But your parents must come from Srem, zar ne?

When I first flew to Belgrade in 2002 it was quite an experience. I had the feeling that there were no other foreigners on the plane - judged by the appearance of the people, and the fact that I heard no English or German spoken. It was quite a surprise, then, to see the queue for "foreign nationals" at passport control in Belgrade nearly as full as that for the locals. The official rather mercilessly (like all officials, in all countries) asked me in rapid-fire Serbian what I was doing there, and when I said I didn't speak any Serbian (I hadn't even bought my first language book yet), she rolled her eyes and had to get somebody else who spoke English to ask me the normal immigration questions about whether I was a terrorist, a smuggler, infectious or whatever. [As an aside, today things are very different, and one even regularly hears English on the streets of Novi Sad in February].

I asked G. about this afterwards, and she told me that most of the "foreigners" where just people who had dual nationalities who had probably temporarily without a Serbian passport, or children of far-flung diaspora from Canada, the US, Australia, Germany, etc. Now that I sort of speak the language, I'm often reminded of the diaspora when I simply say something. Unless they presume I'm Hungarian or Romanian (in Novi Sad this is pretty common), people normally ask where I'm from and when I say "Canada", they then almost always say, "ali roditelji?" ("but your parents?"), whereupon I'm supposed to say that they are from Zrenjenin or Niš or Bjelovar or something. When I deny any true genetic links, people are always rather sweetly surprised. In fact, I once had a waiter in Novi Sad disbelieve me, perhaps thinking I was pretending to be something I was not.

For me, its deeply encouraging. For all of us who are sometimes frustrated with learning these moon-man, mega-complex Eastern European languages, it is good not to get the reaction that one gets (say) in Paris when speaking bad Canadian french to snobby French waiters who would rather speak appalling English than suffer your accent.

Having said that, people could be just a tad better at speaking to foreigners: as for all languages where few foreigners attempt them, people in Serbia or Croatia are a bit merciless when you show signs of speaking it - 1000km/h with all the complexities put in. Polako, polako. Gs mother is extremely good to me, speaking slowly and even having the patience to tell her mother to show a bit more understanding. Gs grandmother has little patience for me, thinking that people who don't speak properly are some kind of alien species, but on the telephone she now speaks to me like a tape-player and quarter speed: "Oooonnaaaa jeeeeeee uuuuuuuuu graduuuuuuuuuu. Daaaaaa liiiii razuuuuumiš?" (Shheeeeeeee's innnnnn theeeeeee towwwwwnnn. Doooooo yoooooouuuuu unnnnnderrrrrrstaaaaaand?"). Then she says, as ever, "Robert, trebaš da uceš" (you need to study) and continues at 1000km/h about some further details of which I understand about 50%, but growing steadily.