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I saw a commercial yesterday for the Ljubljana Zoo. I visited it a few years ago and I can safely say that it was a depressing experience. I remember seeing a crowd of people throwing Snickers bars to a large, unhealthy-looking brown bear (despite all the signs saying not to do so) and one large feline walking neurotically in a circle over and over again in a cage that was clearly a few sizes too small. I also remember that many of the birds in the zoo had pulled out (or were in the process of pulling out) their own feathers. It seemed more like a mental hospital for animals than a sanctuary.
I should mention that I’ve been spoiled when it comes to zoos. As a child, I grew up close to the world-class Audubon Zoo in New Orleans; when I moved to New York, I also used to visit the glorious Bronx Zoo. Both of them are full of animals whose standard of living is higher than the majority of humans.
As I said before, I was in the Ljubljana Zoo a few years ago so I don’t know if things have changed. I’ll probably go again soon and find out. In the meantime, their commercial listed its Internet address at the end, so I thought I’d check it out. This is what I saw: (or to put it better, didn’t see)
The Ljubljana Zoo Page: A whole lotta nothing going on.
So much for that. Of course, some people would wonder why a cash-strapped zoo would spend money on a primetime television commercial that includes their Internet address, and then not make sure the page is up and running. But not me. I don’t think about things like that at all. I prefer thinking about pointless things, like this:
| Slovenian Name | Literal Translation | English Name |
| severni medved | north bear | polar bear |
| morski prasicek | sea pig | gerbil |
| nosorog | nose-horn | rhinoceros |
| morski pes | sea dog | shark |
| nilski konj | horse of the nile | hippopotamus |
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The Bucharest Zoo, long notorious, is supposedly going through a major upgrade. We’ll probably visit it again later this spring, and blog about it.
English, “dogfish” is a small shark — a meter or less — so that doesn’t seem too strange. And “hippopotamus” is Greek for “river horse”, so that’s not so odd either.
But “sea pig”? What’s up with that?
Doug M.
Hey, many of the Slovenian names are almost the same in German. That is, if with gerbil you mean guinea pig. The list would go:
ice bear (Eisbär)
sea pig (Meerschwein)
nose horn (Nashorn)
Haifisch (can’t really translate that)
Nile horse (Nilpferd)
Many are the times that I’ve run into trouble trying to refer to polar bears as ice bears. I also have a longstanding project of introducing “Gepard” into English, instead of cheetah (which I can never remember). Gepard, leopard, makes so much more sense to me. Or, how about bats as flying mice (Fledermäuse), any equivalent in Slovenian?
About the “sea pig,” I vaguely remember some story about them being called that because they came to Europe from Latin America, across the sea. Not sure though.
I’d never heard of the dogfish, but as someone who has always been scared of sharks, I hope I never encounter one in the flesh. (Just recently I watched a TV documentary about Great White Sharks in the Adriatic, and it was enough to make me go fetal.)
I’m not a linguist, unfortunately, but I suppose it’s natural that Slovenian and German describe animals similarly, given that Slovenia spent 800 years as a part of Austria. (I think this especially holds true for animals not native to Europe.)
Slovenes say “netopir” for “bat” which doesn’t mean anything. Interestingly, I just saw them flying around outside last night, for the first time this year. Spring is wonderful.
Lots of Slovenian words are literal translations from German. It used to be the easiest way to get new words.(It`s obvious that Slovenian peasants didn`t have words for exotic animals, plants etc.) These words are called “kalks”.
Andreja