|
 |
Bulgarian and Russian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6316 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 15 19 December 2009 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I know the Southern Slavic languages are a lot more simplified than Russian is, and so to that extent I know they're different in terms of complexity, but could someone familiar with both clue me in in a little more detail as to just how different the two are? Edited by ChristopherB on 21 December 2009 at 3:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 15 19 December 2009 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I can at least give you a clue about Bulgarian: its verbal system is MORE complicated than the Russian one. Like Russian it has aspect, but it also has an aorist like Greek and a large and complex inventory of compound verbal forms. I haven't learnt it yet, but it is on my list!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 15 19 December 2009 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
|
The most obvious difference between Bulgarian and Russian lies in how they inflect words. However I wouldn't go so far as to say that South Slavonic languages are more simplified than Russian (e.g. see dual in Slovenian or pitch-accent in BCS/Serbo-Croatian or Slovenian)
In summary, Bulgarian differs from Russian in the following ways: 1) Conjugational patterns in Bulgarian compared to those in Russian are very elaborate as Iversen mentions. Bulgarian (and Macedonian) conjugation considers actions that users know are true, but also those actions that users are unsure of. In other words actions which cannot be confirmed by the user are conjugated as being in the "renarrative" mood. Russian conjugation does not make such a distinction. By extension this also means that Russian has far fewer tenses than Bulgarian and Macedonian. 2) Bulgarian and Macedonian still conjugate and use the present tense of the verb "to be" in full whereas Russian has effectively reduced it in present tense to just one rarely-used form. This also shows up in how Russian lacks a copula (i.e. using the verb "to be" in present tense as the linking verb) I am Chung = Аз съм Chung (Bulgarian) = Я Chung (Russian - literally "I [am] Chung") 3) Bulgarian and Macedonian lack infinitives, whereas Russian still uses them. 4) However declension in Bulgarian and Macedonian is less elaborate than in Russian. Russian has at least 6 cases (I've read that some linguists maintain that there are 8 cases), whereas Bulgarian and Macedonian get by largely on one case (pronouns however still show traces of the Proto-Slavonic declensional patterns that have been maintained to a greater extent in Russian) 5) The low number of cases in Bulgarian and Macedonian has meant that word order is less flexible than in Russian. 6) Bulgarian and Macedonian use definite articles which are expressed as suffixes. A book = книга The book = книгата Russian doesn't translate the concept of definiteness in this way. --- Bulgarian and Macedonian are closer in certain ways to English than to Russian because of the relatively low number of cases, the rather high number of tenses, use of definite articles and analytical tendency (related to the tendency toward rigid word order) 18 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 4 of 15 19 December 2009 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
|
After Chung's detailed and very interesting post, I don't have much to add in terms of grammatical differences.
However, I can say something about vocabulary. Most Russian words are present in Bulgarian, either in current use, or in some cases are poetic and old-fashioned. Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way around, and there are many Bulgarian words that simply don't exist in Russian. It's often the case that Bulgarian has 2 or 3 different words for the same thing; There's one "proto-Bulgarian" (usually sounds empathic), one Slavic, and one that comes from Turkish or Greek ;-p. This makes for some creative freedom but it doesn't help language learners and also pushes the language further away from Russian. South-Slavic languages are quite distant form Russian, but as a whole are very closely related. For example, today they showed a speech of the Macedonian prime minister on the news, without subtitles or dubbing. He has a strange way of speaking, but I understand 99.9% of what he says. I generally like the way Macedonian people speak, it sounds kind of olden and reminds me of my grandmother ;). She uses some of the dialectal features that are actually part of the standard language in Macedonian. Serbian is somewhat more distant, about 60% comprehension for me, but I can quickly improve on that. For Russian it's about 40-50%, in spite of studying it in school for some time. I hate leaving things half-finished, so maybe I should re-learn Russian properly. I can learn it at a significant discount, but I don't have enough time to delve into it. All my efforts will be focused on French for the foreseeable future. Edited by Sennin on 20 December 2009 at 12:15am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 5 of 15 20 December 2009 at 1:12am | IP Logged | ||
For masculine nouns there are actually two types of definite article, depending on the role of the noun. If it is the subject of the sentence the suffix is -ът, otherwise it is -а. Столът се счупи. ( The chair broke ) Петър счупи стола. (Peter broke the chair) Feminine and neuter nouns don't make this distinction. There is some debate if this should be simplified, personally I hope it will remain unchanged. Edited by Sennin on 20 December 2009 at 1:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6316 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 6 of 15 21 December 2009 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks very much guys, especially to Chung, for the very detailed post and for clearing up my misconceptions! Indeed, I was under the impression, that Russian was somewhat to Bulgarian as German is to Swedish, in terms of grammatical complexity. At least now when I learn Russian, I won't dive into Bulgarian fully underestimating it. I'll also read up a bit on Bulgarian's tenses. Thanks again! Edited by ChristopherB on 21 December 2009 at 7:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 15 21 December 2009 at 3:51am | IP Logged | ||
|
I have studied Bulgarian in the past and I am currently studying Russian. Just to inform you a bit more on the cases in Bulgarian, all the cases that exist in Russian exist in Bulgarians PRONOUNS ONLY. Only the vocative case occurs in Bulgarian, and that is VERY easy to master.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| novemberain Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5844 days ago 59 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC1, Italian Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 8 of 15 21 December 2009 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
|
An observation: pretty much every Bulgarian I've met can understand Russian to
impressive extent. Usually they claim they don't speak it and never studied it (I am talking twentysomethings here). At the same time, I barely can understand Bulgarian when I read it, and understand even less when I hear it spoken. This may be just me and people I happened to meet, but it makes me think that Russian is a bit more straightforward. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
