Kids speak both languages, as well as English, fluently. This makes Polish a much much easier language to learn than Russian. Russian: 15% spoken, 25% written Kajkavian was removed from public use after 1900, hence writing in the standard Kajkavian literary language was curtailed. It has a very high degree of mutual intelligibility with Galician (spoken in Northwestern Spain), which is a language thats sort of a cross between Portuguese and Spanish. If the central varieties die out and only the varieties at both ends survive, they may then be reclassified as two languages, even though no actual language change has occurred during the time of the loss of the central varieties. A Serbian native speaker felt that the percentages for South Slavic seemed to be accurate. Are Polish and Ukrainian mutually intelligible? Ukrainian is a lineal descendant of the colloquial language used in Kievan Rus (10th-13th century). When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". This gives rise to claims of Macedonians being able to understand Serbo-Croatian very well, however, much of this may be due to bilingual learning. Nevertheless, although intelligibility with Slovenian is high, Kajkavian lacks full intelligibility with Slovenian. For example, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans than vice versa as a result of Afrikaans' simplified grammar. Of course, the interviews are subtitled in Macedonian, but even an untrained ear and eye can see how similar these languages are. Communication about such things is significantly impaired at this level. I have had people give me personal estimates like 40%, 85%, 60-65%, 70%,10-15%, less than 1%, etc. Some reports say there is difficult intelligibility between Ekavian Chakavian in the north and Ikavian Chakavian in the far south, but speakers of Labin Ekavian in the far north say they can understand the Southeastern Istrian speech of the southern islands very well (Jembrigh 2014). Many of our word roots are the same. Despite all of this, Ukrainian and Russian aren't the closest languages in the Slavic language family, and they're not even mutually intelligible. If speakers of one language have more exposure to its related language, theyre likely to pick up more of that language. I just didnt realize that when you talked about learning the other language you were actually referring to the errors inherent in doing a non-virgin ears MI study, and not conflating language learning with mutual intelligibility. Reading a Bulgarian text is not like reading an ordinary book in Czech, it would cost my brain much more kilojoules (but maybe mainly due to the monotonous Cyrilic script), but it is possible. But, as the goal of the OP was to debunk the myth that says every slavic speaker can understand each other, he is quite right on that. Polish 5 % spoken, 20 % written My family comes from Kaikavian (50%), Chakavian (25%) and Shtokavian (25%) areas, but at home, especially last years, we prefer to use only Kaikavian-Chakavian. Some Poles say they find Silesian harder to understand than Belorussian or Slovak, which implies intelligibility of 20-25%. Mutual intelligibility with varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Kajkavian being the most mutually intelligible. Ukrainian 15 % spoken, 25 % written http://www.izviestija.info/izviestija/, I was born in Canada to a Serbian family and speak Serbian so I am a good control as I was never formally educated in Serbian and its grammar. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/usama-bin-laden/view As soon as one gets even a very moderate amount of exposure, comprehension improves, even between such geographically distant languages as Polish and Serbian I remember staying in Montenegro and a Pole buying bread and a Montenegrin could still communicate with each other speaking at a slow-enough pace. It is no surprise that Ukrainian (and to a smaller extent) Belarusian have tons of Polish words, and are therefore more lexically similar to Polish than to Russian. Kajkavski it seems has changed less than akavski. Linguistic distance is the relative degree of difference between languages or dialects. Because of all of this, tokavian speaker has a hard time understanding fast talking akavian speakers. Yes of course. Far Northeastern Slovak (Saris Slovak) near the Polish border is close to Polish and Ukrainian. Ukrainians and Belarusians understand each other's languages with no problem. Id like to know about written mutual intelligibility, because, about spoken mutual intelligibility, there are people from portugal that cannot understand brazilians and vice-versa, though they speak the same language. Usually, they can even write their theses in Slovak. The diffete. In this case, another criteria I would also consider is how hard or easy it is for a Serb to start understanding Macedonian. Its predecessor stage is known in Western academia as Ruthenian (14th to 17th centuries), in turn descended from what is referred to in modern linguistics as Old East Slavic (10th to 13th centuries). During the last 20 years, Ukraine has tried to make the language norm as far from Russian as possible for nationalistic reasons. I can grasp only something in the sense that these four periods have different names and that they dont designate different languages (delene e uslovno i imenata ne otrazjavat razlini ezici), but only periods of the development of Bulgarian (samo periodi v razvitieto na balgarskija ezik), with typical changes or features (za koito se otkrivat charakterni belezi). Understanding the connection between mutually intelligible languages, can make it easier to learn an additional language. How much Slovene can your average Chakavian speaker understand? Croatian language doesnt exists. Im gonna estimate 40% for Bulgarian, cant really say what the difference between written and spoken Bulgarian would be for me. Even little kids who watch the show understand. The Torlakian spoken in the southeast is different. The claim for separate languages is based more on politics than on linguistic science. Ukrainian has 62% lexical similarity with Russian but 70% with Polish, which isn't high enough for mutual intelligibility with both Russian and Polish, but Poles can certainly understand Ukrainian much better than Russian, and Russians can understand Ukrainian much better than Poles. The reason Macedonian appears not very intelligible to a Serbian speaker is because many basic words (be, do, this, that, where, etc) are completely different, however most of the rest of the vocabulary is similar or the same. It all adds up, man. Ability of speakers of two language varieties to understand the other, As a criterion for identifying separate languages, List of languages sometimes considered varieties, List of dialects or varieties sometimes considered separate languages, Alexander M. Schenker. As a result, I, who spoke fluent Ukrainian when I moved from Ukraine 18 years ago, have problems following modern speech on TV. The intelligibility of Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian is highly controversial, and intelligibility studies are in order. Huchon, Mireille, Histoire de la langue franaise, pages 214 and 223. That being said, the line between a language and a dialect is often blurred. Given that Polish and Russian belong to different groups under the same language family, we can deduce that these two languages share a lot of similarities but also have many differences. In Ukrainian, one might say "I am waiting for you" ; however, there is no need for a conjunction in . Its also said that Serbo-Croatian can understand Bulgarian and Macedonian, but this is not true. At some point he probably became a rogue or double agent, General Musharraf says. Czech: 10% Salute from Czech republic. Intelligibility in the Slavic languages of the Balkans is much exaggerated. But they would learn it quickly if they cared. You get 0%. From his own words it is possible to conclude that mutual inteligibility between czech and slovak is very high, and Ive heard from young czechs that they still can understand slovak with no effort. WORD. I also understand more of other Slavic languages then neotokavian speakers do. Albeit, Scots dialect is far more pronounced than English, and at times, can be unintelligible. No there is not. There can be huge differences between spoken/written forms of a Slavic language, because the written form may have a very similar vocabulary, phonology and grammar, but due to a different, strong stress, you wont understand almost anything. Yet its totally foreign to many in Croatia. Also, I can only understand a small bit of Russian, and Ukrainian is even more far off for me(the pronunciation is easier but understanding is harder) and I can understand quite a bit of bulgarian(especially when written). Also how much of Rusyn do Russians understand on a % basis? In my experience, its quite easy. These recommendations are based on research into the mutual intelligibility of Germanic languages, conducted by Femke Swarte. Thank you. PS More than half of Slovenian seems to be closely related to Kaikavian and Chakavian Croatian (and probably Old Shtokavian which is almost extinct). Civis Illustris. When I was first exposed to spoken BCS, the most significant issue was their prosody, because the vocabulary and the grammar presented very little difficulty for me as a Ukrainian/Russian bilingual. 50% In brief, there is some mutual intelligibility, enough to have a simple conversation of the 'me Tarzan - you Jane' type, speakin. You cannot simply separate the articles from the words during a regular conversation. That word have special meaning and I think that Serbian needs that word, but if I tell that word seriously while I speak, everybody will laugh at me. I would hazzard to say that Polish and Czech languages are at minimum 50% Intelligible and comprehensible between Poles and Czechs (when spoken with normal pace ) and at least 60-70% . Czech has 82% intelligibility of Slovak (varies from 70-95%), 12% of Polish and 5% of Russian and Bulgarian. Ni Torlak vowel reflexes are otherwise in line with standard Serbian and Northwestern Macedonian, deriving nuclear /u e i e u r/ from / y * *l *r/; some Torlak dialects towards Kosovo or Bulgaria instead have [l ~ l] for /l/ (giving [v()l(:)k] where Serbian normally has [v:k]) but none in my vicinity. Slobozhan Russian is very close to Ukrainian, closer to Ukrainian than it is to Russian, and Slobozhan Ukrainian is very close to Russian, closer to Russian than to Ukrainian. Russian on the other hand uses the Cyrillic alphabet. In the case of transparently cognate languages officially recognized as distinct such as Spanish and Italian, mutual intelligibility is in principle and in practice not binary (simply yes or no), but occurs in varying degrees, subject to numerous variables specific to individual speakers in the context of the communication. Often the two languages are genetically related, and they are likely to be similar to each other in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, or other features. The problem is that native speakers can understand other speakers of their own language. Kajkavian is a dialect of Slovenian language. The languages really split about 1,000 years ago, but written Slovak was based on written Czech, and there was a lot of interlingual communication. The Answer, and Examples for 8 World Languages. Although Chakavian is clearly a separate language from Shtokavian Croatian, in Croatia it is said that there is only one Croatian language, and that is Shtokavian Croatian. So I understand Kajkavians and Slovenes except for a germanic package. Thats why in the Czechoslovak army the rule was: speak your own language, understand both. They have more in common than you might think! Method: It is important to note that the percentages are in general only for oral intelligibility and only in the case of a situation of a pure inherent intelligibility test. You are a smart guy. Mutual Intelligibility among the Slavic Languages by Robert Lindsay The mutual intelligibility (MI) of the languages of the Slavic family is an interesting topic because many are mutually intelligible to one degree or another. uses the Cyrlic script, and a Banat norm, which uses the Latin script. Hag_Boulder 9 mo. But reading a Bulgarian text is surprisingly easy, because the phonology and vocabulary are very similar. BR, In this case, too, however, while mutual intelligibility between speakers of the distant remnant languages may be greatly constrained, it is likely not at the zero level of completely unrelated languages. Hutch Mon May 14, 2007 12:25 am GMT. Ive watched that movie on a croatian television with the croatian subtitle and understood that movie much much better, though Croatian also has a little differences. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. About the mistakes Although even if they stuck to Polish/Ukrainian, they'd probably still understand each other. Furthermore, not only does this app provide small lessons that can be expanded into full-on courses, but it also allows you to interact with native speakers of the target language. It forms a single tongue and is not several separate languages as many insist. In addition, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility in both scientific and non-scientific views. Traditionally, dialects are regional variations of one main language. Its historical development consists of four main periods. But then it is difficult. The only (still rather minor) problem that I had with this text was the part Nared s osnovnata, izpolzovana v Balgarija (Together with the basic norm used in Bulgaria), because I could not understand Nared s osnovnata. Its a nasty drug, and I hear its addicting. Torlakians are often said to speak Bulgarian, but this is not exactly the case. Can a Russian speaker understand Polish? Since then, Slovak has been disappearing from the Czech Republic, so the younger people dont understand Slovak so well. Much of the claimed intelligibility is simply bilingual learning. Russian has 85% intelligibility with Rusyn (which has a small number of speakers in Central and Eastern Europe). Even the most common, most simple words sound alien in spoken Bulgarian, VODA(WATER) is pronounced ,VODA . Slovenian language might be closer to the Macedonian/Bulgarian than to the Serbian language. Polish is spoken outside of Poland by Polish diaspora groups in countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. ????? Polish and Ukrainian have higher lexical similarity at 72%, and Ukrainian intelligibility of Polish is ~50%+. http://www.network54.com/Forum/84302/thread/1284248981/last-1288620675/The+real+9-11+cover+up-+Political+hijacking++was+originally+aimed+at+Russia. Robert does look at these stories. Now tokavian and akavian. However, Chakavian magazines are published even today (Jembrigh 2014). The translation is not very problematic. Scots and English are considered mutually intelligible. I also have formal training in several Slavic languages, which make most of them, except some of the Balkan ones, pretty much comprehensibe to me. They exist, but not in such a degree to render them unintelligible. These attacks killed over 200 people. For example, those who learn Ukrainian will eventually know 70% of Polish lexicon and a . I use Ethnologues list of languages and dialects, but extend it a bit. In other words, Ukrainian speakers can often understand Russian, while Russian speaker doesn't understand Ukrainian, especially Russian speakers from outside Ukraine. There are many differences between Bulgarian and Russian speakers. Many people know cases well but simply dont want to speak them correctly in conversation with someone who doesnt speak them correctly because that makes them feel like they want to judge other people who doesnt use cases correctly or that makes them more educated, even more smart, than someone who doesnt use it, and that makes both sides uncomfortable. The unintelligibility is only due to the manner of speaking and not because of lexical and/or grammatical differences. Bulgarian more comprehensible than standard Ukrainian. The Polish and Ukrainian languages come from the same Slavic roots, but are not so close that they are mutually intelligible. In fact, people in the north of Poland regard Silesian as incomprehensible. December 2014. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. Routledge. I am a native Macedonian and I totally dont agree with you. Serbians often say radiu and its very similar to Croatian raditi u or radit u, but sometimes Serbians say ja u da radim or even u da radim without ja (I), because u is first singular form of the verb hteti and ja is needless, but its very rare and common for southern Serbian dialects and also very very irregular in official Serbian, but that is very similar to official Macedonian. However, Bulgarian-Russian written intelligibility is much higher. Bosnian and Montenegrin are also just dialects of Serbian language. In other cases, I had to rely on the context. Thanks for the information about Eastern Slovak I will incorporate it. In addition, the Slobozhan dialects of Ukrainian and Russian such as (Slobozhan Ukrainian and Slobozhan Russian) spoken in Kantemirov (Voronezhskaya Oblast, Russia), and Kuban Russian or Balachka spoken in the Kuban area right over the eastern border of Ukraine are very close to each other. Was he educated? Ive yet to see a speaker of BCS that recognizes the obvious: these three languages are just the same. I do hope that you understand the point. Much of my vocabulary simply isnt present in their lects, even when I try and align myself to speak more in line with the norm. This is a great boon to travelers and language learners. For instance, akavian Croatian is not intelligible with Standard Croatian. There is one factor they dont know about the internet. 2023 Enux Education Limited. Yes, there are some words, which has Ukraine origins, but trust me that its not so hard to understand. The answer is that Izetbegovi is speaking too fast, he is often basically mumbling, and due to the different stress, I cannot identify, where the words start and end. Russians, they usually need some adaptation time (and of course they need to be willing to try -- which is not always the case, since many Russians are monolingual and . How come you have not done a post about 9/11 before Robert? A Slovak from Bratislava can and does understand eastern Slovak dialects, he might have to tune his ear a bit, but I know because Ive talked to many members of my family about this and other Slovaks and they all say it sounds really stupid and a few words are different but they definantly understand. With Lonely Planet's Ukrainian Phrasebook, let no barriers . Chakavian and Kajkavian have high, but not full mutual intelligibility. Is Ukrainian closer to Russian or Polish? Toj e oficialnijat ezik na Republika Balgarija i edin iz 23-te oficialni ezika na Evropejskija sajuz. There are new scientific figures for Czech-Slovak, Czech-Serbo-Croatian and Czech-Bulgarian. The Czech law even states that Slovak language can be used in schools and in official documents. "Proto-Slavonic,". So give these mutually intelligible languages a second look. It was a long time ago though, so Ill try to convince her (and maybe a couple more Russians) to try this again tonight. Macedonian side, the situation is more complicated (i will explain later). Basically, when you are listening to Bulgarians, you only hear an incomprehensible row of ta-jat-to-ta-jat-ta-to-ta. There is as much Czech literature and media as Slovak literature and media in Slovakia, and many Slovaks study at Czech universities. Much like Nordic languages. Im pretty sure things are identical in Belarus, if not worse afaik knowledge of Belarusian there is not too widespread in the first place. Rather than 95%, or 85%. I could try. They understand almost nothing. There are some words that we don't understand, but in general, these languages are much closer to each other than the pairs Russian-Ukrainian and Russian-Belarusian. Vedle hlavn, pouvan v Bulharsku, existuje jet makedonsk norma, kter tak (?) But islanders more often say Mi povidamo na nau or domau. The written languages differ much more than the spoken ones. And Shtokavian is dialect of Serbian language. Kashubian itself is a macrolanguage made up of two different languages, South Kashubian and North Kashubian, as the two have difficult intelligibility. When you find out it is a separate language, you ask for %, and they often tell you! I think that nowadays people from Ni also dont understand that Serbian enough. Istorieskoto mu razvitie se charakterizira s etiri glavni perioda. Or maybe you are just a gatekeeper. Chakavian has a low mutual intelligibility with either, in part due to its large number of loanwords from Venetian. The Polish langauge uses the Latin script, while the Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic. Go back to your kennel. Your email address will not be published. I have to really focus and try hard to understand them but with patience I can get buy. Hello Mr Lindsay, Robert Lindsay. There is a group of Bulgarians living in Serbia in the areas of Bosilegrad and Dimitrovgrad who speak a Bulgarian-Serbian transitional dialect, and Serbs are able to understand these Bulgarians well. This phenomenon is called asymmetrical mutual intelligibility. In fact, I cannot often identify any words at all. However, the Torlak Serbians can understand Macedonian well, as this is a Serbo-Croatian dialect transitional to both languages. The idea is that the Kajkavian and Chakavian languages simply do not exist, though obviously they are both separate languages. In recent years, many of the German words are falling out of use and being replaced by Polish words, especially by young people. 3. However, Balachka is dying out and is now spoken only by a few old people. Slovenians have a very hard time understanding Poles and Czechs and vice versa. IOW, I think there are two languages Czech and Slovak and I do not agree that they are the same language with two dialects. Croatian-Shtokavian is only a dialect of Serbian language. Ni Torlak uses a definite suffix, -ta/-to/-ti/-te/-ta (fem.sg/neu.sg/masc.pl/fem.pl/neu.pl), but less frequently than Macedonian does, and only in the nominative; it doesnt have a distance contrast as it does in standard Macedonian but it isnt even present in Serbian to begin with An inherent pure inherent intelligibility test would involve a a speaker of Slavic lect A listening to a tape or video of a speaker of Slavic Lect A. Here are three critical ways in which Bulgarian and Russian speakers differ. Eastern Slovak has ~80% intelligibility of Rusyn. But despite similarities in grammar and vocabulary and almost identical alphabets, they differ sharply in many ways and are not mutually intelligible. Download: The Aegean Macedonian dialects mostly spoken in Greece, such as the Lerinsko-Kostursko and Solunsko-Vodenskadialects, sound more Bulgarian than Macedonian. But other results that included Czech and Bulgarian were very poor. I have no problems understanding the Torlakian dialect. Clearly it WAS the Illuminati at workI guess the planes were flown by shapeshifting lizards, toooh, come to think of it, isnt George Bush Junior a lizard, too! Pronunciation is quite different, but all patterns are easy to catch. However, all three languages - Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian - are in part mutually intelligible, and already knowing one can help a lot if you want to learn one of the . But being that they are Slavic with the same or similar grammar and structure you pick up different slavic languages and their style very quick. In the Kievan Rus', Russian and Ukrainian were dialects of the same language, meaning that they were largely mutually intelligible with only minor vocabulary or grammatical differences. An individual's achievement of moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and practical application if the two languages are not very closely related. Yes because governments dont conspire do they except for the Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq war, drug trafficking, coups, supporting the same Islamic terrorism which is even mentioned in main stream press during the 90s with links to the 9/11 hijackers which we are now supposably fighting a phoney war on terror against. Ekavian Chakavian has two branches Buzet and Northern Chakavian. Answer (1 of 11): Look, if you're Ukrainian you most likely already speak russian. Bulgarian: 15% spoken , 30-40% written Other factors that one has to keep in mind is recent (and not so recent, too) history and its linguistic implications on speakers for instance, Slovaks older that about 20 dont have much trouble understanding Czech because Czech was pretty intrusive if not dominant in official and intercommunal use in Czechoslovakia until its collapse. I was born in Upper State and I can barely understand some southern speakers.Do you think the politics in USA is also preventing the formation of new languages ? The results: Italian is partially mutually intelligible with French, Catalan, Sardinian, Spanish, Ladin and Romanian. The Mutually Intelligible Languages of 8 Popular World Languages 1. [1] Advanced speakers of a second language typically aim for intelligibility, especially in situations where they work in their second language and the necessity of being understood is high. An academic paper has been published making the case for a separate Balachka language. He said he is frequent visitor in Poland and therefore he speaks Polish. Do Ukrainians and Polish like each other? Additionally, some Arabic speakers may be familiar with Egyptian Arabic through the media, so they may rely on this to bridge any language gaps. theres a macedonian TV program called Vo Centar, hosted by a macedoanian journalist who goes around the Balkans and interviews prominent names in politics etc. 40% of Silesian vocabulary is different from Polish, mostly Germanisms. It is not really either Bulgarian or Serbo-Croatian, but instead it is best said that they are speaking a mixed Bulgarian-Serbo-Croatian language. I can understand about 50% 75% of Bulgarian and Macedonian enough to get buy and carry on a conversation. Bratislava speakers say that Kosice speech sounds half Slovak and half Ukrainian and uses many odd and unfamiliar words. Heres his interview with Bosnian figures, and Bosnian is part of B/H/S landscape adrian. Now onto the discussion. Its vocabulary has lots of common words with all of Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish, so it's sort of mutually intelligible with all of them. It consists of at least four major dialects, Ekavian Chakavian, spoken on the Istrian Peninsula, Ikavian Chakavian, spoken in southwestern Istria, the islands of Bra, Hvar, Vis, Korula, and olta, the Peljeac Peninsula, the Dalmatian coast at Zadar, the outskirts of Split and inland at Gacka, Middle Chakavian, which is Ikavian-Ekavian transitional, and Ijekavian Chakavian, spoken at the far southern end of the Chakavian language area on Lastovo Island, Janjina on the Peljeac Peninsula, and Bigova in the far south near the border with Montenegro. Serbo-Croatian and Russian have 10-15% intelligibility, if that, yet written intelligibility is higher at 25%. Many Silesian speakers now speak a watered down version of Silesian which is more properly seen as a Polish dialect with some Silesian words. Russian is also 85% mutually intelligible with Belarusian and Ukrainian in . akavian differs from the other nearby Slavic lects spoken in the country due to the presence of many Italian words. At least not in general if so, it might depend on the school. pouv cyrilici, a bantsk norma, kter pouv latinku. Also sorry for my English. I will also say that it is a fact that a British intelligence linked terrorist Anas al-Liby recruited by MI6 to kill Gadaffi in 96 was involved in the African Embassy bombings. However, Bulgarians claim to be able to understand Serbo-Croatian better than the other way around.