Language Relationships | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Language Relationships

Clairecz

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 4, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
:eek:topic:
So, I couldn't quite work out how the languages had managed to develop together.

So, from your story, it appears that it was only during the period that Czechoslovakia existed that the languages became so, well, identical. Wow! Of course, it makes things easier if everybody in what was now a single country could understand each other. But it is amazing that a language can change so fundamentally in such a short time. Like, Czechoslovakia only existed for 80 years - that is only a couple of generations!

Thinking of English, it took nearly a millennium to get from something that is pretty-much incomprehensible to modern-day speakers to what we have today. Yet with Slovakian, it took less than a century.

CaroLiza_fan

I don't want to totally hickjack the thread but I'd like to clear something. The idea that Czech and Slovak were totally dissimilar languages and only after Czechoslovakia emerged became similar is not quite right. (the "Czechs" and "Slovaks" were in the same state as early as in the 9th century in a principality called Grand Moravia, but that's another thing).
1) languages don't end at states' borders. Czech and Slovak belong to the same language family, they've always been inherently similar to a degree.
2) But all languages evolve eg. lazier pronunciation, grammar unification, grammar simplification, the need to name new things, favouring/discouriging the use of a certain dialect or sociolect... and they also evolve under the influence of other languages / in this case of Slovak it would be Russian (Eastern block), Czech and even Hungarian. (so as flanker explained, this complex development would be the reason why the emmigrants from the US were not able to understand modern Slovak so well because they were not there to experience it, their Slovak language in the US stagnated)
3) but what we can probably agree on is that in Czechoslovakia the similarities of the two languages were much more highlighted and promoted even by the government to build the national feelings of both Czechs and Slovaks together, in a textbook from 1930s Czech and Slovak were even considered only dialects of Czechoslovak language...
 

Vilord

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 9, 2015
Country
Sweden
About swedes understanding other nordic languages: I think swedes and norwegians almost allways can understand eachother since the languages are similair and both tend o articulate well (Interviews on swedish television is always questions in swedish and answers in norwegian when interviewing norwegian skiers for example.) Danish is easy to understand written but while the words are allmost identical to norwegian the pronounciation is verry different and the swallow their words (we say it sounds like they speak with a hot potato in their mouth). However if the danes notice that they are speaking to a swede they will usualy try and speak more clearly and then it is easier and usually somewhat understandable. People from Skåne (soth of sweden) tend to be better at danish than the rest at least the older generation that used to watch danish television, which had more content some 40-50 years ago than swedish television did at the time.
 

surimi

Onward and forward, Sota!
Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
^IMO this one has really derailed. I find the language talk interesting, but I'd be happier if it was moved to a new thread, and if hints/personal beliefs about politics, no matter how veiled, were left out altogether by some posters.
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Country
Northern-Ireland
IMO this one has really derailed. I find the language talk interesting, but I'd be happier if it was moved to a new thread, and if hints/personal beliefs about politics, no matter how veiled, were left out altogether by some posters.

Et voilà! :biggrin:

The posts that only talked about the relationships between languages have been moved to the new thread. The posts that talked about both were copied to the new thread, and both posts then had the bits that were relevant to the other thread edited out. The quote links were also edited where necessary, so that they point to the correct post.

This is the first time I have done this sort of thread split, so please let me know if there are any mistakes.

And sorry again for de-railing the Retirements thread.

CaroLiza_fan
 

flanker

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
:eek:topic:


I don't want to totally hickjack the thread but I'd like to clear something. The idea that Czech and Slovak were totally dissimilar languages and only after Czechoslovakia emerged became similar is not quite right. (the "Czechs" and "Slovaks" were in the same state as early as in the 9th century in a principality called Grand Moravia, but that's another thing).
1) languages don't end at states' borders. Czech and Slovak belong to the same language family, they've always been inherently similar to a degree.
2) But all languages evolve eg. lazier pronunciation, grammar unification, grammar simplification, the need to name new things, favouring/discouriging the use of a certain dialect or sociolect... and they also evolve under the influence of other languages / in this case of Slovak it would be Russian (Eastern block), Czech and even Hungarian. (so as flanker explained, this complex development would be the reason why the emmigrants from the US were not able to understand modern Slovak so well because they were not there to experience it, their Slovak language in the US stagnated)
3) but what we can probably agree on is that in Czechoslovakia the similarities of the two languages were much more highlighted and promoted even by the government to build the national feelings of both Czechs and Slovaks together, in a textbook from 1930s Czech and Slovak were even considered only dialects of Czechoslovak language...

I would only add to this that till the high middle ages czech language was nearly the same as polish.
 

hanyuufan5

✨**:。*
Medalist
Joined
May 19, 2018
I speak a little bit of Russian, but I've found that I can understand a fair amount of FS commentary in many other Slavic languages even though I'm very much a beginner at Russian. Most notably, I understood the announcement that Tomoki Hiwatashi had won gold at Junior Worlds before they announced it in English and dang near had a heart attack when he started drinking water. I didn't want his coronation as Junior World Champion to be marred by him choking on his water. :laugh:
 

denise3lz

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Country
Japan
I am Japanese native without Korean language ability but I know machine translation from Korean to Japanese works very well.
So I guess actual difference is small.
 

hanyuufan5

✨**:。*
Medalist
Joined
May 19, 2018
I am Japanese native without Korean language ability but I know machine translation from Korean to Japanese works very well.
So I guess actual difference is small.

To me as a non-native Japanese speaker, the two sound very similar. Too similar sometimes. I've been known to burst out laughing while listening to kpop because a lyric will sound like something really weird in Japanese. Then I'll feel like a big jerk. :slink:

Apparently it's not just me...

Edit: I apologize wholeheartedly to any BTS fans, and dare anyone who speaks Japanese not to laugh while watching this one, OMG. :laugh:
 

Sabrina

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Latin languages share many similarities and understanding depends a lot on people exposer to at least another latin language. For example I speak Spanish, French and Romanian. Therefore I understand Italian well enough to watch movies in Italian without English subtitles, but I struggle to speak Italian. I understand almost well enough (some subjects) written Portuguese but I struggle to understand spoken Portuguese, where I understand just words...and the more I listen the more I understand, still it depends a lot on the subject of conversation and the type of program. For example it's easier to understand a news program or a particular subject like music, medical field, or some sport
 

elektra blue

mother of skaters
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 11, 2018
Country
Italy
Latin languages share many similarities and understanding depends a lot on people exposer to at least another latin language. For example I speak Spanish, French and Romanian. Therefore I understand Italian well enough to watch movies in Italian without English subtitles, but I struggle to speak Italian. I understand almost well enough (some subjects) written Portuguese but I struggle to understand spoken Portuguese, where I understand just words...and the more I listen the more I understand, still it depends a lot on the subject of conversation and the type of program. For example it's easier to understand a news program or a particular subject like music, medical field, or some sport

now i'm curious, what movies do you watch?
 

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Country
United-States
I was a French major waaaaay back in the day, and my French is still decent, although not as decent as 40 years ago:)

I found that it was easier to *study* other Romance languages, but not to understand them without any kind of background. So I have studied Italian and Spanish, and can make my way with varying degrees, but I wouldn't have a prayer in Portuguese or Romanian.

I have also found that sometimes folks have a greater faith in the commonality of the Romance languages than exists. When I was at an extended visit in Argentina, my friend's relatives would tell me they understood Italian, I would speak Italian, they had no clue.;)

Then again, as an Anglophone, I was not always so good at keeping it straight myself. I would tell my Argentinian hosts "Aspettamos un otra amiga". Which would have worked if "aspettare" were in fact the Spanish, rather than the Italian word, for "wait" or "expect".

But it's not, and it didn't work :laugh:
 

skylark

Gazing at a Glorious Great Lakes sunset
Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Country
United-States
Aha! Thank you so much for your reply, skylark. Because that is something that has been puzzling me for years, ever since I first noticed the similarities in the two languages.

As I said towards the end of the bit you quoted, what became Czechoslovakia had been part of Austria-Hungary. But, the Dual Monarchy had only actually been in place for about 60 years before the war. The Czech lands had been ruled by Austria for centuries, while Slovakia had been ruled by Hungary for centuries. And during the period of the Dual Monarchy, they continued to be ruled separately. So, I couldn't quite work out how the languages had managed to develop together.

So, from your story, it appears that it was only during the period that Czechoslovakia existed that the languages became so, well, identical. Wow! Of course, it makes things easier if everybody in what was now a single country could understand each other. But it is amazing that a language can change so fundamentally in such a short time. Like, Czechoslovakia only existed for 80 years - that is only a couple of generations!

Thinking of English, it took nearly a millennium to get from something that is pretty-much incomprehensible to modern-day speakers to what we have today. Yet with Slovakian, it took less than a century.

That is just mind-boggling.

Thank you so much for telling us that story. :thank:

And can I just say, the context of the story is inspiring too. Fair play to both the bride and her mother! The bride for getting married in her 70's, and the mother for organising a wedding in her 90's!

:bow: :bow: :bow:

CaroLiza_fan

I'm so happy that you enjoyed the story! And I'm also happy that, together, we created a whole new line of conversation that's now a thread. I'm fascinated by language topics. You did a great job of combining, editing, re-creating! :thank: Many aspects of this discussion are mind-boggling. One subject I've been interested in for years is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was governed in such a way that the individual countries (or regions) kept their native languages, cultures, and sense of being a people. I recently watched a history video which traced that as being a value, and an intention, from the very first Hapsburg ruler. It's amazing that that value and intention flourished and succeeded for as long as it did.

And yes, the 90-something mother of the bride and 72-year-old bride, were really something. For me, it was as much the mother's willingness and openness to engage in a conversation of this sort with a new acquaintance. One would think a 90-plus person might enjoy a stranger's interest, but unfortunately I've had the opposite experience with folks even 20 years younger.

ETA: My grandparents lived in Prague, Oklahoma. The folks around there still referred to themselves (or their neighbors) as "Bohemian" for many years. Which makes perfect sense, as they emigrated from Bohemia in the early 1900s and named the town in 1908. I don't recall ever hearing the old language spoken, but I remember that you could get poppy-seed kolaches from the grocery store bakery. My grandparents were Arkansas natives, but they often had kolaches around.
 

skylark

Gazing at a Glorious Great Lakes sunset
Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Country
United-States
As a Czech, I don't think this has something to do with "Czech influence", that "dominated in the intervening years". I bet that many Czech people with the similar story would have hard times to understand the language now even when they kept speaking czech within their community abroad. E. g. there is Volhynian Czechs community in Ukraine who has of course difficulties to understand people in the Czech Republic (and vice versa) - more than Czechs and Slovaks has to understand each other :)

Good point. And I'll point out that I said the "Czech influence" comment was from the Slovakian emigrant's POV.

And as much as Slovakian evolved in Czechoslovakia, their Slovakian spoken in the USA also had to have evolved within their community. Possibly in ways that, over the intervening 80 years, the woman herself didn't notice, or didn't remember had changed. The second generation, who would have been equally fluent in Slovakian and English, would have changed the language too.


Generally there is a difference between two groups of Czechs who live abroad - esp. in US or Canada:
- people who left country during times of Austro-Hungarian rule, between wars and soon after the WWII/1948 - those people mostly kept their cultural heritage and were proud of it, lived in communities of people talking the same language etc.
- people who left after 1968 and later - those people mostly subsumed into the foreign environment and their ability to speak czech has weakened pretty soon (esp. among athletes like tennis player Ivan Lendl - he soon gained very strong american-english accent taht it was funny to hear him speaking czech, it was like listening a foreigner who gained some ability to speak czech :) ).

It's true that it all depends on whether one is part of a community or a family that keeps fluent all together.
 
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