# All Slavic Languages: on the Internet



## mateo19

Hello everyone,

One of the most challenging things I've found about Slavic languages are the prepositions (besides verbal aspect, nominal declension and palatalization of obscure consonants ;-).  For now -I plan on opening another thread about this topic later- *I would like to know which preposition you use to say, "on the Internet"*.  The context could be, "This is a page on the Internet", or "I was reading an interesting article on the Internet".  Also, in English we must capitalize Internet.  And in your languages?

I think that the Slovak is "v Internete" but I stand open to all corrections.


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## jazyk

I've mostly seen w Internecie in Polish, na internetu in Czech and в Интернете in Russian.


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## Jana337

I like "na internetu" but some Czechs - a clear minority - would write "v internetu". The tendency is not to capitalize it.


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## winpoj

In Czech, the most common preposition is "na" - na internetu - although "v" is also sometimes used. As you can see we don't capitalize "internet". Initially it sometimes was capitalized as it was seen as the proper name of a particular network but it is nowadays perceived more as a type of medium, like "televize" for example.


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## Azori

In Slovak it's "na internete", never "v internete". We don't capitalize it either.  Colloquial forms: "na nete" and "na webe".


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## Athaulf

In Croatian and other BCS variants, we use "*na *internetu".


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## Kanes

In Bulgarian more often you say *na interneta* (on the internet), but when you are refering to something more specific I think you say *v interneta* (in the internet) more often. For example you will say I have a page* in* the internet. The difference is the same as in English... Oh and no capitalization.


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## TriglavNationalPark

*Slovenian*

Formal, more linguistically purist:

on the Internet = *na medmrežju*
(*med* = inter-, between; *mreža* = net)

Less formal:

on the Internet = *na internetu*

Related: 

on the Web = *na spletu*
(*splet* = web)

In this context, none of the words are capitalized.


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## phosphore

Athaulf said:


> In Croatian and other BCS variants, we use "*na *internetu".


 
Also "na mreži" is possible.


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## dudasd

In Serbian, "Internet" is capitalized if it's noun referring to the network itself: *na Internetu*. If "internet" serves as an adjective (internet služba, internet adresa), then it's not capitalized.


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## jazyk

> For example you will say I have a page* in* the internet. The difference is the same as in English...


I don't think you ever say in the Internet in English.


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## mateo19

Hello Kanes,

I didn't know that Bulgarian is now being written with the Latin script!  That is most interesting! 

And this is true, we never say "in the Internet" (you will probably never hear it in your life time) because we perceive that it isn't possible to be inside it... but on it, on the surface of it where the webpages are, not where the servers and cables are.  "In the Internet" would mean like in one of those science fiction movies where someone is digitized and goes inside of the world wide web.  There, it would mean "in cyberspace" and be opposed to "on the Internet".

Thank you for the correction, Lior Neith.   I had a fifty fifty chance!


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## Kanes

I wrote directly with latin so I dont have to write it second time, it makes no difference here. I've actually heard english people say in the internet. I dont think most people perceive much about the concept when speaking. The diference as you said between cyberspace and internet gets blured allot of times. On Bulgarian it means the same thing basicly so we can use both on and in, depending on the context.


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## texpert

A simple Google search has shown about 40m results of the "in the internet" phrase. More than half of them might be wider phrases such as "in the Internet age" and large part of users are non-native speakers, still isn't this number huge by itself? 

Anyways, I'd like to know *how many Slavic languages *can use the equivalent of the *"on the net"* phrase (so far I had seen _na netu_ - SK and _na mreži_ - was it BCS or SI?) I find it interesting because it means speakers must recognize "net" as the separate word and perhaps get the meaning as well (if it's not a translation as _mreža_).


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## phosphore

dudasd said:


> In Serbian, "Internet" is capitalized if it's noun referring to the network itself: *na Internetu*. If "internet" serves as an adjective (internet služba, internet adresa), then it's not capitalized.


 
Are you sure about that? I don't think so. I am not sure about its use as an adjective either, it does not seem correct to me.


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## mateo19

This is an interesting thread already!

Well, I am a native speaker of English and I work in a computer lab.  I also consulted my co-workers, who are system administrators and network managers (that is, we work on the Internet all day long), and we only accept "on the Internet".  They all commented that "in the Internet" sounds wrong.  But this is about Slavic languages, not English.   As Texpert very astutely pointed out, most of those hits on Google are either non-native errors or being used as an adjective and not a noun such as "in the Internet age".

The adjective comment is worth more time to us, though.  I was surprised that B.C.S. used "internet" as both a noun and adjective.  In Slovak an affix is added to turn it into an adjective: internetová stránka or webová stránka.  I have seen the same thing for e-mai: e-mailová adresa, e-mailový účet.  And in your languages?  Do you distinguish between Internet as a noun and adjective?


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## dudasd

phosphore said:


> Are you sure about that? I don't think so. I am not sure about its use as an adjective either, it does not seem correct to me.


 
Absolutely sure. Pravopis MS is not treating the word, but Ivan Klajn and Milan Šipka are, in their Veliki rečnik stranih reči i izraza (2006). They also allow the version with small i, but I guess that it refers (as Klajn wrote somewhere a couple of years ago) to "any" net of a similar kind, not to the global Internet we are using at the moment.

About the de-capitalized adjectives: there are many words that lose their capital letter when they are applied as adjectives. Most often it happens with indeclinable nouns which do not have derived adjectives. Like:

On je Zulu. (Refers to the nationality, so it's capitalized.)
On je zulu ratnik. (Here "zulu" is adjective, thus de-capitalized.)

Video sam kako živi narod Tutsi. (Nationality again.)
Bio sam u jednom tutsi selu. (Adjective.)

Etc.


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## texpert

I think some of the confusion could be attributed to the fact that not _all _of the users are of young age or geeks. _In the Internet _(actually I think it's pretty rare in Czech as well) can be pretty acceptable to some people of 50 and more. I remember my mother asking in late 90's: _what is your inteŕnet mark?_ (meaning e-mail address). 

One way or another, there's always affix in CZ as well.


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## phosphore

I've searched a little if the word "internet" should be capitalised and there are different opinions on it, and I am not at all convinced that it should be, even if Klajn or Šipka said so.


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## phosphore

mateo19 said:


> The adjective comment is worth more time to us, though. I was surprised that B.C.S. used "internet" as both a noun and adjective. In Slovak an affix is added to turn it into an adjective: internetová stránka or webová stránka. I have seen the same thing for e-mai: e-mailová adresa, e-mailový účet. And in your languages? Do you distinguish between Internet as a noun and adjective?


 
Even though in Serbian nouns should not be used as adjectives (and so "internet adresa" is not correct), they are, pretty commonly. But to me personally, "mrežna adresa" or "mrežna usluga" instead of "internet servis" looks (and sounds) better.


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## dudasd

phosphore said:


> Even though in Serbian nouns should not be used as adjectives (and so "internet adresa" is not correct), they are, pretty commonly. But to me personally, "mrežna adresa" or "mrežna usluga" instead of "internet servis" looks (and sounds) better.


 
From the point of "spirit of language" you are right, but from some imported words you just can't derive adjectives with the help of suffixes. The problem is much older than Internet; compare syntagms like "samur kabanica" or "dilber devojče", which are at least several centuries old. Also compare "paradajz salata", "kamp kućica" etc.

As "mreža" is not covering the full meaning of "Internet" (nor people really use it), I believe that even adjective "internetski/a/o" could work very fine. But now we are off topic...


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## TriglavNationalPark

texpert said:


> _na mreži_ - was it BCS or SI?


 
Not Slovenian; you can say *na medmrežju*  or *na spletu *, but not *na mreži *.



dudasd said:


> I believe that even adjective "internetski/a/o" could work very fine. But now we are off topic...


 
In Slovenian, the adjectives *internetni*,* spletni*, and (rarely) *medmrežni* are used in this context.


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## trance0

texpert said:


> Anyways, I'd like to know *how many Slavic languages *can use the equivalent of the *"on the net"* phrase (so far I had seen _na netu_ - SK and _na mreži_ - was it BCS or SI?) I find it interesting because it means speakers must recognize "net" as the separate word and perhaps get the meaning as well (if it's not a translation as _mreža_).



Slovene is one of them, we often use "na netu" colloquially instead of "na internetu/spletu/medmrežju".


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## Ptak

In Russian it's definitely "*в* интернете" only.


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## Heroj_MKD

In Macedonian "на интернет" (or written in latin "na internet")


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## jbird74

Croatian:

na Internetu
na netu
na mreži


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