If you’re having the same person moderating Serbian and Serbo-Croatian, and the two subbing teams are the same (or there is no team at all, just the mod), then it’s probably going to be the same language (Serbian) written in cyrillics in Viki’s Serbian and in latin alphabet in Serbo-Croatian. Which is also okay from a Croat’s point of view, because not many of us can read cyrillics fast enough.
Okay so if I have understood it well:
Serbo-Croatian has many similarities with Serbian. People write in latin.
For Serbian, it’s written in cyrillic.
It is the same language used on Viki (Serbian) subtitled under 2 tags (Serbo-Croatian and Serbian) written in 2 different writing systems or “alphabets” (latin and cyrillic).
A little like writing Chinese characters/Hangul and pronunciation: it’s the same words written differently.
Since Serbo-Croatian and Serbian have many similarities (from what I have understood), could a subber subtitle from Serbian to Serbo-Croatian language and vice-versa without going through English (for ex: in the subtitle editor to pick languages from… to…)?
Is it possible to translate with just having 1 writting system without looking at English subs or understand English language?
OK so now it’s becoming a bit more clear what would you do in the following situation as a CM.
You already have a Serbian, Croatian and Serbo-Croatian mod. Not all of those are fully subbed yet. Then someone PM’s you to be the Bosnian mod (or any language of a country that used to be part of Yugoslavia). Would you still add the person knowing all this presented in this topic or kindly ask that person to join one of the other teams that are already there for 99% the same language? Or do you add them so you end up with 3 of 4 sets of the same subs with minor differences if the Serbian mod chooses Latin too?
I’m not in this situation now but I was in the past which was annoying because nobody explained the situation as it’s explained in this topic. Of course you don’t want to offend anyone but you don’t need multiple subs for practically the same language right?
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(I am not Anna, I’m trying to understand for my own knowledge)
I am not sure I have understood correctly, because I have understood at the beginning that Serbo-Croatian was a separate language different from S or C, using different words in everyday life (merger of 2 languages S and C to create new words or they talk really differently).
On Viki though, if a viewer picks Serbo-Croatian, there will be 2 different situations:
- a mix of Croatian and Serbian subtitles (the ex of 2 subbers in Croatian and 2 subbers in Serbian recruited as SC subbers);
- Serbian language written in latin alphabet (and it made me think that SC and S were globally similar in words, but they have different writing systems).
If a viewer picks Serbian, he will find Serbian subtitles written in cyrillic.
How is it in real life?
How do people commonly communicate for written papers? Cyrillic or latin? Or maybe both?
I’m a little lost because I am not sure I have understood it correctly.
Currently what is written in SC is:
- A combination of Croatian and Serbian (one episode in pure C, one in pure S) - most often the case in the teams I work in.
- Pure Serbian - when the mod is the same for S and SC, and the translating team is the same in both languages. Used by Serbians in order to write in Latin alphabet to be understood by all nations.
- Pure Croatian - when you are expecting a multi-national team (like in point 1), but you end up being the only one translating it. Currently I’m subbing something in Croatian, writing into SC because the Serbian subbers who said they would help me on the show didn’t find time for it. I’m half-way done. Maybe they show up, maybe not.
- True combination of Croatian and Serbian language, true SC - when Bosnians translate
Personally I think it’s a waste of everybody’s time to translate into Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, SC and Montenegrin.
However, our community is so tiny, everybody knows everybody. So, if a CM insists on a newcomer into the project to take over another moderator’s work, this might create a rift between the two volunteers. Also, when a CM asks the newcomer to talk to the mod of an already existing language, not many do it. Fear, previous conflicts, etc. Stupid, I know. And highly frustrating for the CM. But Balkans are never going to be Scandinavia…
This means that for a CM’s project sometimes it’s best to take everybody in, even for four different languages, and see which moderator finished first and which moderator never finished at all. And then use that knowledge to form a better team in the future and set certain guidelines.
As long as the project gets fully translated into at least one latin-written Balkan language.
Note, though, if somebody asks to be a Serbian moderator, don’t tell them that there is already a Croatian moderator and they can work with them. And vice versa. The two nations are still in conflict and there is significant language difference.
Technically you could do this. But rarely people know their language well enough to do that. This would be tertiary translation and therefore less accurate. I know a person who has done it, translating from my Croatian into Serbian. But that is because she trusts the accuracy of my translations and she 100% understands the differences between two languages in order to make all the necessary changes to convert Croatian into true Serbian.
More often than I would like, the similarity between Croatian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian allows abusive behaviour, where the subs are copied from one language to the next, with insufficient changes made to the new sub in order for it to be considered a pure language.
It makes you wonder, if a person slightly changes one word (ie. bijesan -> besan) and the rest of your sub she copied identically from you, aren’t you the owner of that sub? And should she have asked for your permission to do that? In any case, what she created is usually not an accurate sub in her language.
One may think, well sometimes there is only one way to write a sub. If a sub is very short, perhaps. But for longer subs, no way. If I translate to Croatian and my friend in parallel translates to Serbian, when you compare our two translations, they are in 80-90% of cases very different.
That’s why all the good Serbian moderators avoid doing such a thing, copying from SC or Croatian and then modifying the sub. You create what we “fondly” started to call Frankenstein Serbian.
In public life in Serbia both, although the official preferred alphabet is cyrillics. As an alphabet, cyrillics is dying out due to internationalisation. So it’s nice to stick to it more. In multinational teams we communicate in latin alphabet.
We have the same in Germany. 
If you want to buy a bun, in Berlin you would ask for a “Schrippe”, in many regions for a “Brötchen”, some regions call it “Weck” and in Munich “Semmel”. A grilled chicken in East-Germany is called “Broiler”, in West-Germany “Brathähnchen” in South-Germany “Hendl” and in Southwest-Germany “Göggele”.
And concerning the different use of words, some Viki friends and I are often laughing about the different meanings of the same words. 
I am more confused xd
Which official language(s) do they speak in these countries?
For me, I thought that to S, SC was like British English to American English.
Is there a clear separation between languages?
What is SC to be translated in S or C or B?
What is correct or what does school teach for languages?
Do students learn different subjects like S course, C course or B course or SC course?
I think what viewers and us (not native) expect when clicking on the language is finding Croatian subtitles when clicking on Croatian and same for SC.
That is why I still come back to what SC is officially to be subtitled in different ways. Is there a clear distinction?
For ex:
For English: we could have American English or British English or Australian English (and others).
There are clear differences between these languages in the writing aspect, that is to say:
Putting an Australian English word in an American English translation material, it is strange for me.
It’s like I begin to translate French Fr, then I add Canadian Fr, then Swiss Fr in a same drama.
I know the subbers are international subbers and different subbers work on different parts and ep, but the viewer is the same one who looks from ep 1 to the end.
I would find strange if I went to the cinema and find French intonation, then Canadian intonation with expressions and words.
It would be funny though xd
Edit: i think I know also why i’m confused.
It’s because we don’t have different tags for American English or British English, we only have “English” tag.
Same for Belgian French or French Fr, we don’t have Belgian.
For Balkanic languages, they have different tags possible and that leads us to think that they are different and separate languages.
And I have understood this when reading that M/B/S/C are different languages.
But for SC, I am not sure what it is. If someone asks md to translate in SC, can I translate like I’m translating S or C or it’s totally different (just the writing system differs, it would be transposing). Or in %, it is like American to British?
I think I need an aspirin.
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So, from north to south of former Yugoslavia…
In Slovenia the official language is Slovenian. The alphabet is latin.
In Croatia the official language is Croatian. Croatia also has three major dialects, of which one was chosen as the official language. The alphabet is also latin.
In Bosnia and Hezegovina the official language is Bosnian. Due to its position between Croatia and Serbia, Bosnians speak a mix between Croatian and Serbian, which is the reason I say that today their language best corresponds to former common language - Serbo-Croatian. The alphabets used are latin and cyrillic, equally.
In Serbia the official language is Serbian, which can be written in cyrillic and in latin alphabet, but cyrillic alphabet is preferred in public offices.
In Montenegro the official language is Montenegrin. I’m not very familiar with this language.
In Macedonia the official language is Macedonian. Quite distinct from the rest of the Yugoslavian languages, bearing most similarity to Bulgarian. Alphabet is cyrillic, but latin is also allowed.
All of these countries have up until 1990 learned Serbo-Croatian as the official language in school. After the break up of Yugoslavia, they have been learning only their individual official languages.
It’s just a matter of practicality, translating to various similar languages in SC. And it’s important. There is only about 20 permanent contributors in ALL of the languages mentioned. It’s better to translate a drama in SC all the way til the end, than start 3-4 languages and cut off at episode 4, 6 and 9.
We have asked our viewers what they think about it via Facebook. We haven’t heard anybody complain at the switch between languages in SC. They are just grateful we are translating and translating accurately. But they do complain about the unfinished subs
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Thanks for explaining!
Geography and History are really helpful to understand the languages evolution of people living in these countries.
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So Serbo-Croatian is not anymore an official language and has been replaced by the languages you mentioned in each country since 29 years ago.
Is Serbo-Croatian doomed to be a dead language in 50-100 years? Like Latin? Because we don’t speak it anymore once they teach one particular language during most of school years.
Do students still learn to write in both systems, cyrillic and latin, in Serbia? -
It brings other questions:
They haven’t build a language from zero in 1990.
Like the current Bosnia who kept most of SC (so Bosnian is similar to SC too).
Do Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro have SC as the basis of their language?
How is it in % or globally? Like French for French Fr, Canadian Fr, Belgian Fr - 95% the same / 5% singularity, it is in bulk, from what I read and heard)
If I were to move from Serbia or Croatia, do I have to learn a new language, or I can use my Serbian language and learn a few words/expressions to speak with Croatian people or understand their conversations? (apart from the accent, sound or tone)
__
More my pov than Serbian language discussion:
- It reminds me of a previous post from a French volunteer the other week.
He said he didn’t find comments about mistakes he could have done.
It is the same for me on some dramas/shows.
We got thank you messages or speed messages.
Before and after edition, I haven’t got messages about mistakes.
Before edition: it is weird (or is it normal because it’s not their task?)
After edition: because I could have missed a word and I see it after.
I can’t really rely and wait for feedback from the viewers because it is not their role.
And people are ready to be there for a job, when they are assigned to this role (A’s reaction for ex: “I’m not an editor, it is not my role or they have editors, so why should I do it?”)
And sometimes, it happens they don’t know all grammar rules when you read reviews or PMs.
Watching habit:
For me (I’m also a viewer), when I watch on TV or on my computer, I am not going to stop the video or rewind at the correct timing to make a list of mistakes because the time I take to watch, it is dedicated to watch a drama or a movie to watch. I’d like to spend it like everyone when we go to the cinema in my leisure time.
If I’m with family or friends, I can’t explain them I’m going to stop the video to note down mistakes (subs+timing)… They would think I am crazy and I would kill our watching time.
Facebook:
There are people who use really rarely Facebook or don’t answer to surveys, I don’t know if the people who answered on Facebook are representative of the public you have.
It’s like in a vote, you have some who don’t answer, some who don’t go to vote, some who picks. People have to know that a Serbian/Croatian/SC/M group exists on Facebook, they have to follow it and they are willing to answer.
Finishing 1 language:
Yes, it’s better to have at least 1 language they can all understand and totally subbed than many unfinished.
Pertinence of the language we pick (yup, agree with you):
We don’t have British English, Australian English, some dialects that derive from the same basis or Belgian French, Canadian French, North of France dialect, South of France dialect etc. because it is more or less the same sentences, structure and we have to pick 1 language that is understood by the majority of the population.
It’s not to erase cultural aspects, it’s more to standardize for practical reasons and to ensure we have at least 1 language finished. So picking 1 language, for ex American English between other English-speaking countries, is in this standardization process.
These are valid reasons. I’ll give you a third one as well:
As a viewer on other websites, I think:
“I’m grateful to the people who subbed this show because if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to understand the Korean/Chinese. Yes, sometimes the translation sucks, but since I more or less understand what’s going on, it would be mean of me to nitpick”.
Viki viewers might think the same thing about Viki shows.“These are volunteers, they are doing this to share the love, they’re doing their best, I’m grateful, even if it’s not that great”. And it’s a right attitude to have from this point of view.
I don’t think like this here on Viki because I’m not a simple viewer but a volunteer, so I know how this works. I’ve seen subbers who are lazy and don’t want to check their subs again because they only care of getting a great number of subs quickly; I’ve seen hoarder moderators who take loads of shows and then never edit them; and I’ve also seen conscientious editors who give feedback and make extensive notes but subbers never read them and never improve. These things make me extremely angry.
It also makes me extremely angry that people don’t even know how to write in their own native language. Because when they went to school, instead of studying or listening to the teacher, they were looking out of the window/dozing off/writing love letters/reading magazines under the desk (in my times) or looking at their cellphone (in modern times). Because they never read books and because they only hang out with losers like themselves.
So I can’t have the relaxed, forgiving attitude a simple viewer would have.
But enough of this, because it’s going off-topic.
A right attitude.
I don’t know the right attitude or if there’s one universal xd
It depends on viewers.
I’m the kind of viewer who doesn’t like not understanding a sentence.
Ex:
During summer, I’ve watched some Kmovies with my sister somewhere.
If someone asked me how it was?
It was great to be able to watch them.
I spent a good time.
If someone asked me about the quality?
Without wanting to hurt or any animosity:
We haven’t understood some sentences/use of some words because we didn’t see the link between the sentence/the context.
Korean sentence structure was kept, so we had to turn around some sentences; English grammar; confusion between he/she/it, so the man became a woman, the woman became an object: it was sometimes hard to know who the actor was talking about.
Some viewers had different reactions (like the ones you said):
- “need an editor”, “litteral translation”, “the translations were so difficult to understand”
- “people should be thankful”, “thank you”, “beggars shouldn’t be picky”
All kinds of reactions.
It depends on people’s standards and how they perceive the reactions from others (critics, attack, feedback?) and how you say it.
The way a message is conveyed is as much if no more important than the content of the message.
But on comments, we don’t hear or see people (non verbal communication) so a sentence could be taken differently than what the author expected.
Ex:
I was playing a new game and enrolled in a French group (a guild) to play together.
One guy who is a veteran asked me: how come you have more points than me? You have a better rank whereas I have better stuff and I do better damages. I don’t understand.
Me: I don’t know, I’m new to this game xd
Him: No, you’re lying.
Me: I swear I am new to this game.
Him: yes…
At this point: he thought I was lying, I thought “Oh, great.”
Then we voice talked and everything was immediately clear thanks to this verbal exchange because we have hints on how people are with their tone, voice, laughs, the way they speak. We open up like we are more polite when hearing a human voice.
Realization: “Oh yes, I have someone in front of me.”
The impression we had greatly changed because we talked in a real conversation.
He was addicted to this game (in a fun way), I was not a liar.
And I think if we could have this real conversation with viewers or between volunteers or Viki, we could better communicate and convey our ideas without people taking it badly or us getting angry.
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I also don’t like it. But if the alternative is no subs and understanding nothing from the whole film/series, thus not being able to watch it at all, then I am ready to be lenient.
Of course it also depends on the extent of mistakes/incomprehensibility.
In “Something in the Rain” (a.k.a. Pretty Noona who buys me food), which I was watching on a website which will remain nameless, at some point the subs were very late to come, so the owners of the site took them from an Indonesian fansite. These subs were just as in your example. He and she were switched etc. Horrible and often incomprehensible (think it was a translation from Korean to Indonesian and then from Indonesian to English by someone who obviously knew very little English). Then one of the viewers volunteered to help and the website managers took her on her offer. This lady was far from perfect too, but also far better than those Indonesian subs. We all thanked her profusely and angrily silenced whoever criticized her, because she was our saviour in that situation.
So yeah, it all depends.
To come back on the subject of this thread - I think that Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians and so on will be satisfied that they can watch dramas in a language that is much closer to them than English (the ones who don’t know good English), even if it’s not 100% what they would expect if it were a movie/show in a cinema theatre or on a TV channel or bought in DVD form from Amazon. In those cases, you expect professionality and a high level, not less than 98% perfect. But it’s not the case here.
I have encountered this with some Chinese dramas on ‘other sites.’ Because the male and female pronouns in Mandarin sound the same and only have a few strokes’ difference, the translation can have the male and female mixed up in the sentence. This is where context comes in. Thankfully, I know and can read some Mandarin, so I can mentally correct the sentence but I understand how confusing the mix up can be.
Anyways, I think this is a very informative thread. The day before it was started, I was researching some information about Montenegro. What a coincidence!
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- High probability it is the same source of subs
- I see it like that (just my view):
- It’s best to have subs than no subs.
- It’s best to have understandable subs/clean subs than the contrary.
The optimum is having both conditions fulfilled.
To have both conditions, yes, it asks investment. It asks time, other resources, maybe someone else in addition to it.
And the whole process of improving is identifying where there’s something that blocks one condition to be fulfilled, what could be done (realistic solutions) and try them.
Staying constructive.
Normally, what you want is:
- be better at what you do
- be faster
- having good feedback to comfort yourself in what you think or feedback of what could be improved, re-identifying what is blocking.
Sometimes, viewers don’t comment, sometimes they do.
Sorting viewers’ comments out between feedbacks or just comments, setting their frustration aside, their angriness or impatience and hearing the feedback behind the comments.
On dramas websites, the only way to give feedback is through comments.
It’s not easy to sort them out, to perceive what they need behind and it’s all an art to communicate and not to enter into mood swings or take it personally.
I’m in the same predicament, I’m not an expert.
It’s not easy, I find it really difficult.
I generally don’t comment on websites, so I normally don’t give my feedback.
Viki might be the only exception because we have a community and due to the nature of our activity, we kind of need to communicate, that is with Viki, team members or volunteers, viewers.
Correlation between volunteering -> feeling invested (with pros and cons) and so giving feedback.
It’d be interesting to compare their reaction before/after they know. If they knew, they might have changed their reaction and have reacted like you (not a bad intention).
I can’t expect them to know about it, and that’s why personally, I can’t really blame them for not knowing it (not that it means it’s okay for them to…). “He didn’t know, so…” (attenuating).
I don’t think that the finality is just to complain, behind it, they express something (maybe clumsily or they don’t know how to express it, raw emotions that they let out).
What I’ve found difficult in what we do is some of them don’t know/understand how it is to volunteer or how we feel (from what I could read) and it’s pretty much difficult for them to feel empathetic if they’ve never tried it.
They don’t see all that happens behind it or the personal investment it takes, because they only get to see the final product. They don’t know how it works in detail. All the process, they can’t really feel it because they were not in it, they might get the global picture, but not all the matters, problems or everything that you have to deal with.
It’s not easy to explain them and describe them how it is.
I think the best is to try it and then, they would realize.
I don’t know for others: when I contribute, it feels like I gave a part of me, I invested myself in… and we do all that, for them finally (maybe for some of us, it’s also for us, we feel we’re useful and we do something useful or meaningful for us).
About the cinema:
I mean I’d like to spend my time leisurely when I watch, taking a break from any task (editing or reviewing), that there are mistakes or no, I don’t want to think or focus on it.
It feels nice just being there to watch, taking a break
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Yes, I think so. Interestingly, a good number of the Yugoslavians who have emigrated before 1990 to various countries across the globe still speak Serbo-Croatian. But a language must be learnt in school and used on a daily basis to remain “alive”.
Yes! In Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia.
I would say the situation was reversed. Not that the modern languages had basis in SC, but that SC had basis in those other languages.
A long time before SC was even a thought, the nations and tribes on this area spoke individual languages and dialects. Somewhere in the 18th and 19th century all of them had to partially change their languages to sound more alike to each other. The reason was a movement to bring these neighbouring Slavic nations closer to each other and away from the Austrian, Hungarian, Italian and Turkish influences. At the same time Serbia and Montenegro are also undergoing major changes in spelling, as well as the entire area is adopting more modern and simplistic latin and cyrillic alphabets. This will one day be the basis on which SC as a language came to be.
You could say that they formed SC to be
- the language that was already spoken by the majority of people in that area
- and a language that would be understood more or less by all the nations within the new federation.
Hence, it just so happened that the most practical solution was to mix Croatian and Serbian language.
I already mentioned that after 1990 all the languages naturally (and less naturally) started to evolve away from each other.
Irmar posted one Quora user explaining so well that there is a culturological difference in the way Croatians and Serbians resolve to translate English words which they don’t have yet in their vocabulary. Mainly, Serbians translate so that they keep the root of the English word, but they change it to sound more Slavic, so that the word can be grammatically changed when necessary. Croats, on the other hand, reach deep into their old Croatian language and try to apply their own old words or create a simile. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.
You don’t have to learn a new language. You might get confused at first, though.
Yes, it wasn’t an official poll we did or anything.
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