This is interesting and would be rather useful (also sort of cool) to have a common language shared by so many people living rather near each other (except for far-away regions of Russia). Unfortunately, it doesn't look easy at all: 7 cases and 10 plus 6 extra declensions for example.
However, in reality such a common language already exists and it's English, especially among young-enough speakers. In my experience, others often prefer to switch to English rather than pursue the fun of trying to connect the foreign words of a similar language with their meaning.
Interslavic Language
21–30 of 141 posts
Re: Interslavic Language
#22There's also another language designed to be understandable by most Slavic speakers [0]. For some reason, the authors of both seem to hate each other. [1] [0] http://www.slovio.com/ [1] http://steen.free.fr/interslavic/introduction.html#disclaime...
> For some reason, the authors of both seem to hate each other.
Not surprising if they visit each others web pages too often.
Re: Interslavic Language
#23This is interesting and would be rather useful (also sort of cool) to have a common language shared by so many people living rather near each other (except for far-away regions of Russia). Unfortunately, it doesn't look easy at all: 7 cases and 10 plus 6 extra declensions for example. However, in reality such a common language already exists and it's English, especially among young-enough speakers. In my experience,…
Totally, but I found it's always fun to explore interlinguality :)
Re: Interslavic Language
#24Very interesting. I've tried to read some texts and I could easily understand them (as a native Polish speaker). I wonder if it is as easy for other Slavic nationalities. If so, it could be a nice intermediary language, if only for written texts. Unfortunately I guess almost nobody would learn to write or speak it but it is still funny to have a passive ability to read and understand and I guess all Slavic languages…
German here who tries to learn Czech for some time now. Even as a novice I had no problems to identify many words that I know in czech. Awesome.
Re: Interslavic Language
#25Interesting! I have been thinking about a similar "average Germanic" language, but I don't really have enough linguistics background to pull that off yet. Also, I have very roughly compared the Slavic languages to see which one I could learn to be able to communicate with people of most Slavic languages[0] and decided that Slovak was the most "average" language so I am planning to learn that. Too bad there's no Slova…
It's not "average Germanic", but you should look at Anglish.
Re: Interslavic Language
#26It's near-100% intelligible for a Russian speaker: http://steen.free.fr/interslavic/selo.html > кде мы знајемо всих и јесмо знајеми од всих Funny enough, this reads like "old Slavic" to me, rather than "new Slavic" :)
Kinda makes sense, no? Looking for similarities you inadvertently go back to the common root, and you end up with something that reads like Old Church Slavonic.
Re: Interslavic Language
#27This is interesting and would be rather useful (also sort of cool) to have a common language shared by so many people living rather near each other (except for far-away regions of Russia). Unfortunately, it doesn't look easy at all: 7 cases and 10 plus 6 extra declensions for example. However, in reality such a common language already exists and it's English, especially among young-enough speakers. In my experience,…
Ludwig Wittgenstein: the borders of my language are the borders of my world.
English is a language many young Slavs learn in preparation to or in the course of their professional life as in the world of the Pax Americana it quite simply has become an economical necessity to know it well. However, the English language cannot naturally transmit any of the linguistic particularities (proverbs, turns of phrases) and, generally, cultural notions and historical familiarities that to a certain extent are shared by the various Slavic peoples. English for Slavs is a foreign language in the true sense of the word, whereas a language like Russian is much closer linguistically and culturally. There's the heritage of the Soviet Union which makes Russian the trans-national language of choice for the generations educated in the Soviet times. And indeed that could be the very same reason why these days it's rather unpopular among the young people in, say, Poland. Which is a real shame because as a trans-Slavic language IMO it does a great job and is a very beautiful language as well.
I am Polish and when speaking to a fellow Slav, I much prefer to try to get us to speak in our own languages, even if it requires effort. Otherwise, I prefer to speak Russian if the person I'm communicating with knows it too. I find it very, very awkward using English in those situations, i.e. in conversations with a Serb or a Czech (but not with a German or a Swede).
Re: Interslavic Language
#28I wonder what's the benefit of this versus learning whatever the common ancestor of the Slavic languages is.
I (a non-Slavic language speaker) would imagine the divergence between the modern Slavic languages would be dwarfed by the divergence between those languages and Proto-Slavic or Old Church Slavonic.
Re: Interslavic Language
#29I wonder what's the benefit of this versus learning whatever the common ancestor of the Slavic languages is.
A sane alphabet. Cyrillic before the 20th century had some freaky things and weird use of letters that we still have. Aficionados say that ‘ѣ’ and ‘ъ’ could be properly used only by people who memorized all the words with them. (Which is not how modern Slavic languages work, even though English-speakers wouldn't bat an eye at that inconvenience, hur hur.)
Re: Interslavic Language
#30As someone who has followed the constructed language and international auxiliary language community for a couple of decades, and as someone with an undergraduate degree in linguistics, I do not see a constructed language catching on with the mainstream public any time soon.
A constructed language is a language that someone sits down and creates; this is different from a natural language which just forms as people communicate with each other. There are many constructed languages: Klingon in Star Trek is an actual constructed language, as is the language the Elves spoke in The Lord of the Rings.
Esperanto, and Interslavic, are examples of International Auxiliary Languages (IAL), languages specially made to be easy to learn to facilitate international communication. We have had those languages for well over a century, and none of them have caught on.
The reason why an IAL has not caught on is because people are motivated to learn a language when it has prestige, not because it’s easier to learn. Right now, for better or for worse, English is that language (with all of its warts: Auxiliary words to carry tense, the rather strange tense/lax vowel distinction, etc.) right now.
I would love to see an IAL to catch on, but there’s a serious marketing issue, especially since a lot of people just don’t have the mind to learn a new language as an adult, no matter how easy the language is to learn.