What Makes Each of the Slavic Languages Unique (Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and more!)

This video goes through all the traits shared among most Slavic Languages, as well as the linguistics of what makes each of the languages unique, including Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Slovene, Belarusian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, as well as lesser known ones like Rusyn, Silesian, Kashubian, and Sorbian!
Special thanks to Iry for providing examples and audio clips for Russian and Ukrainian, Aizu for providing examples and audio clips for Polish, Mamutinda providing examples and audio clips for Czech and Slovak, and Hijerovit for providing examples and audio clips for Serbo-Croatian
0:00 Intro
0:25 General traits
3:50 Russian
5:55 Ukrainian
7:02 Rusyn
7:40 Belarusian
8:30 Polish
9:40 Silesian
10:16 Czech
11:45 Slovak
12:28 Slovene
13:25 Serbo-Croatian
14:57 Bulgarian
16:19 Macedonian
17:21 Old Church Slavonic
17:59 Kashubian
18:19 Sorbian
18:53 Outro

[@NiepKiep]

Being Polish and having played League of Legends in Czech, I strongly believe that mutual intelligibility is by far the best feature of Slavic languages.

[@marcindzamroga8945]

Why did you play LoL in Czech?

[@Matheo355]

@@marcindzamroga8945 Why did he play LoL in first place

[@acousticavoiska9461]

​@@Matheo355 Asking the real questions

[@Perkwunosik]

@@Aeg0r honestly if you're educated in medieval literature, you will understand Polish if you're Russian and vice versa 10x easier. Every time i play CSGO and have Russians in my team I can piece things together really quickly.

[@fernandor8186]

​@@Aeg0r BS! I understand like 80-90% of Russian, while speaking Polish native and fluent Czech!

[@iorn2590]

Yeah I'm Polish, I went to Czech on holiday and we spoke Polish and everyone understood us. We mostly understood Czech but a few words were different. Everyone understood one another. xd

[@endisendis123]

yeah, everything is pronouced similiarly even though the writing seems literally impossible to learn

[@iorn2590]

@@endisendis123 Yeah I mean there are a few words different like fries

[@albertvega1678]

didnt know they were THAT similair,cool

[@Luck9nN]

for example I understand most of polish, but I know many people that dont understand shit in polish. It changes throuout regions and also education I guess xd

[@iorn2590]

@@Luck9nN yh xd

[@stanbatakarata6081]

Поздрав за всичси славянски братя и сестри .От Бълария.Зажалост виждам тук много хора които са изкарват повече словяни от други .Не трябва така трябва да сме едно .Въпреки различията .Да си имаме уважението едни на други .❤Ви всички .

[@anedzerixo]

поздрав од Македонија ✌️

[@stanbatakarata6081]

@@anedzerixo Поздрав и за теб Ангел.Бъди жив и здрав ти и семейството ти .

[@Stariy_Pirat]

Я з України і десь половину слів зрозумів :)

[@stanbatakarata6081]

​​@@Stariy_PiratЕ нормално е това Брате с други думи имаме езикът и азбуката а те се променят.Под влиянието на други .Пък и може би защото найстина първите Българи са Скити .Но след създаването на модерната Българска нация от 9 век между Българи и Славяни имаме различия от чистите славяни но мисля че за 11. Века може да се каже о и аз лично се смятам за Славянин пък и всеки език има чуждици .Тоест чужди думи .!Поздрав ❤ог България

[@noowpaoHauuctoB]

Я из Оркастана! Нихуя не понял, ведь русские больше финно-угры чем славяне. ZVO

[@Philosopherius]

There have been attempts to create a so-called Interslavic "medžuslovjansky jezyk" language. It is the closest thing I have seen, heard, and, most importantly, understood so far, although the language is not used in practice. But if it were to start being used... that would be a game changer.

[@MapsCharts]

There is an interslavic channel and it's pretty cool

[@mihanich]

double negative is more like typical for Slavic languages in general not just individual Slavic languages

[@jedowampo5431]

English also has a double negative( we DONT need NO education), but this is not a literary form.

[@Pidalin]

@@jedowampo5431 "we DON'T need NO education" these phrases are super confusing for me in English, I always have to think about that like 5 minutes, also even in Czech langauge, it's better to not use double negative if you can avoid that which you mostly can, sentence will be much more clear then.

[@algirdasltu1389]

I just didnt notice that rnglish doesnt really have them bc they were a normal thing for me and i didnt really think abt it

[@Pidalin]

@@algirdasltu1389 That's one of the first things which English teacher says to you in school - you can't use double negative in English, but from what I see in texts even from native speakers, it's not really true.

[@jedowampo5431]

@@Pidalin Ukrainian language loves double negatives, although often it is enough to say simply жодний(žodnyj) , but...

[@DusanPavlicek78]

Hi, thank you for the video. I'm Czech, I was born in Czechoslovakia and I have to say Czech and Slovak languages were never considered the same language. They were (and still are) considered "mutually intelligible" but definitely not the same. It was that way because everyone was exposed to both Czech and Slovak on a daily basis, mainly on TV, in books etc. so people generally understood the other language but they generally couldn't actively speak it without mistakes, they would instead often come up with made-up words or phrases that would only "sound Slovak" to them but that were not truly Slovak 😉 I had a similar problem when I had to study Russian as a kid at school (before the Velvet Revolution in 1989), sometimes I wasn't sure if I used a genuine Russian word or if I only accidentally made something up in my head that sounded vaguely "Russian" to my Czech ears 😁(since both languages use similar words here and there).

[@garmonist7566]

Я хочу получше разобраться. Поэтому мне интересно: почему Чехословакия распалась? Во времена Чехословакии язык был один?

[@Tomanprg]

@@garmonist7566 Jak už bylo řečeno výše, jazyky byly dva a díky tomu se Češi naučili rozumét slovenštině a naopak. A dodnes lze v Česku používat slovenštinu jako úřední jazyk.

[@garmonist7566]

@@Tomanprg Боже мой. Я читал очень медленно и понял каждое твоё слово, которое ты написал. То е Чешкий?

[@tomasmalin]

@@garmonist7566 Československo se rozpadlo z rozhodnutí našich politiků. Slováci jsou dost nacionalističtí, Češi mají rádi svůj klid. Máme každý svou mentalitu.

[@garmonist7566]

@@tomasmalin добро, благодарствую.

[@alexmilchev5395]

For anyone who is also a nerd here are some interesting facts about the Bulgarian language. One that is often ignored, especially by foreign linguists but it's called Present Historical Time. It describes past actions in the present tense and it's mostly used, as the name suggests to describe historical actions. Example: България е основана през 681г. (Bulgaria was founded in the year 681.) Where we use the present е основана, instead of the past е била основана. What you described as evidentially is actually more complex and it refers to a lot of different tenses Past Complete Time is used to describe actions that have certainly finished before the moment of speaking. Past Incomplete Time is used to describe actions that have started in the past but the speaker is unsure if they have finished in the present. Past Uncertain Time is used to describe past actions which have been completed in an uncertain moment in the past but we can observe the result. Past Preliminary Time is used to describe actions that were completed before other past actions or a given moment. Then there are also the future tenses called Future Time, Future Preliminary Time, Future Time in the Past and Future Preliminary Time in the Past. Future is pretty self-explanatory. Future Preliminary time is used to describe a future action that will happen before another future action or a given future moment. Future Time in the Past is used to describe actions that would've happened in the past but didn't. It's considered a future tense because of the grammar used. Future Preliminary Time in the Past is used to describe actions that would've happened but didn't because of a specific actions or reason. It's a bit hard to understand if you don't speak the language. Another cool thing is the doubling forms, where a word has two official ways to be written or pronounced. Example: обеци, обици(earnings) Also I promise I won't bother you too much with dialects, mostly because Bulgarian dialects are a hundred times more complex than the language but I wanna mention that on top of regional dialects we have professional dialects used by people working in specific professions. They could range from people just using certain words such as Tricker dialect, used by professional criminals, to having a mixture of foreign and Bulgarian accents and grammar such as Computerdjiski dialect, to having artificially created accent specific for those professions, which is the case for actors, news presenters and PSA announcers. That accent is called Proper Speech and it was made to be the most comprehensible way to speak the language. Lastly even though old Bulgarian is considered a lost language (thanks Turks) from the little we could uncover it was very similar to Old Church Slavonic, to the point some linguists consider them the same. That also makes sense due to historical reasons and here comes a slight correction. The Glagolic was created with Slavs in mind and during Christianation Bulgarian churches originally adopted the Glagolic so they don't preach in Greek, but since Bulgaria was a multiethnic state Glagolic proved too hard for non-slavs so a simplified version of the Glagolic was created called the Cyrrilic by one of Cyrril and Methodius's students called Kliment of Ohrid.

[@huskytail]

Old Church Slavonic is not similar to Old Bulgarian, it WAS Old Bulgarian. Its disappearance from daily use is not related at all to the Turks. It had evolved to Middle Bulgarian long before they even arrived on the Balkans.

[@raynatumbeva780]

The Cyrillic was certainly not created by Clement. Clement just created a simplified version of the Glagollic. The earliest definite evidence of Cyrillic being used that we have is from Pliska around the time of Clement's death. Additionally, the literary school in Ohrid was among the last ones to start using it, a lot after Clement's death, which wouldn't make sense if he created it. But the earlier you go into Bulgarian and Balkan history in general, the more arguments and asserted misconceptions there are.

[@thechonkyyuki]

Your description of Past Incomplete Time is incorrect. It refers to an action that has happened in the past before the moment of speaking but it has not been finished then and therefore continues to happen in the past before the moment of speaking.

[@WhizzKid2012]

i dont like bulgarian. it is too simple. it is the esperanto of slavic.

[@tiarkrezar]

As a Slovene, it's very interesting to hear that our vowels are the most complex, that's something I'd never considered before. Especially in written text, they usually look simpler than in other Slavic languages. We only use a,e,i,o,u, and only rarely add accents when it's necessary to disambiguate between similar-sounding words.

[@Zigonce]

Baje je še najbolj zafrknjeno.

[@zigabizjak5234]

Moja profesorica za Slovenščino bi te tepla.

[@zigabizjak5234]

Slovenščina je pomojem še najbolj zajeban slovanski jezik.

[@HahnenschreidesPositivismus]

Js sem mislil, da je 8 fonemskih samoglasnikov kr standard za slovanske jezike, ampak je norma 5 samoglasnikov + polglasnik. Ločenje širokega in ozkega o in e, je prisotno samo v slovenščini od slovanskih jezikov pa večino jezikov ima 5/6 samoglasnikov. V bistvu smo Slovenci edini, ki znamo rečit /mleko/ in se vsi ostali sam poskušajo površno približat tej besedi s tem, da izgovorijo blizu ležeci samoglasnik (ali i, ali široki e) al pa poskušajo neko oralno gimnastiko z raznimi dvozvočniki od "ije" do "ie" do "je" etc. *Pokaže na druge slovane.* Look at what they do to mimic a fraction of our power!

[@Kranjcan27]

​@@zigabizjak5234 razloži mi, zakaj misliš, da je slovenščina zajebana

[@baginatora]

As a bulgarian, I can only say to those who want to learn our language "Thank you for your interest and sorry for making it difficult for you."

[@TheKucapaca]

Especially nodding must be a suicidal effort ;)

[@thechonkyyuki]

​@@TheKucapacathat whole nodding thing is a myth mate

[@annesilverblade]

това важи включително и за самите нас 😁

[@Flintob]

Why difficult? You guys have no noun declension

[@beyondrecall9446]

@@Flintob literally made it the easiest Slavic language by doing that

[@CommonCommiestudios]

Proto-Slavic: *azъ Bulgarian: Az Slovene: Jaz Everyone else: Ja Bulgarian: Why are you all looking at me, I'm not the weird one

[@wizardite]

Proto-Slavic "I" most likely had the quality of [(j)æ:zʊ̆]. The palatal [j] consonant can can even be seen in a few very peculiar Bulgarian dialects, namely the Rhodopean ones.

[@korana6308]

Az' is the same in old Russian too.

[@CommonCommiestudios]

@@korana6308 true, but that was a borrowing from Old Church Slavonic so not exactly native

[@korana6308]

@@CommonCommiestudios I mean you could be debating for a long time, what is "native" and what is not... Are the Latin names of the months native? or not ? but they've been used at least for a thousand years in Russian. Is Az' native? But it has been used by the Russian Czars in transcripts i. e. Az' esm' czar - I am Czar... The line is really blurred here because unfortunately there is not that many studies on our Slavic languages... Slavs were more preoccupied with fighting each other rather then all coming together and actually researching it's history and languages etc. Though you need money and resources to do scientific work and research so that's natural that Russia and Russian language did the most in that field. However still not enough , and Communist revolution for the most part made it even harder for Russian linguists to research it's Slavic roots and language history.

[@CommonCommiestudios]

@@korana6308 by "native" I meant "directly inherited", I should have expressed myself better

[@YuriyNasretdinov]

Thanks for such a detailed analysis! I never thought I'd say something like this, but I would really appreciate a longer version of this video with the same content but with more time to appreciate each language and the details :)

[@zigaudi]

I'm from Slovenia. I like that you talk about this languages. Good job!👏

[@LingoLizard]

Corrections: Czech and Slovak were only *officially* considered to be one Czechoslovak language between 1920-1938, but afterwards considered to be different languages, even while Czechoslovakia was still around. The majority of people in Belarus *probably* don't speak Belarusian natively, but a majority of people think of Belarusian as their mother tongue, which is why so many people put it as native Old Church Slavonic has been attested since the 800s, the 9th Century, NOT the 1800s 5:35 should be плаваю instead of палаваю 11:18 “vskétat” should be “vzkvévat” 13:00 these all mean ear, not eye, eye is “oko”

[@tibiademon9157]

"vskétat" at 11:18 should be "vzkvétat"

[@alekszewczyk9271]

13:00 - "uho" means 'ear', not 'eye'. 'eye' is "oko"

[@THE_TRACKMAN]

Can you do next one on finnic languages?

[@mmogamesfan]

Old Church Slavonic was devised around the 16th century on the basis of the Old Bulgarian language invented in the 9th century (very often identified as the same language).

[@dwarow2508]

@@mmogamesfan Also as the official spoken Russian language from 862 to the Soviet language reform in 1923

[@calatarii]

I'm Serbian and my boyfriend is Polish, since we met online, so I went to Poland to meet him in person for the first time. While I cannot follow as well when he speaks fast, when slowing down I didn't have much difficulty understanding what he was saying or understanding what was written [tho I learned their alphabet so it's easier for me to read], we share a good amount of grammar and vocabulary! On the other hand learning Polish [and Russian in the past] is quite hell for me because as similar as we are, the languages go against what I already know [ex how some words change in grammatical cases, tenses etc.] so it's quite a mindfuck to learn. Other than that, amazing video!! Love seeing stuff about our languages and culture :]

[@sasik225]

Wow you made a really good work! You even mentioned Rusyn, Silesian, Kashubian, Sorbian and Old Church Slavonic - WOW :D I am czech and I have to correct few things: 11:19 - vskétat should be vzkvétat czech has one diphtong in its alphabet and it is CH ... more slavic languages has this unique sound but I haven`t seen it nor in the general traits neither in czech diphtongs. But again - you made really good job, most of the people wouldn`t even consider speaking about Rusyn or Sorbian or Old Church Slavonic. Fun fact - did you know that you can download old church slavonic keyboard to your phone? 🤪

[@flyguy3000]

Hi, I'm a native speaker of Russian, from Belarus, but can speak Belarusian too. The Belarusian part was very accurate, except there was a small mistake. The majority of people don't speak Belarusian natively, but a majority of people think of Belarusian as their language, which is why so many people put it as native. Similar to Ukrainian, g is pronounced ɣ, not g. The Russian new vocative case can also be used for non-kinship terms, like names. For example Оля (Olia) is said as Оль (Ol') sometimes.

[@korana6308]

👍

[@pozhiloy_monstr]

звательный падеж есть ещё в анахроничных словах. Например: отче, боже, княже, друже и т.д

[@georgiykireev9678]

@@pozhiloy_monstr Да, но про него в видео всё сказано

[@vergesserforgetter2160]

Belarussian still has the W sound, written as Y with an apostrophe above, something rare so up north. In Russian it tends to be either "L" or "V" instead. seems like this is a common round about mutation, as in Serbian it is the opposite, the L changes to W.

[@MurdokEXTRA]

Man, I am so sad about the state of Belarusian. Easily the most beautiful of the eastern slavic languages. At least in my eyes.

[@HBon111]

I'm a Czecho-Canadian and I love anything to do with slavic linguistics. It was a great video! Thank you.

[@hunteractually3637]

It must be interesting to be a part of both countries. I supoose you live in Canada, right?

[@KLETwave]

I'm Czech born raised in Germany and I love discovering comments from people globally having the same roots as me. All the best to you 💙♥️🤍

[@HBon111]

@@hunteractually3637 Yeah, in Canada. I don't know about interesting. There isn't a huge Czech community like there is for other groups (Poles and Russians especially). But it's surprising how often you'll bump into Czechs and Slovaks on the street.

[@porazindel]

ŘřřŕřřřřŔ

[@tomaszdobrowolski4945]

@@HBon111 You should mention ukrainian comunity in Canada.

[@igormalusevic]

Hello, i am Serbian. Its not Seta moje majke (My Mothers sorrow) but Tuga moje majke. Seta is word for reflecting some good memories best comparison is feeling nostalgic. On the other hand Tuga is literal sorrow, for example loss of someone or something or sorrow when you left your country to live somewhere else where is better source of income. Also we in Serbian have also double negation like Ja ne znam ništa "I dont know anything" similar to Russian.

[@bojanstare8667]

Double negation is also present in Slovene language too. Jaz ne vem nič. 🙂 Or I know, that I don`t know all.

[@TheKucapaca]

@@bojanstare8667 You meant "I know that I don't know anything".

[@ineshvaladolenc6559]

​@@bojanstare8667More like, I don't know nothing.

[@bojanstare8667]

@@ineshvaladolenc6559 Yes, that`s right. MY mistake.

[@HahnenschreidesPositivismus]

Jaz ne vem ničesar.* "I don't know nothing." meaning: I don't know anything. Similarly: Ničesar nimam. "I don't have nothing." meaning: I don't have anything. @@bojanstare8667

[@jerrynoruega1625]

Fantastic video. I'd love to see an update on Kashubian and Lower/Upper Sorbian languages ❤️

[@lmancz]

the research that went into this is insane! One thing I would point out as Czech, "čau" is used as very informal, you'd say that to your friends not in a shop etc. At the end of the video, the goodbyes in all the languages are formal, Czech equivalent would be "Nashledanou" literally - wishing we see each other again / until we see each other again (which is the exact same meaning in most of the other languages too). Fun fact, you'd end a phone conversation with a similar "Naslyšenou" which replaces "see" for "hear"

[@petralichka6745]

A petition to make „čau“ a formal greeting please, as my italian heart would be very happy about that.

[@lmancz]

@@petralichka6745 isn't it the same in Czech (and others) as in Italian though? Dobrý den / Nashledanou x Čau vs Buon giorno / Arrivederci x Ciao

[@isabelaatenska]

Good point and "Na shledanou" is two words.

[@lmancz]

@@isabelaatenska sorry, my bad

[@myh106]

The Polish goodbye used ("Na razie", which literally translated means something like "as of now", "so long" would probably be a good English equivalent.) is also a highly informal one. The formal version is "Do widzenia." ("till seeing")

[@aleksandrapetrovic774]

I'm Serbian, and I live in Spain where at one point I enrolled in Spanish classes. The teacher was part Serbian, so he was also able to explain to me specific Spanish grammar rules that got many students confused. He pointed out how Serbian has been heavily influenced by Latin grammar (due to being part of the Roman Empire) so we incorporated some grammatical structures, which the Russian and English students in the class were not able to comprehend (like reflexive verbs or those two different futures). I normally translate from English to Spanish in my head, but my teacher told me that it is better to translate from Serbian as the grammatical structure is more close to that of Spanish.

[@vergesserforgetter2160]

It was after the collapse of the Roman Empire that the Serbians came, but yeah they mixed with Latin speakers probably.

[@keiralum1797]

Russians also have all those different tenses, but nobody explain at school how do they form. 4 future tenses as well :))

[@korana6308]

Guys can you please stop with all those vague accusations of Russian language not having this or that. Every time you are just being wrong. At least give us an example of what you mean. So that Russian people can tell if they have something or not because I am willing to bet that Russian language has it...

[@waldemarwojnicki6781]

"Reflexive verbs" are COMMON in any given Northern Slavic language (W and Eastern) also - Reflexive verbs DO EXIST in German, and they Used to Exist - in Old English (befor Norman Conquest)

[@huskytail]

How did your teacher think Serbian was influenced by Latin because of the land now known as Serbia had been part of the Roman empire, given that Serbia and Serbians appear on that land almost half a Millennium after the Latin Romans sent away and Serbian as a language even later? One could argue that Serbian has some common features with Latin speaking countries today. But that's because it's surrounded by countries, which are part of the Balkan Sprachbund.

[@user-qx4vs7ne8w]

One thing worth mentioning about Russian is that a lot of nouns have a form with a different suffix, in order to indicate that the nouns is small or “cute.” For example, “дорога”(road) would be changed to “дорожка” if you want to indicate that the road is small. Or “куб”(cube) would be changed to “кубик” for the same reason.

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

Kubek means "mug" in Polish. Kinda similar to that last one ("Kubik" I guess).

[@spaghettiisyummy.3623]

Oh, those Exist in Serbo-Croatian aswell! I think that they're called "Umanjine" and "Uvečina." I really like them tbh!

[@aurelije]

​@spaghettiisyummy.3623 it is called diminutive and augmentative. And there is also pejorative.

[@spaghettiisyummy.3623]

@@aurelije THERE'S AN ENGLISH WORD FOR IT? :O

[@aurelije]

@spaghettiisyummy.3623 those are linguistic terms but they originate from Latin. Similar to names of cases: Nominative, Genitive... we don't say imenski, rodni... we are not like Russians that say everything in their language

[@rmeyer4948]

Thank you so much for including Rusyn here!

[@ESCLuciaSlovakia]

Interesting video. Just a note - even in times of Czechoslovakia, Czech and Slovak were not considered as one language. For some time, the official language was the virtual "Czechoslovak language", which had two varieties: the Czech one and the Slovak one. It didn't mean that they were one language though. Things were written in both languages, not only one. Both languages were present everywhere, because they were not the same language. The so called Czechoslovak language was nonexisten, it was an artificial name. Just like the Czechoslovak nation was artificial, nonexistent and created only to convince the world powers that both nations were actually one, that needed to have its own country. It was a trick.

[@rorychivers8769]

I know this is a dumb question that probably has a million different nuanced reasons, and subject to opinion, but what exactly was the motivation for Czechoslovakia to be considered a single unitary country? The concept of a multi-ethnic state isn't exactly strange to me, the UK is basically an amalgamation of Celts, Saxons, Danes and wannabe French Norsemen... I'm just curious why this specific state came to be.

[@hanakorejtkova3729]

@@rorychivers8769 They wanted to have their own state, to separate from Austria-Hungary. To achieve that, they needed to prove the majority of people living here are of one nationality. That wasn't possible, as there were Czechs, Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians... Once they established a Czechoslovak nationality, they could add Czechs and Slovaks and voila, numbers are much better!

[@beth12svist]

Plus there were probably some seeds for it in that in the early stages of the national revival(s) in the first half of the 19th century, they did work closely together, before the Slovaks went "hey, we're our own nation, thanks for the ideas, we'll take it from here." (Roughly speaking.) For example, Slovak Protestant churches used to use (I think they don't anymore) a 16th century Czech Bible translation (the Kralice Bible), so the connections have been there for a long time (since the time of Great Moravia really, it straddled the current political border). But the two countries have a lot of separate history, more than the common one in the long run, so that wins out both politically and in terms of overall culture.

[@ESCLuciaSlovakia]

@@rorychivers8769 Not a dumb question at all. I agree with both answers people have already give you. Actually, one of the first plans for Czechoslovakia was to create a country similar to the UK, with autonomy for Slovakia. Slovaks and Czechs were allies, close nations with quite different history. Czechs wanted their old Bohemian kingdom back, Slovaks wanted autonomy in Hungarian kingdom. The WWI was the opportunity for the nations in Austria-Hungary to become independent, but to create two small countries Czechia and Slovakia was scary - Slovaks were afraid of Hungarians, Czechs were afraid of Germans, so in Czechoslovakia they both would be stronger together. But because there were much more Germans then Slovaks in Czechoslovakia, the politicians created the idea that Czechs and Slovaks were actually one nation that needed to live in one country. Even if Germans were the second biggest ethnic group, Czechs together with Slovaks, as "Czechoslovaks", were the majority and could have the right for their own country.

[@danielkoucky3711]

Not true, in the first constitution of Czechoslovakia, there was written "Czechoslovak language", same as "Czechoslovak nation". But technicaly they were two different languages, the reason why they wrote that that way was to make us a majority in the country, Czechoslovaks could over number local Germans and to make them minority.

[@filipstepanek2384]

Czech and Slovak were deffinitely not considered the same language during the existence of Czechoslovakia. Also, Czech might be somewhat significantly influenced by latin, but its often striking when other Slavs talk to the Czechs how many archaic words the language presserved that even other slavic languages lost long time ago. Deffinitely true about the German infuence tho, Czechs always appreciated the short and easy German expressions, they make our rztrdrzzrtd conversations easier.

[@a.n.6374]

I'm a Bulgarian and lived in Czechia(don't jump about this name - it was always called like that in BG, finally it's normal in English too :D ) for about 4 years. Slovak is a lot easier on the ears to me. Written they are the same(as in neither seems harder or easier), but the Slovak pronunciation was a lot easier to grasp. Definitely not the same language. I need like 3 words to be able to tell which one is which, despite not being fluent in either. I've witnessed how easy it is for you both to communicate with each other. In my opinion these are the closest pair of languages if we don't count the ex-yu ones as separate. One question though - do you have to adjust a bit your speech when talking to a Slovak? As in speak slower, pick specific expressions that you know he/she will understand as opposed to ones you'd know are uniquely cz? This is what I do when talking to macedonians/other ex-yu. I end up speaking some frankenstein :D

[@janslavik5284]

@@a.n.6374 So as a Czech I would say we can talk with Slovaks in a normal way as we would with other Czechs. I'm from a generation that was born after the split of Czechoslovakia, so we weren't really exposed to the Slovak media, but we can still understand them in 95% of cases. When there is a communication problem it's usually the Slovak person that uses a synonym or even the Czech word, because their TV shows and movies are very often played with Czech dubbing. For example one time my friend told me to jump over that "peň" over there, and I was like what, so she just said the Czech word "kmen" which means tree trunk. I've never heard "peň" in my entire life up to that point but she knew the exact Czech word for it 😆

[@adapienkowska2605]

@@janslavik5284 ha, it is exactly the same word in Polish, just written differently, 'pień'. I have noticed that people exposed to one additional Slavic language have it easier to pick up familiar words in others. Both my sister and my mother studied Russian (they never got very good at it) and they had it easier to understand both Czechs and Slovaks than I and others who never studied any Slavic language did. So it might also be that Slovaks are surrounded by other Slavic countries, are a small country, so they might be exposed to them. Because most Slovaks I have met could understand Polish pretty well.

[@filipstepanek2384]

@@adapienkowska2605 totally. I they might be the most able to understand other Slavic languages from us all. They grow up watching Czech TV programs, they have an enormous variety of dialects in their own language so they pick up many archaic Slavic words there and so on. And it's still quite normal to study Russian there, wheres in CZ people usually don't want to have anything to do with anything Russian other than Tolstoy and other classical authors...

[@blotski]

@@a.n.6374 "finally it's normal in English too". As a native speaker of English I can tell you that we very rarely use the name Czechia. It's hard to explain but it just sounds weird to our ears. There is also the point that we resent outsiders dictating to us which words we should and shouldn't use in our own language. I'll say Czechia if Czechs stop saying Anglie when speaking to each other in Czech and replace it with something of our choice. Ingland?

[@jfcdefg]

It has to be a special talent to put so much information in such indigestible way

[@opalaa5874]

Ahaha I am Bulgarian and your description of its dubitative mood made me laugh out loud with pure joy. Very good description! The customary way we describe it to foreigners is "Бил съм се бил напил", which translates as "I was drunk, ALLEGEDLY". p.s. Now that I think about it, that statement is actually grammatically wrong, because it's doubly dubitative, so to speak.

[@nou9091]

We just build different

[@vlajd]

Бил съм се бил напил, българска класика хаха

[@fantasysunonlyforyou]

@@vlajd бил съм се бил напил и съм се бил бил

[@georgygeorgiev8882]

Минало свършено незапомнено време хахах

[@DramaticCrossroad]

да не забравяме и всички наставки... допоизпонапихме се (колективно завършено на започнато минало време)

[@matthiasek]

I really like that you talk about Silesian which is often overlooked in language videos about Slavic languages

[@ericcarlson3746]

Much love to the Silesian and Sorbian speakers

[@jasombee]

For something unique to Slovak, someone already mentioned the rhythmic shortening, which is a rule that forbids two long syllables directly after each other. Long syllables are any syllables containing á, é, í, ó, and ú, as well as the four officially recognised diphthongs: ia, ie, iu, and ô (/uo/). The letter Ô is also unique to Slovak, and emerged after a reform which merged the /uo/ diphthong. Some examples of rhythmic shortening in Slovak (in contrast to Czech, which lacks this rule): Láskam (to the loves) - incorrectly láskám (this would be Czech) Skákanie (the jumping) - as opposed to the incorrect skákánie and the Czech skákání ĺ and ŕ are also considered long syllables: Tŕň (thorn), kĺb (joint). Other than the rhythmic shortening, Slovak also has a very extensive list of special words we call vybrané mená (lit. selected words). You see, in Slovak, the i and y vowels are read the same phonetically as /i/, but they have very distinct (and very annoying) grammatical role in words. They are called the the ‘soft i’ and the ‘hard y’. The soft i, if placed after a hard consonant (d,t,n,l), causes the consonant to soften. This is done in order to avoid writing too many unnecessary soft marks ◌̆. Additionally, the vowel e also works as a softener. De, te, ne, le, di, ti, ni, li would be pronounced /ďe, ťe, ňe, ľe, ďi, ťi, ňi, ľi/. For the record, seeing it written this is generally an eyesore and generally a very hard faux pas when it comes to standard Slovak writing. How does this connect to the selected words? Well, they are words which are specifically written with the hard y, and I’ve heard they are remnants from the past, so generally very old slavic words that simply had to be denounced into this category in order to preserve their original pronunciation. Examples: bylina (herb), umyť (to wash), rytier (knight) There’s lots of stuff I’m omitting, because Slovak grammar is giving everyone, including middle schoolers and middle aged mothers on Facebook very real nightmares, but that is the gist of it. Hope you liked my infodumping, and if not… well, just be happy you don’t have to learn Slovak in Slovak primary schools. Yeesh. I am still traumatised.

[@marelsheesh5618]

som Slovak ale po slovensky neznam.rozlisit dva a dve je pre mna nemozne ale matura bola za 1 taze pohodaaa

[@hors3g1rl94]

@@marelsheesh5618 ''neznam'' je skor polske slovo ako slovenske, radsej povedz ''neviem'', ale az na to s tebou plne suhlasim xD

[@kevinio]

How does slovak eastern dialect compare with its own language and other languages influenced by?

[@DEMONRaziel]

@@kevinio The "eastern" dialect is a collection of dialects - there are actually 6 slightly different ones - Abov, Gemer, Saris, Spis, Horny (upper) and Dolny (lower) Zemplin. All of these have some, sometimes significant, distinctions and they are influenced by different languanges (i.e. Hungarian, German, Ukrainian, or Polish). There are some minor distinctions even within regions from town to town, but long story short - some words are vastly different to the point of being illegible to the native Slovak speaker who is not at all familiar with the given dialect. That being said, the western dialects are also diverging from the proper Slovakian, but they tend to be more alike Czech or Polish and thus are more legible to the official language. The official language is based on the Central Slovak dialect, so the dialect used in this region is heavily overlapping with the proper/official language by default (again, there are distinctions between regions and even towns, but they are significantly less pronounced in the central retions, than with the eastern/western dialects).

[@Saberu_o_oppai_de_momu]

beka z ciebie

[@IridescentTea]

For Slovak language you may add letters as "ô" which a believe is pretty unique and when compared do some other slavic languages, also "ä". There's also a rhythmic law/rule meaning two long syllables cannot occur consecutively (which includes also those with ia/ie/iu/ô ) although there are minor exceptions here and there, ofc. That's just from the top of my head, I may add some more, if I remember to :)

[@881terror]

and Slovak language have longest alphabet

[@matezz397]

He didn't really make his homework for Slovak language. And I'm even ignoring his claim that Slovak and Czech were considered to be the same language.

[@ShyGoldfish966]

It was pretty annoying to hear him pretty much say that Slovak and Czech are completely same and completely left out everything. There are many differences which makes Slovak language different and wonderful in it's own way just like for any other language, I can't see why he ignored it but whatever. 😄

[@DodoLP]

I agree, he definitely didnt make his "homework" on Slovak langage

[@skifisk]

also these: ď ť ň ľ ;)

[@mrsmartypants4541]

There is no greater comedy for a Pole than listening to Czechs. It's like watching toddlers continually hurl obscenities in diminutives at each other

[@boki4258]

As a Montenegrin, you did a very good job explaining the fundamentals of Serbo-Croatian!❤

[@sviatoslavstock]

I speak Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, hence I lived in Slovakia using mix of them to communicate with people, who don't speak English. Worked really well. I just said the same word in a different language, hoping it would resemble the same meaning in Slovak. I remember word "paradajki" - tomatoes, which totally differ from any known by me language. Hence, yes, it is true, knowing 1 or several you can understand and read in others. For me personally, Belorussian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Slovak are the easiest one to understand and Slovenian is the hardest one.

[@pavlekovacevic1676]

@@HeroManNick132 croatian, bosnian and montenegrin are serbian

[@sviatoslavstock]

@@HeroManNick132 absolutely agree, maybe I just never actually saw them, as I never been in balcan country outside of eu

[@ruedigernassauer]

In Austrian German that´s "Paradeiser" for tomato. I am from Germany but I know that word. I just do not know if it is still very much used in Austria who speak their German language very close to ours.

[@sviatoslavstock]

@@ruedigernassauer, I was told it when I was in Bratislava this summer. I don't know if it's used, but it was probably influenced by German, as they were in the same country 110 years ago. for me it's crazy that Lviv in Ukraine and Milano in Italy were part of one country a few generations ago, cannot get it.

[@apxah9727]

А ты русскоязычный чи как?

[@Nick-us8qh]

As a Slavic person natively speaking the Bulgarian language and trying to master Old Church Slavonic, some real good stuff man 😎

[@vergesserforgetter2160]

That can be pretty hard, the change from Old Church Slavonic to Modern Bulgarian is unseen in any other Slavic language. lmao it was the fault of that Bulgar-Slayer, many Greek features (like Definite Article) started pouring in. If I ever learn Russian well enough I would like to see how it would feel to learn a Slavic language without the case torture honestly

[@waldemarwojnicki6781]

Is there "Dual Number" in OCS ?? And if so - is it only in Nouns (and adjectives) and Numerals - or in Verbs too (conjugation person/number/gender/time) ??

[@Nick-us8qh]

@@waldemarwojnicki6781 Yes, both in nouns and verbs.

[@bojanstare8667]

@@Nick-us8qh So Slovene language is present OCS. Even Bulgarian student told me, that we speak as Bulgarian iun middle ages - OCs maybe?

[@zaynesvarovsky2201]

After the first Russian state, the Kievan Rus', got destroyed by the Mongols, Western Rus' was colonized by the Poles and they forced Polonozation onto the languages of Western Rus', that later developed into modern day Belarusian and Ukrainian. While the language in Eastern and Northen Rus' (modern day Russian) continued its development with a heavy Old Church Slavonic influence. So Bulgarian and Russian have preserved their OCS origins.

[@marynakrautsova8642]

I'm native speaker of Belarusian and Russian, and I speak Czech as well. That's a great video, and I really appreciate the work done by the author. It must have taken an effort, and the result is impressive. I was fascinated by it and recommended to my friends who study linguistics. I would like to add about Belarussian that we have a unique among Slavic languages semiconsonant 'ў' pronounced like 'w' in "cow", which is often used instead of 'л' or 'в' in similar words in Russian, e.g. воўк - волк (wolf), леў - лев (lion).

[@marynakrautsova8642]

@@HeroManNick132 If Slovaks don't speak too fast, yes))) Slovak language has much more similar words to Belorussian than Czech and Belorussian/Russian

[@leeenko7978]

не сказав би, що це унікальна риса білоруської, в українській аналогічно В та У перед приголосною та у кінці слова вимовляється як ў. (у більшости говірках і перед О та І, тобто вода та вітер читалась як ўода та ўітер). Темне Л також перейшло у "ў", пишеться вовк та лев - читається воўк та леў.

[@EtherealSunset]

This is really interesting. Having heard and read bits of all of the West Slavic languages and had a little look at Slovenian, it was interesting to see and hear the similarities and differences. This has gone into so much wonderful detail and has far more languages than I'd compared. It's fascinating.

[@AhimtarHoN]

The ending at 19:09 is funny since both Czech and Slovak have Čau and Zbohom (Sbohem in Czech). However "čau" means "bye", while "zbohom" means "farewell", so it seems like you are telling us a casual goodbye followed up by "we'll never talk to you again" :D

[@petrfedor1851]

And more literal translation of sbohem is "with God"

[@volkhen0]

Do you really say „z bogiem” in the most atheistic country in the world?

[@dvome]

@@volkhen0 Yeah, it is becoming less usuall, but even I as atheist sometimes use it.

[@AhimtarHoN]

​@@volkhen0 It lost most of it's religious connotation. There are multiple words like this, e.g. chvalabohu "thank god", preboha "oh god", bohužiaľ "godsadly"(?)...

[@cazb73]

@@volkhen0 we are saying Proboha (for the God,) Ježíšikriste (oh, Jesus) a Šmarjápanno (shortened Jesus & Maria virgin) too. Cultural relict... ;)

[@torontoboy8162]

As a Russian native-speaker, I'd like to add that in addition to French borrowings, we have many words from German. Byustgalter (Büstenhalter), Bukhgalter (Buchhalter), Galstuk (Halstuch), Parikmakher (Parückmacher = Friseur), Schlagbaum, Buterbrod (Butterbrot), Lager' (Lager), verstak (Werkstatt), lozung (Losung), soldat (Soldat), shtraf (Strafe), Kurort (Kurort) etc. It happened to us because of the Empress Yekaterina II who was from Germany and encouraged German immigration to Russia. In fact, Germans was a significant ethnic minority in USSR. After its demolition they were enabled to leave for Germany and a lot of them did. But their presence is still reflected in our language. Thank you for video!

[@xyxoxy]

На самом деле из-за революции в России и появилась неприязнь Германии к России, потому что в то время в царской семье было весьма много людей с немецкими корнями из-за развитых связей с Европой со времен Петра 1 и как раз таки любви к Германии у Екатерины 2, можно сказать во времена ее правления почти все строительство жилого и культурного сектора было направлено на привлечение германцев к жизни в России.

[@neko2718_]

Картофель - Kartoffel

[@mordegardglezgorv2216]

Недавно узнал, что "ярмарка" тоже немецкое, хотя в массовом сознании связано со стародавними временами

[@Dulya_with_poppy]

@@manman7985 социологический опрос как то раз показал, что русских не любят больше всего болгары и шведы. Почему вы македонцев обзываете руськами и что это значит? То, что "кириллицу" придумали болгары является церковной фальсификацией.

[@alh6255]

You also have hundreds of Polish words (massive borrowings of the 17th and 18th centuries), and what's more, you also borrowed many German, French and Latin words through Polish (among other things, because no literature or scientific works were published until the times of Peter the Great in Russian, and instead, books published in Poland were read in Russia.

[@ElectroDragon777]

That video is something I didn't expect to see! And I like it! As a Bulgarian, thank you for making this and also showing our flag! And best of luck for others who want to learn our language!

[@thamirivonjaahri6378]

Fun fact: If you recall Life of Bryan, there is scene, where he improperly writes "Romanes, eunt domus" on the wall and is punished by passing centurion to correct it to "Romani, ite domum", which sounds extremely similar to Slavic version of the phrase. Czechs would say "Římané, jděte domů"

[@agentm6644]

10:30 You made a mistake, Czechia has been landlocked until 2022 with Královec

[@boomblebee]

Just a heads up, there's a mistake in the slovenian part of the video. It says that "uho" means "eye" when it actually means "ear". Eye would be "oko", so I can definitely see how that got mixed up.

[@42carlos]

It's the exact samo in Bulgarian, turns out these languages are way more similar than I thought

[@kj134]

Pa res. Še sam nisem opazil, pa sem zelo pozorno spremljal drsnice… natančno oko imaš😉

[@keiralum1797]

Almost international words for slavic people :))

[@danielekvitka9348]

And almost same in ukrainian (vuho- ear, оko- eye)

[@oklap8478]

Ear is in Slovak Ucho And eye is the same Slavic languages are very similiar

[@Follower_of_Christ751]

Im sorbian and very thankfull that you included us!

[@Nympje]

I feel Sorbian is sadly not known well enough within Germany. I only learned about it’s existence in my early 20s. I think one should be told about it’s existence in school (and preferably a bit more than that)!

[@marcelocortez3312]

I speak Spanish natively, but I like so much slavic culture. To me it's interesting in both negative and positive sides. I'm trying to learn russian nowadays. I hope someday I could visit at least one slavic country in my life. Я люблю русский❤ Greetings from El Salvador!

[@nobodyburgen4594]

@@HeroManNick132"You think the most spoken language will help you? Why not a language no one speaks natively?"

[@Quareque]

​@@HeroManNick132To whom slovak is more comprehensive than russian? To polish?

[@anonymoususer2489]

​@@HeroManNick132take your pills🤡 Russians speak Russian

[@rheiagreenland4714]

I'm pretty sure learning Esperanto is not the first thing that comes to mind for someone wanting to visit Europe

[@frostflower5555]

fun fact: there were lots of Slavic slaves brought to Spain so maybe that's why you have some feeling towards it :)

[@beister7278]

"Ne" and "Не" working pretty same in every slavic language, you can use almost for every word in sentences, but there are differencies in writing like Czech writes it together "nebudu" and for example russian writes "не буду", meaning same

[@korana6308]

In Russian language you can ignore for the most part those separations. As there is almost no distinction between those variants (only in grammatical sense), just a specific grammatical rule which gives more flexibility to mean a specific thing in a written sentence. i. e. you can construct a perfectly legal Russian word like "nebuduvshik" meaning someone who always says "ne budu" or even "Nebudka", there's one word that actually exists like "nezabudka" ( ne - za - bud - ka), which is a name of a flower which translates to "not forgettable" and that name has been used in classical literature quite often. You can write "небуду" - "nebudu" in Russian together , and everyone would understand it's meaning in a sentence. But it would just be grammatically incorrect.

[@volkhen0]

Nie będzie, nie będę ;)

[@user-wi8we1xu9c]

@@volkhen0, hey, bro. Could you tell me, please: how do negative sentences work in Polish? Like, an english sentence "I've never been to there" translates into a russian one as "Ja nikogda nie byl tam" literally "I've never not been to there". Is it the same story to your language?

[@volkhen0]

@@user-wi8we1xu9c in Polish it’s “Nigdy tam nie byłem” which translates directly to “Never there no was”. We skip “ja” as it’s obvious from the ending of “byłem” that it’s about yourself. You can add „ja” in the beginning to emphasize that You wasn’t there in the answer to someone who says “I was there” and ask’s you: “and you?”.

[@volkhen0]

Generally you just add “nie” before the verb.

[@sleepycatverysleepy]

Idk why but when Slavic languages get some attention I become so happy :D Such a cool video❤

[@kvg7518]

Maybe because you are a slav?

[@user-vx7ff3pp3u]

Аз не знам нищо. БГ

[@artyomkovalenko]

Русских субтитров не было, поэтому я как истинный любитель хардкора включил украинские и начал переводить и с украинского и с английского языков однавременно.

[@lred1383]

Выбор поистине просвещённого ценителя славянской лингвистики

[@slaviansky]

@semen semenov Пойду попью кумыса и попрактикую горловое пение. Спасибо что напомнил!

[@Anddriiyy]

@@slaviansky Ну як похлебав трохи, прийнявся до коренів?) Є в мене на роботі один фіно-угр самий натуральний, з Урала, так він по нашому краще шпрехає, чим росіяни по своєму.

[@acetomi]

@semen semenov но русский язык является частью именно восточно-славянской языковой группы (финно-угорские языки и тюркские относятся не просто к другим группам, но целым иным языковым семьям.) русский - 100% славянский язык с некоторым влиянием тюркских и финно-угорских языков, но все еще славянский. что касается национальности, тут уже немного другой вопрос

[@erynn9968]

@semensemenov9400 а кто-то спрашивал, славяне ли россияне? И камент, и видео совсем на другую тему.

[@Humble_Electronic_Musician]

This is very information dense video! Love it, very well done!

[@calopsitarevoltada6109]

OH MY FELLOW!! This video REALLY WAS SOMETHING!! You really tried to do many of the sounds here. That was impressive! And the editing to put an audio of some of the sounds was so fluid!! And this is just a silly thought, but I couldn't keep myself from pausing the video everytime I wanted to see a bit more of detail in each new screen. GREAT VIDEO!!!

[@osasunaitor]

Don't worry, you are not alone. I paused and rewinded like 50 times

[@8o86]

3:08 "Speakers of one language can often get a gist of a conversation spoken in another language." Czech/Slovak speaker here. In case of Polish, what we get is the full conversation plus something extra.

[@AnnaEmilka]

I'm Polish and can confirm it's similar the other way round. We might not understand all, but we know what is going on and it sounds very funny to us 😂

[@krxsmy]

@@AnnaEmilka we also think your word for "finding" is funny

[@AnnaEmilka]

@@krxsmy oh yes I know

[@bendr251]

@@krxsmy Szukamy dzieci w sklepie ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@0NeeN0]

@@wolframxx5580 You've got some? I'd be more than happy to help you ;) haha

[@Crumbieecake]

Serb here, all of this is really long and difficult but 100% accurate! Youre an country and language expert! XD Imaj dobar dan, or in translatiion, have a good day!

[@dalubwikaan161]

I support your channel. I really appreciate your sharing your info with us about linguistics. :D

[@AlexEEZ]

hi as a bulgarian, thank you for complimenting our flag, I agree it looks pretty nice and I'm proud to live in the country that uses it :)

[@dangermanq7]

macedonia better

[@AlexEEZ]

@@dangermanq7 when did I ever mention macedonia mate

[@dangermanq7]

@@AlexEEZ i mean you mentioned bulgaria (which we owned)

[@AlexEEZ]

@@dangermanq7 why do you gotta start this for literally no reason at all when you could've easily just minded your own business I didn't say anything negative about macedonia to begin with, the whole "macedonia used to "own" bulgaria" is a-whole-nother story which I honestly don't care about

[@AlexEEZ]

@@dangermanq7 I appreciate your country as much as any other, I'm just proud to live in my own.

[@user-xg9yg8kg7i]

There was also a very interesting Polаbian language in what is now northern Germany. This language died out in the 19th century, but a lot of information about it remains. It had a lot of German borrowings and sounds and it sounded very interesting.

[@ummelofilo9642]

Do you mean Sorbian?

[@Literallyunabletothink]

@@ummelofilo9642 I think he means Polabian or Slovincian language

[@user-xg9yg8kg7i]

@@ummelofilo9642 No I'm talking about the polabian language

[@ummelofilo9642]

@@user-xg9yg8kg7i I see.

[@maciejn5920]

Polabian was not Polish. It was closer to Sorbian than Polish.

[@hashcosmos2181]

Great video, this channel has got my respect 💪

[@InternetTaliban]

Great video dude! And as a native bulgarian i can agree with ur statement here 16:08 and "казах" is the completed action of "I said' 2:16

[@vetrenyy]

I don't know why, but I just become so happy every time slavic languages get attention and their time to shine! I'm russian myself, I don't have any problem understanding ukrainian most of the time, little less I understand belorusian. The next i'd say would be serbo-croatian, but all the others sound unfamiliar, especially czech. Czech sounds so beautiful, I'd say it's the prettiest slavic language, but I can't understand a word they say

[@keiralum1797]

I was so surprised and amased when found out Inter-slavic language - all slavic people understand 90% of it!

[@vikinggeorge7007]

@@keiralum1797 I understand 100% of it but oh well. I'm Bulgarian so that's obvious. Also Russian people should theoretically have no problems understanding Bulgarian at almost 100%, and vice versa. Excluding false friends like гора-лес (Bulgarian also has лес, but it's so to say obsolete) and гора-планина (yep, very different word). But generally speaking, they are 95% intelligible. Except Russian is a little easier to learn. Not so much because our verb system is hard but okay, Russian has less exceptions than Bulgarian (in general). Also we haven't truly lost our cases. You can see remants of the genitive case in our father's names and last names, as well as other words that we consider "adjectives". We still have all the other 5 cases. But they're called adjectives because not every single word keeps them. Just see how many exceptions we have. You're gonna feel even worse. :D

[@times4937]

Russian seems to be a low dynamic, "phlegmatic" language, unlike fast Western or South Slavic languages, its dynamics resembles Orthodox Church songs.

[@ngrey5092]

As Serbian, i can say that Slovakian is very easy to read, and just little harder to listen, Polish is not understandable to me, and Russian is around 50% that I understand. South slavic languages are all very similar and if you know older versions of Serbian, pre communistic Yougoslavian reformes to flaten the differences between Serbian and Croatian dialects you can very easy understand Bulgarian and Macedonaian. If you grow as spoled city dweller using flat accentuation and slang, you will hav no idea what people are saying if you move 100km away from your city.

[@Pietelt]

For poles it’s understanding czech, but that’s it

[@zuzkas99]

"saying ahoj like pirates" got me! xD (Not landlocked anymore, we held referendum - Královec is Czech now)

[@iAdam43]

and Madagascar is Slovakia :D

[@pliedtka]

And ruski soldat gets the washing machine

[@bojanpalink5471]

@@pliedtka share some more stupid Polish wisdom with us

[@aleksandrawojtowicz6069]

Kralovec for Czechia! Love from Poland!

[@iAdam43]

@@aleksandrawojtowicz6069 and Madagascar for Slovakia :D

[@justendmenow2947]

Здрасти! Thanks for making this video, it was really informative. As somebody from Bulgaria, i can say that a lot of people(including me prior to watching the video) thought that Macedonian is just a dialect of Bulgarian. Thanks for proving me wrong :D

[@daniellukov]

It is a dialect, don't believe him!!!

[@socialistrepublicofmacedon129]

It's not a dialect. It's a language. If Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and even Montenegrin can be called separate languages (which are all the same language with little to no difference between each other), why can't Macedonian be? Shut up with that irredentist view and recognize Macedonian as a separate language already. You'll never make our language to be "a dialect of Bugarian".

[@stellador]

Thanks for this vid! Must have taken ages to research and to make! On a related note, have you heard about "Burgenlandkroatisch", a variety of Croatian spoken in Austria, close to the Hungarian border?

[@eldnsay]

I'm a native Slovenian speaker, found this video by chance. I'm not a huge fan of languages, but maaaan, this is so in depth, you clearly put so much work into this I cannot even comprehend the scale. Amazing job! I can't say I understood everything, I don't even know how I can use what I saw today irl. Maybe I'll revisit this someday. It's also interesting to hear the English translations for our languages's particularities. For the one part I understood... you need to work on better translations, "uho" in Slovenian is ear, not eye XD

[@GTrivia]

In Czech we have the same word, just pronounced "ucho" = uho ("Ch" Vs Slovenian "H") Joke: in Czechia we eat a tons of sauces with meats and dumplings. At primary school, they try to save on money UHO = *Univerzální hnědá omáčka" Universal brown sauce = generic = tastes the same as any other 😅

[@makaqsas3373]

@Andraz Sturm nevem

[@jeyzeus]

@Andraz Sturm uho in oko lahko nekomu, ki ni native speaker, zvenita precej podobno.

[@notglory5876]

Čist res in a je sam men Mal čudn da se lahko po slovensko pogovarjamo k ns ostali ne zastopajo XD ampak pol je pa ta gumb nakonc komentarja 'translate to english' 😅 😅 adijo moji frendi

[@smieszny_fan]

In Polish "ucho" is ear

[@user-vk2gz2dl9p]

Awesome video! That's really surprising how much I didn't know about my own language! Some corrections for the russian part: 4:25 "Стой" rarely means "Stand!' and it usually means something like "Stop!" 4:47 Prepositional and locative cases are basically the same, or at least I haven't ever heard people distinguishing between them 4:50 Present tense transcription is a bit of a mess, it's more like "ja - lutšaja učenica v svojom klasse" Also worth noting that the letters я, е, ю, ё don't make the j sound most of the time (they only do so after other vowels, at the beginning of a word and after ъ and ь) The quality of the video is really fascinating, you definitely deserve way more subs

[@craftah]

btw "svojom" is actually pronounced "svajom"

[@Spellweaver5]

"Стой" can be properly translated as "halt".

[@jodypalm303]

"Stand" would be either Вы стоят or ты стоишь, yes?

[@Spellweaver5]

@@jodypalm303 I stand - я стою. You stand - ты стоишь/вы стоите. He/she stands - он/она стоит. They stand - они стоят. We stand - мы стоим. To stand - стоять. Stand (imperative) - "стой"/"стоять".

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Id argue stoj even means stay more often than stand. I mean I had never heard it used as stand.

[@MihaelSpicko]

Native croatian speaker here: the only time I've heard past imperfect and aorist was in school some decades ago. Even the pluperfect you mention as not being in use anymore is in fact used way more than the other two tenses. Thank you for making this video! :)

[@shoutplenty]

in native serbian in my experience, pluperfect is quite common, aorist occasional and past imperfect dead

[@JoCaTen]

Fluent Russian speaker here who is trying to learn more Slavic languages. Currently studying Polish as it seems fascinating. This video helped me see where i should focus on each language.

[@JTCloud]

How do you find learning the pronunciation of the Polish language? I'm also a fluent Russian speaker and I find the pronunciation of the Polish language quite tricky.

[@JoCaTen]

@@JTCloud just watch videos

[@Kaiodenic]

@@JTCloud I apologise on the behalf of the Polish! We randomly changed some pr->pž->pš, ó->u, ł([ɫ])->ł([w]), and made our š/č/ž/ś/ć/ź all one step heavier and I hear they can be quite awkward now esp for speakers of our close Eastern cousin-languages. Best of luck in learning them!

[@hachman1972]

Great vid! I learned a lot as a speaker of ser-cro, I know how hard it can be to talk about our language :)

[@Schody_lol]

East Slavic 3:50 Russian 5:55 Ukrainian 7:03 Rusyn 7:41 Belarusian West Slavic 8:30 Polish 9:40 Silesian 18:00 Kashubian 10:19 Czech 11:45 Slovak 18:20 Sorbian South Slavic 12:29 Slovene 13:27 Serbo-Croatian 14:58 Bulgarian 16:19 Macedonian 17:21 Old Church Slavonic 17:52 Church Slavonic

[@yamisa8059]

Дзякуй

[@Schody_lol]

@@yamisa8059 Proszę

[@wizardite]

OCS and modern neomuscovite CS both belong in the south slavic category btw

[@Schody_lol]

@@wizardite thanks, now I edited it.

[@HibikiKano]

Edit: somehow my comment fell under the wrong comment. Fixing that now.

[@mirko_charm5992]

YAY someone made a thing about us also thank you for remembering us we're such a big community but we're never discussed

[@Teiws88]

Thank you for including Silesian 😊

[@cryptic2121]

I’m glad you took time to see all our amazing languages! Greetings from Bulgaria ;))

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Your language is the worst. How could you abandon noun conjugation?!

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

@@HeroManNick132 So you did abandon them, pesants.

[@radinaatanasova]

@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 so what? Our language isn't less Slavic than other Slavic tongues. It makes it a bit more simple to learn, doesn't it?

[@_averageenjoyer_]

@@radinaatanasova honestly all the better. I have hard time even with the modern version

[@radinaatanasova]

And where are you from? If you're Bulgarian, I'd understand your struggles, my grammar is under every critique as we here say xddd

[@chabr1783]

As a czech i found a old lady in Slovakia she was speaking rusyn and i understood everything rusyn is pretty straightforward for a czech or slovak or at least for me😂

[@jedowampo5431]

For Ukrainians, Rusyn sounds like the Ukrainian language, but with Slovak and Czech borrowings, to fully understand Rusyn it is enough to be a Ukrainian who has learned Czech

[@craftah]

maybe she wasnt speaking full rusyn? ive heard rusyn and couldn't understand much

[@user-kh6lb4xf6v]

@@craftah that is very probably, because many (if not most) of old people in Slovakia who claim to speak Rusyn speak just some eastern Slovak dialect (usually Šariš one) or speak Slovak with Rusyn words...but they usually don't actually speak the proper codified version of the language

[@letsgo9574]

@@user-kh6lb4xf6v is the proper cofidied version even spoken by someone ? also i would say they speak more like Rusyn with Slovak words, not vice-versa.

[@user-kh6lb4xf6v]

@@letsgo9574 yes it is, but not by the majority of Rusyn speakers, considering the time of codification and the amount of Rusyn schools and media, but let's hope it will change for the better in future :) and both things (Slovak with Rusyn words, Rusyn with Slovak words) are frequent, yes (sometimes it's hard to tell which is which).

[@citychris3215]

Fantastic video! Would you ever consider making a video on Baltic languages?

[@sakesaurus1706]

Very good informative video. There's so much interesting parts in Slavic People's history. We're living through one of them as well I guess. All parts of history are interesting.

[@tsartomato]

nah it's not slavic it's personal from one senile grandpa as you just saw if CIA will kill him today, tomorrow the entire population will just live as nothing happened

[@MagmaskyBG]

Very cool video, learning the history of slavic languages and why some words are different in other languages really makes it easier to further understand the languages. Thank you very much for making it, greetings from Bulgaria 🇧🇬

[@kasiaisfine]

Great vid! I loved it and thanks to it I found out about a lot of tiny features I haven't heard of before. Greetings from Poland 😉

[@innawoods22]

Great stuff. Could you do something on one of the caucasian languages or language families?

[@darkenzie_3747]

Love this video it's very educational and professional

[@sofyaoshchepkova3259]

“I’m sorry if I caused any trauma for learners of Russian to resurface” HOW DID YOU KNOW !? I’m a native Russian speaker who lives in a Scandinavian country, talking with this stuff wasn’t that hard ( though mistakes are made here and there) but WRITING…….. learning to write was hella traumatizing……especially when you start late (due to focusing on another language)…… remembering that time still makes me want to lay in the fetal position and cry.

[@korana6308]

For a slavic person its not that hard to learn Russian

[@keiralum1797]

But you train your brain and will never have a dementia ;)

[@brashka8452]

Totally agree on that one. Oral 😌. Written 😨. Coming from a Scandinavian russian speaker

[@daselsdis653]

This makes me wonder how would this look with latin languages, great video, very informative, I'm trying to learn russian, and this showcases a lot of stuff I needed

[@IllidanS4]

One feature in Czech that I feel is pretty unique is the i/y distinction in orthography. While these two letters are pronounced exactly the same (when alone, otherwise i palatalizes the preceding consonant if it is within a particular set of "hard" consonants, unlike y), there are, for what can be only described as historical reasons, rules when to write one and when to write another, which were formed during the national revival but are actually pretty logical (as opposed to what was used before that). The only issue is the set of exceptions where it is written in a way that reflects the etymology but has to be learnt. I would definitely love to hear from other languages if there is something similar.

[@MatthewTheRealOldMan]

Nice video, very good

[@patrykpllp]

A complex and informative guide to slavic languages. I love this video! This is literally something I was looking for

[@jakubr4634]

Slovak speaker here. Thank you for the well-made video (although the speed and amount of information is quite overwhelming). I'd say the diphthong "ô" is pretty characteristic of Slovak, as well as the crazy perfective/imperfective verb aspects. Also, I appreciate you calling the language "Slovak" instead of "Slovakian" which I often hear from some people.

[@kiziamizia]

fajny filmik, dobra robota

[@MMMM-ki9oi]

Only Slavs can understand the following sentence: "Can you please translate me to the second page of the street."

[@tsartomato]

it hurt

[@MuKeXa]

Сторону(side), а не сторінку(page)

[@Roerkert]

Not by 100%, but somehow it works the same way in german, at least the part with the "page"

[@educat1on166]

as a slav, i find western languages very simple, like in english imperative is the same as infinitive, the words dont have tens of forms of how you can use them in sentences

[@osasunaitor]

As a learner of Russian and Polish and general enthusiast of Slavic stuff, I got to say that this video addressed most of the issues I found with each specific Slavic language when travelling or learning them. What a great summary and with a touch of humour, I admit I was pausing it every few seconds to read the examples on the screen haha

[@bojanstare8667]

You should keep to try itt deeper. That it is just schratch on the surface. You are welcome in Slavic world.

[@osasunaitor]

@@bojanstare8667 thank you my dude

[@bojanstare8667]

@@osasunaitor You are welcome any time.

[@cimbalok2972]

An interesting project would be to list words in the Romanian language that have Slavic roots. I speak Slovak and Polish (and can fake my way through Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian) but when I was learning Romanian I was amazed to discover that I understood the words with Slavic roots (dragoste, slab, treaba, etc.) but had to look up most of the ones with Latin roots. Romanian also has words derived from Dacian, an ancient language that was extinct by the 4th C AD. Thank you for posting.

[@lucasbatista1453]

I was not prepared to suddenly hear a person choking at 6:00. 😂😂😂😂

[@somesymbols371]

The one thing you forgot to mention from Ukrainian is the rule of simplification in groups of consonants: [s t n] simplified to [s n], [s t l] to [s l], [z k n] and [s k n] to [z n] and [s n], [sh ch k] to [sh k]. Also there’s some exclusion like “shistnadtsyat’”(sixteen) where “t” remained in writing, but not in pronouncing and some like “kistlyavyy” (bony) where we write and pronounce “t”. Also in some words d, t or r can get simplified. Another fact, this rule exist just in Ukrainian.

[@OrkosUA]

@@kjererrrt2381 wow, here you are again with your "Ukrainian artificial" bullshit. Not bored yet?

[@VicenteChenHolaatodos]

I still remember the last time I was sitting on a mini van in Chiangmai, north Thailand, people beside me seemed came from one of the Slavic country, and also I heard some words that seemed to be Polish. After they passed the form to me for the accident insurance, I was quite happy to find out that their nationality was really “Poland”. This lead to some small talk, and while they said they came from Warsaw, I blurted out “Warszawa” in Polish pronunciation which a big smile, but instantly freaked out those four people who came from their capital😅 It turned to a nice trip, and they even let me try to pronounce their name printed on IC for a small quiz haha. Language exchange is always interesting, there’s always chances to meet someone who you can chat with by using the familiar language to you.

[@user-ps4bg7wq6i]

Hello from Bulgaria 🇧🇬 🌹! Peace ☮️

[@EnneoLeo]

As a Serbo-Montenegrin, I think there's more simple versions for the Serbo-Croatian examples you've showed. My point being with a sentence mentioned: "Otvoriću vrata", this is both said in the same meaning as Future I and Future II in the Future I example can be the same but not with the same meaning. (I've dealt with people that think it is different with different spelling, it is mostly not), but anywho, thanks for telling about the Slavic Languages! This video is very cool.

[@Omnigreen]

Greatest video! You have my subscription! Hope to see more about slavic languages.

[@2712animefreak]

As a native speaker of Croatian, I think that the pluperfect is used more than the aorist or imperfect. All of these can be (and usually are) replaced with the normal past tense. Pluperfect is used only in some compound sentences when it is necessary to distinguish a specific meaning from the set of meanings simple past tense can convey. The aorist is used in some semi-fixed phrases, usually to imply the finality of the action and the imperfect is just straight up dead. Usage of aorist and imperfect tenses is considered "stylistically marked". For the vocabulary differences between standard Croatian and other standards, Croatian went through several linguistic purism movements over the last 150-ish years, which reflects in the vocabulary. In most cases where the vocabulary differs, you will see that Croatian has a word made of Slavic roots (sometimes a neologism, sometimes not), where as Serbian and the others will use a loanword, like in the examples for "carrot" and "history" in the video.

[@majdavojnikovic]

that's usually the best part of Croatian language even during 90ties it tended to go to far. last Croatian word I heard, "sebić" for selfie, i love it :)

[@djdjukic]

I would like to confirm the statement about pluperfect, aorist and imperfect tenses as being true for standard Serbian. Also, there is sometimes a distinction in Serbian between the common word, such as šargarepa (carrot) being a loanword (in this case, from Hungarian) and the synonym predominantly used in scientific register (in this instance, the science being botany - and the word being mrkva). Those scientific words are often identical to standard Croatian or similar to Croatian-style neologisms. Other such examples are mushroom (Sr. pečurka/Cr. and Sr. formal gljiva), aircraft (Cr. zrakoplov, Sr. formal vazduhoplov - the common variant being the more narrow in meaning avion-airplane).

[@fapmashina1]

All very true!

[@2712animefreak]

@@majdavojnikovic I wish YT would notify me of replies to my comments. My favourites are "osjećajnik" (emoji) and "susramlje" (cringe (noun)).

[@half_plastic2367]

​@@2712animefreakhej, izazor *mic drop* 😂😂

[@generalfishcake]

As a Bulgarian, I am incredibly impressed by this video. What an effort!

[@mr__coyote3061]

As a native Bulgarian speaker it looks the least scary to me :D I also like to find parallels with English very often (makes it very easy). In a strange way there are a lot, but sometimes "in reverse", if this makes any sense :D

[@markusmiekk-oja3717]

Wow, an informative video about the slavic languages that actually mentions *all* the living slavic languages and not just those who are national languages! Kudos!

[@breznik1197]

"Nation" or "language" are very relative and fuzzy terms. There are no strict criteria for considering a dialect as a separate language or an ethnicity as a separate nation, and even if a nation or language has a clear identity, it is difficult to determine what else belongs to them and what does not.

[@ExpertCobra-tn1vt]

You should do a video on indo aryan languages. Kind of interesting how similar they all are IMO I say this because your video quality is absolutely amazing and I’d love to see the language family of the language that my parents speak be closely analyzed. I actually lied, make videos on whatever you want. But I will say that most indo aryan languages are mutually intelligible and there’s a lot of vocab borrowing from so many different languages.

[@JohanNoahMaxwell]

Great video! Although, it is important to clarify that palatalization is not about prosthetic intervention but rather about iotation and phoneme articulaton.

[@AdrianKramarzyk]

awesome job.