I’m back to my normal routine this week, with daily rehearsals for our concert next Friday. So, I’d like to write a brief post about the Bosnian language, and what it’s like to be learning it here.
Before I moved to Sarajevo, I decided that I really wanted to learn Bosnian as well as possible in one year, regardless of whether or not I can get by just speaking English. I don’t know any language besides English very well. I can have a simple conversation in Spanish, and have studied a year of French and Russian, but my abilities are very limited. I’ve always wanted to learn a language beyond the basics, and hoped this might be my opportunity to do so.
Now that I’m here, I’m not sure that I will be able to learn as much Bosnian as I’d hoped, because the language is so difficult. However, I’m not deterred from studying, and I continue to want to learn as much as possible. Every morning, I wake up about 30 minutes before I need to, so that I can study during breakfast. I have a pretty good textbook, called Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian by Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursac. I’ve made it through chapter 4, and it has helped me learn some basic words, phrases, and grammar. I’ve learned some additional vocabulary and phrases by trying to talk to both strangers and my Bosnian friends. Soon, the American quartet will begin some tutoring sessions with a member of the orchestra’s administration, who also happens to be a Bosnian-English tutor. I’m really looking forward to having more help, and someone to answer all of my questions.
The reason my book is called “Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian” is because the languages are extremely similar, as are the languages of Montenegro, Slovenia, and Macedonia. So, the advantage of learning Bosnian is that I should be able to eventually communicate throughout most of former Yugoslavia.
On of the reasons Bosnian is so hard is because the grammar is pretty complex. Unlike English, the nouns are altered depending on the context. So, if a noun is a subject of a sentence, it has one ending, and if it’s the direct object, it has a different ending. And if it is following certain prepositions, possessive, and so on, it changes. To further confuse things, there are distinctions between masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns, as well as animate and inanimate beings. Ack!
Another reason why Bosnian is challenging is because some of the phonemes are sounds that we never have to make in English. The rolled “r” is pretty straightforward—lots of languages have a rolled “r”. However there are words that contain “mj” and “lj” (“j” in Bosnian is kind of like an English “y”) that are almost impossible for me to pronounce, as are the words with few or no vowels. My friends Ivana explained to the American quartet that “lj” is like saying “l” without actually touching your tongue to your palate or teeth…what?!
I get laughed at a lot. I’m pretty outgoing about trying to speak Bosnian in public, much to the amusement of the people of Otes. But, hey, it’s the only way I’m gonna learn, right?
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