# Learning a third Slavic language



## Ziemniak

Hello everyone  first post here

I've been putting a lot of thought into the matter and recently I decided that I would like to try learning another Slavic language.

I already speak Polish, and I've been studying Russian for a while now so I'm not all that bad in it either  the thing is - these languages are both quite different if you ask me, compared to the relations between other Slavic languages, as well as very useful for me - Russian for obvious reasons and Polish due to my Polish ancestry.

As for a third Slavic language, I am now a little lost. On one hand, the obvious choice would be Serbian/Croatian since its a South Slavic language - thus, at least theoretically, avoiding the hazard of confusion that may occur due to over similarity. (Russian-Ukrainian for example). On the other hand I think Czech could be more common or useful, but I'm not sure if its a good idea having already learnt Polish.

I'd like to add that I'm not overly fascinated with the rest of the southern branch, as the other south Slavic languages have all kinds of rather peculiar grammatical aspects that I don't really like. (Definite and indefinite in Bulgarian&Macedonian for example, Dual in Slovenian etc.).

Last but not by any means least - Do you even think learning a third Slavic language, not being Polish nor Russian, is a good idea at all???

Thank you very much in advance


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## Azori

Ziemniak said:


> On the other hand I think Czech could be more common or useful, but I'm not sure if its a good idea having already learnt Polish.


Personally I think one wouldn't gain much from learning Czech unless one plans to move to the Czech Republic and live there. Of course it's always possible to learn a language for "fun" but Czech isn't more useful nor more common in general than most (or rather all) other Slavic languages, imo.


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## Ziemniak

Azori said:


> Personally I think one wouldn't gain much from learning Czech unless one plans to move to the Czech Republic and live there. Of course it's always possible to learn a language for "fun" but Czech isn't more useful nor more common in general than most (or rather all) other Slavic languages, imo.



Do you also think Serbo Croatian is the best way to go?


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## Azori

Ziemniak said:


> Do you also think Serbo Croatian is the best way to go?


In this case I think the best way would be to go with the language that interests you the most (or if it's not the language then the country/countries where it's spoken - or even something else).


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## Ziemniak

Azori said:


> In this case I think the best way would be to go with the language that interests you the most (or if it's not the language then the country/countries where it's spoken - or even something else).


I like the Czech republic and the whole Balkan area, the thing that interests me in Serbo-Croatian is that, in addition to being Slavic (my favorite language family) - its South Slavic - which is the branch I have yet to dive into. (Polish is western, Russian is eastern).


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## ahvalj

If you're learning Slavic languages mostly for fun, I would suggest to add the Old Church Slavonic, which is the nicest and most interesting of them all. Plus, a member of the southern branch ,-)


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## Ziemniak

ahvalj said:


> If you're learning Slavic languages mostly for fun, I would suggest to add the Old Church Slavonic, which is the nicest and most interesting of them all. Plus, a member of the southern branch ,-)


Well to be honest it all started with polish, which was due to my Polish ancestry and relation to the country. My grandparents speak Polish and so I wanted to learn their language. I also started learning more about Poland and the Slavic culture in general. Since I liked it so much, and since Russian is so popular here, I decided to also learn Russian later on and liked it too. And so I've grown to really love the Slavic languages, they are the nicest IMHO. 
However I am looking to speak to people and use the language, which is why I probably wouldn't learn old church Slavonic .


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## thegreathoo

Ziemniak said:


> I like the Czech republic and the whole Balkan area, the thing that interests me in Serbo-Croatian is that, in addition to being Slavic (my favorite language family) - its South Slavic - which is the branch I have yet to dive into. (Polish is western, Russian is eastern).


I would encourage you. I think you will appreciate the simplicity of correspondence between phonetics and writings. I personally think it is the most advanced language in that respect in the world. The alphabet is simpler than Russian or Polish, and accent indicators do not exist which maybe seen as a drawback. 

If you have to choose between Croatian and Serbian learning material: Serbian variant is simpler because vocabulary incorporates more foreign words and _ekavski_ dialect is simpler to pronounce and more consistent to implement than Croatian _ijekavski._ Croatian is richer as far as slavic vocabulary and more complex and varied dialectically and phonetically.


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## Ziemniak

thegreathoo said:


> I would encourage you. I think you will appreciate the simplicity of correspondence between phonetics and writings. I personally think it is the most advanced language in that respect in the world. The alphabet is simpler than Russian or Polish, and accent indicators do not exist which maybe seen as a drawback.
> 
> If you have to chose between Croatian and Serbian learning material: Serbian variant is simpler because vocabulary incorporates more foreign words and _ekavski_ dialect is simpler to pronounce and more consistent to implement than Croatian _ijekavski._ Croatian is richer as far as slavic vocabulary and more complex and varied dialectically and phonetically.


I very much agreewith what youre saying here.
I am currently trying to learn both since they are so similar, and I simply note the differences in words (obitelj/породица, novčić/кованица, kruh/хлеб, vlak/воз etc.)

Good approach in your opinion?

I am also aware, of course, of the dialectal differences such as ovdje&овде, vrijeme&време etc.


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## ahvalj

Don't forget that you'll have to struggle with the Serbo-Croatian accentuation, which will be almost impossible to master when living abroad and not using the language every day.


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## thegreathoo

I don't have a problem with that.  I have not seen Bosnian learning materials, so i do not know what to expect there considering they use a lot turkish loanwords. But, _stokavski ijekavski_ dialect of Bosnian Serbs is the best representation of BCSM imo.  I think that learning material is available as Croatian language material, but I am not sure because Croatian books often favor _kajkavian_ dialect.


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## thegreathoo

ahvalj said:


> Don't forget that you'll have to struggle with the Serbo-Croatian accentuation, which will be almost impossible to master when living abroad and not using the language every day.


I would not worry about that.  Colloquialism is rampant in the region and accentuation varies almost from village to village.


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## Ziemniak

ahvalj said:


> Don't forget that you'll have to struggle with the Serbo-Croatian accentuation, which will be almost impossible to master when living abroad and not using the language every day.


What do you mean? If you're talking about the tones then I don't think these are actually used? And if you're talking about the stress then how does it differ from mastering Russian stresses?


thegreathoo said:


> I don't have a problem with that.  I have not seen Bosnian learning materials, so i do not know what to expect there considering they use a lot turkish loanwords. But, _stokavski ijekavski_ dialect of Bosnian Serbs is the best representation of BCSM imo.  I think that learning material is available as Croatian language material, but I am not sure because Croatian books often favor _kajkavian_ dialect.


I am not involving Bosnian in my studying, but I believe that armed with Croatian and Serbian one should not struggle with it should he come across it.


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## ahvalj

Ziemniak said:


> What do you mean? If you're talking about the tones then I don't think these are actually used? And if you're talking about the stress then how does it differ from mastering Russian stresses?


It has all the complexity of the Russian stress multiplied by four (the number of tones). You have to learn e. g. in which grammatical case the noun has the long stem vowel, in which the short one, in which case the stressed vowel has a rising tone, in which a falling one, plus to learn how to distinguish between these tones when listening.


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## thegreathoo

Ziemniak said:


> I am not involving Bosnian in my studying, but I believe that armed with Croatian and Serbian one should not struggle with it should he come across it.


I agree.


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## Ziemniak

ahvalj said:


> It has all the complexity of the Russian stress multiplied by four (the number of tones). You have to learn e. g. in which grammatical case the noun has the long stem vowel, in which the short one, in which case the stressed vowel has a rising tone, in which a falling one, plus to learn how to distinguish between these tones when listening.


AFAIK nowadays the speakers don't really differentiate between the tones anymore SK one could simply say it as if it was Russian as long as the stress is correct. Thegreathoo could you confirm that in case its true?
Furthermore I also heard even the stress is not fixed among the speakers and is prone to changes throughout the regions accordingly, kinda like thegreathoo previously stated here.


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## thegreathoo

There are a few instances where accent makes a difference, but luckily those are rare.  (Like, gore gore gore (up there forests burn) which can be pronounced/accented 6 different ways.)
In general if you pronounce words quickly, it won't matter.


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## Ziemniak

thegreathoo said:


> There are a few instances where accent makes a difference, but luckily those are rare.  (Like, gore gore gore (up there forests burn) which can be pronounced/accented 6 different ways.)
> In general if you pronounce words quickly, it won't matter.


Well I guess each language has its complexities.. Czech has written and spoken forms (kinda) for example


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## iobyo

Ziemniak said:


> AFAIK nowadays the speakers don't really differentiate between the tones anymore



There certainly is variation from region to region, but the vast majority of educated speakers do differentiate between them; e.g. _grȃd_ 'city' vs. _grȁd_ 'hail', _bŕzo_ '(neut. adj.) quick' vs. _bȓzo_ '(adv.) quickly', etc. A native speaker will definitely notice if you don't distinguish, for example, _sȑca_ (GEN sg.) from _sȓcā_ (GEN pl.), but I don't think that should worry you too much. And why limit yourself to just one more language? Learning a new language gets easier the more languages you've already learned.


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## Ziemniak

iobyo said:


> There certainly is variation from region to region, but the vast majority of educated speakers do differentiate between them; e.g. _grȃd_ 'city' vs. _grȁd_ 'hail', _bŕzo_ '(neut. adj.) quick' vs. _bȓzo_ '(adv.) quickly', etc. A native speaker will definitely notice if you don't distinguish _sȑca_ (GEN sg.) from _sȓcā_ (GEN pl.), but I don't think that should worry you too much. And why limit yourself to just one more language? Learning a new language gets easier the more languages you've already learned.


I sure hope its not too confusing, because I have never used any tones before so naturally it can scare me 
As for learning more than one language - I don't wanna get myself too confused with the Slavic languages, since some of them can get really, really similar in foreign eyes.

Of course I'd like to thank all of you so far for your great comments


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## Apollodoros

I would strongly recommend BCS (call it whatever you prefer). I personally learnt Serbian in ekavian pronunciation and it serves me well all around Balkans (if you ever intend to visit these countries), not even talking about how beautiful the language is. Also, it comes hand in hand with insight into three religions, different cultural traditions of people living at the sea/in the mountains/lowlands, rich history (old AND recent), rich cinematography etc. Moreover, depends on the exposure, but you will be able to understand basic Macedonian, Bulgarian and Slovenian too and vice versa.


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## Ziemniak

Apollodoros said:


> I would strongly recommend BCS (call it whatever you prefer). I personally learnt Serbian in ekavian pronunciation and it serves me well all around Balkans (if you ever intend to visit these countries), not even talking about how beautiful the language is. Also, it comes hand in hand with insight into three religions, different cultural traditions of people living at the sea/in the mountains/lowlands, rich history (old AND recent), rich cinematography etc. Moreover, depends on the exposure, but you will be able to understand basic Macedonian, Bulgarian and Slovenian too and vice versa.


Good to hear that  
How did you deal with the whole pitch accent issue?


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## iobyo

Ziemniak said:


> I sure hope its not too confusing, because I have never used any tones before so naturally it can scare me
> As for learning more than one language - I don't wanna get myself too confused with the Slavic languages, since some of them can get really, really similar in foreign eyes.



I probably magnified the whole pitch accent thing; you're not likely to be misunderstood.


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## Ziemniak

iobyo said:


> I probably magnified the whole pitch accent thing; you're not likely to be misunderstood.


I see, well thank you anyway for your help  the internet kinda lacks material regarding the topic, so I was really curious. 
By the way - are most Serbs and Croats aware of the different words in each others languages such as voz&vlak or would they be slightly confused or even irritated should I ever mix these up in front of them?


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## Apollodoros

Ziemniak said:


> Good to hear that
> How did you deal with the whole pitch accent issue?



My advice: Don't worry about the accent in the early stages. I might have a good ear and picked it up on the street, from the friends or from the movies. The fact that my mother tongue is Slovak with accent always on the first syllable doesn't help here either. I am sure I still miss here and there but I am positive you will be understood regadless to the syllable you stress. There is just a couple of words where the meaning is completely different and even there you will be understood from the context.


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## Ziemniak

Apollodoros said:


> My advice: Don't worry about the accent in the early stages. I might have a good ear and picked it up on the street, from the friends or from the movies. The fact that my mother tongue is Slovak with accent always on the first syllable doesn't help here either. I am sure I still miss here and there but I am positive you will be understood regadless to the syllable you stress. There is just a couple of words where the meaning is completely different and even there you will be understood from the context.


Okay, thank you! )


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## iobyo

Ziemniak said:


> I see, well thank you anyway for your help  the internet kinda lacks material regarding the topic, so I was really curious.
> By the way - are most Serbs and Croats aware of the different words in each others languages such as voz&vlak



Forum  members living in those countries could elaborate further, but many  people would be aware of them, having heard them on TV (_Tko želi biti milijunaš?_), in songs, on food packaging (_pirinač _vs. _riža, so _vs. _sol, pasulj _~ _grah_), road signs (_autocesta, cestarina_ vs. _autoput, putarina_), even sports teams (_Nogometna reprezentacija Bosne i Hercegovine_). 



Ziemniak said:


> would they be slightly confused or even irritated should I ever mix these up in front of them?



Language is much more of a sensitive issue in Croatia than in Serbia, but no one will get irritated if you mix up _hiljada _and _tisuća, _or _ko _and _tko_, etc. (many Croats use _hiljada _and _šta _in  speech). If you only stick to one variety and ignore the others, you'll  still be understood perfectly in all of those countries. 

If you're going south, the _Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian _series  by Ronelle Alexander is excellent. There's a pretty good learners'  textbook + CD for Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer. The beginners' books  for Slovene I've seen are more like phrasebooks. In any case, learning a new language has become so much easier with social media and all the resources one can find online (even just watching YouTube clips).


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## Ziemniak

iobyo said:


> Forum  members living in those countries could elaborate further, but many  people would be aware of them, having heard them on TV (_Tko želi biti milijunaš?_), in songs, on food packaging (_pirinač _vs. _riža, so _vs. _sol, pasulj _~ _grah_), road signs (_autocesta, cestarina_ vs. _autoput, putarina_), even sports teams (_Nogometna reprezentacija Bosne i Hercegovine_).
> 
> 
> 
> Language is much more of a sensitive issue in Croatia than in Serbia, but no one will get irritated if you mix up _hiljada _and _tisuća, _or _ko _and _tko_, etc. (many Croats use _hiljada _and _šta _in  speech). If you only stick to one variety and ignore the others, you'll  still be understood perfectly in all of those countries.
> 
> If you're going south, the _Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian _series  by Ronelle Alexander is excellent. There's a pretty good learners'  textbook + CD for Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer. The beginners' books  for Slovene I've seen are more like phrasebooks. In any case, learning a new language has become so much easier with social media and all the resources one can find online (even just watching YouTube clips).


Thank you very much for your great answer!  
Generally I'm trying to keep aware of the Croatian and Serbian nuances as much as I cab in order to be able to accustom myself to the speakers, so for example if I speak to a Serb I'll use hleb instead of kruh and vice versa. As for Bosnian, I guess I'll stick to Croatian and hope for the best xD.


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## vianie

Ziemniak said:


> As for Bosnian, I guess I'll stick to Croatian and hope for the best xD.



Or you can speak ijekavian with prolonged accents and use Serbian vocabulary. Specific Bosnian words you can catch later on.  Just a laic advice, I never studied BCS.


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## Ziemniak

vianie said:


> Or you can speak ijekavian with prolonged accents and use Serbian vocabulary. Specific Bosnian words you can catch later on.  Just a laic advice, I never studied BCS.


I really like Ijekavian in Croatian


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## vianie

ilocas2 said:


> Some things happening there are like from a different planet.


Each country is a "planet" on its own, and specially for outlanders of it.


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## ahvalj

I wonder why there is such a neglect of the pitch accent? True, the free stress and the pitch accent are difficult to master, but from a linguistic viewpoint the tones are by far the most interesting feature of Serbo-Croatian and especially Slovenian (since in the latter they continue the Common Slavic tones, whereas in the dialects that form the ground of the literary Serbo-Croatian the tones are created anew with no direct relation to the etymological ones). Learning Serbo-Croatian without tones is like going to a restaurant to feed instead of delighting the cuisine.


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## Ziemniak

ahvalj said:


> I wonder why there is such a neglect of the pitch accent? True, the free stress and the pitch accent are difficult to master, but from a linguistic viewpoint the tones are by far the most interesting feature of Serbo-Croatian and especially Slovenian (since in the latter they continue the Common Slavic tones, whereas in the dialects that form the ground of the literary Serbo-Croatian the tones are created anew with no direct relation to the etymological ones). Learning Serbo-Croatian without tones is like going to a restaurant to feed instead of delighting the cuisine.


it's just so difficult to grasp, especially when there's no appropriate material :/


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## thegreathoo

It's not a big deal.  Many alphabets do not use pitch, and many show pitch in limited cases only when loss of meaning is at stake.  Pitch signs are not there for the beauty of a language.  As I said previously, you will rarely encounter a dubious case in Serbian where a word can be pronounced two ways and it is not clear from the context which way to go; declinations, gender forms, etc provide direction in context.


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## dhudaček

ahvalj said:


> Learning Serbo-Croatian without tones is like going to a restaurant to feed instead of delighting the cuisine.


Many native speakers do not have the tone system at all. If you are in Croatian cities like Zagreb or Rijeka, you don't get to hear the prescribed tone system.

Telling a foreigner that he hasn't "delighted on the cuisine" because he learned the language there instead of in a rural setting would sound kind of wrong, would it not?


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## ahvalj

dhudaček said:


> Many native speakers do not have the tone system at all. If you are in Croatian cities like Zagreb or Rijeka, you don't get to hear the prescribed tone system.
> 
> Telling a foreigner that he hasn't "delighted on the cuisine" because he learned the language there instead of in a rural setting would sound kind of wrong, would it not?


Well, continuing the culinary associations, I would compare it with enjoying the authentic ethnic cuisine vs. the urban fastfood. Seriously, from a linguist's viewpoint, Serbo-Croatian has two phonetic characters that are peculiar on the Slavic average: the pitch accent and the separate reflexation of *_tj_ and *_dj_ (>_ć_ and _đ_): without them, it becomes just one more language without a clear phonetic personality.


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## dhudaček

ahvalj said:


> Well, continuing the culinary associations, I would compare it with enjoying the authentic ethnic cuisine vs. the urban fastfood. Seriously, from a linguist's viewpoint, Serbo-Croatian has two phonetic characters that are peculiar on the Slavic average: the pitch accent and the separate reflexation of *_tj_ and *_dj_ (>_ć_ and _đ_): without them, it becomes just one more language without a clear phonetic personality.


It's no more an authentic ethnic cuisine than the pitch accent in Slovene is the authentic ethnic cuisine of Slovene. It's an "authentic cuisine" of a small part of populace, the majority either doesn't have some of the tones (using 3 or 2 tones instead of 4 found in rural speeches of specific dialects) with a significant part only having a stress system and no tone system at all.

And the stress system is just as much someone else's "authentic" cuisine. Perhaps you assume not using the tone system is a bastardization of a previous stage of language?


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## vianie

ahvalj said:


> Serbo-Croatian has two phonetic characters that are peculiar on the Slavic average: the pitch accent and the separate reflexation of *_tj_ and *_dj_ (>_ć_ and _đ_): without them, it becomes just one more language without a clear phonetic personality.


What is the separate reflexation of _tj_ and _dj_, and in what it's peculiar on the Slavic average? Which are those languages without a clear phonetic personality?



ilocas2 said:


> I don't hear any tones


I don't consider recognition of the tones to be a hard work if they're pronounced properly. I rather can't hear the long unstressed syllables in BCS, they seem to be somewhat weak compared to the Czech and Slovak ones.


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## bibax

> Which are those languages without a clear phonetic personality?


Slovak?


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## vianie

bibax said:


> Slovak?



Depending what is meant under that. In terms of phonetic uniformity, Slovak is, unlike Czech, due to historical reasons pretty proportionally divided. There are many things about this including the one that for more than a half of Slovak population, the exclusive first syllable accent is not a native one.


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## ahvalj

vianie said:


> What is the separate reflexation of _tj_ and _dj_, and in what it's peculiar on the Slavic average?


In all Slavic languages but Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, the reflexes of _*tj_ and _*dj_ have merged with other sounds (with _č_ and _ž_ in East Slavic, _c_ and _dz/z_ in West Slavic, _č_ and _j_ in Slovenian [with particular details of this development in some of the languages]). 



vianie said:


> Which are those languages without a clear phonetic personality?


Mostly Slovak and western Serbo-Croatian: they have the most generalized vocalism (leaving aside the Slovak diphthongs).


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## vianie

ahvalj said:


> Mostly Slovak and western Serbo-Croatian: they have the most generalized vocalism (leaving aside the Slovak diphthongs).



I would take this kind of generalisation in Slovak rather as an advantage to the future. Centrality and comparatively short time of independent evolution has simply taken its toll. Quickly constructed Standard Slovak is a half-successful compromis reflecting the diversity of three antagonistic Slovak dialects and their disability to join. Let's afford Slovak the time it hasn't had for finding its _own_ face.


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## Azori

vianie said:


> There are many things about this including the one that *for more than a half of Slovak population, the exclusive first syllable accent is not a native one.*


Support for this claim...?


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## ahvalj

dhudaček said:


> Perhaps you assume not using the tone system is a bastardization of a previous stage of language?


It's banalization for sure, especially in the case of Slovenian — the last literary Slavic language with continuations of the ancient tones. I realize that for 99,9% of speakers this absolutely doesn't matter: that's why I had made a disclaimer that the loss of tones is a pity from a linguist's viewpoint.


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## thegreathoo

ahvalj said:


> It's banalization for sure, especially in the case of Slovenian — the last literary Slavic language with continuations of the ancient tones. I realize that for 99,9% of speakers this absolutely doesn't matter: that's why I had made a disclaimer that the loss of tones is a pity from a linguist's viewpoint.


Tones are not lost, they are just not denoted in written form, mainly because when you weigh pros and cons it ends up an inefficient way of writing for no apparent gain.


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## ahvalj

thegreathoo said:


> Tones are not lost, they are just not denoted in written form, mainly because when you weigh pros and cons it ends up an inefficient way of writing for no apparent gain.


Are we speaking about Serbo-Croatian or Slovenian? As to the latter, as far as I know there are two literary standards, one of them indeed lacking tonal distinctions. The above comments from Croatian speakers make me think that in the Croatian cities the tones are fading away as well. I should confess, I don't like at all how the SC tones sound: they are way too exaggerated to my ear (comparing to Lithuanian or Slovenian ones), but I like the very fact that the language has this feature.


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## thegreathoo

I am speaking about SC.  I agree with one of the previous posts that some Croatian provincial dialects are almost devoid of tones in normal speech ( excluding excited speech etc).   Same can be said of official speech you hear on the news for example.   However, the colloquial speech you hear on the streets throughout the SC speaking area is not devoid of tones.  Montenegrian and dalmatian are extremelly musical, southern serbian as well, and there are internal variations as well.
The tones are not lost.  They are just not written with special characters, and they never were, so there was never anything o lose.  The language evolves without written record as far as tones.


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## Apollodoros

Azori said:


> Support for this claim...?



I agree that this one might be difficult to quantify. But in _all _Eastern Slovak and as far as I am aware in _most_ Central Slovak dialects the stress is on penultimate syllable. The speakers from the corresponding areas usually apply this pattern also when speaking standard Slovak (I'd say Easterners more consistently than the speakers of Central Slovak dialects). I am not sure whether this is more than a half of the population, certainly though it is a considerable part.


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## Azori

Apollodoros said:


> But in _all _Eastern Slovak and as far as I am aware in _most_ Central Slovak dialects the stress is on penultimate syllable.


Stress on the penultimate syllable in most of central Slovakia?   I don't think I've ever noticed it there (and I grew up in that area). Probably people from the very north may be more prone to have an eastern-like accent but I think it's still not the same as the accents in the east.


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## Apollodoros

I agree that it might be decreasing but I have heard this myself regularly. The classic rendition of at least some central Slovak dialects ( e.g. Liptov, Orava, Horehronie, Gemer, Novohrad) i.e. not influenced by standard Slovak has the penultimate syllable stressed. You can hear it in some pieces of older cinematography (Rysavá jalovica - I am guessing that Liptov dialect is used (?)) or more recent reality show featuring rural people from central Slovakia (Sihla - Horehronie/Gemer). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv_ZbYRlQKQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzrtU0SCrgQ

Even this show, named Central Slovaks, shows stress on the penultimate as a stereotypical feature of a Central Slovak dialect (Zvolen/Banská Bystrica used (?)).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhv5zdy-Xyo

Documents:
http://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/119723/SpisyFF_107-1966-1_4.pdf
page 2

http://pdf.truni.sk/e-ucebnice/kur/data/6677b678-9ba2-4d1c-a908-2906576d8b98.html?ownapi=1


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## Azori

Apollodoros said:


> Documents:
> http://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/119723/SpisyFF_107-1966-1_4.pdf
> page 2
> 
> http://pdf.truni.sk/e-ucebnice/kur/data/6677b678-9ba2-4d1c-a908-2906576d8b98.html?ownapi=1


They both say *"in some central Slovak dialects"*, not *"most"* as you've previously stated. That makes a bit of a difference. That first and third videos are hardly authentic examples of dialects.


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## Panceltic

ahvalj said:


> It's banalization for sure, especially in the case of Slovenian — the last literary Slavic language with continuations of the ancient tones. I realize that for 99,9% of speakers this absolutely doesn't matter: that's why I had made a disclaimer that the loss of tones is a pity from a linguist's viewpoint.



Re the tones in Slovenian, there really are two literary "standards", one with pitch tones (tonemski) and the other without (jakostni). Understandably, they apply to the pronunciation only. The reason for this co-existence is simple: a great deal of our dialects (particulary in the North East) have long ago lost the pitch distinctions. So the people from those regions pronounce the literary language without pitch accent, and those from "tonemic" regions do pronounce it.

It should be noted that the "tonemski" is not a completely different system to the "jakostni"; it is just the same "jakostni" with an added bonus - the pitch.

It is just really difficult to explain I guess! 

P.S. I'm not sure our tones are direct continuations from the old Proto-Slavic ones, there has been a great deal of changes through the history.


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## Apollodoros

Azori said:


> They both say *"in some central Slovak dialects"*, not *"most"* as you've previously stated. That makes a bit of a difference. That first and third videos are hardly authentic examples of dialects.



I have also said _'as far as I am aware'_ and still, strictly logically, I don't think that _'some'_ necessarily rules out _'most'. _Now, regardless to the quantity I believe that we can agree that this feature does exist in Central Slovak and combined with the speakers of Eastern Slovak dialects this accounts for a large part of  Slovak speakers whose native accent is on the penultimate syllable. 

I hear this often in Central Slovak speakers. There is a plenty of examples and you can search for more... Just today I watched this video where there is a young guy from Banska Bystrica stressing the penultimate. Time 21:40-21:55.

"je tu zima a samé neto'piere"
http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/...i-amerikou/213562260150011-devata-vlna/video/


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## Gerry905

I don't really think that Slavic Languages are useful... maybe apart from Russian.


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## Ziemniak

Gerry905 said:


> I don't really think that Slavic Languages are useful... maybe apart from Russian.


In Eastern Europe they sure are


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## DarkChild

Ziemniak said:


> In Eastern Europe they sure are



Unless you go to that particular country, I doubt it.


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## FairOaks

That which doesn't increase the width of their wallets DarkChild and Gerry905, covetous and middling representatives of a dying nation, consider absolutely useless. Wonder why they even bother visiting this forum at all.


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## vianie

You will know them by their fruits.


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