Polish/Ukrainian words similarities

My first language is English but I speak Polish fluently, and I often watch documentaries and entertainment programmes in other Slavic languages and have occasionally watched Ukrainian stuff like Ukraina Maje Talant or whatever on YouTube. Apart from the narrator, who speaks Ukrainian, the most-used language is Russian, except maybe if the show was recorded in Lviv, which is a shame, because I think Ukrainian is a nice language and it's sad to see Ukrainians using Russian instead, but still, I've got a fairly good idea of what both languages are like.

In any case, Ukrainian is definitely NOT a transitional language between Polish and Russian in anything but vocabulary. In terms of pronunciation, it is more similar to Czech than it is either to Polish or Russian. It's a different and unique slavic language in its own right.

So, as I've said, Ukrainian is quite similar to Polish vocabulary- and grammar-wise, but Russian is actually more like Polish in terms of pronunciation. So, in short, for me, as a Polish speaker, it makes it much easier to pick words out from Russian than from Ukrainian, but the words I do pick out from Ukrainian, I am more likely to understand.

Ukrainian and Czech have much less palatisation than Russian, Belarusian, Polish, and Slovak. Out of both the East and West Slavic language groups, Russian and Polish are also the only ones to use 'g' instead of 'h'. But palatisation is definitely more important to me in terms of comprehension.

Let's take a simple word like "idziecie" in Polish, which means "you (plural) go/are going."

Slovak: vy idete (pronounced "wi idziecie", because Slovak palatises 'n', 'd' and 't' if followed by 'e')
Russian: вы идёте (pronounced "wy idziocie")
Ukrainian: ви йдете (pronounced "wy jdete")
Czech: vy jdete (pronounced "wi jdete")

Ultimately, I initially found spoken Russian easier to decipher. Only once I got used to the sound of Ukrainian did I find it easier, mainly due to the similarities in vocabulary.

In any case, the East and West Slavic languages are extremely closely related and it takes little effort for a speaker of one language to learn to understand another. Obviously, speaking is another matter.

Please don't forget the other word for tongue in Polish: ozór

That's actually a really cool thing about Slavic languages.

For example, here's the word for "blue" in various languages:

Russian: синий (sinij)
Czech: modrý
Polish: niebieski

They're completely different.

Except "siny" and "modry" also means "blue" in Polish. Sure, their use is limited to specific contexts, such as poetic language or botanical names, but they're there. And "niebieski" means "sky-like" so it's not a too much of a stretch for a speaker of another Slavic language to figure out that it actually means "blue".

When I get a blank stare talking with Czechs in pseudo-Czech (essentially Polish with a Czech accent, mixed with whatever Czech I do know), I find that listing synonyms is a great way of being understood.

you've got remarkable command of Polish kcharlie - you sure deserve admiration for that

Blue is a nice but awkward example - various languages have anomalies about it. Many are beautifully expressive.
I like the word błękitny.

One of those linguistic strange attractors - like mixing up 12 and 20 in second languages.

Thank you for the undeserved praise. Unfortunately, I always seem to use the wrong case in my subordinate clauses in Polish, but it doesn't detract from my love of the language and culture, and of Slavic languages in general.


"Blue" is just the first thing that came to mind that worked. Błękitny is a nice word indeed.

Do you have some personal problems with Russians? Well, some Russians had
problems with Poles too.According to wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dzerzhinsky

if we have problems with Russians and they have problems with us then we just need to stay away from eachother, simple

Somebody forces you to live in Russia?

Jeez. What's the problem with Russians?

Sure, Poles have historically regarded Russia as a threat to their survival and have been hostile to and suspicious of the Russian government, with good reason.

And the Russian government has historically considered Poles difficult to integrate and a major pain in the ass, also with good reason.

But, at least anecdotally, I've generally met with positive opinions of Russian culture and the people themselves, insofar as they didn't somehow represent the Russian government.

As regards genetic similarity, this information may be useful in understanding the history of Slavic migrations, but otherwise, it has little bearing on what people identify as. I have blood ties with Hungarians, Jewish communists and Far Eastern Siberian Ukrainians. I don't identify ethnically, spiritually or ideologically with any of these groups.

I need to get myself a DNA test too lol

Lol, I only need to look at a few generations of my family history. One side are devout Marxists, the other devout Catholics. Needless to say, they never got along, and I identify more with the latter than the former, lol.

I know two words: two for "language": "mowa" and "język" and one for tongue (an organ of the digestive system + organ of speech+ language): "język".


It's because the Russian word-stock includes many words of non-Slavic origin like "loshad'" for Slavic words "koń/kin/kun", "glaz" for Slavic "oko" etc. (an additinal barrier for a Slavic non-Russian person) and constructions of the type "u menya jest" for Slavic "ya mam/mayu" (although Ukrainian has both the constructions).

Someone already mentioned that another word for "tongue," the organ, is "ozór."

I agree that unusual grammatical patterns and non-Slavic vocabulary do play a part in the problems other Slavic speakers may have understanding Russian. Polish has considerable East Slavic influence, so those differences aren't as significant as for other Slavic speakers. For example, using "u mienia jest'" to indicate possession is odd, but not completely alien to Polish. "Czy tylko u mnie jest problem?" vs "Czy tylko ja mam problem?"

I think accent plays a much bigger role. I'd imagine most Polish speakers would agree, for example, that Slovak is much easier to understand than Czech, even though on paper, the written languages are almost identical and almost completely mutually intelligible. The main difference between Czech and Slovak is that Slovak tends to palatise consonants more, shorten some long vowels and in certain dialects, stress falls on the penultimate syllable as opposed to the first.

In Russian, I think it's both, the unpredictable, dynamic stress and the akanie (the reduction of unstressed vowels to 'a' or schwa) that make it difficult to recognise word boundaries, and make otherwise familiar words sound very different to Polish speakers. Ukrainian doesn't have akanie, which makes Ukrainian sound a lot less Russian and more familiar as far as vowels are concerned. Russian has more palatisation than Ukrainian, however, which makes Russian consonants sound more familiar. So the relative importance of vowels, consonants, accent, grammar and vocabulary to a person's individual understanding will mean people's opinions will vary as to which is easier to understand.

Is this pattern used all over the country (Poland)? Wasn't it borrowed from Russian and namely in the Russian zone (Warsaw/Lodz)? One Polish person has told me there are still language differences (peculiarities) in different areas due to the partition of the country (Warsaw vs Kracow). In Ukraine, one felt enormous differences which have been gradually disappearing all the time. One person from the Eastern UA told me he had had great difficulties in reading Ivan Franko's literary works at school which e.g. I did not experience.

has a slightly different semantic field than 'Czy tylko ja mam problem?'

and it is definitely not a calque from Russian - though we have a couple of calques from Russian in modern Polish - like the overuse of 'dla' preposition

"U mnie jest" doesn't strictly indicate possession as in Russian but is sometimes used where you would normally use "have" in a Western European language. "Czy tylko u mnie jest problem?" could be understood as in "Is it only me that there is a problem with?" but whereas this construction sounds fine in Polish, it's strained in English and would typically be translated as, "Is it only me who *has* a problem?"

My point was that the Russian construction is not terribly difficult to understand for a Polish speaker because there is some overlap in meaning and in usage. I could point to similarities in conjugation with the East Slavic branch, such as Czech/Slovak/Polish/Ukrainian/Russian dáváš/dávaš/dajesz/dajesz/dajosz, but my personal opinion is that by far the biggest impediments to mutual understanding are not minor differences in grammar, vocabulary and conjugation between individual languages and the Slavic families, but rather the fact that very similar words can sound very different.

Take the word for "goose", which is fairly predictably husa/hus/gęś/husak/guś in the above languages.

Even though Polish is closer to Czech than it is to Russian, it's probably the Russian word that's easiest to recognise for a Polish speaker unused to hearing other Slavic languages. And even though Ukrainian is closer to Russian than it is to Czech, it's probably the Czech word that's most recognisable to a Ukrainian speaker unused to hearing other Slavic languages.

These very simple and very predictable sound changes, I think, are the biggest problem in casual understanding. Only once you become accustomed to hearing a closely-related language and the differences in pronunciation are no longer a barrier to understanding can you appreciate more complex similarities/differences in vocabulary/grammar.

Isn't that a finno-ugric influence on Russian lang? cp. Finnish 'Minulle on'...

Cinek

Maybe not exactly connect with words, but worth to read for readers interview with student from Ukraine in Poland.

For native Polish speakers, are there as many 'false friends' between Ukrainian as there are between Russian and Polish?
I've always wondered about that.

nooo.... you are wrong. In polish you ought to say: Czy tylko ze mną jest/masz problem?

I do not know about the Finno-Ugric influence, but I know that there is such a pattern in Turkish (Sende para var mi? - Have you money on you?) - oooooh! - As I have just put it into English I have noticed that there is a similar pattern in English, too!!! Rarely used?

Back to Turkish influence. In Turkish, as far as I know, it is often used and is a normal pattern, and Russia includes several Turckic nations as Tartars (Kazan) & others. But quite possible that the influence is Finno-Ugric.

Russian linguists??

So may be a more general 'Asian' influence. Both Finno-Ugric and Turkish families compose a bigger 'Ural–Altaic' family which surrounds Russian and may have influenced it from all sides.

Cinek

But do not forget that many Polish words stand for Russian archaic.For example ``oko`` was used in Russian
before ``glaz`` as well as ``Ja wiem``, ``lepo``, ``lepota`` (lepiej), ``chelo``, ``usta`` and many other words.

As a speaker of Russian, Ukrainian, and English, I understand most words in the Polish language. A lot of the phrases are the same, just without using the Cyrillic alphabet. For example, Polish and Ukrainian share "Ale", and Polish and Russian share "ezyk".

I provided comparison of Polish with Russian only because many Poles believe that Ukrainians are nomadic tribes and just borrowed some
Polish words in their Tatar language.Since Russian obviously was less influenced by Polish, comparison between cognates is more revealing than between borrowed words.Ukrainian would be more correct to compare with Czech rather than with Polish.To reduce number of directly borrowed words.But I hope you will understand that not all similarities between Ukrainian and Polish are borrowed.Even so Ukrainian developed its own way of spelling and pronounciation,it could hardly be that Russian is originally closer to Polish than Ukrainan.

I created a new file with comparison between Western and Eastern Slavic languages.There is comparison between Czech and Ukrainian words at the end.Letter "kh" in transcription stands for "ch" in "chutor" or "kh" in Kazakhstan. (') stands for a soft conosont.

You wasted your time cause you made so many mistakes that makes it useless

.... oh you will obviously ask me for example, so I give you one:

Earth - Zemja - Zemlja

Probably it should look more like Zemia - Zeml'a?
But anyway you may not look on how Polish words are writing,look only at Russian part.

What? I don't know Russian so I can correct only your Polish which is full of mistakes, so what's the idea of your file, to show that you have no clue of what you are writing about?

Wulkan, I think what Vlad means is that certain Ukrainian words look vaguely like Russian, but though he's not a Polish native speaker, he can't even begin to imagine how Ukrainina must appear to a Pole:-)

Vlad may be Romanian, actually, judging by his given name!