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Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

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Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#221

Post by int_19h »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #168
hurflmurfl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Щ is indeed read as "sht" in Bulgarian, but in Russian it would be read as a softer "sh" or mix between "sh" and "ch". If anything, maybe it can just be dropped in favour of plain "sh"?

From Ukrainian it gets turned into "shch". Which IMO sounds about right. Mainly because sh and ch are shorter sounds in English (ch can also be a little hard), but shch gets the point across.

This was also the historical Russian educated pronunciation; it only changed by the end of the 19th century.

Speaking as a Russian, I think that "shch" is close enough for an international conlang. It's not a sound that's particularly easy to learn or explain.

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#222

Post by int_19h »

ajuc wrote: post #132
tomp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "sz" has another pronunciation (like "s" "z"), where "x" has no pronunciation at all.

Are there Slavic words with separately pronounced "s" and "z"? It's quite a tongue-twister. As for "X" it exists in some Slavic alphabets, for example in Slovak (but apparently only in loan words). In Polish it theoretically doesn't, but actually does (loan words use x when the word is new, and with time it's replaced with ks).

E.g Russian "сзади", "from the rear".

Slavic languages are generally tongue twisters for non-Slavic speakers, what with consonant clusters like "mst" or "vzd".

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#223

Post by int_19h »

rdeselby wrote: post #81

As a Slovak / Czech speaker I find Slovio a bit easier to understand than Interslavic, despite the mentioned non-slavic choices. Interslavic seems to be south-slavic biased. Purely subjectively, Slovio text reads more aesthetically pleasing. I think this might be because the south-slavic roots are more prominent in our east dialects spoken in the country side, while Slovio seems closer to me to the standard codified…

Interslavic is based on Old Church Slavonic, which was originally a codification of the spoken language of the Slavs of Thessalonica (where Cyril and Methodius lived). Which would be the ancestors of modern Bulgarians and Macedonians, so yeah, I'd expect it to be a bit closer to Southern Slavic.

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#224

Post by int_19h »

zozbot234 wrote: post #74
greencore wrote: post #17

Lithuanian and Latvian is not slavic and Slovio would not be understood by their native speakers.

Lithuanian and Latvian are in the Baltic language family which shares a direct ancestor with the Slavic (Balto-Slavic languages). (The Germanic and Italo-Celtic languages are in the closest "sibling" branch to Balto-Slavic). So it's not impossible for an interlanguage to be understood by both Baltic and Slavic speakers.

Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic have separated much, much earlier than various Slavic language families. Balto-Slavic is typically dated to somewhere between 3000-1000 BCE. On the other hand, the Common Slavic period is 600-1000 CE (and mutual intelligibility went on even longer). The degree of similarity between the languages is simply not comparable.

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#225

Post by vkou »

mleonhard wrote: post #197
wheelerof4te wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USSR was a blasphemy because of it's communist nature. It was an abomination born in blood. Slavs were never for communism.

Was the economic structure of USSR the real problem? I thought it was the power structure (dictatorship) and general lack of accountability of management.

The economic structure wasn't great, but people can disagree as to whether it was due to the power structure (a militarism and imperialism-obsessed dictatorship), and how much of it due to the fundamental problems of... The weird, state-capitalism flavour of 'communism' that was used in practice in the second world.

Then you get into no true Scottsman arguments about what is, and what isn't communism, and whether or not state capitalism is guaranteed to be a failure, or whether it was state capitalism, as practiced by the Eastern Block is guaranteed to be a failure. And then you can further split hairs as to whether or not having some aspects of state capitalism in your economy are better than having no aspects of it, and where the optimal line is.

And then you find that you've wasted hours of time arguing, but haven't actually convinced anyone, or learned anything new.

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#226

Post by vkou »

wheelerof4te wrote: post #112
medo-bear wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

draw a possible map of Slavia and see it from a perspective of neighbouring non-Slavic countries. would you find such a political structure threatening? this is the reason i think it would be a bad idea. what would be nice in my opinion is a larger inter-slavic cultural exchange: in academic research, text books, litterature, music, film, etc

They find us treatening even now. But yes, cultural exchange can be a good first step.

I don't know, I think after two decades of Cold War II, Western Europe will warm up to Slavs living east of Bialystok. Nothing brings people closer together than a common enemy. [1]

[1] See: The Brits and the French, the French and the Germans, etc, etc.

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#227

Post by blip54321 »

int_19h wrote: post #219
blip54321 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's bring back to Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, only under a more inclusive name. Russia wasn't always authoritarian, though. Before the Mongols, it was a bunch of independent, freedom-loving cities. Sort of like the American Wild West. I feel like we need a new experiment in inclusive governance, and that Slavic countries are the place to do it.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was hardly exemplar, either, given the state of the peasants there, and religious persecution of non-Catholics. Grand Duchy of Lithuania is a better model, IMO - a state with a Lithuanian pagan ruler, and a mix of pagan, Catholic, and Orthodox elites and population all living together.

Let's break this down piece-by-piece.

(1) The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had elected kings and a parliament. It was a republic to the same degree as Rome or some of the more democratic Greek city-states. The only people who could vote were nobles, but nobles were about 10% of the population. That's about on-par with with Athens or the Roman Empire. Even in the US, only white landowners could vote when it was first founded. That's not too dissimilar from the Polish nobility.

(2) Jews emigrated to the Commonwealth from all over Europe for better treatment. Good treatment? No. Better treatment? Without a doubt.

The Commonwealth wasn't a modern enlightened democracy, but this was 1600, not 1900. It did incredibly well for 1600.

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#228

Post by vkou »

vzaliva wrote: post #210

If one to spend time learning a new language for international communication the choice of the language must maximize the number of people you can comminicate with. Unless you want to talk only to other slavs, I would say English, Spanish and French would be my first choices, which are admittedly little Europe and Americas-centric.

> If one to spend time learning a new language for international communication the choice of the language must maximize the number of people you can comminicate with.

If that's your goal, you should be learning three languages, in the following order of priority:

1. English

2. Mandarin

3. Hindi

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#229

Post by int_19h »

blip54321 wrote: post #227
int_19h wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was hardly exemplar, either, given the state of the peasants there, and religious persecution of non-Catholics. Grand Duchy of Lithuania is a better model, IMO - a state with a Lithuanian pagan ruler, and a mix of pagan, Catholic, and Orthodox elites and population all living together.

Let's break this down piece-by-piece. (1) The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had elected kings and a parliament. It was a republic to the same degree as Rome or some of the more democratic Greek city-states. The only people who could vote were nobles, but nobles were about 10% of the population. That's about on-par with with Athens or the Roman Empire. Even in the US, only white landowners could vote when it was firs…

The problem, ultimately, is that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was dominated by Poland, and said Polish nobility was not interested in treating religious minorities equally, as GDL did. Republic or not doesn't matter here - republics can quite easily become tyrannies of the majority. There's a reason why there were so many uprisings on the territory that is Ukraine today, back when it was a part of the Commonwealth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossack_uprisings

Re: Slovio, an international simplified Slavic language

#230

Post by SagelyGuru »

It is worth mentioning Jan Hus: Orthographia Bohemica, 1406 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthographia_bohemica which introduced diacritical marks to facilitate expressing all the sounds of Slavic languages in Latin alphabet by single symbols. They have logical phonetic meanings, for example háček (the hook) indicating the placing of the tip of the tongue on the palate. Though, admittedly, they are somewhat inconvenient on modern keyboards, usually relegated to the top row.

Jan Hus was later burned at the stake for his 'heresies', which probably slowed down the uptake of his eminently useful invention in the rest of the world.

It is my opinion that even English more than 600 years later could benefit from it, as in: 'caš ček' instead of 'cash cheque', thus also finally attaining much simpler, logical and phonetic spelling.

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