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Russian and Ukrainian- why not dialects? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| 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 17 of 31 16 October 2005 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are, to be sure, similarities. But as an illustration of these similarities,
an, at least somewhat, apt comparison would be that between German and Dutch, on the one side, and Russian and Ukrainian, on the other. In a similar way that many Germans do not understand Dutch, but many Dutch people understand German easily, most Russians do not understand Ukrainian while most Ukrainians understand Russian. Bavarians and Saxons do understand - though also make fun of - each other and have the same (high German) written language. Moreover, the alphabets of Ukrainian and Russian are, it seems to me, even less similar to each other than the alphabets of Dutch and German. 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 18 of 31 16 October 2005 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Read this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27
Russia is the old name of Ukraine as Kievan Rus. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| orion Senior Member United States Joined 7022 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 19 of 31 20 October 2005 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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VityaCo- Thanks for the reference, a fascinating read. It makes me want to visit Kiev!
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| Wildfire Diglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 6644 days ago 14 posts - 21 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French | Message 20 of 31 24 October 2006 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ukrainian and Russian are considered to be different languages, and that has nothing to do with political situation, relations between the states etc. These tongues are just more distant from each other than some ppl think.
Ukrainian is quite transparent to Russian speakers and v.v. (I can understand about 70% of written and spoken Ukrainian), but intelligibity is smaller than between Swedish and Danish. There're still significant differences in vocabulary; here are some examples: English - Ukrainian - Russian - Bulgarian ----- house - budynok - dom - kyshta wait - chekati - zhdat' - chaka fine - vidminno - otlichno - otlichno interesting - cikavyj - interesnyj - interesen strange - dyvnyj - strannyj - stranen red - chervonyj - krasnyj - cherven November - listopad - nojabr' - nojemvri country - krajina - strana - strana Grammar is very similar, but still differs at some points (e.g. there're 7 vs 6 cases, 5 vs 3 tenses in Ukrainian and Russian respectively). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Valentine Lytv Triglot Groupie Ukraine Joined 6644 days ago 53 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*, English | Message 21 of 31 24 October 2006 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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[QUOTE=orion] VityaCo- Thanks for the reference, a fascinating read. It makes me want to visit Kiev!/QUOTE]
Tell us when? I ask as the person born and living in Kiev. By the way actual spelling is Kyiv. It complies with city name in Ukrainian. Once more by the way – “Kyiv” may be translated as “Kyi’s city”. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nadav3 Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6316 days ago 13 posts - 12 votes Studies: Ukrainian*, English | Message 22 of 31 12 August 2007 at 2:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Just like yiddish and German are mutually comprehensible, though not. So says a friend of mine.
Wildfire: vidminno does NOT mean "fine", fine in Ukrainian is "harno", fayno(majsya fayno!) - Just wanted to make that correction. Mizh inshym, chy ty rozmovlyayesh ukrayins'koyu? Edited by patuco on 12 August 2007 at 7:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6922 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 23 of 31 12 August 2007 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here are some examples of Ukrainian so if you know Russian you can try and figure out what they mean.
Personally I don't think that they're dialects. I'd say the differences are something like between Spanish/Port. or German/Dutch. Not to mention the fact that Ukrainian doesn't devoice consonants at the ends of words unlike most/all? other Slavic languages. So, see how much you understand. Що він любить? Він любить чай? Я нічого не люблю. Він дуже любить коньяк. That's from Assimil Russian Lesson 1 translated into Ukrainian. Still with me? Okay, a little more difficult: Я дуже люблю російську мову. Я не знаю, але ось мій брат. Він знає. (Lesson 3) Я починаю сьогодні Як ся маєте? Можливо ви не знаєте його добре. Вибачте його, він вас не розумає. (Lesson 5) (Lesson 26) Як повільно їде таксі. В котрі годині їде поізд до Москви? Я впевен, що ми запізднилися. Вже п'ята година (Lesson 29) Я вчора багато працював і дуже втомився Мені дуже хочеться спати. Edited by TDC on 12 August 2007 at 4:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| karuna Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6335 days ago 47 posts - 46 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 24 of 31 12 August 2007 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
So, can you check me if I am right. Що він любить? What does he like? Він любить чай? Does he like tea? Я нічого не люблю. I don't like anything Він дуже любить коньяк. He also likes brandy But I have some doubts about любить because I know that in Ukrainian "I love you" will be "ya tebe kohayu". Я дуже люблю російську мову. I also like Russian language. Я не знаю, але ось мій брат. Він знає. I don't know ?? ?? my brother. He knows. Some wilde guess that ?? means "where is" Я починаю сьогодні Як ся маєте? I ???? How do you ???(think) Можливо ви не знаєте його добре. Вибачте його, він вас не розумає. Now this becomes pure speculation: Maybe you don't know him well. ?? him, he doesn't understand you. Як повільно їде таксі. В котрі годині їде поізд до Москви? Я впевен, що ми запізднилися. Вже п'ята година Only after some thinking about it and remembering that godina means hour. How slowly the cab is going At what hour the train to Moscow leaves? I believe we are late. Now it is 5 o'clock. Я вчора багато працював і дуже втомився Yesterday I a lot ??? and also got tired Мені дуже хочеться спати. I also want to sleep. But I was told some days ago that bogato means "a lot". But this is a completely artificial test that doesn't mean much. In the real life I am clueless when I hear Ukrainian spoken. I can gather the gist of an Ukrainian text but many important details elude me completely. Today just by coincidence I happened to order a DSL line for a friend in Ukraine at Ukrtelekom website that was only in Ukrainian. I could understand the general idea and navigate the website but the dates, price options and contract terms were indecipherable to me. Beside I already had had quite an exposure to Ukrainian. Maybe a native Russian speaker would have higher comprehension but I don't believe that without a previous exposure to Ukrainian anybody would feel comfortable to suddenly communicate in Ukrainian. Although I know that some western Ukrainians have quite high mutual understanding with Polish but that again might be some dialect of Ukrainian, in the same way as Eastern Ukraine would have dialects that are closer to Russian. But the standard language is quite different. A few years ago in my church there was one scripture translated into Ukrainian several years before the Russian translation was published. Many Russians tried to read it but their understanding of it was limited. Then they bought Ukrainian-Russian dictionaries to study it deeper but I think that at the end they all resigned to wait for the Russian translation. In other words I don't believe that the difference between Ukrainian and Russian is less than that between Romance languages. Edit: spelling Edited by karuna on 12 August 2007 at 11:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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