Russian is followed by Polish with over 40 million speakers, Ukrainian with 33 million and Czech with 13 million. 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. Polish uses Latin letters, just like English. 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 I met Croats from Zagreb and they speak Slovenian perfectly. Czechs claim only 10-15% intelligibility of Polish. The British Academy funded research project dedicated to examining mutual intelligibility between Karakalpak, Kazakh and Uzbek languages is currently under way at the, This page was last edited on 6 February 2023, at 16:40. Therefore I would go with 25%. Linguistic distance is the name for the concept of calculating a measurement for how different languages are from one another. Yes you can. These are 33 brand new symbols that you'd have . Below is an incomplete list of fully and partially mutually intelligible languages, that are so similar that they are sometimes considered not to be separate, but merely varieties of the same language. 0%. A question: how is it decided that the cut-off between a language and dialect is 90% MI? 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. Russian is actually a little further, but most Belarusian speakers are bilingual (Bel-Rus) and most Ukrainian . But they are unaware of the fact that islander have a lot of latin but also old Croatian (Slavic) words instead of Turkish which are used by supossedly more Croatian tokavian speaker. Are belarusian and russian mutually intelligible? Polish Ukrainian Mutually Intelligible? | Animals - YouTube Maybe its a lack of vocabulary, but I havent heard that word from someone personally yet. [2], Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible,[3] although there are also similarities among different sign languages. You can pick up the gist of thats being said in any sentence. In fact, some say the intelligibility between the two is near zero. That is ~90% our language. Congratulations on a brilliant article! I kind of like it though . In Linguistics, this MI stuff is noncontroversial. 2. Is Ukrainian closer to Russian or Polish? 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%). While not usually considered mutually intelligible, theres also enough similarity between French and Italian that speakers of Portuguese may understand both of these languages. For example, all Russian shows get subtitles on Ukrainian TV. Western Slovak speakers say Eastern Slovak sounds idiotic and ridiculous, and some words are different, but other than that, they can basically understand it. On the other hand, it can be difficult for Russians to understand Ukrainian (though it is easy for them to learn it). Routledge. Score: 4.1/5 (68 votes) . It is true that Western Slovak dialects can understand Czech well, but Central Slovak, Eastern Slovak and Extraslovakian Slovak dialects cannot. For majority of the Shtokavian speakers thats just another language: different grammar, vocabulary, pronunciations, even sounds (Kai has at least 9 vowels while Shto Croatian only 5 for example). People observing conversation between Cieszyn Silesian and Upper Silesian report that they have a hard time understanding each other. She doesn't speak any Polish so it's going to be an interesting challenge. Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian have 10-15% oral intelligibility, however, there are Bulgarian dialects that are transitional with Torlak Serbian. She introduces her and her two friends from the Czech republic and Spain, Because she speaks very clearly and slowly, I understand everything between 0:25-0:32, but then she starts a fast flood of words and between 0:32-0:36 I basically hear only s. How Similar Are Russian And Ukrainian? - Babbel Magazine Young czechs and slovaks communicate on internet on daily basis and they understand each other just perfectly. How do they arrive at these estimates? 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%. Standard Czech and standard Slovak is almost totally intelligible (I would say about 90%) only very few words are of different origin. The thesis that Bulgarian and Macedonian are the same language is not real in the practice. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world. 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. 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 . Now tokavian and akavian. America paid us to hand over al-Qaeda suspects Your English is pretty much ok. Un- or fortunately, you are right about the thesis about Macedonian and Bulgarian. The Lemko dialect of Rusyn has only marginal intelligibility with Ukrainian. Or as an English speaker, you might catch the gist of some Scots. In essence, such kinds of bilingualism also improve understanding of other, unrelated Slavic languages, since two Slavic languages fill in the comprehension gaps. do is the same verb (prim/pri/pri/primo/prite/pre vs. pravam/pravi/pravi/pravime/pravite/pravaat; as opposed to Serbian raditi) 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. Its often said that Czechs and Poles can understand each other, but this is not so. A Serbian friend of mine was estaunished to see how some Macedonian celebrities speak Serbian on the TV without accent. So here you have a case, when I could not understand everything, but I could grasp the meaning (at least). Pronunciation is quite different, but all patterns are easy to catch. But the end of the sentence clarified these words. Ponaszymu also has many Germanisms which have been falling out of use lately, replaced by their Czech equivalents. Personally Im a Taoist in relation to 9/11, the middle way, you know? President Musharraf of Pakistan says that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to America.. He printed out the paper and showed it to his colleagues at the next meeting, and they spent some time discussing it. Exposure doesnt count. Apart lack of understandability there are phrases that could be ill understood with famous Polish I am looking for the broom Serbo-Croatian has only 20% intelligibility of Ukrainian. What about USAs dialects. All In The Language Family: The Slavic Languages - Babbel Magazine But then the second older guy from Bosnia (Filipovi) appeared on the screen and wow! 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). You would be amazed at how good peoples estimates of this sort of thing are though. Macedonian and Bulgarian are fairly similar but they are not close to being fully mutually intelligible. 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. @AJ Usually, they can even write their theses in Slovak. 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. It is commonly believed that all Slavic languages are fully mutually intelligible, which implies that they are close Intelligibility testing between East and West Slovak would seem to be in order. One way to look at Macedonian is that it is a Serbo-Croatian-Bulgarian transitional lect. Russia Invades Ukraine pt XII. The main Turkologist I worked with on that chapter told me that he thought 90% was a good metric. However, any suggestions that Kajkavian is a separate language are censored on Croatian TV (Jembrigh 2014). Vedle hlavn, pouvan v Bulharsku, existuje jet makedonsk norma, kter tak (?) > Intelligibility problems are mostly on the Czech end, because they dont bother to learn Slovak, while many Slovaks learn Czech. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. JohnUK. @jacobbauthumley Torlakians are often said to speak Bulgarian, but this is not exactly the case. Czech: 10% If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site. Regarding Polish and Russian there are many words with opposite meaning. 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) 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). Once you learn Ukrainian, you can understand Polish, Czech, Belarusian, or other Slavic languages because they are quite similar. Other then that difference is in grammar and accent. My guest from Ukraine will have to guess 6 animals that I'll describe to her in Polish. Speaking of myself, after calculating everything, I can understand to specific degree Slovene, somewhat Slovak/Russian, Serbo-Croatian std without problems and also Macedonians. Test only Serbs who know almost no English (they exist in older generation). However, my girlfriend never ever says these words and rather uses on and ona just like in Serbian. Its specific czech and many foreiner has problem spelling it. 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: How much Slovene can your average Chakavian speaker understand? Ukrainian pronounces the "o" as "o" whereas Russians pronounce it typically as an "a." The Ukrainian "" and "" have different pronunciations compared to their Russian equivalents, "" and "". 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. Im Slovenian, my mother tongue is Slovenian, however I have also learnt Serbo-Croatian from a very early age. Written intelligibility is often very different from oral intelligibility in that in a number of cases, it tends to be higher, often much higher, than oral intelligibility. Yes, there are some words, which has Ukraine origins, but trust me that its not so hard to understand. This term is similar to linguistic distance in that it can reflect how similar or different languages are. In terms of pronunciation, Ukrainian or Southeastern Yiddish can be considered to occupy an intermediate position between Northeastern and Central Yiddish. 4.3. YIDDISH DIALECTS - JewishGen Im pretty sure things are identical in Belarus, if not worse afaik knowledge of Belarusian there is not too widespread in the first place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1n9KMawa-8 How many English speakers know Serbo-Croatian? Macedonian syntax and lexics are more similar to Serbian, even though structures of the language such as articles (no declensions) function as in Bulgarian. let me guess, British bankers/Zionists/Rosthchild family/British oil companies/British special forces/Mossad was behind it? Jeff Lindsay estimates that Russian has 85% intelligibility with Rusyn (which has a small number of speakers in Central and Eastern Europe). Interesting article but I think there are some minor and some major mistakes and misunderstandigs. Being fluent in Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian gives you access to understanding more of other Slavic languages. This is a great boon to travelers and language learners. This is the first time that this has been done using just . About the mistakes That being said, the line between a language and a dialect is often blurred. Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Mutual Intelligibility - UniLang Interesting article I think the OP exagerated a bit. If youve studied one language, you may very well understand some of anotheror have a much easier time learning it. Answer (1 of 11): Look, if you're Ukrainian you most likely already speak russian. Many Ukrainian-speakers consider the language . A professor of Slavic Linguistics at a university in Bulgaria reviewed the paper and felt that the percentages were accurate. What Are Mutually Intelligible Languages? Was he educated? What percentage of Ukraine speaks Polish? . Ukrainians seems closer to Slovak than Russian but some words in Russian are almost exactly the same in Slovak but in Ukranian they are completely different. 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. Could you please explain what you mean by language and intelligibility and hopefully remedy this failure of the original text? Because so many Slavic languages are national languages, they tend to have pretty big populations. Serbian is a macrolanguage made up to two languages: Shtokavian Serbian and Torlak or Gorlak Serbian. Some famous linguists who are acquaintances of mine (they have Wikipedia pages) told me that they thought that 90% was a good metric. It is not true that Shtokavian which I speak is not mutually intelligible with Torlakian of southern Serbia. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. 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. Croatian-Shtokavian is only a 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. Basically, when you are listening to Bulgarians, you only hear an incomprehensible row of ta-jat-to-ta-jat-ta-to-ta. Czechs are more urbane. It is more like the other slavic languages (v instead of u, z instead of s, itd, less vowels, and no distinction between and ). Jen. If you speak Russian, you might be surprised at how much Ukrainian you understand. Polish is spoken outside of Poland by Polish diaspora groups in countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Hello Mr Lindsay, 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. Hence, Russians understand the colloquial Ukrainian spoken in the countryside pretty well, but they understand the modern standard heard on TV much less. The fact that such process works is almost a definition of mutual intelligibility for me. Thus, this exposure gives them an edge when trying to understand Czech. 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. 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. Only nationalists and fanatics disagree. But when you see it, you are shocked that you can read it. What Other Languages Can You Understand If You Know Russian? Polish: 5% slavic mutual newspaper 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 Mutual intelligibility mostly applies to the educated, standardized forms of these languages, not to the various sub-standard dialects. But in the case of written Russian, you could elevate this number up to 70-80% quite easily. They say, ~60%, ~65%, etc. Polish Language Overview, Structure & Facts | What is Polski? About Boyko/Hutsul dialects which according to you are more understandable to Russian person than Ukrainian language I will disagree with you.