Can You Know 2 Languages and Music at the Same Time

Where did Slavic languages come from and who speaks them?

Modern Slavic languages have a mutual ancestor - the Proto-Slavic language, which existed until the sixth-7th centuries AD. There are several theories equally to its place of origin, but they all concur that it happened on the territory of present-day Eastern Europe.

In the seventh century, as the Slavic tribes subdivided into three groups, and so did the Proto-Slavic linguistic communication, each with its own lexical, morphological, phonetic and grammatical features:

• West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak),
• Eastward Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian) and
• South Slavic (Serbian, Croation, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian).

Each of the groups, in the course of its historical development, was subjected to various influences from its non-Slavic neighbors - German, Hungarian, Turkish, Italian, Lithuanian and other languages. This found its reflection in their vocabulary and grammer. And nevertheless, Slavic languages have preserved some 2,000 words common to all of them – these are the most ancient and mutual words and also stylistically neutral ones.

Slavic languages modern map

Wikipedia

In fact, the Slavic linguistic communication group is even more numerous if you count all the regional dialects and the languages of peoples that do not accept their own states (such as Lusatian Sorbs, Rusyns, Kashubians and others).

So how is Russian similar to and dissimilar from other Slavic languages?

Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian

The very fact that these iii languages vest to the same group (East Slavic) suggests that Ukrainian and Belarusian are the Russian language's closest relatives. Until the 13th-14th centuries, Eastern Slavs spoke Old E Slavic, from which the three divide languages developed over time.

Despite the cultural and historical affinity of the iii languages, in that location are many more differences between them than is normally thought.

For example, while Russian and Belarusian take half dozen cases, Ukrainian has seven, the seventh being the vocative case, which is used for forms of address. In Russian, these forms of accost tin be plant only in literature (like in Pushkin'due south 'Fisherman and the Golden Fish': "Чего тебе надобно, старче?" - "What exercise you lot desire, elder?")

Also, Ukrainian has a past perfect tense (знав був), which Russian does not.

All the three languages utilize the Cyrillic alphabet, although Ukrainian and Belarusian have some letters that Russian does non:

• Ukrainian does non have the letters Ё, Ъ, Ы, Э, only has the letters Ґ, Є, І and Ї;
• while Belarusian has the letter Ў.

That said, if y'all know Russian, y'all will take no trouble reading the other ii languages. Whether yous are able to understand what yous accept read is another matter.

It has been established that Russian and Ukrainian share just threescore percentage of their vocabularies, with the remaining 40 percent of words - due to historical circumstances - being of Smoothen origin. Whereas the Belarusian language shares nearly 70 percent of its vocabulary with Ukrainian and Polish.

Russian and West Slavic group

This group of Slavic languages includes Polish, Czech and Slovak. They contain many borrowings from High german, French, Italian and Latin. In addition, phonetically, they are the most dissimilar from Russian, so the chance that knowledge of Russian would help you understand what speakers of these languages say is non very big.

Besides, these languages have sounds that are non institute in other Slavic tongues: in Czech, it is the consonant denoted by the letter ř [рж] and in Smoothen, these are the nasal vowels denoted by the letters ą and ę.

And now the hardest part. If you pride yourself on having mastered the Russian cases and declensions of nouns, adjectives and pronouns, brace yourself: it was just a warm-up! While Russian has but three declensions, Slovak has 12 and Czech as many as 14! Add to it hard and soft varieties of adjectives, which also take atypical and plural forms and three genders and you tin imagine the number of declension forms there!

Russian and the Southward Slavic group

- Serbian and Croatian:

In Yugoslavia, Serbian and Croatian were considered a unmarried Serbo-Croatian language with small regional differences. At the same time, in Croatia only Latin script was used, while in Serbia both Latin and Cyrillic scripts were used.

Nearly of the messages in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet are identical to those in the Russian alphabet (with the exception of Ё, Й, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю and Я), but there are also some unique letters that will accept to be learned separately: Ј, Ћ, Ђ, Њ, Љ and Џ. Unlike in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, each letter of the alphabet represents simply one sound!

Also, if y'all speak Russian, you volition not be surprised to discover that the stress can fall on any vowel in a word. Yet, there is ane "pleasant" surprise: the linguistic communication of Emir Kusturica and Nikola Tesla has "'but" four types of stress and vowel length (they depend on which case the word is in), but they may determine the pregnant of the word. By the manner, mastering Serbian pitch accent is an nearly impossible task for a greenhorn!

And another nice detail - incredible for a Russian: In Serbian and Croatian, the stress can fall, in addition to vowels, on the consonant R, therefore words consisting of only consonants are not at all uncommon: vrt (garden), brk (mustache), Grk (Greek).

- Bulgarian and Macedonian:

If in one case, you spent a lot of time learning Russian cases, now yous can forget all virtually them! When it comes to these two languages, the knowledge of cases will be irrelevant, since they no longer have a system of declensional endings. That is why, speaking in Russian, a Bulgarian tin hands say: "Эта дыня из мой папа сад!" ("This melon is from my Dad'southward garden!") Yes, Russian declensions tin can be a pain for speakers of other Slavic languages!

Another peculiar characteristic of these two languages is the mail service-positive definite article. It serves to cement the meaning of what was said. Russian, equally you lot know, has no articles, while in other languages, they commonly accept the form of stand up-alone words. Whereas here, the article is attached to the ending of a discussion. For instance, вълк – вълкът, мама – мамата, дядо – дядото, etc. The plural forms wait even peculiar: момиче – момичета – момичетата ("daughter - girls - (some specific) girls"). Articles are a tricky thing that tin be mastered merely by an ace in Bulgarian / Macedonian linguistics and the knowledge of Russian will be of no help hither.

And the ruby-red on tiptop: a devilishly complex arrangement of tenses. The South Slavic group has 9 tenses! Yes, you heard correct.

- Slovenian:

A unique characteristic of this language is that, in improver to singular and plural, it also has the dual number, i.e. special forms used when talking of two objects or persons.

For instance, in the sentence "The apple is cerise. / The apples are cherry":

Jabolko je rdeče. (atypical)

Jabolki sta rdeči. (dual)

Jabolka so rdeča. (plural)

Lest you think that Russian has null in mutual with Southward Slavic languages, here is some good news: they share a lot of vocabulary. The fact is that the South Slavic and Russian vocabularies experienced a strong mutual influence. Old Slavonic words came to Russia from the Balkans with the start books as early on as the 10th century, together with writing. From the tardily 18th century, the movement was in the opposite direction and it was the turn of the Due south Slavic languages to experience a powerful wave of Russian influence. That is why, if you know Russian, you are likely to be able to understand a text in Serbian, Macedonian and - especially - in Bulgarian.

Bilinguals and foreigners who speak Russian and other Slavic languages share their feel

• Deyan, a linguist and a Russian scholar, a native speaker of Serbian and Macedonian:

"I don't think that my knowledge of two Slavic languages has in any manner helped me in learning Russian. Rather the opposite. For me, the biggest challenges are word order, transitivity and the pronunciation of some sounds.

Only it is just me. I know a Serbian woman who speaks perfect Russian, just she has no notion of any Russian grammar rules. I too know quite a few Serbs who have lived in Russian federation for decades and still speak Pidgin Russian.

The vocabulary, of course, is like, just there are many cognates that accept different meanings, and then at that place is a danger of saying something completely different from what you lot meant. A Russian lecturer I knew (who is half-Macedonian) could, speaking in Russian, literally translate the Macedonian expression: 'пукнав од смеа' ('carve up one'south sides laughing') as: "пукнуть со смеху" ('fart with laughter').

Of course, Slavic languages are similar. But if you prepare yourself high goals, for a Slav information technology should be however whether they are studying Russian or Papuan. The goal is the same."

• Svetoslava, a Serbo-Croatian linguist, a native speaker of Russian and Bulgarian:

"I grew up in a bilingual Russian-Bulgarian family unit. My parents became fluent in each other'south linguistic communication. Having settled in Russia, over time, my dad learned to speak perfect Russian and fully alloyed in Russia. Although, when he first arrived in Moscow as a xx-twelvemonth-old student, he knew the language at the school curriculum level (in socialist Bulgaria, Russian was function of the curriculum). So, at start, there were some amusing incidents involving his Russian. For example, once, while telling my (future) mom virtually his hometown, he said: 'All our roofs are covered…' There was a intermission, as he was searching for the right word, '…with turtles…' (Of course, he meant 'tiles' [черепица], just dislocated it with 'turtle' [черепаха])"

• Kaname, a Slavist and a teacher of Russian and Serbian, a native Japanese speaker. (He speaks Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Rusyn, Slovak and Smooth):

"I have no dubiousness that noesis of Russian helps in studying other Slavic languages, but 1 cannot say that it e'er leads to learning them well. At the initial stage of learning [another Slavic language], Russian helps to quickly navigate the grammar and it may seem that everything is very uncomplicated and understandable precisely because of Russian. However, at a more advanced stage, 1 has to 'forget' one's Russian, since it stands in the fashion of grasping the peculiarities of the other language and mastering it in a more natural style. It is meliorate to start thinking in the other language and fugitive the thought: 'How will it be in Russian?' I faced this problem more than one time when I was studying, for example, Serbian, Bulgarian and Rysian. That said, information technology pleases me to remember how during my offset trip to Serbia I noticed that I was speaking Serbian 'with a Russian accent'. Just, on the other paw, I realized then that I needed to somehow become rid of my 'bad' habits in order to get-go speaking Serbian for real. After that, Russian and Serbian became completely different languages in my head, and I stopped confusing their vocabulary and grammar."

If using whatsoever of Russia Across'southward content, partly or in full, always provide an agile hyperlink to the original material.

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/education/333222-russian-differs-slavic-language

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