Croatian pronunciation / Peinlicher Aussprachefehler in der kroatischen Nationalhymne

Ananova reports that there was a pronunciation error in the singing of the Croatian national anthem before the England-Croatia match on Wednesday. Why was a British singer singing Croatian anyway?

The British singer who sang the Croatian anthem before last night’s match accidentally sang ‘My penis is a mountain’. …

The national anthem is written in old style Croatian, and there can be slightly different interpretations in English because it is a very lyrical language.

The line in which Henry slipped up should have been “mila kuda si planina” (You know my dear how we love your mountains).

But what he actually sang was “mila kura si planina” which means “Dear Penis, you are a Mountain” or “My Dear, my penis is a mountain”.

This does sound a bit fishy, like the story of Kennedy and the ‘jam doughnut’, destined to go down in the annals of rubbish talked about foreign languages. However, a number of Croats are referred to or quoted, and there was some giggling among Croats (however lyrical ‘old style Croatian’ is – one wonders exactly what is meant here: is it like Middle English or Old High German?). So perhaps it’s just a story to deflect attention from more depressing matters.

Comments referring to ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ may be deleted for boredom factor.

(Via Céline)

3 thoughts on “Croatian pronunciation / Peinlicher Aussprachefehler in der kroatischen Nationalhymne

  1. When they refer to old style Croat they probably mean something similar to the German language that was used by Goethe or Schiller… it’s just more lyrical, not really comparable to Old High German (which I can hardly understand).

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