RUDOLF
FILIPOVIĆ and others, Englesko-Hrvatski Rječnik. English-Croatian
Dictionary. Zagreb, Zora, 1955. XVII±1,430 pp. in quarto.
Dr. Rudolf
Filipović, Assistant Professor (docent) of the English language at
the University of Zagreb, in collaboration with eight Croatian specialists of
English compiled this new dictionary. The dictionary comprises the author's
short preface, directions for the use of the dictionary, a list of
abbreviations used in the dictionary, the dictionary proper followed by a list
of British and American abbreviations, a pronouncing list of proper names
(persons and places), and British and American weights and measures expressed
in their metrical equivalents. In a special Appehdix (pp. 1,281 to 1,430),
subdivided into five parts (a short historical survey of English, its
pronunciation, grammar, a survey of verbal forms and irregular verbs), the
author and his helpers supply the Croatian reader with all the essentials he
needs when confronted with an English text.
In order
to appreciate the importance of such a publication among Croatian people, we
should bear in mind that all the previously published English-Croatian
dictionaries fall short of this one in size, accuracy, completeness and choice
of Croatian equivalents. The names of Lochmer, Drvodelić and Bogadek
deserve the honor of pioneers in Anglo-Croatian linguistic relations. Their
respective dictionaries have performed an important task in helping Croatians
to get acquainted with English. Filipović's Dictionary with 100,060 entries
and the above mentioned characteristics, is a first-class tool for the Croatian
public interested in English.
Besides
the above-listed aids in pronunciation, grammar, weights and measures, it
should be pointed out that the compilers of the dictionary have consistently
used the symbols of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) following
Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary for Southern British English. They did not take
into consideration the speech of the United States except for one word
"schedule [skedju:l]."l[1]
I assume that they had at their disposal A Pronouncing Dictionary of American
English by J. S. Kenyon and T. A. Knott (G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield,
Mass.), but the use of a double pronunciation would have resulted in too bulky
a size. However, why "schedule", and not "leisure",
"tomato", "caramel", "laboratory",
"garage", "either", "neither", etc? Be that as it
may, for a next edition we would suggest a short article on the main
differences between the American and British speech. According to the dictionary's
preface, the American specific meanings of a given word and the spelling
peculiarities have been taken care of. According to that, one should be able to
find these American expressions in the next edition of the dictionary:
to table a
motion — skinuti prijedlog s dnevnog reda i odgoditi raspravu o njemu
how are
you getting along? — kako ste? kako vam ide?. etc.
An
interesting feature of this work is the listing of verbs followed by
"prepositions", all grouped in alphabetical order under the entry of
the verb itself but somewhat spaciously indented. For instance, between the
entries "turn" (a verb) and "turn-bench" (a noun), both
normally spaced from the beginning of the page, there are 17 indented entries
from "turn about", "turn adrift" ... to "turn
upon".
This is
why the verb "black out" is found indented after the verb
"black", whereas the noun "black-out" appears far away, in
its alphabetical order. Since this book is intended for a Croatian reader, it
follows his frame of mind. In a Croatian-speaking mind, a verb and a noun are
much farther apart as grammatical categories than in an English-speaking mind.
A Croatian accepts with reluctance the English understanding that the noun
"a motor" becomes a verb in "to motor", that the expression
"a rubber stamp" turns into verbal action in "to rubber
stamp". As a matter of fact one would look in vain for that verb in this
dictionary.
There are
English or international words, especially proper names, which have entered the
Croatian speech with a pronunciation almost unrecognizable for an
English-speaking person. Every Croatian reader will be happy to find their
correct English pronunciation. Some such words are:
Regina [redzaina]
Gloucester (shire) [glostaša]
Greenwich [grinidz]
Leviathan [livaidan]
Hobbes [hobz]
Newfoundland [nju:fandlaend]
Niagara [naiaegra]
How many
Croatians have puzzled Americans when complimenting them with these words:
"Oh, we have heard about your Niagara Falls" pronouncing Niagara as
[njagara]?
As other
good dictionaries this one helps the reader by indicating the branch of
knowledge which an entry is taken from. Very often the name of a plant or the
part of a machine in English means nothing to the curious Croatian inquirer if
only translated with the Croatian equivalent and not given the indication
"bot." for botany or "mech." for mechanics. For even more
precision, this dictionary supplies in parentheses the Latin name of the plant.
For instance:
blackhorn
— bot. trnjina, crni trn (Brunus spinosa)
brand-ursine
— bot. tratorak (Acanthus mollis)
These
indications are of special help in English words which entered Croatian in a
restricted sense so that all their other meanings sound very unusual. Such a
word is "a nurse", accepted in Croatian only as domaća
učiteljica or so (a female servant who takes care of young children).
Its derivative "nursery" is unusual for a foreigner if used in fields
like: hort(iculture), zool(ogy), ichth(yology),[2]
game of billiards. Such indications bend the reluctant spirit, compelling it to
accept meanings even if against his linguistic feelings. The same thing might
be said of other similar words. To mention one more: check. This noun (not the
verb!) lives in a Croatian mind only in commerce as a "cheque",
whereas the idea of restraining, verifying, controlling etc. is alien to him.
This might explain the fact that the expression "checkroom" is
omitted. Not to speak of a "rain check" that throws a foreign forma
mentis completely off the tracks.[3]
In some
cases the branch of knowledge has been omitted, probably by inadvertance. E.g.,
for the English "brandy snap" the dictionary gives tanak paprenjak.
How many Croatians are able even to classify the word paprenjak? Is it a
drink, an herb, or a cooky? What does šasiranje (given under "chassé")
mean? On the other hand, for the "nutcracker" one might add the
onomatopoeic krcalo after the description sprava za razbijanje oraha.
It is real
pleasure to read the Croatian part of the dictionary where the language is used
not only in the original beauty of many idiomatic terms created by a nation of
famous folk poetry and prose, but also interspersed with telling expressions
that town people introducçd from different foreign sources. E.g.:
|
Q-boat,
— ship |
u ratne svrhe prerušen brod |
|
alloy of
gold |
zlatna
slitina |
|
to
traffic |
kšeftariti (from
German) |
|
trade-name |
ime
firme (from Italian) naslov tvrtke |
|
tracing-compasses |
šestar za izvlačenje crta |
|
man
about town |
svjetski
čovjek: bonvivan (from French) |
|
for
better for worse |
u dobru i u zlu |
|
This
falls short of a miracle |
to
već graniči s čudom |
Speaking
of the beauty of a language, it seems appropriate to say a few words about the
present situation of the Croatian language in relation to some foreign
languages and to the Serbian. Before the creation of Yugoslavia, Croatians
lived for centuries in the sphere of two main European cultures: German and
Italian. German was spoken by upper classes in Northern Croatia (Pannonia),
Italian in Southern Croatia (Dalmatia). During the 19th century Hungarians tried
to impose their language, but they failed. With the establishment of Yugoslavia
in 1918, German continued its influence, Italian lost a great deal of its
previous ascendance, while French stepped in, thanks to its political and
cultural influence. In 1941, for political reasons, Italian was introduced into
schools in order to replace French, and in the same way Russian, from 1945 to
1948 following the victory of communism in Eastern Europe. This Russian
pressure was greatly eased after Tito's expulsion from the Cominform. At the
same time, i.e. after 1945, the prestige of the English language was so great
that it has been spreading more and more in schools and among the adults
desiring to get in touch with the nations of the free world. In spite of the fact
that the United States is militarily, politically, economically and financially
the leading nation among the English speaking people, British is still the
brand of English that Croatians desire to learn first. This is why this
dictionary takes only the British pronunciation into account; this is why
American spellings and semantics are only added to it. However, British
English, and with it, American English are today studied in Croatia not because
they are imposed by the Belgrade government, but because they present an
opening into a world which is free both economically and ideologically. One
thing is certain, in spite of all its shortcomings, the Western World appeals
to the peoples of Yugoslavia because communism is too inhuman and even
economically unsuccessful.
The
relationship of the Croatian language to Serbian is one of a peculiar nature.
Objectively speaking, these two languages are one since a Serbian understands a
Croatian without any great difficulty, just as an American understands a
Britisher. Yet there is a Croatian and a Serbian way of speaking and writing,
so that, as a rule, a Serbian never speaks or writes Croatian, and vice-versa.
If some of them try to do so, they are looked upon as traitors to their
community. The central government, always predominantly Serbian, has always
pursued a policy of forced unity trying to level the differences between the
two languages. Such an attitude has imposed some common terms, but, at the same
time, it has also produced an opposite effect: instead of diminishing the
differences between Serbian and Croatian linguistic feeling, it has created an
excessive linguistic sensitiveness, so that Croatians sometimes tend to the
hypertrophy of their peculiarities. E.g., where the Old Slavic language had the
vowel "jat", today Croatian has (i) je and Serbian has e:
Cr. mlijeko, Serb. mleko; Cr. dijete, Serb. dete.
In their self-defence Croatians occasionally use (i)je even in cases
where such changes are not liguistically justifiable. Thus in pre-war
Yugoslavia:
vrijednota was used instead of vrednota
lijet let
upotijeba upotreba
pogrijeka pogreška
because
for the Croatians the form with e was too Serbian. In this dictionary prijelazni
is found on p. XIV, and prelazni on the next page. Be this mistake
voluntary or involuntary, it is indicative of the internal situation in
Yugoslavia: the second generation of Croatians fight for the survival of its
own cultural heritage. If this leveling of differences were a process freely
accepted by the Croatian intellectuals, well and good, but the majority feel it
is an imposition of Serbian culture upon Croatian culture. For the Western
World this struggle is practically invisible because very few foreigners study
Serbian and Croatian and can realize these differences. Yet it is the struggle
of a whole nation.
I have not
lived in Zagreb since 1941 and consequently do not know what is the English
influence on post-war Croatian. Yet judging by the present dictionary, I find
the Cr. idiom used for the English word "idiom", indorsirati instead
of the previous indosirati (derived from the French endosser). I assume that
the English influence must be growing.
I am sure
that the fine Zagrebian scholars will not object if I submit a few remarks to
their benevolent consideration.
In
pronunciation the French sound [y] in rue (p. XIII) does not have
its proper place in an English dictionary because an English speaking person
will never use such a sound unless he wants to speak French. On the other hand,
the dictionary itself gives [hju:gou] for Hugo, just as it does for the other
French rounded vowel "Ř" in [monteskju] Montesquieu.
For the
words "ravine", "protege", "brassard", and so on
we find in the dictionary the indication F., meaning of French origin. Yet
"curfew", "kerchief", "tennis", "beef",
"cutlery", "dance" and many others are also of French
origin. The first are French words naturalized in English and the second not
naturalized English borrowings from French. In the directions for the use of
the dictionary it might be more appropriate to say: not naturalized borrowings
from French will be marked by F.
In spite
of the fact that in this dictionary, deceptive cognates are very successfully
"transposed" into Croatian like
lobby kuloari
date rendez-vous
caterer liferant
"love"
in the meaning of "nothing" should have its own entry,
"love2," because it is a completely different word from
"love", meaning "feeling", the former being derived from
the French l'ceuf (egg). Do we not say today "goose eggs" for
"zero" in sports? If "kerchief" is marama, rubac za
glavu iii vrat, we think that "handkerchief" should not have only
the same two words marama, rubac, but maramica, džepni
rupčić, because this is the most usual word (besides the
colloquial "hankie") for the pocket handkerchief. The frequent but
difficult idiom "You know better than that" meaning "you
shouldn't have done that" (niste smjeli to učiniti) is quite
difficult for the Croatian mind to figure out. For the exclamation "What a
shame!" the dictionary has only Kakve li sramote! It should also
have Šteta!, i.e. "Too bad!" besides the meaning "Shame
on you!" A Croatian would never guess the former, although this meaning
(French Dommage! or German Schade!) is firmly rooted in the above English
expression. French, German, Spanish, Italian and Croatian draw a clear cut line
between the two meanings and have two different expressions, while English can
see both meanings in the same expression. "What a disgrace!" or
"Disgraceful!" is the unmistakable equivalent of the Croatian Sramota!
Recently
Gabriel Marcel wrote in Nouvelles Littéraires that the American
occupation in Japan has failed to win the Japanese for the West because the
Americans were unable to sell those people something substantially valuable,
hence attractive. Throughout the world the British Kulturträgers have
sowed more hatred than love. In free Europe, the British are far from being
loved while the Americans enjoy a divided popularity. Yet in Yugoslavia,
although Americans and British are supporting an unpopular totalitarian regime
for opportunistic reasons, they nonetheless receive a sincere response and they
are looked upon as heralds of a better future which never comes. ... I am sure
that the hard work stored in this wonderful dictionary is the expression of a
general and sincere love for the Anglo-Saxon world, as Europeans like to say,
on behalf not only of Croatians but also of other nationalities in Yugoslavia.
Enslaved peoples hope against hope ...