# All Slavic languages: Slavic dialect continuum



## jadeite_85

Is the slavic dialect continuum something like that?: Russian to Belarussian and Ukrainian; Belarussian into Polish; Ukrainian into Rusyn, Polish and Slovak; Polish into Upper Sorbian (or Lower Sorbian ?) and Slovak; Upper Sorbian to Lower (or the other way around ?) into Czech; Czech into Slovak; Slovak into Slovenian then into Kajkavian, then Shtokavian, then Torlakian then Macedonian then Bulgarian and from Bulgarian back to Russian

Is it plausible? 

It's not a theory just a question. I'm not an expert, I'm basing this on my knowledge of Slovenian, Slovenian dialects, Russian and Shtokavian and about other languages the info I've learned here.


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## Awwal12

> and from Bulgarian back to Russian


Well, exactly this isn't true. Of course, Bulgarian and Russian are more or less mutually understandable (thanks to a great amount of common words), but their grammars differ drastically.


> Russian to Belarussian and Ukrainian


Agree - through border dialects of Russian, of course, and mixed Russian-Ukrainian (surzhik) and Russian-Belarussian (trasyanka) dialects in Ukraine and Belarus respectively. So, among East Slavic languages such a continuum definitely exists.


> Slovak into Slovenian


I'm not sure, but I doubt. Of course, Slovak and Slovenian have some similarities, but... Some time a continuum between West and South Slavic languages might exist, but it was destroyed a millennium ago by ancient Hungarians who just assimilated the Slavic population of Pannonia. And now it seems that South Slavic peoples mostly better understand East than West Slavic languages.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Awwal12 said:


> And now it seems that South Slavic peoples mostly better understand East than West Slavic languages.


 
I wouldn't say that. In my experience, most Slovenes have a considerably easier time understanding Czech and Slovak than Russian (assuming they don't have any prior familiarity with any of these languages). An average Slovene can probably read Czech news articles and understand them (spoken Czech is a different matter), whereas Russian news articles would almost certainly be a bit more of a challenge.

But yes, a West Slavic / West Slavic continuum did exist at one time, even though it's gone now. Some transitional features remain, however, such as the presence of *dl* / *tl* clusters and the use of the prefix *vy-* (instead of *iz-*) in northern Slovenian dialects.

Nowadays, there is only a Slovenian / Kajkavian dialect continuum.


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## Awwal12

> I wouldn't say that. In my experience, most Slovenes have a considerably easier time understanding Czech and Slovak than Russian (assuming they don't have any prior familiarity with any of these languages).


And is it true for written communication as well? Please, don't forget that Russian has extremely specific phonetics, which fact should make a verbal communication much more difficult.
P.S.: http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=8557393&postcount=13


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## TriglavNationalPark

Awwal12 said:


> And is it true for written communication as well? Please, don't forget that Russian has extremely specific phonetics, which fact should make a verbal communication much more difficult.


 
Most likely. I can't speak for all Slovenes, but in my experience, most Slovenes have an easier time with written Czech or Slovak that written Russian. I'm curious whether my fellow Slovenes can confirm this.

(Of course, the fact that Russian uses Cyrillic would be a huge barrier for most Slovenes trying to read Russian, but that's another matter altogether.)



Awwal12 said:


> P.S.: [URL]http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=8557393&postcount=13[/URL]


 
This may be a difference between BCS and Slovenian because of the specific history and position (in the Slavic continuum) of Slovenian among the South Slavic languages.


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## trance0

Difficult to answer. I would say I understand written Slovak a bit better than Russian, let`s say 60% of Slovak and 50% of Russian. But regarding Czech and Polish, I must say I agree with Awwal12, I have an easier time understanding written Russian(but on a side note, I can read Cyrillic script).


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## TriglavNationalPark

trance0 said:


> Difficult to answer. I would say I understand written Slovak a bit better than Russian, let`s say 60% of Slovak and 50% of Russian. But regarding Czech and Polish, I must say I agree with Awwal12, I have an easier time understanding written Russian(but on a side note, I can read Cyrillic script).


 
But wouldn't you say that the differences between Czech and Slovak are minimal? It's mostly case endings that are different. After all, they're among the most closely related Slavic languages. Again speaking only for myself, I can read Czech and Slovak news articles with an almost identical level of understanding.

Polish, on the other hand, is a *huge* (usually insurmountable) challenge for me; it's certainly more difficult than Russian.


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## trance0

Well, to me Slovak is easier to read, it has fewer 'weird' letters and that is probably the main reason I understand more of it.


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## sokol

Some has been said already - in this thread as well as others here on the forum. 
(The mutual intelligibility thread, with different focus of course, has some information on this; see also the CZ/PL/SVK thread, and many other pieces and snippets of information in plenty of other threads.)

Of what I know, and what I've gathered from the forum here, I would describe the situation approximately as follows, beginning with:

*- Eastern Slavic:*
*Russian* seems to be only marginally split into regional dialects - despite (or because of!) its distribution over such a huge area.
The transition to Belarusian and Ukrainian is - to my knowledge - rather smooth and not abrupt: many isoglosses are shared between those three languages.
In spoken language the difference at least to my ear still seems to be quite significant (I can understand a little bit of spoken Russian when listening carefully but I hardly understand anything of spoken Belarusian and Ukrainian). In written language the similarities between those three are more obvious.
I don't know whether *Belarusian* is significantly split into dialects - probably it isn't.
About *Ukrainian* I only know that there's a split between Western Ukrainian (with a smooth transition to Rusyn - considered a language in its own right by some and an Ukrainian dialect by others - and Eastern Slovak dialects) on the one hand and Eastern Ukrainian on the other one.

*- Western Slavic:*
As said above, there seems to be a rather smooth transition from Ukrainian through Rusyn to Eastern Slovak; *Slovak* itself is divided into three main groups (east, central, west), and I think western dialects are transitional to Moravian.
*Czech* mainly is split into Bohemian and Moravian dialects; the dialects of Bohemia are levelled out to "common Czech" colloquial speech, so the old dialect continuum to Moravian isn't as obvious as it once was, while Moravian seems to be transitional to Western Slovak and probably (?) Southern Polish dialects.
(And yes, I do think that there are some significant differences between both Czech and Slovak.  Of course they're closely related, as are Slovene and Kajkavian, but still. ;-)
*Polish* to my knowledge is split into several rather distinct dialect groups ("Greater Polish" as it is called in German of central and northern regions, "Smaller Polish" of Kraków and surroundings, Masowian of Warszaw and north-eastern Poland, and some other groups). However I do not know to which degree the ancient dialect continuum to neighbouring Czech plus Slovak and Belarusian plus Ukrainian dialects is preserved: Polish has developed a few features setting them apart from their neighbours.

*- South Slavic:*
*Slovene,* the northernmost one of the (western) South Slavic group, shows especially in dialects (first and foremost Carinthian Slovene dialects) some features linking them to Western Slavic (preserved nasals, prefix "vy-" which don't exists in standard Slovene, preserved cluster -dl-, and some more). Also pronunciation of /v/ (depending on position as either fricative or semi-vowel, just like in Slovak) and some diphthongs (at dialect level especially; also similar to Slovak) obviously are remnants of a once existing dialect continuum between South and West Slavic languages.
There's a more or less smooth transition from Slovene to *Kajkavian Croatian* and, to a lesser degree, to *Chakavian Croatian,* but the dialect continuum from Kajkavian and Chakavian to *Shtokavian Croatian-Bosnian-Serbian-Montenegrin* (roughly in geographical order) has been broken through migrations, for that see the thread on BCS dialects.
Finally, in *South Serbia* there is a rather smooth translation from *Torlakian* to *Macedonian* and *Bulgarian* - and the Macedo-Bulgarian dialect continuum too is still intact: those represent the eastern group of South Slavic; Macedonian and Bulgarian have almost given up declension but fully retained the ancient system of tenses; Torlakian dialects are transitional between dialects with full declension in Serbian Šumadija and Macedonian/Bulgarian ones with hardly any declension left.
Between Bulgarian and Ukrainian/Russian there must have been a dialect continuum once, but to my knowledge this has been thoroughly interrupted by Romanians; however, due to a good amount of Russian loans it looks to a naive observer as if there was a closer genetic relationship between Bulgarian and Russian - which to my knowledge is not the case.
(Anyway, _if_ then one should suppose that there transitional dialects between Bulgarian and _Ukrainian_ - and not Russian.)

So there is still a dialect continuum from Russian via Belarusian/Ukrainian to Polish and Slovak-Czech - smoother in some places and interrupted in others -, while the dialect continuum to South Slavic has been interrupted (by Austrians and Hungarians ).
Still, it is possible to reconstruct a West/South Slavic dialect continuum through some isoglosses crossing the Austrian/Hungarian territory (where native Slavs were assimilated already in the Middle Ages).
And in South Slavic the dialect continuum again is very well preserved in some places but interrupted in others.
But it does not look like if there's still much left of a once-existing dialect continuum between Bulgarian and Ukrainian/Russian.


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## Awwal12

> Russian seems to be only marginally split into regional dialects - despite (or because of!) its distribution over such a huge area.


Rather because of school education and mass-media. In the old days the difference in vocabulary between different dialects was at least noticeable. Could you understand the phrase "лонись мы с братаном сундулей тенигусом хлыном хлыняли"? I personally could not.  But it is the old Siberian dialect (even if the dialect words were thoroughly selected there on purpose). In the normal Russian language it means "вчера мы с двоюродным братом неторопливо ехали в отлогую гору верхом, сидя вдвоем на одной лошади" (yesterday I and my cousin rode unhurried up the gently sloping hill being together on one horseback). Now mostly just minor phonetic differences have left. However, border West and South West Russian dialects still contain a noticeable amount of Belarusian and Ukrainian words, often distorted:
"how": як instead of как (Ukr. як)
"to hear": чуять instead of слышать (Ukr. чути; Rus. чуять - to feel, colloq.).
"to do": робить instead of делать (Ukr. робити)
"to see": бачить instead of видеть (Ukr. бачити)
"to seek": шукать instead of искать (Ukr. шукати)
"necessary", "one needs": треба instead of нужно, надо (Ukr. треба, Rus. formal требуется)
etc. (heard on the border between Voronezh and Rostov Regions, near the Ukrainian border, from Russian peasants, in 2008)


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## sokol

No, Awwal, I didn't know that dialect differences have been levelled out in Russian (I asked once in Russian forum and was told firmly, and several times - as I was sceptic  -, that there's hardly any dialectal variation in Russian).

(And no, of course I didn't understand anything about the Siberian phrase - my Russian's not good at all, I'm struggling with the Russian standard language version, but of the Siberian one I got nothing.)

Anyway, it is interesting to see that indeed there is still, by your reckoning, a dialect continuum between the East Slavic languages.


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## mugibil

sokol said:


> however, due to a good amount of Russian loans it looks to a naive observer as if there was a closer genetic relationship between Bulgarian and Russian - which to my knowledge is not the case.



The Bulgarian point of view on this is that most of the words we borrowed from Russian were borrowed by Russian from Church Slavonic, i.e. from Old South-East-Slavic, i.e. from Old Bulgarian (or Old Macedo-Bulgarian if one prefers), so we were basically just reclaiming our own words.  Russian was indeed very profoundly influenced by Old Church Slavonic, as obvious from the sound shape of many words. (Furthermore, many of the words shared by Bulgarian and Russian were simply borrowed by both from Church Slavonic rather than from each other; I guess for some reason Russian and Bulgarian have been more inclined to do this than Serbian and perhaps Ukrainian, despite the latter being Orthodox nations as well.)

One crazy example that illustrates this mutual borrowing process is the history of the present active participle in Bulgarian and Russian. The Proto Slavic forms of the participle "who burns"  must have been something like nominative masculine singular *gorę* (with a nasalized /e/), elsewhere *gorętj-* (with a palatalized /t/). These were inherited into Old Macedo-Bulgarian / Old South-East Slavic as nominative masculine singular *гор-ѧ* (still nasalized), elsewhere *гор-ѧшт-*. In Old Russian / Old East Slavic, on the other hand, the Proto-Slavic forms were inherited as nominative masculine singular *гор-я*, elsewhere *гор-яч-*. Old Russian used Old Macedo-Bulgarian as a sacred and literary language, but it did not consistently pronounce it in the original way: the *ѧ *was pronounced /ja/, because that was the corresponding Old Russian reflex of Proto-Slavic *ę*. Next, Russian lost its inherited present active participle; it reinterpreted its nominative masculine singular *гор-я* as a present active adverbial participle "while burning" and its "elsewhere form" as an adjective *гор-ячий* "hot". But life without an active present participle is meaningless, so Russian (re-)borrows the present active participle from Old Church Slavonic, i.e. from Old Macedo-Bulgarian, in the form *гор-ящий* (in the hybrid Russian pronunciation with *я*, of course, but with Bulgarian *щ* and not the original Russian reflex *ч*). 
In the meantime, Bulgarian itself has also lost its present active participle; the nominative masculine singular is gone without trace, and the accusative is preserved as an adjective *гор-ещ*, meaning guess what - "hot". Some Western dialects have instead re-interpreted the accusative as guess what - an adverbial participle _гор-еки_ or *гор-ейки* "while burning" (this sound development is regular in Macedonian), and this is also adopted into standard Bulgarian. But still, life without an active present participle is meaningless, so we go to the Russians (and the Russian Church Slavonic speaking priests) and re-borrow our own original present active participle from them as *гор-ящ*! This form has the original Bulgarian *щ*, but it also has the Russian reflex of *ę*, namely *я*, which should have rendered *е* in Bulgarian! So we have Bulgarian borrowing from Russian borrowing from Bulgarian, and each stage leaves its traces in the choice of reflexes.

As a side note, the letter *я* itself is actually a cursive form of the letter *ѧ*, which was originally developed for Old Macedo-Bulgarian to denote /ę/ (a nasalized /e/). The combination /ja/ was expressed as a ligature of *i* and *а*. But since Russian and the Russian pronunciation of Old Macedo-Bulgarian had /ja/ for original /ę/, the letter *ѧ *came to signify /ja/ and replaced the ligature. Subsequently Bulgarian also borrowed the cursive letter from Russia to signify /ja/, even though the sound it originally expressed had produced /e/ in Bulgarian.


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## DenisBiH

I've been thinking about opening a thread about this matter below, but this thread seems close enough, especially given the posts regarding Slovak.

A dissertation by Ronald  Richards from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) regarding the reconstruction of the affiliation of Pannonian Slavic (the dialect(s) spoken in modern Hungary prior to the arrival of the Magyars).

http://linguistlist.org/pubs/diss/browse-diss-action.cfm?DissID=819




> Our results suggest that, if Pannonian Slavic was linguistically homogeneous, then it is most likely that this dialect was associated with, or an extension of, the Proto-Serbocroatian (i.e. the Common Slavic dialect which developed into Chakavian and Shtokavian), while if it was heterogeneous, then it is most likely that this dialect was associated with, or an extension of, Proto-Serbocroatian and Proto-Czechoslovak, although association with the Proto-Sorbian or Proto-East Slavic dialect groups would remain within the realm of possibility. Our results do offer strong evidence against the proposition that Pannonian Slavic was associated with, or as an extension of, Proto-Slovene.


And a review:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200403/ai_n9363983/?tag=content;col1

This I find most interesting:



> A crucial piece that fails to fit into this schema is the *central Slovak dialect, spoken to the north of the Hungarian speech territory, which in a number of ways corresponds to features found in South Slavic dialects, today spoken to the south of Hungarian, and contrasts with both the Slovak dialect areas to the west and east of it*, which are more like each other than like central Slovak. In addition to the arguably static list of "Yugoslavisms," South Slavic features left "stranded" in central Slovak (a review of these, with excellent maps, can be found in Krajcovic 1974: 142-149; 314-31
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> , one can also observe innovations that continued in a parallel fashion even after a continuous Slavic speech territory between today's South Slavic and central Slovak ceased to exist.


Are there any Slovaks that could comment on these peculiarities of central Slovak dialects vs other Slovak dialects?


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## marco_2

sokol said:


> Some has been said already - in this thread as well as others here on the forum.
> (The mutual intelligibility thread, with different focus of course, has some information on this; see also the CZ/PL/SVK thread, and many other pieces and snippets of information in plenty of other threads.)
> 
> Between Bulgarian and Ukrainian/Russian there must have been a dialect continuum once, but to my knowledge this has been thoroughly interrupted by Romanians; however, due to a good amount of Russian loans it looks to a naive observer as if there was a closer genetic relationship between Bulgarian and Russian - which to my knowledge is not the case.
> (Anyway, _if_ then one should suppose that there transitional dialects between Bulgarian and _Ukrainian_ - and not Russian.)
> 
> But it does not look like if there's still much left of a once-existing dialect continuum between Bulgarian and Ukrainian/Russian.


 
_Well, I always suspected that there were some links between Bulgarians and Ukrainians in the past because when I was reading Ukrainian authors coming from Bucovina or Carpathian Ruthenia, I found lots of words existing in Bulgarian, like *гердан, грижа, кирпа (Bulg. кърпа), пазити (Bulg. пазя), колиба, рікля (Bulg. рокля), спирати (Bulg. спирам) *and many others. They have even similar wordloans from Romanian: *копиль (Bulg. копеле) *means "an illegitimate child, a bastard" although Romanian *copil *means just "a child."_


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## DenisBiH

marco_2 said:


> _Well, I always suspected that there were some links between Bulgarians and Ukrainians in the past because when I was reading Ukrainian authors coming from Bucovina or Carpathian Ruthenia, I found lots of words existing in Bulgarian, like *гердан, грижа, кирпа (Bulg. кърпа), пазити (Bulg. пазя), колиба, рікля (Bulg. рокля), спирати (Bulg. спирам) *and many others. They have even similar wordloans from Romanian: *копиль (Bulg. копеле) *means "an illegitimate child, a bastard" although Romanian *copil *means just "a child."_





In BCMS, *kopile* is also an illegitimate child.


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## indiegrl

marco_2 said:


> _Well, I always suspected that there were some links between Bulgarians and Ukrainians in the past because when I was reading Ukrainian authors coming from Bucovina or Carpathian Ruthenia, I found lots of words existing in Bulgarian, like *гердан, грижа, кирпа (Bulg. кърпа), пазити (Bulg. пазя), колиба, рікля (Bulg. рокля), спирати (Bulg. спирам) *and many others. _
> _They have even similar wordloans from Romanian: *копиль (Bulg. копеле) *means "an illegitimate child, a bastard" although Romanian *copil *means just "a child."_


Those words already exist in Romanian,such as *grija*(care),*pazi*(to guard)*pazea*(beware! attention!),*coliba*(cottage) . I believe those authors from Bukovina took the words from Romanian(words which entered in the Romanian vocabulary from Bulgarian),given the fact that there is a strong Romanian-speaking minority in Bucovina(see Sofiya Rotaru),but also the fact that there are strong cultural-historical links between the South Bukovina(Norh-Eastern Romania) and Northern Bukovina(part of the Ukraine),not to mention the fact that the city of *Черновцы*(Romanian:Cernăuţi) used to belong to Romania. So the link between Ukrainian and Bulgarian was for certain via Romanian.

as for *copil*,it also used to mean ''ilegitimate child'' in Romanian,because the old term for ''just a child'' in Romanian was *plod.* The word ''copil'' is 100% Romanian,since it is one of the word that were preserved from the old Dacian language, together with *brinza*(brynza)=cheese and so on. The fact that the word ''plod'' exists in languages such as Bulgarian,Serbian,Macedonian and even Albanian,proves that it used to be a Thracian word.


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## DenisBiH

indiegrl said:


> Those words already exist in Romanian,such as *grija*(care),*pazi*(to guard),*coliba*(cottage) . I believe those authors from
> as for *copil*,it also used to mean ''ilegitimate child'' in Romanian,because the old term for ''just a child'' in Romanian was *plod.* The word ''copil'' is 100% Romanian,since it is one of the word that were preserved from the old Dacian language, together with *brinza*(brynza)=cheese and so on. The fact that it exists in languages such as Bulgarian,Serbian,Macedonian and even Albanian,proves that it used to be a Thracian word.




There seems to be an agreement that *kopile *etc. is a Paleo-Balkan word, but there seem to be different opinions regarding its exact origins. At least one version seems to have it being borrowed from Albanian into other Balkan languages, and carried by Romanians into modern Ukraine.

Petar Skok, _"ETIMOLOGIJSKI RJEČNIK HRVATSKOGA ILI SRPSKOGA JEZIKA"_ (_DICTIONNAIRE ETYMOLOGIQUE DE LA LANGUE CROATE OU SERBE_)




> Oštir i Jokl tumače postanje te balkanske riječi iz arbanaskoga. Oblik sa i potječe iz arbanskog akuzativa, dok vokal e mjesto г predstavlja arb. akuzativ. Ishodište bi bila ilirotračka riječ ie. podrijetla, koja se očuvala u originalnom obliku u arbanaskom. Odatle je prenesena u doba rumunjsko-arbanaskog nomadiziranja po katunima u balkanskim planinama u ostale balkanske jezike.


Moderator note:
I am very sorry but your original quote is by far exceeding our rules for quotes (4 sentences). I'm also aware that shortening this quote to 4 lines makes the quote almost irrelevant - sorry about that.

Another source that states that BCMS *kopile* is of Albanian origin:

http://hjp.srce.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=elpvXBQ=


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## DenisBiH

> The fact that the word ''plod'' exists in languages such as Bulgarian,Serbian,Macedonian and even Albanian,proves that it used to be a Thracian word.



The word _*plod*_ is Common Slavic according both to Petar Skok's etymological dictionary of Croatian or Serbian, and the Croatian Language Portal site.

Skok:



> plod, gen. ploda m, f (13. v., Vuk), *ie.,
> sveslav. i praslav*., bez paralele u baltičkim
> jezicima, »fructus«.


Croatian Language Portal:

http://hjp.srce.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=eV1uWBQ%3D



> *prasl. i stsl. plodъ *(_rus._ plod, _polj._ płód)


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## Awwal12

> The fact that the word ''plod'' exists in languages such as Bulgarian,Serbian,Macedonian and even Albanian,proves that it used to be a Thracian word.


That's very doubtful, I agree with DenisBiH. The word exists in Czech, Slovak (according to Vasmer's etymological dictiobary), Russian (plod/плод) and in Ukrainian (плiд), i.e. in many West and East Slavic languages.


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## Angelo di fuoco

indiegrl said:


> as for *copil*,it also used to mean ''ilegitimate child'' in Romanian,because the old term for ''just a child'' in Romanian was *plod.* The word ''copil'' is 100% Romanian,since it is one of the word that were preserved from the old Dacian language, together with *brinza*(brynza)=cheese and so on. The fact that the word ''plod'' exists in languages such as Bulgarian,Serbian,Macedonian and even Albanian,proves that it used to be a Thracian word.



Плод in Russian just means "fruit", originally fruit to be eaten, but also like "fructus ventris tui" in the "Ave, Maria" prayer and as "result". "Приплод" means "progeny", and there are some other related words. However, nowadays we mostly say use the genuine Russian word for fruit only in figurative sens. Polish also has the word "płód" in the figurative meaning, like in Russian.
So I strongly suppose that the word "plod" in Romanian is just another Slavism.


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## indiegrl

Awwal12 said:


> That's very doubtful, I agree with DenisBiH. The word exists in Czech, Slovak (according to Vasmer's etymological dictiobary), Russian (plod/плод) and in Ukrainian (плiд), i.e. in many West and East Slavic languages.


 I was refering to copil,and not to plod. I said that copil is likely to come from the old Dacian language. You guys got it wrong.


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## sokol

Mod note:
Guys, if you want to discuss "plod" in yet more detail we definitely need to split the "plod" topic to a new thread (couldn't be Slavic - possibly Etymology).

Anyway, if you want to split please say so (you can contact me through PM), but in this thread here please refer to the Slavic dialect continuum.


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## jadeite_85

Is there also a Slovene-Chakavian transition? 
Here in Trieste people who speak Slovene use *homo *instead of *gremo*, meaning "we go", but just in imperative sentences. And also you can hear words such as *puno *instead of *polno* (full, a lot), *puter *instead of *maslo *(butter), *čitati *instead of *brati *(to read), *čuti *instead of *slišati *(to hear), *šalca *instead of *skodelica *(cup), *sunce *instead of *sonce *(sun), use of *znati *also when *vedeti* (to know) should be used, use of *čem*, *češ*, *če* instead of *hočem*, *hočeš*, *hoče* (to want)

Are these features continuing in the Slovene Koper dialect and then into Chakavian, or are those just archaisms?


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## TriglavNationalPark

jadeite_85 said:


> Is there also a Slovene-Chakavian transition?
> Here in Trieste people who speak Slovene use *homo *instead of *gremo*, meaning "we go", but just in imperative sentences. And also you can hear words such as *puno *instead of *polno* (full, a lot), *puter *instead of *maslo *(butter), *čitati *instead of *brati *(to read), *čuti *instead of *slišati *(to hear), *šalca *instead of *skodelica *(cup), *sunce *instead of *sonce *(sun), use of *znati *also when *vedeti* (to know) should be used, use of *čem*, *češ*, *če* instead of *hočem*, *hočeš*, *hoče* (to want)
> 
> Are these features continuing in the Slovene Koper dialect and then into Chakavian, or are those just archaisms?


 
I don't know. *Puter* and *šalca* are Germanisms that are used colloquially throughout Slovenia. The great Slavic *vedeti*/*znati* isogloss crosses Slovenia; a number of southern and eastern Slovenian dialects use *znati* in place of *vedeti*. *Čitati* is an archaic form of *brati *and was, as far as I know, widespread throghout Slovenia. *Čuti* is also common in various dialects, including those of Štajerska (Slovenian Styria); I think it's considered transitional, but not specifically to Chakavian. *Homo* is probably derived from *hojmo*, a non-standard imperative of *hoditi*.

*Sunce* and *puno* are interesting because the presence of *u* instead of *o(l)* indicates that they may be specifically transitional to Chakavian.

Of course, I'm just guessing here. Does anyone know?


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## jadeite_85

TriglavNationalPark said:


> *Sunce* and *puno* are interesting because the presence of *u* instead of *o(l)* indicates that they maybe specifically transitional to Chakavian.



Also *muči* instead of *molči *(be quiet), *tuči *instead of *tolči *(to beat) and many other *ol - u* examples. But it's interesting that I've never heard *vuk* instead of *volk* (wolf). And that you can even hear *murje* instead of *morje* (sea), where the switch *o(l) - u* should not be present.
We even use this very interesting expression: "*kaj si munjen*" (are you crazy?) from *munja-molnja* (thunder). This is an old slavic word, maybe used in Croatian but not in Slovene.

In a small village called Ricmanje people even add a *v* before an *o* at the beggining of the word. So *vopri vokno *(open the window), *vocet *(vinaigre), *von *(out). I've heard this is a peculiarity of Czech. I wonder how it came so south?

I know also that near Ilirska Bistrica they use *jako*, meaning a lot and to make comparatives instead of the standard *zelo*. Which Croatian dialect is spoken after the border near Bistrica? It is Kajkavian?


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## DenisBiH

Guys, I'm the last person to want to nitpick in such an interesting discussion, but for the sake of clarity maybe we should stress again that chakavian, shtokavian, kajkavian and torlakian are not languages, but rather dialects / dialect groups. There can be no transition between Slovenian and chakavian, one is a standard literary language, the other is a dialect group within Croatian. There can be transition between some Slovene dialects and some Croatian dialects, whether chakavian, kajkavian or perhaps shtokavian.


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## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> There can be transition between some Slovene dialects and some Croatian dialects, whether chakavian, kajkavian or perhaps shtokavian.


It's good you mention this - I took it for granted that this discussion is about transitions between dialects (and certainly not Slovene standard language and neighbouring Croatian dialects - after all we're talking about a _dialect_ continuum), but it doesn't do any harm to say this explicitly so that there couldn't be a mistake about this.

About the situation on the coast: there are some transitional features between Slovenian Primorje and Istrian Čakavian dialects but they're probably rather Venetianisms than common Slavic ancestry - like especially the neutralisation of word-finla /-m -n/ into /-n/.

The dialect situation on the Croatian side of the border on Istria are very complex, due to migrations - some Štokavian groups settled there, and there's also a mixed Čakavian-Štokavian dialect if I remember correctly

Kajkavian is not spoken on Istria (to my knowledge at least), the nearest Kajkavian dialects are spoken in Gorski kotor - except for Buzet dialect which has been classified as "transitional" or "Čakavian", or even "Slovene", or "Kajkavian" (which in the case of Buzet really would be rather a political than a linguistic distinction - political in the sense that "everything south the border which isn't clearly Čakavian or Štokavian should be called Kajkavian").

So probably the language border on the coast was relatively sharp, and those transitional features one can observe might be due to language mix rather than an ancient dialect continuum.
To my knowledge, no genuine transitional dialects between Coastal Slovene and Čakavian are preserved, but even if this were the case it might still be that there once existed such "genuine" transitional dialects which have become extinct due to migration and assimilation.


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## DenisBiH

sokol said:


> About the situation on the coast: there are some transitional features between Slovenian Primorje and Istrian Čakavian dialects but they're probably rather Venetianisms than common Slavic ancestry - like especially the neutralisation of word-finla /-m -n/ into /-n/.



This is what the article below refers to as "adrijatizmi", I suppose?

http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cakavsko_narje%C4%8Dje




sokol said:


> The dialect situation on the Croatian side of the border on Istria are very complex, due to migrations - some Štokavian groups settled there, and there's also a mixed Čakavian-Štokavian dialect if I remember correctly




Here's the thing that has been bugging me ever since reading a discussion on chakavian on another forum. Now, I am not a linguist by profession, so I may be mistaken, but when I think of chakavian, I think of a dialect or a group of dialects. And when I think of dialects I think of isoglosses. When I think of an isogloss, I think of a certain genetic language feature, either grammatical or sound-shift related or lexical (though lexical comes in third), that is particular to a speech in a specific geographical area and not shared by people neighboring that area. A dialect is then a collection of isoglosses, that are unique or predominantly centered in some geographical area and at least partially uniform within that area.

Now, supposing my definition is not incorrect, which it might well be, how many and which isoglosses are we talking about when discussing chakavian, that are unique or predominantly centered and at least partially uniform in the area that is usually depicted as being chakavian on dialect distribution maps?

This discussion of mine might seem to some as slightly off topic here, but if we are talking about one, two or a few isoglosses that a particular dialect in Istria has that make it chakavian or shtokavian or kajkavian, we can't really argue about dialect boundaries being either sharp or fluid. What does it actually mean to have a sharp dialectal boundary if the dialect itself is defined by a single or a handful of isoglosses? What percentage of its features do these isoglosses represent? 1%? 2%?

This is what I'm talking about:

http://www.matica.hr/www/wwwizd2.ns...$File/Kapovic 101-111.pdf/Kapovic 101-111.pdf




> Srednjojužnoslavenski96 je neutralan naziv koji obuhvaća kompleks hrvatskoga, srpskoga, bošnjačkoga (bosanskoga) i crnogorskoga standardnoga jezika. Dijalektološki gledano on obuhvaća čakavsko, kajkavsko, štokavsko i torlačko narječje. Strukturalno gledano, svako od njih može biti smatrano i posebnim jezikom iako su i ta narječja *u odredenoj mjeri znanstveni konstrukti*. *Teško je govoriti primjerice o jedinstvenom čakavskom* s obzirom na  to da se južnočakavski govori (koji su *usko povezani sa zapadnoštokavskim* nizom starih i novih izoglosa) *prilično razlikuju* od sjevernočakavskih govora (koji pak imaju neke stare izoglose koje ga *vežu s kajkavskim i slovenskim*).


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## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> This is what the article below refers to as "adrijatizmi", I suppose?
> 
> http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cakavsko_narje%C4%8Dje


Yes indeed, and "Adriatism" indeed is the correct term (and not "Venetianism" as I said above - I knew that something was wrong with this term when I used it, only couldn't put my finger on it ).


DenisBiH said:


> Here's the thing that has been bugging me ever since reading a discussion on chakavian on another forum. Now, I am not a linguist by profession, so I may be mistaken, but when I think of chakavian, I think of a dialect or a group of dialects. And when I think of dialects I think of isoglosses. When I think of an isogloss, I think of a certain genetic language feature, either grammatical or sound-shift related or lexical (though lexical comes in third), that is particular to a speech in a specific geographical area and not shared by people neighboring that area. A dialect is then a collection of isoglosses, that are unique or predominantly centered in some geographical area and at least partially uniform within that area.


Not quite - but close.

A dialect is defined by a specific combination of isoglosses. Take Torlakian: this Serbian dialect is transitional to Bulgarian and Macedonian - Serbian has retained full noun inflection while both Bulgarian and Macedonian have virtually abandoned it.
So how could a dialect be "transitional" between those, concerning declension?
The answer is: in the north-western Torlakian dialects declension is retained partially, from north-west to south-east instrumental begins merging into genitive, then locative and genitive merge into nominative (see Wiki where unfortunately not much about Torlakian isoglosses is said - I couldn't find a better online resource).

In the case of Torlakian, there are several isoglosses marking the gradual loss of declension which cross the Torlakian dialect area in (roughly speaking) parallel lines from north-east to south-west - so actually isoglosses are crossing _*straight through*_ Torlakian dialects.
So Torlakian is defined as those dialects which are subjected to a gradual to almost complete loss of declension.

So to your original question, I guess there are only a very few isoglosses which are characteristic _*only*_ for Chakavian.
Most will be shared _either_ by dialects north and east of Chakavian (Slovene and Kajkavian ;-) _or_ by dialects east and south-east of Chakavian (that is, Shtokavian ;-).
And some, like those Adriatisms, are shared even by some Italian dialects.

Concerning the dialect continuum in the coastal region (Slovene coast and Istria) I said above that I think that apart from those Adriatism isoglosses there might not be specific isoglosses shared by Kajkavian and Slovene.

Now, let's take Kajkavian Croatian and Slovene dialects: they indeed share isoglosses not shared by either Chakavian and Shtokavian, and it seems to be clear that those isoglosses are due to common ancestry at a rather close level.
Concerning Chakavian Croatian and Slovene dialects I said above that I think that no such isoglosses on a _*close*_ genetic level exist (and again, I might be wrong); but both of course share a great many isoglosses marking them less specifically (but of course still genetically closely related) Western South Slavic.

A very sharp dialect boundary occurs when many isoglosses separate two dialects; in German this is called "Isoglossenbündel" - in English "a bundle of isoglosses". And dialect boundaries appear to be extremely "soft" and transitional if isoglosses are spaced more or less evenly (that is, say, each isogloss is separated by the other by 10 or 20 kilometres distance, as opposed to 4 or 5 isoglosses being grouped together at the same point geographically which marks a sharp border).

BCS dialects show both sharp and soft transitions.

Take *Torlakian* - this dialect group is showing a *smooth transition *from dialects with full declension to dialects with hardly any declension left: so what an amateur would consider could only be a "sharp" dialect border (between declension and non-declension) actually is not a sharp border at all, except when finally the border between (Torlakian) Serbian and Bulgarian dialects is reached: in the south-easternmost part of Serbia (Dimitrovgrad/Caribrod and Bosilegrad) local people define themselves as "Bulgarian" because they were part of Bulgaria till 1918, and the nations of Serbians and Bulgarians already formed before 1918 - one couldn't "move" language borders so easily then. (Both towns were given to Yougoslavia through the peace treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine.)
If the borders in this region would have been shifted long before a Serbian and Bulgarian nation became "established" there local dialect speakers might have accepted and adopted either nationality as their "own".

(Well admittedly it is not quite as easy as church borders played an important role in this region too. But there are similar examples on the Dutch/German border where also only the political border lead to a development of new isoglosses which didn't exist beforehand.)

A good example for *sharp linguistic borders * are Shtokavian migrant settlements in Kajkavian dialect regions (Bjelovar, to name the most prominent one), or in Slovenia (Bela Krajina).
There, Sthokavian settlers (Serbian-Orthodox) live door-to-door with Croatian Kajkavian dialect speakers (Catholics). Due to the different confession there was very little intermarriage and both dialects kept separate - therefore, in this region there are very sharp isogloss bundles.

Sharp isogloss bundles also may occur in regions where no significant migration happened - but they're more likely to occur in cases like this one.


The *Slavic dialect continuum*, to cut the long story short, is full of sharper and smoother transitions between dialects. That's what this thread is about.


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## werrr

Most likely there used to be a dialect continuum between Bohemian and Upper Sorbian thousand years ago, now lost due to the divergence between the languages.

There is and always was a striking isogloss between Bohemian (spoken even in the most Western parts of Moravia) and Moravian dialects despite of strong convergence. In recent years, Common Czech (a Bohemian dialect) is spreading into Moravia, so for the first time in history Czech countries could evenentually turn into a dialect continuum.

There was only weak convergence between Bohemian and Lechitic dialects, so there is hardly a continuum.

There is a continuum between Moravian and Western Slovak dialects. It’s either an original continuum or a result of ancient convergence.

There is strong, but relatively young, convergence between Moravian and Lechitic dialects. But I’m not sure whether one can speak about a continuum. There are definitely some bastard dialects (like ponašimu) which are hardly classable.



TriglavNationalPark said:


> The great Slavic *vedeti*/*znati* isogloss crosses Slovenia; a number of southern and eastern Slovenian dialects use *znati* in place of *vedeti*.


What particular isogloss do you have in mind? There are many *vedeti*/*znati* isoglosses with respect to different meanings of the words.




jadeite_85 said:


> In a small village called Ricmanje people even add a *v* before an *o* at the beggining of the word. So *vopri vokno *(open the window), *vocet *(vinaigre), *von *(out). I've heard this is a peculiarity of Czech.


It’s a feature shared by Bohemian and Upper Sorbian dialects.



> I wonder how it came so south?


Prothetic *v* is common sound shift, it could exist in that village on its own.


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## sokol

werrr said:


> Prothetic *v* is common sound shift, it could exist in that village on its own.


Prothetic /v/ indeed is quite common and also known in Kajkavian and Eastern Slovene dialects (Prleško and also Prekmurje dialects if I remember correctly).

The existence of prothetic /v/ in itself needn't be a sign of closer genetic relationships; of course it _can_ be that (this is very likely the case with Kajkavian and Eastern Slovene) but as you are referring to coastal (Primorje) dialects of Slovene there is possibly no _closer_ genetic connection with the same shift in Eastern Slovene - as to my knowledge the dialects in-between do not have it. But I think that some Carinthian Slovene dialects have it too (sorry but I've got no resources at hand and I keep forgetting this stuff) - and along with other links between Carinthian and Coastal dialects the feature could be connected from the coast over Carinthia into (Slovene) Styria = Eastern Slovene dialects.


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## TriglavNationalPark

werrr said:


> What particular isogloss do you have in mind? There are many *vedeti*/*znati* isoglosses with respect to different meanings of the words.


 
Slovenian has the following verbs for "to know":

*Znati* means "to be able to do something" (example: "Znam voziti avto" = "I know how to drive a car")

*Poznati* means "to know someone or something" (example: "Poznam tega igralca" = "I know this actor")

*Vedeti* means "to know" in virtually all other contexts (example: "Vem koliko je ura" = "I know what time it is") 

The isogloss for *vedeti* form cuts right through Slovenia. Standard Slovenian has it, as do most of its dialects, but it's entirely absent from several southern and eastern dialects (on the other side of the isogloss), where *znati* takes its place. This complete absence of *vedeti* continues towards the southeast; neither modern BCS nor modern Bulgarian have it.


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## DenisBiH

A very interesting example regarding Torlakian, sokol. Thanks.

So Torlakian dialect grouping is then a more or less an artificial construct, formed in order to simplify the description of the transition from inflected to non-inflected dialects of Serbian and Bulgarian/Macedonian, respectively? 

It does not actually denote a single geographic space where declension is partially lost in a uniform way, but rather several areas with different levels of declension loss.

But where I'm concerned is when someone takes this abstraction as an absolute and starts e.g. looking for transitional dialects between Serbian fully-inflected dialects and Torlakian, and Torlakian and Bulgarian/Macedonian non-inflected dialects. There is no such transitional area then, as Torlakian itself is transitional.

Torlakian is then basically a cover-all term for a group of "unruly" transitional vernaculars from Serbian to Bulgarian / Macedonian.

Is chakavian also a "cover-all" term for a group of "unruly" dialects that are basically either transitional or archaic "shtokavian" (albeit without što)?

Let's see a description of chakavian featues:

http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cakavsko_narje%C4%8Dje




> zamjenice _ča_ i _zač_;


From Proto-Slavic *čь. Same root is in što < čьto, with -to being a demonstrative pronoun  _to_ (< ie. *_tod_). From what I was told some time before, addition of this -to is not that uncommon (unfortunately I wasn't given other examples).




> stara akcentuacija (sustav tri naglaska, čuvanje praslavenskog mjesta naglaska)


How does this compare to accentuation in non-neoshtokavian dialects?




> refleks tzv. jata (_ě_) (ikavski, ikavsko-ekavski);


Shared by shtokavian ikavian dialects.




> čakavsko _t’_;prijelaz starohrv. _ę_ > _a_ iza _j_, _č_ i _ž_;


An example would be jazik instead of jezik from what I've read.




> prijelaz starohrv. _d’_ > _j_;


An example would be _meja_ instead of _međa_ (boundary). Slovene also has meja I believe? And I can recall an example from old Bosnian charters with what seems to be the same (_ot *mee* do *mee* i u niju dva grada Kluč' i Kotor'_ - from a charter by Bosnian ban Stephen II Kotromanić, issued around 1322-1324).

Is this a transitional feature to Slovenian, possibly shared by some western shtokavian dialects, either present or past?




> kondicional _bin-biš-bimo, bite_;


Ok. The final -n is obviously an Adriatism though.




> izostanak afrikate _dž_.


In shtokavian dialects, it exists only in borrowed words if I remember correctly.


Now what I'd love to see is where do isoglosses for those features above run exactly. After that I'd love to see where exactly these isoglosses below run (main features of shtokavian): 



> zamjenica _što_
> prijelaz _ǫ_ u _u_ (_put_, _ruka_)
> prijelaz slogotvornog _l_ u _u_ (_vuk_, _sunce_)
> zamjena poluglasa s _a_ (_pas_, _magla_)
> zamjena _l_ s _o_ (u nekim dijalektima _a_) na kraju sloga (_pisal_ > _pisao_, _govoril_ > _govorio_, _govorija_)
> većinom gubljenje _h_ (_oću_,_ajde_)
> naglasak "pomaknut" s posljednjega sloga
> nenaglašene dužine i drugo.



Or more to the point, what do chakavian dialects have for those shtokavian features above.


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## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> A very interesting example regarding Torlakian, sokol. Thanks.
> 
> So Torlakian dialect grouping is then a more or less an artificial construct, formed in order to simplify the description of the transition from inflected to non-inflected dialects of Serbian and Bulgarian/Macedonian, respectively?


In a nutshell, yes.

(Technically speaking each dialect grouping is more or less an "artificial construct", and that one of Torlakian probably not at all more so than others.  But the Torlakian group still _is_ defined as that transitional group.)



DenisBiH said:


> But where I'm concerned is when someone takes this abstraction as an absolute and starts e.g. looking for transitional dialects between Serbian fully-inflected dialects and Torlakian, and Torlakian and Bulgarian/Macedonian non-inflected dialects. There is no such transitional area then, as Torlakian itself is transitional.


But of course there is a transitional region between Serbian of Serbia "proper" (Šumadija) and Torlakian, as well as between Torlakian and neighbouring Macedonian and Bulgarian dialects. 

Declension after all is not the only isogloss - there are plenty of other isoglosses, and the isogloss pattern in this region is like a checkered flag: due to political borders and languages teached in school isoglosses are "righting" themselves on the borders of Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria, but the ancient dialect continuum showed isoglosses going both (approximately) north-south and west-east - the further south you get in Torlakian the less declension you have, but there's a second pair of isoglosses going north-south where you go from the "most distinct" Macedonian dialects around Ochrid lake to less distinct ones near the Bulgarian border and beyond to get again to "most distinct" Bulgarian dialects.

So the term "cover-all" for Torlakian also is not quite appropriate. I'd prefer to stick to the term "transitional" - it is not as if it were a "mixed" dialect (dialect mixing is yet another story), it is rather that at some point in time in some region of the southernmost Slavic dialects a loss of declension occured - an isogloss was _developed; _and this isogloss then travelled west and north and covered the whole of modern Macedonia and Bulgaria but slowly, gradually ebbed away in modern Serbia.

Google for Benrath line (in German dialects): it was similar there - the change /p > pf/ emerged somewhere in the deep south and slowly travelled north until it finally was stopped at the Benrath line, but developped into a "fan" in the Rhinelands where it is "Appel" and "Dorf" deep in southern Rhinelands (shift with one word, no shift with the other), while further north more words are shifted - till shift occurs for all of them.
Torlak dialects too represent such a *"fan" of isoglosses.* It does not mean necessarily that the dialect were "mixed", nor does it mean that it were a "heterogenous" group: neither is the case for the German dialects in the "Rhinelands fan". And I suppose that the same could be true for Torlak (though I'm not sure myself as I'm a bloody amateur concerning Torlak ).

Same then I would say for Chakavian - or probably even more so. 
Basically, it seems that Chakavian once was much more widespread over "mainland" Croatia and Bosnia - and that there was a very smooth dialect continuum to Shtokavian. 



DenisBiH said:


> From Proto-Slavic *čь. Same root is in što < čьto, with -to being a demonstrative pronoun  _to_ (< ie. *_tod_). From what I was told some time before, addition of this -to is not that uncommon (unfortunately I wasn't given other examples).


This is only a single isogloss - one which is characteristic for BCS dialects but nevertheless chosen at random, more or less. As you said, it is the same root anyway, and the different development in itself is not too significant. 



DenisBiH said:


> How does this compare to accentuation in non-neoshtokavian dialects?


Neoshtokavian has those four accents of standard language, they are the most characteristic innovation of Neoshtokavian.

Chakavian accent is more ancient, and the same is the case for Staroshtokavian dialects, but both Chakavian and Staroshtokavian accents are different (e. g. Slavonia Staroshtokavian has 5 accents, Chakavian has 3). I'm however no expert on the accentuation system (I'm not even able to pronounce it correctly) so I can't help with a more detailed explanation here.



DenisBiH said:


> Shared by shtokavian ikavian dialects.


As I said in the other thread, both dialects might be related on an older genetic level.



DenisBiH said:


> An example would be _meja_ instead of _međa_ (boundary). Slovene also has meja I believe? And I can recall an example from old Bosnian charters with what seems to be the same (_ot *mee* do *mee* i u niju dva grada Kluč' i Kotor'_ - from a charter by Bosnian ban Stephen II Kotromanić, issued around 1322-1324).
> 
> Is this a transitional feature to Slovenian, possibly shared by some western shtokavian dialects, either present or past?


Yes, it is "meja" in standard Slovene.

However, I don't know if the same is true for Coastal Slovene dialects (which would be the relevant reference point here ).
Also I'm not sure if "meja" could be considered being another Adriatism. (Of course it shouldn't be considered an Adriatism in Slovene.)


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## werrr

TriglavNationalPark said:


> The isogloss for *vedeti* form cuts right through Slovenia. Standard Slovenian has it, as do most of its dialects, but it's entirely absent from several southern and eastern dialects (on the other side of the isogloss), where *znati* takes its place. This complete absence of *vedeti* continues towards the southeast; neither modern BCS nor modern Bulgarian have it.


In other words, you mean the isogloss formed by absence of *vedeti*.



> Slovenian has the following verbs for "to know":
> 
> *Znati* means "to be able to do something" (example: "Znam voziti avto" = "I know how to drive a car")


In Czech: uměti
In Slovak: vedieť


> *Poznati* means "to know someone or something" (example: "Poznam tega igralca" = "I know this actor")


In Czech: znáti
In Slovak: poznať


> *Vedeti* means "to know" in virtually all other contexts (example: "Vem koliko je ura" = "I know what time it is")


In Czech: věděti
In Slovak: vedieť


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## Awwal12

> In other words, you mean the isogloss formed by absence of vedeti.


In Russian we normally use "zn*a*t'", but "v*e*dat'" is still used as an archaic word and has a great amount of related words. Ukrainian also has the both verbs (знати, вiдати). So, where is the isogloss?.. 


> In Czech: uměti
> In Slovak: vedieť


In Russian: уметь (um*e*t')


> In Czech: znáti
> In Slovak: poznať


In Russian: знать (znat')


> In Czech: věděti
> In Slovak: vedieť


In Russian: знать (znat')

Also I should mention узнавать/узнать (uznav*a*t'/uzn*a*t') - to recognize, to get to know, to experience, to find out.
"Познать" /pozn*a*t'/ in Russian means "to cognize", "to get to know", "to experience"; sounds quite archaic or high, imperfective variant is "познавать" /poznav*a*t'/.


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## DenisBiH

> But of course there is a transitional region between Serbian of Serbia "proper" (Šumadija) and Torlakian, as well as between Torlakian and neighbouring Macedonian and Bulgarian dialects.
> 
> Declension after all is not the only isogloss - there are plenty of other isoglosses




Yes, I can see now there are other things. Nice to know. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torlak





> Torlak dialects too represent such a *"fan" of isoglosses.* It does not mean necessarily that the dialect were "mixed", nor does it mean that it were a "heterogenous" group: neither is the case for the German dialects in the "Rhinelands fan". And I suppose that the same could be true for Torlak (though I'm not sure myself as I'm a bloody amateur concerning Torlak ).




Very interesting. I'm sorry if you have answered this before - is there (I suppose there must be) a book or a journal article or even a web-site with the depiction of all the major isoglosses of south Slavic languages (present and/or historical) on a map, both the ones "fanning" and the isogloss bundles? Apart from being an amateur in linguistics I am also an amateur in history and I'd like to see if one could draw any conclusions based on matches (or lack thereof) between isoglosses and historical political/religious/other boundaries. I've always had a hunch that BCMS dialect boundaries could be exploited to get an overview of older ethnic/political/religious boundaries, but I've had no way of seriously using the dialectal variations without a more detailed map and if possible some historical context.




> Same then I would say for Chakavian - or probably even more so.
> Basically, it seems that Chakavian once was much more widespread over "mainland" Croatia and Bosnia - and that there was a very smooth dialect continuum to Shtokavian.




Yes, I know of this theory. I'm not sure it makes much sense to me. Precursor(s) of modern chakavian dialects being more widespread in the coastal regions possibly ok, but a more likely candidate for me for the inland would be a dialect precursor to modern shtokavian bosansko-dalmatinski / mlađi ikavski. At least that one exists in sizeable chunks of the coast, western Herzegovina, central Bosnia, in the Bihać pocket and a number of smaller pockets in western and central Bosnia. The only plausible way to reconcile these two is to have bosansko-dalmatinski developing from a shtokavian dialect transitional to chakavian with modern chakavian preserving some of the features potentially lost in bosansko-dalmatinski. 

This is basically the main reason for my issue with chakavian, its definition inevitably leads to trying to trace some ancient boundaries between it and western shtokavian, which really might not have existed. Or to be clearer, if the dialect of much of western Bosnia and inland Dalmatia was a shtokavian transitional to what was to become known as chakavian, it was nevertheless shtokavian, and if modern chakavian preserves some of those archaic features lost in western shtokavian dialects, this does not make them historically chakavian. I guess the best thing here is to talk about concrete isoglosses and see what goes where.

Of course, there would have been ample opportunities for restructuring of pre-Ottoman dialect borders during the time the front ran through Bosnia. Jajce fell to Ottomans in 1463, but was recaptured shortly thereafter, and only fell back to Ottomans in 1527. And Bihać was not taken until 1592. There would have been ample time during those 130 years for some major shifts in western and central Bosnia, either due to migrations or due to spreading of certain language features by soldiers and migrant populations (refugees etc).

I guess one would have to carefully delimit which period in time is being analyzed when talking about ancient dialects in western Bosnia and Dalmatian inland.

a) pre 1463
b) 1463 - 1527 - 1592
c) 1592 - 1699
d) 1699 - 1992
e) 1995 onwards







> Chakavian accent is more ancient, and the same is the case for Staroshtokavian dialects, but both Chakavian and Staroshtokavian accents are different (e. g. Slavonia Staroshtokavian has 5 accents, Chakavian has 3). I'm however no expert on the accentuation system (I'm not even able to pronounce it correctly) so I can't help with a more detailed explanation here.




There seem to have been different accentual patterns in western vs eastern shtokavian. If this is correct, at least:

http://www.hercegbosna.org/kultura/...tika-bosanski-jezikoslovni-karakazan-184.html



> Glavna se dijalekatska diferencijacija dogodila od 12. do 15. stoljeća, kada na tlu današnje BiH nalazimo dva narječja: *štokavsko (dominantno)* i *čakavsko na krajnjem zapadu*, u području koje je onda pripadalo ugarsko-hrvatskom kraljevstvu. Štokavsko je narječje pripadalo, po svojim fonološkim i drugim značajkama, zapadnoj štokavštini (koja je imala *troakcenatski sistem* dok je istočna štokavština bila *dvoakcenatska*)- jedini teritorij istočne štokavštine obuhvaćao je krajnji istočni rub Bosne oko rijeke Drine i dijelove povijesne pokrajine Travunje.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Awwal12 said:


> In Russian we normally use "zn*a*t'", but "v*e*dat'" is still used as an archaic word and has a great amount of related words. Ukrainian also has the both verbs (знати, вiдати). So, where is the isogloss?..


 
The isogloss crosses Slovenia; *vedeti* is entirely absent to the _southeast _(i.e. in some southern and eastern Slovenian dialects, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, in Macedonian, and in Bulgarian).


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## DenisBiH

TriglavNationalPark said:


> The isogloss crosses Slovenia; *znati* is entirely absent to the _southeast _(i.e. in some southern and eastern Slovenian dialects, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, in Macedonian, and in Bulgarian).




You probably meant *vedeti* is absent to the southeast? Znati is very much alive in BCMS.


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## TriglavNationalPark

DenisBiH said:


> You probably meant *vedeti* is entirely absent to the southeast? Znati is very much alive in BCMS.


 
Indeed! (Thank you; fixed.)


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## Duya

...and, to make the circle complete, BCS set of verbs for "to know" is much more similar to Russian than to Slovene.


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## sokol

DenisBH - please try and read Asim Peco, especially his works on šćakavian Bosnian dialects. 
Unfortunately I don't know any online resources showing the main isoglosses in a way which makes the isogloss bundles (and fans) more easier to grasp for those who are new to this concept.


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## DenisBiH

sokol said:


> DenisBH - please try and read Asim Peco, especially his works on šćakavian Bosnian dialects.
> Unfortunately I don't know any online resources showing the main isoglosses in a way which makes the isogloss bundles (and fans) more easier to grasp for those who are new to this concept.




Thanks for the suggestion.  I will try to find Peco's work, in the meantime I remembered having something else that might be of use. Dževad Jahić's "Jezik bosanskih muslimana". I'll just summarize the most important traits from his discussion on dialectal variations seen through sevdalinka songs:




> a) Zapadni (zapadnobosanski) jezički tip sevdalinke: 1. Ikavski refleks jata (bila, divojka), 2. Neizvršena nova jotovanja (pojdem), 3. Šćakavica (pušći)
> b) Središnji (srednjebosanski, istočnobosanski) jezički tip sevdalinke: 1. Ijekavski refleks jata (l'jepo, cvijeće, proljeće), 2. Neizvršena jekavska i nova jotovanja  (potjera, pojdem), 3. Šćakavizam (pušći, jerišće)
> c) Jugoistočni (hercegovački) jezički tip sevdalinke: 1. Ijekavska zamjena jata (c'jelom, zapjevala), 2. Izvršena jekavska i nova jotovanja (ućeram, polećela; pođem) 3. Štakavizam (išti, pušti)



Here, it seems to me from his description, a) rougly corresponds with the area of mlađi ikavski / bosansko-dalmatinski in Krajina, b) with istočnobosanski, c) with istočnohercegovački. There is also a fourth type, ikavsko-štakavski štokavski in western Herzegovina. The four zones are roughly divided by a vertical line/isogloss formed by Bosna and Neretva rivers, and a horizontal line/isogloss which roughly corresponds to the boundary of Bosnia with Herzegovina.


Chak: jat > i (etc), *-stj- / *-skj- > šć
BH:
NW: jat > i,  *-stj- / *-skj- > šć
NE: jat > (i)je,  *-stj- / *-skj- > šć
SW: jat > i,  *-stj- / *-skj- > št
SE: jat > (i)je,  *-stj- / *-skj- > št


What is the reflex of  *-stj- / *-skj- in Slavonian and Kajkavian Croatian, in Slovenian, and possibly some northern Serbian dialects? What is the reflex in Macedonian and Bulgarian?


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## TriglavNationalPark

DenisBiH said:


> What is the reflex of *-stj- / *-skj- in Slavonian and Kajkavian Croatian, in Slovenian, and possibly some northern Serbian dialects?


 
In Slovenian, the reflex of *-stj- / *-skj- is *šč* according to reference books (*iščem*, *slovenščina*), but I'm a bit confused about *-stj, because words such as *listje* (= leaves) remain unchanged in Slovenian, whereas standard forms of BCS, with their *šć* reflex, change *listje* to *lišće*. Or is that something else entirely?


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## DenisBiH

TriglavNationalPark said:


> In Slovenian, the reflex of *-stj- / *-skj- is *šč* according to reference books (*iščem*, *slovenščina*), but I'm a bit confused about *-stj, because words such as *listje* (= leaves) remain unchanged in Slovenian, whereas standard forms of BCS, with their *šć* reflex, change *listje* to *lišće*. Or is that something else entirely?




Thanks for the info TriglavNationalPark. I assume these are two different developments.

According to Frederik Kortlandt's "From Serbo-Croatian to Indo-European" which can be found here:

http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art222e.pdf

If am reading this correctly, concerning the original *-stj- it went

stj > śtć (Kort. 6.7)
śtć > ść (? Kort 7.6 is unclear whether this also is only Bulgarian)
ść > šć (Kort 8.4)
šć > št (Kort 8.6)

The phase 8.6 is the most relevant here:



> 8.6. Second simplification of palatals: ć > c, ʒ́ > ʒ in West Slavic, and subsequently ʒ > z in Czech and Sorbian; ć > č, ʒ́ > ǯ > ž in East Slavic. *The clusters šć and žʒ́ were reduced to št and žd in Bulgarian and the eastern dialects of Serbo-Croatian, *and later in Czecho-Slovak. Similarly, the clusters sc and zʒ became st and zd in a part of the Bulgarian dialects.


A Slovenian example for a reflex of *-stj- would be puščati I suppose.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pu%C5%A1%C4%8Dati

I believe lišće might be a result of a later palatalization (called _novo jotovanje_ in BCMS), after the loss of yers. But I may be mistaken.  Here's something:

www.ffzg.hr/dokument/doc_dl.cgi?007153_1.doc



> Kratka ali konzistentna kandidatova studija _Collectives in –ьje in Slavic_ (Suvremena lingvistika 59-60/2005, 35-38) pobija mišljenje da bi se slavenski sufiks za zbirne (kolektivne) imenice _–ьje_...štoviše, čini se da je praslavenski jedini i-e. jezik u kojem je taj sufiks ostao barem djelomice produktivan. On služi za izvođenje apstraktnih imenica od pridjeva (npr. _veselьje _od _veselъ_), a osobito je produktivan za izvođenje abstracta od participa na _*-l-_ i *-n- (npr. _delanьje_ od _delanь_ itd.). No s tim se sufiksom izvode i kolektivne imenice od imenica (npr. st.c.sl. _kamenьje _od _kamy, listvie_ /hrv. _lišće_/ od _listъ,_ _korenьje _od _korenъ)._


Here listvie is OCS, not Common Slavic, which would be, what, **listьje? *If so the ь would have prevente4d the -stj- cluster originally.




​


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## TriglavNationalPark

DenisBiH said:


> Thanks for the info TriglavNationalPark. I assume these are two different developments.
> 
> According to Frederik Kortlandt's "From Serbo-Croatian to Indo-European" which can be found here:​
> http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art222e.pdf​
> If am a reading this correctly, concerning the original *-stj- it went​
> stj > śtć (Kort. 6.7)
> śtć > ść (? Kort 7.6 is unclear whether this also is only Bulgarian)
> ść > šć (Kort 8.4)
> šć > št (Kort 8.6)​
> The phase 8.6 is the most relevant here:​
> A Slovenian example for a reflex of *-stj- would be puščati I suppose.​
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/puščati​
> I believe lišće might be a result of a later palatalization (called _novo jotovanje_ in BCMS), after the loss of yers. But I may be mistaken.  Here's something:​
> www.ffzg.hr/dokument/doc_dl.cgi?007153_1.doc​
> Here listvie is OCS, not Common Slavic, which would be, what, **listьje? *If so the ь would have prevente4d the -stj- cluster originally.​


 
Thanks you so much for your insight!


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## trance0

As for *meja *in Slovene Istria, at least on the coast, the word is *meja*. Perhaps the only Slovene dialect that uses 'granica' instead would be in Bela Krajina (I am only guessing here)?


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## TriglavNationalPark

trance0 said:


> Perhaps the only Slovene dialect that uses 'granica' instead would be in Bela Krajina (I am only guessing here)?


 
It's possible that *granica* is used in some border villages (and, of course, in the Serbian settlements), but it's otherwise not used in Bela Krajina. "Border" is just *meja*.


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## sokol

TriglavNationalPark said:


> In Slovenian, the reflex of *-stj- / *-skj- is *šč* according to reference books (*iščem*, *slovenščina*), but I'm a bit confused about *-stj, because words such as *listje* (= leaves) remain unchanged in Slovenian, whereas standard forms of BCS, with their *šć* reflex, change *listje* to *lišće*. Or is that something else entirely?


That's possibly because "listje" (leaves) is derived from "list" (leaf): the process wouldn't apply then because it is a more recent development (that is, in case "listje" was formed only after the sound change process happened then "listje" wouldn't be affected: the fact alone that "listje" is NOT affected suggests that this might have been the case - but I don't have relevant material on Slovene etymology at hand I can only list this as hypothesis.  BCS /lišće/ in this case then should be a secondary palatalisation, just as Denis suggested. Only guesswork, but it sounds likely.)

And you found out yourselves about the isoglosses  - it is, from north-west (Slovene) down to south-east (Bulgarian), /šč/ > /šć/ > /št/.

This is a very interesting isogloss of South Slavic actually  (and also one of the arguments for those theories suggesting that Chakavian once was spoken widely on "mainland" Croatia and in Bosnia).


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## DenisBiH

Some more info regarding lišće. To sum up for non-BCMS speakers, it seems that this late palatalization in BCMS, called "novo jotovanje", was triggered / made possible by the loss of yers in groups like -Cьj- and it took place between 16th and 18th century. It seems that it has spread over the whole shtokavian area, and most of chakavian and kajkavian areas as well, though the degrees to which it has spread in various dialects are uneven.

Thus, if I may suggest again:

list-ьje (-ьje collective suffix, "leaves" < "leaf") > listьje > listje (loss of yers) > lisće (novo jotovanje) > lišće (assimilation)


http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/55564



> P. Ivić u svom pregledu datira ovu glasovnu promjenu: “U grupama konsonant + j *nastalim ispadanjem slabog poluglasa* izvršilo se novo jotovanje, uglavnom  od XVI do XVIII v., s varijacijom vezanom za dijalekte i za razlike među  konsonantima.” (Brozović; Ivić 1988: 13) Ipak, nastavlja: “Područje novog jotovanja obuhvata celu štokavštinu i većinu čakavskih i kajkavskih govora, a obim same pojave nije svugdje jednak.” (Brozović; Ivić 1988: 13)


This guy below (from what I understand, a once dean of the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade) has a somewhat different take, but I'd trust Ivić/Brozović duo a bit more.

http://kovceg.tripod.com/srpski_medju_jezicima.htm 
(I have my reservations using links to tripod etc, but this seems to be the text of a genuine paper which I'm citing because of a different view regarding the spread of novo jotovanje. Be warned though, unlike the article from Hrčak above this is not from a well known repository)



> Srpski se u porodici slovenskih jezika izdvaja i sposobnošću regeneracije jotovanja kao praslovenske jezičke promjene. Pored opšteg ili (pra)slovenskog jotovanja — koje se u slučaju suglasnika t, d odvijalo samostalno u zasebnim slovenskim dijalektima, postoji novo ili srpsko jotovanje (braća, predgrađe) i najnovije ili jekavsko jotovanje (ćerati, đed itd). *Prvo je nastalo poslije gubljenja poluglasnika ispred jote, koja se tako našla u neposrednom susjedstvu sa suglasnikom*, a drugo — kad je kratko jat (ě) dalo alofon [je]. *Zapadni srpski susjedi, hrvatski i slovinjski sa slovenačkim, ne znaju za novo jotovanje*.


Dževad Jahić on the other hand says novo jotovanje is not present in the sevdalinkas of western Bosnia/Krajina  (bosansko-dalmatinski) and in istočnobosanski, but the examples he gives, pojdem/dojdeš, could well be a lack of metathesis rather than a lack of novo jotovanje, methinks.


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## vianie

> There is and always was a striking isogloss between Bohemian (spoken even in the most Western parts of Moravia) and Moravian dialects despite of strong convergence. In recent years, Common Czech (a Bohemian dialect) is spreading into Moravia, so for the first time in history Czech countries could evenentually turn into a dialect continuum.



I've noticed, there are certain Moravian features in the easterner part of Bohemia. I mean more "singing" accent and finer pronounciation of -i and -y at the end of the words than in standard. Do I hear it wrong?


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## Daniel.N

jadeite_85 said:


> We even use this very interesting expression: "*kaj si munjen*" (are you crazy?) from *munja-molnja* (thunder). This is an old slavic word, maybe used in Croatian but not in Slovene.
> 
> In a small village called Ricmanje people even add a *v* before an *o* at the beggining of the word. So *vopri vokno *(open the window), *vocet *(vinaigre), *von *(out). I've heard this is a peculiarity of Czech. I wonder how it came so south?
> 
> I know also that near Ilirska Bistrica they use *jako*, meaning a lot and to make comparatives instead of the standard *zelo*. Which Croatian dialect is spoken after the border near Bistrica? It is Kajkavian?



By they way I heard somewhere that people around Ilirska Bistrica came  from the east.

In the whole Croatia *jako *means "a lot", *vrlo *is an  "educated" variant.

I can tell something from my perspective. I'm from Zagreb so I know some Kajkavian, and have relatives around Rijeka so I know something about North Čakavian as well.

In e.g. Kastav and Grobnik (and around) there are specific words like *lačan* "hungry", *zajik* "tongue", *storit *"do", *aš* "because", *čun* "boat" etc.

In most Kajkavian dialects there is *vun*, *vuho* etc.

*Kaj si munjen* is a very common expression (also *kaj da je munjen*...) in Kajkavian. It, of course, means "crazy".

North Čakavian and Kajkavian have *otprti*, *zaprti *(*otprem*, *zaprem*) instead of Standard Croatian *otvoriti *and *zatvoriti*.

Croats are extremely aware of their dialects: I know a lot of people who say "they will never give up on talking their way (*domače*)", but I somehow Slovenes are less so.


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## Daniel.N

DenisBiH said:


> Now what I'd love to see is where do isoglosses for those features above run exactly. After that I'd love to see where exactly these isoglosses below run (main features of shtokavian):
> 
> zamjenica _što_
> prijelaz _ǫ_ u _u_ (_put_, _ruka_)
> prijelaz slogotvornog _l_ u _u_ (_vuk_, _sunce_)
> zamjena poluglasa s _a_ (_pas_, _magla_)
> zamjena _l_ s _o_ (u nekim dijalektima _a_) na kraju  sloga (_pisal_ > _pisao_, _govoril_ > _govorio_,  _govorija_)
> većinom gubljenje _h_ (_oću_,_ajde_)
> naglasak "pomaknut" s posljednjega sloga
> nenaglašene dužine i drugo.
> 
> Or more to the point, what do chakavian dialects have for those shtokavian features above.



It depends what Čakavian you mean. There's no single čakavian. For the North Čakavian:

zamjenica _što_ = *ča*, gen. *česa*
 prijelaz _ǫ_ u _u_ (_put_, _ruka_) = the same (with exceptions in some places)
 prijelaz slogotvornog _l_ u _u_ (_vuk_, _sunce_) = the same (with exceptions in some places)
 zamjena poluglasa s _a_ (_pas_, _magla_) = the same (with exceptions in some places)
 zamjena _l_ s _o_ (u nekim dijalektima _a_) na kraju  sloga (_pisal_ > _pisao_, _govoril_ > _govorio_,  _govorija_) = l always remains
 većinom gubljenje _h_ (_oću_,_ajde_) = h remains
 naglasak "pomaknut" s posljednjega sloga 
 nenaglašene dužine i drugo. 			 		

Regarding the accents, North Čakavian can have any of three accents on any syllable (first, middle, last), and unaccented lengths before and after the accented syllable:

_óko_, _nevésta_, _ōtác_
_ûši_, _gōstiôna_,  _žlēbâc_
_žẽnska_, _pozãbjēn_,  _papãr_

The South Čakavian has some Štokavian influences. On islands it's more conservative, but it has somewhere l > 0, a (bil > bi, bia)

Also, Čakavian generally lj, đ > j


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## TriglavNationalPark

Daniel.N said:


> In e.g. Kastav and Grobnik (and around) there are specific words like *lačan* "hungry", *zajik* "tongue", *storit *"do", *aš* "because", *čun* "boat" etc.


 
For comparison's sake, standard Slovenian also has *lačen* (= hungry), *storiti* (= to do), *čoln* (= boat), but not the other two (although I can't speak for various Slovenian dialects).



Daniel.N said:


> In most Kajkavian dialects there is *vun*, *vuho* etc.


 
This also exists in some Slovenian dialects (a minority).



Daniel.N said:


> North Čakavian and Kajkavian have *otprti*, *zaprti *(*otprem*, *zaprem*) instead of Standard Croatian *otvoriti *and *zatvoriti*.


 
Slovenian has *odpreti* and *zapreti*. However, it also uses *otvoriti* in the sense of ceremonially opening an event, a business, a road, etc.
Slovenian borrowed this word from Croatian, but shifted the stress from the second to the third syllable.



Daniel.N said:


> Croats are extremely aware of their dialects: I know a lot of people who say "they will never give up on talking their way (*domače*)", but I somehow Slovenes are less so.


 
I don't know. Perhaps Croatians identify more with their three dialectical subgroups, but many Slovenians are also very aware of dialects, both of their own and those of other people. In fact, it's not unusual for pople from one part of the country to feel like outsiders in another because they don't speak the local dialect.


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## el_tigre

> There's a more or less smooth transition from Slovene to *Kajkavian Croatian*



Yes, in fact I would call it diasystem
However , during last 150 years Kajkkavian has absorbed lot of štokavian and lost a bit similarity with Slovenian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diasystem


> and, to a lesser degree, to *Chakavian Croatian *


*

Well, I see no similarity between kajkavian and Slovene and chakavian on the other side. Chakavian is quite different from each štokavian and kajkavian*


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## Daniel.N

TriglavNationalPark said:


> For comparison's sake, standard Slovenian also has *lačen* (= hungry), *storiti* (= to do), *čoln* (= boat), but not the other two (although I can't speak for various Slovenian dialects).


 
Of course, that's why I emphasized some words (I know some Slovenian). Another interesting word is (*po*)*zabit* "forget".

One interesting feature of the Croatian Northwest is to end a lot of sentences with *ne?*, like:

*Ideš u Zagreb, ne?*

Some people joke that the real name of Zagreb is actually Zagrebne.



> I don't know. Perhaps Croatians identify more with their three dialectical subgroups, but many Slovenians are also very aware of dialects, both of their own and those of other people. In fact, it's not unusual for pople from one part of the country to feel like outsiders in another because they don't speak the local dialect.



I know, but if you e.g. Google for some literature on Slovenian dialects, you will find very little compared to what you get by searching for articles regarding Kajkavian.

For example, I don't know which Slovenian dialects have dual and which do not. There's simply no such map on the Web.

Another thing that frustrates me is that there's an assumption that Slovenian dialects end on the country border. I don't think so. There might be parts of Slovenia where local dialects actually are closer to Kajkavian (maybe Prekmurski?) as well as parts of Croatia where the local dialect is actually of Slovenian origin (Gorski kotar, according to many accounts).

I think it would be great to have a map with isoglosses showing both Slovenian and Croatian dialects, to really have a picture which features exist where.


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## Daniel.N

el_tigre said:


> Well, I see no similarity between kajkavian and Slovene and chakavian on the other side. Chakavian is quite different from each štokavian and kajkavian



There are some similarities, ě > e, some lexicon etc. But in western Istria there are lot of people who settled from Dalmatia, therefore they don't speak North Čakavian.

Of course Kajkavian has much more in common with Slovenian dialects.


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## movingcompany18

jadeite_85 said:


> In a small village called Ricmanje people even add a *v* before an *o* at the beggining of the word. So *vopri vokno *(open the window), *vocet *(vinaigre), *von *(out). I've heard this is a peculiarity of Czech. I wonder how it came so south?


 

By the way, almost the same distinction can be found between Ukrainian and Russian: відіпри Ukr. – отопри Rus. (open), вікно Ukr.– окно Rus. (window), він Ukr. – он Rus. (he), вона Ukr. – она Rus. (she).


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## sokol

movingcompany18 said:


> By the way, almost the same distinction can be found between Ukrainian and Russian: відіпри Ukr. – отопри Rus. (open), вікно Ukr.– окно Rus. (window), він Ukr. – он Rus. (he), вона Ukr. – она Rus. (she).


I hardly know any Ukrainian (or more precisely, none at all) but isn't it rather a difference in prefix in "відіпри" and "отопри" (ві vs. от-)?

As for the other examples, the change of Slavic /o-/ in word-inital position to /vo-/ is quite common and known in a number of dialects - also some Eastern Slovene and Croatian Kajkavian dialects, to name yet more.

This in some cases definitely is an indicator of an old dialect continuum (this can be said for Slovene and Kajkavian), in others however no "closer" relationship might exist (that could be the case for Slovene/Kajkavian vs. Ukrainian, even though there might possibility be an ancient, long broken isogloss linking them through Czech/Slovak - but that's very much hypothetic).

The point anyway is that /o-/ to /vo-/ may occur as an "ordinary" phonological process which does not necessarily have a historical connection.


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## movingcompany18

sokol said:


> I hardly know any Ukrainian (or more precisely, none at all) but isn't it rather a difference in prefix in "відіпри" and "отопри" (ві vs. от-)?



Actually, the prefixes are від- Ukr. – от- Rus. (open). What is more, Ukrainian i in closed syllables is interchangeable with o in opened syllables, like він (he) – вона (she). This is an innovation of old Ukrainian and may be disregarded when comparing Ukrainian with other languages.   



sokol said:


> As for the other examples, the change of Slavic /o-/ in word-inital position to /vo-/ is quite common and known in a number of dialects - also some Eastern Slovene and Croatian Kajkavian dialects, to name yet more.
> 
> This in some cases definitely is an indicator of an old dialect continuum (this can be said for Slovene and Kajkavian), in others however no "closer" relationship might exist (that could be the case for Slovene/Kajkavian vs. Ukrainian, even though there might possibility be an ancient, long broken isogloss linking them through Czech/Slovak - but that's very much hypothetic).



Well, I’ve never thought about it earlier, but this hypothesis is really interesting. The links between Croatian Kajkavian and Ukrainian may really exist. According to historical data, the ancient Croatians used to live in what is now the west of Ukraine, close to the border with Slovakia. (By the way, the part of Croatians who hadn’t moved contributed to the formation of the Ukrainian nation.) So, if this phenomenon is really that old and the hypothesis is really true we might be looking at an ancient isogloss linking Czech/Slovak with Ukrainian *through **Croatian Kajkavian*.


Speaking about the Slovenes, I’ve heard that they originally came from Moravia. Consequently, they are in.


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## sokol

movingcompany18 said:


> The links between Croatian Kajkavian and Ukrainian may really exist. According to historical data, the ancient Croatians used to live in what is now the west of Ukraine, close to the border with Slovakia. (By the way, the part of Croatians who hadn’t moved contributed to the formation of the Ukrainian nation.)


Well, actually I didn't refer to that theory, not specifically.

It is disputed whether there's any connection at all between different Slavic groups called "Croats" (that is, any closer one than the common Slavic one which obviously exists).
The name "Croat" (Hrvat) itself is of Iranian origin (there are quite a few Iranian loans in Slavic), and besides the "Ukrainian" people called Хровате Бѣлии ("White Croats") there were also "Croats" in Bohemia, and while it is more likely that the latter are related to the Ukrainian ones the link to the "Croatian Croats" is more than shaky and not at all proven.

What I _*did*_ refer to (and which I probably should have repeated in the post above ) is that Slovene is, besides its strong ties to neighbouring South Slavic languages, also most definitely connected to Western Slavic (preserved nasals in some Carinthian Slovene dialects, prefix "vy-/vi-", again in Carinthian Slovene, etc.).

Actually the prevailing theory is that Slovenia was settled from two directions - an "older" wave from north-east which was Western Slavic and a "younger" one from south-east which was South Slavic.
And what I meant above is that while it is unlikely it is still _not impossible_ that this feature (/o-/ > /vo-/) could be an old isogloss linking Eastern Slovene dialects and Kajkavian Western and Eastern Slavic dialects.

I didn't say this is so many word as this of course is only a wild guess, based on nothing at all but a phonological process which might have occurred without any closer genetic connection at all.


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