Question by Retread: How different are Russian, Polish, and Serbian/Croatian/whatever you call it?
How different or similar are these Slavic langauges? I’ve studied Russian for a while and I would like to get into Croatian or Polish sometime, but I just hope they aren’t so similar that I would confuse myself greatly.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Laurentiu
They are different, in the same measure as French to Spanish or Romanian or Italian. In the same time, many similarities could help you understand some words or even expressions. But don’t rely too much on it, you’ll need a translator for a fully understanding. And you’ll be able to learn one of them easier, as you already know Russian
Add your own answer in the comments!
scr. Linguistic man says
* International report Language Family Trees:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=2…
* Indo-European languages:
http://www.danshort.com/ie/iesatem.htm
* Languages in Europe:
Slavic languages:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1…
Slavic languages map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slavic_language…
scr. Linguistic man says
* [[Russian language]] : В отношении выхлопных газов и загрязнения
воздуха в Иерусалиме, было бы необходимо принимать меры безопасности!
—-
* [[Bulgarian language]] : По отношение на изгорелите газове и
замърсяването на въздуха в Ерусалим, че ще бъде необходимо да се
вземат мерки за сигурност!
—-
* [[Macedonian language]] : Во однос на издувните гасови и
загадувањето на воздухот во Ерусалим дека ќе биде потребно да се
преземат мерки за безбедност!
—-
* [[Serbian language]] : У погледу издувних гасова и загађивања
ваздуха у Јерусалиму, било би потребно предузети мере безбедности!
(U pogledu izduvnih gasova i zagađivanja vazduha u Jerusalimu, bilo bi
potrebno preduzeti mere bezbednosti)
—-
* [[Croatian language]] : Glede ispušnih plinova i zagađivanja zraka u
Jeruzalemu, bilo bi potrebito poduzeti mjere sigurnosti!
—-
* [[Slovenian language]] : Glede izpušnih plinov in onesnaženosti
zraka v Jeruzalemu, bi bilo treba sprejeti varnostne ukrepe!
—-
*[[Czech language]] : S ohledem na emise výfukových plynů a znečištění
ovzduší v Jeruzalémě, bylo by nutné přijmout bezpečnostní opatření!
—-
*[[Slovak language]] S ohľadom na emisie výfukových plynov a znečistenia
ovzdušia v Jeruzaleme, bolo by potrebné prijať bezpečnostné opatrenia!
James B's avata says
Russian is the Eastern-Slavic language, Polish is the Western Slavic language and Serbo-Croatian is the Western Slavic language. It means there are pretty far from each other. Nowadays they separate Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages but I wouldn't guess where the politics finish and the grammar starts.
Once I gave an explanation about the difference between Russian and Polish languages. My answer is here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aupw…
Polish language has a distinctive phonetic features which make it sound very different from all other Slavic languages.
As for Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages comparing to Russian – they sound differently, their grammar system is significantly different and they can be understood by an average Russian speaker on the level of separate words and phrases – no more. The grammatical similarities might be illusionary: the inflecting system is different, the conjugation system is rather different: there are grammar tenses (Aorist, Pluperfect) which don't exist in Russian or Polish (and Polish has a Gerund form which doesn't exist in Russian or Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages). In the present tense the conjugation system of all Slavic languages can be traced all the way back to Latin, but it doesn't make them any similar!
The similarities in Lexis might be confusing, because there are words having a different meaning in the different languages. The brightest example:
— Russian позор – blemish, shame, disgrace, infamy (nouns) in English
— Serbian позор – alert! attention! caution! (interjections) in English.
For an average Russian speaker these languages sound a bit "church-ish", because the Church-Slavonic language used by the Russian Orthodox Church was created on a basis of Western Slavic dialects (over a millennium ago!).
I presume if you don't start studying several Slavic languages simultaneously – the similarities between them won't confuse you.
Richard says
Serbian/ Croatian/ Bosnian/ Montenegrin are very closely related (they are basically the same language but given a different name depending what country the speaker is from). Speakers of any one of these can speak to one another with no problem at all (cos it's all the same language!). Obviously there will be some regional differences, but no more than the differences between British and Americans speaking English.
Whilst all the languages you mention are Slavic languages, there are three sub-branches of the Slavic languages and you have chosen one from each.
South Slavic: Serbian, Croatian, etc.
West Slavic: Polish, Czech, Slovak.
East Slavic: Russian, Bielorussian, Ukrainian.
This means they actually relatively far apart. There will be a number of words in each language that share a common root and thus look/sound similar but it won't be so many that it would hinder your progress in a new language, and it might just be enough to make it helpful.
The linguistic distance between any two of the three languages you mention is more (and thus the similarities fewer) than between any two Latin-based European Languages, (I assume you are at least a little familiar with these). Somebody who learned Spanish or French, for instance, has no problem learning the other, and would usually find it helpful that some of the words are recognisable.
So basically, it won't cause any problems, but you might find it helpful when learning new vocabulary if the occasional word is similar to the corresponding word that you already know in another language.
(It is sometimes possible, however, for languages to be too similar. I learnt Dutch as an adult, having learnt to speak German at school, and they were so similar that initially any Dutch I learnt seemed to overwrite the existing German in my brain, causing much confusion the first time I went to Germany after that)