Something Interesting For All My Slavic Brothas & Sistahs

freddie · 03-01-2004, 03:41

Hello all the good slavic people of the world!

I thought this might interest you. Some clever guy developed a langauge which all slavic people can understand (more or less) without any learning whatsoever. It's called SLOVIO (after the word slovo I guess) The only requirement is to know at least one slavic language. So it's kinda like a Slavic Esperanto except that you don't have to learn anything to get the basics down. I tried it and I must say it works well with Slovene - I pretty much understood the majority. So it goes well with the South Slavic group (my guess is Serbians, Croatians and possibly even Bulgarians shouldn't have many problems then), now I want all you Russian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, speakers to try it out and see how it works with the East and the West slavic languages.

This is the official page

Some more facts about the language:

Slovio language
Slovio is a written and spoken constructed language created by scientist and linguist Mark Hucko. Slovio is an international help-language created to help Slavic speakers intercommunicate. The grammar of Slovio is similar to Esperanto, but the vocabulary is derived from the most common words from Slavic languages. According to Hucko, Slovio is understandable by more than 400 million people throughout the world without any prior study of the language. The name, Slovio, comes from the pre-Slavic word "slovo" which means "word."
As of October 2003, the vocabulary of Slovio contains about 12000 words.

shizzo · 03-01-2004, 04:17

Hmm. It seems to me that the vocabulary of the language is
influenced mostly by Russian and Polish, but the general "look"
of the text resembles neither - it instead, to me, has the
uneased joltiness of a manufactured language. :-| In Cyrillic,
it isn't as noticeable, but it's still there.

Despite this, I think it's still a productive working means for
communication - it's still reliant on the fact that most Slavic
people are aware of different root words or contexts in
figuring out what's said or written in other Slavic languages,
but the effort in constructing a lingua franca is evident. I
could understand almost all of it - mission accomplished. :P

freddie · 03-01-2004, 04:46

Quote:

Originally posted by cniaju
Hmm. It seems to me that the vocabulary of the language is
influenced mostly by Russian and Polish, but the general "look"
of the text resembles neither

I think it takes words that are similar in all the languages. I mean I would swear that at least 50% of words are almost a direct copy from Slovene. Of course this is not the case... those are just common words.

shizzo · 03-01-2004, 05:28

Quote:

Originally posted by freddie
I think it takes words that are similar in all the languages. I mean I would swear that at least 50% of words are almost a direct copy from Slovene. Of course this is not the case... those are just common words.

Lemme re-phrase.

The words picked for Slovio are generally common throughout
most Slavic languages. But when it comes to seeing which
languages are closest in vocabulary [i.e. which languages have
a majority of the words already in them], it seems that a
person conversant in Polish and Russian will understand what's
written a lot more comprehensively than a person who knows
any other two Slavic languages. For example, Slovio is of
course similar to Slovene, but an educated assumption about
its content would suggest that a Russian speaker would be
more readily cognizant of the words than a Slovene speaker
based exclusively on Slovio's vocabulary.

In my own observations, a person who knows both Russian
and Polish would find it easier to understand than someone
who knows, say, Czech and Serbian. More shared words exist
in the former two languages than in the latter, or in any
latter that could be surmised.

freddie · 03-01-2004, 06:15

Quote:

Originally posted by cniaju
Lemme re-phrase.

The words picked for Slovio are generally common throughout
most Slavic languages. But when it comes to seeing which
languages are closest in vocabulary [i.e. which languages have
a majority of the words already in them], it seems that a
person conversant in Polish and Russian will understand what's
written a lot more comprehensively than a person who knows
any other two Slavic languages. For example, Slovio is of
course similar to Slovene, but an educated assumption about
its content would suggest that a Russian speaker would be
more readily cognizant of the words than a Slovene speaker
based exclusively on Slovio's vocabulary.

In my own observations, a person who knows both Russian
and Polish would find it easier to understand than someone
who knows, say, Czech and Serbian. More shared words exist
in the former two languages than in the latter, or in any
latter that could be surmised.

You think? Hmmm...I can't really say but as far as I know there are 3. specific groups of slavic languages which are even more similar to eachother then slavic languages in general. Those groups are:
South slavic (West part south slavic: Slovene, Serbo-croatian, eastern part sout slavic: Bulgarian, Macedonian).
Then we have the Eastern group : Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian.
And the last are Western group: Czech, Slovak and Polish.

There is much less difference within those groups, but Russian and Polish belong to different groups. So Polsih should be much closer to Czech and Slovakian then to Russian. There are similarities of course, but not as greater as within one group. The languages within one group are sometimes considered to be dialects of one languages anyway (like Bulgarian and Macedonian).

goku · 03-01-2004, 06:25

Cool freddie. Now I don't have to embarrass myself when I travel and it shouldn't be too hard to learn.

I found this on the site:

Quote:

By learning Slovio, wich is even easier and mor logical than Esperanto, I have found a new life and many new friends.

The site is filled with typos and spelling errors, and here they are trying to teach a new language.

shizzo · 03-01-2004, 08:31

Quote:

There is much less difference within those groups, but Russian and Polish belong to different groups.

Nah, you're missing the point. :P This is what emphasized the
point of creating a Pan-Slavic language. Differences in language
families add variety and extension to understanding more
words and grammatical structures - almost any Slavic person
should be able to understand the majority of Slovio, but from
a personal observation, I noticed that more words are shared
via Polish-Slavsk and Russian-Slavsk than in any other combo
that I could think of.

The whole idea of the language is a balancing act - picking
which words are most common throughout the entire Slavic
perspective is something of majority usage. Polish's word for
'book' [ksiazka] doesn't resemble other variants of the word
[kniha, книга, knjiga], so it's evident that 'knig' was a
logical choice for this word in Slovio. Variants tend to be
discarded - if grammar were more complex, then grammatical
rules that aren't common in most Slavic languages would face
the same rules of selection. A prime example is Slovenian's
dual number [ reka, reke, dve reki ] - since it exists in few
languages, it'd probably be left out 'cos it doesn't fit into the
majority of Slavic languages.

[I think I'm approaching a comprehensive point, but I don't
know if I'm there yet. :-|]

Quote:

The site is filled with typos and spelling errors, and here they are trying to teach a new language.

Eh, perfection is an ideal - seldom a reality. Expect mistakes
and orthographical error.

QueenBee · 03-01-2004, 14:07

YAY I'm gonna try it..

cirrus · 03-01-2004, 20:38

Nah, I can't get it. But my Polish needs improvement anyways...

QueenBee · 03-01-2004, 21:08

I got pretty much most of it, but I'm way too lazy to read everything on the site (maybe some other time

). There were some things that I really didn't understand though, but then again I suck at Polish so that could explain things.

It was pretty cool though although they act like everyone knows Slovio and "OOoh the pizzadude understood Slovio" and crap.. but I don't think that's true.

freddie · 03-01-2004, 22:10

Quote:

Originally posted by cniaju
Nah, you're missing the point. :P This is what emphasized the
point of creating a Pan-Slavic language. Differences in language
families add variety and extension to understanding more
words and grammatical structures - almost any Slavic person
should be able to understand the majority of Slovio, but from
a personal observation, I noticed that more words are shared
via Polish-Slavsk and Russian-Slavsk than in any other combo
that I could think of.

The whole idea of the language is a balancing act - picking
which words are most common throughout the entire Slavic
perspective is something of majority usage. Polish's word for
'book' [ksiazka] doesn't resemble other variants of the word
[kniha, книга, knjiga], so it's evident that 'knig' was a
logical choice for this word in Slovio. Variants tend to be
discarded - if grammar were more complex, then grammatical
rules that aren't common in most Slavic languages would face
the same rules of selection. A prime example is Slovenian's
dual number [ reka, reke, dve reki ] - since it exists in few
languages, it'd probably be left out 'cos it doesn't fit into the
majority of Slavic languages.

I know what you mean (I think), but maybe you're just seing it from a different perspective. From what you said I presume that you know Polish and Russian and you recognized a lot of words as being polish or russian native words, while I see it from a slovene perspective and see a lot of words as complete copies (or at least derived) from slovene, when we're possibly both wrong and those words that we falsly see as derived from Russian, Polish or Slovene were actualy generic slavic (or even international words.
I'm impressed you know what dual is though. LOL

Queenie: The pizza guy made me laugh as well. I mean, is that american dude sharing his life stories with the Russian pizza guy? Seriously, how much slavic knowlage must you have to to communicate with a PIZZA GUY?

$5, Keep the change! Bye!

shizzo · 04-01-2004, 00:25

Quote:

Originally posted by freddie
I know what you mean (I think), but maybe you're just seing it from a different perspective. From what you said I presume that you know Polish and Russian and you recognized a lot of words as being polish or russian native words, while I see it from a slovene perspective and see a lot of words as complete copies (or at least derived) from slovene, when we're possibly both wrong and those words that we falsly see as derived from Russian, Polish or Slovene were actualy generic slavic (or even international words.
I'm impressed you know what dual is though. LOL

I think you pinpointed it exactly - it's the result of a difference
in perspective. My observations are based on vocabulary and
syntax that I picked up from studying several Slavic languages
and the linguistic family itself - yours come from the approach
of a native speaker on the homefront.

We should combine the details of what we've noticed into
a comprehensive hybrid perspective that could be understood
by almost everybody, а la slovio-style. :P

coolasfcuk · 04-01-2004, 00:50

haha nice thread freds

so , I didnt have time to read too much... just few mins....very first comment - they chose such weird choises of 'ch' 'sh' 'zh' sounds

also, it is obvious to me that this was done by a person from x-yugoslavia no? (didnt have time to see it it says that) ... but.. i get that feeling

you know what i think about this.... Bulgarians are always in the best position when it comes to things like this, because our language has been simplified (analytical l anguage) - and so it is easier for us to understand any other slavic language, because we dont depend on some many 'rules' as the other ones do

so - from what i've read so far I understand almost 100% ... and yes, I know some russian, but no other slavic language... yet esp the south slavic ones are soooo close anywya....

lets see wha i read:

Quote:

Moi den.
- Ja es muzx. Imenim Dusxan. Domovim vo velju velgrod ktor imajt bolsx cxem dva milion ludis. Robim vo velju zavod dla obuv. Vo nasx obuv-zavod delame vsektor tipis om obuv. Dla muzxis, dla zxenis, dla detes, dla Leto ili dla Zima.
- Probudim vsektor utro om sxes cxasis. Vstaiam posle despiat minutis om sxes cxasis i cxetvert. Posle idim vo moi umivalnaf gde dusxim, cxetkam moi zubis, suhim i cxesam moi vlosis. Gda ja es cxistju i suhju, odevim i obuvim i idim robit vo moi zavoduf.
- Posle robenie vernum domof om piat cxasis vecxer. Perv varim eda i posle sidim i divam televidenie. Om dev cxasis vecxer telefonim moi brat. Om des cxasis lezxam vo posteluf. Dobrju nocx.

this is a translit as this text would be in Bulgarian:
Moiat Den.
-az sam muzh. Kazvam se (Imeto mi e) Dushan. Zhiveia v goliam grad koito ima poveche ot dva miliona dushi. Rabotia v goliam zavod za obuvki. v nashia obuven-zavod pravim vsiakakvi vidove (tipove) obuvki. za mazhe, za zheni, za deca, za Liato ili za Zima.
-Budia se vsiako utro v shest chasa. Stavam petnaiset minuti sled shest chasa i chetvart. Posle otivam (hodia) v moiata umivalnia (bania) kadeto vzimam dush, mija si zubite (chetkam is brushing for us, but not for teeth he he), susha i resha kosata si. Kogato sam chist i suh, oblicham se i se obuvam i otivam na rabota v moia zavod.
- Posle rabota se pribiram v kashti (doma) v pet chasa vecherta. Parvo se hrania i sled tova sedia i gledam televizia. V devet chasa vecherta telefoniram moia brat. V deset chasa lezha v posteliata.leka nosht.

and now English translation:
My day.
-I am a man. My name is Dushan. I live in a [velju - sounds to me like 'velik' which means 'grand' in bulgarian, so i decided that it is 'big'..something like that] big town of more than 2 milion people. I work at a 'big' factory for shoes. In our shoe factory we make all kinds of shoes - for men, for women, for children, for the summer or for the winter.
- I wake up every morning at 6am. I get up 15 minutes after 6 o'clock (and then I am not sure why he literaly says: 15 mins after 6 o'clock and a quarter - does that mean 6:30 then? or 6:15? beats me). Then I go to my bathroom where i shower, brush my teeth, dry and comb my hair. When I am clean and dry, I dress and put shoes on and go to work at my factory.
-After work i go home at 5pm. First i eat and then watch TV. At 9pm I call my brother on the phone. At 10pm i am laying in bed. good night.

I am digging this new language .... will read more later... we should learn it and speak to eachother like that

.. although I have spoken with Serbians/Croatian/slovene ... I spoke in BG and they in their language and we understood eachother just fine... of course i understood them a little better

... but i already explained why

zebu · 04-01-2004, 00:53

i could understand almost everything on the page and i am a Croatian speaker

i don't understand why you put this serbo-croatian languange all the time as it doesn't exist and on that page it also says Serbian and Croatian as different languages

coolasfcuk · 04-01-2004, 01:22

Quote:

Serbo-Croatians and possibly even Bulgars

freddie, I just noticed you called us 'Bulgars'

there is no such thing

we are called 'Bulgarians' .. or are you trying to get me back cause i said 'slovenian' in the begining

..and yeah, I see zebu's point - there is no such nation as 'serbo-Croatians' .... Serbs and Croatians ja?

freddie · 04-01-2004, 03:13

Quote:

Originally posted by cniaju
I think you pinpointed it exactly - it's the result of a difference
in perspective. My observations are based on vocabulary and
syntax that I picked up from studying several Slavic languages
and the linguistic family itself - yours come from the approach
of a native speaker on the homefront.

We should combine the details of what we've noticed into
a comprehensive hybrid perspective that could be understood
by almost everybody, а la slovio-style. :P

Hehe...several slavic languages eh? Now I understand why you know dual. Well I don't look at it from completely slovene perspective at least. I know serbo-croatian as well as long as understand at least some basics from other langugages, so my perspective is a bit wider as well, but not much more then an average slavic persons.

Quote:

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
..
freddie, I just noticed you called us 'Bulgars' there is no such thing we are called 'Bulgarians' .. or are you trying to get me back cause i said 'slovenian' in the begining

Ops! Sorry Coolz! *blushes* My bad. I think there were "Bulgars" but they were a tribe that came to bulgaria from Asia and weren't slavic at all, but just mixed with the slavic population. Or maybe I'm completely wrong here again. *hides*

Quote:

Originally posted by zebu
i don't understand why you put this serbo-croatian languange all the time as it doesn't exist and on that page it also says Serbian and Croatian as different languages

Quote:

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
..and yeah, I see zebu's point - there is no such nation as 'serbo-Croatians' .... Serbs and Croatians ja?

Even Slovene is SO sililar to Serbo-Croatian it's ridilculous. Yet it's still not as similar as Serian and Croatian are to eachother. All those South Slavic languages were once just one basic dialect. Serbian and Croatian simply differentiate to little to be called seperate language. We don't know an Austrian, Australian or American language do we? Of course there are differences, but those differences have to be QUITE significant to label the language as a seperate entity. We don't have such nation as Austro-Germans neither yet we still don't have seperate languages for those two countries.

FURTHERMORE... In the internetional codification of languages (every language in the world has it's own code), there was NO such thing as a Croatian or a Serbian language. They were both taged under the same code "Serbo-Croatian". But after the break up of Yugoslavia they became seperate under political pressures.
Lemme show you what I mean:
(this is taken straight from the tree of slavic languages from http://www.ethnologue.com)

In the western part of South Slavic languages (East Part it Bulgarian and Macedonian) there is a following codification:

South Slavic Languages:
Western Section

Slovene - (SIL Code, SLV; ISO 639-1 code, sl; ISO 639-2 code, slv)
Serbo-Croatian - (SIL Code, SRC; ISO 639-1 codes, bs (also hr and sr; ISO 639-2 codes, bel; ISO 639-2(B) codes, scr and scc; ISO 639-2(T) codes, hrv and srp)
After the break-up of Yugoslavia they became officially considered as three languages, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, though the differences (apart from the choice of script) are more political than dialectal.
Romano-Serbian - (SIL Code, RSB; ISO 639-2 code, sla)

There you go.

coolasfcuk · 04-01-2004, 04:03

Quote:

Originally posted by freddie
Ops! Sorry Coolz! *blushes* My bad. I think there were "Bulgars" but they were a tribe that came to bulgaria from Asia and weren't slavic at all, but just mixed with the slavic population. Or maybe I'm completely wrong here again. *hides*

no need to worry

Yes, there was a tribe that came from Asia that wasnt Slavic and they mixed up with the slavics+Original tribe(Trakians) that already lived in the lands of what is Bulgaria today- and all those 3 tribes formed Bulgaria - out of the 3 slavics were the most though- that's why the language Bulgaria adopted was the Slavic. In Bulgarian we call them praBulgari or I think in english it is protoBulgarians .. but maybe they can also be called Bulgars in english - am not 100% sure. But freds the slavic tribes also came from the East

the Ural... as far as i remember (my memory might be not too fresh) but i remember reading Asia

I understand the language codes - I've seen it being refered as serbo-croatian a lot too... the reason i said it was- sounded to me when I quoted you that you were refering to groups of people and not language groups, like: 'the serbo-croatians and the bulgars' .. you know what i mean, like: the Serbs, the Croatians and the Bulgarians... instead of: The serbo-croatian language group or the bulgarian language group

freddie · 04-01-2004, 06:49

Quote:

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
no need to worry Yes, there was a tribe that came from Asia that wasnt Slavic and they mixed up with the slavics+Original tribe(Trakians) that already lived in the lands of what is Bulgaria today- and all those 3 tribes formed Bulgaria - out of the 3 slavics were the most though- that's why the language Bulgaria adopted was the Slavic. In Bulgarian we call them praBulgari or I think in english it is protoBulgarians .. but maybe they can also be called Bulgars in english - am not 100% sure. But freds the slavic tribes also came from the East the Ural... as far as i remember (my memory might be not too fresh) but i remember reading Asia

Yeah slavics came from the East as well I guess, but not THAT FAR east. Those Asian guys probably came from a long way further.

Quote:

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
I understand the language codes - I've seen it being refered as serbo-croatian a lot too... the reason i said it was- sounded to me when I quoted you that you were refering to groups of people and not language groups, like: 'the serbo-croatians and the bulgars' .. you know what i mean, like: the Serbs, the Croatians and the Bulgarians... instead of: The serbo-croatian language group or the bulgarian language group

*gulp* Did I say Serbo-Croatians? Oh my!! That would be a mortal mistake if I said it in Zagreb or Belgrade. I'd probably get castrated at best. Yes I know that they are two different nations (Serbs and Croats) and that they have different history, but I also know that they're both south slavic nations and they both speak a language that is basicly the same. I appologize though if I refered to them as one nation. It was a slip up (glad I never said it when I was in Belgrade. I surely wouldn't be typing here to you right now. LOL)
So to all the hurt parties involved (zebu, $in, Crni...) I'm sorry!

EDIT: Corrected the "bulgar", "serbo-croatian" mistake.

zebu · 04-01-2004, 16:05

maybe you are a yugo-nostalgic person and it's fun for you to say serbo-croatian language, but it's really insulting for me.

that language was made up during the communist era which was long approx. 50 years and before that that 'language' never existed. we fought really hard to preserve our language, maybe you are not familiar with the big fights croatian linguists had during the yugoslavia to try to keep the language, but we were forced to use it. also here it was always called croato-serbian and never really accepted by the people. most of that expressions and words are gone now.

and if your evidence is that before it was one language, that's just ridiculous because we all know that long before it was ancient-slavic that almost all slavic nations spoke so... maybe you don't see the difference between the languages because you aren't a native speaker and learned only that artificial ser-cro. , but i see a much greater difference that between German language in Austria and Germany. because Croatian and Serbian ARE different languages.

Veggie Delite · 05-01-2004, 00:20

freds, it's not insulting me... i don't even care about that b/s with those languages. we r all the f*ckn same, just people.