# All Slavic languages: Kraj



## DaleC

Right now there is a thread in which it has come to light that 'jagoda' means strawberry to most Slavs, but it means blueberry to Poles. 

This reminds me that in Russian and U*krai*nian, 'kraj' means "border", but it means something like "homeland" in Polish. (In World War 2, the Poles called their guerrilla forces the Armija Krajowa, whose standard English translation is "the Home Army".) 

I wonder how many works there are (in any language) that compare in a systematic way the semantic drift of cognate words between any two (or more Slavic languages). For example, 'mesto' means "place" in Russian, while 'město' means "city" in Czech (and the word for "place" is 'místo'). 

When one compares German and English word lists, one finds there also many amusing examples of semantic drift.


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## Krossaffschcheg

[край][kraj] - for general case - point (area, location, place, border, cell, territory, etc.) around center (capital, point, city, land, your homeplace, etc). 

If you live in province, and capital too far from you and capital state very politicaly military economic strong - you (may be) imagine it as center and circle of points - i.e. states, provinces, towns, etc. In slavic languages this psychology has old history.

I don't know about other slavic lands. There is In Russian language idiomas like "moj kraj", any regions(states) has names like "Krasnojarskij Kraj"..

About Ukraina.
There is 2 opinion -
1) Urkaina means far area, border land, Russia or Poland province, territory
 Ukraian nationalists example "benderovtzi" says - "it no true".
2) Urkaina means land of "Ukri". Such nation refer to any West Europe authors, ex. Mavro Orbini
Where true - i don't know

---
thank you sorry my english


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## skye

In Slovenian "kraj" means a small settlement. Not a village, not a city, not a big town - a small town. Something like "ein Ort" in German. That's the best equivalent I can think of.

("Mesto" can mean both place and town/city in Slovenian.)


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## Suane

Kraj in Slovak:
- margin, rim, (edge) 
- land
- administrative division
- archaism for homeland
Mesto- town, city, also downtown (colloquial)
Miesto- place, locality, post (like in job)


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## Aleksandra75

In Bosnian/Serbian

"Kraj" means the end as well as place and 'rodni kraj' means homelad.

'Mesto or mjesto' means place, a spot or town (of average size or bigger village)  

Thats all that commes to my mind....


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## Jagoda

"Kraj" in Polish means country.
"Ojczyzna" would be translated as homeland, 'land of my fathers' (ojciec=father).
"Miasto" is city, but "miejsce" is place.


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## MindStorm

Oh yeah, in russian kraj is very same as in slovak, except it doesn't have a meaning of homeland


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## cyanista

> Oh yeah, in russian kraj is very same as in slovak, except it doesn't have a meaning of homeland


Still, you can say родной край /radnoj kraj/ talking about homeland.


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## Suane

cyanista said:
			
		

> Still, you can say родной край /radnoj kraj/ talking about homeland.


 
In Slovakia nowadays, when somebody wants to talk about kraj as a homeland, (s)he says it only in this combination (rodný kraj), nobody imagines homeland if you say only kraj. And as I have already said it is archaism, so it is not used nowadays very much.


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## Jana337

Suane said:
			
		

> Kraj in Slovak:
> - margin, rim, (edge)
> - land
> - administrative division
> - archaism for homeland
> Mesto- town, city, also downtown (colloquial)
> Miesto- place, locality, post (like in job)


I have nothing to add for Czech.
Just a translation (not really necessary because Dale said it):
Mesto (Sl.) - město (Cz.)
Miesto (Sl.) - místo (Cz.)

Well, maybe something more:
There is a word related to kraj - krajina. It means landscape, Landschaft. A totally common word. We also often call paintings-sceneries krajinka (diminutive).

Jana


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## Jagoda

I just remembered something! Just to add to the Polish translation, the expression "na s*kraj*u" means on the border of sthg.


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## Jana337

Jagoda said:
			
		

> I just remembered something! Just to add to the Polish translation, the expression "na s*kraj*u" means on the border of sthg.


Yes, like in Czech - na kraji, na okraji (similarly in Slovak, I guess).

Jana


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## MindStorm

На краю-in russian


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## martini_

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Yes, like in Czech - na kraji, na okraji (similarly in Slovak, I guess).
> 
> Jana


 
It's like "Nemocnice na kraji miesta" translated in polish TV: "Szpital na peryferiach"


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## Hryts

Also from the root Край (Kraj), in Ukrainian and Belarusian the word for country is Країна (Krajina) and Краіна (Kraina) respectively.

The most commonly accepted etymology of Україна (Ukrajina) / Украина (Ukraina) [Ukr./Rus.] is that it is derived from the word Окраина (Okraina), which means outskirts, or borderland. Since, when the name "Ukraina" was first used to refer to the area it was the outskirts of the Russia.


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## cadavir

In Croatian and Bosnian "kraj" have two meanings:

1. kraj = the end of something
    example: the end of movie = kraj filma
2. kraj = small place, like village
    example: my village = moj kraj


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## Hryts

*Doba* = 24 hours in Ukrainian, also.


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## templar414

cadavir said:
			
		

> In Croatian and Bosnian "kraj" have two meanings:
> 
> 1. kraj = the end of something
> example: the end of movie = kraj filma
> 2. kraj = small place, like village
> example: my village = moj kraj


 
There is one more meaning:

3. kraj = next to
example: kraj mene = next to me, beside me

Also, ther are some idioms:
Stati na kraj nečemu - put an end to something
Izaći na kraj s nečim - to deal with something, to manage something


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## Nadzieja

SORRY, Jagoda, I must not agrre. KRAJ in moderrn polish means MOSTLY county (ang It cas be said that it mainly means POland in comparison to panstwo< soory for my typing I'm in India, no polish letters on the key board)but t may be by subjective feeling

however  KRAJ mean oslo region (=kraina) and in some implicit way BORDER - skraj however i found both wersions


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## Jagoda

Nadzieja,
as you can see in my post from March 16th, I wrote that: "Kraj" in Polish means country.
Later, I added that "na skraju" means on the border of sthg. In this word you can see _kraj, _suggesting maybe that "na skraju" was etymologically derived from "kraj" or the other way around.


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## slavic_one

Split from here:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=948752



Binario said:


> Ok, so the lyrics are:
> "край, далёкий край, где нас с тобою встретит любовь.
> край, далёкий край моих желаний, сказок и снов.
> край, волшебный край, где нас с тобою встретит любовь."
> 
> Country, faraway country where you and me will meet love.
> Country, faraway country of my wishes, fairytales and dreams.
> Country, magical country where you and me will meet love.



One more question about this song: how край can be translated as a country?
Or did you mean just some area, because I was looking in dictionary if край has a meaning of country (страна) but I find it couldn't! Or maybe it can in some spoken Russian?


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## Christo Tamarin

slavic_one said:


> One more question about this song: how край can be translated as a country?
> Or did you mean just some area, because I was looking in dictionary if край has a meaning of country (страна) but I find it couldn't! Or maybe it can in some spoken Russian?


 
As you can see *here*, *край* also means *land* or *country*.


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## slavic_one

Christo Tamarin said:


> As you can see *here*, *край* also means *land* or *country*.



Thank you! I was already looking in some dictionary but haven't found meaning of country! But now I see


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