Who were the Slavs?
- Thread starter Knight-Dragon
- Start date
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
fing0lfin said:Same in Bulgarian
Oh really? How come? Could you be by chance using same alphabet?
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
fing0lfin said:
There are some diffence between Czech and Norwegian alphabet.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
fing0lfin said:
That the chorus "we too" "we too!" was unnecessary?
Rambuchan
The Funky President
Some great posts in answer to the OP in this thread. Thanks to all those who took the effort to make such informative, readable and wideranging write ups 
Rambuchan
The Funky President
OK, I have two questions for our Balkan experts:
1) A little bird once floated the notion that the word "Slav" relates to "blond" and perhaps blue eyed too. They put this forward without any degree of seriousness, rather as an example of the frequent rebranding of identity, to suit certain purposes, which is seen so often in this part of the world. But who put this notion forward? When? Why might they have done it? And in what language might it claim to have this meaning?
2) I'm fairly sure many who posted in this thread will know of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (the moderniser and supposed simplifier of the Serbo-Croat language and alphabet). I've been trying to track down a particular collection of poetry which he published. It comes from the pre-Christian, oral traditions of the (south) Slavic peoples and is a collection of love poetry. But not just any love poetry; this collection is supposed to be racier, more graphic and mature, less gushy and fluffy than the European courtly poetry, almost like a Serbo-Croat Kama Sutra. Does anyone know what I am referring to and where I might get hold of a copy? Endless trawling of the internet has not provided the goods.
1) A little bird once floated the notion that the word "Slav" relates to "blond" and perhaps blue eyed too. They put this forward without any degree of seriousness, rather as an example of the frequent rebranding of identity, to suit certain purposes, which is seen so often in this part of the world. But who put this notion forward? When? Why might they have done it? And in what language might it claim to have this meaning?
2) I'm fairly sure many who posted in this thread will know of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (the moderniser and supposed simplifier of the Serbo-Croat language and alphabet). I've been trying to track down a particular collection of poetry which he published. It comes from the pre-Christian, oral traditions of the (south) Slavic peoples and is a collection of love poetry. But not just any love poetry; this collection is supposed to be racier, more graphic and mature, less gushy and fluffy than the European courtly poetry, almost like a Serbo-Croat Kama Sutra. Does anyone know what I am referring to and where I might get hold of a copy? Endless trawling of the internet has not provided the goods.
Very interesting topic. Thank you to all posters. The history of the Slavs was always a glaring ommision in my historical education.
However I feel some posters maybe overstating the similarities in language by giving examples of numbers. These words are very similar in just about all indo-european languages (some of them are very close to Celtic for example). Words for home, mother, father, brother, sister, hello, thank you etc.. might be a better measure.
However I feel some posters maybe overstating the similarities in language by giving examples of numbers. These words are very similar in just about all indo-european languages (some of them are very close to Celtic for example). Words for home, mother, father, brother, sister, hello, thank you etc.. might be a better measure.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
Tathlum said:
West and East Slavs can get a point across. In my experience it is worse wit South Slavs as they are bit removed from continuity by Austria, Hungary and Romania (speaking with several Serbian friends).
West Slavic languages are very mutually inteligible.
Do not forget that only 1000 years ago, they were still essentially the same language.
But as you asked so nicely:
English- Czech- Slovak
Home- Domov- Domov
Mother- Matka- Matka
Father- Otec- Otec (but in Slovak- de, te, ne are pallatized)
Brother- Bratr- Bratr
Sister- Sestra- Sestra
Hello- Nazdar- Nazdar
Thank you- Děkuji- Ďakujem
Pokurcz
Emperor
There is a division of Indo-European in half where basicaly the western are one group and eastern an other. The division is made by finding the origin of the word "hundred". Western languages have close cinship to "cent" whilst eastern have "set".
Acording to this division the Slavic languages are of the eastern group.
The word for "hundred" in Polish is "sto" or "set", in Persian I believe it is "set". Both languages have very similar names for "fivehundred".
Acording to this division the Slavic languages are of the eastern group.
The word for "hundred" in Polish is "sto" or "set", in Persian I believe it is "set". Both languages have very similar names for "fivehundred".
Gladi said:
Some little correction here
Brother-Bratr-Brat
Generally you can say, that the Slavs of one language group (western, eastern, southern) understand languages of their group quite well while having difficulties in understanding languages of other groups.
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
Well this is a very interesting thread but I see there a lot of wrong informations... and I'm very familiar with history of fall of Rome and middle ages in Eastern Europe.
Just some examples...
As a Romanian speaker I can tell you for sure that according to a study made in 2002 my language is 8.6% slavic and 89.7% latin. And I'm actually quite sure that Hungarian is not slavic either, they have actually very very few slavic words, their language being completely different to any other European language than Finnish, which has common roots.
How is German related to Bulgarian?
Just some examples...
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
skovac said:Some little correction here
Brother-Bratr-Brat
Can I claim Záhorák origin
? Well seing as the Slovak half of my family lives in Central Slovakia, probably not.Thankfully none of them can read english
Surely it has to be more complex than that. It works in Brythonic Celtic (Cant is obviously like cent) but not Goidelic Celtic (Cead; is no more like cent than set).
This seems like the old P/Q distinction for Celtic languages. Usefull in an example or two, but hardly definative. Again I think numbers are an unclear example of Indo-European linguistic connections.
Cool. Can anyone explain where the differences occur. Technical/modern terms, I presume vary more than core examples like love, hate and family, or is it more random than this?
In Bulgarian:Gladi said:
home- Dom
Mother- Maika
Father-bashta or otec
Brother- Brat
Sister- Sestra
Hello- Zdravei
Thank you- Blagodarq
Well i don't think this is quite true. For example the Bulgarian(south slavic) and the Russian (east slavic) are close. I can understand Russian(not perfect of course), and i have never learned it.
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
That's interesting, we also have this word in certain areas of the country, close to the borders. (maica)fing0lfin said:
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
Yes, there are some common words, but they are rather few.
But Bulgaria and some states that were going to form Wallachia were united in Middle Ages (though earlier than 1600) on the time of the Asanesti family (old wallachian family) that put the bases of the so called "vlacho-bulgarian emipre", which was basically a union between some states from Wallachia and Bulgaria, with some foreign territory, that didn't last very long. They were just calling themselves "empire" because the people were not all of the same nationality. So yes, there are some connections between the 2 countries. But they don't teach this part in schools (neither in Bulgaria nor in Romania)
No, the official language was not the Old Bulgarian, but the official alphabet was the slavon alphabet. (cyrilic) We changed back to Latin alphabet in 1800.fing0lfin said:
But Bulgaria and some states that were going to form Wallachia were united in Middle Ages (though earlier than 1600) on the time of the Asanesti family (old wallachian family) that put the bases of the so called "vlacho-bulgarian emipre", which was basically a union between some states from Wallachia and Bulgaria, with some foreign territory, that didn't last very long. They were just calling themselves "empire" because the people were not all of the same nationality. So yes, there are some connections between the 2 countries. But they don't teach this part in schools (neither in Bulgaria nor in Romania)
