That is a particularly ugly version of nationalism brewing in your vicinity. Its also said that Serbo-Croatian can understand Bulgarian and Macedonian, but this is not true. If the Torlaks can understand those languages it is because they have been hearing them! But I can tell you this. Briefly put, mutual intelligibility is when speakers of one language can understand a related language to some degree. 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. The dialects of Ukrainian do not differ extensively from one another and are all mutually intelligible. How this is measured varies, but mutual intelligibility and vocabulary overlap, and often play a role in these calculations. Not only are these Slavic languages very similar to Russian in written form, but they are also around 70% mutually intelligible. And yes, comprehension has suffered since Czechoslovakia broke up, due to lack of exposure. I have friends from Bulgaria and I can tell you that they have problems by understanding some things. Languages can also be mutually intelligible only in spoken forms such as Polish and Ukrainian or only in written forms such as Icelandic and Faroese. Pure Silesian appears to be a dying language. One way to look at Macedonian is that it is a Serbo-Croatian-Bulgarian transitional lect. Russian has 85% intelligibility with Rusyn (which has a small number of speakers in Central and Eastern Europe). . If one takes the transitional dialects which make a triangle between Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, one can say that it is also one language. What I took as Czech speaking Czech language, which I perfectly understand, was actually Czech who tries to speaks Polish. 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. What language is closest to Polish? Theres a good reason for this: mutual intelligibility. Also after studying Ethnologue for a very long time, I noticed that they tended to use 90% as a cutoff for language versus dialect most but not all of the time. We also participate in other affiliate advertising programs for products and services we believe in. 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. Is Ukrainian mutually intelligible with Polish? The Russian language doesn't have a sound for " ." Ukrainian is a mostly phonetic language. How close is Ukrainian language to Polish? Yet there is a dialect continuum between Slovenian and Kajkavian. Molise Croatian is not intelligible with Standard Croatian. The differences to me are like New England English versus English in the deep South versus Australian. We in Serbia even had some comic movies that was making fun of south Serbian dialects (that are more related to Bulgarian and Macedonian) with very mocking or even rude comments for someone who make mistakes in the word cases. Robert does look at these stories. Sorry for my English, Im still learning itespecially right word order. If you're a foreign student, studying russian, it's unlikely you'd be able to understand Ukrainian at all. Bosnian and Montenegrin are also just dialects of Serbian language. Reactions: So far there have been few reactions to the paper. Kajkavian is fairly uniform across its speech area, whereas Chakavian is more diverse (Jembrigh 2014). I have a newer version of the paper that I can give in which I changed some of the things you are complaining about. 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. Ive been following this page and kept coming to it for the past months, actually more than a year (and have noticed some updates). http://ifaq.wap.org/society/voweldeployment.html. Czechs say Lach is a part of Czech, and Poles say Lach is a part of Polish. NATO EU. Je to oficiln jazyk v Bulharsk republice a jeden z 23 oficilnch jazyk v Evropsk unii. Test only Serbs who know almost no English (they exist in older generation). non-Shtokavian dialects: Kajkavian, Chakavian and Torlakian) diverge more significantly from all four normative varieties. Ja u da radim is a form more related to Macedonian and south eastern dialects of Serbo-Croatian. But they would learn it quickly if they cared. You are a smart guy. Its true that Slavic languages are not intelligible in the taking-the-first-person-from-the-street-and-making-them-listen-to-a-random-conversation way, that is, an average Slavic speaker with an untrained ear and little to no exposure to other Slavic languages will have difficulty understanding other Slavic languages. ", "Moldovan (limba moldoveneasc / )", "Experimental methods for measuring intelligibility of closely related language varieties", "Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in Europe", Harold Schiffman, "Linguists' Definition: mutual intelligibility", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mutual_intelligibility&oldid=1137818628, Articles with incomplete citations from May 2015, Pages with login required references or sources, Articles needing additional references from July 2022, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from March 2015, Articles with self-published sources from April 2020, Articles with dead external links from December 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Kajkavian has higher mutual intelligibility with Slovene than with the national varieties of Shtokavian. Are Polish and Ukrainian mutually intelligible? Ukrainian has 82% intelligibility of Belarusian and Rusyn and 55% of Polish. BULGARIAN (transferred to the Latin script): algarskijat ezik e indoevropejski ezik ot grupata na junoslavjanskite ezici. Around year 550 Slovenians went west and Macedonians/Bulgars went south. He alleges that Sheikh later double-crossed British intelligence. Macedonian I can understand better, and Im going to say that my comprehension of it used to lie somewhere between 90 and 95%, and Im going to cite 98% for my present knowledge theres a lot of technical vocabulary that takes a while to grasp, and a few words that I cant make sense of no matter how hard I try, but most of the differences are more marginal than between standard Serbian and Macedonian: Russian is also 85% mutually intelligible with Belarusian and Ukrainian in . Spanish has varying degrees of mutual intelligibility with Galician, Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, Sardinian and French. I can understand anyone who speaks English, even those who speak it as foreigners might say too fast. Slovak somewhat more than Polish, but still very little. The Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family is known for its languages being relatively closely related. some things in this article are heavily exaggerated. Silesian itself appears to be a macrolanguage as it is more than one language since as Opole Silesian speakers cannot understand Katowice Silesian, so Opole Silesian and Katowice Silesian are two different languages. It is not a failure. This is because colloquial Ukrainian is closer to the Ukrainian spoken in the Soviet era which had huge Russian influence. Some say it is a part of Czech, but more likely it is a part of Polish like Silesian. On the other hand, it can be difficult for Russians to understand Ukrainian (though it is easy for them to learn it). Many Poles insist that Silesian is a Polish dialect, but this is based more on politics than reality. 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 . Greg, Kaikavian is dialect of Slovenian language. Most pairs have no figure for written intelligibility. Grammar, on the other hand, is a different matter altogether. However, she is from Skopje, close to the Serbian border and which have had much more influence from Serbian. Russian is partially mutually intelligible with Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. possession is indicated most frequently using dative pronouns, unlike Serbians tendency to use possessive pronouns in greater frequency For me having learnt some Slavic languages and watching Bulgarian TV was not very difficult. The claim for separate languages is based more on politics than on linguistic science. Was he educated? 3. Congratulations on a brilliant article! Slovenians, Macedonians and Bulgars used to be one nation called Sklaveni and they were living in the south Hungary. The Chinese language, on the other hand, is comprised of a number of dialects that arent always mutually intelligible. There was a lot of past Yugoslav politics that hid the truth. Robert Lindsay. One of the most bizarre cases is that of Bulgarian, where the level of mutual intelligibility with spoken Czech is very low (close to zero), due to a completely different grammar. Click here to get a copy. Yet some say that the subtitles are simply put on as a political move due to Ukraines puristic language policy. For me, Serbian and Macedonian are as different as Serbian and Slovene, they sounds somehow the same, but I dont understand them correctly. Asymmetric intelligibility refers to two languages that are considered partially mutually intelligible, but where one group of speakers has more difficulty understanding the other language than the other way around. Nared s osnovnata, izpolzovana v Balgarija, saestvuvat oe makedonska norma, kojato sao izpolzva kirilica, i banatska norma, kojata izpolzva latinica. The intelligibility of Belarussian with both Ukrainian and Russian is a source of controversy. Kajkavian was removed from public use after 1900, hence writing in the standard Kajkavian literary language was curtailed. The biggest Slavic language by far is Russian, which has 154 million native speakers and over 258 million speakers in total. I kind of like it though . by Christine Ro. I believe Serbo-Croatian has only 20% intelligibility of Ukrainian. It has also been described as a transitional dialect between Polish and Slovak. So if you believe the fantastic conspiracy theory that 19 hijackers some have been discovered to be still alive were able to hijack 4 commercial planes for hours uninterrupted armed only with boxcutters and crash them into US largest and with the Pentagon most well guarded which has its own missile defence and radar system buildings on US? In fact, I would probably have a hard time to understand a Czech speaking with such an intonation. There are numerous intelligibility tests out there that work very well, or you can just ask native speakers to give you a %, and most of the honest ones will tell you; in fact, they will often differentiate between oh that is our language, they speak the same language as us, for dialects and then no, that is not our language, that is different, and they do not speak our language for separate languages. This is a Chakavian-Slovenian transitional lect that is hard to categorize, but it is usually considered to be a Slovenian dialect. Other then that difference is in grammar and accent. We speak them too. Just search for alternative Croatian or kaikavian lessons and you will find me, along witht he contact information. Some people in Croatia asked me if I speak Kajkavian when I spoke Slovenian with my friends. Mutual intelligibility between languages can make learning them much easier. 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 As far as grammars are concerned (declension and conjugation), they are so similar that there is almost no effort in understanding that this noun is, for example, in dative plural, and that verb is imperfective past. The intelligibility of Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian is highly controversial, and intelligibility studies are in order. I think that nowadays people from Ni also dont understand that Serbian enough. Subtitles are absurd when 99% of the audience can already understand whats going on. I've ne. And the 25% is very low. Or maybe you are just a gatekeeper. 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. Most Croatian linguists recognized Kajkavian as a separate language. For the south slavic speakers, it is a commonism, almost a joke, for a Serb and a Croat to argue---in a mutually intelligible language---that . Thanks for the information about Eastern Slovak I will incorporate it. "A New Methodology for Romance Classification". I do hope that you understand the point. Mutual intelligibility mostly applies to the educated, standardized forms of these languages, not to the various sub-standard dialects. . 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. There is as much Czech literature and media as Slovak literature and media in Slovakia, and many Slovaks study at Czech universities. What Are Mutually Intelligible Languages? Thus, this exposure gives them an edge when trying to understand Czech. between Ni Torlak and Macedonian than between either of those two and Serbian Polish and Ukrainian mutual intelligibility question. I tested this on my wife by showing her news clips on Youtube. No idea, but if they are fairly intelligent as she sounds like she is, you might be shocked at how she might be able to rattle off some estimated figures like that. http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/sheikhmedia.htm That is good to know. Most Macedonians already are able to speak Serbo-Croatian well. She didnt have any problem following. Is there an agreed-upon standard? 0%. 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. 1993. Serbian is a macrolanguage made up to two languages: Shtokavian Serbian and Torlak or Gorlak Serbian. Re: Rus/Ukr Regular speech is generally quite fast. If we consider that syntax/lexics is the heart of language, than Serbian and Macedonian are the same language. Czech completely and utterly incomprehensible. Required fields are marked *. Macedonian side, the situation is more complicated (i will explain later). These are 33 brand new symbols that you'd have . People who live in border regions have an advantage of speaking two languages and can easily comprehand other ones as well. Scots and English are considered mutually intelligible. At least not in general if so, it might depend on the school. In fact, people in the north of Poland regard Silesian as incomprehensible. Eastern Slovak may have 72% intelligibility of Ukrainian. 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. But when you see it, you are shocked that you can read it. Belarussian is nonetheless a separate language from both Ukrainian and Russian. The reason that these languages seem to be mutually intelligible is because almost all Ukrainians are bilingual anyway, and capable of switching between the two at will. A primary challenge to these positions is that speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other effectively if they choose to do so. #5. 5 (2): 135146. Even the basic words are almost the same. Ive yet to see a speaker of BCS that recognizes the obvious: these three languages are just the same. You can pick up the gist of thats being said in any sentence. I have had people give me personal estimates like 40%, 85%, 60-65%, 70%,10-15%, less than 1%, etc. Salute from Czech republic. | Animals | Slavic Languages Comparison The Best Online German Learning Resources Ukrainian phrases Ukrainian Phrasebook And Dictionary Paperback Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher. You really need to go look at the new version of the paper. A western Slovak can even understand most of Ruthenians hen they are speaking. In Serbian word order is not that important like it is in English. 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. It is true that Western Slovak dialects can understand Czech well, but Central Slovak, Eastern Slovak and Extraslovakian Slovak dialects cannot. > Intelligibility problems are mostly on the Czech end, because they dont bother to learn Slovak, while many Slovaks learn Czech. Slovak: 20% When Kievan Rus' fell to the Mongols in the 13th century, the formerly united states became split, and what were once very closely-related dialects began to . https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D1%8A%D0%BB%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%BA It is an official language of the Bulgarian republic and one of 23 official languages of the European Union. More properly, their speech is best seen as closer to Macedonian than to Bulgarian or Serbo-Croatian. The reason there are subtitles on Russian-language shows in Ukraine is because of Ukraines puristic state language policies. But reading a Bulgarian text is surprisingly easy, because the phonology and vocabulary are very similar. In recent years, many of the German words are falling out of use and being replaced by Polish words, especially by young people. (I will come to Bulgarian too). Toj e oficialnijat ezik na Republika Balgarija i edin iz 23-te oficialni ezika na Evropejskija sajuz. So I understand Kajkavians and Slovenes except for a germanic package. Spoken Bulgarian is very difficult to understand for other Slavs due to phonology and unique syllable stress. The translation is not very problematic. Torlakians are often said to speak Bulgarian, but this is not exactly the case. The standard view among linguists seems to be that Lach is a part of Czech. Chakavian has 82% intelligibility of Kajkavian. akavski has considerably more italian influence, due to many of the people there speaking italian (vicinity to italy) and the presence of istriot language and the former presence of dalmatian language. Vitebsk, Belarus. With Lonely Planet's Ukrainian Phrasebook, let no barriers . I must confess that as a Czech, I understand only little, what the Macedonian reporter is saying, and when I was listening to the first guy from Bosnia (Izetbegovi), I was often lost, understanding only slightly more, maybe 20-30%. Im The Lizard King, I Can Do Anything! Portuguese also has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Spanish. It is often said that Ukrainian and Russian are intelligible with each other or even that they are the same language (a view perpetuated by Russian nationalists). (j/k) The Croatians left Croatia and came to Italy from 1400-1500. Russian is followed by Polish with over 40 million speakers, Ukrainian with 33 million and Czech with 13 million. Some say that West Palesian is actually a separate language, but the majority of Belarussian linguists say it is a dialect of Belarussian (Mezentseva 2014). Serbo-Croatian and Russian have 10-15% intelligibility, if that, yet written intelligibility is higher at 25%. Pannonian Rusyn is spoken by a group of Rusyns who migrated to northwestern Serbia (the Bachka region in Vojvodina province) and Eastern Croatia from Eastern Slovakia and Western Ukraine 250 years ago. but they are often mutually intelligible. Score: 4.1/5 (74 votes) . Together with the basic norm used in Bulgaria, there also exists a Macedonian norm, which (sao=also?) There is much nonsense floating around about Serbo-Croatian or Shtokavian. Istorieskoto mu razvitie se charakterizira s etiri glavni perioda. But other results that included Czech and Bulgarian were very poor. . Serbians and Bosnians not so such. Then she asked me to go do something useful, so this is all I can contribute with. I think the OP exagerated a bit. But islanders more often say Mi povidamo na nau or domau. To my opinion, Macedonian and Bulgarian would be today much closer if Macedonian had not been heavily influenced by Serbian and Bulgarian not influenced so much by Russian. I put it to Google translator and I got this: I am born and raised in Western Ukraine in a Russophone family. The revelation comes from General Musharrafs memoir, In the Line of Fire, which begins serialisation in The Times today and will further embarrass the White House at a time when relations between the US and Pakistan are already strained.. Pakistani intelligence chiefs are concerned that General Musharraf may jeopardise their relationship with British intelligence agencies after claiming that a convicted terrorist was once an MI6 informer. Im pretty sure things are identical in Belarus, if not worse afaik knowledge of Belarusian there is not too widespread in the first place. plenty of prepositions are used in a similar, if not identical, manner; to name an example, na is used in both Macedonian and Ni Torlak as a replacement for the Serbian genitive, in addition to its standard use as on(to) That barrier, however, is not too difficult to overcome. Belarussian and Ukrainian have 85% similar vocabulary. Email me and give me your name please and I will use you in the paper.