Croatians are probably the most language sensitive in the former Yugoslavia, and I'm certainly not the first to comment on this. But I must admit this sensitivity is being expressed in some pretty odd places, the oddest of which is surely ingredients of snack foods. While on holiday, one always buys a lot of junk food - salty sticks, coke, etc. - and Croatian manufacturers clearly see this is as an opportunity to express linguistic distinctiveness.
On the back of many foods, the list of languages explaining ingredients is impressive: Slovak, Russian, Hungarian, Romanian, German, English, Italian. And helpfully the standard traveler/car symbols for the countries are used to denote them: SK, RU, HU, RO, DE, GB, IT. I noticed the other day a symbol I hadn't seen before MNG as well as separate lists of ingredients for BiH, HR and SRB (Bosnia/Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia). And then it clicked: Montenegrin, making four lists of ingredients where previously there would have been just one. A glance revealed that the differences were mostly a mixture of ijekavian and ekavian changes variously mixed up in ways presumed to be most peculiar to the language and some cute differences, such as Kisela voda being used only in Serbian & Bosnian for carbonated water.
I wonder if armies of ex-Jugoslav polyglots are employed to accentuate the differences in what is, after all, a single list of ingredients that would - minor variations aside - be understandable by all four groups of people. Perhaps it is worth thinking about what the equivalents would be like in the various English flavors. I mean, after all, it is obscene to consider English, American, Australian and Canadian to be the same language. So let's set the record straight with the ingredients to Coca-cola.
USA: Seltzer water, High fructose corn syrup, carmel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffine, aspartame (NutraSweet brand), potassium benzoate, citric acid
GB: Sparkling water, corn syrup elevated in fructose, colour of caramel, phosphoric acid extract, flavourings (including caffeine), Nutrasweet, benzoic acid potassium salt, citrate at low pH.
CAN: Club soda, sweet corn syrup, carmel colour, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine, Nutrasweet artificial sweetener (contains aspartame), potassium benzoate, citric acid.
AUS: Carbonated water, corn syrup, carmel coloring, phosphoric acid, flavors from natural sources, caffeine, Sweetener (Nutrasweet, contains aspartame), benozic & citric acids.
No problem. A few spelling differences (e.g. Caffeine/Caffine, Colour/Color, Carmel/Caramel), different colloquialisms (Sparkling/Seltzer water), and rearrangements and voila! Not that there is actually any difference between them, but perhaps somebody who didn't speak English might begin to believe they were truly different, though related.
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2 comments:
Minor point: The U.S. also spells it as "caffeine." I've never seen it spelled as "caffine" except as a typo.
You are apsolutely right about language. It is the same language but for nationalism and political reasons everybody now has their own language.
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