slavic/romance/german

Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:23 am GMT
Which combination is more closely related:

Slavic - romance
Slavic - germanic
Germanic - romance
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:48 am GMT
Germanic - romance

Both belong to the 'kentum' group of IE languages
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:06 pm GMT
Germanic - Romance for sure
guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:48 pm GMT
Germanic and Romance are genetically more related, but there was mutual influence/"Sprachbunding" so to speak between Germanic and Slavic much later--after the Centum-Satem split, which actually makes Germanic and Slavic appear more closely related because they share similarities in how words are used.

loaf = khleb, roof = krov, small = malo, love = ljub, people (OE liodi, Ger. Leute) = ljudi, nose = nos, son = sin, how (like, as) = kao, who = ko

My stepmother is a Serbian native (actually she's from Montenegro but lives in Serbia), and I have had the opportunity to travel there twice on extended stays.
Picking up the fundamentals of the Serbian language made it clear to me that Germanic and Slavic resemble one another more than Germanic and Romance. To me, Serbian seems more like a cousin of English/German, where French/Spanish/Italian (I have studied all three) are not closely related at all--more like 2nd cousins half removed. I was shocked by this to say the least. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of the relation that made it seem like this to me, but I was indeed impressed.

I know this contradicts the genetic approach, but the similarity between Germanic and Slavic to me is far more apparent.
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 4:02 pm GMT
But purely romantic languages are way nicer than hybrids of it, romantic languages are the cream of the cream.
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 4:43 pm GMT
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:25 pm GMT
Romace languages are the elite of languages, IMO.
guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:30 pm GMT
<<Romace languages are the elite of languages, IMO. >>

That's a popular opinion, but it appears that in recent days it has been waning.

People are waking up to the fact that there is more to the world's eliteness that overshadows once widely-held views.
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:35 pm GMT
I wonder who really started this thread, but no matter.

I thought the guest with the Serbian stepmother had the most interesting post.

As I learn Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian) I find words from various languages that I already know. I was a little surprised to find so many words that seem German to me-words like "senf" and "kellner". Then there are other words like "avion" from French, I suppose.

Of course, there are plenty of words that remind me of Russian. Whether these are just slavic root words or borrowings from Russian, I don't know.

Is there a dictionary with the etymology of various IE languages?

As to the tangential comments on romance languages-well, yeah, Romance languages are nice and all. Romanian is distracting me currently, but after you study a couple of them, you see how "easy" they are and even if you end up with the full set (not including languages like Catalan, Ladino and Occitan), it's not quite as impressive or elite as having languages from various language groups on your CV.

I want to meet someone who knows Xhosa, Hungarian or Finnish, Mandarin, an American tribal language, and French. That person has the kind of skill set and the kind of knowledge I want to milk.

Wouldn't you?
Guest   Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:24 pm GMT
I have learned languages from all classes and my native is neither. I don't know about 'technically' but for learning I would say romance - slavic are closest. They share more constructions in common, and seem to 'think' in a more similar way, if you know what I mean.
Xie   Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:51 am GMT
>>As to the tangential comments on romance languages-well, yeah, Romance languages are nice and all. Romanian is distracting me currently, but after you study a couple of them, you see how "easy" they are and even if you end up with the full set (not including languages like Catalan, Ladino and Occitan), it's not quite as impressive or elite as having languages from various language groups on your CV.

I guess the main reason speaks for itself. It might be a fact that the Romance family has got "more languages" than any other family - more famous languages than any other family, and there aren't, IMO, many famous language families at all. But that just shows the, IMO, cruel linguistic reality here. Even if you disregard all other non-national languages, this family has got 5 (or 4; Romanian is not known that much) already.

And see others. The Germanic? I think people normally remember English and German only. The Sinitic? People normally remember Mandarin only. So, there you are...
Yeah, it's...   Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:22 am GMT
It's easy to fall into the trap (even with the internet) that others share your worldview and knowledge. I come back to this forum ("faults" and all) because I really like languages and hope that some interesting multilinguals will drop in. Why? Because people who learn four or more usually have a wider worldview and don't assume that what they know is what most people know.

I certainly do not expect an expert opinion from people who have no interest in learning a language. I don't expect them to know whether a language is elite or not. Of course, even today French is considered "elite", but by golly only if you speak it well! Who wants to hear butchered French?

So, IF you know about languages, you will know what Sinitic means, you will recognize which languages are major. Whether or not someone is aware of a language, does not make it elite.

As to the original question, it seems to me that a linguist should be able to answer this. Is comparing lexical similarity the right way to approach this? We can opine forever and draw uninformed conclusions without some solid evidence.

Can we even ask such a broad question? I'm sure that Russian was influenced by French. Was Polish? Do we need to examine each Slavic language? Is it almost like asking if Japanese was influenced by
Dutch and German because those languages show up in daily Japanese words for part-time work, in medicine, etc.
Guest   Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:09 am GMT
<<Is comparing lexical similarity the right way to approach this? We can opine forever and draw uninformed conclusions without some solid evidence...
Can we even ask such a broad question? I'm sure that Russian was influenced by French. Was Polish? Do we need to examine each Slavic language? >>

To go back to the original question (below),...

<<Which combination is more closely related:
Slavic - romance
Slavic - germanic
Germanic - romance >>

...I took it to mean this: If we compared each language group at its fundamental level, which groups would be most closely related? To me, this would mean comparing something that is representative of the whole group, like:

Old Church Slavic - Latin
Old Church Slavic - reconstructed proto-germanic
reconstructed proto-germanic - Latin

or assorted, group-distinctive features
Common features distinct to, and shared by most if not all Slavic tongues - common Italic features distinct to, and shared by...-you get the point

When one says Slavic, or Romance, it gives you a pretty fair idea of what to expect...--not zeroing in on radical or individual quirks that show up here and there in this language and that language, but the group as a whole.
Guest   Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:23 am GMT
Can using reconstructed proto-germanic be considered a legitimate approach? I'll let Josh or Travis opine then, or Lazar.

I don't know Old Church Slavic, so I will have to bow out if we go for the older languages.
Guest   Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:10 am GMT
<<Can using reconstructed proto-germanic be considered a legitimate approach? I'll let Josh or Travis opine then, or Lazar.>>

I originally had Gothic as the example, but Gothic shows some features that are not inherrent in the other germanic branches. If you want , though, you can think of it instead.

Old Church Slavic or Old Church Slavonic was the first literary Slavic language, similar to Gothic in the germanic family.