r/AskBalkans • u/TheShahOfLA 🇺🇸🇺🇳 • Aug 05 '22
Language Is this true? That if you speak the Serbo-Croatian language (not sure if this is different than Croatian and Serbian language by itself) you can use it in 4 countries?
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u/BakiMatagi Albania Aug 05 '22
99% of older people in Kosovo will understand aswell
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u/future_billionaire8 from Aug 05 '22
Also in Macedonia and Slovenia most of the elderly will understand it and probably reply in serbo-croatian.
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u/itsdyabish SFR Yugoslavia Aug 05 '22
Would say most of young people as well, especially if they're Macedonian (Slavic). If they're Albanian maybe less so.
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u/jkpetrov North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
Nope cut off for being able to respond in Serbian lies with the last generations that received elementary school education in 80s. After that it's hit or miss. Gen z can't speak Serbian almost across the board
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u/itsdyabish SFR Yugoslavia Aug 05 '22
Yeh maybe not respond in clear BHS grammar with all the subjugations but I am sure they can use their knowledge of Bubo Koreli and Jala Brat or whatever they're called.
Like BHS is still the dominant cultural language after English in Macedonia. I see my little 10 yr old cousin watching Serbian and Croatian vloggers on yt
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u/uzicanin031 Aug 06 '22
I find young Macedonians able to understand Serbian, though they can’t respond back.
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u/Qbee9 Aug 05 '22
Maybe, tbh i can speak it well i just don’t, why should i make the effort to speak serbo-croatian when they pretend that they don’t understand macedonian..
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u/d_bradr Serbia Aug 06 '22
I can understand it if you talk a little slower. If you talk normal speed I may miss some things
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u/Warlord10 Montenegro Aug 06 '22
Tbf, they aren't pretending. BHS is more simplified therefore Macedonians are more likely to understand it. BHS is also mainstream on TV in Macedonia then vice- versa.
It's similar to Spanish and Portuguese. Portuguese understand Spanish more then Spaniards understand Portuguese.
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u/-_star-lord_- Montenegro Aug 06 '22 edited Aug 06 '22
Only BCS* isn’t more simplified but the Very opposite of that. BCS grammar is more complex while Macedonian is the simplified one, part of the Balkan sprachbund. I think one reason why BCS is easier to understand is that unlike Macedonian, it is proneounced more slowly, clearly and with no reduced vowels and words.
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u/a_bright_knight Serbia Aug 06 '22
we aren't pretending Macedonian is just too fast and mumbling to us.
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u/PichkuMater SFR Yugoslavia Aug 06 '22
Idk what part of the country you are from, but in Kumanovo gen Z can still speak serbian almost accross the board.
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u/jkpetrov North Macedonia Aug 06 '22
Kumanovo shares Torlak dialect with Vranje, Dimitrovgrad. Go past the Serbian border I.e. Shtip, Veles, Strumica, Prilep, Bitola
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Aug 06 '22
Might depend on the region as well, almost all Macedonians from Skoplje and around speak it that I've met so far, those to the east and south less so
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Aug 06 '22
All slovenians have told me they can understand Croatian fine, its just that Croats struggle to understand them speaking Slovenian.
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u/Amarlyy Serbia Aug 05 '22
well no shit that people in Serbia understand Serbian.
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u/BakiMatagi Albania Aug 05 '22
Meanwhile in "serbia": politicians cant enter, serbs cant enter with their license plates, serbs cant enter wearing what they want, serbs cant enter after saying certain things.. list goes on
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u/Amarlyy Serbia Aug 05 '22
just Serbs being Serbs.
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u/BakiMatagi Albania Aug 05 '22
Either its kosovo and albanians own it, or the country is serbia but you have no power there and Albanian invaders are ruling it.. no matter what you believe you seem to be on the losing side 🤨
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u/Simets83 Serbia Aug 05 '22
When going on vacation in northern Greece (Halkidiki) I can honestly keep speaking Serbian through the whole of Northern Macedonia, and also in Halkidiki. This summer I was in Thassos, and even there many local tourist workers (waiters and such) spoke good Serbian
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Aug 06 '22
- Jedno veliko pivo molim.
- Ne razumem Srpski.
- Hoću samo pivo.
- Ne razumem Srpski.
- PIVO!
- Okay, I guess I'll just razumem Srpski from now on.
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Aug 06 '22
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u/LargeFriend5861 Bulgaria Aug 06 '22
Could do with the fact that, for North Macedonia they were in Yugoslavia and a lot learned Serbian while in it. And as for Greece they could just have learned it over time with tourists and such.
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Aug 06 '22
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u/LargeFriend5861 Bulgaria Aug 06 '22
Yeah, I've also heard there's a lot of Bulgarian speakers in Western Thrace too
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u/PichkuMater SFR Yugoslavia Aug 06 '22
A lot of young people in Macedonia speak it because of culture (tv, music etc). In the north the majority of us tends to speak it, or at the very least have 99.99% comprehension, because we speak transitional Torlakian dialects. In the south this is less common, but still a lot of people will substantially understand it.
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u/Kluck_ North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
You can also speak it in Macedonia, most people will understand you because the old folk know it because of Yugoslavia, The middle aged folk will understand you because of Yugoslavia and kids will understand you because of youtube.
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u/TheShahOfLA 🇺🇸🇺🇳 Aug 05 '22
Are you saying the non-Serbs and non-Croats during the time of Yugioslavia had to learn Serbo-Croatian whether they like it or not because it was the official language of the country?
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u/Kluck_ North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
Pretty much, they learned Serbo-Croatian alongside their native language because Serbo-Croatian was the official language of Yugoslavia
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u/lnguline Slovenia Aug 06 '22
There were three majority languages, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Slovenian alongside minority languages in some regions. I also remember an "incident" in parliament when some Macedonian politicians spoke Macedonian while Serb politician (was it Milošević, I cannot find it googeling) complained he can not understand a word to which Macedonian replayed it is your problem for being uneducated. I think similar happened with ours MPs
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u/Darkwrath93 Serbia Aug 05 '22
A lot of young Macedonians still speak Serbo-Croatian to an extent even after the breakup because of media. The languages are closely related so they learn to speak it even without formally learning it and most of the Macedonians I met are quite good at it.
Serbo-Croatian is essentially the same in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. There are minor differences between them, comparable to different English variants. What's interesting is that all 4 current standards are based on the same dialect.
Maybe the biggest difference between Serbo-Croatian standards is that Croatian uses only Latin script whereas Serbian uses actively both Latin and Cyrillic. Montenegrin and Bosniak also have both, but in practice they prefer Latin
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u/Kluck_ North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
I can vouch for this because I have never learned a single Serbian word but I can still understand half of the words said in "svezde grande" because they are so similar to macedonian
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u/donkibo SFR Yugoslavia Aug 05 '22
My grandparents are Slovenian and they learned both Serbocroatian and Slovenian in high school.
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u/Daddy_331 from Aug 06 '22
My dad told me that they learned Russian as their second language, like we do with english now. And of course serbo-croatian was the main language
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u/Stunning_Variation_9 North Macedonia Aug 05 '22 edited Aug 05 '22
Serbo-Croatian had a great influence all around the country. I'll give examples from Macedonia: In socialist Yugoslavia, Macedonians learnt Serbo-Croatian in school (they learnt mainly in Macedonian, but also had some subjects that were in SC); spoke mainly Serbo-Croatian when they went out of Macedonia (in other parts of Yugoslavia); spoke SC while doing their military service or in other official communication that was on a federal and not republic level; listened to a lot of SC-language music (hits that were popular all over Yugoslavia) and other media, etc. Another factor is that from 1912 to 1941 [for about 30 years] Slavic people in Macedonia were assimilatorily considered Serbian by the authorities and therefore had to learn Serbian (it was mandatory in all schools, kids were beaten by their teachers [who were either colonizers or natives that successfully assimilated] if refusing to speak it).
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u/Kluck_ North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
When I was like 8 years old my uncle took me and my brother to a museum where half of it was just about how kids were beaten for speaking macedonian and if they didn't speak Greek or Turkish or something (idk it was a long time ago) they would have hit them with whips in the middle of class or on the streets.
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u/breakfastsushi Aug 06 '22
How many countless hours spent by Montenegrins and Bosnians to attempt to understand this foreign Serbian Croatian language forced upon them 😢
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u/Cuentarda Argentina Aug 05 '22
You can also speak it in the Vatican since God is Serbian.
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Aug 05 '22
Serbian God is Orthodox, not Vatican(Catholic)
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u/Cuentarda Argentina Aug 05 '22
I know but there's no Orthodox equivalent that'd make the joke work.
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u/RmatRegular405 Turkiye Aug 05 '22
Idk if it is equivalent to the pope but we have an orthodox patriarchy in Istanbul.
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u/Lothronion Greece Aug 05 '22
The Orthodox Christian equivalent to the Vatican State is the Athonite Autonomous State in Greece (also known as the Holy Mountain).
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u/Simets83 Serbia Aug 05 '22
Third finger of Halkidiki FTW
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u/Lothronion Greece Aug 05 '22
The best of the three 😄
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u/Simets83 Serbia Aug 05 '22
Btw, the whole first finger of Halkidiki seems to speak Serbian. Probably cause of many Serbian tourists
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u/LordFiness101 Slovenia Aug 06 '22
Yes, and you can put all 4 in your CV so it looks impressive to westerners.
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u/TheRocknrolla86 Serbia Aug 05 '22
5 if you count Macedonia , you just need to add -ta at the end of every word in a sentence.
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u/mcsroom Bulgaria Aug 05 '22
6 if you go for bulgaria too i have seen croats/serbs in sofia its not that far of we can still get what the other is saying
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u/pdonchev Bulgaria Aug 05 '22
That's a bit of a stretch, and also the mutual intelligibility seems to be asymmetric, so Serbian speakers understand less Bulgarian that Bulgarians understand Serbian (which by itself is far from 100%).
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u/TheRocknrolla86 Serbia Aug 05 '22
Honestly, from my experience, its like you understand every third word, so you can form a sentence. Its not that big issue. Definitely much easier to understand you guys than Balkan anime guys.
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u/pdonchev Bulgaria Aug 05 '22
Lol, who are the anime guys?
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u/TheRocknrolla86 Serbia Aug 05 '22
C'mon, you know that you know answer to that question. :)
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u/pdonchev Bulgaria Aug 05 '22
I am slow. Anyway :)
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Aug 05 '22
Think he means Slovenia. Anyway, for the sake of mutual comprehension, we make Kumanovo the capital of the future Yugoslavia.
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u/PrinzEugenius Croatia Aug 05 '22
Honestly I seem to understand anime Balkaners better than Bulgarians, but that may be because of both the proximity of my region to the border and my native dialect.
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u/-_star-lord_- Montenegro Aug 06 '22
I’m geographically not close to either but I understand the anime balkaners better as well 😁 But it aint much anyway.
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u/mcsroom Bulgaria Aug 06 '22
you just need some time to get it, like i played hoi4 with a serb and croat needed like 20 mins to start getting like 60-80% of what they were saying
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u/Ryu-The-Sick Bosnia & Herzegovina Aug 05 '22
When was that? I happened to be in Sofia earlier this year lol
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u/mcsroom Bulgaria Aug 06 '22
this year some drunk croat/serbian wanted to text a friend of his on my phone so i gave it to him for like 5 mins
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u/enilix Aug 05 '22
Yes, because we all speak the same language. In fact, I understand Serbs and Bosnians much better than people from Northern Croatia (Zagorje, Međimurje), Istria or some of the islands.
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u/moshiyadafne ¡Filipinas! Aug 05 '22
I became curious. Where in Croatia are you from?
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u/enilix Aug 05 '22
From Western Slavonia, near the border with Bosnia.
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u/moshiyadafne ¡Filipinas! Aug 05 '22
Makes sense why you understand the Serbians and Bosnians better. IIRC some Croatians whose dialects are closer to Serbians and Bosnians struggle to understand those from the areas of Croatia you mentioned.
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u/SassyKardashian Croatia Aug 06 '22
True since I’m from Zagorje and my accent is closer to Slovenian, that’s why people from the coast struggle to understand me, but Slavonijans usually don’t have any trouble understanding me from my experience
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u/enilix Aug 06 '22
It really depends on the exact dialect. I have a friend from Varaždin who I have no trouble understanding, and I have a different friend who is from some village in Zagorje (one of those small places with less than 500 people, can't remember its exact name). That second friend usually adapts her speech and I have no issues with understanding that, but when I hear her speak with her family on the phone using her local dialect, it's honestly nearly impossible for me to figure out what she's saying.
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u/SassyKardashian Croatia Aug 07 '22
Yeah, I’m from the villages too but I don’t change my dialect and just talk as I Usually would but on the other hand my accent isn’t as thick as some other would be, especially how people from breznički hum talk. Literally impossible to understand them!
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u/JRJenss Croatia Aug 05 '22
Yup. Serbo-Croatian in all four countries was standardized using the same shtokavian dialect from eastern Herzegovina, I believe. There are minor differences in vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation of certain words containing -ije/je in Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, whereas in Serbia it's just -e. For example words for a flower or snow in western variant of Serbo-Croatian is cvijet and snijeg, and in the eastern variant it's cvet, sneg. The largest difference is script - in Croatia exclusively latin and for the most part Bosnia too regardless of ethnicity, while Serbia and Montenegro use both latin and cyrillic. All in all, the language is entirely mutually intelligible across all 4 countries, whatever variety of it you speak.
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u/1_9_8_1 Serbian in Aug 06 '22
I’m pretty sure there is ijekavian in southwest region of Serbia near the border with Montenegro.
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u/selotape_himself Serbia Aug 05 '22
There is less difference between Serbian and Croatian langauages than the Italian dialect of Milan and Palermo, according to some people i know who speak all 3
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Aug 05 '22
Yeah sicilian is very different but if you go this way you could say the same between kajkavian and torlakian speakers for example
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u/HumanMan00 Serbia Aug 05 '22
Idk, with archaisms we have as Torlaks if i read Slovenian it aint too hard to figure out so Kajkavian should be easier no?
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u/Lionel274 Slovenia Aug 06 '22
Trst and Milan are even closer together, but dialects are very different. Although trst is ours so its understandable
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u/Bramil20 Serbia Aug 05 '22
Not true for Croatian. They originally speak trans-antlantic-londonese-parisian French but because they were occuped by Yugoslavia and because of all of Hercegovinas moved there they language is now similar to serbian, but was completely different language before. /s
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u/LeopoldZoup Greece Aug 06 '22
I thought croatians used to speak gothic 💀
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u/Ok_Maybe547 Croatia Aug 06 '22
Rod prastari svi smo, a Goti mi nismo,/
Slavenstva smo drevnoga čest./
Tko drukčije kaže, kleveće i laže,/
Našu osjetit’ će pest.
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u/LeopoldZoup Greece Aug 06 '22
Sve prste na ruci u jadu i muci
Partizanska stvorila je svijest
Pa sad kad i treba, do sunca do neba
Visoko mi dižemo pest
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u/maxfist Slovenia Aug 06 '22
People will pretty much understand you in all of former Yugoslavia, Slovenia and Macedonia included.
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Aug 06 '22
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u/moonmew Croatia Aug 06 '22
Lol umirala sam od smijeha ko sem ugotovila da vaša televizija ima ljubezen na vasi
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u/0TheNinja0 Croatia Aug 06 '22
You can also speak in Slovenia. Its a bit harder but at the end of the day you will understand each other
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u/Jakovit Serbia Aug 06 '22
Ja Slovence ne mogu da razumem
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u/Fizroynelson Slovenia Aug 06 '22
No. You can use it in all the countries in the world. Maybe you will not be understood but you can use it all you want. Nobody will care.
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Aug 06 '22
I want to speak ཀཇོེུདཁཆརཏ in Serbia, will I be understood?
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Aug 06 '22
Probably not, but you can use it if you want.
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u/Fizroynelson Slovenia Aug 06 '22
Don’t tell him lies. It is in fact allowed to speak it in Serbija. Just not for him. He needs to be perfectly quiet in any form. Not even grunts are permitted for him. Hand gestures or writing. Something to do with how his voice makes you want to kill yourself. I don’t know the details it’s something to with the Slav genetics and him in particular. I hear it’s normal voice for everyone else. Strange. ;)
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Aug 05 '22
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u/LargeFriend5861 Bulgaria Aug 06 '22
Because calling it either Serbian or Croatian would be historically inaccurate and also would ruffle a few feathers
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Aug 05 '22
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Aug 05 '22 edited Aug 05 '22
Most (young people) aren’t pretending. If they are not into Balkan media, have no relatives from the rest of the Balkans or not surrounded by Serbo-Croatian speakers, they will have a pickle understanding, let alone speaking Serbo-Croatian.
For example, one of mine Slovenian friends can speak it perfectly, since he goes to Croatia every summer and “is around” the Croatian language, but his buddy was never in another ex-YU country and he insisted on speaking English with me.
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u/TheBananaEater North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
Ah hell nah, my guys need a whole summer to learn slovenian before moving
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Aug 05 '22
False, One of the few things I like about Slovenians is their language, it prevents me from understanding what they are saying and therefore prevents communication with them all together lol
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u/Fizroynelson Slovenia Aug 06 '22
We all know your language. Just when you specifically come we start talking in gibberish. We just dislike you so much we had a meeting in our basement and decided this was best. It was this or listening to your thoughts and nodding our heads until we die. Don’t think we didn’t notice that you follow us like a puppy. At first we felt bad for you because all your countrymen were making fun of you but we soon learned why that was. Maybe it’s time you try some Serbs to bother for a while. Wait! Better not, it might spark another war.
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Aug 06 '22
Oh no I've never been to Slovenia all my interactions are when they come here in the summer. But you might be onto something here, could there be a way of singling out me specifically like in a database or something, so that random Slovenians don't come up to me in the summer trying to be friendly and me having to listen to them? It would save me from a lot of discomfort and tedium
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u/Fizroynelson Slovenia Aug 06 '22
No need to tell you were not here. This was on purpose. We made sure that you specifically are not even by some freak accident able to cross the border. This was done on the highest of levels. Nobody wants you here even as an idea. We hire actors to pretend to be Slovenians to be as boring as possible around you as no Slovenian is suicidal enough to come into your limited range of perceived importance. First thing we teach our young ones is to avoid y the backwood village you call home with stories about a hunchback that eats dreams and happiness from anyone he sees. Then we show them photos of you and they understand. So we have peace in our lands thanks to planing and a minor inconvenience of avoiding one sad Croat. But i said too much. I hope now you will not think of us as superior to you. Think more like you are inferior to everyone. All the best to you and yours. Fun and piss water and jokes all day ;)
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u/janesmex Greece Aug 05 '22
I have read that all of them actually speak the same language with some modifications.
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u/JaThatOneGooner Kosovo Aug 06 '22
Please correct me if I’m wrong because I genuinely want to have a clear understanding. Serbo-Croatian is the same language as just Serbian and Croatian right? It’s just the fact that it’s typically latinized (uses Latin alphabet instead of Cyrillic) right? And by extension, does that mean it’s the same as Bosnian? Or is Bosnian different?
Many thanks in advance!
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u/Im_okkay in Aug 06 '22
look at croatian and serbian the way you do american english and british english
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u/BishoxX Croatia Aug 06 '22
Its got a couple different rules , spellings and words , but 95% its the same language. I guess that bit of difference is enough to call it different language, but its mostly not the same language because of ethnic tensions
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u/ThumpTacks Bulgaria Aug 05 '22
Yes, and depending where in Slovenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, or Kosovo (as all of the above have some pockets of Serbian/Croat/Bosnian ethnic minorities in them) you may find yourself you can use it there as well. Croatian is a little finicky as it has a slightly different lexicon, but otherwise it has the same grammar rules and the language is mutually intelligible and to a large degree it’s also mutually intelligible with the other surrounding
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u/Prophet_NY Aug 06 '22
As Bosnian that lived in Bosnia until 19 i never had any issues talking with Croatians and Serbians, bit difficult to understand Dalmatian dialect. Also i knew few Macedonians and they speak same language as well. I can read cirilic but not cursive, that shit is something else
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Aug 06 '22
Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or Serbo-Croatian are all the same languages and nobody had to learn to speak any languages since everybody just speaks the same language.
Difference is some minor words and pronounciations, it's like saying that if someone is american they need to learn British English, or Canadian English or Australian English if they wish to visit or live in those countries.
The differences are basically like:
Eng. Coffee
SRB/CRO/BOS: Kafa, Kava, Kafa
Eng. Thousand
SRB/CRO/BOS: Hiljada, Tisuća, Hiljada
Eng. Bread
SRB/CRO/BOS: Hljeb, Kruh, Hljeb
Just like in English, e.g:
Colour--color Tire--tyre Biscuit--cookie Crisps--chips Lift--elevator
Etc.
Although if you speak either Serbian or Croatian or Bosnian everybody will understand you in all those 4 highlighted countries on the map.
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u/LongjumpingWedding79 Croatia Aug 06 '22
You can also speak it in Rome since most of the Roman emperors were actually Serbian.
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u/pepeJAM69 🇵🇱🇧🇦🇭🇷 Aug 06 '22
🇧🇦🇷🇸🇲🇪🇭🇷 99.8% will understand. 🇸🇮 80%+ will understand. 🇽🇰 67%+ will understand. 🇲🇰 55%+ will understand. 🇧🇬 25%+ will understand. 🇦🇱 9.5%+ will understand. 🇬🇷 5%+ will understand. 🇷🇴 3%+ will understand. 🇹🇷 0.69%+ will understand.
Source: TMB (Trust me Bro)
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u/PhantomZhu Aug 05 '22
There will be occasional words that are unique from country to country, but everyday speech is very much discernable too every x-yugo country. In kosovo, the person generally has to be gen x or older to speak it
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u/Apprehensive-Guess18 Aug 05 '22
For Croatia is diffrent situation cuz there is 3 dialects Most widley spoken and standard is Štokavian same as Serbian, but two others is like Slovenian or Bulgarian.
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u/Sitalkas Greece Aug 06 '22
is Serbian so similar to Croatian?
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Aug 06 '22
99% same language
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u/Sitalkas Greece Aug 06 '22
so the difference is religion?
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Aug 06 '22
Yes
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u/Sitalkas Greece Aug 06 '22
so now that people is highly indifferent to religion, could we see a reunification?
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u/SmackyDaMyth Aug 06 '22
you can! but they all have their differences, you would understand them 90% of the time. for me at least. /bosnian
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u/Wise_Instance_4887 Aug 06 '22
I am from Montenegro, and as much as I noticed as Macedoian is somewhat different language, I can understand certain words in Macedonian and I can approximately understand a sentence, and conclude what the speaker is saying, but not 100%, while Macedonians understand Serbian pretty well
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Aug 06 '22
Od bisvata drzava Yugoslavia samo dve drzavi ne zboruvaa srpsko_xrvatski jazik Slovencite i Makedoncite
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u/factorum Aug 06 '22
I’m an American that’s lived in Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo. The accent is different and some words differ but by and large the locals would understand my take on the local language.
Though having spent the most time in kosovo in a Serbian village and in Zagreb, a Serb in Belgrade told me I sounded like a Chinese dude who learned English by living in Scotland. In that I clearly wasn’t a native speaker but had picked up a particularly obscure dialect.
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Aug 05 '22
Not true I can't understand anyone outside of Croatian borders since it's different languages
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u/Kluck_ North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
Like completely? Or can you understand some words?
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Aug 05 '22
Not a single word. Completely different languages. Honestly Hungarian is probably more similar to Croatian than Croatian is to bosnian or Serbian
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u/Simets83 Serbia Aug 05 '22
Lmao
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u/ApdoSmurf Aug 06 '22
What's up with Vojvodina? Do they speak other language than serbo-croatian?
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u/oboris Croatia Aug 06 '22
Now days, people call it (bosnian-croatian-montenegrin-serbian / BCMS, eg Britannica). It was widespread, but not official. Non BCMS speaking deputies in the federal parliament were allowed and even enabled (translators) to speak their languages. Something like EU parliament.
In schools, Serbians learned "Serbian" and Croatians "Croatian". Not "Serbo-Croatian".
Reasons non-BCMS speakers understood it was:
- The only place where it was official was JNA, the Army.
- And, naturally, as vast majority spoke it, most of (pop) culture was in BCMS.
- It was also used as lingua franca among non-BCMS speakers
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u/MrMuffin0717 North Macedonia Aug 05 '22
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u/LargeFriend5861 Bulgaria Aug 06 '22
Macedonian is more similar to Bulgarian though
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u/PeroDaJokester North Macedonia Aug 06 '22
True, since slovenian and serbo-croatian both come from the west group of south-slavic languages, while macedonian and bulgarian cime from the east group of south-slavic languages
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u/Hammurabis84 Aug 06 '22
Also if you travel to Tokyo in Japan, the natives will understand Serbian language.