His wife had never been to Poland and her language was completely foreign to me. 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. All foreign movies in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are translated into Czech, not Slovak. Even the most common, most simple words sound alien in spoken Bulgarian, VODA(WATER) is pronounced ,VODA . Answer (1 of 4): Yes. If, for example, one language is related to another but has simplified its grammar, the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but less vice versa. Czech: 10% Slow, deliberate speech is not typical. Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family. Polish, Ukrainian and even Serbo-Croatian dialects are less so, especially in the light of their geographical spread . Sorry I can`t give you percentage. My gues. Tips For Learning A Slavic Language - ilovelanguages.com For example, British Sign Language (BSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of the United Kingdom and the United States share the same spoken language. 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. How mutually intelligible are Ukrainian and Russian? : r/ukraine Lesser Polish, which can be heard in the south and southeast. It is rather controversial outside Linguistics, as you run into nationalists and other fools who emotionally distort things. Glad to hear you are steering clear of it. The Rusyn language is composed of 50% Slovak roots and 50% Ukrainian roots, so some difficult intelligibility with Ukrainian might be expected. some things in this article are heavily exaggerated. BULGARIAN (transferred to the Latin script): algarskijat ezik e indoevropejski ezik ot grupata na junoslavjanskite ezici. Polish and Russian while Slavic sounding to my ear and is maybe 5%-15% intelligible . Poles who know German and Old Polish can understand Silesian quite well due to the Germanisms and the presence of many older Polish words, but Poles who speak only Polish have a hard time with Silesian. 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. Thank you. I speak tokavski croatian (and can read and understand serbian (both cyrillic and latin) and can adapt my croatian to be more serbian grammatically and with vocabulary) and just recently I had a conversation where I spoke croatian and the other person spoke polish. The Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family is known for its languages being relatively closely related. The reason there are subtitles on Russian-language shows in Ukraine is because of Ukraines puristic state language policies. Its mainly in the weird Bulgarian grammar! English professor. Click here to get a copy. Mutual intelligibility among Slavic Languages | Antimoon Forum Even little kids who watch the show understand. Mutual intelligibility - Wikipedia The intelligibility of Belarussian with both Ukrainian and Russian is a source of controversy. Robert Lindsay. If I tell them few sentences (phrases) in Boyko dialect, then Russians wont be able to understand at all. However, Chakavian magazines are published even today (Jembrigh 2014). Vitebsk, Belarus. In this week's Slavic languages comparison, we talk about animals in Polish and Ukrainian. Although different writing systems are used, there are many similarities in the grammar used, such as Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian. Slovak: 20% Much of the claimed intelligibility between Czech and Slovak was simply bilingual learning. Croatian (Stokavski): 98% I also have no problems understanding standard Croatian or the Kajkavian and Cakavian Croatian dialects and Bosnian and Montenegrin to me are the same language and completely understandable. Hence, many religious books were imported from Russia, and these books influenced Bulgarian. People observing conversation between Cieszyn Silesian and Upper Silesian report that they have a hard time understanding each other. General Musharraf says that Sheikh, who orchestrated the abduction, was recruited by MI6 while he was studying at the London School of Economics and sent to the Balkans to take part in jihad operations there. possession is indicated most frequently using dative pronouns, unlike Serbians tendency to use possessive pronouns in greater frequency Bulgarian has 80% intelligibility of Macedonian, 41% of Russian, and 5% of Polish and Czech. In terms of pronunciation, Ukrainian or Southeastern Yiddish can be considered to occupy an intermediate position between Northeastern and Central Yiddish. "A New Methodology for Romance Classification". In its written form Bulgarian is even more different than in its spoken form. Polish is a disgusting sounding language. Bulgarian: 15% spoken , 30-40% written Regular speech is generally quite fast. Ukrainians can understand Russian much better than the other way around. They are essentially speaking the same language. Huchon, Mireille, Histoire de la langue franaise, pages 214 and 223. Communication about such things is significantly impaired at this level. Regarding Polish and Russian there are many words with opposite meaning. The translation is not very problematic. Yet we speak of Kai/Cha as of Serbo-Croatian dialects, while Slovenian is totally foreign. And Im glad he didnt felt in the nonsense babble of serbians, croats and bosnians that try too hard to show their differences, due to political/religious reasons. She didnt have any problem following. Get 70% off + 10 languages + 14 day free trial. Sledva da se otbelei, e tova delene e uslovno i imenata ne otrazjavat razlini ezici, a samo periodi v razvitieto na balgarskija ezik, za koito se otkrivat charakterni belezi. 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? Do you speak Ukrainian. Or they will say, Well, that is about 70% our language. If it is a dialect, they will say, That is really still our language. I would be able to translate what he says! Most pairs have no figure for written intelligibility. Then tokavian person reaction would be: What? Macedonian: 50-60 % Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family You cannot simply separate the articles from the words during a regular conversation. During the last 20 years, Ukraine has tried to make the language norm as far from Russian as possible for nationalistic reasons. I can read and understand a lot of Bulgarian in written form, its basically old slavic , many such words are simply obsolete or archaic in modern serbian, but i do get the gist of any written article. In the towns of Pirot and Vranje, it cannot be said that they speak Serbo-Croatian; instead they speak this Bulgarian-Serbo-Croatian mixed speech. Mi priamo Hrvatski jezik in neotokavian. Please listen and watch the movie Zona Zamfirova. In fact, some say the intelligibility between the two is near zero. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe. Both me and her had a much easier time following the Rusyn dialects than standard Ukrainian (although they were by no means completely comprehensible). As for mutual intelligibility, learned exposure aside, Ive never had much of a fun time in any area of western or northern Serbia that wasnt Belgrade; my lack of a pitch accent system (where Serbian has four accents, Ni has independent accent and length that seldom coincide with the norm); I cannot for the life of me make sense of umadija or Vojvodina Serbian (these are considered the normative core of Serbian) without resorting to asking the other party to slow down and having myself talk slower. How mutually intelligible are Czech and polish? | Latin D It's not learning, but for become understanding - Ukrainian must listen Polish language from some hours to some days to get used to very specific pronunciation. 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. 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. Thanks for clearing this up! Eastern Slovak has ~80% intelligibility of Rusyn. Of course, the interviews are subtitled in Macedonian, but even an untrained ear and eye can see how similar these languages are. Macedonian 40 % spoken, 60 % written So dominant, in fact, that parts of Ukraine and Belarus were significantly russified in a matter of a generation, even if not completely. Is there any particular method to determine this? Similar things are also valid for Ukraine and Belarus, both of which were parts of the Soviet Union, where Russian was the dominant official language. 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. And if you're perhaps a polyglot or linguaphile looking for a new challenge, then maybe learning a bit of Mandarin, Urdu, or even Persian might just be up your alley! LIFESTYLE Languages. There is just a little problem to understand east Slovaks for Czechs from naywhere. His level of understanding might be 90%, or 82%, 85%. Much of the claimed intelligibility is simply bilingual learning. Is Ukrainian mutually intelligible with Polish? Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Mutual Intelligibility - UniLang It has also been described as a transitional dialect between Polish and Slovak. We found that Czech and Slovak have by far the highest level of mutual intelligibility, followed by Croatian and Slovene. Serbo-Croatian (Shtokavian) has 55% intelligibility of Macedonian (varies from 25-90%), 27% of Slovenian, 25% of Slovak, 20% of Ukrainian, 13% of oral Bulgarian and 25% of written Bulgarian, 10% of oral Russian and 22% of written Russian, 10% of Czech, and 5% of Polish. 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. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11185-015-9150-9 Written intelligibility is higher at 25%. Give me a figure in % for the Rusyn if you would. A lect called iarija Slovenian is spoken on the Istrian Peninsula in Slovenia just north of Croatia. Yes you can. Polish has 22% intelligibility of Silesian, 12% of Czech, 6% of Russian, and 5% of Bulgarian. Are Russian and Polish mutually intelligible? What Languages Are Mutually Intelligible With Serbian? Czech and Slovak are more intelligible to me then Slovenian with Slovak more so then Czech. Briefly put, mutual intelligibility is when speakers of one language can understand a related language to some degree. Portuguese also has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Spanish. . Belarussian is nonetheless a separate language from both Ukrainian and Russian. 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. But despite similarities in grammar and vocabulary and almost identical alphabets, they differ sharply in many ways and are not mutually intelligible. Italian is partially mutually intelligible with French, Catalan, Sardinian, Spanish, Ladin and Romanian. Russia Invades Ukraine pt XII. In the present study we tested the level of mutual intelligibility between three West Slavic (Czech, Slovak and Polish) and three South Slavic languages (Croatian, Slovene and Bulgarian). Swarte will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 3 March. If you can speak Russian fluently, you will be able to understand 77% of Polish words, while Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, and . Young czechs and slovaks communicate on internet on daily basis and they understand each other just perfectly. There are new scientific figures for Czech-Slovak, Czech-Serbo-Croatian and Czech-Bulgarian. The Chinese language, on the other hand, is comprised of a number of dialects that arent always mutually intelligible. For example we chakavians use a lot of words used in Polish, Ukrainian, Slovak etc but in standard Croatian those words are described as archaisms and instead words used in tokavian come from Turkish. These figures were tallied up for each pair of languages to be tabulated and were then all averaged together. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. Its also said that Serbo-Croatian can understand Bulgarian and Macedonian, but this is not true. This debate occurred only in Croatian linguistic circles, and the public knows nothing about it (Jembrigh 2014). I will also send you a copy so you can look over the Serbo-Croatian part and tell me if there are any errors. Chakavian has 82% intelligibility of Kajkavian. Since the breakup, young Czechs and Slovaks understand each other worse since they have less contact with each other. Robert does look at these stories. Lach is a Czech-Polish transitional lect with a close relationship with Cieszyn Silesian. However, it appears to be a separate language, as Lach is not even intelligible within itself. In Serbian word order is not that important like it is in English. Frequency of exposure is one of the main causes of this. Buzet is actually transitional between Slovenian and Kajkavian. The Czech law even states that Slovak language can be used in schools and in official documents. It is not true at all that Ukrainian and Russian are mutually intelligible, as Russian only has 50% intelligibility of Ukrainian. What is the basis on which your Serbian friend said that? Lets say a young Czech goes to Slovakia without prior exposure to Slovak. Its also highly intelligible with Portuguese in writing, though less so when spoken. .Interestingly, Ukrainians can understand the Russian language better than the Russians would understand the Ukrainian. He is currently listed on the FBIs Most Wanted Terrorists list. Interesting when one considers that Ukrainians do not even consider Rusyn a real language. 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. Problem is the spoken form, as Bulgarians dont speak as it is written, which is the case with serbian or croatian. Serbo-Croatian speakers can often learn to understand Macedonian well after some exposure. Answer (1 of 16): I'm neither Polish nor Ukrainian but I know Polish to a good level and basic Ukrainian; I can comment on the understandability of Ukrainian for Poles. In Czech rep. Slovaks dont have to pass any language exams (the other foreigner do have to). What Are Mutually Intelligible Languages? The Answer, and - FluentU Hutch Mon May 14, 2007 12:25 am GMT. I have also friends from Central Macedonia (Prilep, Bitola) and I can tell how different they speak from the Skopjian dialect. In addition, a Net search was done of forums where speakers of Slavic languages were discussing how much of other Slavic languages they understand. Russian is also 85% mutually intelligible with Belarusian and Ukrainian in . What is the most mutually intelligible Slavic language? 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. Because of all of this, tokavian speaker has a hard time understanding fast talking akavian speakers. Young Czechs and Slovaks talk to each other a lot via the Internet. There is much nonsense said about the mutual intelligibility of the various languages in the Slavic family. Polish Dialects In a Nutshell: Everything About the Main Polish Accents This is a political point, of course. I tested this on my wife by showing her news clips on Youtube. (I will come to Bulgarian too). Serbian is a macrolanguage made up to two languages: Shtokavian Serbian and Torlak or Gorlak Serbian. I also understand more of other Slavic languages then neotokavian speakers do. I've ne. America paid us to hand over al-Qaeda suspects It is true that Western Slovak dialects can understand Czech well, but Central Slovak, Eastern Slovak and Extraslovakian Slovak dialects cannot. More? Macedonian side, the situation is more complicated (i will explain later). Or when I heard the word pobrzajte (hurry up (plural)) it was very interesting to me. Thus, this exposure gives them an edge when trying to understand Czech. Russian only has 60% intelligibility of Balachka. It is quite true that Macedonian speakers (even today) are switching to Serbian (although there is a resistence among some speakers of Macdonian) on informal situations. Scots and English are considered mutually intelligible. Because so many Slavic languages are national languages, they tend to have pretty big populations. Mutual intelligibility between languages - CourseFinders In the former Czechoslovakia, everything was 50-50 bilingual media, literature, etc. KajkavianCroatian, spoken in northwest Croatia and similar to Slovenian, is not intelligible with Standard Croatian. Here are three critical ways in which Bulgarian and Russian speakers differ. How much of Ukrainian can these Russians in Canada understand? In some respects, all Slavic languages have a lot in common. Eastern Slovak has 82% intelligibility of Rusyn and 72% of Ukrainian. Cieszyn Silesian speakers strongly reject the notion that they speak the same language as Upper Silesians. Yiddish speakers usually have an easier time understanding German than vice versa, largely because Yiddish has added words from other languages, including Hebrew and Slavic languages, which makes it more difficult for German speakers to understand. Intelligibility in the Slavic languages of the Balkans is much exaggerated. So I tried with my native Slovenian language and I was surprised how well Bulgars understand Slovenian language. The Polish alphabet includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics: the kreska in the letters , , , , and through the letter in ; the kropka in the letter , and the ogonek ("little .