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Anglo-Serbian or Serblish is an informal language that arises from the excessive use of English words by Serbian speakers. The name Anglo-Serbian was coined by Novi Sad English scholars. Serblish is mostly used when people try to make their way of speaking more official and elevated, so they use a lot of foreign words. It is also spoken by some Serbs living abroad, who mix Serbian with the language of the region.
In Serblish among Serbs in the diaspora, there are such words as čiketina, which is a Serbianized English word ("chicken"), to which the last part of the Serbian word piletina was added, thus creating a combination of Serbian and English words with the same meaning, which sounds like a correct Serbian word, although it is not. Serbs in the diaspora often unintentionally use Anglo-Serbian, unlike people who use Serbian in everyday communication. These people use Serbian to give a more professional and learned impression of themselves, or for fun (like writing Serbian with the English alphabet).[1]
Anglo-Serbian is also "created" when people who use Serbian in everyday communication use more English words than it is necessary, even if those words are adapted to the language or could be swapped with an already existing Serbian word of the same meaning, some examples include:
edukacija from English education instead of Serbian obrazovanje,
eksplanacija from English explanation instead of Serbian objašnjenje,
ril from English real instead of Serbian stvarno.
Some consider Serbian written with the English alphabet to be a part of Serblish, For example, the sentence "Kakvo je to čudo, Kuzeljeviću?" could be written in the English alphabet like this: "Kakwo ye to chudo, Quzelyewityu?" The Serbian letters đ and ć would usually be replaced with dj,dy and tj,ty, ž and š with zh,zy,zj and sh,sy,sj, lj and nj with lh,ly,lj and nh,ny,nj etc. This way of writing is often used on Internet forums and in mobile phone messages, to make the text look more exotic and interesting.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Serblish Dictionary :: Los Angeles Serbs". www.laserbs.com. Retrieved 2025-04-01.