Poll Suggestion: Celebrating 25 Years of 'The Sorcerer's Stone' — Favorite Quote (November 16)

@TheOldJalapenoman​ 

Honestly, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone" sounds much better to me, I don't know why is it known as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" worldwide...

@Vandurath​   When the book was originally published in England, it had the name Philosopher's.  When it was published in the U.S., it had the name Sorcerer's.  I don't remember the reason why there was a difference.  I don't much care either way and wish it would just stick with one name.

@TheOldJalapenoman​ 

I read the books as a child for the first time, and in Serbia, the first one was translated as "Hari Poter i Kamen Mudrosti", which would literally translate to "Harry Potter and the Stone of Wisdom". Still, wisdom is more connected to philosopher than to sorcerer.

@Vandurath​ I always find it interesting how different titles translate into different languages.  I ran into a lot of this growing up on the border of the United States and Mexico, seeing how things translated from English to Spanish or vice versa.  One I remember off the top of my head is that "Kill Me Again" translated as "Kill Me Twice."

@TheOldJalapenoman​ 

Interesting. Another wrong translation on top of my head is the movie "Alien". They translated it to Serbian as "Osmi Putnik", which means "The Eighth Passenger"! Also, "The Shawshank Redemption" was translated as "Bekstvo iz Šošenka" (the 'š' reads like 'sh'), which basically means "The Shawshank Escape".

Dobro Jutro, gospodine @Vandurath​,

I had a pen pal who lives in Yugoslavia. As a result, I attempted to learn Serbo-Croatian. Sadly, I've forgotten what little bit I learned about 50 years ago. I also lost contact with her well over 35 years ago.

I still have my copy of the English / Serbo-Croation dictionary and my Berlitz Serbo-Croation phrase book.   

Dobro jutro, gospodine @dan_dassow​!

The toughest thing about current Serbian is that there are two scripts. Latinic (the same as in English, but without Q, W, Y and X) with the letters 'Č', which reads like 'ch', 'Ć', and I'm actually not sure how would it be read in English, something like 'tj', 'cj', but you'd read the 'j' as in 'juice'. There is also 'Š', which reads like 'sh'. And there is 'Đ' ('dj', and 'j' is again like in 'juice', but it can also be read as 'j' in 'juice'), 'Ž' (something like 'zh') and 'Dž' (you write it as two letters in latinic, reads like 'dzh'). There is also 'Lj', reads like 'lj' with 'j' like in 'juice', and 'Nj', with 'j' like in 'juice'. And Cyrillic, which is very different from Latinic. Some letters are the same, but many are different (for example, 'Ф' is 'F', 'Х' is 'H', 'Д' is 'D', 'Ц' is 'C'). The current Serbian is a bit different from Serbo-Croatian, since those are now two separate languages and some words are different (for example, 'week' is 'nedelja' in Serbian and 'Tjedan' in Croatian), but most of the words are identical.

Dobro Jutro, gospodine @Vandurath​,

I am aware that Serbian and Serbo-Croation have diverged. However, it is still not clear whether these have become separate languages or different dialects. From what I've been able to tell they currently function as dialects, much like British English and American English.

I took a semester of Russian in college because I wanted to become more familiar with Slavic languages and because many papers in physics are published in Russian. I fully knew that although Russian and Serbo-Croation share some similarities, they are significantly different languages.

My Russian professor at the University of Minnesota was a native Muscovite.

I had no problem with Russian grammar. I gave up taking Russian for three major reasons: I could not hear the difference between un-palatalized, partially-palatalized, and fully-palatalized consonants, I had a difficult time correctly pronouncing most of the words, and my Russian professor told me I had a Chinese accent.   

Dobar dan, gospodine @dan_dassow​!

That is indeed an interesting question. The Serbo-Croatian has technically become two separate languages, but they are almost identical. In the current Serbian, there are three dialects: the Ekavica, the one most commonly used in Serbia. You say, for example, Mleko (milk). There is the Jekavica, where you say Mljeko, so you always add a 'j' before the 'e', so that 'je' basically reads like 'yeh'. And there is Ijekavica, where you say Mlijeko, so you add an 'ij' before the 'e', so that 'ije' reads like 'iyeh', or something like that. The other two dialects are much like Croatian.

@Vandurath​ ,

Interesting.