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Question for Dragan and Terry
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29/06/2007 01:19:07
Dragan Nedeljkovich (En ligne)
Now officially retired
Zrenjanin, Serbia
 
 
À
28/06/2007 15:44:44
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Forum:
Politics
Catégorie:
Autre
Divers
Thread ID:
01236071
Message ID:
01236690
Vues:
21
>Vreemde talen - You should translate into 'foreign languages', but you might think 'weird languages'.
>Vreemdeling - You should think 'foreigner', but you might think 'weird person'.

Reminds me of Orson Scott Card's four levels of strangers, probably based on Nordic version of the same words.

As yet another example of the common roots of words across the vast family of Indo-European language, the corresponding word "strange" also has the same two meanings - something foreign and/or something not-quite-the-way-normal-people-are. The same pair of meanings exists in Russian, in a way: stranniy means not-regular, weird, but the other meaning is, IIRC, covered by inostranniy - foreign, from other country. However, "strana" is a country, "storona" is a side.

Now in Serbian (et al), "strani" means only foreign, not strange, "strana" means a side (left/right, inner/outer, over/under, but not a side of meat) but also a page (for it's a side of a sheet of paper), "inostrani" is foreign (from the other side), "inostranstvo" - the rest of the world except one's country. However, the word for strange-as-weird is "čudan" - from "čudo", a miracle, with "čudak" - a weirdo, "čudesan" - amazing, "čudovište" - a monster.

Go figure.

back to same old

the first online autobiography, unfinished by design
What, me reckless? I'm full of recks!
Balkans, eh? Count them.
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