Archives for February, 2004

In the year 2000, this question appeared on About.com’s "Ask a Language Expert":

Hello Fred:

I have just obtained a book from an antique dealer here in Florida, USA. I am going to give you what is on the cover; It is a book of music; which I can play, and I think it is a hymnal, but I am not sure. Here is what is on the cover:

SBIERKA
Slovenskych (apostrophe over the "y")
Sborovych A Solovych (apostrophe over the "o" and "y") Spevov
Pre rozne prilezitosti

(snip)

VYDAVA:
ACADEMIA
NAKLADATELSTVO A ROZSIROVANIE KNIH NA
SLOVENSKU SPOL, SR.O.
BRATISLAVA, GROSSLINGOVA UL. CIS. 20

Again THANK YOU!

………..MONTY

Even if you don’t understand a single thing, there are plenty of clues to help you here. The first (and biggest clue) is BRATISLAVA, the capital of Slovakia. You don’t have to be Scooby Doo to reasonably assume that this book might be in Slovak or Czech. The second clue is what Monty says about "apostrophes" appearing over the y’s and o’s. This occurs in Slovak, but not in South Slavic languages like Serbo-Croatian or, say, Slovenian.

Here’s what the jedi master-linguist has to say:

Dear Monty:
I should probably tell you that your question is outside my field of expertise, since this is written in Slovenian, which I have never studied.
Nonetheless, through my knowledge of other Slavic langauges I can tell you that this book is "A Collection of Slovenian Songs for Choral and Solo Singing" and that it is intended "for use in secular and church choirs, high schools, and for lovers of Slovenian song." It was published by the Academy for Book Publishing and Distribution in Bratislava, (Slovenia) in 1923. It seems to have been edited by Pavel Gallo, a superintendent of schools in March 1923, and it was released in honor of the 50-year anniversary of the St. Nicholas Slovenian choir in a place called Liptovsk.
I hope this will be helpful to you!
Best wishes,
Fred Patton

I know a linguist who isn’t getting a scooby snack.

* The top 5 in Slovenia, according to a recent study by the Slovenian Advertising Chamber (SOZ).

Lake Bled from above

This site has a great collection of aerial photos of Slovenia. Highly recommended.

A picture submitted to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

The way things are going, Slobodan Milosevic will be dead before his case ends. So far the prosecution has gathered 200 witnesses, 500.000 pages of evidence and spent 200.000.000 euros on what is already a foregone conclusion: The guy’s guilty. The verdict was clear before he even arrived in the Hague. The only real question is whether he’ll live to see the end of it.

Either way, the trial continues. Milosevic is constantly sick and the prosecution is struggling to wrap up its case, so that he can begin his defense. The case could easily last until 2006, if not longer.

Evidence: The Case Against Milosevic is a sad and somber web site by the photographer Gary Knight, who arrived in the Balkans in 1993. He both collected and took photos during his time there. Some of them, like the one above, can be seen on the web site. The rest have been collected in a book, available at Amazon.

(Note: Site requires flash)

With help from a tutorial by the great Matt Haughey, I’ve added a google search to this page. You can now search the archives of The Glory of Carniola from the toolbar on the right. For now and evermore.

After joining the EU, Slovenes will start sleeping naked in money like Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal.

On May 2, 2004, the day after Slovenia joins the European Union, telephones across the country will start ringing with job offers. It’s no secret that western European economies are booming these days, and that they’re especially eager to hire Slavs. The big question is: What do you do when a company calls you and asks you to move to London, and then asks you what salary you have in mind. What do you say? Probably something like "Uh.." or "Hm.." or "Hmm.. uh.. uh.. hmm.."

Well, luckily for you there’s the International Salary Calculator. It lets you compare the cost of living in hundreds of cities around the world. For example, if you make $17.000 and live in Ljubljana, here’s how much you need to earn to maintain the same lifestyle in other cities: London: $22.514 Oslo: $23.279 New York: $30.427 Belgrade: $18.225 Kandahar: $12.473 Some of the figures seem strange, but otherwise it’s a blast. Try the International Salary Calculator for more.

(more…)

Some hardware problems may be causing this site to load slowly, or not at all. It’s being worked on, though, and should be fixed soon.

Orla “feared for her own safety” in Maribor.

VirtualTourist.com has tons and tons of travel reviews, written by 400.000 members from 219 countries. It’s a pretty interesting site, all in all. I was recently looking around at Slovenia’s reviews when I stumbled upon this angry (and funny) post about the northeastern town of Maribor, written by an Irishwoman named Orla:

I was in Maribor on a day trip, have to admit I wasnt enamoured with the town. In fact, I’ll admit it, here and now ; I hate Maribor!!!! I will never go there again, I went on a Saturday and the town was completely deserted. What that was all about I dont know. I had guys shout things at me as I walked around town and this old guy blatantly ogled my chest and probably said something really horrible. It’s one of the very few places that I have visited that I have feared for my own safety. I hated it so much I cut short my day trip and took the first afternoon train back to Austria. (source)

Harassment by members of the opposite sex seems to be a continuing problem for her. On her member page, there’s this warning:

I do not reply to emails along the lines of “will you be my “girlfriend” the next time I’m in Dublin” or anything of that kind of suggestive nature. Ok, I realise that doesnt sound very nice, but I’m sick of getting those kind of mails and i dont want any more of them. (source)

There you have it. The poor lady’s life is full of unwanted advances, “suggestive” e-mails and old guys yelling stuff about her chest. Anyway, shame on you Maribor. Especially the old guy who was yelling something.

If you want, you can see all of Slovenia’s reviews here.

In Ljubljana, fans go wild celebrating TGoC’s birthday.

Today is a glorious day. Today The Glory of Carniola (TGoC) is officially one month old. Will the one-post-per-day tradition continue? Will the site continue to attract visitors? Will I suffer a nervous breakdown? Only time will tell! If you have an interesting or funny link about Slovenia, the former Yugoslavia or the EU, don’t be shy… send it in! Or just send a message to say hello. I’d be happy to hear from you.

If you just tuned in, here are five of the most popular posts this month:

1) Chaos at Pink TV
2) How poor are Slovenes?
3) How Slovene are you?
4) Natalija Verboten’s #1 Fan
5) First we take Media Markt, then we take Berlin

Thanks for reading!

Slovenian tarok: The diamond Jack

This very helpful site has all the rules for playing Slovenian tarok. If you want to try it, you can download the game here.

(Thanks bnf!)