Yes, Linguist is wrong, Ukranian language as a literary standard does exist. Thereare books published in Ukrainian, TV programs, school classes etc. Another question is that Ukranian is spoken with various levels of mixture with Russian as you go from west to east of the country. The eastern part of Ukraine speaks pure Russian. Ukranian nationalists regard it strictly as a separate language while Russian nationalists regard it as a dialect of Russian. Imagine, for example, Scottish nationalists enforcing laws to use Scots language (and not Standard British English) on the territory of Scotland.
You get changes in prunounciation and accent through out russia.. even between moscow and st petersburg the accents are different.
Hi.
A Swiss speaker here. When I say "Swiss", I mean Swiss German. We call our language Schwyzertuetsch and it is very different from Standard High German (Hochdeutsch), in fact, approximately just as different from it as Dutch or Luxembourgisch are.
Every Schwytzertuetsch speaker has to learn Standard High German as a foreign language. Yes, we write in it, our newspapers are in it, but we don't speak it. We speak our own language. However, if even one non-Swiss-German speaker is present, we are usually willing to accomodate them and have a conversation in Hochdeutsch, although it can sometimes feel a bit unnatural.
The Swiss variety of Standard High German is not identical to the German and Austrian ones. It contains some French and many Swiss words that you don't encounter in Hochdeutsch in other countries.
Furthermore, the Swiss pronunciation of Standard High German is very easy for any German speaker to recognise.
Linguist, you wrote:
i know people from Nakhodka, from Vladivostok, from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and they have very good literate pronouciation and sound like all Moscovites, also i ve been everywhere from Karelia till Astrakhan', again people speak the same,(i dont count gypsies, chechens, georgians, tajiks etc) in which strange region do you live? Chukotka?:D
Well, I suppose it's a matter of the musical ear. Living in Moscow suburbs you can easily differentiate standard pronounciation from accent. I had that happy chance.
Another interesting thing is the TV anouncers' patter.The language of central broadcasting companies have a common standard which is purely Moscovite and absolurely contrasted to regional speaking. My hometown pronounciation sounds childish in the babble-box, while Moscow channels always go in more agreeable way.
The mix of Russian and Ukranian is called 'surzhik' and it is considered to be wrong by both Russian and Ukranian sides. Surzhik is for sure a dialect of Ukranian.
According to clever resourses in the i-net Ukranian language has been started in the XIV when the ancient Russian splitted up. Now it has three dialects. The founder of modern literary Ukranian is a poet and writer T. Shevchenko.By the way, does anybody know what's the difference between language and dialect?
Chuchichaeschtli
About 10 years ago there was a man that lived for 1 month in my family -he was Swiss and he came to Moscow to study Russian and to learn our country.
I could not understand him because he used special slang and my german vocabulary was poor.
But when he imitated Hoch Deutch - ir was pompous and very exciting. :)
Yeah, and I'm sure Germans think of us as yodelling yokels. In actual fact, we simply speak two different (but genetically close) languages.
mishka: <<By the way, does anybody know what's the difference between language and dialect?>>
If only there were anybody clever enough to tell that! It seems to me that a dialect becomes a language when speakers of the given language perceive it as such. For example, Macedonians perceive their own language as distinct, while Bulgarians usually claim it is a dialect of Bulgarian, and now I see it is the same problem with Russian and Ukrainian (one can think of Belorussian as well). A more humorous approach says that a language is a dialect with an army and a fleet: this is why, for example, what used to be known as Francien in France became the modern French language, while Picard or Walloon are considered dialects of French. Another example is the situation in ex-Yugoslavia: while it was one country, the dominant language there (spoken by Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrins, with dialectal differences) was referred to as Serbo-Croatian. As soon as independent countries came into existence, it became officially referred to as Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian (depending on the country), and now some claim that Montenegrin (the dialect spoken in Montenegro) is a separate language as well. Of course, they have been mutually intelligible all the time, although Croatians are now using the dialectal variety of their language to refashion their vocabulary, to distance it from Serbian.
Easterner,
I asolutely agree with the idea of nations' contraposition as a criterion to their mutual distinction. Every big or small society strives to be unique. So their language, the way of life, the common stereotypes of behavior supply to this mark in full.
Though, when empire expands this principle doesn't work. Peoples merge in one superethnos wishfully or struggling as the empire secures them stabilty, huge market, one language for comprehension each other etc. There is no explanation why the Irishes fighted with the British for their independence and bulked at the idea of joining the UK. (Anyway, we all belong to homo sapiens and any Irish woman would bear for any English man a healthy child. These cultutal distinctions is just a trifle and people are ready to pay their lives for it ).
I am not much interested in history, I just want to know why Nature made us that way?
to Chuchichaeschtli [ btw: what a name ;-) ]
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Yeah, and I'm sure Germans think of us as yodelling yokels.
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Aren't people from Bavaria the yodelling cowboys? :)
And "yokels"?!?!? ... Maybe very rich "yokels" who live in an almost tax-free paradise and who can buy uncut versions of movies in every ordinary store ;)
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In actual fact, we simply speak two different (but genetically close) languages.
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Yeah ... It ain't easy for me to understand Swiss German!
And of course, don't you use "Schoki" instead of "Schokolade"? (Schokolade = chocolate)
That would be something like "chocy" in English ...
Who else agrees that this word is a must-have for the English language? ;)
<<to Chuchichaeschtli [ btw: what a name ;-) ] >>
If I'm not mistaken "chuchichäschtli" is Swiss German for "cupboard". The next time you run into a German-speaking Swiss, ask them to say this word. You'd think they were coughing up a hairball.
"we all belong to homo sapiens and any Irish woman would bear for any English man a healthy child. These cultutal distinctions is just a trifle and people are ready to pay their lives for it )."
It's not about cultural distinctions or linguistic distincions or whatever that "people are ready to pay their lives for it". It's about one group of people (bigger and stronger) imposing their will on the other (smaller and weaker). Language or culture has nothing to do with it. I agree with mishka that we all belong to homo sapiens, the problem is we don't act like homo sapiens.
Vytenis,
There are obvious examples, when small groups aren't pushovers and resistable to big and strong ones. Vietnam and the US is a classical thing. I am not intrested in who was right , who was wrong, but the hatred (or any other strong emotion) of a small group can overcome the onslaught of the opposed side. We all know that the outcome of the war is death of the best individuals, and the meek will surely come into the Kingdom of Lord , (but they are the most incapable and inactive part of the nation), so why Nature makes us to fight against each other? Is that reasonable?
I don't think that to kill each other is something extraordinary, because this is quite natural trait of human beings. Along with the necessity of security and all.
The language and culture seems to be the only distinction that keeps one nation together in a gregarious feeling contrasted to another. Otherwise we should have spoken one common language from ancient times.