Eurovision LATIN song! Konstrakta "In Corpore Sano"

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Additional comments: 1) Upon listening many additional times to "corpus je sano" with headphones, I do think she is saying "corpus je sanum;" however, as of 11 May 2022 the lyrics in the description and the closed captions read "corpus je sano" in the official Eurovision video : kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYSUm6WPpp1qkNk 2) I think Konstrakta did a great job with the Latin lyrics, and any deviations from my expectations with respect to standard Latin may be excused within the context of the art form of signing. 3) I really like the Serbian language, also called Serbo-Croatian, also also called BCMS. I hope to learn it well some day. Happy Eurovision to everyone! 🎶 May the best song win.

[@Merdam9]

If you need any help, I am native Serbian speaker, with extensive knowledge of Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin, and fascination with what makes those languages same and/or different in everyday speech, although I am not linguist.

[@GiovannaIwishyou]

@@Merdam9 I would volunteer as well! I am from Bosnia, so I am somewhere right between Serbian and Croatian. (My language is Serbian but we do not use some words that are used in Serbia and also we use different pronunciation).

[@modmaker7617]

Let's just call Serbo-Croatian "Yugoslavian"

[@StellaAleksic]

I wish you good luck with our language which shall not be named 😆 Also, most schools in Serbia and Bosnia still teach Latin, so a lot of us have at least some basic knowledge of the language. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Ana (Konstrakta) knows some of it, too.

[@bogdankukic341]

@@modmaker7617 Sve te jezike i varijante nazivam "NAŠKI jezik" jer su naše i svi ih dovoljno razumemo...Ako govoriš naški, razumemo se...i niko nebi trebao da se ljuti!

[@luijang654]

I think she's saying "corpus je sano" ironically, as a joke, because we often do this in serbo-cro speaking countries. We take an english word, for example and never change it no matter the sentence and grammar so to us it sounds funny. Sorry for my bad english. Liked the video!

[@appolonius5468]

You're exactly right, it's done intentionally that way in this song, ironically with a smirk. Notice also how it's immediately followed by the funny "well, now what?" in Serbian.

[@nelajovic5664]

She sings sanum , you can clearly hear that in acoustic version of the song . Regards.

[@jahirareyes1102]

Don't you think that the phrase she repeats in the song "in corpore sano" which means "healthy body" when i disect the phrase she uses in the song " sano" sounds like "sane " and "corpore" sounds alot like "corpse" ,just pondering what do you think?

[@dererzherzog]

@@jahirareyes1102 well noticed, because English although classified as a west-germanic language, has appropriated a lot of non-germanic words over the course of its history. And corpse (meaning body, well, a dead one in this case) and sane (literally from lat. sanus) are but two examples.

[@Alex-fv2qs]

@@jahirareyes1102 that's because corpse and sane are derived from corpus ( which is corpore in the ablative case) and sānus

[@yumerchASMR]

I literally screamed when I saw you were talking about In Corpore Sano! It's my favorite Eurovision song. Konstrakta is everywhere, I swear! Finally, the Latin community is talking about it! If this song does well in the contest this year, it will prove that learning Latin is worth it and it is needed in the 21st century. (She is my idol 🙏) edit: She qualified! LATIN IN THE FINALS BAYBEE edit: She got 5th place but she'll always be my winner 🧼🧼🧼

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m delighted! Thanks so much

[@tylere.8436]

Me dius fidius! Duo magni KZbinrs latine loquentes hic sunt! 👏😋

[@riinak7212]

Also, Konstrakta is just the woman, there's no band (though she'll have backing singers and a stage show lol). Thanks for doing an episode on a Eurovison song! :)

[@Sonnen_Licht]

Finger crossed she will do qualify to the final tonight!

[@alm9555]

3:33 aside from that, serbian has gendered nouns, adjectives etc just like latin and the ending for the serbian neutrums is -o. So the "sano" in "Corpus je sano" was probably intentional. Thank you for the analysis 😊

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed! It could be intentional.

[@Ptiki]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Being a Serbian native speaker, who learned Latin in high-school (and has been using tiny portion of it because my legal profession), I am inclined to conclude that this is deliberate. Actually, I had no idea that it was “wrong” in the first place, but if it was “right” it would lose it’s meaning in Serbian phrasing. P. S. Your knowledge is amazing! I am so glad that you dedicated your time to this song. Thank you!!!

[@lxd4298]

Serbian entry: A young woman, in her 40s, mother of two, with an actual University degree (Architecture) gets on the stage, blows everyone's mind, all while fully dressed and just sitting and washing hands. Empress. From the song start till the end, all eyes are on her. And on top of that performance her song carries incredibly strong message about overwhelming "health" information every woman reads in magazines, promoted by celebrities and impact on one's mental health. She replicates compulsive behavior of all humanity: "Be healthy, be healthy, be healthy, be healthy..." and in the song finale twists famous Latin proverb pointing to a conclusion: "When your body becomes healthy, what about your mental health?" All those magazines bring readers in a state of "health" paranoia, while your mind becomes sick, sad, desperate and frightened. Truly a masterpiece. Song has so many layers that you can analyze for hours, from reverse Latin start, to powerful Latin ending, all packed in perfect theatrical delivery. This song is simply beyond Eurovision. It belongs in a museum.

[@SirRyanChadius]

The most amazing part is the thought of a serbian washing their hands On meni nema Bosne!

[@veselingatalo5891]

CORPUS JE SANO-JE(EST)-CORPUS EST SANO(SANUM)-TIJELO(CORPUS) JE(EST) ZDRAVO(SANO-SANUM)-the body is healthy a large number of Serbian words come from the Latin language eg accents are very similar I will give an example of one verb in the second and third person singular in Serbian and Latin do dare dedi datum singularis 2.das 3.dat in Serbian, the third person singular is used in the future and in the second the singular is used instead of the letter š daš--ti ćeš da daš ja ću dat (dati) If you say in Serbia MODUS, everyone understands that this is the way......

[@daca8395]

@@veselingatalo5891 almost as if those languages had a common ancestor...

[@DennisLexuss]

Young and 40?

[@daca8395]

@@DennisLexuss well humans live for over 80 years. So yeah, yound and 40

[@curtains5535]

Wow I'm SO happy to see that my favorite Latin youtuber made a video about my favorite Eurovision 2022 song!!! And very very glad to hear she did a good job with the latin! Just one little thing though, Konstrakta is the singer and not a band 😅

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ah indeed, I don’t know much about her. Thanks

[@curtains5535]

@@polyMATHY_Luke no problem, the video made my day :)

[@GiovannaIwishyou]

No, her alter ego (pseudonym) is Konstrakta, the band is called Zemlja gruva.

[@colinafobe2152]

and she write the lyrics

[@misiknuo]

She is singing in her Band for 18 years name is Zemlja Gruva they played like support act to a Amy Winehouse at her last carrier performance..in Belgrade.

[@listovski4435]

Konstrakta's song is part two out of three that form a piece called "Triptih". Her performance has nothing to do with Megan Markle, hydration, politics or covid, it's performance art that is intelligent, quirky and constructed from top to bottom to perfection. It's not weird nor funny, it's art. It's created to make people stop and think about life for a second, it's there to provoke, not to soothe or kill time. In those three songs she's describing a life of grown woman in Serbia, and likely in this World. First part "Noble" is talking about society labels as "be emancipated", "speak foreign language", "know peculiar information about places you never visited" where the chorus is describing the sad reality that she is all alone, looking at the mirror, crying and thinking about a headline in magazine "Sharon Stone does not take botox" meaning, oh she must be as ordinary as me - a masterpiece song. Second part "In corpore sano" describes a woman after reading a woman magazine with a clickbait title "What's the secret of random celebrity perfect health?" (in this case she chose Megan Markle, but any name works). Very often in those magazines you "find out" that some skin imperfection might be there due to poor health of some of your internal organs, i.e spleen, gut or liver. Verse "enlarged spleen is not good, not pretty" is trying to say "not only I may be sick, I am ugly too!" and it really describes a transition young woman go through in early middle age (Konstrakta is 43, mother of two), when beauty standard obsession is getting substituted by health obsession. So she frantically and compulsively starts singing "be healthy, be healthy, be healthy ..." and song just gets better, she becomes grateful for autonomic nervous system and how body takes care of itself, but paranoia kicks again "be healthy, be healthy, be healthy", she prays to God, even that is not enough. Than a sudden stop in rhythm where she is faced with possibility that she might stop belonging to the system (i.e not have public health insurance), how will she be taken care of? Song finale is self - revelation where Latin proverb is twisted to say that although your body will end up healthy after all paranoia, your mind will become sad, sick, desperate and frightened. This song resonates with every single woman and man in Serbia in their 40s because that is exactly how life looks at that age. It's all about being healthy at any cost, while completely neglecting mental health. It's sad that subtitles are not available on the Eurosong, because this song has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with Megan Markle (apart as critique to mass media), and absolutely nothing to do with covid situation - it's a universal, intelligently packed recap of middle age life. Third part "Mekano" which translates as "Soft", although better translation would be "Limp", talks about everyday life and the way people live in their 40s. You work, you eat, you repeat same patterns day to day, while trying to belong to "intellectual elite" by discussing about neoliberalism, being individual and original, while in truth you are just dying out in your "comfort zone". Chorus "mekano, nek je prokleto" translates "soft should be cursed" meaning "curse the comfort zone", and this song is insanely strong due to its melody, it sounds soothing and like something you'd listen to fall asleep. This perfectly describes someone stuck in the comfort zone, you are stuck, you know you are stuck, you curse it, but your voice is still numbed, slowed and soothing. Exactly how comfort zone and depression feel like.

[@Claxen11]

Hahaha! It's incredible how you keep in touch with what's going on in everyday pop culture and manage to incorporate it in your video. Love it!

[@dimitrijekesic3206]

I am from Serbia and I want to thank you for analyzing the Latin in this song. I have been watching your content for a while and as a fellow language enthusiast I am really impressed by the qualilty of your contenta and your dedication to Latin. As far as the problem of Serbo- Croation (Bosnian, Montenegrin etc) Is concerned, linguistically they should be treated as dialects of the same language. However, due to the Balkans tumultuous past during the 90's , civil war, fall od socialism, economic and political situation, there is a need to establish ethnic identities which differ from the hegemonic ideals of Yugoslavia and thus the Bosnian language, Bosniaks language, Montenegrin language and others were created in order to make unique ethnic identities. As a linguistic myself, I personally consider them to be the same language since I can understand and effortlesly commumicate with Croats, Bosnians, Montenegrins etc

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks, I really appreciate hearing your perspective

[@bogdankukic341]

Sve te jezike i varijante nazivam "NAŠKI jezik" jer su naše i svi ih dovoljno razumemo...Ako govoriš naški, razumemo se...i niko nebi trebao da se ljuti!

[@bogdankukic341]

@@unityofvitality-5875 I Sunce se može optužiti za unitarizam...

[@aleksandarlikic7460]

@@unityofvitality-5875 OK, srpsko-hrvatski jezik je u jednom trenutku standardizovan. I šta ćemo sad?

[@giant_cIit]

@@bogdankukic341 Sad će da ti objasni kako u Srbiji i Hrvatskoj ne sija isto sunce, da je to posebno tisućljetno autohtono hrvatsko sunce koje nikada i nikako nema veze sa tzv. srpskim suncem nego je bilo nametnuto ali su ga se oslobodili.

[@firebolt26]

Bravo Luke! Konstrakta said she likes Latin because she learned it in school.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Really? She did a great job!

[@firebolt26]

Yes, in interview in Serbian a few days ago. I think Serbo-Croatian retained some pronounciation and rules from Latin but that's long story. Not an expert in that field 😅

[@arnorrian1]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Serbian gimnazije (high schools for continuing onto a university) have one or two years of Latin. I still remember "Si fueris Romae...".

[@aleksakrivosija8248]

Unfortunately Classics are a rather weak and moribund field in Serbia... I say this as someone who's about to finish a BA in Classics, the department is dying.

[@GiovannaIwishyou]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Puella pulchra est!

[@Romanophonie]

I love how you manage to take something as current as Eurovision and make a delightfully educational video about it. Grātiās, Luciī! Also, Gandalf 😂

[@happygamersloth9161]

When I saw that you made a new video about a song with Latin in it, I was like "let's see how many mistakes are in this song" but no. I don't think that every song or game or whatever in Latin is wrong, but there are also sometimes a lot of mistakes in this things. Also great job, keep it up!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks! Yeah, I’m happy when they get it right; often they do well.

[@GiovannaIwishyou]

Yaaaaay, you reacted to my comment!!! Thank you

[@teodorugabriel2175]

Serbian language it is the most musical language among the Slavic languages It complete the nicely with Latin language Beautiful song Greetings and congratulations

[@kLJiga]

Најмузиукалнији словенски језик је украјински. Српски, који је мој матерњи језик, има много консонантских група. Далеко је српски језик од "музикалног". А, украјински језик/мова - то је италијански језик у словенским језицима. Зато су украјинске песме дивне, мелодичне, певљиве,..

[@teodorugabriel2175]

@@kLJiga Говорим румунски и веома ми се допада како звуче српски и пољски

[@stoptimedoo1425]

#Godstrakta is everywhere 🤣. Great video.. And my favourite song...

[@gavransinnombre]

I am from Serbia and I was shocked that you found that song and rated the Latin in it. Serbs don't know about Classic Latin 'cause we do traditional German pronunciation in schools without knowing the vowel lengths. But thanks for making a video.

[@JovanLemon]

shocked to find someone else from serbia here

[@strahinjamacesic3974]

You are one of my favorite KZbinrs and to see that you made a video on our ESC song for this year has just made my day! Gratiam tibi ago :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m delighted! I ought to have mentioned how much I like the language

[@strahinjamacesic3974]

@@polyMATHY_Luke 😊😊😊

[@strahinjamacesic3974]

@@polyMATHY_Luke In Serbia we usually study Latin in high schools for one or two years depending on the type of school. It is taught terribly in most cases so people don't usually like it. I went to high school specialized in philology so I had it for all 4 years of high school education and it was one of my favorite subjects:) How I wish the subject was taught through story telling using the methods that we can see on your channel. 💔

[@strahinjamacesic3974]

@Bionick Toa I couldn't agree more. I still remember the first sentence from the textbook though. Magna turba in via est. 😅

[@koljarzg]

@@strahinjamacesic3974 Yes, that and "Gaudeamus igutur, iuvenes dum sumus"! :)

[@greggr8250]

Well she's everywhere. I'm not so familiar with Latin (I only study Latin in the last class before university in Greece), but I heard her saying "sanum" or at least"sanu" when I slowed the video. The sound is sounded more to [ʊ] than to [oː], which the first corresponds to and the last to . Based on Wikipedia this is the classical pronunciation.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I have been persuaded this is the case. See my pinned comment

[@MrsKoldun]

*Thank you so much for reading my comment and turning my suggestion about Konstrakta in a video!* 🥰

[@HammerMartelus121]

Great analysis Luke. I would only like to point to you how we (people from ex-Yugoslavia) learned Latin. The way of your pronunciation is what we call "classical pronunciation" and we do not generally use it. We use so called "traditional pronunciation" which is more related to Serbo-croatian. Many greetings

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Hi Aljosa, thanks for the comment. Yes indeed, I’m aware of this fact. Derived from the German pronunciation of Latin, the Slavic pronunciation of Latin is still widely used in Slavic countries. Interestingly, none of the words chosen by Konstratka are pronounced differently between the various pronunciations. She did a good job.

[@HammerMartelus121]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Many thanks for responding to my comment and also for giving me some new pieces of information. She has done a great job based on fact that she is "linguistically amateur" (as I am), but Slavic pronunciation still gives her a bit of explanation for her mistakes

[@ivancertic5197]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Yes, but this is precisely why she pronounces "desperata" as she pronounces - its how its pronounced in Serbian.

[@zmaja]

Postoji esej iz 60-ih ili 70-ih koji brani klasični izgovor i svjedoči o, kako djeluje, burnim raspravama o tome da li da tradicionalni izgovor ostane standardom ili ne. Svakako se na fakultetskoj razini uče oba i vjerovatno primjenjuju prema kontekstu u kojem ima smisla preferirati jedan ili drugo. Recimo, u dokumentarcu o Radoslavu Katičiću, mislim da poeziju čitaju klasičnim izgovorom, što ima više smisla (bez obzira na dominaciju tradicionalnog izgovora tijekom studija). Neki latinisti smatraju i danas da ima smisla prihvatiti klasični izgovor kao standardni, iz xy razloga... Mislim da djeci u školi dozvoljavaju da biraju ili bi trebalo da bude tako.

[@z0ranz0ran]

Omg, can't believe you did a video on this. Pozdrav from Serbia ♥️🇷🇸 Also, I completely agree with your stance on the Serbo-Croatian language. Most linguists indeed share the same opinion that it's a polycentric language. The standard dialects from each country (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) are completely mutually intelligible. There are ofc some dialects that are not understood by the vast majority of people outside their country (sometimes even inside the country). Nonetheless, as we all know a language is a dialect with an army.

[@Giovis968]

The sound of latin music is ecclesiastical is the same some little exception in pronunciation for The Melody ,metrica , she did good , and congratulations Serbia, mens sana in corpore sano , esp. Mente sana en cuerpo sano ita. Mente sana in corpo sano , congratulations Serbia again. Respect from Italy

[@RustlingRagazza]

@polýmathy Hi, I fixed the Latin lines for this song. Back in February Konstrakta asked for somebody good with Latin on Facebook. I said mean things about her band years ago on my blog after that disastrous festival with Amy Winehouse's last solo performance and I wanted to redeem myself a bit, so I offered help. Originally, some declensions were wrong. I am responsible for grammar, but not the accents. Good to see that I passed your analysis with flying colours, makes me want to go back to the uni and resume working on my BA. The first line (the one she sings backwards) remained the way it originally was, with wrong gender used for the adjective, but the rest was fixed. She definitely says CORPUS JE SANUM. I guess that there is a typo in the official translation. It happens. "je" means "is" in Serbian, so she kind of plays with languages the way Gabbani did five years ago. The video was filmed before these corrections were made, so when you look closer when she lip-syncs, it IS an O, and not an UM. The same applies to the last lines. I doubt most people would even notice it, though. One would have to zoom in and read her lips. Disclosure: initially I had no idea what she needed it for, I thought it was a kid's homework and I was like: "Wow, they give really creepy sentences to kids nowadays!" 😂😂😂😂😂

[@nf1824]

Very nice video, I really enjoyed. 👏 I don't know if you missed that part or didn't find it interesting, but at the begining of the song she said - "Onas eroproc ni somrefne snem", which is reverse from "Mens enfermos in corpore sano".

[@anastasijap1312]

Yay, I was waiting for this! Great video! I just wanted to say that It's really easy for us to pronounce and speak Latin because (as you probably know)we pronounce every single letter like it's written (much like Latin). I love to read Latin but I struggle with grammar 😅. Greetings from Serbia!

[@koljarzg]

It's really neat to have an alphabet like this. In fact, it's weird that other languages did not retain this quality. (We did not either, but had a recent revision)

[@imhotepptah54]

I have been admiring your content and you for a long time. And now I feel somehow proud to see you talking about my country. Gratias tibi valde.

[@cigh7445]

I'd like someone to do this for France's Breton entry. To me it sounded characteristically French at parts, especially some of the singers had very strong French consonants which came through in their vocals. It would be cool to hear an assessment from a linguist with knowledge of traditional Breton phonology.

[@snowcold5932]

Most breton speakers today have a strong french phonology, much like celtic language speakers in the UK and Ireland sound closer to english. But I'm no expert and have no idea what the "original" phonology of breton is, french might have been heavily influenced in its phonetics by the celtic gaulois languages too.

[@cigh7445]

@@snowcold5932 Most evidence points to very little Celtic influence on French, very few loanwords and phonology wise mostly seems to be internal developments over time from a vulgar Latin base possibly with some Frankish influence. The thing with Breton is that it is closely related to Welsh and Cornish... Welsh is the Celtic language which retained the most native speakers into the 21st century and if you listen to old recordings of native Breton speakers you can hear similarities with Welsh which are no longer present. It is true that just as Neo-Breton sounds 100% French, Neo-Irish sounds 100% English (revived Cornish and revived Manx also sound 100% English, but I'll leave them out). The difference between Irish and Breton is that Irish still has communities where Irish is spoken natively as a first language, and if you listen to Radio na Gaeltachta, the indigenous Irish radio station, you can hear that most of the native speaking presenters don't sound like English at all. However, the similarity between Breton and Irish is that they both have much larger numbers of 'new speakers' or learners than native speakers, and these L2 speakers bring the phonology of their first languages (French and English) to the minority languages. This phenomenon is not yet as obvious with Welsh because they had such a high proportion of native speakers, however demographic studies of the Welsh language situation show that Welsh speaking areas are being lost still, while numbers of second language speakers in the English speaking areas rise - if this continues without the Welsh speaking regions being saved we will start hearing more Anglo-Welsh neo-speakers in the future. It is also not yet as obvious with Scottish Gaelic, because until recently nearly everybody who spoke it was a native speaker from a Gaelic speaking region. Only in recent years have numbers of learners come to equal them.

[@talitek]

Biti zdrava Biti zdrava Biti zdrava Bit bit bit biti zdrava Love the song, and super glad you're getting into the Eurovision spirit, Luke! Thanks again for another great video :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@dinatomicanic4704]

She is actually really saying SANUM in the clip you're analizing in your video. Maybe you can notice the nasal stop at the and of the vowel, which shortens the vowel a bit - in Serbo-Croatian that kind of shortening doesn't happen with O, especially not in an open syllable. We have stronger labialization with O then with U (in Belgrade dialect, at least). Also, we have 7 cases and I'm absolutely sure that anyone with even a one-year course in Latin would know perfectly well not to use ablative in nominative copulative position, since they wouldn't use locative in Serbo-Croatian. Forgive me for the extensive comment! Thank you for your videos so much!

[@Mtashes]

I agree with you, if you a native Serbo Croatian speaker you can clearly hear that she says sanum. Also if you check out the official lyrics it’s written sanum.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I’m glad you liked the video! But the official lyrics in the video description as well as the closed captions have “sano.” I doubt she is singing “sanum,” but it’s within the realm of possibility. Given the spelling in multiple official places, I go with “sano”

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

The official lyrics have “sano”. I have however heard that she (or her producers) have been changing the lyrics to correct the Latin.

[@dinatomicanic4704]

@@polyMATHY_Luke I guess we'll just have to let them know they have to correct the transcript. 😉 Btw, your video is on it's way to the Artist (Umetnica) so there's a chance we'll hear "desperrata" tomorrow...

[@milfredcummings717]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gmqtm4aBg5ihosU

[@milancelisac]

So there’s the proof that she’s singing “sanum”. You can literally see her lips while she’s singing “corpus je sanum” during the semi performance last night. Cheers!

[@hemoglobbin]

Yes, and you can clearly hear it as "sanum" in her original yt video Triptih. It's also in the English titles of the song. Žena se ne zajebava :D

[@radepiljov7969]

I am from Balkans , and i think you are the F genius. Your channel is really,really good btw.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@domiiinik4320]

She was 5th in the grand final! I'm so glad, I was voting for her :D

[@donato286]

Thanks for reviewing, Luke. Here's a little something for fellow language enthusiasts: - (je)sam - (j)es(i) - (j)est(e) - (je)smo - (j)este - (je)su - sum - es - est - sumus - estis - sunt The above verb is a defective auxiliary verb in Serbo-Croatian. It only has the above forms (no infinitive, no other verb forms). However, it behaves as a verb 'to be'. It's a copula and an auxiliary that forms compound tenses. The real present tense of the verb "to be" actually has a near-future meaning.

[@nelajovic5664]

👏

[@daca8395]

"Jeste" isn't a verb, it's continual (nesvršena) form of the verb "BITI". Czech, Slovak and Polish make the same distinction (possibly also Ukrainian and Belorussian, but I'm not familiar with them. )

[@donato286]

@@daca8395 Is this the latest linguistic consensus on it? I mean, it's a verb for sure. I know there is (or at least there used to be when I studied) a question among Serbian linguists whether to consider "jesam" as a defective verb (so as to avoid having two present-tense conjugations of the verb "biti") or to ascribe both the "jesam" conjugation and the "budem" conjugation to the verb "biti" and call out the distinction between the aspects of "jesam" and "budem". Some linguists and most of my professors went with "jesam" as a defective verb at the time. Have the opinions changed since?

[@daca8395]

@@donato286 from what I've gathered, there is still debate on this. Our linguists (mostly Serbian) are more in favor of 2 verbs model, yet most slavists are in favor of 1 verb model. My professors (at high school) were split on this.

[@faryafaraji]

Brilliant breakdown of linguistics and music! There’s a quote by Curt Sachs which sums up the often contradictory relationship between language and song: “musicians and poets supplant the natural flow of speech by artificial arrangements of words that often wrong the rules of grammar and syntax.” This got me thinking, I’m not sure it you’ve done so before, but if not, would you ever consider breaking down one of the popular songs you translated into Latin on ScorpioMartianus and giving us an insight into your approach when adapting those songs into Latin-the challenges in finding words that fit the musical stress, if you had to bend the rules a bit, etc. I know I’d love that video!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s a great idea, Farya

[@eternalbattle1438]

I'm Serbian and I enjoy watching your videos. But this video really surprised me! Хвала ти пуно! Поздрав!

[@dasmysteryman12]

Latin is one of the foundational, historical languages of Europe yet it took us 66 years for us to have a Eurovision entry with full Latin lyrics. Konstrakta is a true artist! ❤

[@lazarstevanovic9817]

The intro is also in latin, but in reverse order.

[@mauritsponnette]

Before I watch this video: this is going to change my perception and enjoyment of Serbia this year, so you better not ruin it. Love from a Belgian, thus European, thus Eurovision viewer 🖤💛❤ Edit: it was okay, you may pass. I'm gonna vote for France or the Netherlands anyway. (Seriously, great video, Luke! Didn't expect you to cover Eurovision any time soon 😅)

[@Ramboldt]

As a half-Serbian I wish you the best of luck now that you've touched on the issue of the Štokavian group. I actually did some high school level research on the subject and learned that 'Serbo-Croatian' isn't really politically correct at present, but that linguists do talk about the group as BCS (with an M added later). When I try to explain the situation to friends, I usually say that there is linguistic unity, although they may be called separate languages for political reasons. After all, "a shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot." P.S. I hope we can all be nice to each other.

[@daca8395]

I prefer callimg the language "naški", since then stuck-in-a-mud idiots have to explain who are "we" exactly

[@macizogalaico]

yo what's that language? i understood it (i already knew the quote) but i've no idea what the language is hahaha

[@Ramboldt]

@@macizogalaico It's Yiddish. The quote is from Max Weinreich. ;)

[@macizogalaico]

@@Ramboldt i just realized i'd never read yiddish, even tho i had heard it before lol. didn't know who the quote was by. also, yiddish totally has the same feel as sephardic, incredible that you can look at both of those tongues and see how the jews influenced both castillian and german in similar ways

[@nahli8619]

As a Bosniak I must say that we cannot lose our language because that will be used to say how we don't exist as people either. Some of the first dictionaries were made on Bosnian language but standardised language, because it came from Belgrade/Zagreb was called Serbo-Croatian. While I agree that we speak mutually intelligible languages/dialects of the same language, it is (as you also said) incorrect to call it by the one or two ethnic groups that speak it.

[@daciaromana2396]

Props to Luke for not being afraid to talk about the Serbo-Croatian language (or languages). Not many people open that can of worms.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Well, I mostly did privately on Patreon, so it was kind of a cop-out.

[@tomakrstic1428]

Yes Luke, it truly was a cop out :) I like your content very much, and is very helpful for a guy interested in ancient languages. When it comes to Serbo-Croatian subject, I believe you might have a greater impact if publishing it non-privately. It would be a small contribution to human evolving beyond tribalism, but a contribution never the less

[@kajvanveen5302]

Awesome! I didn’t even know!

[@marslangdon9007]

She indeed sings "corpus je sanUM."

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

See the pinned comment

[@marslangdon9007]

@@polyMATHY_Luke ἐμέ γε ἔλαθεν, χαῖρε!

[@Merdam9]

2:50 Interesting, I didn't know they said "Corpus je sano", since I have been singing it as "sanum", and as I don't know Latin, I must've read it somewhere, so I decided to investigate: There are seven official videos on KZbin, I will sort them chronologically: 8. Feb: Official audio, no official subtitle 28. Feb: Official video, official subtitle says "sanum" 4. Mar: Live performance, only English translation available, which says "body is healthy" 7. Mar: Live performance, official subtitle says "sano" 11. Mar: Live performance, official subtitle, in all 3 available languages, says "sanum" 11. Mar: Official video, official subtitle says "sano" 29. Apr: Official Acoustic Banquet Version, embedded subtitle says "sanum" I think they caught onto this, and decided to fix it in subsequent versions, so my guess is that we will hear "sanum" at Eurovision live performance. :) Videos credited: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jaatm4mYe52BnJI kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZe4Z2Z5fbFnrdE kzbin.info/www/bejne/rX2kioWAq5uhh8U kzbin.info/www/bejne/pqCaeXd-iad1e5I kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4bThWWMnKaaoq8 kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYSUm6WPpp1qkNk kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpTYYap7mJhleck

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ah that’s very interesting! In general I tend to be too nitpicky about these things. I’m glad they took this into consideration

[@milancelisac]

@@polyMATHY_Luke the original lyrics page to the song gives “sanum”, which is what she sings as well. The subtitles to the video are wrong.

[@adigazel]

eurovision is a celebration of culture and languages!! this year we have latin, breton, romanian, serbo-croatian, albanian, lithuanian, greek, and many more unique languages that represent europe beautifully!

[@arnorrian1]

There are many parallels in Serbian and Latin grammars. For example imperative of the 2nd person plural of the verb to go is "idite".

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed. This shows how Slavic and Italic come from a common language

[@goranjovic3174]

@@polyMATHY_Luke en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia_in_the_Roman_era 18. Roman Emperors was born in Serbia ! :) Even 4. in my city Niš - legendary Naissus (!) in south Serbia , home city of Constantine The Great too ! :)

[@n3ox420]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Or imperative of the verb videre in 2nd person plural which is VIDITE in serbian and VIDETE in latin xd Also the conjugation in present is kinda similar 1. Vidim 1. Vidimo 2. Vidiš 2. Vidite 3. Vidi 3. Vide And the verb DARE, 🇷🇸DATI 1. Dam 1. Damo 2. Daš 2. Date 3. Da 3. Daju And again its imperative form in 2nd person plural DAJTE in serbian and DATE in latin I had latin in high school for 2 years and i always liked verbs more. I still remember all the tenses, how to form them and add the endings. On the other side, i learned cases and all of the declensions just because i had to and tbh it was fun, but i don't even remember the 1st declension properly. But it was a real challenge to start something new. I was 15 back then and i was fascinated with the fact that there's a non slavic language with almost identical grammar with serbian.

[@timkrome2942]

Multas gratias tibi ago!

[@heliophiliab3400]

I love Latin music, but all to often I see confused people mistake Spanish for Latin

[@darkodjogo96]

Ave, Luciane, Serbi te salutant :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Et ego Serbōs salūtō

[@ivanantic8558]

I don't know if you noticed, but at the beginning of the song you can hear "Onas eroproc ni somrefne (amrifni) snem" which when you read backwards becomes "Mens enfermos (infirma) in corpore sano".

[@ridleyroid9060]

Salute from Serbia Luke, I didnt even know we HAD a song in latin.

[@eddykatz1515]

"Romani ite domum" (John Cleese) 😊😊😊 Napred Konstrakta!

[@daca8395]

Romanes eiunt domus!

[@ivanjevtic2084]

I`m from Serbia and I am very thankfull for using Latin language in this song...specially when you saw others songs. I love so much roman language, history and everything about that big Empire (early Republic)...So I guess I`m very satisfied what you done with Latin in this song .Are you from US?😃

[@pultaceous]

Yes, he's from the U.S.

[@TitanV]

As a Serbian, I thank you dear professor for this wonderful analysis of our Eurosong competition finalist's song! 😉 I must say I have noticed that the mistakes you have found in the Latin pronunciation are most likely related to the Serbian language's accentuation (in most cases in the beginning syllables, never in the end ones). It seemed like a natural inclination for the singer to stray away towards a more "Serbicized" way of vocalizing some sounds. Also, I am pretty astonished that you haven't noticed that "S" was too "clean" as well (what about that?). 😇🤔😄😉 That's my theory at least, by being the native speaker of one language, and the devote follower of your work regarding the other one ☺ Aaaand, one more thing... yeah - it's one language, no matter the name (although I do consider it to be only "Serbian", at least until I get enough evidence for the contrary) having four (the number may grow in the future, but that's Balkan for you...) standards. We can most definitely understand each other perfectly well. Politics remains as the decisive differentiator in this matter, I'm afraid. But, I am babbling too much now... so, thanks once again! All the best!

[@stevejohnson3357]

My favorite Cat Stevens song is O Caritas which is in Latin. I don't know how good it is but it sounds good. It's in a kind of flamenco rhythm. Not his most popular.

[@MatthewsPersonal]

Great video Luke! And interesting discussion on the comments. :)

[@aesir1ases64]

Instant like because of the epic sax guy, never liked a video so fast! lol

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

🎷 I hope you caught Gandalf at the end. 🧙‍♂️

[@aesir1ases64]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Epic sax Gandalf is even more epic!

[@abis1688]

Remember to vote #24 on Saturday! Belgrade 2023

[@Claxen11]

I have another recent pop song that could be of interest, T'amo (No potho reposare) by Mahmood. It has a chorus dedicated to his Sardinian mother that could be a nice opportunity to analyse Sardinian-Latin similarities. I also would love to hear the Classical Version of this beautiful Canto. So nice.

[@SlavicDubs]

As a Serb who's been watching your channel for years, thank you for this analysis 🙏 and I love that your so well-informed about the Serbo-Croatian language but to be honest I expected nothing less from you 😉 As some people here have already mentioned, in Serbian neuter adjectives in the nominative case have the ending -o. For example "the body is healthy" would be "Telo je zdravo". So the "sano" kinda sounds correct in a Serbian logic 🤣

[@hemoglobbin]

But she says "sanum", actually.

[@LuxisAlukard]

Dude, this was awesome! Greetings from Serbia! Pozdrav iz Srbije!

[@abstractionart3736]

How cute you are! Kisses from Serbia. Thank you for your reaction.

[@michelasdissapointmentanda8513]

this is too good for Eurovision

[@wannabecartoonist7389]

I actually think she did say sānum,its just not super noticeable at first listen but it is definitely there

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Nope, it’s sano. Both the on screen CC lyrics and the description confirm this is what she is singing.

[@wannabecartoonist7389]

@@polyMATHY_Luke welp I guess I heard something that wasn’t there still seems like she said it but quietly and the CC misenterpreted it maybe it’s just wishful thinking lol

[@milancelisac]

You’re right. She does sing sanum. The CC are erroneous. The correct case is on the official site as well. It may come across as sano due to the extra length of the first syllable while singing as a reflection of her native Serbian dialect which is leaden with vowel lengths. That in turn renders the second syllable (num) almost identical to the one he hears (no).

[@mirnacudiczgela1963]

Well, no offence to anyone, but I heard some Croatian linguists say it is not the same language. Anyway, I am Croat and I really admire Konstrakta for this song.

[@2dimitropolis370]

Thank you. Love from Serbia

[@GustavSvard]

I like how you nitpick on the grammar and pronunciation of the Latin in the song, while also clearly stating that you're dong it basically for educational purposes (and fun) and that you enjoy that there is Latin in the song. I also like how you point out that some of the pronunciation mistakes are directly related to fitting the words to the melody of the song, it's part of that art, and say it is thus really not an issue. Only thing I'd add to that is that using/pronouncing/.. words in non-standard ways is not that uncommon in songs, also songs written/sung by native speakers of the language a song is in. :)

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed!

[@saetemusic]

Let's not forget about the latin phrase in the beginning of the song, which is sung backwards

[@christosm2547]

Good job guys, Konstraktism is spreading! ❤

[@markopizurica]

I don't care too much about the name of my language, but tbh it's insulting to one's intelligence to pretend all the derivatives are not the same one. It's like pretending american, british and australian english are not the same language.

[@kxenia7852]

I'm glad you started with Moldova hahah ❤💃

[@Gea2222]

I watch every YT reaction on this song an very few of them know that this is latin

[@frdz4188]

She did say 'corpus je sanum'. She was helped by the best Latin teachers from Belgrade who congratulated her on both her performance and 'Latin'. Do not be misled by the lyrics since there are mistakes even in the original text, e.g. frke oko usana instead of what she really says: fleke (blemishes) oko usana. But this is what happens when you let enthusiasts do the job instead of professionals... As for the stress, sometimes the original lyrics in one's native language are pronounced in such a strange way (to 'go' well with the rhythm of the song) - remember Katy Perry and 'Unconditionally'!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

See the pinned comment

[@СрбјеХристоврадујесесмрти]

gretings from Serbia🇷🇸

[@95Minja]

I really enjoy your videos. So cool to see that you did a recension of any Serbian song. As a Serbian native speaker, and a typical person from the Balkans, I just would have preferred if you called the language of this song only Serbian, because the rhythm and stress accents of the words are just so different from Serbian to Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian. I will use the chance to thank you for this knowledge that you share for free on KZbin.

[@frakkintoasterluvva7920]

Well, there are 4 dialects of Serbo-Croatian - but they are Shtokavian, Kaikavian, Chakavian and Torlakian (the first 3 were recognized as such in the 19th century when the language was standardized). And the standard versions that are called Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are all the same dialect, Shtokavian, they are merely different language variants rather than dialects. The other three are considered sub-sandard regional dialects: Kaikavian - in the western part of Croatia Chakavian - in the Istria peninsula (far western part of Croatia bordering Italy) Torlakian - southeast Serbia, it sounds somewhere between Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian (e,g, lack of case inflections is probably its best known characteristic)

[@iulianbogasieru5919]

I saw what you did there. The reference to Moldova in the beginning. We speak Latin - or rather Neolatin - here too. ;-)

[@arsantiqua8741]

I think the mistakes can be interpreted as part of the "unhealthy mind" theme in the song.

[@jeboshifru]

"je" means "is" in Serbian (Also Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin :D ). She just plays with words there.

[@tadesubaru1383]

I was hoping you'd talk about this song!!!

[@serbianboss3294]

Regards from Serbian Montenegro!

[@daca8395]

One more thing that might interest you: in Serbia we were tought to pronounce C in latin as /ts/.

[@corinna007]

This reminded me of a song my friend showed me a few years ago by a German band that's half in German, half in Latin. The song is "Schwarze Sonne" and the band is E Nomine. Maybe you'd like to check it out.

[@palamaro1603]

Hey people, for all of you who want an answer on the topic of Serbo-Croatian without going to his patreon, it's the same language. Various post-yugoslav countries like BaH and Montenegro all wanted their own languages after independence, so they declared their own dialects to be languages in their own right. In reality all of these wannabe languages are more similar to each other than American English is to London English for instance. And in most of these countries large portions of the population, sometimes the majority, will say they speak Serbo-Croatian. This however is a loaded statement, as here nobody really uses the term Serbo-Croatian. Croats will say they speak Croatian, Serbs will say they speak Serbian, most Muslims will say they speak Bosniak (with some saying they speak Serbian or more rarely Croatian) and most Montenegrins will say they speak Serbian or Montenegrin. The most common name for the language is Serbian, in terms of users and distribution of the term, but no matter where you go or how the locals call this language, everyone is aware of the fact that it is in fact the same language. Macedonia is its own topic as the South-Eastern language border is equally as inconsistent and political.

[@JovanLemon]

as a serb, i 100% agree, its literally the same language with only some mostly minor differences

[@izabela5818]

Bravo, thank you!

[@msicvbes4977]

I think Greece once included a line in ancient greek too in the beginning of a performance in the 90s.

[@NemooSK]

Little fun fact, Slovak actually has a letter for double R, which is ŕ - so basically, a long r. Same goes for L, with the letter ĺ.

[@BorisTeodosijevic]

But she does say "Corpus je sanum". Perhaps you just haven't heard it right.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Check my pinned comment

[@BorisTeodosijevic]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks, that is it! :)

[@mir6685]

Hello Mathy. Good video! You can say without trouble that all the countries from former Yugoslavia speak the same language. In history they were many times one kingdome, tribe, country. Before they got their new names they had the same ancestors, these are the modern Illyrians (Serbs, Croats, Bosnina, Montengrin, Macedonian etc.) . Just remember the Ilyrians which fought against Roman Empire 200 years. We are One!! But d/t the influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Rom-Catholic Church and the Ottoman Empire they are today what you see, seperated due to religious history and segregation through time. But mostly everyone knows that in our countries. So we have no dilema about the language. The teritory of former Yugoslavia is also one of the oldest and first human civilizations which had created their symbol like letters even older then egyptian, sumerian. And also, you can't say just: "Volim te" ; cause this is adressed only to the one person you love, not anybody. If you want to say: "Love you all"; then try: "Volim vas!" or "Ljubim vas= Kiss You".

[@urosius91]

The text also includes Onas eroproc ni somrefne snem (Mens enfermos in corpore sano) at the very beginning of the song. 👍🏻

[@lar.8168]

This video is giving me life as a Latin student from Serbia who is a huge fan of both ESC and this channel 🙌 Edit: I could have sworn she says “corpus je sanum”

[@chloevitagliano9565]

One question, where do you learn where specific words have phonemic vowel length, and how do you know it's accurate, for example you wrote "mēns" but my Latin dictionary (IL 4a edizione) writes it as "mens"

[@xshwei]

It is a convention to write a macron over a vowel before and

[@spellandshield]

I rarely see native speakers of highly inflected languages analogise their own structures to that of Latin or any other language for that matter; the amount of times I have heard Polish and Russian speakers for example not append an -s to English third person singular present tells me that most people, no matter how inflected and complex their own language is, do not look at analogical paradigms but rather look at languages in isolation, granting of course occasional exceptions.

[@AlexMilenk]

It save a lot of effort the fact that Latin and Serbian language use hard "r" in it's pronunciation. Another interesting fact is, Serbian and Italian languages both share voices which are non-existant in English, like in Italian words "ciao" or "taglia".

[@NuNa_NuNu]

Great video!! I wonder if you ever heard of a final fantasy game song named Somnus. I would love to hear your thoughts/analytics on it 😬😁

[@Cyclonus2377]

Loved Gandalf at the end 😅😅😅😅

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Haha I’m glad 🧙‍♂️

[@HenryLoenwind]

This video really doesn't work with 30 seconds around each music quote being muted. :-(

[@yototrash]

Also, the very first line is in Latin, BUT IN REVERSE

[@gabrielakokanovic]

Queenstrakta 😄mora biti zdrava 🙌

[@GalaxyAngeltai]

If you take requests, I'd like to see Latin analysis of the lyrics of "Lilium" from Elfen Lied.

[@micks7655]

There is a vers in Latin at very beginning of the song " ONAS EROPROC NI SOMREFNE SNEM" spoken really fast

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Nice catch