# Slovenian : ko naše je krvi dekle;



## harakiri

Bog žívi vas Slovenke,
prelepe, žlahtne rožice;
ni take je mladenke,
ko naše je krvi dekle;
naj sinóv
zarod nov
iz vas bo strah sovražnikov!

From the poem "Zdravljica".

The God lives in the village of a Slovene girl, 
of a gorgeous, noble, small rose; 
(she) is not such a young girl, 
the girl is like our blood, 
letting the son's birth new from the village 
is going to be the fear of enemies! 

I suppose, if translating this part, it becomes like this. 

The idea of this part mostly means that a Slovene girl is not a fancy urban girl, who loves the fashion, but a woman, who had been as a worker, a housekeeper, and even a potential mother, who had supported all of us. And from such a woman, when babies are coming up to this world, enemies should feel the fear, because such babies are going to be strong soldiers as their mom. 

Now maybe Slovene girls want to be against it. XD But it's written in 19th Century. Actually people didn't really assume enemies. They did care of their daily life more for their daily survival. To keep their own life well, people had been against "enemies". They didn't dream the nationalism on the table. (Though the poem was written on the table by Prešeren, still he tried being on the side of the normal people, who had been for daily survival.) 

Well, something wrong?

ko naše je krvi dekle;
ko : like
naše : singular, genitive
krvi : genitive
dekle : nominative

Well, grammatically things might have been a bit unstable, but possible to understand reasonably, I believe.


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## harakiri

I got the answer in another thread. Hvala! 

*Irbis
Senior Member*
Kamnik, Slovenia
Slovenian, Slovenia
Today at 3:05 AM

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#10
"Bog žívi vas Slovenke," was translated wrong, it should be like:
Let God give good life to you, Slovenian women.
Poetry (especially so old) is very difficult for machine translation.
ni take je mladenke,
ko naše je krvi dekle;
There is no such young woman
as the girl of our blood.
Normal word order is " kot je dekle naše krvi"


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## harakiri

> (she) is not such a young girl,
> the girl is like our blood, 
Wrong

There is no such young woman
as the girl of our blood. 
Correct. 

I tried justifying with my wrong understanding. 
Women are beautiful.  This is simply the better understanding indeed. I agree to that.


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## Irbis

I'm still not sure about meaning for "živi", we don't use this verb much as transitive.
Fran/SSKJ²
It could be meaning 11 (support, maintain) or even better meaning 15 (long live to), but it is unusual to have subject in this meaning. But on the other hand, this is poetry, poets can create new meanings.


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## eeladvised

Since Prešeren uses the verb transitively, it must be "živiti", not "živeti".  The SSKJ entry for it gives several examples for "bog živi" + object in the accusative.


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## Irbis

eeladvised said:


> Since Prešeren uses the verb transitively, it must be "živiti", not "živeti".  The SSKJ entry for it gives several examples for "bog živi" + object in the accusative.


You are right. And I learned new verb.


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## Panceltic

"Bog te živi", "Bog vas živi", "Bog živi Slovenijo" are all _quite_ common in my experience ... Not used every day of course, but not as obscure as to not be heard ever.


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## Irbis

But I never realized that base form is živiti, not živeti. I know there are transitive/intransitive pairs like zeleneti/zeleniti, but I never noticed that živeti also has such pair. In Gigafida 2.0 there are 6 instances of "živiti" in infinitive, two of those are mistakes.


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## harakiri

I see... It sounds more natural. But in Besana, we don't find "živiti". On the other hand, we find the poem in Croatia with this word, written in the 17th Century. The translation of Irbis was correct, but it's with "živiti", not with "živeti".


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## Irbis

Besana doesn't have all the words, especially older words can be missing.


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## Slogos

Common Slavic verb pair:
*Živeti - to live, *živiti - to enliven


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## harakiri

Slogos said:


> Common Slavic verb pair:
> *Živeti - to live, *živiti - to enliven



Обычно мы часто слышим такое слово по-русски? Ну, может быть, а я сам не знал. ;-) Честно говоря, даже на английском не совсем знал. А если кто-то бы рассказал это слово, я бы понимал, что "en-" + "глагол". На японском, конечно, у нас есть такое понимание как "enliven", а мне кажется, у нас слишком много слов... Так что я сам не знаю, как лучше переводить это слово на японский. Конечно, если мы посмотрим словарь, есть слова как "活性化する", "活発にさせる", "元気付ける", "燃え上がらせる", "勢いを付ける", и т.д. Можно ещё думать столько таких слов. Общее слово? Я не знаю, либо всегда можно так думать... Россия далеко же. Кстати, даже на русском есть разные слово... 
enliven [ɪnˈlaɪvn] гл
оживлять, разнообразить, оживить
(revive, diversify, revitalize)
вдохновлять
(inspire)

Well, but it seems already a different question. I mean, I'm not sure if always we can say "Common in Slavic"... Using "živiti - to enliven" commonly? I doubt it. Even if one says "No", I'm not surprised. If one says "Yes", as well, I'm not. But anyway, natives can afford to understanding what it means immediately. Just "en-" + "verb (live)" => "enliven". This kinda ease exists in any language for the natives. On the other hand, in each area (country) we may have some different trend, too. For example, now in Russia we don't hear the word "лепо". One Russian friend said, "It's an old Russian word, which we can find in the past, but now we don't use it." On the other hand, even now "lepo" "lijepo" are commonly used in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia. In Slovene, too. 

By the way, very well I do understand what the meaning of the phrase "Bog žívi vas Slovenke" is. ;-) Thanks all.


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## Panceltic

Я думаю, что Slogos имел в виду *праславянский язык*, когда он написал "Common Slavic" (так он иногда называемый по-английски), а не "распространённые в славянских языках". Такие пары глаголов (были) очень обычные.


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## harakiri

Если так, я понимаю. Когда я ответил, я не думал о праславянском языке.  Спасибо!


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## Timijan

Komú narpred veselo
zdravljico, bratje! čmò zapét'? 
Bog našo nam deželo,
Bog *žívi *ves slovenski svet,    
brate vse,
kar nas je
sinóv sloveče matere!

Bog *žívi* vas Slovenke,        
prelepe, žlahtne rožice;
ni take je mladenke,
ko naše je krvi dekle;
naj sinóv
zarod nov
iz vas bo strah sovražnikov!

Dokaj dni
naj *živí                                *
Bog, kar nas dobrih je ljudi!

This topic is interesting. We can see that Prešeren used imperative verb - there are also the accents in his manuscripts.
To make it clear - *živí is not imperative, but žívi is imperative.*
Comma was never used for expressions like Bog živi domovino! or Bog živi kralja! (Long live the homeland!, Long live the king!)

In searching for the right meaning of the imperative form of *žívi*: it could mean to live, to come alive, to become more lively, to support, even to survive, but in this case it is just a phrase and *it can not be translated literally!* However, Prešeren made this poem more lively with it, because it gives us feeling of all meanings together, he wants us to stand up, to speak, to be proud, to survive!

*Long live Slovene women !*


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## Panceltic

naj + indicative 3rd person = imperative 3rd person

naj živí > žívi

naj bo > bódi

naj se zgodí > zgôdi se

etc.


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## Timijan

Panceltic said:


> naj + indicative 3rd person = imperative 3rd person
> 
> naj živí > žívi
> 
> naj bo > bódi
> 
> naj se zgodí > zgôdi se
> 
> etc.


So what would you like to say ? *Žívi* is imperative form (it can not be anything else), in the same logic as *bratje!*, even if it is just one noun in the middle of the question. This is how Prešeren created the rhythm of the Toast.


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## Panceltic

Yes, it is an imperative form of course. I was just explaining for @harakiri 's benefit that this is the 3rd person imperative which is not really used in everyday language and is replaced by "naj" + indicative.


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## harakiri

Timijan, Panceltic, I get it.  Thanks! As Timijan pointed out, "naj" is used effectively to make the rhythm.  The same idea is repeatedly used well.  In Japan we have such hobbies, too.  For example, "iroha-uta".

I hope that soon we will kick off stupid Corona.  I want to visit Slovenia to hear the Slovene rhythm, to meet Slovene beauties, and to taste home made cheese with a glass of wine.


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