Podlings speak Croatian
I just got done watching Jim Henson's movie "Dark Crystal", and am very astonished to say that the Podling creatures from the movie speak Croatian (or Bosnian, or Serbian). They use a heavily accented version of the language, but not accented enough not to be noticed.
I am also amazed that I couldn't find any information on the internet that would comment on how and why this happened to be. Which is why I'm writing this post now, in hopes that someone else that noticed the same thing sees it and tells me I'm not crazy. Well, at least not crazy in thinking that Podlings speak Croatian.
As an example, the first time Kira (who speaks Podling) sees Jen, she says "Odakle?", which means "Where from?". Also, the world "Dole", which means "Down", is used liberally throughout the movie to say "Stay down", "Let me down"... The cool thing here is that some guy (a Mr. Curt Markham) figured out from the movie that "Dole" in Podling means "Down", and posted that information on a Dark Crystal trivia page. I have to say that is pretty impressive! A few more words and he can go vacation in Croatia and talk to the locals.
Going back to the Podling-Croatian word list, when Podlings find Kira and Jen, they are happy and they shout "Gozba!" which means party or feast. Of course, they then throw a party. At the party, someone says to Jen, "Lijepa Kira?", and all the other podlings laugh. "Lijepa Kira?" means "Pretty Kira?". Also, when Jen asks how to say "Thank you", he is told "Hvala Vam", which indeed means thank you.
When Jen calls for the Landstriders, she says "Stani tamo" (stop over there) and "Dobar" (good/ good boy). Another example comes at the end of the movie, when a Podling being carried to have his essence removed shouts struggling "Pusti!" which means "Let go!". He adds, "Dole!". Let me down, eh...
There were more words that seemed to potentially have Croatian origin, but I'll have to take a better look to decipher them. If anyone else caught any, please let me know!
I am also amazed that I couldn't find any information on the internet that would comment on how and why this happened to be. Which is why I'm writing this post now, in hopes that someone else that noticed the same thing sees it and tells me I'm not crazy. Well, at least not crazy in thinking that Podlings speak Croatian.
As an example, the first time Kira (who speaks Podling) sees Jen, she says "Odakle?", which means "Where from?". Also, the world "Dole", which means "Down", is used liberally throughout the movie to say "Stay down", "Let me down"... The cool thing here is that some guy (a Mr. Curt Markham) figured out from the movie that "Dole" in Podling means "Down", and posted that information on a Dark Crystal trivia page. I have to say that is pretty impressive! A few more words and he can go vacation in Croatia and talk to the locals.
Going back to the Podling-Croatian word list, when Podlings find Kira and Jen, they are happy and they shout "Gozba!" which means party or feast. Of course, they then throw a party. At the party, someone says to Jen, "Lijepa Kira?", and all the other podlings laugh. "Lijepa Kira?" means "Pretty Kira?". Also, when Jen asks how to say "Thank you", he is told "Hvala Vam", which indeed means thank you.
When Jen calls for the Landstriders, she says "Stani tamo" (stop over there) and "Dobar" (good/ good boy). Another example comes at the end of the movie, when a Podling being carried to have his essence removed shouts struggling "Pusti!" which means "Let go!". He adds, "Dole!". Let me down, eh...
There were more words that seemed to potentially have Croatian origin, but I'll have to take a better look to decipher them. If anyone else caught any, please let me know!
posted by Stjepan at 10:02 PM
8 Comments:
i just gotta see any movie with my name in it!!
keira
Exactly! I just got the movie from my brother on DVD and watched it. I recognized immediately that the "podling language" is slavic (I have studied three years in Russia). To my ears the first words by Kira were "kto vy" and "otkuda", which would be "who are you" and "where from" in Russian respectively...
I was equally amazed that in the "making of..." document there was not a word about the languages! And searching the net for more info I was surprised to notice that even on the "fan pages" nobody has been able to conclude that the language is slavic!!!
Sasha Mäkilä,
Finland
Yeah i noticed that they're speaking a slavic language too - however I am not convinced it's Croatian. I feel it may be Polish or Russian or simply a distortion of Croatian. Well spotted though - I was starting to think i was the only one who had realised. I will keep searching...
Point of information:
It's Slavic, certainly, but the producers decided to use a Old Church Slavonic for the Podlings. I take it everyone here knows what that is - an artificial 'neutral' form of Slavic that was intended to be intelligible to all the Slavic peoples of the Mediaeval period.
Hence anyone who speaks a Slavic language will recognise words and phrases.
I have just watched the DVD for the first time in 20 years, and the language spoken is Serbian, it is not Polish or Russian, nor Croatian.
I'm just watching the movie right now, I spotted the same thing as Stjepan, and was so intrigued that I had to pause it and search for it online! (And that led me to this blog.)
The words are definitely Croatian/Serbian/whatever (I think the forms lightly favour something more distinctly Serbian - I could be wrong) but the pronunciation itself is very Eastern Slavic, like the way a native Russian speaker would read it. I can imagine that the script was written with Serbocroatian in mind (considered a single language at the time of filming but four separate languages today) but the movie was shot with the voice actors or a language coach going for a Russian angle in it.
The "hvala vam" phrase in particular would never have that form in any other language.
It's 100% Serbian. They are speaking Serbian with very hard English accent, i know it's Serbian and not Croatian 'cause they are speaking Ekavian and not Ijekavian like Croats. Trust me I know, I'm from Belgrade, Serbia
i'm Croatian, and i noticed it too- and understood what they were saying! it was so cute- my boyfriend now calls me a Podling- hvala vam!
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