Friday 22 August 2008

Boslish / Engian

With improving Bosnian language skills comes the recognition that our beloved off spring and dog do not have the fine and majestic names in Bosnian that we were aiming for in English. Rather brilliantly Jessie sounds very similar to 'gdje si' meaning 'where are you'. Never has a dog been more aptly named. Although retrievers are supposed to be the most trainable dog and come back when called, ours must have missed that lesson. Both boys have been through of a phase of shouting 'Jessie' at the top of their voices, clearly imitating their mother who spends rather a lot of time every morning trying to relocate the dog on our walk.

The Bosnians also use gdje si as a form of greeting - a sort of how's it going - and particularly use it for children and dogs. Jess now believes that everyone knows who she is as every one who comes up to make a fuss gives her a pat and mutters gdje si.

Not content with that it turns out that Luke means onion. D muttered darkly in the early hours of yet another morning spent trying to get Luke back to sleep that it was because he can make grown men cry. At least now he has a full head of hair he doesn't look as much like one as he used to.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

fantastic - calling your child onion.....

my friends are Polish and trained all their dogs in their native tongue. Consequently the only Polish words I know are sit, lie, eat and come here. Rather oddly, I can also remember 4 cherry doughnuts please.

Bodes well for if I ever go back to Poland!