CherryCrush , 2016-04-27
kdravia
金, 23/03/2012 - 07:48
1. Mladi ga momci kosili, ---> Young lads has mown it,
2. I tebe, jelo, prosili. ---> And to you, Lena, they said (literally asked):
3. All drink the ruddy wine - article is not necessary and red wine sounds better.
4. Mala mi soba miriše U kojoj jelo uzdiše. ---> My little room smells of her breath (literally - in which she exhales)
fulicasenia
金, 23/03/2012 - 08:42
Seny93
金, 23/03/2012 - 09:13
Hi! I do not write very well in English but I will try to explain you the meaning of the song. "Jela" means, in Serbian, fir (the tree). It's also a single female name and/or it can be used as a shorter name of "Jelena" as in English "Sam-Samuel" or "Tim-Timothy". And if you notice, in the first verse is written Jel-O, Jel-O, Jelen-O. This happens because the Serbian grammar has 7 cases with their declinations. The cases are: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, locative. In this case we have a vocative case because the man who "sings" invokes Jelena: Jelo, Jeleno, don't trample the green hay. In Serbian many female names ending in "a" change in the accusative case "a" in "o" like Dara-Daro, Dunja-Dunjo, Jana-Jano, Dana-Dano, Lida-Lido, Tina-Tino,... In colloquial speech today many female names have lost this form of variation. Names like Kristina, Milena, Jovana, Katarina, Dragana,...this is because they sound a bit archaic. Nowadays Jelena or Helena are not declined in the vocative case with "Jeleno". It sounds archaic. In the fourth verse the subject is "his little room" that smells, in which (Jelo-vocative) the same room sighs. The whole village and the mothers know that he kisses Jelen-u(accusative case :)) In Serbian "ljubiti" means "to kiss" and "voleti" means "to love" -My mother and yours (know), that I kiss you-
Lumosnight
火, 04/06/2013 - 21:25
Helena and Jelena are two completely different names with different meanings.
Helena is of Greek origin, meaning 'torch'.
Jelena is of Serbian/Slavic origin, meaning 'deer' (which is a beautiful meaning).
You completely translated her name wrong, it's Jelo, Jelena, not Lena, Helena (it sounds western, when it's supposed to be a Serbian song with traditional Serbian names). The nickname Jela means 'fir tree', not 'food'!
barsiscev
火, 04/06/2013 - 21:56
In Russian also Елена is derivated from Greek "Ἑλένη"
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%95%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B0
olivia d.
Warning! I don't know Serbian. This translation is probably full of mistakes! I also think that the original text is full of puns, but I could be wrong. 'Jelo' means 'dish/eating'; what would cause young folk to trample down the green hay???; kdravia thinks 'uzdiše' is 'breath', but the dictionary also has 'sigh' and 'groan'.
Thanks, kdravia! I've revised the translation according to your suggestions. I'm still sticking with 'beg' instead of 'say' or 'ask' though. Also, 'smell' isn't very flattering, so I used 'fragrance' instead, but it doesn't have a verbal form, only an adjectival and nominal form.
Thanks, Seny93! I've revised the translation according to your suggestions. Unfortunately I can't really understand what you're saying about the meaning of the fourth verse-- sorry! It seems really hard to translate it exactly and still come up with something that makes sense and sounds good in English.
What about:
"The fragrance of my little room
Lena, and the sighs it's heard!" ???
Again, not a direct translation.