My Language is My Homeland

used to be Yugoslavs while the Slovenes used to declare themselves as
Slovenes, the Croats as Croats etc. Hence, the nation with the majority
of the population tends to identify with the broader national construct.
and another interesting detail, the English rarely say “in England”
they prefer to use the expression “here, in this country”! Does that
not remind you of our favourite denotation for the now countries of
the former Yugoslavia: “in these regions”! In the regions that cannot
be named!
let’s now cast a glance at the Irish who had inhabited the British
Isles even before the advent of both the anglo-Saxons and the nor-
mans.  for centuries, Ireland has been under fierce English rule. In
mid-nineteenth century, during the great famine the country lost one
quarter of its population through starvation, a number that is compar-
able to that of the Serbian population that perished in the great War
(1914-1918). During that great Irish famine and tragedy, when children
were starving in their helpless mothers' embrace and when a sizeable
number of the population fled to america, the English (Queen Victo-
ria) used to collect their taxes dutifully. The famine was so terrifying
that even the Turkish Sultan abdul Mejid I decided to send 10,000
Sterling to the Irish farmers to which Queen Victoria requested that
the ottomans didn’t send more than 1,000 as she was herself sending
2,000 so that… The Sultan sent the 1,000 Sterling but he also sent 3
ships full of food that the English tried to block. nonetheless, the otto-
man sailors made it to Drogheda and delivered their aid.
During all these centuries, the Irish adopted the English language
completely and very few people today speak Irish gaelic.
What did the Irish make of the English language? Well, to begin with
they won four nobel prizes in literature: William Butler Yeats (1923),
george Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett1(969) and Seamus Hea-
ney (1995). for such a small country this is certainly a notable and im-
pressive achievement. furthermore, Ireland used the English language
as a springboard to launch its “Celtic Tiger” economic boom that es-
tablished Ireland as a well-off European country.
Having said all of that, I feel obliged to notice that the possible
proto-inhabitants of the Isles, the Welsh did preserve their language
(Cymraeg or y Gymraeg) and are learning it and using more and more.
Hence, Wales can be said to be bilingual. In the meantime, we Serbs
endured the Turkish yoke for centuries, managed to survive all the
wars of the twentieth century as well as the economic depressions.
However, we preserved our language, our customs and our religion
and we didn’t ask for or indeed received any help from a “merciful”
Turki sh Sul tan.
“My language is my homeland”, asserted fernando Pessoa at the begin-
ning of this article. I translated the verse in Serbian by using the word
domovina (home is in the stem of the word) and rade Baturan drew
my attention to the fact that this word is largely felt to be Croatian and
that I should substitute it with the more Serbian term otadžbina (father
in the stem).
“But rade”, I replied, “domovina is our word that the Croats just
borrowed from us. Why should we stop using our own words only be-
cause someone else found them useful or beautiful?” “furthermore”, I
added, “the metaphor wouldn’t work as well with fatherland!”
“oK then,” said rade in agreement.
I let a sigh of relief and continued this journey down the great water
flows and languages of the world.

Translated by Tanja Radic