What's the easiest Slavic language to learn?

[Svarog]

Typical Slavic thing, 'bragging' how their language it the hardest one to learn lol

[Amarantine]

From this summer Montenegrin language will be different we got two new letters (voices)

Sj and Zj (don t ask me for transcription, for first one we all know how it sounds, but this second one is a pure mystery)....

[Osweo]

I'll echo Svarog, and unsurprisingly say Russian - for those whose mother tongue is English, at least.

Our Srbski drug is quite right about the greater opportunities for practice and acquisition of necessary materials. Added to that is the great variety of materials available. I dare say that more has been translated into and from Russian than all the other Slavonic languages put together, perhaps with Polish as a distant runner up, so you can at least have fun figuring Russian out by reading your own favourite book! I actually struggled through a great deal of Egil's Saga as one of my first attempts at really getting to grips with Russky! And oddly enough, one of the last full books I read in Russian was on Suibne Geilt (Mad Sweeney), including lengthy translations from the original Old Irish sources...

The 'RuNet' is also an enormous resource in Russian's favour. There are, for istance, MILLIONS of Russian 'anekdoty' or 'jokes' out there to puzzle your head over once you've learnt the basics!

Looking at the language itself, there's a lot of things already familiar to a British eye, or at least FAR more than with the other Slavonic tongues. We know a few Russian words from history and politics, so have at least a little foothold to help us.

More importantly, the phonetics are not too impossible. I have trouble with Russian R, but then again, my English one isn't perfect! Щ and ы will present some difficulty, but far less so than anything you'll find in the northwestern Slavonic languages. No - Polish for me will never be anything other than something to read, I'm afraid...

The grammar is quite fiendish, but you'll find that for all these languages. Bulgarian is a curious exception, being more a kind of 'pidgin' almost, in so far as how it has lost the case system due to its adoption by large numbers of non-Slavs. It's a little like English in that respect.

[Guapo]

Bulgarian is a curious exception, being more a kind of 'pidgin' almost, in so far as how it has lost the case system due to its adoption by large numbers of non-Slavs. It's a little like English in that respect.

I'd say that "Bulgarian" is the closest to the original tongue spoken by the first wave of Slavs in the Balkans. No offence to the Bulgars on the board but the reason why I put Bulgarian in brackets is because there was no Bulgarian nation back then, neither were there "Serbs" okay?

[Tabiti]

I'd say that "Bulgarian" is the closest to the original tongue spoken by the first wave of Slavs in the Balkans. No offence to the Bulgars on the board but the reason why I put Bulgarian in brackets is because there was no Bulgarian nation back then, neither were there "Serbs" okay?

Hmm, the ethnonym Bulgarian exist hundreds of years before the Serbian one, no matter you like it or no. However, Serbs always had problems recognizing the different ethnic origin of their neighbouring nations. Guess why...

Slavs...There are no evidences of Slavic predominance here.

[Guapo]

Guess why...

You misunderstood me. I was talking about the languge spoken by the first wave of Slavs, before the arrival of Bulgars from Asia or Serbs from southern Poland, okay?

I can't guess, please tell me.Oh wait, you mean Macedonia? Your nation can have it but hurry!, Albanians are gaining ground.

Slavs...There are no evidences of Slavic predominance here.

In denial? Get your head out of the clouds. You're a Slav.

[Osweo]

Eee... I foolishly promised to answer here, but am pretty tired... So here's my rubbish post:

I'd say that "Bulgarian" is the closest to the original tongue spoken by the first wave of Slavs in the Balkans.

Hmmm... What do you mean, though? The language of the Slavs in Thrace at what time?

Nowadays, Slavonic languages there are possibly the furthest from that of the proto-Slavs. From a grammatical point of view, the modern day Bulgarian has lost its case system to such an extent that my eyes popped out of my head when I first read some of it! The lexica has connections with the Eastern Slavonic languages, as well as those to Bulgaria's immediate west, but a whole host of regional (Palaeo-?)Balkan features have been grafted onto it, most notably the suffix -to, that acts rather like English 'the', so far as I can tell.

The dialect spoken in Kirill and Mefodiy's day was far more in line with the rest of Slavdom in terms of its inflectional complexity and archaic phonetics, but even so it had already been subject to some changes from the Common Slavonic of the late migration period.

Hmm, the ethnonym Bulgarian exist hundreds of years before the Serbian one, no matter you like it or no.

Hmm... the Serbian one didn't appear suddenly out of the blue though! If its Sarmatian links are real, it could be just as old as 'Bulgar'. If it's Slavonic (and I favour the link with the Ukrainian term 'paserbitisya' or 'adopt', implying a fusion of tribes or the like), then it may simply have evaded record in its earlier days.

Slavs...There are no evidences of Slavic predominance here.

Of course; the Romano-Thracians were just sent thousands of 'Teach Yourself Slavonic' book and cassette sets...
The apostles of the Slavs down in Salonika spoke great Slavonic, and thought it a suitable language to use to convert the non-Greeks to the north. That must surely imply some ethnocultural predominance.

In denial? Get your head out of the clouds. You're a Slav.

In so far as I'm a 'Germanic', our dear Артышка is indeed a Slav. Even if most of your ancestors were already in your homeland in Alexander's day, the Bulgars have still switched language, and thereby absorbed a lot more in terms of 'mental furniture' that comes with the language.

[Cail]

but a whole host of regional (Palaeo-?)Balkan features have been grafted onto it, most notably the suffix -to, that acts rather like English 'the', so far as I can tell.

It is unusual (systematically used as article), but it is not non-Slavic in origin. It evolved from common Slavic pronoun "to" ("that"), which is present in nearly all modern languages (Czech, Polish, Russian...), Lithuanian "ta", Avestan "ta" et cetera. Bulgarian was the only one to start using it as an article (and respective flexive system), but there are some rudimentary similar uses like that, for example, in Russian - "Slona-to ja i ne zametil", "Ty idiosh domoj-to?" et cetera.

[Osweo]

It is unusual (systematically used as article), but it is not non-Slavic in origin.

Sure, I realise that, but isn't its appearance as so systematic a feature (barely a sentence is without it in the Bulgarian books I've flipped through) in the Balkans of all places rather a pointer to a non-Slavic impulse? The lexical element itself is Slavonic, but its habitual use is observed to be a regional thing, no? I don't know which other languages there use it, but I read once that its present in several if not all of these; Rumanian (both in 'Dacian' and the southern varieties), Albanian and Greek. COuld you put me right there?

[Cail]

Sure, I realise that, but isn't its appearance as so systematic a feature (barely a sentence is without it in the Bulgarian books I've flipped through) in the Balkans of all places rather a pointer to a non-Slavic impulse? The lexical element itself is Slavonic, but its habitual use is observed to be a regional thing, no? I don't know which other languages there use it, but I read once that its present in several if not all of these; Rumanian (both in 'Dacian' and the southern varieties), Albanian and Greek. COuld you put me right there?

Yes, postpositional article is an areal feature, most of the Balkan sprachbund members show it in some variant or another. But the articles themselves etymologically are native to respective languages.