# All Slavic languages: Longest words



## trosheniorasi

Unlike German and Dutch, Slavic languages don't really stick words together so they do not have very long words. Which is the longest one in your language?

In Bulgarian it is; "_непротивоконституционствувателствувайте"_ (39 letters) , meaning "don't do things that go against the constitution". 
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## Duya

The "official" record in BCS (once was part of the Guiness book) holds _prijestolonasljednikovica_ (24 letters) "wife of throne descendant". Ekavian version is 3 letters shorter, _prestolonaslednikovica, _One can derive a possessive out of it, _-čin_, with plural _-čini_, (26 letters) though it won't be recorded by dictionaries. Croatian wiki also presents its diminutive, but that sounds really stretching (even the original is somewhat stretching).

Among the longest in actual use is _otorinolaringolog_ (17 letters). With the recent trend of deriving feminine terms for professions, a female doctor would be _otorinolaringološkinja _(21 letters).

P.S. In case you wonder, _lj_ and _nj_ are digraphs (single letters), with Cyrillic equivalents љ and њ, so I didn't get the count wrong.


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## TriglavNationalPark

HERE's an article about the longest words in Slovenian.

A summary:

1.) The longest word in _Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika_ is *dialektičnomaterialističen* ("dialectical materialistic"), with 26 letters.

2.) Among the longest Slovenian words is one of one of particular relevance to this forum: *starocerkvenoslovanščina *("Old Church Slavonic").

3.) Slovenian numerals are open-ended compound words, so they can get _very_ long. The article cites *tisočdevetstodevetinsedemdesetletnica rojstva* ("the 1979th anniversary of birth"), with 37 letters in a row.


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## LilianaB

There is one word they used to say was the longest in Polish: Konstantynopolitanczykowianeczka. A small girl from Constantinopole.


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

LilianaB said:


> There is one word they used to say was the longest in Polish: Konstantynopolitanczykowianeczka. A small girl from Constantinopole.


Liliana, you're making stuff up again. A little girl from Constantinople is the much shorter _konstantynopolitaneczka._ Secondly names of inhabitants of towns and city are written with a small letter in Polish. The word you provided is a made-up word, that was created as a joke.


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## LilianaB

It is a real word, if somebody wanted to refer to a little girl from Constantinopole, but not too many people do these days, I guess.


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## iobyo

trosheniorasi said:


> Unlike German and Dutch, Slavic languages  don't really stick words together so they do not have very long words.  Which is the longest one in your language?
> 
> In Bulgarian it is; "_не__противоконституционствувателствувайте"_ (39 letters) , meaning "don't do things that go against the constitution".



Shouldn't it be 37?


I've never read anything about the longest Macedonian words, but many of these are easily calqued: _престолонаследниковица _(22), _дијалектичкоматеријалистичен _(28) and so forth.


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## Moro12

It is very difficult to provide a precise answer which word is the longest.
1. Some chemical terms as names of compound organic substances can be extremely long, e.g. in Russian: метоксихлордиэтиламинометилбутиламиноакридин 
2. Some technical terms can be composed of multiple roots, so we get: электрофотополупроводниковый "electro-photo-semiconductor" (adjective).
3. Some words derived from numbers can be extremely long, e.g. in Russian: пятисотшестидесятидевятилетие "569-year anniversary".
4. Russian allows an unlimited sequence like прабабушка "grand-grandmother", прапрабабушка "grand-grand-grandmother", прапрапрабабушка etc.

Some examples of long "real" Russian words:
человеконенавистничество "misanthropy";
интернационализироваться "to become international";
частнопредпринимательский "private-business" (adjective).


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## bibax

I should exclude such terms like otorhinolaryngoložka or riboflavinadenosindifosfát.

The Czech longest word (probably):

"(s) nejneobhospodařovávatelnějšími" - 30 characters = (with) the most non-cultivable;

hospodařiti, obhospodařovati = to farm, to cultivate, to manage, to administer;
_(Obhospodařuje 200 akrů. – He farms 200 acres.)
_obhospodařovávati = a frequentative/iterative/repetitive form of the previous verb;
obhospodařovávatelný = cultivable; capable of undergoing cultivation; a thing that can be repeatedly cultivated;
neobhospodařovávatelný = negation of the previous adjective;
nejneobhospodařovávatelnější = superlative of the previous adjective;
 nejneobhospodařovávatelnějšími = + ending of the plur. instr. case;

However we should probably use "obhospodařovatelný" instead of "obhospodařovávatelný":

"nejneobhospodařovatelnějšími" - only 28 characters;

The most natural expression of the same meaning would be: "(s) nejhůře obhospodařovatelnými (only 20 characters)" = (with) the worst cultivable;


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

LilianaB said:


> It is a real word, if somebody wanted to refer to a little girl from Constantinopole, but not too many people do these days, I guess.


Go to the Polish forum and see if anyone would support your claim that what you wrote is an actual word.

The city is _Konstantynopol_ and the suffix for resident is _-(it)anin, which gives you konstantynopolitanin. _Adding the suffix for little girl _-eczka_ gives you_ konstantynopolitaneczka.

_Adding _-itańczykowianeczka_ to a town name to form the name of the young female inhabitant makes no sense and there is no basis for it in the Polish language


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## LilianaB

Made-up or not, it is a word. I did not make it up.


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

LilianaB said:


> *Made-up or not, it is a word.* I did not make it up.


This makes no sense. If it's made-up, then it is NOT a real word. I suppose you'll claim that *super-cala-fragilistic-expi-ala-dotious is also a real word just because Mary Poppins sings it...


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## LilianaB

Yes, I think konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka is a word, because it can be uttered in isolation and it contains meaning.


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## osemnais

Where have you seen this word?


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

Onopatopoeic sounds also contain meaning, but they're not words.


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## LilianaB

If something can be uttered and has meaning it is a word.


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## TriglavNationalPark

MOD NOTE: Further discussion of the word *konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka* should take place in the Polish forum.


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## Arath

Aren't *непротивоконституционствувателствуващият/щата/щото/щите/лият/лата/лото/лите/нето* longer by one letter?

In all fairness, *непротивоконституционствувателствувайте* is also kind of a made up word. I think it was created for the sole purpose of being the longest word in Bulgarian. The same idea could be expressed with just "*непротивоконституционствайте*". The additional suffixes -*ствува*(x2) and -*тел* are unnecessary and silly. It's like the difference between the English *transormer* and *transformerizerator*. If we apply the same logic we could also get:

Америка
Американизирам
Американизация
Американизационер (or Американизациятор)
Американизационеризирам
Американизационеризация
Американизационеризациятор (or Американизационеризационер)
Американизационеризацияторален
Американизационеризацияторализирам
Американизационеризацияторализация
Американизационеризацияторализационален
Американизационеризацияторализационалистичен
Американизационеризацияторализационалистичествен
Американизационеризацияторализационалистичественост
Американизационеризацияторализационалистичественостите

and so on.


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## trosheniorasi

iobyo said:


> Shouldn't it be 37?.



Maybe. I kept getting a different count every time, so I looked it up, according to Wikipedia it is 39.


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## trosheniorasi

Arath said:


> Aren't *непротивоконституционствувателствуващият/щата/щото/щите/лият/лата/лото/лите/нето* longer by one letter?
> 
> In all fairness, *непротивоконституционствувателствувайте* is also kind of a made up word. I think it was created for the sole purpose of being the longest word in Bulgarian. The same idea could be expressed with just "*непротивоконституционствайте*". The additional suffixes -*ствува*(x2) and -*тел* are unnecessary and silly. It's like the difference between the English *transormer* and *transformerizerator*. If we apply the same logic we could also get:
> 
> 
> It's the longest word in the dictionary, but otherwise you are right.
> 
> Америка
> Американизирам
> Американизация
> Американизационер (or Американизациятор)
> Американизационеризирам
> Американизационеризация
> Американизационеризациятор (or Американизационеризационер)
> Американизационеризацияторален
> Американизационеризацияторализирам
> Американизационеризацияторализация
> Американизационеризацияторализационален
> Американизационеризацияторализационалистичен
> Американизационеризацияторализационалистичествен
> Американизационеризацияторализационалистичественост
> Американизационеризацияторализационалистичественостите
> 
> and so on.


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## Mona 999

The Internet says that the longest word in Ukrainian is "дихлордифенілтрихлорметилметан", it consists of 30 letters and means a kind of pesticides.


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## iezik

Moro12 said:


> It is very difficult to provide a precise answer which word is the longest.
> 1. Some chemical terms as names of compound organic substances can be extremely long, e.g. in Russian: метоксихлордиэтиламинометилбутиламиноакридин
> 2. Some technical terms can be composed of multiple roots, so we get: электрофотополупроводниковый "electro-photo-semiconductor" (adjective).
> 3. Some words derived from numbers can be extremely long, e.g. in Russian: пятисотшестидесятидевятилетие "569-year anniversary".
> 4. Russian allows an unlimited sequence like прабабушка "grand-grandmother", прапрабабушка "grand-grand-grandmother", прапрапрабабушка etc.



Is there any agreed common definition of a word in (Slavic) languages? My Slovene grammar claims existence of multipart words like "smejati se" or "delal sem" what I would usually count as two words. My English dictionary lists hyphenated strings like "black-eyed" as entry equivalent to words without hyphens (blackface, blackmail, blacksmith...) what I would also prefer to count as two words.


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## Apollodoros

I think for Slovak (apart from the numerals which by the norm are written together and thus can be of practically indefinite length) it will be the same word as in Czech, but different case (genitive) which due to a diphthong in Slovak brings us one letter more - so 31 letters 

najneobhospodarovávateľnejšieho

Translation: 'of the one which is the least repetitively cultivable'


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## Azori

Here is an article about the longest word in Slovak (pdf, p. 252) - it says it's not decided what the longest word is. However, it mentions the following words:

*najneobhospodarovateľnejší* (26 letters) -with other possible forms in different cases - *najneobhospodarovateľnejšími* (28 letters), *najneobhospodarovateľnejšiemu* (29 letters)

*najnezrevolucionalizovateľnejšiemu* (34 letters)

*sedemstodeväťdesiatsedemtisícsedemstodeväťdesiatsedem* (53 letters)


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## Thomas1

LilianaB said:


> There is one word they used to say was the longest in Polish: Konstantynopolitanczykowianeczka. A small girl from Constantinopole.


This is what I heard too, though, in a slghtly different form: *k*onstantynopolita*ń*czykowianeczka (32 letters). I think I've also heard konstantynopolitańczykiewiczówna (32 letters). They are possible, but I don't think they are used in Polish.

However, much longer words are possible in Polish. These are adjectives composed of many elements, for instance, numerals, and they can be absurdly long:
ponadtysiącdziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięcioipółkilometrowy (65 letters)
You can imagine how long they can be if you convert, for example, the distance between some places in the Universe expressed in light years into kilometres/metres...

I think that a 'normal' Polish word which is the longest can be 'pięćdziesięciogroszówka' (23 letters).


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## Ёж!

Moro12 said:


> 4. Russian allows an unlimited sequence like прабабушка "grand-grandmother", прапрабабушка "grand-grand-grandmother", прапрапрабабушка etc.


The one I've heard of: хороводоводоведоводовед, meaning a person who studies people who manage people who study people who "lead round dances" by singing. The entire thing is made up, starting from the so strange word "хороводовод" ("round dance leader") which is coined from the real word "хоровод" ("round dance") that is in itself a compound that translates as "choir-lead". One can continue the sequence of "вед"ов (one who studies something or somebody) and "вод"ов (one who leads or manages somebody) _ad infinitum_. 

Provided that you can insert there "вод"ы and "вед"ы in any order, the set of 'infinite' Russian words is actually 'uncountable'.


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## ilocas2

Czech:

*nejneznepravděpodobnostňovávatelnějšího, nejneznepravděpodobnostňovávatelnějšímu, nejneznepravděpodobnostňovávatelnějších, nejneznepravděpodobnostňovávatelnějšími*

declined forms of "the most continuously un-improbablizedable"


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## Karton Realista

Thomas1 said:


> However, much longer words are possible in Polish. These are adjectives composed of many elements, for instance, numerals, and they can be absurdly long:
> ponadtysiącdziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięcioipółkilometrowy (65 letters)
> You can imagine how long they can be if you convert, for example, the distance between some places in the Universe expressed in light years into kilometres/metres...


Ponadosiemsetsiedemdziesiątsześćmiliardówdziewięćsetdwadzieściatrzymilionysiedemsetsiedemdziesiątsiedemtysięcytrzystapięćdziesięciosiedmiokilometrowy xD


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