8. Macedonian has 65% oral and written intelligibility of Bulgarian. Lesser Polish, which can be heard in the south and southeast. Torlakians are often said to speak Bulgarian, but this is not exactly the case. Croatian language doesnt exists. 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. In this week's Slavic languages comparison we talk about animals in Polish and Ukrainian. 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. My take on it is right here. Its specific czech and many foreiner has problem spelling it. English professor. When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". . Russian. 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. 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. 25/01/23 | StarsInsider. Serbs until recently where still self titled Yugoslavs. Even the basic words are almost the same. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe. I always aske her about whether she understands Bulgarian and Serbian and she claims Serbian is way closer to her language rather than Bulgarian. When I visited Bulgaria I tried to communicate in Serbian language with the Bulgars. Kashubian itself is a macrolanguage made up of two different languages, South Kashubian and North Kashubian, as the two have difficult intelligibility. Yet some say that the subtitles are simply put on as a political move due to Ukraines puristic language policy. About the mistakes Glad to hear you are steering clear of it. The President outlines the role played by a former London public schoolboy, Omar Sheikh, in the kidnap and murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, in February 2002. 7. 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. 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. 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. Ukrainian and Russian are today closer than they were a hundred years ago due to Soviet Russification, and somewhat mutually intelligiblespeakers in Ukraine often switch back and forth from one . After all, you can look at the study that I listed above and check the results of the written translation task (translation of 50 individual words), which illustrates the similarity of lexicons: Czechs best understand Slovak words (96,52%), then Polish (64,29%), then Bulgarian (57,00%), Croatian (55,38%) and Slovene (49,73%). Serbs can read both cyrillic and latin without any problem even if that two scripts are mixed in a word or sentence. Personal communication. (Jim Morrison). However, Dutch speakers usually understand more German than the reverse because they study German in school. Thanks for the information about Eastern Slovak I will incorporate it. If speakers of one language have more exposure to its related language, theyre likely to pick up more of that language. This term is similar to linguistic distance in that it can reflect how similar or different languages are. The German influence is more prominent in the west; Polish influence is greater in the east. Its mainly in the weird Bulgarian grammar! You get 0%. 2023 Enux Education Limited. While common speech from urban areas arent always mutually intelligible across regions, speakers from these regions can often use a more formal form of Arabic to speak with each other. They are essentially speaking the same language. Or when I heard the word pobrzajte (hurry up (plural)) it was very interesting to me. Linguistic distance is the relative degree of difference between languages or dialects. A more updated version of this paper with working hyperlinks can be found on Academia.edu here. How much Slovene can your average Chakavian speaker understand? What is the most mutually intelligible Slavic language? Serbo-Croatian dialects in relation to Slovene, Macedonian, and Bulgarian: The non-standard vernacular dialects of Serbo-Croatian (i.e. So I tried with my native Slovenian language and I was surprised how well Bulgars understand Slovenian language. Shtokavian is simply the same Serbo-Croatian language that is also spoken in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia. ", "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. Speakers of the Torlak dialect (any Torlak dialect) understand Serbo-Croation, Macedonian and Bulgarian with no problem, and can comprehand Slovenian as much as 80-90% within a few weeks of exposure. However, Balachka is dying out and is now spoken only by a few old people. For instance, Portuguese and Spanish have a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility, but theyre technically separate languages. Many Ukrainian-speakers consider the language . Its vocabulary and grammar has enough similarities for Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians to understand each other well, whereas Russians understand only will recognise separate words. The Answer, and Examples for 8 World Languages. Personally Im a Taoist in relation to 9/11, the middle way, you know? Feb 22, 2020. Ukrainian 15 % spoken, 25 % written There is a big problem with this. I am a native Spanish speaker but my girlfriend is Macedonian. but they are often mutually intelligible. These recommendations are based on research into the mutual intelligibility of Germanic languages, conducted by Femke Swarte. 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. It is not a failure. I can easily translate the first two sentences: Bulgarian is the oldest documented Slavic language. 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. Having lived in Moscow and being married to a Russian, I now speak Russian well enough to be mistaken for a Russian-speaking tourist from Poland or Lithuania when in Moscow. There is . Post 1991, g has returned. The two languages are not mutually intelligible, and there are significant differences in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Ive yet to see a speaker of BCS that recognizes the obvious: these three languages are just the same. My guest from Ukraine will have to guess 6 animals that I'll describe to her in Polish. Recently a Croatian linguist forwarded a proposal to formally recognize Chakavian as a separate language, but the famous Croatian Slavicist Radoslav Katii argued with him about this and rejected the proposal on political, not linguistic grounds. I have the hardest time to understand anything of Bulgarian, it sounds really fast and choppy but similar to Russian sometimes. Once you pick up those basic 50 words, understanding Macedonian becomes super easy that was my experience with Macedonian friends (the few of them who dont speak Serbian). We speak them too. Rusyn ~ Ukrainian . Molise Croatian is a Croatian language spoken in a few towns in Italy, such as Acquaviva Collecroce and two other towns. Only problem is which is in Czech but not in slovak. French has a reasonable degree of lexical similarity with Italian,Sardinian, Romansh, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish, making it partially mutually intelligible with these languages. Intelligibility testing between East and West Slovak would seem to be in order. More properly, their speech is best seen as closer to Macedonian than to Bulgarian or Serbo-Croatian. 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. In other words, Ukrainian speakers can often understand Russian, while Russian speaker doesn't understand Ukrainian, especially Russian speakers from outside Ukraine. However, the Croatian macrolanguage has strange lects that Standard Croatian (tokavian) cannot understand. Czech and Polish are incomprehensible to Serbo-Croatian speakers (Czech 10%, Polish 5%), but Serbo-Croatian has some limited comprehension of Slovak, on the order of 25%. He conducts his interviews in Macedonian, and as you can watch , his guests, be they bulgarians, serbs, bosnians, croats have no trouble understanding his questions. 5. I believe Polish only a few words. Everything else we chalk up to bilingual learning as we call it and we do not think it is accurate. Russian only has 60% intelligibility of Balachka. 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. Conclusion: Finally, understanding mutual intelligibility gives you helpful insight into the history of a language. And the 25% is very low. Usually, theyre at least partially mutually intelligible with the main language they stem from. Mutual intelligibility is highly subjective. This debate occurred only in Croatian linguistic circles, and the public knows nothing about it (Jembrigh 2014). How this is measured varies, but mutual intelligibility and vocabulary overlap, and often play a role in these calculations. For me having learnt some Slavic languages and watching Bulgarian TV was not very difficult. 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. The grammar in both languages is similar, but, predictably, there are a few differences: While Ukrainian includes the past continuous tense, there are only three tenses in Russian (past, present and future). Russian is actually a little further, but most Belarusian speakers are bilingual (Bel-Rus) and most Ukrainian . Instead Eastern Lach and Western Lach have difficult intelligibility and are separate languages, so Lach itself is a macrolanguage. Polish and Ukrainian have higher lexical similarity at 72%, and Ukrainian intelligibility of Polish is ~50%+. I can understand about 50% 75% of Bulgarian and Macedonian enough to get buy and carry on a conversation. Most of the Ukrainian speakers who do not speak Russian are in Canada at the moment. Russian speakers are also likely to understand some Bulgarian, along with other Slavic languages to a lesser extent. Like rano i utro or kanapa dywan kawior. If we consider that syntax/lexics is the heart of language, than Serbian and Macedonian are the same language. Is Ukrainian more like . When there, they have to pass a language test. Click here to get a copy. Kids speak both languages, as well as English, fluently. Student Authored Website. Being fluent in Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian gives you access to understanding more of other Slavic languages. [2], Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the Romance languages are given; in The Linguasphere register of the worlds languages and speech communities David Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility:[13]. The literary language itself is no longer written, but works written in it are still used in public for instance in dramas and church masses (Jembrigh 2014). Even the most common, most simple words sound alien in spoken Bulgarian, VODA(WATER) is pronounced ,VODA . 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. He alleges that Sheikh later double-crossed British intelligence. Spanish is most mutually intelligible with Galician. 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. 1993. December 2014. Im Czech . Serbs/Croats used to live in the south Poland and they moved south to the current location. It has many Hungarian words, archaic Slavic words and words of an unknown origin (at least to me). Is Ukrainian closer to Russian or Polish? 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. If you're russian you understand the meaning of what other is saying to a degree of around 80%. Lets say a young Czech goes to Slovakia without prior exposure to Slovak. Czechs hardly ever study at Slovak universities. Reactions: So far there have been few reactions to the paper. He said if he was there for about a week he could understand probably everything. Nevertheless, most Bulgarians over the age of 30-35 understand Russian well since studying Russian was mandatory under Communism. I cannot understand that much of kajkavski nor akavski, but I can understand more akavski than I can kajkavski. Ikavian Chakavian has two branches Southwestern Istrian and Southern Chakavian. Less than 90% mutual intelligibility = separate languages. The translation is not very problematic. Even little kids who watch the show understand. 3. Pretty accurate I think. [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. Most people in the region speak Russian with a few Ukrainian words. Most Macedonians already are able to speak Serbo-Croatian well. Accent is on last or penultimate syllable. Some do in fact argue that Ukrainian shouldn't be considered as an East-Slavic language at all, being that it has more in common with West-Slavic languages such as Polish, Czech and Slovak than it . This is also true of vocabulary and other aspects. Mi povidamo Horvatski jazik means We speak croatian language in akavian. If you speak Russian, it will be easier for you to understand other Slavic languages, which include Ukrainian, Belorussian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovene. Tunisian Arabic is also considered mutually intelligible with Maltese, particularly with regards to idiomatic expressions. Russia Invades Ukraine pt XII. Maybe I could offer you somehow help? OMG! Bratislava speakers say that Kosice speech sounds half Slovak and half Ukrainian and uses many odd and unfamiliar words. Although even if they stuck to Polish/Ukrainian, they'd probably still understand each other. They have more in common than you might think! Russian is partially mutually intelligible with Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian. The Lemko dialect of Rusyn has only marginal intelligibility with Ukrainian. Theres a good reason for this: mutual intelligibility. A western Slovak can even understand most of Ruthenians hen they are speaking. Russian is also 85% mutually intelligible with Belarusian and Ukrainian in writing. (. This is not necessarily correct in terms of vocabulary, but you will find a lot in common in the grammatical rules . Then conversation is intelligible 100%. Je to oficiln jazyk v Bulharsk republice a jeden z 23 oficilnch jazyk v Evropsk unii. . These 4 main Polish dialects are: Greater Polish, which is spoken in the west of the country.