This is a continuation from another thread....Non-political please :) I always assume that native speakers in one language group understand for a big part their neighbors "across the border". For example we Flemish (especially my brothers on the eastern border / we Antwerp guys are a different nation :) ) do understand our German Rhineland brothers quite well if they speak their PlattDeutsch dialect. Logically if you think we go back together like 1500 years.
But why is it that Poles understand Slovak and Ukrainian much better as Czech? Slovak I could understand, being a West-Slavonic language. But Ukrainian, being an Eastern Slavonic language. Strangely I have to admit that I through my (far from perfect) Polish also understand Slovak and Ukrainian quite well. There has to be an explanation for that.
And what about the other regional (and West Slavonic) languages... Góral, Sorb, Kashub, Silesian... (and the now extinct Mazurian) Interesting. Including "pozor vlak" :) Seems to me that "beer" sounds about the same everywhere in East and Central Europe :) Which is a relief somehow during the holidays :)
One explanation might be both political as well as linguistic. Minority-language speakers typically understand their majority-language neighbors better than the reverse, e.g. Dutch understand German speakers, but not (usually!) vice-versa, Portuguese with Spanish speakers, Polish with Russian, etc...
Trouwens kan ik ook Nederlands spreken, maar toen ik vele jaren geleden in Belgie zat, was het helaas niet mogelijk, Vlaams te verstaan, vanwegen de valstrikken, bv. Ndl. 'schoon' (proper, zuiver) vs. Vl. 'schoon' (mooi) enz...
:)))) There is an expression in English - cannot remember which one - that if you communicate in a language which is very close to yours (Dutch as to Flemish for example), you think you understand certain words (written the same)...but they mean something different.
Polish also has such examples. Maybe somebody could enlighten me :) I do not agree with the minority / majority theory though. Polish and Czech were never in that relation and neither Polish/Slovak. Polish/Ukrainian could be another matter, maybe.
There is a Swedish and Danish word (can't remember it now) that means "solemn" in one language and "jolly" in the other. Just imagine a Swede getting on taxi and asking the driver to take the Swede to some jolly place in Copenhagen, and the Danish driver taking him to a church ;-)
you think you understand certain words (written the same)...but they mean something different. Polish also has such examples. Maybe somebody could enlighten me :)
Yes, I think Polish-Czech examples are most legendary, like
divka (cz) - girl dziwka (pl) - whore
laska (cz) - love laska (pl) - (slang) hot babe... or blowjob
maj (pl) - may kwiecień (pl) - april kveten (cz) - may
...and probably many others which I can't remember now :)
This thread becomes really entertaining :) And most meaningful the usual suspects are not answering :). Still I have no answer to my initial question.... Anyway a thread inside a thread... In my native Flanders (and also in Wallonia as far as I know) every village has its own variant of the local dialect. For example I can easily place somebody from my neighborhood by his accent and the words he is using. Do dialects exist in Poland on a local level?
I think they do but are heavily equalized and supressed by the influence of the TV. It is hard to tell what region given person really is unless the person is involving their local language (Silesian, local dialects of the Eastern Wall) or specific words such as Poznań "tej". I think the unified language has helped Poland survive partitions, wars, and helped maintaining the national identity, in great part thanks to the role of the Catholic Church.
Interesting fact: Language such as Silesian is full of local dialects (Ruda Śląska Silesian speaks differently from Pszczyna Silesian) but Polish is pretty standarized!
If a person says "bynajmniej" instead of "przynajmniej" it only denotes the person is either from countryside or ill-educated.
Language such as Silesian is full of local dialects (Ruda Śląska Silesian speaks differently form Pszczyna Silesian)
And that is something which is to me as a Fleming completely recognizable. I know that in Antwerp for example before WW II there were even dialect differences between some city districts.
If a person says "bynajmniej" instead of "przynajmniej" it only denotes the person is either from countryside or ill-educated.
That is a bit as in the UK I guess. In my native Flanders your accent in general "betrays" from where you come (to the very village you come from). Not your social class.
I agree. How a usage of word may denote one's education or social class? Oftentimes, more educated people are interested in the preservation of the language pearls which are unique to a given region, instead of treating everything in relation to the standard. Each word makes language richer.
though Ukrainian is an East Slavic language it borrowed a lot from Polish or inherited the same common slavic vocabulary and also it shares a couple of phonetical developements with Polish - when you add to that that Poles were obligatory learning Russian you end up with Ukrainian sounding more familiar to Polish ears than Czech
as for Slovak - I can only say from my own experience - Slovak I have heard sounded like Czech with Polish accent - they say (wikipedia says) eastern slovak dialects resemble Polish even more right up to having identical fixed accent (the penultimate syllable) and similar sound developements
There is a Swedish and Danish word (can't remember it now) that means "solemn" in one language and "jolly" in the other. Just imagine a Swede getting on taxi and asking the driver to take the Swede to some jolly place in Copenhagen, and the Danish driver taking him to a church ;-)
You referring to the word: 'rolig' which in Danish means calm, peaceful. Rolig in Swedish means funny.
Which kind of tells you that Swedes are not particularly funny people;)
(By the way, I'm old and make typing mistakes, sorry for that, sure, biksemad that I pronounce biksemeeeeeel ;-))
no worries you intuition was spot on as biksemad (random leftovers(potatoes and meat pieces tossed (mixed) together in the pan) is basically mixmad (mad means food)
Naah, FlaglessPole, ka' du osse' snakke dansk??!! Det er jo et tilfald! Jeg taler flydend dansk og svensk, norsk (Bokmaal/Riksmaal) kan jeg laese, men ikke tale.
What a coincidence that you can speak Danish as well! I know the three Nordic Scandinavian languages, came though rather much later to Polish. I find the Danes somewhat overestimate their English skills, for that matter, so do most Europeans, particularly the Dutch-:))
The list of false friends among interrelated languages could fill umpteen pages, eh?
Polish Russian Danish Swedish
pismo ? knulle knulla (WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!) list pismo rolig rolig rar rar
Naah, FlaglessPole, ka' du osse' snakke dansk??!! Det er jo et tilfald! Jeg taler flydend dansk og svensk, norsk (Bokmaal/Riksmaal) kan jeg laese, men ikke tale.
Det kan jeg da sagtens :) Men jeg tror at du har lidt svaert ved det, proev lige at se:
Det er jo et tilfald!
nej nej det er jo et tilfaelde, men det giver heller ikke nogen mening, det ville vaere bedre at sige: sikke et sammentraef eller det var da pudsigt
I was told by the Danish -- after years of practicing -- "You've been at least trying" ;-)))
it is hard for a native Pole to master Danish, pronunciation being the hardest part as there are all in all 40! (not kidding) different vowel sounds in Danish many of which are virtually indistinguishable to an average Pole as all he knows is a short and snappy way of saying: a,o,u,i,y,e,ę,ą.
it is hard for a native Pole to master Danish, pronunciation being the hardest part as there are all in all 40! (not kidding) different vowel sounds in Danish many of which are virtually indistinguishable to an average Pole
Not only that but also the glottal stop making it so hard for a Pole say "red porridge with cream" in Danish, makes them so hard to say the Czech "cross" and eliminates them from speaking Cockney ;-)
I actually know a Pole who, after having had learnt Russian, Swedish and English (in that order), learned Danish to the level his future parents-in-law could not distinguish him from a Dane, and who learned Ukrainian later ;-) Rare bird. Rara avis!
For that matter it is hard for us Flemish to master Swedish as well. I did have a Swedish girlfriend way back...decided to take Swedish evening classes...but boy what a hard language to master (even when it is Germanic just as ours). I mean learning German for me is far more easy (despite the annoying use of all these cases, we Flemish left that behind us somewhere in the Middle Ages :) ).
As hard as it is for a native Pole to master Danish, as well as vice-versa of course, the same holds true for both the latter to master English resp. educated US-pronunciation. Often, so to speak, the hand is quicker than the eye; things look easy, but the truth way belies the impression. Or as the Poles put it 'Pozory często mylą' (Skinnet bedrager ofte)
@FlaglessPole, Jeg sagte, at jeg kan flydende, ikke perfekt, dansk-:))
