Slavic Languages

[freddie]

Come on luxxi don't nitpick. This is an unimportaint difference. It could go eather way. Question of interpretation really. I admit it did go past me that small difference, but it's so similar that it's practicaly the same.
After all we are talking here about Bulgarian, Russian, Slovene, Croatioan... as being similar languages. So in that respect I belive you can consider Bosnian, Croatian and Serbain as not just similar, but pretty close to the same.

[luxxi]

Yes, it's a small difference. But you did say exactly the same and put "exactly" in caps so...

But I agree that Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian are very similar.

[freddie]

True. My bad. That's why I said this in my next post:

I admit it did go past me that small difference, but it's so similar that it's practicaly the same.

[coolasfcuk]

hey people, let me translit the same text from those links in Bulgarian also, since I just realized you can't really read it and it is not translited there, onoy translated.

Vsichki hora se razhdat svobodni i ravni po dostojnstva i prava. Te sa nadareni s razum i savest (here 'a' is representing 'ъ') i sledva da se otnasjat po mezhdu si v duh na bratstvo.

I agree too, those 3 languages- Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are dialects. So before I was wrong- Macedonian is like dialect with Bulgarian.

Since we dont have a Russian really participating here, I will also translit the Russian version of the text.

Vse ljudi rozhdajutsya svobodnyimi i ravnymi v svoem dostoinstve i pravah. Oni nadeleny razumom i sovest'iu i dolzhnyi postupat' v otnoshenii drug druga v duhe bratstva. Little note- I used the ' when ь and it makes the pronanciation of the letter in front of it 'soft'. See, I am not too good at explaining this- we need a Russian to explain it.

So I am coming to understand Bulgarian is closer to Russian in lots situation than Slovene, Srbian, Croatian, Bosnian. Weird, I always thought differently.
Also coming from the interpretation of the text... they have written the second part of the Bulgarian text a little bit differently. If they had written it just like the Russian one, it would be like this: Te sa nadareni s razum i savest i sa dlazhni da postapvat v otnosheniata si edin s drug v duh na bratstvo. See, I think if Bulgarian had kept it's parezhi we will be even closer to Russian. (I know freddie I still need to explain those- I am figuring it out. )

[freddie]

I know what you're saying cool. It's the interpretation again. There are numerous ways you can write this short text. I can make slovene more close to russian just by using little different words.

let me gice you an example:


Russian sample text:
Vse ljudi rozhdajutsya svobodnyimi i ravnymi v svoem dostoinstve i pravah. Oni nadeleny razumom i sovest'iu i dolzhnyi postupat' v otnoshenii drug druga v duhe bratstva.

Slovene sample text:
Vsi ljudje se rodijo svobodni in enaki v svojem dostojanstvu in pravicah. Oni so obdarjeni z razumom in vestjo in so dolzhni ravnati v odnosu drug z drugegim v duhu bratstva.



It's a little more clumsy like this but correct none the less. For instance in the original translation of slovene "in the spirit of brotherhood" was translated "like brothers", while russian translation keept the original. I just translated it so that both versions have "in the spirit of brotherhood at the end." Plus I made some some other minor adjustments

We would have to find a text where we would be able to do a word for word translations. The one where improvisation wouldn't be possible at all.

But I also get the felling that Bulgarian is by far the most similar to russian as far as the south-slavic group is concearned. I wonder what historical facts contributed to this. And I wonder how slovakian and chech languages fit into this story. I wonder to which they are the most similar. Are there any chechs or slovaks in the house?

[coolasfcuk]

Yeah freddie that looks closer to Bulgarian and Russian as you interpreted it again.

But I also get the felling that Bulgarian is by far the most similar to russian as far as the south-slavic group is concearned. I wonder what historical facts contributed to this.

Hmmm, well, reading all the history, this is how I can explain it. You know the two brothers Cyril and Methodius and their deciples were kicked out of Moravia (Czech, Poland, Slovenia today I am not exactly sure all the countries) Then they settled in Bulgaria, and from there the Cyrillic spread up to what is today Ukraine (at that time it was Kievska Russ -I am not sure about the english name) Russia was not as powerful- Moscow was not the moscow we know today- it was basically a bunch of little 'knjazhestvo' (I am missing the english word again, sorry) made up by the slavics. Later from Kievska Russ, the Cyrillic travelled east and made it to Moscow. This is why Ukranian is closer to Bulgarian than Russian.
The above was for the Cyrillic writing, which is one reason why Bulgarian is closer. Then also- I think your guys languages have been influenced more by the west- because of geographical location. That one, and two- remember the church?? We are Eastern Ortodox also- so that has to do with it also.

[freddie]

cool that certainly would explain a lot. I just wonder which was the "primary" slavic language. To which language we know today would it be the most similar. I bet it would be somewhere in between Russian and Bulgarian.

btw: maybe you meant principality when you say 'knjazhestvo'?

[QueenBee]

Wow.. I always knew those languages were alike, but I never knew they were practically the same!
Donno whats up with my language tho.. its so different from all other slavic languages. :/

[luxxi]

Originally posted by freddie
btw: maybe you meant principality when you say 'knjazhestvo'?

I'd say it means "knezevina" in Slovenian. Meaning dominion of "knez" a low/mid rank of aristocracy.

[freddie]

Originally posted by luxxi
I'd say it means "knezevina" in Slovenian. Meaning dominion of "knez" a low/mid rank of aristocracy.

It is knezevina. You're right.

EDIT: Luxxi i'm gonna spank you! It's not slovenian it's slovene!!!

[coolasfcuk]

luxxi, Good Job !! That's what I meant. How sweet is that- we dont even need English dictionary to understand each other.

What is knez for you is knjaz or kniaz (translited either way) for us. and knezevina for you is kinjazhestvo or kiniazhestvo for us.

[zebu]

Originally posted by freddie
Words: yes. But grammatical structures? Excuse me? Like what?

Plus: you surely must admit that bosinan and croatian are much more similar then then croatian and slovene.

To emhasize my point I will post a sample text from cool's link. First the slovene, then croatian, bosnian langauge and finally original text in english:

Sample text in Slovene
Vsi ljudje se rodijo svobodni in imajo enako dostojanstvo in enake pravice. Obdarjeni so z razumom in vestjo in bi morali ravnati drug z drugim kakor bratje.

Croatian sample text
Sva ljudska biжa raрaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i svijeљжu i trebaju jedna prema drugima postupati u duhu bratstva.

Bosnian sample text
Sva ljudska biжa raрaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i svijeљжu i treba da jedno prema drugome postupaju u duhu bratstva.

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


You will notice that the sample text's in croatian and bosinan are EXACTLY the same, while Slovenian is different. How can two different languages (like you claim bosnian and croatian are) have same sample texts? That's imposible. And Serbian text is indentical as well, with the exception that it's writen in Cyrillic.

Croatian is a language and it has its history and developement, Serbs tried to make it more like Serbian when we were in Yugoslavia.
I don't know about Bosnian and I didn't say anything about, but I think that many people in Bosnia people speak Croatian and Serbian.I think nobody heard about Bosnian language before the war.

The example you gave us doesn't prove anything.You chose a sentence where the difference is the smallest.

I don't understand why you keep saying that Croatian isn't different, when there is Croatian grammar,dictionary different from others, experts, linguists say that Serbian is one language and Croatian another.

[crni]

and bulgarian is "different" from russian or macedonian but they are SO similar, just like croatian and serbian.
noone CLAIMS that it's the same, but they are so much alike, so you could practically call them dialects of the same language (but noone CLAIMS that!).
just like coolasfcuk said that she could call macedonian a dialect of bulgarian.
that's all!
here, noone CLAIMS anything, we're just discussing, right?

[freddie]

Croatian is a language and it has its history and developement, Serbs tried to make it more like Serbian when we were in Yugoslavia. I don't know about Bosnian and I didn't say anything about, but I think that many people in Bosnia people speak Croatian and Serbian.I think nobody heard about Bosnian language before the war.

The example you gave us doesn't prove anything.You chose a sentence where the difference is the smallest.

I don't understand why you keep saying that Croatian isn't different, when there is Croatian grammar,dictionary different from others, experts, linguists say that Serbian is one language and Croatian another.

Look. The example I gave wasn't chosen by me. That sentance was chosen by the site provided by cool's link that compares different aspects of slavic languges (so it is chosen to show the difference rather then make the difference smaller).

What experts? Sebian and croatian experts who want to differentiate two identical languages because of national tendenceies. What grammar differences? What different dictionaries? Tell me a couple examples of significant changes (not just different words). I'll mention it again. 13 yers back I learned Serbo-croatian in school and it was considered one language, with the exception of cyrillic writing in serbian (otherwise same grammar rules, same dictionaries...the works) Even a layman could see that those two langauges are amost identical, and whatever that small difference is it's down to slightly different history. I would even go as far as saying that slovene is pretty similar to both as well, but it is another langauge after all (because it does have completely different grammar + vocabulary). There are just to little difference between serbian and croatian to call them individual languages. Any serious linguist must realize this. (Some) different words don't make a different language.

[crni]

the language IS different.
if it was completely the same it would have the same name, right?
anyway, the difference is barely noticable, so...

[coolasfcuk]

Lets just say, that our languages came from one language- looooooooooooong time ago- now they are different- some a lot more different than other, and some almost exactly the same. But we are all one big happy language family and we saw few times already that we dont need dictionaries a lot of time to be able to undertsnad each other. Next stop I say lets do Nas Ne Dogoniyat people, whenever everybody has a chance, I know it is lots of effort, bit it is FUN, no?

[freddie]

Originally posted by crni
the language IS different.
if it was completely the same it would have the same name, right?
anyway, the difference is barely noticable, so...

I agree with that.

[luxxi]

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
luxxi, Good Job !! That's what I meant. How sweet is that- we dont even need English dictionary to understand each other.

I noticed this before. In Chezh when we couldn't find anybody who spoke either English or German we talked in Slovene and people undestood us more or less.

[freddie]

That's emphasized even more in slovakain. It's even more close to slovene. Although the language "sound" nothing alike (slovakian has completely different intonations) the vocabulary is close. Almost scary sometimes

[crni]

i tried to translate NND, but there's no suitable translated version to original russian lyrics. i tried to use the lyrics that i got a long time ago and (with my very little knowledge of russian) i noticed that it doesn't match. then i tried to use the one from Echoed's collection but it still has a lot of differences, which make this translation impossible for me. i'd suggest that we take Ne Ver, Ne Boisya next. anybody?