One translation dilemma that comes up a lot in the Serbian-English translation pair is this expression sugrađani – ‘fellow citizens’.
For example, this article on the Subotica.com website (a local news portal for the northern city of Subotica) is headlined:
Brojni naši sugrađani ne mogu da se vrate u Srbiju
Many of our fellow citizens are unable to return to Serbia
Except… who says that in English? It sounds extremely formal and stilted at best, and if you Google the expression you will generally find it used in foreign-language publications or in archaic contexts.
Maybe it’s a hangover from communism or similar social systems to think of your neighbour as a ‘fellow citizen’ but the average Brit or American just doesn’t think in those terms and we should definitely avoid translating this term from Serbian to English as such.
So what do they really mean in the article above? They mean ‘people from Subotica’. So maybe translate it like that instead:
Many people from Subotica unable to return to Serbia
Of course it would be even more handy if we had a demonym for the residents of Subotica – Suboticians, say – since if the city in question was London or Paris we could quite happily write:
Many Londoners/Parisians unable to return…
Yes, now they are no longer ‘OUR fellow-citizens’, but since the context is local news, then any ‘Subotician’ will take this as read.
In other contexts the word sugrađani might simply mean ‘members of the public’ or perhaps ‘neighbours’.
When translating we must THINK like a native speaker of English, not just slavishly translate terms from Serbian that seem equivalent. We have to ask, is this really how a native speaker of English would express themselves, and not be afraid to find alternative, more dynamic solutions – and that is one thing we pride ourselves on here at Odista.
