Questions tagged [slavic-languages]
Subgroup of the Indo-European languages, spoken in Eastern and Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Northern part of Asia.
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Was Old Church Slavonic more Greek/Thracian then actually Slavic and can Proto-Slavic be considered a languge from Indo-European family?
First of all, thank you for reading this question. While checking some proposed restorations of Indo-European words, I noticed that for Slavic words the Old Church Slavonic is used. I've searched some ...
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Why is "knife" in Ukrainian different from other Slavic languages?
I saw this image on reddit, and it made me wonder why the way Ukrainians say "knife" is different from all other Slavic languages?
Is this part of a more general trend ("i" ...
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Did Russian Peasant dialect(s) significantly differ from the "mainstream" Russian?
Richard Pipes in The Russian Revolution remarks:
The peasantry was hardly affected by the westernization which had transformed Russia's elite into Europeans, and in its culture remained loyal to ...
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čьrnъ > czarny, čьrvenъ > czervony (Polish)
According to Wiktionary, Polish czarny is from PSl *čьrnъ, and czervony is from *čьrvenъ. At least prima facie the soft yers appears to have become different vowels in Polish.
I'm aware of the ...
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What sound does the character 'u' in the Proto-Slavic word *bura (storm) represent?
Derksen reconstructs the Proto-Slavic word for "storm" as *bura:
Which sound does 'u' represent here? As far as I know, Proto-Slavic /u:/ (known as "jeri" in Croatian literature, &...
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Is Russian the most diverged Slavic language? [closed]
Does the Russian language have more innovations and divergent development from other languages in the Slavic branch?
I am asking, because I always had the feeling, that the tense and pronunciation in ...
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Is there a Slavic equivalent of the Greek and Latin semantic transfer from "chest/vault" to "treasure", like θησαυρός/thesaurus?
I was looking at the etymology of the Romanian word comoară ("treasure", "hoard", "pile of precious things") and it seems based on the widespread Slavic form komora, ...
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At some point, was г/Г pronounced in Russian like it still is in Ukrainian (somewhat akin to h/H in hotel, i.e. /h/)? Or is it purely regional?
Recently, with a few colleagues moving into our office from Russia, we have a new resident colleague with the first name Герман. Now, being German native speaker, my assumption was that the name ...
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Perfective-imperfective aspectual system
I'm reading Dahl's article on aspect where it says that some of the major aspectual types are 1) progressive 2) habitual 3) completive 4) imperfective - perfective.
I'm wondering if there's a language ...
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Is PIE weyh₁ (to hunt, persecute) somehow related to PIE weyk (to separate, to select for sacrifice)
I am amateurishly passionate about etymologies (especially of my native Romanian) but more seriously interested in the anthropological theories of René Girard and Walter Burkert, which both ...
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Can it be that the etymology of the Balkan root for "tickle" stretches as far as Korean?
Some context first:
I am interested in the etymology of the Romanian word gâdila/gîdila ("to tickle; the â/î variation is only graphical: it's /ɨ/, the close central unrounded vowel which in ...
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From Russian/Slavonic diglossia to modern Russian (via French/Russian?)
Article Learning Russian via Latin in the 17th Century suggests that in the 17th century Russian existed in a state of diglossia, where the vernacular Russian significantly differed from the written ...
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In which Slavic languages are [h] and [x] contrastive? [closed]
Starting from this question, I have a "prequel" question. In which Slavic languages are [h] and [x] contrastive?
As far as I know, there is no [h] in Russian, but only [x], but there is ...
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Etymological relationship between picture/image and education/formation
There are German words Bild (picture/image) and Bildung (education/formation).
In Russian, education is образова́ние [obrazovaniye], whilst obraz in many Slavic languages means either directly picture/...
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Epenthesis of /u/ before the syllabic sonorant "l"
Why does Old Russian have epenthesis of /u/ only before the syllabic sonorant "l"? (before the syllabic sonorants "r,m,n" the epenthesis is /i/)? I thought earlier that only Proto-...
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If Hebrew is not related to Slavic, why there are apparent sound correspondences?
We have
hebrew: šeš;
russian: šestʹ;
ukrainian: šistʹ;
latin: six;
english: six;
hebrew: yeš;
russian: yestʹ;
ukrainian: ye, isnuye;
latin: est;
english: is;
hebrew: ze;
russian: se;
ukrainian: сe [...
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Pronunciation of г in Old Novgorodian
Pskov dialects are transitional between Belarusian and Russian, so this makes me think that <г> was pronounced as /ɣ/, but I have also read that Old Novgorodian has had an impact on Northern ...
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Is the Proto-Slavic root *term (dwelling) related to the Proto-Ugric root *tärɜ „open space, room”?
I am curious about the obscure etymology of the Romanian word tărâm (realm, domain, world, geographical space -- usually a poetic word, like in the plural form alte tarâmuri = "other (foreign) ...
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Relation between Russian "пока" and Czech "zatím"
I have noticed that the Russian word пока means the same as zatím in Czech in both meanings. The first is as a conjunction and the second use means goodbye. I am aware that in Czech the equivalent ...
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Are Proto-Slavic present passive participle forms from first-person singular present forms?
Are Proto-Slavic present passive participle forms (e.g., *beromъ) from first-person singular present forms (e.g., *berǫ)?
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Are "brat" and "frater" cognates?
Both the Slavic brat (Брат) and the Latin frater mean brother.
Are they cognates? Or is their phonetic "proximity" a red herring?
Related: How were “bratrъ/bratъ” and “sestra” formed in ...
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Do the Belarusians understand the Ukrainian language better than Russians do?
Here is an interview on a opposition Belarussian TV channel with an Ukrainian officer. One host is speaking Russian, the other speaks Belarussian and the guest ...
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Why is there a Second Palatalization in personal nouns but not in non-personal nouns in Nominative Plural in Slavic languages
Using Polish as an example, why in personal nouns like "robotnik>robotnicy" or "włoch>włosi" Second Palatalization takes place in the nominative plural, but in non-personal ...
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Were Iranian languages originally separated and more related to Slavic？
Iranian languages and Slavic languages have some similarities, such as the merger of aspirated sounds into unaspirated sounds, and the development of the consonant /z/. Historically, the settlements ...
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What language branch of PIE does Kartvelian belong to? (Georgian language)
I know little about language, so I would like to preface that this question may appear disjointed. I have been listening to some wonderful Georgian folk music and have been trying to relate it to any ...
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Why is the Croatian word "pjena" (foam) spelt with "je" as if it were from Slavic yat, rather than "i", as it is from Slavic "y"?
Why is the Croatian word "pjena" (foam) spelt with "je" as if it were from Slavic yat, rather than "i", as it is from Slavic "y"? We know it is from Slavic &...
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Are Latin causative verb ending -eō and Old Slavic -ити from verbs eō and ити ("to go")?
Are Latin causative verb ending -eō and Old Slavic -ити from verbs eō and ити ("to go")?
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How were “bratrъ/bratъ” and “sestra” formed in PSl?
The PIE r-stem words seem to have lost the final -r in PSl: OCS mati, dъšti, and how some words which had -r (and -l) in final position preserve this consonant in the middle of words in slavic?
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Havlík's law, 3, & 4 in Czech
According to Wiktionary, the words for 3 and 4 in Proto-Slavic are *trьmi and *četyrьmi, respectively, in the instrumental case. In (current) Czech, they evolved into třemi and čtyřmi. But if you ...
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Historical explanations for soft/hard declensions in Czech
Declension patterns in Czech is traditionally categorized into hard and soft ones based on the final consonant of the stem. Materials for learners, e.g., Lída's Czech Step by Step or Michael's ...
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The easiest model for mapping Hindi oblique case onto Slavic languages' case systems
How can Hindi Oblique case be mapped into Slavic cases of languages such as Polish or Russian? My intuition is that Oblique case stands for all the Polish cases, except the nominative. That is, for ...
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Is Proto-Balto-Slavic zero-grade from long zero-grade i? [closed]
Is Proto-Balto-Slavic zero-grade from long zero-grade i
pílˀnas
wilkás
źírˀna
śírˀnāˀ
Is Proto-Germanic zero-grade from long zero-grade u
fullaz
wulfaz
kurną
hurną
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What is the type of ablaut?
PS *kysnǫti / *kvasъ PIE ū / wā (wō)
PS *xytiti / *xvatati PIE ū / wā (wō)
PS *xyrěti / *хvоrati ū / wo
? PS *ty / *tvоjь ū / wo
Is it somehow related to kʷetwóres rule?
modern Russian spelling
...
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Using Polish-inspired z Digraphs for Czech, Slovak
Is it ever okay, i.e. where technical circumstances restrict the available character set (e.g. slugified URLs), to systematically substitute cz, dz, lz, nz, rz, sz, tz and zz for Czech and Slovak ...
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Why did the softness of the L in the OCS word "велми" reflect so unpredictably into today's languages?
The OCS word "велми", meaning "very" and surviving in several Slavic languages today, is quite a conundrum to me in terms of how it has reflected into the living languages of today....
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What is the difference between Slavic little yus and little iotified yus?
What is the difference between Old Slavic little yus ѧ and little iotified yus ѩ, and what does "iotation" mean in this context?
Relating to the difference between ѧ and ѩ, is the earliest ...
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Why are PIE oi changes to ī in Latin and Proto-Slavic?
Why are PIE oe changes to ī in Latin and Old Slavic?
English PIE Latin Old Slavic
wolves *wĺ̥kʷoes lupi vlĭci
Is it a result of short u singular ending in place of PIE o?
English PIE Latin Old ...
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Why are Proto-Slavic nasal vowels reconstructed as ę and ǫ?
Why are Proto-Slavic nasal vowels reconstructed as ę and ǫ? But not "i with a little tail" and "u with a little tail"?
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Are Germanic languages closer to Italo-Celtic languages or Balto-Slavic languages?
I ask because in some recent classifications, Italo-Celtic languages (like French, Spanish, Italian, Irish, and Breton), Balto-Slavic languages (like Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, and Serbo-Croat), and ...
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Proto-Slavic ablaut type
PS решти rešti (to speak) full e-grade / рѣчь rěčĭ (a speech) lengthened ē-grade
PS ĭ PIE i may also be lengthened to PS i PIE ey
But what type of ablaut is бьрати bĭrati (to gather) / берѫ berǫ (I ...
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Slavic second palatalization
Why is the Slavic second palatalization took place before PIE *aj (Proto-Slavic *ě), but врагъ (vragŭ, enemy) / враѕи (vradzi, enemies), where vradzi is a PIE *ey (Proto-Slavic *i)?
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Examples of ě₁ palatalization
"The distinction between *ě₁ and *ě₂ is based on etymology and have different effects on a preceding consonant: *ě₁ triggers the first palatalization and then becomes *a, while *ě₂ triggers the ...
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How would've the Old Novgorodian language looked like?
I need help reconstructing the Old Novgorodian words for "earth", "hand", "bee" and "bird nest". I'm not good at linguistics at all and don't really understand ...
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Exceptions to Intrasyllabic Synharmony in modern Czech?
Studying Czech (and reading about the history of slavic languages) I encountered the concept of Intrasyllabic Synharmony, which somehow motivates the Slavic Palatalizations by explaining that the ...
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Why is Proto-Germanic long i /iː/ reconstructed as "ī"?
I know that Gothic has "a large number of archaic features".
I know that Gothic writes Proto-Germanic (PGmc) "ī" /iː/ as "ei". wīną wein, swīną swein
I know that Gothic ...
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What are the descendants of the PIE suffix "-n̥kʷos" in the Czech language if there are any?
Me and my friend would like to know whether there is any PIE suffix "-n̥kʷos" descendats in the czech language, we feel like "-uha" in "ostruha" could be it, in other ...
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Glagolitic Ⰾ (l) is like Ⰴ (d). Is it related to Latin / Old Latin l / d lingua dingua, lacrima dacrima?
Glagolitic Ⰾ (l) is like Ⰴ (d). Is it related to Latin / Old Latin l / d lingua dingua, lacrima dacrima?
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What can explain the appearance of "self-made" language features if neither of languages a person speaks or learns have similar features?
I know a woman, whose native language is Kyrgyz (Turkic family) and who learned Russian as an adult (mostly, maybe she was somewhat exposed to it before as well).
What striked me is that she invented ...
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Germanic loanwords in Czech? The case of "lék" [duplicate]
Recently I started studying Czech and I learned the word "lék", pill/medicine and "lékař", doctor/physician. In Polish there is a similar one. They bear a superficial resemblance ...
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