Croatian slovene bulgarian czech slovak polish participantsnativelanguage croatian 43. Mutual intelligibility and surprisal in slavic intercomprehension incomslav project c4 investigates the relation between information density, encoding density and grammaticalisation in a crosslinguistic perspective, focusing on intercomprehension within the family of slavic languages. Cieszyn silesian is a transitional dialect, located roughly at the midpoint of a dialect continuum connecting the czech, slovak and polish languages. The language contacts of czech and polish or slovak and polish were not so intense in the past. Pdf mutual intelligibility between west and south slavic languages. Note how close both czech and slovak are to polish and slovenian. Slovak is closely related to czech, to the point of mutual intelligibility to a very high degree, as well as polish. Polish minority in the czech republic wikimili, the free. Even though poland borders both czechia and slovakia, i have heard that poles and slovaks, on average, get along better linguistically than poles and czechs. Languages as a base for modeling of mutual intelligibility. It is commonly believed that all slavic languages are fully mutually intelligible, which implies that they are close. These two languages are related, but i cannot speak czech to polish and expect that he will understand me. Czech and polish have some intelligibility, but its hard to say how much possibly on the order of 40%. Serbocroatian has only 20% intelligibility of ukrainian.
As a czech just having to return from poland vacation, these two languages are not mutually understandable. This advantage is exposurerelated and would be completely erased by one evenings worth of conversation, i should think. Examples of mutual intelligibility can be found for instance between czech and slovak significantly, between dutch and afrikaans and partially between finish and estonian all both in written and spoken forms. In the present study we tested the level of mutual intelligibility between three west slavic czech, slovak and polish and three south slavic languages croatian, slovene and bulgarian. Feb 06, 2017 from what i have heard anecdotally, not as mutually intelligible as slovak and polish. There is also some mutual intelligibility with spoken polish, however polish orthography is very different. I met a bosnian woman last week and talked to her about serbocroatian, she said she actually understands even czech and slovak much better than slovenian. Mutual intelligibility in the slavic language area. The slovak language has been influenced by many languages, including czech, polish, and german. Pdf in the present study we tested the level of mutual intelligibility between three west slavic czech, slovak and polish and three south.
These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a double take. Mutual intelligibility of languages in the slavic family. Mutual intelligibility chart for the slavic languages. Degree of mutual intelligibility between indoaryan languages. The intelligibility of polish and russian is very low, maybe on the order of 510%. Mutual intelligibility between west and south slavic. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Polish and sorbian also differ from czech and slovak in upper registers, but nontechnical and lower register speech is readily intelligible. Some mutual intelligibility occurs with spoken rusyn, ukrainian, and even russian in this order, although their. Pdf mutual intelligibility between west and south slavic.
For the most part mutual intelligibility is highest between indoaryan languages that are of the same branch, that is, descended from the same ancient vernacular. Orthographic and morphological correspondences between. Swedish danish mutual comprehension 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100. Northern germanic languages spoken in scandinavia form a dialect continuum where two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. Request pdf the measurement of mutual intelligibility between westslavic. On the one hand, its quite possible to order food and communicate numbers in czech to polish speakers. In contrast, as to the mutual intelligibility of contentfunction words and various. How much information will this reader be able to decode. Mutual intelligibility occurs mostly amongst languages of the same origin like among the scandinavian languages, germanic languages etc. Jun 03, 2009 the slovak language has been influenced by many languages, including czech, polish, and german. Pdf the mutual intelligibility of slavic languages as a source of. I am a pole, i have never learnt the other 2 languages in a formal way, but over the years i have had much exposure to them and i can communicate at lea.
The results show that in most cases, a division between west and south slavic languages does exist and that west. Czech, slovak and polish are related both genetically and typologically they are. Are slovak, czech, and polish all mutually intelligible. Mar 01, 2018 in the prospective thesis, we seek to quantitatively model the mutual intelligibility between the language pairs bulgarianrussian and czech polish at the orthographic as well as phonological level. University of groningen mutual intelligibility in the slavic.
The mutual intelligibility of l2 speech studies in second. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages similarities to. Most dialects of czech and slovak are mutually intelligible. Request pdf the measurement of mutual intelligibility between westslavic languages the west slavic languages are close enough for their speakers to use their mother tongues when communicating. As such they are not mutually intelligible actually spoken czech and polish are not very mutually intelligible, yet they are in the same group. First, polish seems to me like a sound stew of czech, russian, and italian. In this video, we discuss items in the kitchen and polish and czech words related to the kitchen. English czech polish bulgarian russian preliminary results. Lexical and orthographic distances between germanic, romance. We consider mainly national languages spoken in countries which belong to the european union.
Accounting for mutual intelligibility of lexis availability of lexical alternatives leads to asymmetric intelligibility. Likewise with polish vs czech, and slovenian vs standard croatian these pairs are the most commonly mistaken as mutually intelligible. Conditional entropies were the lowest between czech and slovak. Dialects, that is, can be regarded as subdivisions of a particular language. Polka, commonly referred to as the polish people, are a nation and west slavic ethnic group native to poland in central europe who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and are native speakers of the polish language. Generally, the hindustani languages have a higher degree of mutual intelligibility with punjabi, gujarati, sindhi, and the rajasthani languages like marwari than the other ia. Polish is quite intelligible with slovak and probably more than czech with the eastern slavic languages. The mutual intelligibility of l2 speech volume 28 issue 1 murray j. Between sources, you might find some claiming that two languages are mutually intelligible, while other sources claim those same languages arent. It is expected to be intelligible to speakers of these languages. Its important to note that mutual intelligibility is highly subjective. In this polish czech conversation, we compare polish and czech vocabulary related to pets.
Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in. In contrast, as to the mutual intelligibility of contentfunction words and various styles of material, di. May 14, 2008 west slavic mutual intelligibility skippy wed may 14, 2008 9. I find the poles are also more easygoing and friendly, and the czechs tend to be a bit snobbish and standoffish. Like other slavic languages, slovak is a fusional language with a complex system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. In answering this question, i will honour a soviet tradition that i always hated starting a book, an article, a lecture, whatever, with a citation from marx or engels. Mutual intelligibility between languages coursefinders. In this way we may talk of the parisian dialect of french, the lancashire dialect of english, the bavarian dialect of german, and so on. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which. The mutual intelligibility of closely related languages micrela. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages. These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a double take its important to note that mutual intelligibility is highly subjective.
West slavic mutual intelligibility skippy wed may 14, 2008 9. These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a. Second, there are some really funny ways that czech and polish intersect. Serbocroatian and russian have 1015% intelligibility, if that, yet written intelligibility is higher at 25%. Pdf mutual intelligibility of languages in the slavic family robert. The mutual intelligibility of l2 speech studies in. In this video, we discuss items in the kitchen and polish and czech. Sep 18, 2015 in the present study we tested the level of mutual intelligibility between three west slavic czech, slovak and polish and three south slavic languages croatian, slovene and bulgarian. Mutual intelligibility wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. Based on this chart, bulgarian and macedonian surely appear to be separate languages, as far apart as polish and slovak. University of groningen mutual intelligibility in the.
Mutual intelligibility is a situation in which two or more speakers of a language or of closely related languages can understand each other. Pdf modeling mutual intelligibility between slavic language. I would honestly say they are dialects of the same language. Czech is closely related to slovak, to the point of mutual intelligibility to a very high degree. The two varieties have a long history of interaction and mutual influence well before the creation of czechoslovakia in. Orthography in language modeling of mutual intelligibility. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in europe pdf. This thesis explores mutual intelligibility in the slavic language area how to measure it, how to predict it and how to increase it. The strength of foreign accent in czech english under adverse listening conditions. The asymmetry of the mutual intelligibility was confirmed for every studied relationship. The calculations are realized on the phonetic and graphemic planes of czech, slovak, and polish. As such, spoken danish and swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but swedes in the oresund region including malmo and helsingborg, across a strait from the danish capital copenhagen, understand danish somewhat better, largely due to. Czech is mostly intelligible with slovak, significantly less with polish, a bit less than that with serbocroatian. This is a polish and czech lesson based on slavic languages mutual intelligibility phenomena.
May 28, 2014 mutual intelligibility hovers at around the 90% mark both ways, with a very slight advantage held by the slovaks in understanding czech. Some linguists use mutual intelligibility as a primary criterion for determining whether two speech varieties represent the same or different languages. If two languages, a and b, are mutually intelligible and are closely historically related, linguists say that a and b are dialects, a is a dialect of b, or b is a dialect of a all of these statements are equivalent. What is the level of intelligibility among czech, slovak, polish. Neither of us studied each others languages before.
Polish and sorbian also differ quite considerably from czech and slovak in upper registers, but nontechnical and lower register speech is readily intelligible. Mutual intelligibility in slavic language specific. Mutual intelligibility chart for the slavic languages posted on the 18 december 20 by calvinthedog. Most likely we can capture up to 12 of their vocabulary and rethink the rest to understand the meaning of the speech. We are testing here to what extent polish and slovak are.
Czech is nearly as hard as polish and is probably not worth your time and effort. Orthographic and morphological correspondences between related slavic languages as a base for modeling of mutual intelligibility andrea fischer, klara jagrova, irina stenger, tania avgustinova, dietrich klakow, and roland marti saarland university, collaborative research center sfb 1102. Czech and polish are incomprehensible to serbocroatian speakers czech 10%, polish 5%, but serbocroatian has some limited comprehension of slovak, on the order of 25%. How mutually intelligible are the czech and polish languages. To what extent are different slavic languages mutually. Polish s best mutually intelligibility is with the other slavic languages based in poland, followed by slovak, ukrainian, belarusian and czech. Languages of the world department of computer science. They include polish, czech, slovak, silesian, kashubian, upper sorbian and lower sorbian. The mutual intelligibility with other dialects of polish is generally higher. Pdf mutual intelligibility of languages in the slavic. Since ive been back in the us, i have had only two opportunities to ever use czech, whereas polish or russian is easy to find speakers of here.
The measurement of mutual intelligibility between west. Personally though, i must admit that i once read a scientific paper in czech about the mutual intelligibility of it and slovak, and i understood quite a bit more than just the gist. Slovakian is a case where it is a west slavic language but has some south slavic features and many slovaks claim to have an easier time understanding others all over the slavophone world. Dec 10, 2016 in this video you can listen to a bilingual conversation in polish and slovak. Czech, slovak, polish, croatian, slovenian and bulgarian on the level of lexicon, orthography. Between both the languages and polish they were much higher. Mutual intelligibility among the slavic languages by robert lindsay the mutual intelligibility mi of the languages of the slavic family is an interesting topic because many are mutually intelligible to one degree or another.
To what extent are polish, czech and slovak languages. I think that in these mutual intelligibility debates you all mix several distinct features together. The slavic mutual intelligibility is that time, newspapers and magazines in sorbian. Mutual intelligibility between slavic languages happier. But we did not test the mutual intelligibility between, for example, spanish and czech or between portuguese and polish. How mutually intelligible are the various slavic languages.
Polish forum is to support both current and new common initiatives within the civil societies of both countries. Just like andrew wrote, there is sort of a linguistical continuum from cottbus to vladivostok, and. Like other slavic languages, czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Lexical and orthographic distances between germanic. I am a casual student of czech with no fluency whatever, but i find that my very small vocabulary and grammar knowledge is almost as useful in comprehending every western and. Polish czech conversation our pets slavic languages. Lexical and orthographic distances between germanic, romance and slavic languages and their.
Mutual intelligibility is a continuum that is, a gradient concept, marked by degrees of intelligibility, not by sharp divisions. If a language is an official language in more than one country, we only included the variety from the country with the largest number of speakers. As indicated, slovenian and polish are from different subgroups of slavic languages south slavic and west slavic respectively. The measurement of mutual intelligibility between westslavic.