Belarusian
Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 4:26 pm
What are the major features that distinguish this language from Russian? Is it a more conservative form of East Slavic?
Eh, a large part of that is because Belorussian's orthography is so wacky (compared to Russian's and Ukrainian's, which follow the etymological principle). If you just "normalize" the spelling to match Russian and Ukrainian conventions, it's not that bad at all.Miekko wrote:My Russian teacher could read Ukrainian but not Belorussian. The form of Russian she has been taught is basically St Peterburg Russian. It's more than just politics.
Then QcFr is not French, because people taught Parisian French (not native) have a hard time understanding even the most simple sentences of QcFr. Non-native learners seem to have a hard time with highly diverging dialects, which is not surprising. More interesting would be to see an educated native's reaction.Miekko wrote:My Russian teacher could read Ukrainian but not Belorussian. The form of Russian she has been taught is basically St Peterburg Russian. It's more than just politics.
This is one of those language areas where the distinction between what constitutes a massively divergent (or even divergent enough to make mutual intelligibility difficult) dialect as opposed to a different language becomes blurry. In a similar line of thought, I can barely understand more than a couple words of Moroccan Arabic - and neither can my fiance or any of his family (and they are all native speakers of Egyptian Arabic, which is (arguably) much less divergent); they don't call it a /luGa/ "language," nor do any of my colleagues at uni, but a /lahga/ "dialect." I'm still hesitant to call it a different language, but I've seen compelling arguments that it is. Politics does play a huge role in this though.Yiuel wrote:Then QcFr is not French, because people taught Parisian French (not native) have a hard time understanding even the most simple sentences of QcFr. Non-native learners seem to have a hard time with highly diverging dialects, which is not surprising. More interesting would be to see an educated native's reaction.Miekko wrote:My Russian teacher could read Ukrainian but not Belorussian. The form of Russian she has been taught is basically St Peterburg Russian. It's more than just politics.
Well, that's true for many dialects. This is really an "army & navy" situation - Belarus had about 400 years of separate political & cultural development from (Muscovian) Russia, which is the basis of the separate Belarussian ethnic identity, not the language in itself. Without that separate identity (and country), there would be no reason to declare Belarussian a separate language instead of a Russian dialect.TomHChappell wrote:This whole thread will be incomplete unless someone mentions that the biggest "difference" between these "two" "languages" is politics.
That said, there are real linguistic differences as well.
I know absolutely nothing about it, so there was a 50/50 chance it might beThat said, heremaecg, what makes you think Belorussian would be more conservative?
What do you call "interesting"? Piotr gave a good overview over the most important features. To someone interested in historical linguistics, some of them are quite "interesting" (morphonological retention of the 2nd palatalisation, 3rd sg. present tense endings).heremaecg wrote:So, ignoring politics (and as a Serbo-Croatian speaker, I've gotten used to the bullshit), Belarusian is a somewhat divergent Russian dialect without any particularly interesting features?
Do Russians understand Belorussian? I understand the former but not a word of the latter. And how does Belorussian fare compared with other Russian dialects in regards to Standard Russian?hwhatting wrote:Well, that's true for many dialects. This is really an "army & navy" situation - Belarus had about 400 years of separate political & cultural development from (Muscovian) Russia, which is the basis of the separate Belarussian ethnic identity, not the language in itself. Without that separate identity (and country), there would be no reason to declare Belarussian a separate language instead of a Russian dialect.
In my experience at least, Belorussian is much closer to standard Ukrainian than standard Russian. With written Belorussian, I can quite a bit of it, though not as much as Ukrainian, and it takes a lot more effort for me to figure out what each word is due to the spelling.Io wrote:Do Russians understand Belorussian? I understand the former but not a word of the latter. And how does Belorussian fare compared with other Russian dialects in regards to Standard Russian?
Cool documentary. I have a hard time differentiating this language from Russian, and understand about the same amount spoken in both languages (30-40%).EDIT: Hmm, to try it out, I decided to listen to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV2PV99WnQI and I actually understood maybe 80%. That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.
Indeed. Though as a non-native learner of Metropolitan (Parisian) French I can say that after a bit of getting used to, Quebec French really isn't very hard to understand (for me at least).Yiuel wrote:Then QcFr is not French, because people taught Parisian French (not native) have a hard time understanding even the most simple sentences of QcFr. Non-native learners seem to have a hard time with highly diverging dialects, which is not surprising. More interesting would be to see an educated native's reaction.Miekko wrote:My Russian teacher could read Ukrainian but not Belorussian. The form of Russian she has been taught is basically St Peterburg Russian. It's more than just politics.
Is it Belorussian or Polish? I just ask because I find everything up until 0:45 difficult, but everything after becomes much, much easier.Piotr wrote:I find the Belarusian until 0:45 particularly intelligible...
I can't add much beyond what has already been said. On my experience as a non-native fluent speaker of Russian, I find written Belarussian easy, but that's maybe because I know Polish, and the vocabulary in Belarussian that deviates from Standard Russian tends to be Polish loans. I haven't had much exposure to spoken Belarussian. I also don't have much personal experience of Russian dialects, but (again subjectively) I wouldn't say that Russian and Belarussian are farther apart than Standard German and (say) the Bavarian dialect of German.Io wrote:Do Russians understand Belorussian? I understand the former but not a word of the latter. And how does Belorussian fare compared with other Russian dialects in regards to Standard Russian?
At 7:50 or the like its Polish again, right? Or at least it sounds a lot like it.Piotr wrote:Yeah, it is Polish (spoken in the typically "eastern"/East Slavic influenced way), I was wondering if anybody realized that. After that it becomes harder for me...
Near the end, the guy in the orange sweater speaks Polish, the other persons Belarussian, and the audio engineer seems to speak Russian (it's only поздравляю, записано, so that may be Belarussian as well).jal wrote: At 7:50 or the like its Polish again, right? Or at least it sounds a lot like it.
JAL
Yeah, I think so. At least, there my comprehension of what is being said plummets.jal wrote:At 7:50 or the like its Polish again, right? Or at least it sounds a lot like it.Piotr wrote:Yeah, it is Polish (spoken in the typically "eastern"/East Slavic influenced way), I was wondering if anybody realized that. After that it becomes harder for me...
JAL