Talk:Crenglish

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Crenglish can also mean Croatian and English combined in one sentence. This is mostly seen in the Croatian diaspora, mainly among youth and teens. Most do not know that they are speaking it, and usually comes naturally. Along with the youth speaking it, so does the elderly. This is mostly only in common with immigrants. They seem to know a slight amount of English and while trying to speak it throw in the Croatian equivalent.

[edit] Example

Here is an example of Crenglish:

   Crenglish: "Hello, moj ime is Ivan."
   Croatian: "Dobar dan, moj ime je Ivan."
   English: "Hello, my name is John."

This article was written by someone whose grasp of Croatian is a few rungs short of the top of the ladder.

In the short sentence that is purported to be Croatian, the noun "ime" is neuter, but is associated with a masculine possessive adjective. The correct form would be "moje ime".

Furthermore, it is not idiomatic in Croatian to say "my name is X". Croatian uses a form also used in French and other languages, literally translated as "I call myself X". Je m'appelle... or in Croatian, "Zovem se Ivan".

True examples of Crenglish have to do with undereducated Croatians who come to an English speaking country lacking vocabulary for common objects. They did not live in Zagreb so they don't have a word for "tram" and they obviously did not drive a car or have cupboards in their kitchen. So they are capable of sentences such as,

"Preveo sam kaboradze u ujakovoj kari jer su bile prevelike za strickaru."

Which only a Croatian immigrant to an English-speaking country could understand, and means:

"I drove the cupboards in my uncle's car because they were too big for the streetcar"

and in Croatian,

"Preveo sam kuhinjske ormariće u ujakovom autu jer su bili preveliki za tramvaj."

Redatelj (talk) 04:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)redatelj