Polish and other slavic language differences

clifborder4fmThreads: 11 Posts: 16 Joined: Oct 20, 09 ♂	Jun 2, 10, 01:35 #1
So for my slavic final I will be given a paragraph translated into 13 different Slavic languages and I have to tell which language it is and why.. I was wondering if anyone knew of a website dedicated to showing the differences bettween all of them. I speak Polish so Polish, Czech, and Slovak I know but the cyrilic ones are a different story Dziękuje!!

shushThreads: 5 Posts: 552 Joined: Dec 20, 09 ♀	Jun 2, 10, 02:19 #2
Maybe some languages have some letters which others dont have and that will give u a clue? what languages will u have to recognise?

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Jun 2, 10, 04:11 #3

Ya I know I will be able to tell which language is which but the big thing is giving many examples as to why. The only way I will be able to know which cyrilic languages are which is because of the accents over certain letters. The languages are Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polskiego, Upper Sorbian, Lover Sorbian, Slovenian, Hrvatski (croatian), Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarussian, and Polabian.

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Jun 2, 10, 09:31 #4

My God! Polabian has been extinct for about two centuries now!

Upper Sorbian is closer to Czech, whereas Lower Sorbian is closer to Polish.

Czech and Slovak would be extremely difficult to distinguish for me, but I have the impression that some of the Slovak vocabulary is closer to Polish than the matching part of this vocabulary in Czech. I think that Slovak doesn't have the diacritical marks in the shape of unfilled little circles.

Croatian and Serbian will be very difficult to distinguish between them if the samples are written with the same alphabet.

Belorussian has quite a number of words imported from Polish.

TrevekThreads: 30 Posts: 2,088 Joined: May 21, 08 ♂	Edited by: Trevek Jun 2, 10, 12:12 #5
Macedonian has no cases (unlike Polish) and had an article (definite, I believe) and uses cyrillic. It also has no 'w' (ł) sounds. I believe the alphabet only has 32 letters.

SeanusThreads: 22 Posts: 30,160 Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂	Jun 3, 10, 01:53 #6
Ask Crow here on the forum. He is a cunning linguist ;) He knows Serbo-Croatian, a useful language down there.

clifborder4fmThreads: 11 Posts: 16 Joined: Oct 20, 09 ♂	Jun 3, 10, 20:52 #7
Well the Cyrillic langurages will all be in cyrillic so I will be able to distinguish them only because of the accents they use over their letters (macedonian has no accents). Will message crow thanks!!

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Edited by: Trevek Jun 3, 10, 21:58 #8

clifborder4fm:

Well the Cyrillic langurages will all be in cyrillic so I will be able to distinguish them only because of the accents they use over their letters (macedonian has no accents).

Macedonian also doesn't have that back-to-front R for 'ya'. It uses 'ja'.The lack of case conjugations might alert you to it not being Serbian or Russian etc (although I don't think Bulgarian has cases either, does it? But it does have the btf R)

Of course, Moldovian is written in cyrillic but is actually a romance language.

Croatian would be written in Latin script. Bosnian? Not sure.

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Jun 3, 10, 23:15 #9

Ziemowit:

Czech and Slovak would be extremely difficult to distinguish for me

called my friend - half Czech half Slovak
main differences:
when both languages have, as she called it, 'dash' above C, S, Z (č), Czech has got one also above R (Slovak doesnt)

Slovak has got dashes above L and T (Czech doesnt) and Slovak has got 'umlauts' (I call them that those two horizontal dots - like in German lang.) above A (ä)
and Czech doesnt

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Jun 3, 10, 23:53 #10

nincompoop_not:

called my friend - half Czech half Slovak
main differences:
when both languages have, as she called it, 'dash' above C, S, Z (č), Czech has got one also above R (Slovak doesnt)

Slovak has got dashes above L and T (Czech doesnt) and Slovak has got 'umlauts' (I call them that those two horizontal dots - like in German lang.) above A (ä)
and Czech doesnt

That's a good way of differentiating between the two.

Many Slovak words often sound similar to Polish and Czech words, but the Slovak word often sounds "closer" to Polish, yet somehow more "wrong-sounding" to me, e.g. airport (Polish: lotnisko; Slovak: letisko; Czech: letiště).

I've only ever studied Czech and not Slovak, though; I don't really like the latter, it just sounds weird to my ears (no offence to Slovaks ;) ) after learning Czech and already knowing Polish.

To me, Slovak sounds like a mixture of Polish, Czech and Silesian, what with its weird "ie" and "jo" endings, lol. I find Slovak difficult to understand, but maybe that's because of having learned that most of the Slovaks I've met were from the East.

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Jun 3, 10, 23:59 #11

SouthMancPolak:

To me, Slovak sounds like a mixture of Polish, Czech and Silesian, what with its weird "ie" and "jo" endings, lol. I find Slovak difficult to understand, but maybe that's because of having learned that most of the Slovaks I've met were from the East.

Slovak comes across as a sloppy form of Czech with lots of slang. Not sure how it evolved, but that's probably one of the reasons that Slovaks usually don't have a problem understanding Czechs, but quite a few Czechs have serious problems understanding Slovak.

nincompoop_notThreads: 4 Posts: 229 Joined: Nov 3, 09 ♀	Jun 4, 10, 00:22 #12
SouthMancPolak: I've only ever studied Czech and not Slovak, though; may I ask how come? I'm finding it very interesting, since Slawistyka has never been the most popular one in the past (in Poland). It was always a choice between studying Polish lit and language (teaching 'career') or Slawistyka. So it's extremely interesting that so many people, and not from Poland, study it. Hats off.

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Edited by: SouthMancPolak Jun 4, 10, 00:34 #13

nincompoop_not:

may I ask how come?

Why did I not learn Slovak, or why did I learn Czech?

If it's the latter, it's a long story, but the short version is that I won't go anywhere on holiday unless I learn enough of the language to get by. Which means I've only ever spoken Italian, French, Czech and extremely basic Cantonese/Mandarin, apart from English and Polish of course, lol. My mum thinks it's really funny when I speak Czech, because she can't speak it, but thinks it sounds like Russian, which she can speak, lol :) I like to confuse her sometimes by saying things like "kde je vase toaletni ubrousky"** and she says, what do you mean where are my toilet tablecloths LOL.

I was brought up bilingual from birth, so learning Polish was no bigger an achievement for me than learning English. But it definitely helps with other languages!

** hopes Magdalena doesn't laugh at my grammar lol

nincompoop_notThreads: 4 Posts: 229 Joined: Nov 3, 09 ♀	Jun 4, 10, 00:52 #14
Sorry for the comparison but you are like my father - was it Czech, Slovak, German or Hungarian, or even Dutch on one occasion - he just had to :) But the question still stands - clifborder4fm - what do you study? and why Slavic?

clifborder4fmThreads: 11 Posts: 16 Joined: Oct 20, 09 ♂	Jun 5, 10, 21:32 #15
Haha I am studying biology ale chcem dostać moj minor w slavic languages (with an emphasis on Polish). They dont offer Polish as a minor by itself at my school but I can use Polish to get a Slavic lang minor which is good. I figure I speak some Polish so I should use it for a degree :)

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Jun 6, 10, 21:35 #16

convex:

Slovak comes across as a sloppy form of Czech with lots of slang. Not sure how it evolved, but that's probably one of the reasons that Slovaks usually don't have a problem understanding Czechs, but quite a few Czechs have serious problems understanding Slovak.

Aha, that explains a lot... and I just thought my Czech was rubbish, lol. What always also gets me is the randomness with which Czech/Slovak words are similar to Polish (or not).

Like breakfast is śniadanie in Polish, snídaně in Czech, but raňajky in Slovak (though you can work out that it's something to do with the morning if you know Polish). But then cellar is piwnica in Polish, pivnica in Slovak, but is sklep in Czech (which in turn is "shop" in Polish, but shop in Czech is obchod, lolz: ) ).

You've got to love false friends! :)

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