Ukraine's European Revolution?

[DGuller]

It's the difference between Swiss German and German.

I don't know the difference between Swiss German and German, as I speak neither, but I do know the difference between Russian and Ukrainian.  Those languages are not that close to each other;  I can understand Russian perfectly, but I can understand Ukrainian about as well as I can understand Polish.  Which is to say very poorly.

[The Brain]

Swiss German is mountainbilly gibberish.

[derspiess]

It's the difference between Swiss German and German.

I don't know the difference between Swiss German and German, as I speak neither, but I do know the difference between Russian and Ukrainian.  Those languages are not that close to each other;  I can understand Russian perfectly, but I can understand Ukrainian about as well as I can understand Polish.  Which is to say very poorly.

But you don't live close to Ukraine or Poland.  If you did, I'd imagine you'd be able to understand it better.  FWIW, for an outsider like me Ukrainian and Russian seem to have a lot of similarities.

[DGuller]

It's the difference between Swiss German and German.

I don't know the difference between Swiss German and German, as I speak neither, but I do know the difference between Russian and Ukrainian.  Those languages are not that close to each other;  I can understand Russian perfectly, but I can understand Ukrainian about as well as I can understand Polish.  Which is to say very poorly.

But you don't live close to Ukraine or Poland.  If you did, I'd imagine you'd be able to understand it better.  FWIW, for an outsider like me Ukrainian and Russian seem to have a lot of similarities.

And if I lived in China, I would be able to understand Chinese better.  That wouldn't make Chinese similar to Russian.

[Razgovory]

It's the difference between Swiss German and German.

I don't know the difference between Swiss German and German, as I speak neither, but I do know the difference between Russian and Ukrainian.  Those languages are not that close to each other;  I can understand Russian perfectly, but I can understand Ukrainian about as well as I can understand Polish.  Which is to say very poorly.

But you don't live close to Ukraine or Poland.  If you did, I'd imagine you'd be able to understand it better.  FWIW, for an outsider like me Ukrainian and Russian seem to have a lot of similarities.

Dguller was lived in Ukraine in a city close to Polish border.

[Malthus]

I don't get why people who don't speak either language are in any position to comment on their similarities or differences.

People I've spoken to who *do* speak these languages tell me they aren't all that similar, a point confirmed by DG here.

[The Brain]

Heargay.

[derspiess]

It's the difference between Swiss German and German.

I don't know the difference between Swiss German and German, as I speak neither, but I do know the difference between Russian and Ukrainian.  Those languages are not that close to each other;  I can understand Russian perfectly, but I can understand Ukrainian about as well as I can understand Polish.  Which is to say very poorly.

But you don't live close to Ukraine or Poland.  If you did, I'd imagine you'd be able to understand it better.  FWIW, for an outsider like me Ukrainian and Russian seem to have a lot of similarities.

Dguller was lived in Ukraine in a city close to Polish border.

For how long?

What comes to mind is how difficult it is for me to understand Portuguese very well, even though it has a decent bit in common with Spanish.  Yet my wife & most other Argies I know can understand nearly all of it, no doubt due to living (or having lived for a good while) so close to Brazil.

[The Brain]

There's enough Russians as it is. We don't need to make the Ukes Russians as well.

[alfred russel]

I wouldn't be suprised if Sarah Palin and Katmai can understand a bit of Russian.

[derspiess]

I don't get why people who don't speak either language are in any position to comment on their similarities or differences.

People I've spoken to who *do* speak these languages tell me they aren't all that similar, a point confirmed by DG here.

There do seem to be other opinions.  Such as...

Alexander M. Schenker. 1993. "Proto-Slavonic," The Slavonic Languages. (Routledge). Pp. 60-121. Pg. 60: "[The] distinction between dialect and language being blurred, there can be no unanimity on this issue in all instances..."
C.F. Voegelin and F.M. Voegelin. 1977. Classification and Index of the World's Languages (Elsevier). Pg. 311, "In terms of immediate mutual intelligibility, the East Slavic zone is a single language."
Bernard Comrie. 1981. The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge). Pg. 145-146: "The three East Slavonic languages are very close to one another, with very high rates of mutual intelligibility...The separation of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian as distinct languages is relatively recent...Many Ukrainians in fact speak a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, finding it difficult to keep the two languages apart...

[Capetan Mihali]

Whoa, one article on Proto-Slavonic, and two from when Ukraine was governed directly from Moscow!  An overwhelming difference of opinion.

[Malthus]

I don't get why people who don't speak either language are in any position to comment on their similarities or differences.

People I've spoken to who *do* speak these languages tell me they aren't all that similar, a point confirmed by DG here.

There do seem to be other opinions.  Such as...

Alexander M. Schenker. 1993. "Proto-Slavonic," The Slavonic Languages. (Routledge). Pp. 60-121. Pg. 60: "[The] distinction between dialect and language being blurred, there can be no unanimity on this issue in all instances..."
C.F. Voegelin and F.M. Voegelin. 1977. Classification and Index of the World's Languages (Elsevier). Pg. 311, "In terms of immediate mutual intelligibility, the East Slavic zone is a single language."
Bernard Comrie. 1981. The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge). Pg. 145-146: "The three East Slavonic languages are very close to one another, with very high rates of mutual intelligibility...The separation of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian as distinct languages is relatively recent...Many Ukrainians in fact speak a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, finding it difficult to keep the two languages apart...

The problem is that, whoever wrote these points, they are apparently not true according to people who actually speak the languages.

It is the case that many Ukranians speak both languages. It most definitely not the case that any Ukranian (or anyone else) has trouble keeping the two languages apart, or speaks some mixture of both. It is not the case that that they are easily mutually intelligible.

It may well be the case that the seperation of the languages is relatively recent - on that, I have no idea; nor is it particularly relevant.

If you are citing sources from Wikipedia, might as well look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language#Classification_and_relationship_to_other_languages

Ukranian is far closer to Polish than to Russian.

Vocabulary in common - Russian, 62%; Polish, 70%
Phonetic and Grammatic features in common, out of 82: Russian, 11; Polish, 22.

In the 19th century the question of whether Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian languages are the dialects of a single language or three separate languages was actively discussed and wasn't entirely decided by linguistic factors alone.[8] The political situation (Ukraine and Belarus being mainly a part of Russian Empire that time) and the fact from the history of existence of Kyivan Rus, the medieval state, also occupying the large parts of these tree nations, the common classification known later as East Slavic languages was created. The underlying theory of the East Slavic group of languages to be descended from a common ancestor was produces. Nowadays Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian are usually listed by linguists as separate languages.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Ukrainian and Russian have been constructed as separate languages, but they're also on a linguistic continuum. It seems possible that  those people in central and eastern Ukraine who speak "a mix of Russian and Ukrainian" are actually speaking the same language that their ancestors spoke for centuries -- a dialect somewhere in the transitional zone between the two.


Edit: I can continue to provide unsupported linguistic speculation all day.

[derspiess]

The problem is that, whoever wrote these points, they are apparently not true according to people who actually speak the languages.

Do your examples live in Ukraine?  I've only heard from DG, and he hasn't lived all his life there.

If you are citing sources from Wikipedia, might as well look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language#Classification_and_relationship_to_other_languages

Ukranian is far closer to Polish than to Russian.

Vocabulary in common - Russian, 62%; Polish, 70%
Phonetic and Grammatic features in common, out of 82: Russian, 11; Polish, 22.

62% ain't bad.