Preguntando se llega a Roma. A question for Germainc and Slavic language speakers

[MagisterCultuum]

And nose/nez/Nase is bastardized from Latin nasa (still feminine in German, but masculin in French, oddly).

Latin for nose is Nasus, not Nasa. It is masculine in Latin, so it makes sense that the romance language would be the one to preserve the gender.

Nostril (Naris) on the other hand, is a feminine, and when plural it is often use to refer to the whole nose.

What thorn symbol? Are you talking about runes?

Said rune was used in the English alphabet well into modern times (although its use has been in decline since Norman invasion)

 

[bob bobato]

Original Portuguese = Sounds very funny.

Thats so true, what with all the Lishboas nad Mondeeeh-gos.

 

[innonimatu]

Thats so true, what with all the Lishboas nad Mondeeeh-gos.

What?

 

[kulade]

And nose/nez/Nase is bastardized from Latin nasa (still feminine in German, but masculin in French, oddly).

The Germanic words for nose are conjugates, not bastardizations or descendants, of nasus; even the Sanskrit word for nose is nāsā (which is masculine iirc).

 

[TheLastOne36]

For the most part Spanish shares almost all of it's adages with Portuguese and most of them with French, Italian and to a lesser extent Romanian.

A lot of them straight from Latin I think.


Does German share a lot of phrases with Dutch and English? Or Danish?

I know a lot of them are the same with Danish-Norwegian/Swedish and Icelandic. Are they are generally from German? Or is there a more of a particularly Nordic twist?



And with Slavic is there a distinct east west set of adages? Or are they are sort of the same? I admit I don't know a lot about these languages, but I find it interesting too.

Basically, Slavic groups are divided into 3 areas. Western Slavic Languages (Polish, Czech, Slovak) Eastern Slavic Languages (Russian, Ukrainain) and Southern (Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian).

But unlike in Latin languages, someone from Russia can't understand a single thing someone from Poland or Serbia says. The different groups of Slavic languages are as far apart as Germanic languages are to Romance Languages (imo) with only very few root proto-slavic words being shared with the languages (like the word for Night, which is pretty close in most European languages anyway, 'noc' in Polish and "Noches' in Spanish)


To answer your question, yes, Polish, Slovak and Czech do share some phrases and stuff, but they don't with languages like Serbian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Russian. Likewise for the other Slavic Language groups.

The exception to this is Ukrainian because Poland ruled Ukraine for a looooong time, and thus, we brought some of our dialects to them, but the same with Lithuanian, and it isn't even Slavic so i'm not sure if that 'counts'. It's similar to how Czech has a couple of German phrases due to it's history.

 

[Elta]

Basically, Slavic groups are divided into 3 areas. Western Slavic Languages (Polish, Czech, Slovak) Eastern Slavic Languages (Russian, Ukrainain) and Southern (Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian).

I am going to try and memorize that.

How close are they, if a Czech moves to Poland would you say that they ought to be able to speak Polish well enough to say do diplomacy missions in that country; after only 6 months?


I ask because a portuguese speaker and a spanish can more or less figure out what they are trying to say, but it takes about 6 months to never get lost.


For example in the U.S. we have Portuguese classes for beginners and Portuguese for Spanish speakers which is much more accelerated etc.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I can't speak for the other groups, but for Western Slavic Languages, Poles can pretty much understand Slovak, similar to Portuguese-Italian. Czech to us is like Romanian to someone who is Spanish. Romanians can understand other latin languages but other latin languages can't understand Romanian IIRC, Poles can understand some czech, but Czech can't really understand us.

Czech's would get Polish in about 6 months if they put effort in it, but they'd have a horrible accent. (enless they are Silesian-Czech).

 

[fugazi]

My girlfriend and I seem to have an easy time adepting each others languages. She's Swedish and I'm Dutch and I can pretty much read their newspapers and get what it's about. Sure, I can't read every single thing, but with some extrapolating I do just fine. She on the other hand has an easier time with Dutch, if only because a lot of our language is very much like English once notice it.

 

[Mirc]

From the many friends that I have in this area, here's how I was told that things are in south Slavic languages:


Most of the languages of ex-Yugoslavia are completely understandable (and aren't really different "languages" in the real meaning of the word, save for 2). Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are completely mutually understandable. Serbian is sometimes written in the Cyrillic alphabet which makes it slightly harder, but the Latin version of it is quite widespread and probably already more common than the other. Those are "different languages" almost only because of political reasons.

Slovenian is further away, but can be understood and can be spoken by those I named above if they have time to accommodate themselves with it.

Macedonian is yet further away, being much closer to Bulgarian than the others mentioned so far.

Bulgarian is further than them all. Still somewhat understandable, and two speakers of, say, Bulgarian and Serbian, usually are able to form a "made-up language" so they can communicate, but it takes some practice. However, again, this one is further away, and they do usually need a period of accommodation with the language in order to communicate without problems, and probably a few months of usage to learn to really not make many mistakes. Edit: Oh and don't forget Bulgarian is spelled with the Cyrillic alphabet too. That makes it even harder for those that aren't spelled this way.

Some historians suggest that the difference between Serbian and Bulgarian is bigger than the other differences because when the Slavs migrated in the area there was a (North-South) Romanian -> Albanian -> Greek buffer zone which separated them and caused them to evolve in a more different fashion than the other neighbors.

There are really only two "blocks" of languages in the south Slavic group, a Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian one and a Bulgarian one, each of them having an off-shoot (Slovenian and Macedonian).

Again, I don't speak a word of those languages so anyone who knows better feel free to correct me.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Slovenian is strange to me, I can understand Slovenian completely and easily, while i can't understand a thing when my Serbian girlfriend speaks in Serbian.

I believe Slovenian linguistically is on it's own catagory along with Serbo-Croat and Bulgarian, and i sometimes consider it Central European linguistically. Also their history might have something to do with it, with it being part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire along with Slovakia and Česko.

 

[Mirc]

Might very well be (in its own "block"). I knew it was far out there compared to the other ex-Yugoslavian languages, I only didn't know just how distant it was.

 

[Winner]

I can't speak for the other groups, but for Western Slavic Languages, Poles can pretty much understand Slovak, similar to Portuguese-Italian. Czech to us is like Romanian to someone who is Spanish. Romanians can understand other latin languages but other latin languages can't understand Romanian IIRC, Poles can understand some czech, but Czech can't really understand us.

We understand Slovak perfectly (except post-commie children, who seems to have some minor difficulties with certain aspects of Slovak), Polish is... weird When I was talking with Poles, I usually understood most of what they were saying, it just took me 10 seconds to decipher their archaic (from Czech point of view) grammar and word order.

Czech's would get Polish in about 6 months if they put effort in it, but they'd have a horrible accent. (enless they are Silesian-Czech).

Funny, Poles who learned Czech sound like people from around Ostrava

Anyway...

Polish to me sounds like (and written Polish looks even more like) archaic Czech from the 15th/16th century. Take a look at this:

Ktoz jsu bozi boyownici
a zakona jeho
prosstez od boha pomoci
a uffayte w nyeho
ze konecnye wzdicki s nim swytˇbezite

Kristus wam za skodi stoji
stokrate wiecz slibuye
pakli kto proń źywot slozi
wieczny źywot mieti bude
blaze kazdemu ktoz na prawdye seyde

Tent pan welit sse nebaty
zahubci tyelesnych
welit y źywot slozity
pro lasku swich blyznych

Protoz strzelci kopynici
rzadu rytyerskeho
sudlycznyci a czepnyci
lydu rozliczneho
pomnyetez wsichny na pana scyedreho

Neprzatel se nelekayte
na mnozstwie nehledˇbe
pana sweho w srdci mieyte
proń a s nim boyuyte
a przed neprzately neutiekayte

Dawno czechowe rzyekali
a pzyslowie mieli
ze podle dobreho pana
dobra jiezda bywa

Wy pakosti a drabanti
na dusse pomnyete
pro lakomstwie a lupeze
źywotow netratˇbte
a na korzystech se nezastawuyte

Heslo wsichny pamatuyte
kterez wam wydano
swych hauptmanow pozotuyte
retuj druh druheho
hlediz a drź se kazdy ssiku sweho

A s tiem wesele krzyknete
rzkuc na ne hr na ne
brań swu rukama chutnayte
Boh pan nas krzyknete

Do you understand this? It's the Hussite battle hymn as it was written in a songbook 500 years ago.

It looks VEEEERY strange to my eyes, what about you?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Remember, i'm an immigrant to Poland, my Polish reading skills is horrible...

But from what i've seen, it seems like Czech, but it looks closer to Polish then modern Czech is.

Slovakia was part of Poland around 1000 years ago, and i think the Slovak language is branched of from Polish rather then Czech.

 

[toda]

Western Slavs are basically Russian with minor German influence, c/d?

 

[Winner]

Remember, i'm an immigrant to Poland, my Polish reading skills is horrible...

But from what i've seen, it seems like Czech, but it looks closer to Polish then modern Czech is.

Slovakia was part of Poland around 1000 years ago, and i think the Slovak language is branched of from Polish rather then Czech.

Uhm, no. Slovakia was part of the Moravian principality long before the Poles managed to build a statehood

Czech-Slovak probably started as one language, or two dialects of the same language spoken in south-east Moravia and western Slovakia (around present day Nitra). After the collapse of Moravia, Slovaks became part of Hungary and the language started to differ.

On the other hand, it were Czech scholars who were helping the Slovaks to codify their language during their national revival, so the two languages began to get closer even before the founding of Czechoslovakia.

Slovaks are simply much more related to the Czechs than to the Poles, their language (in both spoken and written form) is more similar to Czech than to Polish.

 

[Winner]

Western Slavs are basically Russian with minor German influence, c/d?

About as much as the English are basically Germans with minor Celtic/Danish influences

 

[TheLastOne36]

Western Slavs are basically Russian with minor German influence, c/d?

Hardly, seeing as Western Slavs have been around longer then Russians were, and much longer then when Russia became 'Russian' in culture, language etc.

I don't understand why you people think we are somewhat like Russians, we are closer to you guys then we are to Russia.

 

[scherbchen]

About as much as the English are basically Germans with minor Celtic/Danish influences

well I'd object to the term "Germans"... oh wait. gotcha, bit slow today -.-

PS: actually got this while typing it.

 

[Dachs]

About as much as the English are basically Germans with minor Celtic/Danish influences

So, yes, then?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Look at my post before Dachs.

If anything, Russians are protestent Central Europeans with viking origins. But this is barely true.