# All Slavic languages: Titles declension



## 涼宮

Good evening!


When you are talking about a book, film or something's title, do you decline it? Or do you leave them in the nominative case?

For instance:

1) I am reading _''The Little Prince_'' (nominative or accusative because of 'read'?)

2) I've heard about ''The Red Riding Hood''.

Thanks in advance!


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## LilianaB

Hi, Suzymiya. It may depend in which language. You decline it in Polish and Russian. I am not an expert on other Slavic languages. It may vary.  In Russian, you would more often add the word book, or film in front of the title. Then you don't decline the title.


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## Gnoj

They do decline titles in BCSM. Since there aren't grammar cases in Macedonian and Bulgarian, their declination is done analytically - by adding words outside the title so the title itself is not shape-shifted in any way.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Titles are also declined in Slovenian.



涼宮 said:


> For instance:
> 
> 1) I am reading _''The Little Prince_'' (nominative or accusative because of 'read'?)
> 
> 2) I've heard about ''The Red Riding Hood''.



1.) *Berem Malega princa.* (Because the title refers to a person/character, the animate accusative is used here.)

2.) *Slišal sem za Malo rdečo kapico.*


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## Duya

Gnoj said:


> They do decline titles in BCSM.



...of course, only if they are declinable: _Čitam "Malog princa"_, but _Čitam "Za kim zvona zvone"_.


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## Gnoj

Duya said:


> ...of course, only if they are declinable: _Čitam "Malog princa"_, but _Čitam "Za kim zvona zvone"_.


Yeah, I haven't thought of that.


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## Azori

In Slovak it's possible to decline titles:

1) I am reading ''The Little Prince''. = Čítam Malého princa. (accusative case)
One can also say: Čítam knihu Malý princ. Here the title is in the nominative, the word kniha (book) in the accusative.

2) I've heard about ''The Red Riding Hood''. = Počul(a) som o Červenej čiapočke.
Počul(a) som o knihe/filme Červená čiapočka.


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## Tassos

For BCMS you can also look at the following thread (half of it is in English and the other half in BCMS)
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2382836

And a brief translation of what Duya wrote
_Čitam "Malog princa" - I am reading "The Little Prince"_ (here "The Little Prince" is in the accusative thus "Mal*og* Princ*a*", the nominative would be "Mali Princ") 
_Čitam "Za kim zvona zvone" - I am reading "For whom the bell tolls"_ (here the title remains unchanged as it is undeclinable - by the way this is the Serbian version of the title, Wikipedia gives _Kome zvono zvoni_ for Bosnian and Croatian)


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## Kartof

Gnoj said:


> Since there aren't grammar cases in Macedonian and Bulgarian, their declination is done analytically - by adding words outside the title so the title itself is not shape-shifted in any way.


Extra words aren't necessary in Bulgarian or Macedonian since it's understood that the book is the object of the sentence based on the verb's conjugation.
In Bulgarian it would be 1)"Четя 'Малкият Принц'" and 2)"Чул съм за 'Червената Шапчица'".


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## Gnoj

Kartof said:


> Extra words aren't necessary in Bulgarian or Macedonian since it's understood that the book is the object of the sentence based on the verb's conjugation.
> In Bulgarian it would be 1)"Четя 'Малкият Принц'" and 2)"Чул съм за 'Червената Шапчица'".


I didn't mean it that way, but you're right, it did look like it. Extra words are NOT necessary indeed, what I meant was that words that are normally used before names (such as "на", "за", "од/от" etc), nouns and titles define the context, so declining them is unnecessary.


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## Kartof

Of course, I just wanted to clarify for the OP's sake.


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