Slavic Languages

[russkayatatu]

coolasfcuk, LoL, not that hard; there were a lot of words that were identical or nearly so in Russian, like pred, nishta (nichto), govorish, volis (volja), mozhesh', bez mene, etc. It was really unsatisfying, though, cause I felt like my instincts were telling me all the wrong things .

I wouldn't have paid any attention to the translation if they hadn't had "tell me, tell me" for kazhi, kazhi (like skazhi, and also clued me in that imperatives were probably formed the same way as in Russian, with the -i ending)...just because of that one line I spent way more time looking for stuff that wasn't in the original at all. Oh well, stupid me

Er, and to answer your question: no, I just studied Russian, although I took a semester of Old Church Slavic I want to learn other languages though. Right now Latvian is interesting cause it has so many borrowings from Russian (and English, too, of course) - like aptieka for drugstore - there are others but that's the only one I can think of right now

Edit: good grief, by reading I'm not THAT good. You have a distorted view of my talents, I think

Just by listening I caught "mozesh' bez mene" (pretty transparent) and "pokazhi" - I think that's it. Well, no, now that I think about it. I had the "ne brini, ne brini za mene," too, except I had no idea what "brini" meant. But for the verses (and the rest of the song) it was all a string of unintelligible words and then something like "pokazhi" would stand out

[coolasfcuk]

russkayatatu, Oh I think you're pretty good believe me And if you think what you have achieved it's not too much- he he- I wanna know about your other special talents then

And dont worry, I am Slavic, and I know Russian too, in addition to Bulgarian, and my instinct also tell me wrong things sometimes. It's all practice.

Sweet, maybe you should learn Bulgarian- he he- we also say аптека = apteka . And now that you already know Cyrillic and Russian so well, it will be like a piece of cake We have come to the conclusion in this thread that Bulgarian is the closest to Russian vocabulary-wise, but it has simpler grammer than Russian- no padezhyi

edit: yes, same for me, I cought exactly those too: bez mene andpokazhi but because they are 100% the same in bulgarian so There was no other chance for me, but to at least understand those. Then, some words that are not exactly similar, like have different origin/roots, I can hear them, but have to be guessing on the meaning

[russkayatatu]

coolasfcuk, you're making me blush This is no big deal, I swear; I don't even know what you're talking about.

Want to know something funny? I could never make up my mind what "kada se gubi sve" meant. Something reflexive with the "se"? But knowing that "gubi" was so close to "lips" in Russian kept me from seeing anything else in that line

Have to go offline in 2 minutes (Internet cafe)!

[coolasfcuk]

"kada se gubi sve" meant. Something reflexive with the "se"? But knowing that "gubi" was so close to "lips" in Russian kept me from seeing anything else in that line

Oh, I totally understand. We have come upon few of those words so far here, in between the Slavic languages. Somewhere in the course of time the meaning of the word change so much, it's unbelievable

To keep the translation going- for us lips is: ustni in plural, and ustna in singular. But the t is pretty much silent when you pronaunce it, so it could be translited as: usni It comes from: usta , which is 'mouth'

[coolasfcuk]

ahhh, ok, since we've been talking about Ya Tvoya Ne Pervaya, here it comes translited in BG:

Az Ne sam ti Parvata

Alo…
Alo…
Vizhdash li viatara?
E I kakvo?
Pogledni prez prozoreca..
E i kakvo?
A vchera beshe slance…
E i kakvo?
Zashto ti po vsiako vreme govorish edno I sashto?
A az sam telefonen sekretar.


Vzemi i se uspokoi,
Zlato e malchanieto,
Radio bezsannica
Stancia proshtanie.
Koj kogo shte poluchi
Shte reshat monetkite.
Koj na kogo shte ostane,
Nervite, tabletkite.
Zad noshtnite prozorci.
Izvikva, slomiava se,
Tova ne se schita, tova ne se schita.
Viarna sam, ne viarna sam
Tiha sam, pachalna sam
Az ne sam ti parvata
Ti si mi sluchainata.


Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubov
Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Zashto, zashto az sam s teb
Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubov
Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Zashto, zashto az sam s teb


Izliza, okazva se
Po-lesno e da ne se poznavame.
Koj ot nas shte se otkazhe
Vzeme i se uspokoi?
Devoicheta kato devoicheta
A sled tova- lunatichki
Nomera i strelichki
Shokoladki, kartinki *
Skrie se, razplache se
Kazhe, izplashi se
Tova ne se schita, tova ne se schita.
Viarna sam, ne viarna sam,
Tiha sam, pechalna sam
Az ne sam ti parvata,
ti si mi sluchainata.

Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubov
Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Zashto az sam s teb
Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubov
Pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi,
Zashto az sam s teb


* fantiki in Russian are those shiny candy wrappers, that little kids, usually girls, collect when they are little- but we dont really have special name for it- 'kartinki' is 'pictures', we can also call it 'stanioli' which is 'shiny wrapper, like folio

another note: 'avtootvetchik' in Russian is answering machine, while we say 'telefonen sekretar'. In Russian it comes from 'auto' and 'answer', in Bulgarian: 'telephone' and 'secretary', LoL, way too different.

[freddie]

First of all welcome russkayatatu, and let me just say as Cool mentioned before - You are amazing! The fact you aren't slavic and was still able to catch some words in other slavic languages then russian - I bow to you

Cool: hruskavi soleti = Hrustljavi soleti. but I think that soleti is a brand name.

We had Eskimo ice cream as well, but I'm not sure if this was the same kind as yours - this one was made in croatia.
How do we say Ice-cream? Sladoled! hahaha.
Sladko - sweet, led - ice. Sweet-ice yes...we folowed the same logic.
Aptieka= we say apoteka. Similar.

lips: Ustnice and ustnica (The t is silent as well. I know what you mean).
I guess ours also come from usta which as well means "mouth" in slovene.

I'll post "Ya Tvoya Ne Pervaya" in slovene translation tomorrow. This one gave me a lot of trouble

[freddie]

OK, let me just say that this was one of the hardest to translate... the psychadelic lyrics really trew me off track lots of times.
Here we go:

Jaz nisem tvoja prva

Halo...
Halo...
Vidish veter?
Pa kaj potem?
Poglej skozi okno...
Pa kaj potem?
A vcheraj je bilo sonce...
Pa kaj potem?
Zakaj ti ves chas govorish eno in isto?
ker sem telefonska tajnica*


Samo da se pomirim
Molk je zlato
Radijska nespechnost
Postaje bledijo

kdo bo dobil koga
Kovanec bo pokazal
kdo bo ostal komu
z zhivci, tabletami?

za nochnimi okni
bo zakrichala in se zlomila,
to ne shteje
to ne shteje

zvesta je, ni zvesta
tiha je, zhalostna
jaz nisem tvoja prva
ti si moja sluchajna


pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubezen
pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi zakaj sem jaz s teboj.

pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubezen
pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi zakaj sem jaz s teboj.


najbrzh bo kdo odklonil
preprosteje se je ne srechati
kdo od naju bo odklonil
samo da se pomiri?

dekleti kot dekleti
a zatem mesechnika
shtevilke in prilozhnosti
chokolade, ovitki.

skrila se bo in razjokala
povedala in se bala
to ne shteje
to ne shteje

zvesta je, ni zvesta
tiha je, zhalostna
jaz nisem tvoja prva
ti si moja sluchajna


pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubezen
pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi zakaj sem jaz s teboj.

pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi mi ljubezen
pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi, pokazhi
pokazhi, pokazhi zakaj sem jaz s teboj.

*we have telefonska tajnica for answering mashine, "tajnica" means "secretary", so it's also like a "telephone secretary".

[coolasfcuk]

freddie why do you say this one was the hardest to translate? sorry, I didnt understand. The chorus on this one is pretty close in all 3 languages so far - but even more so in sounding, not only written I think

btw- this post: Torej misliљ, da bi ti Jure moral vrniti kiљto. No jes sem za. Ponovimo naslednji teden

LoL, indeed, what language is that? I get some words, but some letters come on my screen distorted, like usually swedish extra characters show for example, really weird! LOL

Here is how I associate some of the words:

misliљ - think or thoughts?
da bi ti - you to be? you were?
vrniti - to return? returned?
No jes sem za - but I am 'for'. Or like ' I agree with it'
Ponovimo - something about new.
naslednji - ahhh, sounds so familiar, yet I cant figure out like what exactly, lol

And this is why:

misal in bullgarian is 'thought', so mislil thinking in masculine form
da bi ti we would say da beshe ti or da budesh ti for 'you to be'
varni for us is 'return'
No az sam za - we have this expression, and use it when someone agrees to something, like, 'yes, lets do it, I am for it'
novo for us is 'new'



What do you think she said freddie?

[freddie]

You're right about the chorus - it's really close, almost as close as NVNBNP, and it's close in all the languages. But in the verses there were some words in there that I didn't understand even after reading the english transcripts. 'Cause this is usualy how it is with me - I look at the russian lyrics and what I don't understand I look at the english transcript. And usualy after I see a sentance translated in english I "get" what the russian lyrics are talking about - so I usualy rely on englsih translation for guidance. Here there were some words that I didn't "get" even after reading the englsih translation; so in some sentances I had to translte it directly from englsih.

Let me give you an example: here you have a word zoloto and at first it's hard for me to figure it out what it means. but when I see the english translation: "gold", I say ofcourse!, we have a similar expression zlato and I know what russian lyrics are talking about. And the next word, molchanie, you also get the general idea what it means 'cause we have molk for silence and molchanje for "being quiet" or "remaining silent"...

But here there were some words that were completely foreign to me, like "Radio bessonitsa" or "fantiki" (that was before I get to read your translation of course ). I didn't get to relly on russian lyrics there, but had to translate directly from englsih, and you know how englsih translatons are often improvised. So I was afraid that I was geting further away from the actual meaning of the verses.

But the Chorus all made up for it I guess, hehe...there wasn't much to translate there - just an adoptation



About the post: hehehe. That is writen in Slovene, but it's heavily dialected (east-northern slovene dialect) - Slovenia is small but we have many dialects.
Before I tell you what it means I'll tell you a little story: I bet 24 beers (one box) with one of my friends that Tatu will win Eurovision. As you know by now they didn't and I owed him. So on wednesday I bought the beers for him and of course we drank it together. Another friend (the one who wrote the post) came along brought a bottle of Vodka Troyka and helped us with the beers. It was an interesting night of poker and clubbing I tell you
Anyway this other friend saw my post on the forum when I wondered if there was still any hope left for tatu win. And he wrote that reply. He wrote it in dialect slovene probably, because it was only a night after the boozing.

"Torej mislish, da bi ti Jure moral vrniti kishto. No jes sem za. Ponovimo naslednji teden"

First of all, the explanation why you see distorted characters on your screen. this is because we use special leters for sh-, ch- and zh- , basicly s, c and z with a mark on top). I guess you guys have that in cyrillic as well, but we had to adapt those sounds (-ch, -zh, -sh) to be writen in one character, with alphabet. And this is what we came up with Just goes to show you that alphabet isn't really adopted to suit slavic languages and sounds so we had to improvise. So if you wrote "pokazhi" in slovene it would be pokazi and the -z would have a mark on top - like this Ў. You probably got all those distorted letters because you don't have the right codepage to view this special letters.

Now the translation:
Torej - So
mislish - yup, you were correct. it's "think"
da bi ti - correct again
Jure - A name. Short for Jurij
moral - should
vrniti - correct again. It's "to return"
kishto - haha...this is because we are so close to the border with Austria. In german "Die Kiste" (or smtng like this), is "the box", and we changed this word ot Kishta - "the box". This is used only in dialect.
No jes sem za - spelled wrong by my friend - it's not "jez but "jaz"(I), - dialect again. But you caugt it 100% correct. It means - "I am for it". I'm impressed.
Ponovimo - It menas "repeat", to repeat is ponoviti. You are right - the root of the word comes from novo - "new"... and that's why we have po-nov-iti...like do it new..you know what I'm saying?
naslednji - it means "next"
teden - week

So the translation is as follows:
So you think that Jure should return the box to you? Well I'm for it. Let's repeat it next week.

I must say I'm very impressed by you. Those words were in dialect and you didn't even see all the letters correctly and you still maneged to understand almost all of it. Very good

[Kappa]

*feels kinda jealous as reading since Russian courses haven't started yet in the university... then thinks about opening a thread on Spanic currents of speech, since there are almost as many as Slavic languages, there's a lot of spanish talkers in here and there's a sh*tload we can all learn in this forum *

Sorry for the intromission. You pumped my idea. And I can actually say I'm learning a lot from reading this thread, tho' I still hafta finish reading throught it (you guys TALK A LOT) and then I have to start understanding it. :P

As soon as the language courses start in the University, I'll try and jump into the thread because it's always better to learn by talking/writing.

[russkayatatu]

That's funny about 'Eskimo' - my Russian friend mentioned it to me once too, like she would think I'd never heard of it before, but I grew up with it in America as well

For 'ice cream' Russian has 'morozhenoe', as maybe you already know - maybe it's from 'moroz' (frost); i.e., that which is frozen? If so, that's pretty cool; I'd never made that connection before

By the way, other borrowings that Latvian has are 'mebele' (furniture) and 'reklame' (ads). Anything similar in other Slavic languages?

Also, back to Serbian: the volish' kinda intrigues me. It means 'love', I guess, looking at the translation you posted, freddie? The first thing I thought when I saw it was 'want', which was probably more influenced by other Indo-European languages rather than Russian - like French 'vouloir' and in German 'ich wolle' (you can say that, right? My German is rusty) - so, in other words, the root was 'vol', which turns up in Russian too with words like 'volja' ('will'). I'm wondering, is it really related, or was that wrong?

What is it in other Slavic languages? Something like 'xocesh'', or does it use a different root?

EDIT: by the way, that conversation about Russian swear words on the tatu forum was amusing. When I was just a few months into learning Russian I bought a book called 'Dictionary of Russian Slang' - and wow - a lot of swear expressions there Some of the translations I hadn't even seen in English But it was all good, because when they appeared with their Xui Voine shirts I remembered enough to know what it meant, and talking to other people who've taken Russian at my school, I'm the only one who would have

[freddie]

Darje: He, he... you be jealous and start that spanish thread - romanic languages are one of the great enigmas in my life. Almost a complete blank there
I wonder if spanish and italian are also as similar as the slavic languages are. And excuse me for maybe sounding like an idiot - is spanish talked in South America very different from spanish talked in Spain?
And you're right about one thing - we do like to talk in here. But it's fun, fun, fun


russkayatatu : Nice to see you posting in here regularly. You are sooo appreciated
So morozhenoe is ice-cream in russian. The way I look at in it definitely came from moroz ="frost". In Slovene we say Mraz for "frost" and this also means "cold" to us. I know that some other language use "cold" as a basic root for the word "ice-cream." If I remember correctly Chechs (or maybe Slovaks, or both) say Zmrzlina to "ice-cream", and that definitely comes from mraz -moroz. but this follows completely different logics in bulgarian and slovene = we both say sladoled (something like sweet-ice)

We also have reklama for ads. I think that latvians borrowed mebel from german (in german I think its mobel or something like that - umlaut on the "o"). We say pohishtvo - comes from the word hisha - "house"

Serbo-croatian "to love": Yes voliti means "to love" while volish means "you love"- 2. person. From where does this word come from? Honestly I have no idea. Maybe
Cool can answer you this, because I think Bulgarian has this word as well. In slovene it is more close to russian: "to love" is ljubezen while "you love" (2. person) is ljubish. We have volja for "will" as well, but we use different word for "love". Voliti in slovene means "to vote"

Edit: About huy voyne - we have a similar expression in slovene - "dick to whatever", just that our expression is kurc or kurac (it comes from the word that means "chicken" Kura, kurec is male chicken, a rooster - haha I know - we are weird)... so we would say: "kurac vojno"- dick to the war, or "kurac gleda vojno" - which would mean dick watches the war" in direct translation.

[luxxi]

freddie made some mistakes I'll try to correct. Zmrzlina (at least as far as Czech are concerned) isn't ice cream as we know it, it's crushed ice with syrup poured over it.

I must admit I never heard male chicken called kurec (which would be how male form of chicken is made). We call male chicken petelin (rooster) and small chicken pishchanec (first -s and -c have Ў on them).

And "kurac gleda vojno" would be used more often. Or perhaps "kurac pa vojna" which can't be translated directly (pa means and in slang) but could be translated as "screw the war".

[freddie]

Originally posted by luxxi
freddie made some mistakes I'll try to correct. Zmrzlina (at least as far as Czech are concerned) isn't ice cream as we know it, it's crushed ice with syrup poured over it.

I must admit I never heard male chicken called kurec (which would be how male form of chicken is made). We call male chicken petelin (rooster) and small chicken pishchanec (first -s and -c have Ў on them).

And "kurac gleda vojno" would be used more often. Or perhaps "kurac pa vojna" which can't be translated directly (pa means and in slang) but could be translated as "screw the war".

OK, sorry about Zmrzlina I don't know about that one, but my cousain was once in Slovakia and she said Ice-cream is called "zmrzlina!

"Kurec" is infact an obsolete expression for a rooster. "Petelin" is the word regularly used, but the vulgar word for "dick" comes from "kurec", which then turned into "kurac." I agree that "kurac gleda vojno" or "kurc gleda vojno" is used more often.

I'll ask my grandmother if she still uses the word "kurec" for rooster. It comes from the word "kura" which is "chicken."

[coolasfcuk]

Yes, morozhnoe comes from moroz
In bulgarian we have: mraz also, which is 'cold' or 'frost'.

In Bulgarian commercial or add is reklama in singular and reklami in plural. freddie I dont who borrowed from who, because for 'furniture' we also say mebel in singular and mebeli in plural Looking at your words though, a synonym for furniture for us would be pokashnina which comes from kashta = 'house'

Maybe Cool can answer you this, because I think Bulgarian has this word as well.

freddie we dont have that word. For love we have, just like in Russian: ljubov = 'love' , we can say ljubish for 'you love' but it is not as used, it is becoming like an 'old' expression We have a synonym for 'love' and it is: obich = 'love'. From it comes obicham = 'to love' and obichash = you love' ljubov as word is still very used though, just not 'ljubish', for example people say: moya ljubov when they are talking about the person they love, it means: 'my love' they would never say: moya obich
We also have volja and i alsomeans 'will' for us.
To answer your question russkayatatu I am assuming volish originated from volja, but seems like only in serbo-croation, not in BG, SL, RUS , how it happened, I am not sure.

About 'Hui Voine' - Da, we have the exact same expression(s). Except, as I explained before, becuse we dont have padezhy we would say: 'Hui na voinata' The na is in the place of padezh, to show that the 'hui' is indeed for the 'war'
freddie our synonym for 'hui' is kur ! he he, and it is Just as used as hui. So we could say: 'Kur na vionata' and it would be 100% the same as saying 'Hui na voinata'
By the way, my friend that is coming with me to Bulgaria was looking in bookstores for Bulgarian dictionaries, cause he is learning you know, and he saw a 'Dictionary of Russian Obscenities' and of course he bought it for me it has every posible swear word/phrase you can imagine - even some that Russians dont konw, since we flipped through it with my Russian friend when I got it. After seeing it, swearing in Russian works the same way as in Bulgarian, 80% of the stuff was identical to Bulgarian swear words/phrases Still, I believe the Balkans are the worst place in the world when it comes to swearing I am really not sure which of us is the worst, but I think Serbia might be on top

[freddie]

Your syninim is Kur ? That's pretty close to our kurc or kurac, and kurc vojno or kurc gleda vojno.
Kur na vionata' - funny but that sounds very macedonian to me. I think that they might be speaking in this "style"

So you don't have Voliti??? Hmmm where did serbo-croatian language get this expression then? Pretty strange seeing as other languages have more similar words. I'd never have thought about it if russkayatatu hadn't pointed it out.
Does voliti mean anything at all to you?

[coolasfcuk]

freddie, voliti reminds me of volja and that's about it

Macedonian style, ha ha, yes, about 100 years or so Macedonians spoke the same language as us - Bulgarian - but because of obvious political reasons - Macedonian has changed some Still very close though. Remember I said a while back - Macedonia is pretty new, and it is the closest language to Bulgarian - history shows why

Kur gleda voina for us also would be literally: 'dick is watching war' but we wouldnt say that

forgot to add this: russkayatatu WOW again about the 'eskimo' . You have that in USA as well? 'Podskazhi pozhailusta, gde ya mogu ego pokupit ?' To translate that: 'Please, tell me, where can I buy it ?'

[freddie]

Macedonians ... yes interesting. I always wondered how those guys came to exist inside Yugoslavia. It looked like they just apeared out of thin air. Anywaay they are the only ones besides Slovenes that are somewhat different from the standard serbo-croatioan and bosnan that was the main language in Yugoslavia.

Kur gleda voina - Yes, exactly; in direct translation it would mean exactly this "dick is watching war". What can I say? it's an expression Like "Ya Soshla S Uma" - which he don't have...

I guess the serbo-croatian voliti is a regional speciality then

[russkayatatu]

coolasfcuk, where to buy an Eskimo? Pretty much any good supermarket, I would think. Have you really not been able to find it here? Strange, because I remember having them when I was little, and we're an all-American family

Hey, freddie, thanks for making me welcome - I don't know why I've never come in here before; this is one of my favorite games to play To answer your question, I think Spanish and Italian are VERY close - I studied French and Latin and I can guess a lot of Spanish and Italian (better than Serbian and Croatian, it seems - but again, only when I'm reading ). I think Romance languages are much thicker than the Germanic, for example - although there are a lot of similar words throughout Indo-European, like lieben in German and liubit' in Russian (English seems to have changed the b to a v, but I'm almost positive it has the same origin).

So volish' means love? That's interesting because I have no idea how that happened, unless it originated from 'want'. My best guess is that it came from the Latin verb 'volo' (to wish, want, will, ordain), which also ended up as 'will' and 'vote' in modern Slavic while staying as 'want' in other branches. Those concepts aren't that dissimilar, really . It's a little strange but I can believe that happened.

In fact I'd bet money volish' derived from volo, as did volja, vouloir, wollen, voliti, etc. I'm inclined to think it didn't come necessarily from volja, just because it seems funny for that word to give rise to anything else - I'll bet they're sisters rather than mother and daughter, in other words But that's just a guess.

coolasfcuk, YES, most of the Russian obscenities I found my friends also didn't know They were still fun to read, though

Bulgarian has no padezhi!! I heard that it has a very complicated aspect system, though - is that true?

[freddie]

russkayatatu : Yes that "voliti" in serbo-croatian is really peculiar and I bet as well that it comes from "volja" - "will". But it's strange why we don't have it to, as all the languages from former Yugoslavia are even more similar than the other slavic languages. Instead our word is more close to bulgarian&russian. I'm begining to wonder if Serbo-croatian also don't have "ljubish - ljubiti" as a sinonim for "volish-voliti". I'm not sure about this. We better ask a native croatian speaker if we find one.

About italian and spanish: I'm sure that serbian and croatian are even closer then italian and spanish. They are basicly THE SAME language - in Slovenia we call the language serbo-croatian - I understand both and I can't see the difference between them instead of differences in some expressions... but it's almost like a difference in dialect rather then two different languages... Look at the begining of this thread, we discused it there. The same goes for Bosnian, but they have many turkish expressions, but it's basicly the same language as well. As I've said: the only two langauges from former Yugoslavia that are different are slovene and macedonian... but even them are very similar, there is no problem in understanding eachother (although some other former Yugoslavians don't WANT to understand slovene ).

Cool: So let's hear some of those infamous russian and bulgarian curse words... I wonder if we have anything similar. Those words are well known to last trough centuries and even different cultures