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Russian and Ukrainian- why not dialects? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Arti Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 7013 days ago 130 posts - 165 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 9 of 31 06 October 2005 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't know about normal russian words being vulgar in Ukrainian, but I noticed that russian words with negative meaning have the positive sence in Western Slavic languages. Old church slavonic is comprehensible of course, this language was the state language in Russia before 18th century if I'm not mistaken, so there'are lots of lowns. Many words from Old Church are used in poetry to make "high style".For example: ворота = gate (modern russian), the word is used in everyday life врата = gate (old church slavonic), the word is used in Russian as well but in ceveral expressions or in poetry or just for making your speech "high" небесные врата=heaven gate 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arti Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 7013 days ago 130 posts - 165 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 10 of 31 06 October 2005 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||
yes, i think we can, as this language was the state one in Russian before 18th century there are many lowns. Old church words are used in modern russian to make style of speaking "high", mostly it is applicable to poetry, in books, or we have fixed expressions. So we have pairs of words with the same meaning but different in style: russian - old church slavonic ворота - врата - gate небеса - небеси - heaven берег - брег - coast золото - злато - gold глаз - око - eye губы - уста - lips 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arti Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 7013 days ago 130 posts - 165 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 11 of 31 06 October 2005 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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hmmm this is strange, at first i dont see my russian, second i thought that my first message hasn't been posted.....
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| laxxy Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7120 days ago 172 posts - 177 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 12 of 31 07 October 2005 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of course political implications play a role here, but really Russian and Ukrainian are different enough to be called different languages. The pronunciation is different, the grammar is different, the alphabet is also a bit different. There is a plenty of common words that do not look like their counterparts at all, and some of those that do mean different things.
It is true that almost everyone born in Ukraine has had sufficient exposure to Russian to understand it well (speaking and writing is another matter, but for the majority it is not a problem either), but the reverse is not usually true for Russians from Russia. They are typically able to understand written texts more or less well: a Russian speaker would probably guess what "їдальня" is, even though the word may seem funny (BTW, Russian seems quite funny to Polish speakers too, this is in the nature of all related languages), but probably not "перукарня". But then, I am able to understand Polish texts pretty well too, and no one claims that Polish is a dialect of either Russian or Ukrainian :) And the spoken language is harder, many visitors from Russia can not understand Ukrainian TV, for example. BTW -- I have never heard of anyone calling Africaans a dialect of Dutch, and if you stop by any bookstore you'll see a plenty of books on the Cantonese language, too. Any political change in China will probably make this standard. Edited by laxxy on 07 October 2005 at 5:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| laxxy Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7120 days ago 172 posts - 177 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 13 of 31 07 October 2005 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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One other thing: as for people insisting on Ukrainian translation, this may have of course just been a matter of principle and not willing to be taken for some "different kind of Russians". But if this was an official business, they may have had other reasons. For example, any official document is required by law to have a Ukrainian version, and in case a discrepancy creeps into translation the Ukrainian text is always considered the legally binding one. And legal terminology in the two languages is quite different.
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| Inna Newbie Russian Federation Joined 7017 days ago 22 posts - 30 votes | Message 14 of 31 10 October 2005 at 9:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to comment on Russians, Ukranians and Byelorussians being able to read church Slavonic. The Orthodox church service is still conducted in old church Slavonic in these countries. The language is about 85-90 per cent understandable for the speakers of the 3 languages. Some words have been forgotten in the course of historical development, grammar has changed considerably, but it is still pretty understandable. They say their prayers in this language still. By the way, they say that average speakers of English (not philologists) cannot read their 'Beowulf'. Russians can read their texts of the same period. For example, 'Lay of Igor's Host (Raid)' is not only undestandable, but I think its old language can even now be admired from the aesthetic point of view. Read aloud, it is astonishingly beautiful in its rhythms, assonance, vowels that sing out, its imagery and poetry.
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| orion Senior Member United States Joined 7022 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 15 of 31 11 October 2005 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I just meant that Afrikaans was derived from Dutch, and they are pretty much mutually intelligible. Edited by orion on 11 October 2005 at 1:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| VityaCo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7082 days ago 79 posts - 86 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 16 of 31 16 October 2005 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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