5%? Russian. About the mistakes Ukrainian is a lineal descendant of the colloquial language used in Kievan Rus (10th-13th century). Macedonian and Bulgarian would be much closer together except that in recent years, Macedonian has been heavily influenced by Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian has been heavily influenced by Russian. 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. Ukrainian or Russian?: Language gets political in Ukraine Their mutual intelligibility varies greatly, between the dialects themselves, with Shtokavian, and with other languages. It has been massively updated with a lot of new research from controlled scientific intelligibility studies. If we consider that syntax/lexics is the heart of language, than Serbian and Macedonian are the same language. Since the breakup, young Czechs and Slovaks understand each other worse since they have less contact with each other. They understand almost nothing. It is just a dialect in east Slovakia that westernd Slovaks (and Czechs) find harder to understand but it is not like they would not understand a word. Serbo-Croatian has variable intelligibility of Macedonian, averaging ~55%, while Nis Serbians have ~90% intelligibility with Macedonian. Buzet is actually transitional between Slovenian and Kajkavian. It is commonly believed that all Slavic languages are fully mutually intelligible, which implies that they are close Are ukrainian and russian mutually understandable? According to a paper on Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family (link in comments): Native Belarusian speakers can understand 80% of spoken Ukrainian and 80% of written . Ukrainians needs to make small preparation to become able for listening comprehension of Polish. Robert Lindsay. Although the standard view is that Balachka is a Ukrainian dialect, some linguists say that it is actually a separate language closely related to Ukrainian. Bratislava speakers say that Kosice speech sounds half Slovak and half Ukrainian and uses many odd and unfamiliar words. Hello everyone, Its spelling, however, is quite different from any of them. Serbia is large and you should also ask Serbians in other regions. In the 1500s, Kajkavian began to be developed in a standard literary form. However, in recent years, there has also been quite a bit of bilingual learning. It is an official language of the Bulgarian republic and one of 23 official languages of the European Union. Despite all of this, Ukrainian and Russian aren't the closest languages in the Slavic language family, and they're not even mutually intelligible. You cant honestly believe that 19 hijackers from Saudi Arabia armed only with boxcutters where able to attack US biggest most powerful landmarks given all the hard factual evidence not including things like thermite or if a missile hit the Pentagon or other junk like that. Polish: Ukrainian and Belarusian (both partially; moreover, . There is as much Czech literature and media as Slovak literature and media in Slovakia, and many Slovaks study at Czech universities. Thanks so much for this post. Polish and Ukrainian have higher lexical similarity at 72%, and Ukrainian intelligibility of Polish is ~50%+. But thats politics for you. The intelligibility of Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian is highly controversial, and intelligibility studies are in order. Serbian is a macrolanguage made up to two languages: Shtokavian Serbian and Torlak or Gorlak Serbian. On the other hand, it can be difficult for Russians to understand Ukrainian (though it is easy for them to learn it). Nice article, but I think there is a difference between spoken mutual intelligibility and different languages. With Lonely Planet's Ukrainian Phrasebook, let no barriers . If one takes the transitional dialects which make a triangle between Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, one can say that it is also one language. But islanders more often say Mi povidamo na nau or domau. 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. 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. Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family. In fact, I would probably have a hard time to understand a Czech speaking with such an intonation. Can you give me a figure for how much of a Bulgarian text you can understand? Spanish and Catalan have a lexical similarity of 85%. My parents (and naturally me when I was child) make a lot of mistakes in the word cases and it means that they are (for the speakers from more west Serbian and also Croatian region) the lower social group, that they are not educated enough or that they are unread, and why dont Macedonians in their native language too, especially in ex Yugoslavia. Only nationalists and fanatics disagree. .Interestingly, Ukrainians can understand the Russian language better than the Russians would understand the Ukrainian. The Polish and Ukrainian languages come from the same Slavic roots, but are not so close that they are mutually intelligible. Its often said that Czechs and Poles can understand each other, but this is not so. So you are a speaker of Southern Chakavian, right? As a native Russian speaker, I noticed that my understanding of Polish went from 20% to 70% in a matter of hours when watching a film in Polish with subtitles. It is rather controversial outside Linguistics, as you run into nationalists and other fools who emotionally distort things. Good post, OP. Can Ukrainians and Polish understand each other? But they would learn it quickly if they cared. Much of the claimed intelligibility is simply bilingual learning. Zona Zamfirova is the movie in a Serbian dialect, but I dont understand it as same as I dont understand Macedonian or even more so, that is more like Bulgarian with the hard vowels. I simply didnt know what for example word iskati (to seek) means when I first watched that movie, I was 14, I understand it from the context like I can understand Macedonian. Croats say Macedonian is a complete mystery to them. 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. Russia) in Canada, and they barely can understand standard Ukrainian. Background Information - Department of Slavic, East European - UCLA cheers [4], Some linguists use mutual intelligibility as a primary criterion for determining whether two speech varieties represent the same or different languages. Linguistic distance is the relative degree of difference between languages or dialects. 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. In Czech rep. Slovaks dont have to pass any language exams (the other foreigner do have to). Heres his interview with Bosnian figures, and Bosnian is part of B/H/S landscape However, the Croatian macrolanguage has strange lects that Standard Croatian (tokavian) cannot understand. In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between different Scandinavian languages, but as each of them has its own standard form, they are classified as separate languages. Bolgarian 30 % spoken, 50 % written Can a Russian speaker understand Polish? Ukrainian, and Belarusian. In the evening of the first day it reaches 93%, in a week 95%, all unsupervised, almost effortlessly, just by being there, watching, listening, talking and asking for an explanation here and there. How much of Ukrainian can these Russians in Canada understand? This list focuses on common languages widely thought to be at least partially and mutually intelligible. PDF Mutual Intelligibility Among the Slavic Languages Polish and Ukrainian mutual intelligibility question. Serbo-Croatian dialects in relation to Slovene, Macedonian, and Bulgarian: The non-standard vernacular dialects of Serbo-Croatian (i.e. 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. They give you strict % figures, and it is pretty amazing. Like a shits to o. The fact that such process works is almost a definition of mutual intelligibility for me. 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. There is an old Kajkavian-Chakavian dialect continuum of which little remains, although some of the old Kajkavian-Chakavian transitional dialects are still spoken (Jembrigh 2014). Slovak somewhat more than Polish, but still very little. 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. Even the most common, most simple words sound alien in spoken Bulgarian, VODA(WATER) is pronounced ,VODA . Mitja Slane on Twitter: "@NOELreports How do they speak? Ukrainian is For example, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans than vice versa as a result of Afrikaans' simplified grammar. This comment is fantastic! A western Slovak can even understand most of Ruthenians hen they are speaking. I grew up as a Ukrainian speaker in North America. Young czechs and slovaks communicate on internet on daily basis and they understand each other just perfectly. Why not look em up on his site. Save. Intelligibility data for Saris Slovak and Ukrainian is not known. However, Bulgarians claim to be able to understand Serbo-Croatian better than the other way around. But even they will know the literary norm of their own language which will ease up the communication. How mutually intelligible are Slavic languages? : r/linguistics - reddit 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. It is very strange when some words are not understood, although the communication is possible. Complicating the picture is the fact that many Ukrainians are bilingual and speak Russian also. It may seem that Polish and Russian are mutually intelligible because they both come from the same language family and share a lot of similarities. http://www.network54.com/Forum/84302/thread/1284248981/last-1288620675/The+real+9-11+cover+up-+Political+hijacking++was+originally+aimed+at+Russia. What Other Languages Can You Understand If You Know Russian? He printed out the paper and showed it to his colleagues at the next meeting, and they spent some time discussing it. Polish Language Overview, Structure & Facts | What is Polski? If you know Polish, you're likely to understand a little Russian, Ukrainian and other Slavic languages, but this doesn't mean that the languages are mutually intelligible. Its also said that Serbo-Croatian can understand Bulgarian and Macedonian, but this is not true. Mutual intelligibility with varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Kajkavian being the most mutually intelligible. London Times, 25 September 2006 Hello Mr Lindsay, How similar actually are Ukrainian and Polish? (Belarusian too) How do they arrive at these estimates? Can a Ukrainian understand Polish? (2023) - salnom.best December 2014. Mutual intelligibility among Slavic Languages | Antimoon Forum This is a great boon to travelers and language learners. Its grammar is close to that of Russian. A koine is currently under development. NATO EU. They are essentially the same language and even somebody with virgin ears can understand anybody almost perfectly, as long as he has half a brain. 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. 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. (j/k) Have every heard of Dubrovnik dialect? Learning a language becomes fun and easy when you learn with movie trailers, music videos, news and inspiring talks. Balgarski is balgarskijat, grupa is grupata, oficialni is oficijalnijat etc. I hope you will like it and will be useful for your researches! Silesian, which can be heard in the southwest (sometimes also considered a separate language). In 1933, reforms were forced that streamlined Ukrainian more in line with the Russian language. As a native Serbian speaker from Bosnia who has interacted with most Slavic languages , heres my breakdown of level of mutual intelligibility with other Slavic tongues: its not based on bilingual learning. Upper Dnistrian is influenced by German and Polish. I have also friends from Central Macedonia (Prilep, Bitola) and I can tell how different they speak from the Skopjian dialect. But despite similarities in grammar and vocabulary and almost identical alphabets, they differ sharply in many ways and are not mutually intelligible. Serbs until recently where still self titled Yugoslavs. The reason there are subtitles on Russian-language shows in Ukraine is because of Ukraines puristic state language policies. They say, ~60%, ~65%, etc. Slobozhan Ukrainian speakers in this region find it easier to understand their Russian neighbors than the Upper DnistrianUkrainian spoken in the far west in the countryside around Lviv. Most pairs have no figure for written intelligibility. There is . Likewise with Polish vs Czech, and Slovenian vs Standard Croatian (these pairs are the most commonly mistaken as mutually intelligible). The unintelligibility is only due to the manner of speaking and not because of lexical and/or grammatical differences. I believe Im Slovenian, my mother tongue is Slovenian, however I have also learnt Serbo-Croatian from a very early age. So, when you're learning the Polish alphabet, all you have to pay attention to are the special accents and the pronunciation. Ukrainian 15 % spoken, 25 % written On the one hand, Belarussian has some dialects that are intelligible with some dialects of both Russian and Ukrainian. Mi priamo Hrvatski jezik in neotokavian. Map; Russia's Periphery* Baltic States. Yet some say that the subtitles are simply put on as a political move due to Ukraines puristic language policy. Score: 4.1/5 (68 votes) . [5][6] In a similar vein, some claim that mutual intelligibility is, ideally at least, the primary criterion separating languages from dialects.[7]. Basically, you only hear a series of consonants with hardly recognizable vowels. Spanish is most mutually intelligible with Galician. As an addendum, Id like to make it known that my own grandmother, who hails from a village some twenty kilometers southwest of Ni, got lost in Belgrade once but has no problem getting around Skopje. Ja u raditi, for me, sounds more Croatian and Bosnian or at least archaic, and Serbians from Bosnia and Croatia also speaks in that way. Ive not read em myself. I speak both Southern akavian and neotokavian. There are many differences between Bulgarian and Russian speakers. https://www.academia.edu/4080349/Mutual_Intelligibility_of_Languages_in_the_Slavic_Family For instance, Portuguese and Spanish have a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility, but theyre technically separate languages. Polish, Ukrainian and even Serbo-Croatian dialects are less so, especially in the light of their geographical spread . At some point he probably became a rogue or double agent, General Musharraf says. Email me and give me your name please and I will use you in the paper. 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. uses the Cyrlic script, and a Banat norm, which uses the Latin script. I would say that Macedonian is about 25% intelligible to a Serbian speaker that was never exposed to Macedonian. If the Torlaks can understand those languages it is because they have been hearing them! More properly, their speech is best seen as closer to Macedonian than to Bulgarian or Serbo-Croatian. Czechs are more urbane. Bulgarian and Macedonian can understand each other to a great degree (65-80%) but not completely. The idea is that the Kajkavian and Chakavian languages simply do not exist, though obviously they are both separate languages. This is simply reality in Serbia today. Despite a lot of commonality between the dialects, the differences between them are significant. 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. The differences to me are like New England English versus English in the deep South versus Australian. PS More than half of Slovenian seems to be closely related to Kaikavian and Chakavian Croatian (and probably Old Shtokavian which is almost extinct). That information is in error. Belarussian almost completely comprehensible, except a few words. My gues. This is the first time that this has been done using just . 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. Albeit, Scots dialect is far more pronounced than English, and at times, can be unintelligible. WORD. Nevertheless, most Bulgarians over the age of 30-35 understand Russian well since studying Russian was mandatory under Communism. I am a native Spanish speaker but my girlfriend is Macedonian. Here are the estimates about inteligebility with other Slavic languages from a person thats fluent in Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian: I have the hardest time to understand anything of Bulgarian, it sounds really fast and choppy but similar to Russian sometimes. Ni Torlak has six vowels the standard /a e i o u/ and a reduced schwa // thats found where a strong yer once used to be, as in dog and sadness (this vowel has merged with /a/ in Serbian, but the two yers were kept as separate reflexes /e o/ (merging with those full vowels) in Macedonian) with phonemic and morpho-lexical stress that has plenty of grammatically conditioned shifts. It is more like the other slavic languages (v instead of u, z instead of s, itd, less vowels, and no distinction between and ). I would like to add an interesting fact Slovenian has very harsh dialects due to the historic separation of different regions. 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 Macedonian spoken near the Serbian border is heavily influenced by Serbo-Croatian and is quite a bit different from the Macedonian spoken towards the center of Macedonia. Speaking of myself, after calculating everything, I can understand to specific degree Slovene, somewhat Slovak/Russian, Serbo-Croatian std without problems and also Macedonians. Polish is spoken outside of Poland by Polish diaspora groups in countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Yet we speak of Kai/Cha as of Serbo-Croatian dialects, while Slovenian is totally foreign. but they are often mutually intelligible. If you speak Russian, you might be surprised at how much Ukrainian you understand. In my experience, its quite easy. This is not the case, as all figures were derived from estimates by native speakers themselves, often a number of estimates averaged together. The post-1991 reforms of the Ukrainian language were not an introduction of Polish or Western Ukrainian as some Russian nationalists (and non-nationalists, who believe them) claim, but rather a return to a standard adopted in Kharkiv in 1927. Cheers brothers and sisters! 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. Re: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Mutual Intelligibility. Additionally, Norwegian assimilated a considerable amount of Danish vocabulary as well as traditional Danish expressions. Are Russian and Polish mutually intelligible? Usually, they can even write their theses in Slovak. Thread starter Bamaro; Start date Feb 15, 2023 . It is best seen as a Ukrainian dialect spoken in Russia specifically, it is markedly similar to the Poltavian dialect of Ukrainian spoken in Poltava in Central Ukraine. I think that Russian has at least 89% with Belorussian, because I understand all speech in Belorusian. Nevertheless, Bulgarian-Russian intelligibility seems much exaggerated. Macedonian 40 % spoken, 60 % written Then tokavian person reaction would be: What? 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. I can barely understand czech (slovak I havent tried) and, as similar as it is to croatian, I can only understand a little slovenian. Is the virgin Intelligibility important? Most people in Slovenia learn Serbian language so it is hard to estimate the real mutual intelligibility between Slovenian and Serbian language. I also worked in a resteraunt with lots of west and south slavs there and I have to say that Serbian and crotian has a lot of ilarities with Slovak. While the two share a similar grammar system and some vocabulary words, . Ukrainian or Russian? Language gets political in Ukraine Here are three critical ways in which Bulgarian and Russian speakers differ. I would like to know if anyone could confirm that you could indeed . The Answer, and Examples for 8 World Languages. (. An example of equal treatment of Malaysian and Indonesian: the, List of dialects or varieties sometimes considered separate languages, List of languages sometimes considered varieties, North Germanic languages Mutual intelligibility, Learn how and when to remove this template message, considered separate languages only for political reasons, "Listening instruction and patient safety: Exploring medical English as a lingua franca (MELF) for nursing education", "The Contribution of Linguistic Factors to the Intelligibility of Closely Related Languages", "Taking taxonomy seriously in linguistics: Intelligibility as a criterion of demarcation between languages and dialects", "uvalar: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic Languages", "Mutual Comprehensibility of Written Afrikaans and Dutch: Symmetrical or Asymmetrical? Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family. Ive almost never heard it in Lviv, except by visiting villagers or old people. Portuguese also has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Spanish. Thanks for the information about Eastern Slovak I will incorporate it. Some Russians and Bulgarians say they understand almost nothing of the other language. 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. Slovenian while it sounds slavic to me is not intelligible at all save for a few words here and there. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/usama-bin-laden/view It is not a failure. Are Russian and Polish mutually intelligible? The intelligibility of Belarussian with both Ukrainian and Russian is a source of controversy. In Ukrainian, one might say "I am waiting for you" ; however, there is no need for a conjunction in . The problem is that native speakers can understand other speakers of their own language. I can understand anyone who speaks English, even those who speak it as foreigners might say too fast. One more thing is that Serbian has, for example, two versions of the future case, with da (that) and verb in some person form, 1st in this case: ja u da radim (I will work) and ja u raditi where raditi (to work) is an infinitive. Russia Invades Ukraine pt XII. And o shifts to u. Bulgarian has 80% intelligibility of Macedonian, 41% of Russian, and 5% of Polish and Czech. Polish is the most incomprehensible Slavic language for other Slavs, both spoken and written. Hence the figures are averages taken from statements by native speakers of the languages in question. However, the Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect in northeastern Greece and southern Bulgaria and the Maleevo-Pirin dialect in eastern Macedonia and western Bulgaria are transitional between Bulgarian and Macedonian. Polish only a few words. 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! Also sorry for my English. Yulia Skadchenko on LinkedIn: #litranslators #russiantranslator # demonstratives (tk~ovd vs. tuka~ovde, tamo vs. tamu) and some elementary adverbs (sg vs. sega now; jutre vs. utre tomorrow; dns(ke) ~ deneska today, fera vs. vera yesterday) are fairly similar; Ni Torlak uses multiple sets of demonstratives as its 3rd person pronouns (toj/ta/to/ti/te/ta, onj/on/on/on/on/on, ovj/ov/ov/ov/ov/ov, in descending order of frequency) as opposed to Serbians almost exclusive use of on/ona/ono/oni/one/ona and standard Macedonians use of toj/taa/toa/tie A more updated version of this paper with working hyperlinks can be found on Academia.edu here. Many Turkic languages are mutually intelligible to a higher or lower degree, but thorough empirical research is needed to establish the exact levels and patterns of mutual intelligibility between the languages of this linguistic family. What languages are mutually intelligible with Russian? The German influence is more prominent in the west; Polish influence is greater in the east. 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.