Languages Across

CZEN

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‹ Photo Notes · 25 listopadu, 2012

A Czech meets a Slovak and says: „Hi, how are you?“ … Nice nonsense, right? But when meeting, say, a Pole, a Croat or a Russian, it is common experience for us. Yet we belong to a group of 400 million people who can communicate in a single language.

This article seemingly has nothing to do with photography, but read on and perhaps change your mind.

When the model Marina came to see me from Belarus in 2009, I no longer remembered almost anything of Russian, and of Belarusian I knew only that it exists. She didn’t speak English, though, so we had no choice but to communicate as Slavs. I spoke Czech, she Russian, and when we didn’t understand each other, we went to meet each other with the help of Slovak, Belarusian and other Slavic words we happened to remember. I also often recalled suitable Czech synonyms and obsolete or literary expressions. She did the same, and in the end we communicated perfectly.

A bit of boring theory and history

I warn you in advance that I’m not an expert, only an enthusiast, and my knowledge is very superficial. I ask real experts for indulgence.

Very abbreviated and simplified – about 1000 years ago separate languages began to develop from the individual dialects of Proto-Slavic. During the following centuries many changes gradually occurred, and still occur, not only in the rules but, thanks to mixing with neighbouring languages, also in differences of vocabulary. Curiously, over the centuries the meaning of some Slavic words literally reversed; for example our words „von√≠, p√°chne, ƒçerstv√Ω, √∫≈æasn√Ω“ (it smells nice / stinks, fresh, awesome) mean the complete opposite in a number of other Slavic languages.

Still, Czech and the language closest to it, Slovak, preserve an incredible 98% of the original Proto-Slavic vocabulary.

What does that mean in practice?

Half a year after the mentioned Belarusian, the Russian Viktoria appeared, whom you know, among other places, from these pages. She spoke Czech briefly and badly, my Russian hadn’t moved on much either, but it was already easier than in the first case. After Viktoria (and to a large extent thanks to her) more and more Russian-speaking models began to appear. Some of them knew not a word of Czech, and when they addressed me in English in greeting, I answered slowly and as intelligibly as possible in Czech: „Speak your own language, I’ll speak mine too, and we’ll understand each other.“ – we always understood each other. It wasn’t only Russian; I practised the same approach with Polish, Ukrainian and other Slavic languages.

Willingness is the most important

To us Czechs, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian seem like practically the same language. It isn’t so, nevertheless these languages are very close (they also belong to the same language subgroup of the East Slavic languages). Every Belarusian and Ukrainian can speak Russian (the reason is clear – the former USSR). But you will often hear from a Russian that he doesn’t understand Belarusian or Ukrainian. Whoever wants to communicate, though, is willing to listen, to think about what he hears and about what and how he says it, and manages to be understood. A certain dose of talent is certainly necessary, not only for foreign languages but also for one’s own, but willingness comes first here.

Slovak is a bridge between the Slavic languages

Now I’ve certainly pleased all Slovaks, but really, when some Slav doesn’t understand me and I no longer know how to express myself better, I reach for Slovak. It is more intelligible to other Slavs than Czech. For example, I couldn’t remember how to say „divný“ (strange) in Russian (strannyj), so in the end I said the Slovak „čudný“ and it worked – why wouldn’t it, when in Slovenian it is „čudno“ and in Croatian „čudan„. Quite possibly I would have managed even with the word divný if they happened to know the Polish „dziwny„, Belarusian „dziuny“ or Ukrainian „divnij„. What I mean is that often it is enough to know two forms of a word and you cover the whole Slavic community.

Slovio

There are also attempts to create a unified Slavic language. One of them is, for example, Slovio, and here is a short sample and introduction:

and also a transcription in Cyrillic:

Understandable, right?

Creating a new universal language is a nice but utopian idea. We have long known the clubs of Esperantists, who have nothing in common except that they learned Esperanto – originally a universal language for everyone, which in the end nobody but them understands. Rather than learning yet another language, it is easier to grasp the principle – to perceive synonyms, to recall obsolete or literary forms of words, the words of the nearest neighbours, to go by the meaning of words. Instead of drilling the vocabulary of an artificial language, to realize that jaro (spring) is also vesna and podzim (autumn) can also be jesen. Once I understand that zítra (tomorrow) is really z jitra („from the morning“), I will understand anyone who says zajtra, zautra, zavtra, sutra or jutri. Or that sever – jih – východ – západ (north – south – east – west) can also be půlnoc – poledne – vzchod – záchod (midnight – noon – rising – setting). An example of a poetic expression is oči (eyes) – in Russia people have long said glaza, but in poetry and songs oči occurs often (Oči čornyje).

Something in conclusion?

For instance that while writing, more and more examples occur to me and I wrestle with the fact that it is already insanely long. But since we are on languages, I’ll mention one more thing that is related but at the moment isn’t enough for a separate article – if we consider languages the way I wrote in the previous paragraph, we get beyond the borders of the Slavic languages too. There we won’t manage so simply, but they will come closer to us and learning them will be easier.

Let me give an example:
Do you see any similarity between the Czech „je“ and the English „is„? If not, let’s take a little spin around Europe and its surroundings.

and so on – no further explanation needed.

And I’m seriously finishing now, because more curiosities are already running through my head, like why we have Benátky and not Venátky … good night 🙂