Purely as a hobby, i've decided that i'd like to pick up a European language (I already speak a couple Asian languages).
I initially wanted to learn Czech, but i was comparing populations that speak languages in Europe and found that Polish outnumbers it and that it also has a lot in common with slavic languages.
tl;dr: Anyone who speaks Polish or Czech, or any combination of those Slav languages, are there similarities? 'ppreciate your comments.
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Anonymous2008-07-06 23:04
I once went to the Prague together with a few guys from (among others) Poland, Croatia and Serbia, and they all told me they could mostly understand what the Czechs said. Turned out to be very convenient, because the natives understood their languages too, while only relatively few people there speak English or German. This didn't work with Russian, though.
Yes, it's right that there are more people in Poland. But the entire country sucks, learn Czech. If you're only going by number of speakers, Russian, German, Italian, Spanish or French would be the better choice anyway.
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Anonymous2008-07-07 2:45
Croatian here
Croat/Serbs/Bosnians can almost completely understand each other.
Czechs im a little unsure most of the time
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Anonymous2008-07-07 7:54
Why would you want to learn the language of Untermenschen?
i won't write about things like more/less half of German females raped by Red Army, Shitler's suicide etc:) wannabe german troll is wannabe german. funny thing is Niemcy, Polish word for both Germans and Germany comes from 'niemy', 'mute' you Germs, just barking like above lol.
so, Polish is more similar to Slovakian than to Czech and people from former Czechoslovakia understands each other with ease. my gf is Czech, i'm Polish and it was a whole lot of fun finding totally different meanings of same words in our lingos. other Slavic languages are sharing less words in common with mine
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Anonymous2008-07-29 1:27
Different Slavic languages all sound hilarious to speakers of other Slavic languages. The phonology is always very similar, yet the words are completely different, making it sound like gibberish.
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Anonymous2008-07-29 3:10
indeed, like for example 'świeży chleb' (Polish 'fresh bread')in Czech means, like, dried out one, hard bread, when at the same time Polish term 'czerstwy chleb' (for dry, hard) is about fresh in Czech. confusing:) 'szczotka', Polish 'brush' is Czech word for vagina^ etc. also automatic translators, due to extreme flexibility of grammar and exceptions, are not working good.
propably cheapest hint possible, but check Wikipedia, there are fairly good articles about Slavic languages, similarities and differences between them, Swadesh tabel would be helpful in making a choice which to pick, i presume
i don't know too much about similarities between Balkan and Eastern Slavic languages unfortunately, anyway good luck with learning, this will be rather difficult task in any case:) greets
I appreciate the responses from the actual slavic-speaking users. I admit i had lost hope in the thread during the German blitzkreig, but i'm glad i gave it another look.
I picked up some Czech resources after looking into some family-trees. It's just going to be a hobby, so hopefully it will be fun.
Thanks for the intel. Hope to gab with some of you when/if i ever hit the area. Nashledanou pozdeji!
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Anonymous2008-08-02 16:48
I'm from Croatia.
Czech and Slovak are very similar to each other (I believe it's called "mutual intelligibility"), just like Croatian and Serbian. I have a hard time understanding Polish though. It's somewhat different than the languages I mentioned above. Basically, I(atleast partially) understand every Southern and Western Slavic language (except Polish).
Eastern Slavic languages (Russian and others) are something completely different + you'll have to learn the Cyrillic alphabet (which is also used in Bulgaria and Serbia btw).
Anyways, I suggest Czech.
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Anonymous2008-08-02 22:11
>>14
bok croatfag.
we can understand Bosnian as well right?
Ive only ever been around Croats and Serbs so i have no idea
Just out of curiosity: just how intelligible is the Podhale (Gorale) dialect to other Slavs?
(Check out Zakopower (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDmqqv3WnkE et.al.) if you don't know what I'm talking about)
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Anonymous2008-09-08 1:08
Kad oko mene je tama stalno mislim o nama napet sam do ludosti Sa jutrom nestaje nada slabic postajem tada ostajem bez hrabrosti Ja ne znam da li si sama da li mislis o nama smem li da te probudim I onda hocu da podjem da pred vrata ti dodjem za oprostaj zamolim
Have you Slavs envisaged why you more often than not speak ill of each other?
Only in the 17th century did the Germans unify their languages into one.
Czechs, Slovakians and Poles together fought against the Teutonic Orders in Grunwald and against the anti-Fuss German nobles. The First Pan-Slavist Conference took place first in Chechia in the 19th century, where Checzs was desparately trying to resurrect their ethnic language. During the WW2 Poland and Czechoslovakia agreed in London to form an unified a large West Slavic country, which came to nothing due to Stalin's strong objection. Later, Soviets fed Czechs and on the other hand exploited Poles so that the two nations hated each other. And now you see what.
although I'm not a pole or a polish descendant, i like poland, too.
lovely country, nice people, good food, improving society, thriving economy.
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Anonymous2008-10-01 9:12
Poles are even more hardworking and intelligent than Germans are, to my surprise.
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Anonymous2008-10-05 18:12
damn, guys just visit Poland and Czech Republic and you'll see how it looks alike:) Central Europe is not a Siberia ffs lol at least Wiki them. chix, food, beer, relics and landscapes are really cool. my Australian friend visits Wroclaw every summer vacations, rents a car and it's closer to Prague and Berlin than to, for example, Warsaw. greets for immortal German trolls, i presume it's hard to have ugly chicks and woof-ing language :B btw this bullshit above about Poles and Czechs not liking each other is just funny. ahoj!
Czechs and Slovaks understand each other since language differences ale little, or they can be simply derived when there is some IQ in your head.
Czechs and Poles understand sometimes something. Other slavic languages are almost unintelligible - for Czechs.
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Anonymous2008-10-09 12:21
For Poles most difficult slavic language is Croatian... cause in those two languages many same words have two completly different meanings, for ex. 'godina' in croatian means a year, and polish 'godzina' (spelled in croatian 'godjina') - an hour; croatian 'na prafo' means straight ahead, and polish 'na prawo' (spelled practically like 'na prafo') means.. turn right. So it is a great challenge for Poles and Croatians to understand each other :D
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Anonymous2008-10-10 13:46
West Slavic languages got too much consonants per single word and they use Latin script which even makes reading harder because of diphtongs. Adjectives have very few vowels too (svenska, polska, cesky, etc). Well, I never heard the pronunciation, but for example Polish script makes me think that this language normally has 4-5 consonants and 1-2 vowels for a word. Am I right?
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Anonymous2008-10-11 6:38
>>38.
Just one thing wrong here: "svenska" means "Swedish", which is a Germanic language (Scandinavian, to be precise).
Speaking of which; one of my favorite Scandinavian words is "skriftspråk" ("written language")...
(the "å" pronounced like the "o" i "more")
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Anonymous2008-10-11 13:52
Swedish is actually Finno-Ugaric, it just has a shit ton of German loanwords.
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Anonymous2008-10-11 20:29
Swedish is a North Germanic language, not Finno-Ugric. There are three main Finno-Ugric languages: Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian. Swedish is not in there.
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Anonymous2008-10-12 11:58
no the three main finno ogric languages are finnish hungarian and swedish. estonian is a descendant of gfothic u f*ckin norway anti sweden faget perkele u
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Anonymous2008-10-13 9:43
I'm a native Russian. I'm able to understand not very complex Serbian or Croatian phrases, although I'm not sure that they can understand me.
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Anonymous2008-10-14 2:12
>>43
ah we can a little bit.
and some things sound very similar
ex - Russian: Dazvidanya (not sure how to spell it)
- Croatian: Doviđenja
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Anonymous2008-10-15 17:17
lol u fail. finnish estonian and hungarian are finno-ugaric, swedish is a german language (not deutsch!) and its similar rather to other german languages (norsk, dansk, english..:P) not to finnish or hungarian :P
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Anonymous2008-10-15 17:19
Name: Anonymous : 2008-10-11 13:52
Swedish is actually Finno-Ugaric, it just has a shit ton of German loanwords.
that was to this guy.
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Anonymous2008-11-13 1:06
question for Croats/Serbs
do you have a definite or indefinite article?(in English: "the" and "a/an" respectively) because Ive never heard them used =/
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Anonymous2008-11-13 3:03
>>47
Slavic languages normally don't have this stuff.
Some of them don't even use the verb "to be," especially Russian.
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Anonymous2008-11-16 21:05
Aspect the crucial thing of Proto-Indo-European (i.e. Aryan) languages.
Some PIE languages lost aspect and started using article by mingling with non-PIE races.
Polish, Czech, and most of the other Slavic languages maintain aspect and do not use article at all, which is peculiar to PIE (i.e. Aryan) languages.
Also, according to the Kurgan Hypothesis, which has been regarded apparently true, the Y-haplogroup R1a1 is characteristic to the Kurgan (=Aryan=PIE) Culture.
The haplogroup R1a1 is the most concentrated among present-day Slavs, Scandinavians, Althaians, Kazan Tatars, Uzbeks and Indians, whose area is identical with where the ancient Kurgan (=Aryan) Culture was dominant.
Thus Slavs are the purest Aryans among today's European races. Not necessarily pure Aryans, though.
Pure Aryans (=who Adolf Hitler used to call the Prometheus of Human Being) remain nowhere Today.
Germanic, Celtic, etc. are more of mongrels with various non-PIE races, who were native Europeans and represented with the Y-haplogroups R1b1, I and E3b, and PIE (=R1a1=Kurgan) races.
The R1b1, I and E3b may have settled into Europe just after the glacers retreated North, respectively from West Asia, Northwest Asia and North Africa via Asia Minor, before Kurgans=Aryans=PIE races (R1a1) advanced to Europe.
The R1b1 is most concentrated among Basques and little among Finns and Uralic Russians.
The I among Swedes, Ukrainians, and Burgarians and little among Basques.
The E3b among Greeks, Yugoslavs, Germans, Spanish and Portuguese and little among Poles, Basques, Cornish, Scots, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders.
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Anonymous2008-11-16 21:10
>>48
Bulgarians use article. It is because Slavic Bulgarians mixed with ancient Bulgars, a non-Indo-European nomads.
>>43
Pan-Slavism is a tool for Russian to finger to dominate all Slavs.
Russians should become modest.
Solidarity of Slavs is okay but West Slavs and East Slavs are so different in nature that they can hardly become one.
West Slavs are descendants of the Przeworsk Culture and West are of either the Zarubintsy Culture or the Cherniakov Culture.
All Slavs are descendants of Proto-Balto-Slavs and Scythian Nomads,
but the East Slavs are more Scythian than the West Slavs.
South Slavs have both roots.
Ancestors of Croats, Serbs, Sloveians migrated from present-day Poland.
Some other South Slavs, who do not remain as ethnic groups until today, are descendants of Antaes who migrated from present-day Ukraine.
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Anonymous2008-11-16 21:41
Correction:
<wrong>
West Slavs are descendants of the Przeworsk Culture and West are of either the Zarubintsy Culture or the Cherniakov Culture.
<correct>
The West Slavs are descendants of the Przeworsk Culture and the East are of either the Zarubintsy Culture or the Cherniakov Culture.
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Anonymous2008-11-16 21:44
>>42
Indeed Saami (=Lapps=Samoyeds) in Sweden are Finno-Urgic, but
the dominant ethnic group in Sweden is Germanic Swedes.
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Anonymous2008-11-16 21:48
>>38
Ancient Proto-Indo-European language is said to have numerous number of consonants.
It means that Poles simply maintain the old PIE tradition today whereas all Slavs created palatalised consonants as well to make things more complicated.
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Anonymous2008-11-16 21:58
It is the Germans that have been manipulating things so that Slavs hate each other.
Tha Baltic/Nordstream Gas Pipeline is a plot set by German leftwingers with the intention to make conflicts between Russia and Poland.
The Germans have simply carrying out the Divide-and-Rule tactics, a fundamental in the field of foreign politics.
The gullibility of Slavs only help the Germans' plots.
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Anonymous2008-11-17 10:37
>>55
After reading some related articles I realized that these languages just don't use any letters to indicate the schwa sound. Thus, Croatian "hrvatski" and Russian "хорватски" are pronounced identically, but Russian additionally possesses the letter "o." Consonant blocks with unindicated schwa vowel are uncommon in Russian.
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Anonymous2008-11-17 18:28
The differences of the German dialects were much greater than those of the Slavic languages are.
The German languages were unified while Slavic ones still remain completely apart.
The Hacek or Caron was created in the 19th century as well as the solidarity anthem "Hej Slavs!" so that the West Slavs and some South Slavs would unify their languages into one to creat one single country from the Baltic Sea to the Adrian Sea.
The project failed because as soon as each ethnic group of them realised independence they quickly became cold and indifference to each other due to the German and Russian scheme to provoke estrangement among those "enlightened Slavs".
Also, the Catholic Church in Poland prevented Poles from taking part in the unification movement in order for them to maintain their exclusive power upon their followers.
This could have also been part of the anti-Slavic plots set by non-Slavic Catholics - probably Austrians and Bavarians – via Vatican.
Swedish is a well-established Northern Germanic language, related most closely to Danish, and more distantly to Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese, and even more distantly to Eastern Germanic languages like English, Dutch, and German.
Finno-Urgic languages include Suomi (Finnish), Magyar (Hungarian), and Saami.
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Anonymous2008-11-17 22:53
>>40
That's a new one, where the hell did you come up with it?
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Anonymous2008-11-18 4:58
>>59
English, Dutch, and German are all Western Germanic languages.
All Eastern Germanic languages became extinct centuries ago.
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Anonymous2008-11-18 23:33
You West Slavs must recapture Carantania!
Emigrate from your countries and settle in Vienna, establish your business enterprises, beget as many children as possible, teach your children the Pan-West-Slavism, choose Slavs for local assembly then the Austrian national assembly, choose a Slav for the Austrian President, change the name of the country from Austria to Catarania, change the national language to a Slavic language, and finally unite the West Slavic countries (i.e. Poland, the Sorbian autonomous regions in Germany, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Catarania, Slovenia, Croatia) to connect the Baltic and Adriatic!
How many centuries might it take, you Slavs must go for it!
>>63
Sorry but we most of West Slavs are not racist but Slavist and anti-German.
We, except a few, don't look down on African or Asian people. Rather, we look up to Japanese people from the bottom of our hearts even though they are not White.
Simply, Japan is our model country.
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Anonymous2008-12-02 17:36
Again, I'll recap what's basically already been said here but clarify it a little.
Extant Slavic languages include Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian (aka Wendish, Lusatian), and a few others.
Extant Germanic languages include German (Modern High German), Yiddish, Schwabisch (Swabian), Letzebuergisch, Bairisch (Bavarian), and many other dialects of German proper, Dutch, Hollaands (Hollandic dialect), Flemish, Afrikaans, Limburgish, English, Frisian, Swedish, Skånska (Scanian), Danish, Norwegian (including Nynorsk and Bokmål), Faroese, Icelandic and a few others.
Extant Uralic languages include Hungarian, Ostyak, Vogul, Finnish, Karelian, Estonian, Sa(a)mi, Cheremis, Komi, Mordvin, Udmurt, Enets, Nenets, Selkup, Tavgi and—you guessed it—a few others.
Extant Baltic languages include Latvian and Lithuanian and some minor dialects throughout the Baltic regions
zaspati = to fall asleep
zaspiš = (you, singular) fall asleep
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Anonymous2008-12-06 22:49
>>69
thanks
such a simple word and i cant find it in my dictionary
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Anonymous2008-12-09 0:21
what are the differences between Serb/Bosnian/Croatian other than Serbs use Cyrillic?
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Anonymous2008-12-09 16:07
>>70
zaspiš is a conjugation, you'll only find the infinitive in teh dictionary.
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Anonymous2008-12-10 3:55
>>71
Pronunciation and a few minor words. Mostly just dialectal differences, afaik.
I think Bosnian and Croatian are more similar than when compared to Serbian. At least I personally can understand Croatian better than Serbian (my father's from Bosnia). But now that I think about it, there are actually even some Croatian dialects that I have minor trouble understanding.
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Anonymous2008-12-10 8:25
Having such similar languages, why do you have to kill each other?
>>76
its true. every time Slobedan's popularity dips he starts a war. as a Croat i can say I've ever met any Serbs that liked the old bastard or approved of an of the wars. We Balkans people would rather get drunk and play soccer than start wars =D
>>73
sounds more like accents than dialects. Like the differences between all the British accents maybe.
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Anonymous2008-12-11 1:48
>>78
no. ban soccer. soccer causes hatred and violence. read "The Soccer War" by Ryszard Kapuscinski.
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Anonymous2008-12-16 1:35
I'm a non-Slav, but my grilfriend is a Czech, who says she can
with a least bit of knowledge about some words being different
in meaning and pronunciation make herself understood in her
mother tongue with Croats and Slovenes as well as Poles, Sorbs
and Slovaks.