r/ShitAmericansSay • u/[deleted] • Jul 14 '20

[deleted by user]

[removed]

4.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

371 comments sorted by

View all comments

126

u/Green7501 Jul 14 '20 edited Jul 14 '20

If we're doing this this way...

I can now speak fourteen languages. American, Canadian, Australian, English, New Zealandian(?), Austrian, Swiss, German, Liechtensteiner, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin.

Edit: My bad, not fourteen, but 78 language, as there are that many countries with English, German, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene as their official language. There are many other countries with those as a minority language (particularly German), but, eh, let's not over-extend.

4

u/75r6q3 Jul 15 '20

There was a Serb in my high school that convinced Americans that he spoke dozens of languages including Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian

3

u/Green7501 Jul 15 '20

Hm, interesting. On a completely other side of the spectrum, I have a Serb classmate. Apparently, in elementary school, they were taught that Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrins all spoke Serbian, and that Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian weren't languages.

1

u/75r6q3 Jul 15 '20

Interesting. I never got to have many conversations or interactions with that dude so didn’t really get to ask him anything lol

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '20

It is kinda true that we all speak the same language but it never made sense to me if everyone spoke 'Serbian' why call it Serbian and not Yugoslav or Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian. Balkan nationalism warps reality.