What's the easiest Slavic language to learn?

[Treffie]

When I was about 15 I thought I'd give Serbo-Croat a try, followed by Czech and a dabble with Russian. I failed miserably on all 3 accounts mainly because the internet wasn't invented then.:(

Can you give me your opinions on which would be the easiest to learn? Also, can anyone provide any decent resources so that I could learn a few phrases on-line.:thumb001:

[Amarantine]

I heard on AF it's Slovak language! But I would like that you learn SC:)

[Treffie]

Of course my lady! So that I can visit you in CG? :D

[Amarantine]

No need to ask:)

[Nationalitist]

Can't say.. Probably Russian for me, I heard it's simmilar to southern Slavic languages..

Slovenian must be hard, it's very archaic, for example we have dual grammatical number (like Sorbs)

[Jarl]

Certainly not Polish coz it retained nasal vowels and 7 cases... and has the most ridiculously difficult orthography ever ;)

[Nationalitist]

An American who moved to Slovenia is writting how hard it is to learn Slovene on his blog.. Maybe this will interest you


6. Speaking of which: How is your Slovene?

Catastrophic. Learning Slovene is a long, hard road into Hell. And it’s made worse by the fact that Slovenes rarely appreciate how difficult it is. They’ll tell you things like: “Yeah, it’s hard, huh? Pronouncing the ž and �? and everything. That’s tough.”

No, no, my friend, saying “ch” is the least of my problems. I’ll tell you what’s tough: six cases, endless gender declensions, formal and informal divisions, the dual grammatical form — all of it spoken in 32 dialects that are further divided into 76 sub-groups. That’s my definition of tough.

7. It can’t be that bad.

Well, let me give you an idea. Imagine that you want to ask someone if they’ve eaten something for lunch. In English, the phrase:

Did you eat anything?

pretty much covers every imaginable scenario. You can say that to a woman, to a man, to your pet hamster, to your boss, to a group of circus clowns, etc…

In a language like German (usually considered difficult to learn) you have three possibilities to express the same idea. You would say:

1. Hast du was gegessen? (informal)
2. Haben Sie was gegessen? (formal)
3. Habt ihr was gegessen? (plural)

In other words, German requires triple the possiblities to express the same idea. But note that the verb “to eat” (gegessen) remains the same in all three cases. Now let’s take a look at Slovene, in which everything changes depending on the number of people you’re asking, as well as their gender AND if you’re using formal or not. Behold the possibilities: (Many thanks to Blaž and Bojan for their help with this list!)

1. Si kaj jedel? (one male, informal)
2. Si kaj jedla? (one female, informal)
3. Si kaj jedlo? (neuter form, informal)
4. Sta kaj jedla? (two males, informal or formal)
5. Sta kaj jedli? (two females, informal or formal)
6. Sta kaj jedla? (one male and one female, informal or formal)
7. Ste kaj jedli? (plural, as long as at least one male is present)
8. Ste kaj jedle? (plural, females only)
9. Ste kaj jedla? (plural, neuter form)
10. Ste kaj jedli? (formal, singular form, gender unimportant)

That’s decuple the possibilities of the original English phrase. To be fair, sometimes things work in favor of Slovene. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers can be expressed by a single word: Stolpa. But basically, all words (nouns/verbs/adjectives) conjugate in a hellish variety of possibilities, making the language a very tough nut to crack.

8. Well, all Slavic languages are tough.

True. But not all Slavic languages have the brain-busting dual case, which is the real killer. In fact, none of them do — except for the nearly-extinct Sorbian.

http://www.carniola.org/stop-asking

[Treffie]

Nasal vowels? I'm quite used to nasal mutations - nh, ng, ngh etc. Are they similar? (but without the consonants of course?

[Jarl]

The nasal vowels Im talking about are "ą" (a bit like "on") and "ę" (a bit like "en") - they sound a bit "French" ;)


Hey, reality_check - what's that "dual case" the German was talking about???

[Amarantine]

Sorbian, Sorbian...which language is that Slovenac?

[Nationalitist]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbian_languages

I think Wiki would explain that better than me. :)

[Amarantine]

oh pa to je jezik Lužičkih Srba...

[Nationalitist]

da tako je..

[Jarl]

Sorbian is the language of Lusatian Sorbs (or the Wends). They are the last remnant of Polabian Slavs.

Right! The dual case:


Old Church Slavonic had what nowadays is regarded as a linguistic curiosity: a “dual” case. Nouns, adjectives and all verb forms had two variants for “we”. One variant meant two people and the other variant meant more than two.

The only language that shows this feature today is Slovenian – which has inherited it from Church Slavonic. Where virtually all language today have I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they, Slovenian has an extra item: we (dual) and we (three and over).

Indeed, an archaic case. Though once it had to be a common Slavic feature.

[Guapo]

hey reality, did you know "janez" from stirpes? He is from your region.

[Nationalitist]

no

[Guapo]

I think czech and slovene would be the hardest to learn. For me Polish is way more understandable :confused:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pok_YNC4gWw

[Tabiti]

Heard that Old Church Slavonic and the similar Old Bulgarian were the nightmare of all Slavic philology students.

[Svarog]

Russian definitely, not cause it is the easiest but Russians are everywhere around and it is the widest speaking Slavic language, same as English is easiest foreign language for pretty much every non-English speakers, it is everywhere around and you cannot run from it, you'll find people to talk to easiest which is important, you'll find the best guides and a lot of material like magazines and tv, which is also very important. But, the thing is, once you learned one language, it will be pretty much easy to learn any other Slavic language no matter which one you choose.

[Johnny Bravo]

An American who moved to Slovenia is writting how hard it is to learn Slovene on his blog.. Maybe this will interest you

http://www.carniola.org/stop-asking

That Yank's a friend of mine. ;) His Slovenian is now excellent, but he's an unusually smart guy , and yeah, it probably is the hardest Slavic language to learn. 50 dialects and 7 dialectal groups. Even news anchors on TV often mispronounce words due to the myriad accent shifts. If you want to speak intelligibly as a foreigner, you have to learn to mispronounce words correctly, all of which again varies by region. km`et -> kméta :rolleyes:

[Svarog]

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

[Amarantine]

From this summer Montenegrin language will be different:P 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! :p 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... :p

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? :D Get your head out of the clouds. You're a Slav.

[Osweo]

Eee... I foolishly promised to answer here, but am pretty tired... :p 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... :rolleyes:
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? :D 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.

[Guapo]

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

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


Dark ages? Before the arrival of Serb, Bulagrs, whoever, Slavs have been crossing the Danube into Roman territory long before the original Serbs.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Migration_of_Serbs.png