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Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

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Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#51

Post by medo-bear »

dsego wrote: post #32
mc32 wrote: post #6

I like how they translate/transliterate his name into Serbian: Stiv Voznijak. Wish more languages would do that and not try to keep the original spelling just because.

It's funny because in Croatia we don't do that, but it's an almost identical language. I still remember reading old ex-yu comic books with New York spelled as Njujork and so on. The problem is that you can't really capture the pronunciation since english has more sounds and serbian and croatian are phonetic limited to 30 letters, Stiv Voznijak doesn't capture it correctly, that's how you get the harsh slavic/russian…

I find I need to say some names out loud to know what they mean when I read texts from Serbia. In Serbia they take the principle 'speak as you write, write as you speak' to the end. I also think that Croatian is a more pure Slavic language, and that Serbs are more liberal with adopting foreign terms. It is also interesting that all Croats can uderstand someone from Belgrade or Banja Luka without any issues (not including street slang), but some Croats have trouble understanding other Croatian dialects.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#52

Post by neom »

kami71 wrote: post #49
neom wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the answer to your question but your question did lead me to something fun: "The company desperately needed the Macintosh to be a hit. Instead, after an initial flurry of interest, sales of the new computer came in far below expectations. The Macintosh was underpowered, and the lack of software for it kept business customers away. In April 1985, Sculley convinced the Apple board to strip Jobs of his management du…

Siberia != Serbia :) Maybe you misread something, or I'm misunderstanding?

Ah the good old Dyslexia ADHD combo. You're right I'm a moron. Happy Wednesday! :)

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#54

Post by medo-bear »

vsnf wrote: post #43
mc32 wrote: post #6

I like how they translate/transliterate his name into Serbian: Stiv Voznijak. Wish more languages would do that and not try to keep the original spelling just because.

No thanks, I'd prefer to keep my name the way I identify with it. I'd only do it when a name's original script is not legible to the populace of the residing culture.

Do you identify more with how your name is spoken or how its read?

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#55

Post by orbital-decay »

dsego wrote: post #32
mc32 wrote: post #6

I like how they translate/transliterate his name into Serbian: Stiv Voznijak. Wish more languages would do that and not try to keep the original spelling just because.

It's funny because in Croatia we don't do that, but it's an almost identical language. I still remember reading old ex-yu comic books with New York spelled as Njujork and so on. The problem is that you can't really capture the pronunciation since english has more sounds and serbian and croatian are phonetic limited to 30 letters, Stiv Voznijak doesn't capture it correctly, that's how you get the harsh slavic/russian…

> The problem is that you can't really capture the pronunciation

Can you do that in general if you don't know the actual language, though? Even native English speakers sometimes have issues with certain borrowed French words, despite those being in English.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#56

Post by layer8 »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #25

Tangential question: Could a country force its citizenship to any person on the planet like that? ‘From now on, Mr X is now one of our citizen, with all the taxes/restrictions it entails’

In principle yes, but other countries may not recognize it on the basis of human rights. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality." So it should at least be possible to renounce such a citizenship.

International law regarding nationality generally focuses on preventing statelessness, so there isn’t much on prohibiting additional citizenships.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#57

Post by vasac »

dbrgn wrote: post #15
beaeglebeach wrote: post #5

[flagged]

...I guess unless you're one of the minorities, or speak the "wrong" accent. Then all of a sudden you're not welcome anymore.

Please do share what's happening with minorities and people with the wrong accent daily in Serbia. I live there, perhaps I'm missing something.

P.S. my accent is also wrong, should I be afraid?

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#58

Post by vetinari »

the_af wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #6

I like how they translate/transliterate his name into Serbian: Stiv Voznijak. Wish more languages would do that and not try to keep the original spelling just because.

I rather they kept the original spelling because that's his name, but only if Serbs can figure out how to pronounce it. Which, in the modern world, is a reasonable assumption for names written in the Latin script.

Being written in Latin script is not a guarantee on correct pronunciation; languages have wildly different ideas how to pronounce written text.

Paradoxically, Serbian belongs in the group "write as you hear"; the mapping between writing and pronunciation is quite simple and uniform in slavic languages. It is English, that you have to learn twice -- first time to speak, second time to spell.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#60

Post by yreg »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #23
jgilias wrote: post #14

Why though? Did they just figure they’d grant one, and he just went ahead and accepted? Or is there a reason he needs one that wasn’t explained? I know that people sometimes shop around for a passport from whatever EU country for reasons, but Serbia isn’t one. (With all due respect to Serbia)

This is neither here nor there, but Serbia is an EU Candidate, likely to get membership in the coming years.

Serbian accession is not at all likely in the coming years. They have had full candidate status since 2012.

Last year the European Parliament passed a resolution saying it "strongly regrets Serbia’s non-alignment with EU sanctions against Russia, which damages its EU accession process." There's also the problem regarding their relationship with Kosovo.

Also, only 34-43% of Serbians want to join according to polls. Compared to Albania's 97% and Montenegro's 79%.

I think Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and even Ukraine are more likely to join the EU next.

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