Subtitles in B/C/S

Sanders, Jennifer S jssander at INDIANA.EDU
Mon Mar 28 13:02:21 UTC 2005 

I cannot speak to the practice regarding films, but while living in Croatia this summer I observed a number of Serbian guests on various talk shows. Their remarks were not subtitled. It's certainly possible that the turnaround on such programs is too quick to make subtitling very feasible given the mutual comprehension of Serbian and Croatian, the extreme case of course being the live political call-in program saw I watched, which also occasionally had Serbian guests, and which was obviously not subtitled.

Jennifer Sanders
Ph.D. candidate
Slavic and General Linguistics
Indiana University


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Subject:	SEELANGS Digest - 25 Mar 2005 to 27 Mar 2005 (#2005-87)
There are 4 messages totalling 138 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Use of Subtitles for Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian (4)

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Date:    Sun, 27 Mar 2005 05:05:32 -0500
From:    Sasha Valkina <svalkina at HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Use of Subtitles for Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian

Every few years or so question is asked on this list if Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian
languages are one language or different languages.  I do not want to again ask this
question, but my question is a little bit like this one.  Could anyone on this list who is
familiar with this region tell me if subtitles are used when someone who is Serbian is
shown speaking on Croatian television, or when someone who is Croatian speaks
on Serbian broadcast?  I know that each viewing audience would probably
understand what the person is saying, but does the official government position that
proclaims Serbian and Croatian languages are two different languages also require,
as matter of form, such subtitles in support of this official position?

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Date:    Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:24:40 +0800
From:    "Loren A. Billings" <billings at NCNU.EDU.TW>
Subject: Re: Use of Subtitles for Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian

A colleague visited the war-crimes tribunal in the Hague and even listened
to the headphone with simultaneous interpretation. There were, apparently,
settings for S, C, and B. All three had the same person's voice!

Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.
Associate professor of linguistics
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Chi Nan University
Puli, Nantou County 545 Taiwan

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Date:    Sun, 27 Mar 2005 07:52:51 -0500
From:    Ellen Elias-Bursac <eelias at FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Use of Subtitles for Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian

The Hague has made it a question of policy not to distinguish among B, C
and S. The interpreters in the booth are not chosen to match the
defendants' or witnesses' usage. They use something like a mid-Atlantic
English, avoiding localisms and marked distinguishing features, not so
much as a matter of policy as simply a personal socio-linguistic
adjustment. It often happens that a Croatian-speaking interpreter is
interpreting for a Serbian-speaking speaker and vice versa.  I can't
address the question you raised about subtitling in BH, Croatia and Serbia
because I'm not living there right now. I do know there were Serbian films
shown in Croatia with subtitles some years ago now and that this was a
subject of considerable amusement. I don't know whether a new film being
shown in Croatia from Serbia would also be subtitled, and I have no idea
what the approach would be in Serbia for a Croatian film. My guess is that
BH is so intersected by the various cultures that they assume mastery of
B, C and S by all their viewers on television. I do remember back in the
early 1980s when the Croatian drama series "Gruntovcani" in Kajkavian
dialect was shown throughout the then Yugoslavia there were calls for
subtitles because the dialect was so opaque to speakers in BH and Serbia.
But that is something entirely different!

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005, Loren A. Billings wrote:

> A colleague visited the war-crimes tribunal in the Hague and even listened
> to the headphone with simultaneous interpretation. There were, apparently,
> settings for S, C, and B. All three had the same person's voice!
>
> Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.
> Associate professor of linguistics
> Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
> National Chi Nan University
> Puli, Nantou County 545 Taiwan
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                     http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
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>

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Date:    Sun, 27 Mar 2005 09:41:58 -0600
From:    George Mitrevski <mitrege at AUBURN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Use of Subtitles for Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian

On a similar topics, even Macedonians find the subtitles on S B C films,
interviews, etc. annoying, since all of us could at least understand the
language, having learned it at school or in the Yugoslav army. It's not
so with the younger generation, who no longer have any use of the
language. In earlier times, most upper level university textbooks,
especially in the technical fields, were in Serbian. Macedonian
publishers couldn't afford the cost of printing small runs of such
textbooks. Now professors complain that they can no longer assign
textbooks in S B C, very few of the kids can read them.

I still recall the first time president Gligorov went to Bulgaria to
sign some agreement, and he came back empty handed. The Bulgarians
refused to have his remarks and speeches interpreted into Bulgarian, and
to have the agreement translated into both languages.

George.

Foreign Languages                 tel. 334-844-6376
6030 Haley Center                  fax. 334-844-6378
Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
home: www.auburn.edu/~mitrege

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