I devote this Episode solely to a common occurence in Hollywood movies about the Russian language based on the misguided belief that Belorussians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians and some others do not have their own languages and speak Russian. The part that many of the Slavic people know and can speak Russian is often true, but it is important to remember that all these nations also have their own native languages (which when they use in the aforementioned movies, Americans go: oh, that's Russian! —when it is not at all). So within the quick grasp of this Episode let's get to know those, just a tad, to see how close they might or might not be to русский язык (roos-kiy ya-zyk), the Russian language.
1. Belorussian
It is a fact that Belorussians use Russian and not белорусская мова (beh-loh-roos-kuh-ya moh-vuh = Belorussian mova) on the daily basis and, sadly, it is also accurate that the majority of them do not speak the Belorussian language fluently, or sometimes at all. The reasons are rooted in history and politics and are not the focus of our curious Langventure —as in the center of it is the language itself.
Belosrussian is quite close to Russian but without any introduction to it a Russian person understands very little. Although, it might depend on the level of difficulty the information has: is it a children story or a news report, for example? I myself is a person who never read on or encountered Belorussian in life, so I made that experiment. Results are these: with a text in front of my eyes and an audio on at the same time I could guesstimate about 75-80% of the message; text alone is a toughy; and voice alone gives like 40-60% of info "deciphered", again depending on the subject and things like gestures and face expressions. But this number can easily drop to 15-20% if a topic gets harder than a usual "Hello" and "How are you".
Try it out by yourslef with the same video I listened to —a song called "My Native Land" (3:10) that has its lyrics written in Belorussian right in the description to the video.
I was suprised to find out how neat, kind, melodic, and unique the Belorussian language is! To the Russian ear it sounds like the Old Russian that is still "roaming" the far away villages of the country or "sneaks into" people's ways to pronounce some words or sounds. I am tempted to say there is something so green-y and birch-y about it :)
Russians, who tried to learn it, say that it's easier than Russian. Sadly, nowadays those born in Belorussia feel it is simpler to learn English or German than their native tongue for it is not applied anywhere except for school, so on a daily basis Russian is spoken (something of a discovery even to me). In fact, Belorussian is on the brink of extinction, even though just a half century ago it was used by millions of people.
As to its script, it looks quite similar to the Russian Cyrillics and has 32 letters. The letter that is unique to the Belorussian language (and even has a monument in the country!) is this one: ў —called "short U" and pronounced like the English "w" in the word "cow" —a sound that many Russians struggle with when they learn English as it doesn't exist in their native language. There is also no Russian letter щ or such a sound in mova. So if you want to identify Belorussian visually or by ear and differ it from other languages written in Cyrillics, that's how.
2. Ukrainian
There is a common misconception —at least in Hollywood movies— that Russian and Ukrainian are the same language. They are not. In fact Belorussian is way closer to the Ukrainian language, only the former one is more filled with ah sounds, and the latter one —riddled with oh. And just like with Belorussian, without training and getting-to-know phase, a Russian person won't understand much of the Ukrainian speech, even though a handful of Ukrainian words are still in use, but surely they are not enough for any type of a conversation in that language, nor for comprehending a text in Ukrainian (although reading it out loud, would be easy since almost all letters look and sound like Russian ones).
Highlighting, or oh-ing, those unstressed oh sounds in words —that is quite a unique trait of the Ukrainian language, its such a specific melody. Let me demonstrate you that on an example with the word "milk". In both Russian and Ukrainian the word would be spelled like this: молоко —same, right? But in Russian it's pronounced as muh-luh-koh (only the stressed "o" sounds like oh) whereas in Ukrainian every "o" is oh: moh-loh-koh.
Script-wise, you won't find these Cyrillic letters in Ukrainian: ё, ъ, ы, э— and those Ukrainian letters in Russian: ґ, є, і, ї (Belorussian also doesn't have those, minus і), but the sounds those letters represent do exist in Russian. Ukrainian г, a Cyrillic variety of a g sound like in a word "go", —another specific, although not unique, sound to Ukrainian, which neither Russian, nor Belorussian have. To me it sounds in a way like a French "r" —coarse, deep in your throat. Many Ukrainians, who speak Russian, still cannot let go of that particular sound, and even a few Russians retain it until this day in their speech. So when you hear that distinct, throaty г and lots of "o"s, you must be in the presence of the Ukrainian language.
Fancy a sample? As I already set the tone with one song done by a kid, why not put another? This one takes the melody of the famous song "Despacito" and "Ukrainifies" its name as "Десь по світу" (Des poh swee-too — similar to the original, isn't it?), which translates into "Somewhere, all over the world" (03:41):
It's probably not that obvious in a song form, if you compare the two presented here, but Ukrainian speech is also faster than Belorussian or Russian. Will you be able to differ between the three by ear just based on this article? Hell, no :) But I hope, as a minimum, it gives you a glimpse into the languages you probably didn't know much about when you started off reading it.
3. Bulgarian
This is an interesting one. Bulgarian has a lot in common with Russian, uses Cyrillics, and doesn't have any letters different to the Russian ones (in fact, you won't see the famous ё or ы in it). Yet, it is not a language a Russain person would easily understand. Let me make you an example using the language you know —English— how it sounds to me: "Tusiakjlajkjfurerjlkf region shdsjhdasjlkji State of Texas poqpwechskajood accident". You got the message? I don't think so. Only five lousy words.
The funny thing is that some words it has are identical to the Russian ones but mean the opposite or even something else entirely. Check this out:
- гора (guh-ruh): in Russian means "mountain", in Bulgarian means "forest",
- направо (nup-ruh-voh): in Russian means "to the right", in Bulgarian means "straight ahead",
- стол (stol): in Russian means "table", in Bulgarian means "chair",
- булка (bool-kuh): in Russian means "white bread", in Bulgarian means "bride",
- конец (kuh-nezz): in Russian means "the end", in Bulgarian means "thread".
Did you ever wonder why they call a table "table" and not, say, "chair". Well, they do, in Bulgarian 😊 That how it feels for a Russian. By the way, similar thing happens in the Serbian language.
I know that most Slavic languages sound the same to an English speaker. And, fairly, so they do to the ear of a Russian speaker. When written, it is a different story, though, but not every Russian would be able to tell definitively whether they are looking at Croatian or, say, Macedonian. So even if you are a Russian reading this article, you can, too, learn some tricks as to how to differ between Slavic languages just by looking at a text (provided there is enough of a chunck of it) from this article.
I also recommend you to watch this video where all the Slavic languages are presented and to decide for yourself what they sound like to you (06:19):
There is one more thing about Russian language Hollywood always gets wrong: it confuses the Russian language with ... Polish!
Specifically, the Russian way to say "Cheers!" when making a toast. That popularized by American movies phrase "Na zdorovie!" is nothing more but someone's really lousy and lazy research copycatted (chances are, for the lack of a better one). Seems the mistake was just copied over and over until the Americans and the rest of the world watching Hollywood movies were convinced that this was the Russian way.
It is not. In fact, you won't hear a toast like that in the Russian language. You would hear it in Polish: "Na Zdrowie!" (Nah zdrov-ye) is the Polish "To health!" Close second is Czech "Na zdrav" meaning just the same thing.
What do the Russians say? In the Russian language there is no such an option like English "Cheers!". If you drink, you drink to something, and so you announce to what you are drinking before you do:
- To love! — За любовь! (Za lyu-bov!)
- To us! — За нас! (Za nus!)
- To meeting you! — За встречу! (Za vs-tre-choo!)
Noticed how every time it starts with Za? And this is exactly how it would be if you decide to toast to...
- To health! — За здоровье! (Za zda-ro-vie!)
Not "Na zdarovie" but "Za zdarovie".
It might seem like a minor detail until you realize that "na zdarovie" does exist in Russian and means "You are welcome". Now imagine screamig "You are welcome!" instead of "Cheers!" toasting something with your English-speaking friends and you will understand how confusing and out-of-place that "na zdarovie" thing is for Russians. Of course, they are too nice the people to tell you about your mistake, so most of the time they just play along recognizing how much you are trying to be polite and how many Hollywood movies you've seen demonstrating you this phrase as the correct one.
But you, my fellow Langventurist, know better now. So if you seek to say a great toast in Russian that is easy to remember and impress people at the same time, opt for "За нас!" (Za nus! — it even sounds like the English "us", only with a sound "n" is front) — "To us!", which is shorter, simpler to pronounce, and is always a good one to toast.
За нас! (Za nus!) To us!
"Digging it with Langventure!"
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