Check out my website! - if you dare...

[Nic Corelli]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I give you all quite a challenge... try to decode the nightmarishly complicated Croatian language, and check out the pretty Star Trek pictures I`ve put on the site,

http://zvjezdane-staze1.tripod.com

and tell me what you think, of course

(sorry about the pop-ups...)[/colorost_uid0]

[Nic Corelli]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]P.S.

If you want to vote in "The Best of Star Trek" poll, click the "Anketa", on the left menu... [/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I think you forgot to mention the poll is in Croatian too. Not that I had much trouble reading it, though. [/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]You speak Croatian, Cat? I thought you were Dutch.
So is this Serbo-Croatian, or some other kind of Croatian, or is there only one Croatian language? :S
Confusion.[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]No, I don't speak Croatian, but have you seen the poll? There are only a few Croatian words, and a lot of names of episodes and characters, be it with a Croatian ending. And it's not hard to figure out Najbolja means favourite. Or so I think, anyway.[/colorost_uid0]

[mudshark]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Didn't have any problem with pop-ups, but pages were loading very slowly, so I haven't explored the whole site. Slavic languages in general are not my strong suit, but there were enough recognizable words that I could usually get at least some sense of what a given sentence was about. (I'm just glad it was written as a Croat would write it, rather than a Serb -- then I would have been completely lost.)

Layout looks nice and clean.[/colorost_uid0]

[Nic Corelli]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="taya17"]So is this Serbo-Croatian, or some other kind of Croatian, or is there only one Croatian language? :S
Confusion.[/quoteost_uid0]
Actually, Serbian and Croatian are two languages, very similar ones... however, from 1945 to 1991 they were, due to political reasons, officially referred to as one language, Serbo-Croatian. In 1991, they went back to being two languages.

One part of the site has a lot of English, though... the "Voyager Likovi" subsite (Voyager Characters). Most of the characters have their quotes there, in original English of course, [/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[quoteost_uid0="Nic Corelli"][color=#000000ost_uid0]Actually, Serbian and Croatian are two languages, very similar ones... however, from 1945 to 1991 they were, due to political reasons, officially referred to as one language, Serbo-Croatian. In 1991, they went back to being two languages.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]::smushes head against wall:: Oh, that helps [iost_uid0]so[/iost_uid0] much.

I'm guessing that it's the same thing with Mandarin and its dialects: many languages, all similar, but Chinese is the 'official' language of China, sort of...[/colorost_uid0]

[Nic Corelli]

[quoteost_uid0="taya17"][color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Nic Corelli"]Actually, Serbian and Croatian are two languages, very similar ones... however, from 1945 to 1991 they were, due to political reasons, officially referred to as one language, Serbo-Croatian. In 1991, they went back to being two languages.[/quoteost_uid0]
::smushes head against wall:: Oh, that helps [iost_uid0]so[/iost_uid0] much.

I'm guessing that it's the same thing with Mandarin and its dialects: many languages, all similar, but Chinese is the 'official' language of China, sort of...[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]Something like that, I guess...

By the way, do you know that Mira Furlan, B5 actress from your avatar, is Croatian? [/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Nic, did you just ask me if I knew that Mira Furlan was...

...

::wonders why the six-foot-high "Mira Furlan fangirl" sign above her head isn't lighting up like it's supposed to:: Work, damn you! ::THWACK THWACK::

In short, yes.

Actually, I've always thought that she was from Yugoslavia. Somebody care to explain the difference to me? European politics is horribly complicated.

Speaking of languages, the only Croatian I know is "disi duboku" which I've been told means "breathe deeply". Hmpf. ::looks into language classes for semester break::[/colorost_uid0]

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Yugoslavia is an artificial country cobbled together after WWI from the Slavic-speaking areas of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The name means "south Slavs," more or less. After 70-odd years of being stuck in the same country, four out of the six constituent republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Unpronounceable and Macedonia) decided they were sick of being dominated by Serbia and declared independence. What followed was a decade of bloody conflicts in which the term "ethnic cleansing" was coined.

Such is an outsider's perspective. Nic can probably provide a more detailed (and accurate) synopsis.[/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]So that's what the whole Bosnian/Serbian conflict was about? You'll have to enlighten me, I'm particularly dense when it comes to world affairs...

I should really spend less time online and more time reading the papers. Or at least papers from ten years ago when I didn't read them.[/colorost_uid0]

[mudshark]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Yugoslavia = "Kingdom of the Slavs" (it [iost_uid0]was[/iost_uid0] briefly a kingdom following its establishment at the end of WWI, under King Zog, IIRC.)

It was assemblage of South Slavic groups with a lot of historical animosity towards each other. You may recall that a battle fought in 1364(?) was cited in reports on the fighting in Kosovo as a longtime sore point between the Albanians and other ethnic groups in the region. Basically, the different Slavic groups have not been getting along with each other since they moved into the area around year 400.

Communism actually served to keep things relatively quiet for most of the period between WWII and the late 1980s. With the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the lid came off that particular pressure cooker.

Disclaimer: this may be an oversimplification, but I've got to go to work now.[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]Bosnia-Unpronounceable[/quoteost_uid0]
Bosnia-Hercegovina. Too bad you're not American, or I could have bugged you about names like Massachutts, Arkansas and Illinois. [/colorost_uid0]

[NAHTMMM]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]What's so hard about [iost_uid0]Mas'-sa-choo'-sets[/iost_uid0] and [iost_uid0]Il'-li-noise'[/iost_uid0]? [/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Well for one, Massachu[iost_uid0]se[/iost_uid0]tts is so hard I can't even [iost_uid0]spell[/iost_uid0] it.
And about[quoteost_uid0][iost_uid0]Il'-li-noise'[/iost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]loose the s. [/colorost_uid0]

[Celeste]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Ey now. As a Massachusettsian I am offended by your unableness to spell my state! :P[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Hey, cut me some slack! I'm Dutch, we spell 'US' as 'VS' [/colorost_uid0]

[NAHTMMM]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="catalina_marina"]Well for one, Massachu[iost_uid0]se[/iost_uid0]tts is so hard I can't even [iost_uid0]spell[/iost_uid0] it. [/quoteost_uid0]
Massachusetts is spelled phonetically, except for the double t bit. It's just long is all.

[quoteost_uid0]And about[quoteost_uid0][iost_uid0]Il'-li-noise'[/iost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]loose the s. [/quoteost_uid0]

No. [/colorost_uid0]

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]Too bad you're not American, or I could have bugged you about names like Massachutts, Arkansas and Illinois.[/quoteost_uid0]

There's always Saskatchewan.

Back to the Balkan thing: the southernmost province of Yugoslavia, Macedonia, managed to break free without any bloodshed, the only one to do so. However, Greece objects to a bunch of Johnny-come lately Slavs (I'm speaking from a perceived Greek perspective here) using a name they've considered theirs for about 2500 years, so Macedonia has to conduct its international affairs under the cumbersome appellation "Former Yugoslavian Republic Of Macedonia" or FYROM for short. Strange but true.[/colorost_uid0]