Quite by chance, I come across the word for “sloth” in an English-Turkish dictionary: tembelik. And tembel is “slothful.” Zemlja dembelija immediately comes to mind. In Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia it stands for the “Land of sloth.” I check the World Wide Web, and I find many references to it in all three languages, if that is what they actually are. The Turkish roots are never mentioned, though. The term is often used in connection with the way the three countries have turned out after the breakdown of Yugoslavia. It refers only to the rich and powerful, of course. And then I search for Tembelistan. Sure enough, I find many references to this word of unmistakable Turkish origin. One of them can be found on a page about the reasons why Greece is now known by that name in the European Union. Once again, this is a discovery to relish. No-one has ever taught the peoples of the Balkans of the Turkish roots of so many expressions that define the entire region. To its detriment, no less.