#just so we're clear i don't actually speak bulgarian

[stars-and-darkness]

good evening, people in my computer screen! today i rewatched 2x9, and it reminded me of one thing that's been making me emotional since the first time i saw this episode.

right, so in season 2 episode 9, Katerina, katherine tells her side of what happened between her and the original family to elena. the episode actually starts with a flashback that takes place in 1490, and shows us the birth of katherine's daughter. once the girl is born, katherine asks her mum to hold her baby, at least once.

but her dad doesn't allow it, and he takes the baby away from her, presumably to hand her over to someone else to raise (fuck you mr petrov). while he's carrying the baby off, katherine nearly falls out of the bed trying to go after him, except her mum holds her down with a hug until she exhausts herself.

and the last thing katherine says to her mum is this:

right ... so here's the thing. i don't speak bulgarian, but it is a slavic language, and as such, i can understand some of it. the similarities are there.

and this last line that they translated into english as please, mama - google translate tells me is actually spoken in bulgarian as моля те мамо (molya te mamo) and to my ears, that sounds remarkably like molim te, mama, which is how i'd say it in croatian.

now, in croatian, the verb moliti that's used here can be translated as please, but also as to beg.

(moreover, here she uses ti, the informal form of the word you.

c'mere. i need you to understand that as recently as my grandparents' childhood, children used the formal you, vi, to refer to the elders in their family. katherine's doing it with her mum in the 15th century.)

so yeah. the subtitles say please, mama, but to my ears, it's actually i'm begging you, mummy.

#just so we're clear i don't actually speak bulgarian #i don't know if all the nuances translate the same across languages and cultures #this is a post about my personal experience with this line of dialogue #not a PSA about slavic languages in general #tvd #katherine pierce #ella originals