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rolig commented on the word s trebuhom za kruhom
lit. "with the belly after bread". This means "go abroad to make a living".
Ni mi bilo treba s trebuhom za kruhom. ("I didn't have to go abroad to make a living.")
March 19, 2009
madmouth commented on the word s trebuhom za kruhom
we clip it in Bosnian: trbuhom za kruhom.
June 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word s trebuhom za kruhom
Well, actually SBC uses the instrumental the way it was originally used (and as it still is used in Russian and most other inflected Slavic languages): without a preposition; the case itself indicates the means or manner by which something is done. The Slovenes, probably influenced by the German use of the preposition mit to indicate means and manner, at some point started appending their own preposition "with", z/s, followed by the noun phrase in the instrumental.
Perhaps a better "literal" translation would be "following the bread on one's belly". It is sort of equivalent to the American expression, "to go where the money is", but the South Slavic phrasing is so much more vivid.
June 22, 2009
madmouth commented on the word s trebuhom za kruhom
that little piece of Germanic separatism reminds me of a song line about Slovenes (from a Yugo point of view): Ti se ne druže s nama, mi smo suviše južni.
there is such a Balkan chip on the shoulder.
June 22, 2009
rolig commented on the word s trebuhom za kruhom
Chip?! It's more like a plank. Slovenes, too, definitely have a love-hate relationship with those they call južnjaki / Southerners (when they're being polite). But I think the loss of the synthetic "pure instrumental" in Slovene is a little sad.
June 22, 2009