Generate Greek subtitles for your Bosnian videos

From the Latin alphabet to the Greek script

Bosnian is written in the Latin alphabet and Greek in the Greek script, so the exported file uses a different writing system from the audio that produced it. The subtitle formats handle that — SRT and VTT are plain text and carry any script — but the font in whatever plays the file has to cover it.

This is the most common reason a Greek subtitle track looks correct in an editor and shows boxes or blanks on a device. Test on the target platform before you publish a batch.

How Bosnian audio becomes Greek subtitles

Audio in Bosnian (Bosanski) is transcribed first, then translated into Greek (Ελληνικά). Because the translation runs on the transcript rather than on the audio, the Greek subtitle file keeps the timings of the original Bosnian speech — each line appears at the moment it was actually said.

Why translate Bosnian video into Greek

Bosnian is spoken principally in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Greek in Greece and Cyprus. A Greek subtitle track is what lets one recording reach both audiences without re-recording, re-editing or dubbing it.

Because subtitles are a separate file rather than part of the picture, you can attach several language tracks to the same video and let viewers pick.

About the Bosnian audio

Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are close to identical in speech, and the choice between them is mostly about which written conventions and vocabulary you want rather than what the recording sounds like. Bosnian uses the Latin alphabet and admits more Turkish-derived vocabulary than its neighbours.

About the Greek subtitles

Modern Greek is written with a single accent mark on the stressed syllable, and that accent is not optional — it is what separates otherwise identical words. Sigma also takes a different form at the end of a word than in the middle. Cypriot Greek differs from the mainland standard enough in everyday vocabulary to be worth flagging before you review a transcript.

What a Bosnian to Greek subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Bosnian speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Bosnian speaker's — translation does not move them, which is why the file drops onto the original video unchanged.

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,240
Ευχαριστώ όλους που ήρθατε.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
Θα μοιραστώ τις λεπτομέρειες σε λίγο.

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
Αυτά για σήμερα.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
Τα λέμε την επόμενη φορά.

What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Bosnian may need loosening to read well in Greek.
• That the Greek script renders in your player, not just in the editor you exported from.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.