#rijeka

Street scene in Fiume, modern-day Rijeka, Croatia

Anyway, in the regions of Istria and Dalmatia, there’s a lot of Italian influence on local dialects. The history is complicated and pisses everyone off depending on how you describe it and never forget that Venice was built on timber from plundered Croatian trees, apparently. That’s not the point.

The point is i just discovered that in Rijeka/Fiume, a local motto (and football chant) translates to more or less “die, but don’t give up.” As in, dying is fine, it happens, but giving up is unforgivable. (Which I already love because awwww look at them they’re my exact same hard-headed Triestine motherfuckers, singing in a slightly different key.)

In the local čakavski language this is “Krepat, ma ne molat.”

As in, “crepare ma non mollare.” As in they literally took Italian verbs and stuck Slavic endings on them and said HEY, THIS WORKS! In “standard” štokavski Croatian every single one of those words is different (more like “Umrijeti, ali ne odustati”).