This has been hashed over many times by others, but again today a sign close to Sarajevo violated my sense of the English language. How to translate Republika Srpska into English? The Serb Republic is the most literal translation except that sounds too much like the Republic of Serbia. Maybe that's the best one despite the confusion since I think that's kind of what the creators intended. The worst one is the official RS government translation as listed on the sign because of the implicit double "of". So it seems that most institutions leave it as "Republika Srpska" in English, yet another dimension of the unknowable Balkans.
While I'm on topics political, I'm fascinated how the Dayton Agreement acknowledged "entities" which is diplomatic speak for "that which we can not name", i.e. what isn't a state but isn't anything else we've ever seen before, either.
What exactly they are is both irrelevant (the important is that we're fighting over what they are) and yet the main point at the same time. I wouldn't wish them on any other countries, though.
