# How similar are really Czech and Slovak?



## pastet89

Disclaimer: I am writing this from the prospective of a native Bulgarian fluent in Serbo-Croatian (yes, I call it Serbo-Croatian because due to my linguistic point of view it is obvious that Serbian and Croatian are two standards of the same language). I have researched this topic a lot and I know there is also an old thread on WR but I am still not satisfied with the answers I am looking for, hence my decision to post this thread.

My question is a bit similar: while the difference between Czech and Slovak seems to be just a bit bigger than between Serbian and Croatian, can't we say that they are *virtually* the same language? I am putting aside here all political crap and I want to say that I respect the right of Czechs and Slovaks to call their own language with their own name due to history, national and similar reasons. However, *practically*, isn't it really the same language? I have some very basic understanding of both languages and have compared them written quite a lot. My observations so far are that those languages are so similar that:

they are WAY, WAY more similar than Macedonian and Bulgarian, for which there is quite ongoing debate if are separate languages or not
In the written form, they are almost as similar as Croatian and Serbian
They are WAY more similar between some of the Slovenian dialects and official Slovene
So, provided that I can assure you that a Bulgarian can not watch a Macedonian movie or read a Macedonian book without some significant troubles, could you please tell me:

Can Czech people read books in Slovak completely fluently without issues (and the other way around)?
Can Czech people watch Slovak movies completely fluently without issues (and the other way around)? (BTW I can assure you that Spanish people from Spain CAN NOT watch some movies from South America without subtitles)
Can Czech and Slovak people communicate on ANY topic, regardless of its complexity for hours, each of them using their own language for communication?
Do Czech and Slovak people EVER use English as a mean of communication between each other?
To what extent TV shows/movies mix native actors/speakers from both nationality in their productions without subtitles?
Do Slovak movies with Czech subtitles exist at all (and the other way around)?
I speak Slovene and I know very well that Coloquial Slovene has nothing to to with official Slovene (they are so different that on some occasions the MI between them maybe below 20%). I have heard something similar about Czech. If this is true: Do Slovaks who understand official Czech also understand Coloquial Czech to the same degree?

Last but not least, I am interested to find out how Slovak and Czech standards were created - did they originate from the same dialect in the past? Because (official) Croatian and Serbian are indeed created on the same dialect - Shtokavian (while in Croatia there are also spoken Chakavian and Kajkavian which IMO represent separate languages). And if Czech and Slovak were not created as standards based on the same dialect, how come they are SO similar nowadays that they look as two standards of the same language?


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## Mori.cze

Hi,

there are indeed some old and politically incorrect mentions of Slovak as a dialect of Czech (obviously written by Czech authors).

as for the similarity of the languages, it is a bit hard to judge for me as I was born in Czechoslovakia, meaning that I heard some Slovak from TV at the very least, so I cannot really separate how much of the language I learned and how much I understand though the similarities. I heard few times that younder people would not understand, but I tend not to believe it too much.

as for your questions:
1) yes (maybe once in a while you need to ask meaning of a specific word). There also might be a bit of trouble with some Slovak dialects
2) yes, I do believe the movies are generally not dubbed (we are not much into subtitles)
3) yes
4) "ever" is a big word, I for one used English when speaking with a Slovak scientist on a topic we both were used to communicate about in English not because we would not understand each other, but because the translated terms sounded funny
5) there are Slovak actors in Czech movie/TV series (not sure about other way around). Quite often the Slovak person speaks Czech in Czech proiduction. Within my social bubble this is rather frowned upon, we prefer to hear Slovak over Slovak accented Czech
6) subtiles I doubt, but I believe there probably are dubbed movies. But it might be just politics. Books are normally translated. I find reading Slovak trifle more difficult than hearing it (though I like to read a Slovak book time to time). Some of Slovak literary production was even (I believe) written in Czech only (bigger market)
7) Czech here, so I cannot be sure, but: absolutely yes.


Generally Slovak people tend to understand/speak Czech way better than other way around, probably as their language is smaller, so they reead/watch our production more often then we do theirs.


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## pastet89

Thank you very much for your reply.

So based on your replies I would conclude that I was right that CZ/SK difference is just a bit bigger than between Serbian and Croatian, but still way smaller than the one between Bulgarian and Macedonian.

It is still very interesting that while Czech and Slovak are so similar, you (and also other people who answered similar questions online) are still putting into question the topic of "understanding". With Serbian and Croatian, yes, they might need to ask from time to time for certain words, but I do not think that the question of "understanding" exists at all (provided that we talk about official standards of the languages). It seems I would have to really to dig deeper into either Czech or Slovak to be able to feel the differences properly myself.

It would be great if anyone else could share their insights as well.


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## Mori.cze

(I had a Slovak acquitance some years back whom I really find hard to understand. He was speaking eastern dialect and talking rather quietly and I am not of too good hearing, so I had to ask him quite often to repeat preferably while decreasing speed and increasing volume of his speach. Also, by "not to understand" I do not mean "they might be speaking Chinese and it would make no difference", but rather communication is awkward and/or slow with many requests for repetition or explanation)


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## By-the-sea

You might be interested in the non-native view.

The disadvantage is of course that I am not a native speaker so my knowledge of Slovak is inferior but on the other hand I don't have the exposure to Czech that Slovaks tend to have - either from growing up in Czechoslovakia or from reading and studying Czech books, or watching TV/films etc.

I find Czech difficult. I spent years avoiding it on TV/films and still do unless there's real motivation. I haven't had much exposure to it. I get the odd work thing in Czech and read things occasionally, but don't have any real contact with Czechs. I find spoken Czech is worse (better in Moravia - closer to Slovak) as the rhythm is so different, and then there are a lot of vocab differences. So by the time I get into the rhythm and try to guess the words I don't know I tend to miss a fair bit. The words are the main problem. The brain can adjust to the rhythm after a while but if you don't know that e.g. židle is stolička then it's hard to guess on the spot unless it's clear from the context. On the other hand I can understand Czech academic papers fairly well. I think that's because the differences between the two languages are smaller for that particular discourse. The vocab differences seem to be much bigger at the everyday practical language level.

And it's not just me. Other non-native speakers I know - even friends who are pretty much bilingual - also have problems. But none of us have had any real exposure and we all avoid it so don't improve.

In answer to Q1: Recently they've started publishing Slovak books in Czech (not many, but some). I'm not aware of it the other way round, but maybe just haven't noticed. I have heard stories of younger Czechs not understanding Slovak so don't know if they started translating things because the younger generations have greater difficulty or if it's just out of preference etc.


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## bibax

It is a common problem concerning non-natives, nihil novum sub sole. Btw, both _židle_ and _stolička_ are Czech words with similar meaning (the Czech _stoličk_a is mostly a smaller chair without an _opěradlo_ = _operadlo_ = backrest). In both languages _stolička_ means also molar [tooth]. 



By-the-sea said:


> I have heard stories of younger Czechs not understanding Slovak ...


It is a matter of motivation. My first book written in Standard Slovak was "Tarzan z rodu opíc" (Burroughs: Tarzan of the Apes, Bratislava 1967). I was cca 12 year old and I hadn't a previous exposure to Slovak (born in Prague, I had no Slovak classmates). But the novel was a real page-turner, I quickly became accustomed to Slovak.

You can compare the plot of the novel written in Standard Slovak and in Standard Czech (my translation). I shall eat my hat if you'll find a substantial difference. I admit that the dialogues in colloquial Slovak or Czech may be more unintelligible especially for non-natives knowing only one language (either Slovak or Czech).

_Rodičia mu zahynuli krátko po tom, čo ich na pusté pobrežie vysadili piráti. Chlapca si osvojila opica Kála a starala sa oň ako o vlastné mláďa.

Rodiče mu zahynuli krátce po tom, co je (acc. them, the Slovak ich is gen.) na pusté pobřeží vysadili piráti. Chlapce si osvojila opice Kála a starala se oň (= o něj) jako o vlastní mládě.

A tu sa začína rad neuveriteľne napínavých príbehov z prostredia opíc a iných divých zvierat. Tarzan sa naučí ich obratnosti a šikovnosti, postupne si dokáže zabezpečiť potravu a bojovať s nebezpečnými protivníkmi. V jeho živote nastane neobyčajná zmena, keď objaví chatrč, kde žili jeho rodičia, a knižky s obrázkami. Najväčšia zmena ho však čaká, keď sa na pobreží zjaví skupina belochov a medzi nimi krásna a šľachetná Jane Porterová.

A tu (or tady or zde) [se] začíná řada neuvěřitelně napínavých příběhů z prostředí opic a jiných divokých (or divých) zvířat. Tarzan se naučí (je)jich obratnosti a šikovnosti, postupně si dokáže zabezpečit potravu a bojovat s nebezpečnými protivníky. V jeho životě nastane neobyčejná změna, když objeví chatrč, kde žili jeho rodiče, a knížky s obrázky. Největší změna ho však čeká, když se na pobřeží zjeví (or objeví) skupina bělochů a mezi nimi krásná a šlechetná Jane Porterová._


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## AndrasBP

bibax said:


> You can compare the plot of the novel in Standard Slovak and Standard Czech (my translation).


Thank you for the texts, it was interesting to compare them. I don't understand much Czech or Slovak, but as a Russian speaker I can say I was surprised that in terms of vocabulary, the languages seem to be much closer than Russian and (standard) Ukrainian.


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## bibax

Slovak has some Hungarian words that are not understandable for [young] Czechs. For example: *ťava* (Hu. teve, Cz. velbloud, Eng. camel), *kefa* (Hu. kefe, Cz. kartáč [of Romance origin], Eng. brush), *bosorka* (Hu. boszorkány, Cz. čarodějnice, Eng. witch),* lopta* (Hu. labda, Cz. míč, Eng. ball), *mačka* (Hu. macska, Cz. kočka, Eng. cat). They must be memorized. Hungarian, Czech, Slovak *kabát* (Eng. coat) is a common word (of Persian origin kabā).


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## vianie

bibax said:


> It is a matter of motivation.


As a child of ČSSR, I raised in a kind of bilingual environment, hearing and listening to Czech throughout my very early years. You actually could not hide from it, common federal radio and television did their job. When I was in Prague at the age of ten, I finally heard that tuneful language live. At the same time I remember that I did not really like reading Czech books, Slovak seemed to be more flowing to me. This changed when I got older.


bibax said:


> Rodiče mu zahynuli krátce po tom, co je (acc. them, the Slovak ich is gen.) na pusté pobřeží vysadili piráti.


Nope, it is still accusative.


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## AndrasBP

Are there (or were there in the past) any transitional dialects along the Czech/Slovak border?


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## bibax

Yes. See Slovácko (Moravian Slovakia), with its center Uherské Hradiště (Magyarhradis).

_"Natives of this region speak the Eastern Moravian dialects of the Czech language, which are transitional dialects between Czech and Slovak. Due to these cultural and linguistic links to Slovakia, many ethnographers until the 20th century used to consider Moravian Slovaks as a people which politically belonged to Moravia and the Bohemian Crown but ethnographically and culturally to the Slovak ethnic group." (Wiki)_


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## pastet89

Mori.cze said:


> (I had a Slovak acquitance some years back whom I really find hard to understand. He was speaking eastern dialect and talking rather quietly and I am not of too good hearing, so I had to ask him quite often to repeat preferably while decreasing speed and increasing volume of his speach. Also, by "not to understand" I do not mean "they might be speaking Chinese and it would make no difference", but rather communication is awkward and/or slow with many requests for repetition or explanation)


Yes, but we are talking about the official standards here, dialects can be super extreme. I can assure you that if you speak fluently official Slovene you will understand less than 20% of the most widely spread coloquial version of the language, and there are dialects to which after I have spent 5 months in the country and have a great level of both the coloquial and official language, after listening for a few minutes I was wondering - what is this language, is it an Indo-European language at all?  BTW even Slovenes don't understand very well all of their dialects, Slovene is notorious fot that. And I have heard that East Slovak dialects can be super rough as well.


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## pastet89

By-the-sea said:


> You might be interested in the non-native view.
> 
> The disadvantage is of course that I am not a native speaker so my knowledge of Slovak is inferior but on the other hand I don't have the exposure to Czech that Slovaks tend to have - either from growing up in Czechoslovakia or from reading and studying Czech books, or watching TV/films etc.
> 
> I find Czech difficult. I spent years avoiding it on TV/films and still do unless there's real motivation. I haven't had much exposure to it. I get the odd work thing in Czech and read things occasionally, but don't have any real contact with Czechs. I find spoken Czech is worse (better in Moravia - closer to Slovak) as the rhythm is so different, and then there are a lot of vocab differences. So by the time I get into the rhythm and try to guess the words I don't know I tend to miss a fair bit. The words are the main problem. The brain can adjust to the rhythm after a while but if you don't know that e.g. židle is stolička then it's hard to guess on the spot unless it's clear from the context. On the other hand I can understand Czech academic papers fairly well. I think that's because the differences between the two languages are smaller for that particular discourse. The vocab differences seem to be much bigger at the everyday practical language level.
> 
> And it's not just me. Other non-native speakers I know - even friends who are pretty much bilingual - also have problems. But none of us have had any real exposure and we all avoid it so don't improve.
> 
> In answer to Q1: Recently they've started publishing Slovak books in Czech (not many, but some). I'm not aware of it the other way round, but maybe just haven't noticed. I have heard stories of younger Czechs not understanding Slovak so don't know if they started translating things because the younger generations have greater difficulty or if it's just out of preference etc.




Well, non-natives for sure are way inferior than Czech and Slovaks in this case, I agree.

I think the situation you describe is like the Catalan/Valencian/Spanish triangle. Catalan and Valencian are two versions of the same language - let's say, even closer than Czech and Slovak, something like Croatian and Serbian. So they would understand each other even better than Czechs and Slovaks - I guess no less than 95-99+%. However, in this case I would call Catalan the Czech analog due to its hard pronunciation, and Valencian - Slovak due to its straight forward (Spanish-like) pronunciation. So while Catalan and Valencian speakers can perfectly understand each other, Spanish people tend to understand Valencian way better than Catalan - only because of its pronunciation. I am not a Spanish native but based on a statement by a such friend of mine, Spanish people would understand ~70% from Valencian and ~40% from Catalan. Of course, for the spoken version. For the written versions, they should understand both "languages" to the same degree - and you also confirmed that by saying you understand written Czech quite well.


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## Dymn

Having read the two paragraphs, I can indeed assure Catalonian and Valencian look way closer than Czech and Slovak. Though very similar, it's almost like there's a difference in every word between the latter. With the former, it's more like a pair of them every sentence.

On the other hand, from what I've heard about Serbo-Croatian, I'd say they are more similar than Catalonian-Valencian, but that's probably because it is based on the same dialect, while Catalonian and Valencian are based on the vernacular dialects of each territory, even if the spelling conventions are the same and there's some efforts for higher convergence.


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## pastet89

Dymn said:


> Having read the two paragraphs, I can indeed assure Catalonian and Valencian look way closer than Czech and Slovak. Though very similar, it's almost like there's a difference in every word between the latter. With the former, it's more like a pair of them every sentence.



I agree. It should be noted though that Valencian and Catalan have still significant difference in the pronunciation which is non existent in Serbian and Croatian but is present in Czech/Slovak. Based on my observations I would rate the three pairs mutual intelligibility roughly as:

1. Serbian/Croatian -> 95-98+%
2. Catalan/Valencian -> ~95%? (you could confirm that)
3. Czech/Slovak -> 90-95%

taking in mind overall (oral + written mutual intelligibility).


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## Zec

Keep in mind that of all these very similar languages, only Serbian and Croatian actually had a unified standard (variants existed, but there was a conscious effort, today reversed, to eliminate the differences between them). So it's not really comparable to Czech and Slovak, maybe a little bit more to Catalan and Valencian. And what differences exist usually aren't an obstacle to mutual intelligibility... mostly they just make the language sound unusual (The cadence of the Serbian, more precisely the Belgrade accent, and [ɛ] and [ɔ] for /e/ and /o/ are immediately recognizable and strike the ear until one get's used to them).

I'd definitely rate mutual inteligibility at 98+%, if you picked a random text there's a big chance I'd understand everything.


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## pastet89

Zec said:


> Keep in mind that of all these very similar languages, only Serbian and Croatian actually had a unified standard (variants existed, but there was a conscious effort, today reversed, to eliminate the differences between them). So it's not really comparable to Czech and Slovak, maybe a little bit more to Catalan and Valencian. And what differences exist usually aren't an obstacle to mutual intelligibility... mostly they just make the language sound unusual (The cadence of the Serbian, more precisely the Belgrade accent, and [ɛ] and [ɔ] for /e/ and /o/ are immediately recognizable and strike the ear until one get's used to them).
> 
> I'd definitely rate mutual inteligibility at 98+%, if you picked a random text there's a big chance I'd understand everything.



I agree with you that SR/CR is the closest pair, but I don't think the reason for this is the attempt to create Serbo-Croatian. This attempt was not completely successful, this common standard existed only in theory and both Croats and Serbs kept speaking their standard before, during and after that attempt. I think that the real reason is that historically Serbian and Croatian were standardized based on the same macrodialect - Shtokavian (if I am not wrong, initially Serbian was based on the East-Bosnian sub-dialect and Croatian based on the ______? sub dialect). So they were more or less determined to be virtually the same since their "birth".

What spikes my interest is why Czech and Slovak are also practically identical? I mean, OK, the difference could be a bit bigger, but it is still obvious that this is the same linguistic base, just altered a bit on both sides. When you read a text in both languages, you can follow the same words, with just a different letter or a word here and there. From what I know, this is only possible for CZ/SK, SR/CR, Catalan/Valencian and (standard) Norwegian/Danish. It's funny to me that many nationalist here in Bulgaria argue that Macedonian is the same language - historically and politically it could be, but nowadays, linguistically, it is just not. You can not do the same reading operation with this pair as with what described above.

Anyway, I am interested to find out why this happened to CZ/SK? Seems impossible to me otherwise. As Dymn mentinoed, Catalan and Valencian are based on neighbor dialects, Serbian and Croatian are both based on Shtokavian, standard Norwegian (from what I know) has jsut literally the real Danish standard (but the spoken language is quite different). So what's the case with Slovak and Czech, how they ended up in this situation historically - did they also evolve from the same dialect?


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## Zec

Well, both standard Serbian and standard Croatian were initially to be based on not only the same macro-dialect, but on the same dialect: the so called East Herzegovinian dialect (East Bosnian dialect is rather different), and both did it for the same reasons: that was the most widely spoken dialect shared by all Western South Slavic nations (this obviously helps draw more people to the standardizer's cause, which was some form of South Slavic unity against the Habsburg and the Ottoman empires). For the first two decades the standardization was done separately, leading to some noticeable but not insurmountable differences in standard Serbian and Croatian vocabularies, but since the late 19th century they collaborated and this continued until the breakup of Yugoslavia. During Yugoslavia everyone heard Serbian words on TV and in the army (dont know how many Serbians watched Croatian TV), eventually creating 100% mutual inteligibility: whenever I watch Serbian TV and come upon an unknown word, my parents will probably know what it means.

Interestingly, Vuk Karadžić, the creator of the modern Serbian standard language and a native speaker of the East Herzegovinian dialect, wanted standard Serbian to be ijekavian, but this wasn't happily accepted in Serbia proper where most dialects are ekavian. Had his proposal been accepted the two standards would be extremely similar and probably fully mergeable.

The CZ/SK case is, I'm pretty sure, a case of different but similar dialects undergoing separate standardization. This is comparable, say, to the Gradišće Croatian standard language and the "normal" Croatian standard language.


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## pastet89

Oh yes, it was East Hercegovian, my bad.

That's interesting info that you shared, thank you. I am not aware of Gradišće Croatian, but I guess it is still Shtokavian sub-dialect. Because Kaikavian and Chakavian are literally independent languages, they are even way closer to Slovene than to BCS.


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## Zec

Gradišće Croatian is Čakavian, this is why I compared it and homeland Croatian to Czech and Slovak: different but related dialects.

I honestly think, as a (sort of) native speaker of a Kajkavian dialect, that the differences between Ča-, Kaj- and Štokavian are often exaggerated. That may be because during the last century most of the dialects have been urbanized and became closer to the standard language, but even the archaic dialect older people speak doesn't seems like a completely different language. Having taken a Slovene course, I have to say that while my local dialect is indeed similar to it in many respects where both differ from Štokavian, Slovene still remains only partially inteligible: since the 19th century they've built their standard language's vocabulary completely separately from other Western South Slavic peoples, often favouring neologisms (standard Slovene is very puristic, while my local dialect is full of German loanwords), and it seriously impedes mutual inteligibility. I'd say Kajkavian is about equally different from both Slovene and Štokavian.


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## pastet89

I'm sorry, I am not sure if I got your point, but is it that Czech and Slovak are as mutually intelligible as Croatian and Chakavian?

If yes, I have to strongly disagree. I recently found a scientific paper which has studies the MI between the Slavic languages, rating the (oral) MI between Czech and Slovak as high as 91 and 94%, respectively - the written is even higher, while the Croatian-Chakavian one as the vague 37 (0-75%). I think that everyone who has had contact with these pair of languages can see the same thing - it's just obvious. I have personally met a Croat who told me that on some of the Croatian islands he can not understand a single word.

As I am fluent both in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, I can quite easily understand Kaikavian - I'd say 80+%, and for Chakavian it'is less mainly due to the Italian words.

However, I really think that this can not be a point of discussion - one just needs to get a random one-page text in Croatian/Chakavian and Czech/Slovak and to compare both pairs in order to make their conclusions. Even from a bare look it's obvious that Croatian and Chakavian are only partially MI, and not to a really high degree. I am confident that we can not treat them as two standards of the same language.

I also think that native Croats often underestimate their passive exposure to Chakavian and Kaikavian which for sure influences their understanding of those languages. Maybe another interesting experiment would be to take a Serbian guy and have him read a Chakavian or Kaikavian text and see how much he will understand. Anything above 70% will surprise me, for Czech and Slovak we are talking about something like 95%.


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## merquiades

If Czech and Slovak are 95% the same, why can't we refer to them as the same language?  I mean British and American English may even diverge more. Continental and Brazilian Portuguese certainly do.
Just in passing I must say Catalan and Valencian are the same language.  I cannot imagine one group not understanding the other, oral or written even colloquially, and I'm talking in the British/American English sense, no more no less.  The divisions are exaggerated due to political reasons, rivalry, competition and maybe hard feelings.  Perhaps that has motivated the Czech and Slovak division?


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## pastet89

merquiades said:


> If Czech and Slovak are 95% the same, why can't we refer to them as the same language?



Are you ironic when asking this? Because I am seriously asking the same question and I am not ironic. Apart from the political/historical side of the story, which I respect as any nation has the right to have its own language, practically they seem as one language to me.

Spanish from Argentina or Chile may have as low as 50% oral MI with Spanish from Spain on some occasions.

Let alone the internal dialects of Slovene, if you understand perfectly the standard norm, some of them may be as comprehensive as Chinese.


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## Dymn

pastet89 said:


> 2. Catalan/Valencian -> ~95%? (you could confirm that)


Higher than that, 100% or almost 100%, maybe except for the odd word here and there. Anyway, I'm sure a lot has to do with exposure as well, because for example "to go out" is "_sortir" _in Catalonia and "_eixir"_ in Valencia but we understand it because we're exposed to the variety of each other. It's true pronunciation is quite divergent, something like the difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese. I don't think the difference is that big among the various Spanish or English varieties. The Catalan variety which is usually 100% intelligible but sometimes requires the speaker to make an effort understanding them is actually Balearic, for both Catalans and Valencians.



pastet89 said:


> Spanish from Argentina or Chile may have as low as 50% oral MI with Spanish from Spain on some occasions.


No, that's not true, all varieties of Spanish are perfectly mutually intelligible, only in a slang-packed conversation or in a noisy atmosphere I could comprehend it if speakers had some problems understanding each other.


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## Zec

@ pastet89

My point wasn't about mutual inteligibility, but about the reasons for the closeness of Czech and Slovak. They were two different but closely related dialects since Common Slavic times: they were independent but didn't diverge very much.

Can you give me a link to that paper? This sounds quite suspicious at a first glance, but could be explained, if true, by different levels of exposure. I don't think native Štokavians have any exposure to true (not watered-down) Kajkavian or Čakavian, but the opposite is of course true, since the standard language is Štokavian and everyone is constantly exposed to it. So, it may be that I'm not a good judge since I'm basically bilingual (and only a passive speaker of the local dialect) and have been exposed to both from an early age.

For some examples of Kajkavian, Čakavian and mixtures thereof to be used to judge mutual inteligibility, have a look at this page.

(And honestly, every speaker of Kajkavian and Čakavian will call his language Croatian! So we have an unusual situation where three rather different dialects are considered the same language, and at the same time parts of one of them are considerent a different language... but that's how language identity works! In serious linguistic discussion it would be the best to just get rid of national names and speak of Western South Slavic dialects, divided into Slovene, Kajkavian, Čakavian and Štokavian at the least)

(As for your Czech and Slovak examples, they look extremely similar to me (random Kajkavian would probably be only slightly more different from random Štokavian that these two are). I can only vaguely understand them and mostly have to deduct what a word might mean, but I get the general sense.)


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## bibax

AFAIK the Czech and Slovak dialects are parts of one dialect continuum and even not separated by a foreign language. The Standard/Literary Czech is based on the Central Bohemian dialect (or Prague dialect, if you want it) and the Standard/Literary Slovak is based on the Central Slovak dialect. In large measure both standards are artificial figments of imagination. The authors drew inspiration from all dialects. Perhaps their goal was to preserve and increase the mutual intelligibility between dialects and even between Czech and Slovak, in this latter case especially in scientifical and technical texts (it's very important, for Slovaks more than for Czechs).

The distance between Prague (Central Bohemia) and Banská Bystrica (Central Slovakia) is 373 km, both cities are literally within spitting distance (Prague-Bratislava 291 km, Brno-Bratislava even only 122 km). Compare it with the distance between Vienna and Bremen: 759 km (across Bohemia).

So, what you wonder at? The dialect continuum usually doesn't change much in such a short distance.

Btw, in the Czech Republic Slovak has the official status of an understandable language, the documents submitted to the Czech authorities can be written in Standard Slovak (I guess the official documents usually don't contain such strange words like ťava (camel), bosorka (witch), vankúš (pillow), čučoriedka (blueberry) or mókuška/drevokocúr (squirrel)). Other minorities (like Poles, Germans, Gypsies, etc.) have no such advantage. They have to speak Czech (or Slovak, of course), otherwise they need an interpreter.


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## pastet89

Zec said:


> @ pastet89
> 
> Can you give me a link to that paper? This sounds quite suspicious at a first glance, but could be explained, if true, by different levels of exposure. I don't think native Štokavians have any exposure to true (not watered-down) Kajkavian or Čakavian, but the opposite is of course true, since the standard language is Štokavian and everyone is constantly exposed to it. So, it may be that I'm not a good judge since I'm basically bilingual (and only a passive speaker of the local dialect) and have been exposed to both from an early age.
> .......
> 
> (As for your Czech and Slovak examples, they look extremely similar to me (random Kajkavian would probably be only slightly more different from random Štokavian that these two are). I can only vaguely understand them and mostly have to deduct what a word might mean, but I get the general sense.)




Sorry for my late reply!

This is the link to the paper: Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family 
I definitely don't agree with all of it as there are obvious mistakes there - such as MI from the perspective of Bulgarian 27% to Serbo-Croatian and 50/60% respectively to Serbian and Croatian.

I do, however, agree with most of the numbers there, I would give Croatian/Kajkavian ~80% MI and Croatian/Chakavian ~70% MI. I am not a native speaker, but I actually have pretty good idea of those languages/dialects. Apart from covering them in University, I have dived into them myself as they were quite interesting to me. Again: sorry, but I will disagree that Kajkavian/Croatrian MI is as big as the CZ/SK one. CZ/SK are way closer. My feeling is that if I didn't speak Slovene I would understand very poorly Kajkavian and to me (and BTW as per the same study paper) Kajkavian is still closer to Slovene than it is to Croatian. 

With all that being said, there are two more points to consider in this discussion:

1. CZ/SK are languages with estimated official standards and is easy to judge their MI. Kajkavian, even though had its own standard in the past, currently is not standardized and has the freedom of having may variants as subdialects. This makes it more difficult to judge as Croats may understand quite well "one type of Kajkavian" and worse "another type of it". The best measure would be to take a book in Kajkavian (for example, a decent part of "Registratura" is written in it) and to compare it with the corresponding Croatian translation. Then to the same with the CZ/SK translations. But I am still sure that the difference will be on another level with Croatian/Kajkavian.

2. When judging MI people often underestimate the importance of the size of the data they use to make their conclusions. There is a phenomena which I have spotted long time ago - there are different corporas in the languages which may trick us very badly when judging MI. Because some part of the language may be very close to the other one while other parts may be very different. And then when we judge only by one sentence or one paragraph or one style of speech, we might make very wrong conclusions.

I can immediately think of some good examples for this:

* Bulgarians claiming to understand BCSM on 90+%. The reason for this is that the most common corpora, which includes the 50 or so most essential words for communication, which are also the most frequent, is indeed almost the same between those two languages. And indeed, on the street you can understand the other person almost without problems in almost any situation - provided that you speak on very simple topics. This makes the wrong impression that "the whole BCSM" is 90% MI with Bulgarian which can not be further from the truth. I have done this experiment myself with multiple people from Bulgaria - have them watch a movie or try to read a book in BCSM - and eventually they themselves were surprised that this time they understood only what it was about (the main topic) or at most 50%.

* The same, but  the opposite with Bulgarian - Russian. The most essential words in those languages are different, but as the Bulgarian literature was created under the strong influence of the Russian one, at least to me it seems that the bigger and more complex vocabulary is more common between Bulgarian and Russian than between Bulgarian and BCSM. So I think that if a Bulgarian learns the 50 most essential Russian words, they will be able to read a book in Russian easier than in Serbian.

* Serbians who claim to understand better Slovak than Slovene. Here it might be the Slovene dialects and the crazy Slovene pronunciation, but it might be again something to do with the corporas. Some of the most essential words, which are the key to the rest of the language in Slovene, from the BCSM perspective, are quite weird and uncommon while more straight-forward in Slovak - grem/idem, pravim/hovorím, bi rad/chcem, lahko/možem... On the other side, if a Serb or Croat learns Slovak on A1, they will still have a long, long way to go till they can read a book. But if they learn Slovene on A1 it will be way easier for them to read a book with advanced lexis in Slovene than in Slovak.

What I want to say with all this is that if we judge a MI between two languages we need to make our conclusions based on a big enough data. Which means to take randomly, any amount of text, on any complexity level, any topic, any language style and do multiple comparisons. And if the results are the same (as it seems to be the case with CZ/SK), we can make a general conclusion.


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## pastet89

bibax said:


> The distance between Prague (Central Bohemia) and Banská Bystrica (Central Slovakia) is 373 km, both cities are literally within spitting distance (Prague-Bratislava 291 km, Brno-Bratislava even only 122 km). Compare it with the distance between Vienna and Bremen: 759 km (across Bohemia).
> 
> So, what you wonder at? The dialect continuum usually doesn't change much in such a short distance.



It's not always about distance. In Slovenia, literally 20 km you will stumble upon a new dialect and 373 you will be in another one of the nine major dialect groups, which are so different that you may already encounter serious communication problems. I think that in this case geography plays a role. In Slovenia (and I think also in Switzerland) due to the mountains, there were a lot of separated and isolated villages in the past and there was not ongoing communication between them. That led to the creation of so many (50+!!) and so different dialects on such a small area for a language, spoken by only 2 million people. If I am not mistaken, historically the initial reason for creating a standard Slovene was literally the need for a "common language" as a mean of communication between all these dialects. 



bibax said:


> Btw, in the Czech Republic Slovak has the official status of an understandable language, the documents submitted to the Czech authorities can be written in Standard Slovak (I guess the official documents usually don't contain such strange words like ťava (camel), bosorka (witch), vankúš (pillow), čučoriedka (blueberry) or mókuška/drevokocúr (squirrel)). Other minorities (like Poles, Germans, Gypsies, etc.) have no such advantage. They have to speak Czech (or Slovak, of course), otherwise they need an interpreter.



Yes, I have heard that also on another forum, someone also said that you can submit your paper (dissertation I guess) at University in the other language. Could you please confirm that as well? And is it the same the other way around - Czech being recognized the same way as a second standard in Slovakia?


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## Zec

@ pastet89: that researcher is a freelancer and not an academic. His conclusions are probably as reliable as ours. I've read some of his papers and I wouldn't trust his on most of the things he says.

If there's one thing you can conclude from his figures, it's that mutual intelligibility is an awful measure of the closeness of two languages. Standard Croatian understanding more Czech than plain Zagorje Kajkavian is, to put it bluntly, absurd. Bednjanski is one thing since it had an all-encompassing vowel shift which disguises the shape of many normal, shared words, but plain Zagorje Kajkavian...

If you've studied Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, have a listen to the site I posted. Especially Mahićno, that's the pure traditional local dialect spoken by an old woman (now sadly deceased), I can guarantee since that's my neighbouring village. Then judge mutual intelligibility.

But since this is about Czech and Slovak, let's better focus on this two languages, and I can't help since I've had little exposure to either. The example text is extremely similar, though.


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## jazyk

There is no such thing as a drevokocúr in Slovak. The word is veverica/veverička.


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## bibax

I knew that somebody would argue. But I didn't expect a Brasilian. 

The word *drevokocúr* (lit. wood or tree-tomcat) exists, however not in Standard Slovak. It is a calque from German *Eichkatze* (= lit. "oak-cat", = squirrel).


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## jazyk

Did you read all the text you yourself linked to? It doesn't look like it.

And what does me being a Brazilian have to do with it? I don't like to give out personal information, but I am also a Czech citizen. So  back at you.

And how can it be a calque of Eichkatze if the alleged word word is drevokocúr, not dubomačka?


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## bibax

Sorry. I expected that a Slovak would protest. It was a little provocation from me. In Czech/Slovak paragliding slang the word drevokocúr means a poor devil that landed in the treetop (like a squirrel). Thus the word exists.

I was surprised that some Slovak dialects use *mókuška* for squirrel. It is really incomprehensible for the Czechs. It came from Hungarian: móka, mókus, mókuska.

Standard Slovak *veverica* (like in BCS) = Czech *veverka* (also veveřice f., veveřák m.), in Ukrainian *вивірка* , but in Russian *«белка»*.


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## AndrasBP

bibax said:


> Standard Slovak (I guess the official documents usually don't contain such *strange *words like *ťava *(camel), *bosorka *(witch), *vankúš *(pillow)





bibax said:


> I was surprised that some Slovak dialects use *mókuška* for squirrel.


Just like *mókuška*, the first three examples are Hungarian loans as well, which makes them sound strange in a Slavic language, I imagine.


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## pastet89

@Zec

Yes, I also disagree with some of the numbers in his papers and I agree that Czech being closer to Croatian than Kajkavian is absurd. I still agree with a decent part of his figures though.

I listened to the dialect from Mahićno you sent, thanks for sharing. I could understand ~80%. This is not standard Kajkavian - I could immediately spot it by the word _najveći_ (which is the same standard Croatian, I'm not sure just if it was č or ć in the dialect) instead of _najvekši_.

As I said, judging MI has to be done based on big enough data, preferably on standardized text (sadly Kajkavian standard has not been maintained for quite a while). Listening to this example only confirmed my concerns that when judging MI with Kajkavian we can be deceived by its subdialects as this one particularly seems closer to standard Croatian than the standard Kajkavian present in literature.

I found also this interesting site which contains quite some literature in Kajkavian. After reading some of the poems I was actually surprised how small of it I could understand this time, even with my Slovene knowledge. And I can still not imagine at all the degree of fluency which Czechs and Slovaks describe between their languages to happen between Serbian (or Croatian with zero Kajkavian exposure) and Kajkavian.

Anyway, you are right that we shifted the focus quite off topic as the thread started as a topic about the MI between Slovak and Czech so let's focus on them.

BTW since I started the thread I also started to pick up both Slovak and Czech, with regular daily exposure and by learning the main lexic. I think that I can already feel the difference between them myself. Here are my new observations:

* There are quite more differences between SK and CZ than between Serbian and Croatian, but almost all of them are on the morphological and phonological levels. The serious differences in the lexic feel almost the same as between Serbian and Croatian to me - super tiny. There are much more words which differ by at least one letter than in Serbian/Croatian (say, each 3rd word instead of each 7-8 th word), but the words which are totally different still seem to be one each 15 if not even 1 each 20.
* There is almost non existent difference in the phonetic and pronunciation between Serbian and Croatian but it seems to be a decent difference in the pronunciation between Czech and Slovak. Not as extreme as between Portugal/Spanish, but maybe as serious as between Catalan/Spanish. Czech words seem to be shorter and Czech pronunciation seem to be much more challenging from the average neutral perspective. When I started my learning experiment three weeks ago I could understand 0-5% of spoken Czech and 15-20% of spoken Slovak. Now if I carefully select the content (an easy, slowly spoken one), I could understand up to 70-80% of Slovak, but my best understanding of Czech would be still rather below 50%. Of course, these differences refer only to the spoken languages. Having that in mind, it is very strange to me that Czechs tend to have more troubles understanding Slovak than the other way around. I understand that it has to do with more Czech exposure in Slovakia but I am still surprised here.

* There are more serious grammar differences between CZ and SK such as the lack of vocative in SK, and the different endings of the noun cases. There is also serious difference in the orthography between CZ and SK which (apart from personal foreign names written in the origin language in Croatian) is not existent at all between Serbian and Croatian.

So it seems to me that the reason why we treat CZ/SK as separate languages and why (most of us) don't do so with Serbian and Croatian are the many differences in orthography, morphology and phonology, which are virtually no present between the different BCSM standards. On the lexical level, if Serbian and Croatian are more than 95% the same, I would still argue that CZ/SK are around 95% the same.


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## Olaszinhok

pastet89 said:


> On the lexical level, if Serbian and Croatian are more than 95% the same, I would still argue that CZ/SK are around 95% the same.


Hello everybody.
I have almost read all the thread and it is pretty interesting but I must admit that I am bit puzzled. How can two languages *(*CZ/SK)  be around 95% the same if they have *many* differences in orthography, morphology and phonology?! That does not make sense to me...
Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of the two languages but Slovak sounds way softer and more pleasant to my ear, probably this is due to the palatalized consonants.


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## Zec

@ pastet89: I deliberately showed you that particular dialect since it's a peculiar transitional dialect between Kajkavian and Čakavian, and spoken in it's traditional form to boot! As for that site, suffice to say the authors opinion isn't the most accepted one, and the language used on the site is rather artificial, as it's an attempt to revive the Kajkavian literary language. The same can be said about Miroslav Krleža's language: it's an artificial poetic language based on the old 15-18 century literary language and very distinct from vernacular dialects. Nowadays, whenever people want to speak about topic unrelated to traditional village life, they're doomed to borrow words from the today's standard language... that's why I think the differences are often exaggerated. But let's keep this topic to Czech and Slovak (which means I probably won't post much because I'm unfamiliar with them).

@ Olaszinhok: I suppose he's thinking about obviously related words despite differences in phonology/morphology, like SK najväčšia / CZ nejvetší.


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## pastet89

Zec said:


> @ Olaszinhok: I suppose he's thinking about obviously related words despite differences in phonology/morphology, like SK najväčšia / CZ nejvetší.



Indeed, I referred mostly to words with different roots which are completely different such as nech/at', iba/pouze, etc...

It is still hard for me to precisely judge how clear would sound for a speaker of the other language the rest of the words which differ by a letter or two, but I assume that the average person would need at maximum a few hours exposure to get used to the new style of speech and to start to understand all of them after that.

That being said, CZ/SK are my fifth/sixth Slavic language(s), so for me it is already super intuitive to grasp new words which share the same roots whenever I encounter them. On the other hand, I know (although rare) Bulgarians and Serbians who can not understand almost a single word from the other language, which seems absurd to me. So it seems that the average person (not linguist or without interests in languages as most people on WordReference) has a different degree of "sense for languages".

I'm still wondering how well the average young (born after Czechslovakia), unexposed to the other language, Czech or Slovak guy can perceive the other language in a spoken form when being exposed to it for the first time. I have read opinions on many forums that the mutual exposure has dropped after the separation of the countries, but when I surf Youtube it seems that a big part of the content has mixed comments, so it seems that it's very common for people from both countries to watch vlogs and music in the other language.


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## bibax

Literary Czech is based on the Prague dialect that has developed some changes that don't exist in other esp. Moravian dialects. The most interesting is the so-called Bohemian (or Prague) umlaut (*česká/pražská přehláska*) which is quite unique among the Slavic languages. This umlaut was never completely adopted in the Moravian dialects.

The Prague umlaut briefly:

The vowel change (umlaut) occurred if a soft (palatal/palatalized/sibilant) consonant preceded any of the back vowels a / á / u / ú (short or long a / u).

*a > ě*, and later *> e* after consonants that lost the palatalization
*á > ie* (long ě), and later *> í* (long i)
*u > i
ú > í*

The rule is almost completely without any exceptions, the change is systematic.

Examples:

juž > již; juh > jih; jutro > jitro;
kľúč > klíč;
ščúr > štír; ščuka > štika;
ľud > lid; kľuka > klika;
řújě (< *r'uja) > říje (hence zářuj (za řújě) > září = September,  řújen > říjen = October);
Ježúš > Ježíš; Ľudmila > Lidmila (but we now commonly say Ludmila, "middle" l); Juřie > Jiří;
duša > dušě > duše (nom.); dušu > duši (acc.);
čáša > čiešě > číše (nom.); čášu > čieši > číši (acc.);
učiteľu > učiteli (dat. voc.);
mořa (< *morja) > mořě > moře;
píšu > píši (I write); píšú > píší (they write);

Other changes:

*ł / ľ *(hard, soft l) > *l *(middle l) : učiteľ > učitel;
however Czech retains the difference in the declension paterns:
učitel (orig. učiteľ, soft l), gen. učitele (orig. učiteľa > učitelě > učitele), but ďábel, gen. ďábla (hard l, no umlaut);

*šč > šť* : ščuka > štika, ščebetati > štěbetati, ščedr > štědrý, ščěstie > štěstí;

*aj > ej* : daj > dej, pomáhaj > pomáhej, najvyššie > nejvyšší;

*ó >* diphtong *uo > ů* (long u) : vóz > vůz, v oči > vóči > vůči (towards), chlapóv > chlapův (chlapů gen. pl. of chlapi);

*ú* (long u) *>* diphtong *ou* (except in the initial position) : súd > soud, súdca > súdcě > soudce, hlúpý > hloupý;
but úkol (not oukol), útrata (sometimes also colloq. outrata);

*ie* (long ě) *> í* (long i) : pieseň > píseň, dielo > dílo, sudie > sudí, stavenie > stavení, zpievati > zpívati, třieti > tříti;

The Moravian and Slovak dialects are phonetically more conservative than Modern Czech, the Slovak words often resemble the Old Czech words. To a large extent the changes are systematic and the orthography reflects pronunciation. It is not difficult to understand Standard Slovak texts, even if nearly every word is written differently than in Czech.

Another example in Standard Slovak (about e-prescribing):

_— Čo keď bude výpadok internetu a ja budem mať v ambulancii alebo pri okienku v lekárni pacienta?
— Na plynulé využívanie služby je potrebné byť neustále pripojený na internet. No samozrejme, že nebudete čakať s predpisom/výdajom, kým internet nabehne. Pri výpadku jednoducho predpíšte/vydajte liek tak ako doteraz a váš softvér by mal odoslať tieto záznamy po opätovnom sprístupnení internetu. _

In Standard Czech (my translation):

_— Co když bude výpadek internetu a já budu mít v ambulanci anebo u okénka v lékárně pacienta?
— Na plynulé využívání služby je potřebné být neustále připojen na internet. Ale samozřejmě [, že] nebudete čekat s předpisem (receptem) / výdejem, až internet naběhne. Při výpadku jednoduše předepište / vydejte lék tak jako dosud a váš software by měl odeslat tyto záznamy po opětovném zpřístupnění internetu._


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## pastet89

@bibax 

Thank you very much for that information, very useful. I also thought there are rules for the phonetic changes between the two languages and I believe once you get accustomed to them, you could even speak correctly the other one.

Two questions:

1) How many false friends are between Slovak and Czech on average? Because I remember there were quite few of them. As opposed, I can think only of two between Serbian and Croatian.

2) How different is coloquial Czech from standard Czech? I know only three languages which have two standards - a written and spoken, with significant difference - Czech, Slovene and Norwegian. I am still wondering though, how different are the Czech forms, and if they are too different, how come Slovaks can understand coloquial Czech (and do they really at all)?

My perspective is that my experience with such language is Slovene, where the difference between the standard and the coloquial language is just insane. These are literally two distinct languages with plenty of different lexic (tons of German-origin words in the spoken form). It would not be exaggerated to claim that if a foreigner speaks fluently standard Slovene, they will understand nothing from the coloquial one. Let me give you an example with a simple text:

*Standard Slovene:*

_Ravnokar sem se vrnil iz službe, zdaj pa moram hišo urediti, in sicer zvečer, ker jutri grem teč v gozdu pa ne bom imel časa zato. Kopalnico moram počistiti, pa še posebej to veliko ogledalo, ker je zelo umazano. Aja, tudi pa otroke moram skopati, sem pozabil. No, zadnji čas se mi zdi, da res rabim dopust, in sicer čim prej!_

*Coloquial Slovene:*

_Glihkar sm se vrnu s šihta, zdej pa moram bajto zrihtat, in sicer zvečer, kr jutri grem laufat v gozdu pa ne bom mel cajta zato. Kopalnico moram spucat, pa še posebej ta vlki špegl, ker je fejst umazan. Aja, tut pa froce skopat, sm pozabu. No, zadnji cajt se mi zdi, da res nucam dopust, in sicer čim prej!_

So - is coloquial Czech so different from standard Czech? Would be great if you can also provide two paragraphs in the two varieties so we, the non-natives can feel the difference.


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## Zec

I'm relieved that I understand most of the germanisms  is this Colloquial Slovene text.


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## vianie

> can't we say that they are *virtually* the same language? I am putting aside here all political crap and I want to say that I respect the right of Czechs and Slovaks to call their own language with their own name due to history, national and similar reasons. However, *practically*, isn't it really the same language?


The Czech-Slovak border is one of the oldest in Europe, and hence, one of the most stable.

In the recent history, there has occured a symbolic number of Czech-Slovak territorial issues.


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## francisgranada

As this discussion is interesting and I was born and have lived in Czechoslovakia, I‘d  like to add my “two cents”.

1. Before the creation of the standard Slovak langage in the 19th century, the Czech language (the so called “biblical Czech”) was used among Slovaks as kind of “literal” or written language, especially - but not exclusively - for religious purposes (Bible, religious texts, etc.).
2. The creators of the standard Slovak language consciously adopted terms/words from the Czech language, especially of scientific, administrative, “learned”, etc… character. Supposedly, many abstract/learned words were adopted/borrowed  also spontaneously.
3. Czechoslovakia, the common state of Czechs and Slovaks (and numerous minorities) was not symmetrical in the political, economical and cultural  sense, i.e. Prague played a dominant  role. Consequently, the influence of Czech on Slovak was more relevant than vice versa during this period.

From the linguistic point of view, these two languages are indeed  very similar, e.g. the medieval Czech written texts are phonetically  “almost Slovak”. The modern Slovak (based on the central dialect) seems to be phonetically evidently more conservative than the modern Czech.

However, there are notable differences not only in phonetics and vocabulary, but also in the grammar (declension, conjugation). See for example _idem_ (SK) – _jdu_ (CZ) = ”I go”;  _čítam_ (SK) – _čtu_ (CZ) = “I read”;  _ľudia_ (SK) – _lidé_ (CZ) = “people”; _ruky_ (SK) – _ruce_ (CZ) = “hands”;  etc …. Only for illustration, these differences are not smaller (in my opinion) than those between the Spanish and Italian, e.g. _voy_ (E) – _vado_ (I); _leo_ (E) – _leggo_ (I); _pueblo_ (E) – _popolo_ (I); _manos_ (E) – _mani_ (I); etc ….     

My personal conclusions:

- For better understanding of the high degree of similarity between the Czech and Slovak vocabulary, it is important to take in consideration also the historical influence of the Czech on Slovak.

- The  differences in the conjugation, declension and phonetics may explain the (supposed) fact, that young Czech people  tend to not understand the Slovak automatically, when they are not exposed to the Slovak language at all.  

- The mentioned differences  can also justify, why Czech and Slovak are considered different  languages from the linguistic point of view. (Of course, there are other factors as well, as the different  birth/history of both the Czech and Slovak nations, etc …. )


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## Olaszinhok

Hello everybody.
I am more and more curious about this subject. Could someone please write the present tense of the verbs to be and to have both in Slovak and in Czech. Thanks to that, I might start having an idea about the differences in morphology between these two similar languages.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. I've tried to look for the above verbs on the Internet but I was not able to find them.


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## jazyk

To be:

Czech být: jsem, jsi, je, jsme, jste, jsou
Slovak byť: som, si, je, sme, ste, sú

To have:

Czech mít: mám, máš, má, máme, máte, mají
Slovak mať: mám, máš, má, máme, máte, majú


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## francisgranada

I'd like to add for Olaszinhok that -_t-_ in _má*t*e _and _js*t*e/s*t*e_  (i.e. before the vowel _e_) are pronounced a bit differently in Slovak and in Czech. In Slovak it is "softer", something like in *t*_uesday _or the Hungarian _*ty*._


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## Olaszinhok

Thank you Jakyk and Francis.
From what I can see, it seems to me that the verb to have is almost the same while there are some minor differences (both written and spoken) in the verb to be...


francisgranada said:


> In Slovak it is "softer", something like in *t*_uesday _or the Hungarian _*ty*_


Isn't it akin to the Russian soft t, as in тетрадь, the first t.


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## francisgranada

Olaszinhok said:


> Isn't it akin to the Russian soft t, as in тетрадь, the first t.


Yes, it is. Further more, the 2nd pers. pl. ending -те in Russian is identical to the Slovak  2nd pers. pl. ending  -te.


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## bibax

I can add that the forms *sú* and *majú* are also in Old Czech.

The form *čítám* (čítáš, ...) is also in Czech, with different meaning: čítati ~ počítati (čítač čítá = a counter counts).
Both čísti < *čet-ti (to read) and (po)čítati (to count) have the same original root čet- (in various grades).

*ruce, rukou, rukama* are old dual forms (nom., gen./loc., instr.), *ruky, ruk/rukách, rukami* would be regular plural forms of *ruka* (sing.) = hand;


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## Olaszinhok

francisgranada said:


> Yes, it is. Further more, the 2nd pers. pl. ending -те in Russian is identical to the Slovak 2nd pers. pl. ending -te


Thank you.

Actually, I've always been a bit surprised by the resemblance of the second person plural endings in Italian -ate -ete and -ite to those of most Slavonic languages.


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## AndrasBP

jazyk said:


> Czech být: jsem, jsi, je, jsme, jste, jsou


How do you pronounce <js> at the beginning of a word? I think it's an unusual combination, even for Slavic languages.


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## jasio

francisgranada said:


> I'd like to add for Olaszinhok that -_t-_ in _má*t*e _and _js*t*e/s*t*e_  (i.e. before the vowel _e_) are pronounced a bit differently in Slovak and in Czech. In Slovak it is "softer", something like in *t*_uesday _or the Hungarian _*ty*._


And they are cognates to the Polish macie, jesteście, the 2pl past tense suffix -(li/ły)ście and 2pl present tense suffix -cie respectively, which despite the spelling are even more soft. 



francisgranada said:


> Yes, it is. Further more, the 2nd pers. pl. ending -те in Russian is identical to the Slovak  2nd pers. pl. ending  -te.


Which is kind of interesting, because Ukrainians pronounce these suffixes hard as far as I can remember. At least in the standard language, I don't know about the local dialects. 
And Ukraine is somewhat closer to Slovakia than Russia.


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## jasio

Let me give you my not native perspective, despite its drawbacks. However, my perspective of the speaker of the third major west slavic language (there are also a few minor languages in the group) may put the discussion in a context.

For me the Slovak language sounds pretty familiar, and the level of understanding is very high - up to 80% I would say, in certain topics and short texts even 100% - at least if you get used to certain systematic shifts in the pronunciation and spelling as well as archaic vocabulary and certain random shifts in the meaning. Yet it requires far more attention than Polish and the reading is much slower.

Besides, when returning from abroad, I have always had a strange, yet pleasant feeling that I'm already back at home. I've never had this feeling in the Czech Republic.

I have also had a number of situations of bilingual conversations with the Slovaks. If you speak slowly and mind the false friends it's not really a problem.

And yes, I've seen a movie in the Czech language (dubbed actually) with Slovak subtitles - it was look who's talking in early 90s.

Having said that, I would add two things.

I've read somewhere that Slovak sounds most familiar to most native slavic speakers, perhaps because of its central position and quite archaic or conservative structures and vocabulary.
MI is not the best criteria and can be in fact very misleading. There are Polish rural dialects or idiolects which sound Chinese to me - and the standard Slovak does not.
The dialect vs language issue is political per se, especially if you consider a North-Slavic dialectal continuum spanning from Sorbian to Russian and from Kashubian to Czech and Slovak. North German dialects are closer to Dutch (MI) and South German - to the Schweizerdeutsch than to the standard German. Yet they are considered German dialects, not Dutch or Alemanic. Alike, quite dissimilar Italian etnolects are considered dialects rather than languages for political reasons, though they are not MI. The same goes for Chinese and many other locations globally.


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## vianie

francisgranada said:


> 1. Before the creation of the standard Slovak langage in the 19th century, the Czech language (the so called “biblical Czech”) was used among Slovaks as kind of “literal” or written language, especially - but not exclusively - for religious purposes (Bible, religious texts, etc.).


This deserves an external link to see the consequences - Biblical Czech, based on the Bible of Kralice



jasio said:


> Which is kind of interesting, because Ukrainians pronounce these suffixes hard as far as I can remember. At least in the standard language, I don't know about the local dialects.
> And Ukraine is somewhat closer to Slovakia than Russia.


There dialects in the West of Slovakia that too pronounce them hard. Especially the Trnava region (21a) is known for this.

Slovak Rusyns (31), on the other side of Slovakia, have a harder-than-standard pronunciation as well.


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## pastet89

It should be pointed out that Czech Republic/Slovakia's got talent TV show (Česko Slovensko má talent) is currently emitted in a mixed environment - the competition is organized for both countries and the hosts are mixed, from both nations. Everyone of them speaks their language and everything goes as fluent as smooth as possible.

Maybe recently the common cultural media has started to join forces again and the mixed exposure is starting to get common in both countries? Because even the most common question the hosts ask: What's your name - _Ako sa volaš/Jak se jmenuješ_, is different, but everyone seems to understand it.

Last time I was in Slovakia, 30% of the movies in the cinema were in Czech - included a dubbed one, and in all bookstores, maybe at least the same number was valid for the books. So there the picture is clear, but I am wondering if recently also in Czech Republic the young generation is restarting their Slovak exposure and mutual communication.


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## bibax

pastet89 said:


> Because even the most common question the hosts ask: What's your name - _Ako sa volaš/Jak se jmenuješ_, is different, but everyone seems to understand it.


Not too apposite example, both verbs exist in both languages: jmenovat (commonly pronounced menovat) ~ menovať, volat ~ volať.

In Slovak "Ako sa menuješ?" is possible: „_*Ako sa menuješ*_ a odkiaľ si?“ „Dorota Polóny z Osrblia“
In Czech "Jak se voláš?" is rare but understandable: „A _*jak se voláš*_ příjmením?" „Já?" odtušila Klára táhle tichým hlasem, „no — Němečkova . . ."

Český úryvek je ovšem hodně starý, od Gabriely Preissové, povídka Králuša (slovácké a slovenské období autorčiny tvorby).


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## Encolpius

As for prosody, like chalk and cheese.
But the Czech prosody is extremely difficult to "imitate", now I can remember only 1 young Croatian lady whom I had thought about she was native, Slovak prosody reminds me of Hungarian prosody. But so far I was not able to find any academic text about those differences.


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## sonncz

pastet89 said:


> It should be pointed out that Czech Republic/Slovakia's got talent TV show (Česko Slovensko má talent) is currently emitted in a mixed environment - the competition is organized for both countries and the hosts are mixed, from both nations. Everyone of them speaks their language and everything goes as fluent as smooth as possible.
> 
> Maybe recently the common cultural media has started to join forces again and the mixed exposure is starting to get common in both countries? Because even the most common question the hosts ask: What's your name - _Ako sa volaš/Jak se jmenuješ_, is different, but everyone seems to understand it.
> 
> Last time I was in Slovakia, 30% of the movies in the cinema were in Czech - included a dubbed one, and in all bookstores, maybe at least the same number was valid for the books. So there the picture is clear, but I am wondering if recently also in Czech Republic the young generation is restarting their Slovak exposure and mutual communication.



These common Czecho-Slovak TV shows started already in 2009 with Czecho-Slovak Idol singing competition.
6 seasons of this show already aired and another one is planned for next year. Same with several seasons of other shows like Got Talent that you mentioned, The Voice, X Factor, MasterChef etc.

The thing is that exposure to Slovak has increased dramatically with these shows and with the rise of the internet.
Young Czechs follow Slovak social media influencers, watch Slovak Youtubers and listen to Slovak music, especially hip hop.
They've had more exposure to Slovak language in the last 11 years than I had growing up in the 90s. Actually I had no exposure to Slovak back then as there was no Slovak on TV and internet was not widespread.
That's why I find it funny when someone still says that young Czechs lose contact with Slovak and don't understand it as much as before.
It's simply not true, quite the contrary.


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## Mister Draken

Dymn said:


> No, that's not true, all varieties of Spanish are perfectly mutually intelligible, only in a slang-packed conversation or in a noisy atmosphere I could comprehend it if speakers had some problems understanding each other.



Thank you for this comment. I have been perusing through this thread and every statement about the intelligibility between Spanish from Spain and Latinamerican Spanish was utterly wrong. I wonder where that misunderstanding has come from.


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## risa2000

It has been an interesting read, which made me think about the following question. I once read somewhere (unfortunately, cannot find it now) that Czech and Slovak are two languages (out of not so many pairs) which have a special property (or trait) that they can be used at the same time in a fluent conversation. In other words, if two persons meet and they know both languages, but prefer to speak the different one from the other, they can have a conversation while using both languages without difficulties.

I assume this is not exactly a special case of mutual intelligibility, because in MI the assumption is, how much someone, with one language experience, can understand the other. Here however, the situation is different in that both speakers know both languages and just feel comfortable about using them both at the same time. What (I speculate) this tries to express is the fact that the mental model related to the language one speaks, is so close for Czech and Slovak that switching between them does not pose a problem. This is different from the situation when people speak for example both English and French, they will prefer to switch into one, because the mental models for both languages are fundamentally different. Examples being married couples one Slovak, one Czech, where each one still speaks the native language.

I wonder if the other examples mentioned in the discussion here: Catalan-Valencian-Spanish, Serbian-Croatian, etc. behave the same?


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## pastet89

risa2000 said:


> I wonder if the other examples mentioned in the discussion here: Catalan-Valencian-Spanish, Serbian-Croatian, etc. behave the same?



Spanish is quite different from Catalan/Valencian.
Their similarity is not comparable to what we discussed here . In oral conversation, the MI between Catalan and Spanish can be as low as 50%, the pair in question was Catalan/Valencian.


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## Olaszinhok

pastet89 said:


> Spanish is quite different from Catalan/Valencian.
> Their similarity is not comparable to what we discussed here . In oral conversation, the MI between Catalan and Spanish can be as low as 50%, the pair in question was Catalan/Valencian.


Catalan and Valencian are two varieties of the same language, there are very few differences in grammar and vocabulary while the pronunciation can diverge a bit more significantly. As for Spanish and Catalan,  it is true that these two languages are not mutually intelligible except to some extent, but Catalan has been highly influenced by Castilian over the centuries  in terms of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and particularly syntax. I don't actually know whether Czech may have had such an influence over Slovach in the past. However, I daresay that the differences between Catalan and Castilian are still much more numerous than the ones between Czech and Slovach.


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## pastet89

Regarding Serbian and Croatian, you can switch between any of them in anytime, to any extent, in any context and there will be no problem for the other side to understand. Just from time to time (quite rarely) they may have to ask for some word. I'd say MI in daily life is close to 99-100%. In the literature language it could be a bit harder, but I cannot imagine it dropping below 95% even there.


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## DarkChild

pastet89 said:


> they are WAY, WAY more similar than Macedonian and Bulgarian, for which there is quite ongoing debate if are separate languages or not
> So, provided that I can assure you that a Bulgarian can not watch a Macedonian movie or read a Macedonian book without some significant troubles, could you please tell me:


What? Czech and Slovak are in no way more similar than Bulgarian and Macedonian. The basic difficulty comes from Serbian vocabulary that was artificially placed into the new standardized language in Macedonia. Remove that and with some exposure (which Bulgarians get none of) and you have no troubles at all. 
Czech and Slovak have been the same country for 60 years and the mutual exposure continues until today. But they are not the same language.


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## pastet89

DarkChild said:


> What? Czech and Slovak are in no way more similar than Bulgarian and Macedonian. The basic difficulty comes from Serbian vocabulary that was artificially placed into the new standardized language in Macedonia. Remove that and with some exposure (which Bulgarians get none of) and you have no troubles at all.
> Czech and Slovak have been the same country for 60 years and the mutual exposure continues until today. But they are not the same language.



I disagree. Linguistic studies have compared pairs of different languages and have established the lexical similarity, the one between Czech and Slovak is estimated to be between 90 to 95%, while the one between Bulgarian and Macedonian is around 85%. Even without digging into such details, with my basic knowledge of Macedonian, Czech and Slovak, I can confirm that these numbers feel correct. And with my advanced knowledge of Serbo-Croatian I can definitely claim that in terms of similarity the CZ/SK pair looks much more than SR/HR pair than the Bulgarian/Macedonian pair. By the way, it is enough for someone to take any text in Bulgarian and see its Macedonian translation to see how much are the differences, then do the same with Czech and Slovak and he will come to the same conclusion.

My Serbian is on the C1/C2 level and I am from Sofia (West Bulgaria). Even after long exposure to Macedonian, I had to concentrate a lot to follow some Macedonian series and I didn't understand everything. And for other family members this is impossible.


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## DarkChild

pastet89 said:


> My Serbian is on the C1/C2 level and I am from Sofia (West Bulgaria). Even after long exposure to Macedonian, I had to concentrate a lot to follow some Macedonian series and I didn't understand everything.


Then the problem lies with you.


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## Olaszinhok

I have always been told by some Bulgarians that Macedonian is highly or fully intelligible to them, probably that was an exaggeration, because they tend (used to tend) to consider Macedonian as a sort of Bulgarian dialect. Apparently,  even Spanish and Portuguese have a higher lexical similarity, around 89%. The Portuguese generally claim to understand Spanish pretty well, while it seems to be more complicated  the other way round, due to the complexity of some Portuguese phonemes.


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## pastet89

Olaszinhok said:


> I have always been told by some Bulgarians that Macedonian is highly or fully intelligible to them, probably that was an exaggeration, because they tend (used to tend) to consider Macedonian as a sort of Bulgarian dialect.



You're absolutely right. Actually, by the way, the majority of the Bulgarians when asked would claim "they understand 90% of Serbian". While this could be true for daily conversations, speaking in general and taking into account all aspects of the language, such claim can't be further from the truth, shows zero competence and can be expressed only by someone who has never even tried to read a single page from a serious Serbian literature or to watch a Serbian movie without subtitles - simply because they would give up immediately. 

To be honest, I was one of those Bulgarians exaggerating the mutual intelligibility between Bulgarian/Macedonian and Bulgarian/Serbian until the moment I started learning Serbian as my major in university and I got more familiar with Macedonian.




Olaszinhok said:


> Apparently,  even Spanish and Portuguese have a higher lexical similarity, around 89%. The Portuguese generally claim to understand Spanish pretty well, while it seems to be more complicated  the other way round, due to the complexity of Portuguese phonology.


Indeed. I would say the written intelligibility between Macedonian and Bulgarian is comparable to the one between Spanish and Portuguese. However, the oral MI between Spanish and Portuguese is significantly lower than the BG/MK one, exactly because of the pronunciation.


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## jasio

risa2000 said:


> It has been an interesting read, which made me think about the following question. I once read somewhere (unfortunately, cannot find it now) that Czech and Slovak are two languages (out of not so many pairs) which have a special property (or trait) that they can be used at the same time in a fluent conversation. In other words, if two persons meet and they know both languages, but prefer to speak the different one from the other, they can have a conversation while using both languages without difficulties.


You touched quite a bunch of interesting topics.

A concept of a conversation in two languages simultaneously may or may not have anything to do with MI. If I understand correctly, the concept of MI assumes NO earlier experience with the other language, and understanding the other merely on its similarities to your own language, isn't it? But is this pre-condition even possible to be met in modern-day Czech and Slovakia - not even mentioning the older generations, grown in Czechoslovakia?

I recall a friend of mine, whom I visited in Slovakia and who visited me in Poland back in the 90s . We had similar bi-lingual conversations, despite some minor difficulties. MI? Not necessarily. My friend had lived close enough to the border to watch the Polish TV and had quite good passive grasp of Polish. Meanwhile, I used to learn singing some Slovak and Karpatorusyn folk songs, which had vastly expanded my vocabulary. Not mentioning learning at school old Polish poems and literature, which included a whole lot of old words which later went out of use in Polish, but which were still used in Slovak. In fact, I tried to express myself in expected-to-be-Slovak, but I quickly realised that in general I was understood easier and more correctly when I spoke regular Polish than when I tried to mimic Slovak vocabulary and pronunciation.

On the other hand, your post reminded me what I heard from my grandparents about their lives in modern Western Ukraine. They lived in a multicultural and multilingual society, and they went even one step further: they were all fluent in at least two major languages of the area (a local dialect of Polish and a local dialect of Ukrainian) and they were code switching on the fly between the languages. It was nothing unusual to include a word or a phrase from the other language just because the speaker felt that it expressed his idea better than a respective word in his own language. Or seemed to be more culturally compatible with the story. Or simply because that word "jumped in" first. I've heard about a similar phenomenon among an Italian speaking community and the Spanish speaking majority in Argentina.

I think that this phenomenon is more about the shared cultural background than about MI alone - after all, all interested parties spoke better or worse both languages. Perhaps, it's also about structural similarities between the languages. For example when I include an English word in the Polish phrase there's often a struggle with the inflection: the English stems are often plain incompatible with the Polish inflection patterns, and the Polish grammar requires that the word is inflected. On the other hand, it's not the case with the nearby Slavic languages. If you tried to speak Polish and included a few words in Czech, in their proper forms, it could probably sound a bit peculiar - but it would fully satisfy my sense of grammar. I checked it many times with the Ukrainians living in Poland, and it just works. They attempt to speak Polish, but they often miss some words and say them - properly inflected - in Ukrainian (sometimes in Russian). And they fit beautifully.


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## jasio

pastet89 said:


> I disagree. Linguistic studies have compared pairs of different languages and have established the lexical similarity, the one between Czech and Slovak is estimated to be between 90 to 95%, while the one between Bulgarian and Macedonian is around 85%.


Shouldn't it be taken with a grain of salt?

As far as I can recall, lexical similarity measures consider words of common origin even if they mean something different in the respective languages. So for example Polish "miłość" (love) and Czech "milost" (grace) would do. So would the Polish "łaska" (grace) and Czech "laska" (love) - although because of the pronunciation shift it's not so obvious in the spoken language. In Slovak their pronunciation and meaning are similar to the Czech, btw. Either way, these pairs would contribute to the statistical proximity measures, but they would not contribute to the mutual intelligibility. Even worse... in some contexts they could pass unnoticed leading to misunderstandings.


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## risa2000

jasio said:


> A concept of a conversation in two languages simultaneously may or may not have anything to do with MI. If I understand correctly, the concept of MI assumes NO earlier experience with the other language, and understanding the other merely on its similarities to your own language, isn't it? But is this pre-condition even possible to be met in modern-day Czech and Slovakia - not even mentioning the older generations, grown in Czechoslovakia?


Actually, I believe that what I described is kind of "orthogonal" to MI. MI assumes that I know one language and then tries to quantify, how much can I understand the other (which I supposedly do not know). What I had on mind is the opposite. I know two languages fairly well (at least to the point I am comfortable about expressing myself in either) and having conversation with someone who is capable of the same. Now, while it could be possible to either agree on one language and use this during the conversation, or we can each use one different, there seems to be languages (pairs) where it is easier (or more comfortable), or maybe even necessary to switch to the same one, there are also pairs where it is not.

On the side note, I believe for Czech-Slovak pair it is almost impossible to judge MI for a native Czech or Slovak, exactly because of the long exposure both languages and nations had among themselves. The friend of mine who is French and speaks a bit of Slovak, however confirmed to me that understanding the Czech (when he moved to Czech Rep.) was not at all given. It felt basically like a different language to him.



jasio said:


> I think that this phenomenon is more about the shared cultural background than about MI alone - after all, all interested parties spoke better or worse both languages. Perhaps, it's also about structural similarities between the languages.


What I originally mentioned as "mental model" (compatible for the languages in question), is actually close to what you suggested. It means both the language structure (grammar, morphology), but also the similarity between the ideas the words express (what you call the cultural background).

On the other hand, using a foreign word in one's language to better express one's idea is something different, because it requires that the audience is really familiar with only the particular word (and its established meaning), not necessarily the whole language, or general cultural background.


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## Cautus

sonncz said:


> That's why I find it funny when someone still says that young Czechs lose contact with Slovak and don't understand it as much as before.


I must disagree. I had seen Slovak movies on a TV almost every day despite nowadays, due to I can say: "Czechs lose contact with Slovaks" compared with the past time.
_Cautus_


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## sonncz

Cautus said:


> I must disagree. I had seen Slovak movies on a TV almost every day despite nowadays, due to I can say: "Czechs lose contact with Slovaks" compared with the past time.
> _Cautus_



It used to be Slovak movies on TV for your generation, for today's generation it's Slovak videos on Youtube, Slovak texts on internet/social media and conversations with Slovaks on these platforms. The contact haven't disappeared, it just changed its form. On the contrary I'd say the contact with Slovaks has been increasing. I didn't have the opportunity to talk to Slovaks when growing up in the 90s, while now I communicate with Slovaks on the internet quite often.



risa2000 said:


> The friend of mine who is French and speaks a bit of Slovak, however confirmed to me that understanding the Czech (when he moved to Czech Rep.) was not at all given. It felt basically like a different language to him.



I think that could change once he becomes more fluent in Slovak. Non-fluent foreigners have to focus more on the language and its understanding. Besides they don't have the advantage of native speakers, who know lots of synonyms or other words which might be archaic or used less in one language and not in the other.
I have a Canadian friend who speaks Czech fluently and has no problem with understanding Slovak.
Same with this American Youtuber learning Czech (TadyGavin - search for his video rozumím slovenštině - I'm not allowed to link videos here), his Czech is at a good level and he doesn't seem to have many issues with Slovak.


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## Cautus

sonncz said:


> On the contrary I'd say the contact with Slovaks has been increasing.


Asi záleží na člověku, jako malý jsem sledoval slovenské pohádky, protože jiná možnost nebyla. Na Youtube si slovenštinu nepustím, ani jsem se s ní nesetkal. Můj první pořádný kontakt se slovenštinou, od revoluce, když opomenu svého slovenského kolegu, je kniha Modrá a Hnedá kniha od Wittgensteina, a musím říct, že v češtině bych si ji užil víc.

Ale zpět k dotazu. *Slovenština a čeština jsou velmi podobné jazyky, i když při komunikaci o nedorozumění není nouze.*


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## Pollock3

pastet89 said:


> Thank you very much for your reply.
> 
> So based on your replies I would conclude that I was right that CZ/SK difference is just a bit bigger than between Serbian and Croatian, but still way smaller than the one between Bulgarian and Macedonian.
> 
> It is still very interesting that while Czech and Slovak are so similar, you (and also other people who answered similar questions online) are still putting into question the topic of "understanding". With Serbian and Croatian, yes, they might need to ask from time to time for certain words, but I do not think that the question of "understanding" exists at all (provided that we talk about official standards of the languages). It seems I would have to really to dig deeper into either Czech or Slovak to be able to feel the differences properly myself.
> 
> It would be great if anyone else could share their insights as well.


Hi, Czech and Slovak are quite similar languages. For older generation ( as I am) who lived during the time of Czechoslovak state and were watching TV in Slovak, it is not such difficult to understand, but for Czech kids of today..it might be difficult to understand some of the words.


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## PumpJack

bibax said:


> I knew that somebody would argue. But I didn't expect a Brasilian.
> 
> The word *drevokocúr* (lit. wood or tree-tomcat) exists, however not in Standard Slovak. It is a calque from German *Eichkatze* (= lit. "oak-cat", = squirrel).


Please stop with this "urban legend" origined in military service  in 60's or 70's . There si no word like this. Please show me a book with this word.


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## PumpJack

Cautus said:


> Asi záleží na člověku, jako malý jsem sledoval slovenské pohádky, protože jiná možnost nebyla. Na Youtube si slovenštinu nepustím, ani jsem se s ní nesetkal. Můj první pořádný kontakt se slovenštinou, od revoluce, když opomenu svého slovenského kolegu, je kniha Modrá a Hnedá kniha od Wittgensteina, a musím říct, že v češtině bych si ji užil víc.
> 
> Ale zpět k dotazu. *Slovenština a čeština jsou velmi podobné jazyky, i když při komunikaci o nedorozumění není nouze.*


Obliba slovenštiny u českých čtenářů byla proto, že slovenská nakladatelství nebyla pod tak velkou cenzurou.  A tak některá díla západních autorů vyšla dříve v slovenském překladu. Steinbeck, Vonnegut ,Hailey a tak dále. Stejně zas český dabing byl rozhodně lepší než "Koliba". 
Je toho škoda, protože bilingválnost naší generace cvičila mozek. Dnes zažijete, to co já s otevřenými ústy na D1 si POláci objednávali jídlo u McD anglicky (mizernou angličtinou). V Karviné by to bylo naprosto normální, že by jim porozuměli polsky.


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## jasio

PumpJack said:


> Dnes zažijete, to co já s otevřenými ústy na D1 si POláci objednávali jídlo u McD anglicky (mizernou angličtinou). V Karviné by to bylo naprosto normální, že by jim porozuměli polsky.


Co mi przypomina, jak wracaliśmy kiedyś z Bułgarii po kilku tygodniach wakacji - i już na węgiersko-słowackiej granicy poczułem się prawie jak w domu, bo wreszcie zacząłem rozumieć, co się mówi dookoła. Albo przynajmniej słowa i melodia języka brzmiały znajomo. ;-)


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## vianie

V dobách spoločnej republiky možno bola čeština na Slovensku takpovediac povinná, ale aj po rozdelení republiky si zachovala status obľúbeného jazyka. Či už vďaka TV Nova počas prvých rokov jej vysielania, či vďaka kvalitnému českému dabingu.

Osobne som rád, že v tejto opticko-internetovej dobe mám na výber aj z množstva českých televízií, českých rádií, či českých videí na YT. Čeština je už jednoducho súčasťou mojej identity, hoc len ako pasívny jazyk.



jasio said:


> Co mi przypomina, jak wracaliśmy kiedyś z Bułgarii po kilku tygodniach wakacji - i już na węgiersko-słowackiej granicy poczułem się prawie jak w domu, bo wreszcie zacząłem rozumieć, co się mówi dookoła. Albo przynajmniej słowa i melodia języka brzmiały znajomo. ;-)


Niečo obdobné sa mi zavše stalo v Anglicku, keď som v práci či v obchode narazil na melodicky ale aj vizuálne Slovákom podobných Poliakov/Poľky.


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## PumpJack

bibax said:


> Slovak has some Hungarian words that are not understandable for [young] Czechs. For example: *ťava* (Hu. teve, Cz. velbloud, Eng. camel), *kefa* (Hu. kefe, Cz. kartáč [of Romance origin], Eng. brush), *bosorka* (Hu. boszorkány, Cz. čarodějnice, Eng. witch),* lopta* (Hu. labda, Cz. míč, Eng. ball), *mačka* (Hu. macska, Cz. kočka, Eng. cat). They must be memorized. Hungarian, Czech, Slovak *kabát* (Eng. coat) is a common word (of Persian origin kabā).


Toť otázka, zda je původní slovenské slovo pro kočku mačka anebo je to přejímka z maďarštiny. Vzhledem  k tomu, že stovky slov týkajících se zemědělství, řemesel a domácnosti přejala maďarština od usedlých Moravanů, a je o tom dost publikací můe být vše opačně. Uvádím námatkově pro Vás _potok(slk.)/patak(hu_) , _britva(slk)/borotva(hu)_ _tanier(sk)/tanyér(hu)_ , _čistá(sk)/tiszta(hu)_, dni v týdnu, křesťanské termíny, názvy plodin jako : _raž ,čerešňa,_ nářadí :_hrable/gereble_ atd..  Český etymologický slovník Jiřího Rejzka (LEDA 2001) uvádí právě u hesla _*kočka*_ :hornolužicky _kóčka_ , dolnolužicky _kócka_ , polsky _kotka_, nářečově ale i _koczka_, rusky_ koška _. V jihoslovanských jazycích a slovensky_ mačka_  etymologicky by byla mačka z _macek_ - maco, macatý - "kocour" pochází z vábícího slova_ mac_ , dolnoněmecky doloženo_ Matz_ . 
Čímž nepopírám jiné přejímky. Ty lidé vedle sebe žili tak dlouho, že podobně jako česko-neměcké je i slovensko-neměcké a slovensko-maďarské působení. A dokonce i opačným směrem. _Grenze_ / _Hranice _


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## PumpJack

jasio said:


> Co mi przypomina, jak wracaliśmy kiedyś z Bułgarii po kilku tygodniach wakacji - i już na węgiersko-słowackiej granicy poczułem się prawie jak w domu, bo wreszcie zacząłem rozumieć, co się mówi dookoła. Albo przynajmniej słowa i melodia języka brzmiały znajomo. ;-)


Pamietam v latach 1985 jak w telewiziji POlskiej bylo Kino noczne ... i w Karwine bylyśmy bardzo śczesliwy ze jest. Pozdrawiam i przepraszam za moja nie dobra polska mówe


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## PumpJack

jasio said:


> Shouldn't it be taken with a grain of salt?
> 
> As far as I can recall, lexical similarity measures consider words of common origin even if they mean something different in the respective languages. So for example Polish "miłość" (love) and Czech "milost" (grace) would do. So would the Polish "łaska" (grace) and Czech "laska" (love) - although because of the pronunciation shift it's not so obvious in the spoken language. In Slovak their pronunciation and meaning are similar to the Czech, btw. Either way, these pairs would contribute to the statistical proximity measures, but they would not contribute to the mutual intelligibility. Even worse... in some contexts they could pass unnoticed leading to misunderstandings.


Hi, you can compare also _czarstwy (pl)_/ čerstvý (sk,cz) chleb/chléb/chlieb polish is _czarstwy_ old , not good  and slovak and czech "čerstvý"  is fresh, good
For fresh today prepared bread is term "swiezy" witch is to same sviežy(sk) svěžý , svěžest(cz)  and other word sklep


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## francisgranada

PumpJack said:


> Toť otázka, zda je původní slovenské slovo pro kočku mačka anebo je to přejímka z maďarštiny. Vzhledem  k tomu, že stovky slov týkajících se zemědělství, řemesel a domácnosti přejala maďarština od usedlých Moravanů, a je o tom dost publikací můe být vše opačně. Uvádím námatkově pro Vás _potok(slk.)/patak(hu_) , _britva(slk)/borotva(hu)_ _tanier(sk)/tanyér(hu)_ , _čistá(sk)/tiszta(hu)_, dni v týdnu, křesťanské termíny, názvy plodin jako : _raž ,čerešňa,_ nářadí :_hrable/gereble_ atd..  Český etymologický slovník Jiřího Rejzka (LEDA 2001) uvádí právě u hesla _*kočka*_ :hornolužicky _kóčka_ , dolnolužicky _kócka_ , polsky _kotka_, nářečově ale i _koczka_, rusky_ koška _. V jihoslovanských jazycích a slovensky_ mačka_  etymologicky by byla mačka z _macek_ - maco, macatý - "kocour" pochází z vábícího slova_ mac_ , dolnoněmecky doloženo_ Matz_ .
> Čímž nepopírám jiné přejímky. Ty lidé vedle sebe žili tak dlouho, že podobně jako česko-neměcké je i slovensko-neměcké a slovensko-maďarské působení. A dokonce i opačným směrem. _Grenze_ / _Hranice _


Súhlasím, ten proces nebol a ani dnes nie je "lineárny" alebo "jednosmerný". Napr. v dnešnej taliančine je spústa anglických slov, ktoré sú v konečnom dôsledku románskeho (starofrancúzskeho) alebo latinského pôvodu, a cez angličtinu sa potom dostali "naspäť" do taliančiny.  Pre vytvorenie celkového obrazu, treba rozlišovať _etymologický pôvod_ slova a tzv. _odovzdávajúci jazyk_ (z ktorého dané slovo bolo prevzaté)

*************************
Príklad pre ilustráciu toho, že slová niekedy majú dosť "kľukatú" históriu a nestačí robiť unáhlené závery len na báze podobnosti: 

Maďarské slovo _*tányér *_ je severoitalského pôvodu, kde slová [_tajér_] [_tajir_], etc ... znamenali niečo ako "doska na krájanie mäsa, zeleniny, apod." V dnejšnej štandardnej taliančine to je _tagliere,_ odvodené zo slovesa_  tagliare (_< lat._ taliare), _čo  znamená "krájať, rezať".  Nemecké slovo _*Teller *_je pokračovaním staro-hornonemeckého _talier_, ktoré rovnako pochádza zo (severnej) Itálie. 

Vzhľadom na fonetickú podobu a na historické súvislosti, dá sa predpokladať, že české _talíř _a poľské _talerz _sú prevzaté zo staro-hornonemeckého _talier_ (nem.  _Teller_), kdežto sloveské _tanier _pochádza z maďarského _tányér_..


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## jasio

PumpJack said:


> Pamietam v latach 1985 jak w telewiziji POlskiej bylo Kino noczne ... i w Karwine bylyśmy bardzo śczesliwy ze jest. Pozdrawiam i przepraszam za moja nie dobra polska mówe



Twój polski jest dużo lepszy, niż mój słowacki. Kiedyś nauczyłem się śpiewać kilka  słowackich piosenek i wydawało mi się, że dam radę porozumieć się na Słowacji po słowacku.

Cóż, wydawało mi się.... ;-)

Zdecydowaie lepszy efekt miałem, jak mówiłem po polsku, bo przynajmniej nie używałem jakichś udziwnionych zwrotów, które mi wydawały się słowackie, ale Słowacy ich kompletnie nie rozumieli! Może dlatego, że w praktyce często to były przekręcone słowa rosyjskie, a nie słowackie. ;-) Nie mówiąc już o tym,że jak trafiłem na słowo w którym była zbitka spółgłoskowa z "r" w środku (np. čtvrtok, čtvrty, zmrzlina) musiałem się zatrzymać, wziąć oddech i zacząć od tego słowa, bo w środku zdania w żaden sposób mi to nie wychodziło.


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## jasio

PumpJack said:


> Hi, you can compare also _cz*e*rstwy (pl)_/ čerstvý (sk,cz) chleb/chléb/chlieb polish is _cz*e*rstwy_ old , not good  and slovak and czech "čerstvý"  is fresh, good
> For fresh today prepared bread is term "swiezy" witch is to same sviežy(sk) svěžý , svěžest(cz)  and other word sklep


Another  word we encountered commonly was "jahoda", which in Slovak means "strawberry", but which sounds almost like "jagoda" which in Polish means "blackberry". We always had to remember to ask for "čučoriedková zmrzlina" (blackberry icecream) rather than for "jahodová zmrzlina" if we did not want to get strawberry icecream. ;-) Not mentioning that "zmrzlina" (icecream) itself is difficult to pronounce because of five consonants in a row., and to our ear it sounded like "zmarzlina" (permafrost) - which is quite logically connected, but still not quite the same.

There are tons of such examples. They would pass well as a language proximity metric, but in practice they make a direct communication much more difficult.


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## PumpJack

francisgranada said:


> Súhlasím, ten proces nebol a ani dnes nie je "lineárny" alebo "jednosmerný". Napr. v dnešnej taliančine je spústa anglických slov, ktoré sú v konečnom dôsledku románskeho (starofrancúzskeho) alebo latinského pôvodu, a cez angličtinu sa potom dostali "naspäť" do taliančiny.  Pre vytvorenie celkového obrazu, treba rozlišovať _etymologický pôvod_ slova a tzv. _odovzdávajúci jazyk_ (z ktorého dané slovo bolo prevzaté)
> 
> *************************
> Príklad pre ilustráciu toho, že slová niekedy majú dosť "kľukatú" históriu a nestačí robiť unáhlené závery len na báze podobnosti:
> 
> Maďarské slovo _*tányér *_ je severoitalského pôvodu, kde slová [_tajér_] [_tajir_], etc ... znamenali niečo ako "doska na krájanie mäsa, zeleniny, apod." V dnejšnej štandardnej taliančine to je _tagliere,_ odvodené zo slovesa_  tagliare (_< lat._ taliare), _čo znamená "krájať, rezať".  Nemecké slovo _*Teller *_je pokračovaním staro-hornonemeckého _talier_, ktoré rovnako pochádza zo (severnej) Itálie.
> 
> Vzhľadom na fonetickú podobu a na historické súvislosti, dá sa predpokladať, že české _talíř _a poľské _talerz _sú prevzaté zo staro-hornonemeckého _talier_ (nem.  _Teller_), kdežto sloveské _tanier _pochádza z maďarského _tányér_..



Tak táto slučka mi unikla...  Slová a ich cesta, zdroj, povod ma zaujímajú od detstva. Viem o okruhu povodu slova gazda z staroslovenčiny do maďarčiny a naspäť do slovenčiny. Aj o tom že "írečitý" a "íver" sú z maďarského základu.
Maďarčina dala napríklad svetu slovo *koč* / kocs  ...angl. coach fr, coche 
A poslúžila ako transfer do slovenčiny z tureckých slov, ťava/teve/deve  čižma/cizsma/cisme  . Dokonca i tá bosorka a kefa sú až z tureckých či turkicých koreňov  ( zdroj https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/ha..._0_287503_0_111333.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
No hlavne ,že si rozumieme..


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## PumpJack

jasio said:


> Another  word we encountered commonly was "jahoda", which in Slovak means "strawberry", but which sounds almost like "jagoda" which in Polish means "blackberry". We always had to remember to ask for "čučoriedková zmrzlina" (blackberry icecream) rather than for "jahodová zmrzlina" if we did not want to get strawberry icecream. ;-) Not mentioning that "zmrzlina" (icecream) itself is difficult to pronounce because of five consonants in a row., and to our ear it sounded like "zmarzlina" (permafrost) - which is quite logically connected, but still not quite the same.
> 
> There are tons of such examples. They would pass well as a language proximity metric, but in practice they make a direct communication much more difficult.


And imagine polish  car on czech highway with "pomoc drogowa"


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## Enquiring Mind

Berry sorry to be pedantic, but čučoriedková zmrzlina - blueberry; černicová zmrzlina - blackberry.  My favourite, vanilková / waniliowe, is unlikely to lead to any confusion.


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## jasio

Enquiring Mind said:


> Berry sorry to be pedantic, but čučoriedková zmrzlina - blueberry; černicová zmrzlina - blackberry.  My favourite, vanilková / waniliowe, is unlikely to lead to any confusion.


Indeed, you're right! I must have confused the English berry names. :-D


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## marco_2

Enquiring Mind said:


> Berry sorry to be pedantic, but čučoriedková zmrzlina - blueberry; černicová zmrzlina - blackberry.  My favourite, vanilková / waniliowe, is unlikely to lead to any confusion.


Being even more pedantic, I would say that *čučoriedka*, which you can find in our icecream, is 'bilberry' _(Vaccinum mertillus L.)_ - in Polish 'czarna jagoda' or 'borówka czarna'. A blueberry _(Vaccinum corymbosum L.) _is 'borówka amerykańska' which became very popular in this part of Europe and is comercially grown, but it tastes different and is not native here - it comes from North America.


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## studencik

Sadly, we have no written records of Slovak before its "bohemization". I read somewhere that there were pre-war plans to create a union between Poland and Slovakia (some Slovaks weren't favorable of Czechs and considered Poles as closer people) and Polish supposed to greatly influence Slovak literary language thus making it even more similar to Polish, but unfortunately Czechs had much bigger influence in Slovakia.


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## bigic

I found an interesting paper (in Serbian) about the life of Vojvodina (Serbia) Slovaks who migrated to Slovakia. There is a sentence about the Czech language:


> На поменуте  тешкоће  са  стандардним словачким  језиком,  надовезују  се  и  други  изазови  –  знање  чешког  језика,  веома заступљеног у литератури на студијама, у медијима и сл. *За војвођанске Словаке је  чешки  језик  веома  далек* _(For Vojvodina Slovaks, the Czech language is very distant)_, па се  они  који  студирају  довијају  на различите  начине (траже  превод  на  српски  и  сл.),  док  они  који  у  каснијим годинама долазе због посла *често не могу да га савладају ни на нивоу пасивног разумевања.* _(often can't even passively understand the Czech language)_



To be fair, in the paper it's also mentioned that the dialect of Vojvodina Slovaks is "different from the standard, more archaic, and with many dialectisms and Serbisms"


> Словачки  језик  којим  они  говоре  разликује  се  од стандарда;  архаичнији  је,  са  много  дијалектизама  и  србизама.





> Код појединих саговорника,  који  су  у  Словачкој  стекли  универзитетско  образовање  и  где живе већ две деценије, и даље је био приметан утицај српског у конструкцији реченице.


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## sonncz

To return to some of my older posts about current extensive contact between young Czech and Slovak speakers thanks to the internet.
There is a new slovakism in the slang of Czech youth - the word *popiči*
It's a slightly vulgar word expressing that something is amazing/awesome/great or it can be used as an intensifier (_Je to popiči dobré - It is insanely good_)

There is this 2012 blog post from a Czech author who complains Czech language doesn't have this word. He concludes the post with regret, saying he doubts this word will ever make it to Czech language.
Fast forward 10 years and young Czechs use this word quite commonly. It slowly started spreading to Czech slang about 5 years ago, its usage was limited to internet only. In the last 1-2 years it has become so popular, you can regularly hear it in spoken language of young Czechs on the streets. You can find evidence of that under every Czech/Slovak music video (mostly rap) on Youtube or on Twitter (see examples here).

The internet and social media have revolutionized the way we interact and Czechs and Slovaks have found their way back to each other.


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## francisgranada

sonncz said:


> To return to some of my older posts about current extensive contact between young Czech and Slovak speakers thanks to the internet.
> There is a new slovakism in the slang of Czech youth - the word *popiči*_ ..._
> It's a slightly vulgar word expressing that something is amazing/awesome/great or it can be used as an intensifier (_Je to popiči dobré - It is insanely good_)


In Slovak it is not _slightly _vulgar, but _very _vulgar .... I do not recommend to use it .
(_Po _is a preposition, _piča _a is a vulgar term for vagina).


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