country helping people out. Or about a Mountie that solves crime in the U.S. The language barriers!
@ David: The *only* way to learn English, imo. =)
Look, Churchill said that England and the US are 2 countries divided by a common language.
Brits can understand Americans far better than Americans can understand Englanders, I'm afraid.
But Brits have no trouble doing Southern, especially Texas, accents - even though they can't quite drop the English accent.
Even "Ricky and Lucy" had skits about not understanding the British.
Of course, Ricky was Cuban....
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