OroCommerce Repository
Project progress and noun declension in Serbian
When commenting on my last contribution post, @alexs1320 has mentioned how much fun noun declension in Serbian actually is, so I decided to explain the basics in this post, so that native English speakers can understand just how lucky they are.
What is a noun declension?
Noun declension defines how a noun changes (‘declines’) its form depending on its position in a sentence, i.e., whether it’s a subject, a direct object, or an object of a preposition. This different positioning of a noun in a sentence is called case (or padež in Serbian).
Noun declension is a common thing in many languages, such as German, Arabic, Finnish, Hungarian, all Slavic languages, Greek, etc. The number of cases differs among languages, for example, in German there are 4 cases, in Serbian - 7 cases, while in Finnish there are staggering 15 cases!
So I guess I'm happy to be Serbian, and not Finn :)
In Serbian the following cases are in use:
- Nominative
- Genitive
- Dative
- Accusative
- Vocative
- Instrumental
- Locative
The declensions are performed by changing the ending of a noun depending on what function it has in a sentence. This is completely different type of declension compared to German declensions for example, where the article in front of the noun changes, while the noun itself always stays the same. This is because in Slavic languages articles don't exist, which is one of the main reasons why Slavs are having so much trouble with articles in English language - we're never quite sure whether we should use an article or not, and which one :)
To provide insight into the complexity of Serbian declensions, I found this useful table with different endings for masculine, feminine and neuter gender nouns, for both singular and plural:
To make things more clear, I will perform the declension of my name, Katarina (yes, personal names also undergo declension!):
1. Nominative
This is Katarina, she is my friend. --> Ovo je Katarina, ona je moja prijateljica.
2. Genitive
I'm standing next to Katarina. --> Stojim pored Katarine.
3. Dative
I gave a present to Katarina. --> Dao sam poklon Katarini.
4. Accusative
I saw Katarina yesterday. --> Juče sam video Katarinu.
5. Vocative
Katarina, please come here! --> Katarina, molim te dođi ovamo!
6. Instrumental
I went to shopping with Katarina. --> Bio sam u kupovini sa Katarinom.
7. Locative
We talked about Katarina. --> Razgovarali smo o Katarini.
Easy peasy, right? :)
Probably isn't, since large number of Serbian native speakers can't perform declensions properly, and instead of using all 7 cases in everyday communication, they go with 3 or 4 of them and think they're fine. In Serbia we call such way of speaking a "redneck talk" :)
Project details
OroCommerce is a B2B (business-to-business) eCommerce, which means that enables electronic transactions between two or more business entities over the internet. This concept was made to improve buying efficiency for companies.
How B2B concept works? Companies are providing components or raw materials to one another via B2B transactions, and when a company has a finished product, the sale of that product to the end customer is performed via B2C (business-to-consumer) transaction. For example, a laptop manufacturer must make several B2B transactions to buy components such as mother boards, processors, graphic cards, memory, etc. in order to make a laptop. Once a company has made a laptop, it makes a single B2C transaction and sells it to the customer.
Contribution details
Translation Overview and Word Count
OroCommerce project contains 20 934 words in total, and I translated approx. 1018 words in this 14th part of the project. So far, I have translated 13 347 words or 63% of the whole project.
Languages
The project was written in English, and my assignment was to translate it to Serbian Cyrillic.
