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Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
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• Natalija Verboten
"Fak of" = "Fuck off, "ql" = "cool", "WTF" = "WTF". (From the popular Mn3njalnik forum)
I’m
always surprised by how much English slang has wormed its way into
Slovene. It’s nowhere more apparent than in Slovenian forums, where
you’ll find tons of English and Internet slang mixed together with
rough, improper Slovene. It’s great for a foreign luzer
like me, because I can suddenly understand just about everything.
But see if you can decipher some of these examples of Slovinglish. The answers
are hidden in white text, just highlight with your mouse.
Slovinglish: To je taki bad.
Answer: "This is so bad!" –> The word "bad" is pronounced (and
occasionally written) as "bed." It confused me the first time I heard
it.
Slovinglish: Zunaj raina.
Answer: "Outside it’s raining." –> An interesting example of an English verb
that is given Slovenian conjugations. (Hence the -a ending.)
Slovinglish: Natalija Verboten je ful kul.
Answer: "Natalija Verboten is full cool." –> One of the most curious examples, in my opinion. Slovenes use the word ful to express "very." So, the phrase literally means "full cool" but actually means "very cool." Ful can also be used in front of other words. When talking about Verboten’s latest single, for example, you could say ful bad. (If you wanted to.)
Slovinglish: Gremo cyclat.
Answer: "Let’s go cycling." –> I really don’t know why this word
stayed so close to its English cousin. Since Slovenes say "kul" for
"cool," why don’t they say "sajklat" instead of "cyclat"?
Slovinglish: SorÄ?i!
Answer:
"Sorry!" –> You’ll also hear people say sorry; I’ve recently
started using it as well, since I’ve never been good at quickly
spitting out the original Slovenian word: "Oprostite!"
(Thanks to Urban for his help!)
Comments
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The actual examples are priceless. Especially ‘SorÄ?i’. They reminded me
of Chanel Neus in the Fast Show Season 1 (marketed as ‘Brilliant’ in
the US).
"Ej stara, a si tu maÄ? kofi Å¡ugerirala?" - heard in a caffe’ in
Ljubljana. The not-really-literal translation: Hey girl, did you put
too much sugar in your coffee?
The only english word that I use is OK. I mean I like english language but I hate when people use "sloveneenglish". It’s popular nowdays but I think it sounds moronic.
This kind of speak is mostly used in Ljubljana, so please don’t generalize. Thank you. :)
"Vokam doga" - I’m walking the dog.When I heard this one for the first time, I felt like an idiot….what does this languažljat mean? khm… spam upon spam…
In "To je taki bad", is it bad as in English "bad" or bed as in bed/bedak?
How long until yet another "Ljubljanski glas vs The Rest of ‘em" flamewar start? Ohwell…We love you LjubljanÄ?ani and LjubljanÄ?anke! Yes we do! No, really, we do! ;-)
A: Ej, stari, a si biu zadn cajt kej na kmetih?B: Ja, ful
safer. Sm reku "En kofi prosm" u kafani, pa sploh noben ni steku.
Mislm, halo… Pol pa nism meu kesa, pa hocm s plastiko placat, pa no
way. A: Hudo.B: Pa sm jim reku,"Kwa pa mislte, da vam bom krave molzu zdej za en kofi al kwa?" A: Uuu, to, power fora. B: Ja, sam so me trije kmeti u vijolcnih majcah skor ubil.A: Auu, bed. Kwa si pa pol naredu? B: Spizdu sm stran iz unga plejsa, kwa pa nej druzga.
I also find it interesting that we use “ful” as an adverb meaning “very” rather than an adjective meaning “full”. I wonder how that came about. But it’s true that in English, “full” can also be used as an adverb in a roughly similar meaning (although maybe more like “quite, entirely” rather than merely “very”; e.g. “he knew full well”), although perhaps this usage is somewhat old-fashioned by now.
I think “sorÄ?i” is an interesting word — although I don’t use it myself (I just use “sori” instead), I think it’s rather nice as it shows that a word has not only been borrowed but actually assimilated to the point when somebody saw fit to attach a Slovenian diminutive suffix to it.
Regarding D’s question, I think there can be no doubt that the English word “bad” was meant, rather than anything related to the Slovenian word “bedak” (which I have never yet heard shortened to “bed” or anything of that sort).
The use of words based on “rain”, “cycle”, “walk”, and “dog” is, I think, rather idiosyncratic than really widespread (even in Ljubljana).
my daughter is bilingual and she says: "Mami, what are you deling"
We call it Slogleški.
The kids from Gorenjska do the same. They use LOTS of English mixed with some morphed Slovenian.A
kid about five years old released a barrage of perfect English
swear-words while playing with other a little older kids. I guess he
firmly established his position.
Actually, none of the people I know *talks* like this (and I’m 18,
which makes things more credible I guess). The only real english words
I hear on a daily basis are "full", "cool" and "fak", but I’ve never
heard anyone say "zunaj raina" or "gremo cyclat". I do believe that one
could find people who speak like this, but they are very rare
nevertheless.
On the other hand, the internet is a whole other story. A
mixture of 1337, English and colloquial Slovenian is quite common. It’s
not hard to notice that language like this is most often used by people
who don’t have anything to say/are spamming.
Despite the pedantic Slovene grammarians, the language has always been porous. The residue of German is everywhere in the spoken language — could the Slovene adverb “ful” come from the German “voll” (in English, of course, “full” is rarely used adverbally), or perhaps from English, but influenced by the way German makes adjectives into adverbs without adding any suffix? It took me forever to get used to the Slovene approbative exclamation “o dabest!”, since it rarely mean’s “the best thing” but is used more often to mean “that’s hilarious”.
I’m a Canadian of Slovenian descent, and I love when the older
generations (those that came to North America 25 to 50+ years ago)
speak their Slovenglish. They don’t use the current Slovenglish
slang your speaking of, they just complete their Slovenian sentence
with Slovenized English word, a la ‘raina’ (e.g. ‘Mi smo vakali v
bakjardo’ = ‘We were walking in the backyard’) I’m not sure if it’s
because there never existed a Slovenian word for what they want to say
while they lived in Slovenia 30+ years ago or if the English word comes
to them first while they talk. Also you have first generation
Slovenian-Canadians who grew up their first 6 years of their lives
learning Slovenian who then had to go to an English school,
so they know Slovenian pretty well, but also pepper their Slovenian
with english.
Also, living in ‘French’ Canada, where the population in the city I
live in is basically 50:50 French and English speaking, both
populations speak a Frenglish which drives all other French speaking
people not from Quebec mad, and leaves the English from outside the
province confused.
Lastly, I personally know very little Slovenian, unfortunately, but I
used to get confused when my Prekmurski father and my mother of
Ljubjancan/Ribnican descent would speak and I never would be sure which
word to use whenever I would try and speak.
Happy zahvale (Dan zahvale).Srecno Thanksgiving.
well Sloglish is an idea whose time has come, I mean d’uh there’d
been Serblish for ages. @ dealreel, the use of ‘ful’ likely comes from
the corresponding use in hte original languages at least in B/H/S
‘puno’ mean’s ‘full’ AND it can mean ‘a lot’ or ‘very’ or ‘fully’ or
just ‘full’ one for example ‘potpuniti’ a form, so that would
mean the same as ‘fill out’ a form. etc. That dangerous Hercegovac I
keep stashed in Sarajevo doesn’t say ‘volim te’ he’ll usually say
‘ja tebe volim puno’ for ‘I love you a lot’
one of the more fascinating experiences regarding mixed language i had was meeting this couple in japan - he was slovene, she was japanese. they were both well over 60, and they’ve been living in japan most of their lives. they spoke this babylonian mixture of slovene, english and japanese. only, the words were not mixed up, but they rather would change languages mid-sentence. this seemed to occur completely natural, and neither of them seemed in the least aware of what they were doing. i suppose it’d be next to impossible to have a conversation with any of them if you didn’t speak all three languages… on a similar note - i also met a slovene missionary who spent most of his adult life in japan, and his slovene was fascinatingly archaic - a treat for somebody studying languages.
Slovinglish? No way. We don’t say ‘Gremo cyclat’; we say’Draga
omladina! ÄŒi kiri zutra nima keka za delat, ga vobimo sebo s piciklemi
na Recenjak. Šli bomo mimo Dešnika, Gneca do Urbonca pal pa nazaj do
Hrostnikoviga vrha in po Slepnici do Vuhreda pa nazaj v targ. Vsega
skop enih 16 kilometrov. Naporno nebo preveÄ?, ker bomo vozli bol
poÄ?osti (mogoÄ? bo koka pužika sebo). Vobleni!’
Full d best post na cool sajtu
My family is also mixed so we basically speak three languages at home,
English being the common one. As soon as we leave home , we switch to the fourth
one, namely Japanese, since Japan is where we live. It is a bit tough on the
kids at the moment, but it can be immensely funny and cute. Just like Cornelius
said, they are prone to switch in the middle of the sentence and just use
whichever word/language pops in their mind first. But I think this is mostly
because they are quite young (4 and 2) and I am hoping they will start speaking
correctly when they grow up.
I agree with Rolig, full in my opinion comes from German voll….it is no
surprise, just take a look at all the German or germanoslovenian words we use
everyday. English influence in our language is just recent, German has been
around for centuries!
dans pa full d best post na tvojmu cool sajtu
se en kul webpejdz po slowinglish, ampak ful dolgo ni bil updejtanhttp://www.fobija.net/indekz.php?p=pikcrz
oj maj gat! das anglejs! hah! eat that. this is cooler than l33t-sp33k.
Those who suggest that the Slovenian “ful” comes from German “voll”, how do you explain the fact that the older generations tend not to use “ful” while the younger ones do? (In fact I would say that when old people complain about the young people’s slang, the two words that most frequently come up in their complaints are “ful” and “kul”.) This is just the opposite situation as with words that are really of German origin — those tend to be used more by the older generations than by the younger ones. I for one think that the idea that “ful” might be of German origin is downright laughable. I never had the slightest doubt that our “ful” comes from the English “full” rather than from the German “voll”.
When I was in Australia some 15 years ago and got together with Slovene people who went "down under" after the World War II, I was surprised about ther slovstralian. They were saying: "A si boš vzel en šever?" They were thinking in English when asking that question and translating most of it. Original question in english was: "Would you like to take a shower?" Funny
@ ill-advisedhej there,for me as a german the slovene way of using "ful" is very familiar. it is exactly the same way as we - or youngsters - use it in germany. ful kul can be literally translated to voll cool.
OK, that’s an interesting piece of information, but even if “voll” is used that way among the younger generations in Germany nowadays, that still doesn’t mean that it’s likely to be a source for the similar usage of “ful” in Slovenian slang. I’m certainly not under the impression that there have been any significant borrowings of German words into Slovenian in the last few decades. Too few people are in contact with German for it to be able to have much of an influence. Among the younger generations in Slovenia, knowledge of English is vastly more widespread than knowledge of German. And they receive their concept of what is cool from English-language TV programmes rather than from German-language ones.
Another reason why I prefer the explanation that our “ful” is from the English “full” rather than the German “voll” is that the latter hypothesis then requires one to explain why the “o” would have changed into an “u”. I could imagine such a change occurring in an unstressed “o” but not here where it’s stressed.
jesterdej sm walku mau ukol pa na naughtyboja naletu k je mejku en
splendid orto fensi muv pa zvleku bejzbolbet vn s trauzrs, jest sem pa
sam se napel muskles in sam se svoj muscle-badi skoz njega zatramplal.
rofl-kartofl
Thats mostly just in Ljubljana most of Slovenia speaks Slovenian if you
come to Pomurje (Murska Sobot). You will here our language and accents.
Only people from Ljubljana speak like that, and it’s kind of gey, come to Maribor or Celje, it sounds better…
Yup, only in Ljubljana and you hear it mostly from “wannabe” intellectual chicks and gays.
Only people from Ljubljana use this kind of language. In other parts of Slovenia, local accents are spoken. And by the way, Slovenes that are not from Ljubljana find this kind of language ridiculous; we often laugh at people from Ljubljana for using it, not to say that we hardly make out the meaning of such sentences. In fact, Slovenes regard this sociolect (it is used by teenage wannabes only) as pathetic.