Talk:Slovio

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This article was nominated for deletion on 3 March 2007. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Contents 1 Slovio similarities 2 Other 3 Slovio usage 4 Slovio Wikipedia 5 Slavopedia 6 Papers 7 Learning Slovio 8 He? 9 Latin spelling 10 Intelligibility 11 Flag

[edit] Slovio similarities

text sample of slovio is just russian with wrong cases :(

No, it isn't. Being Russian myself, I can tell you it definitely doesn't sound Russian. On the other hand, it was quite understandable, as well as the texts on their website, even though I've never heard of the language before. So the claims that this language is immediately understandable even by someone who doesn't know it is true at least for Russian-speaking people.

I confirm that it is understandable ... but I do have quite some experience in listening to Slavic languages. :To me it seems most similar to the Bulgarian. I would like to have a piece of expert oppinion on this hypothesis:

Bulgarian (and some dialects of south Serbia and Macedonian) seems to have a simplified grammar compared to others, like my own Slovenian that even has a dual. Was this a consequence of historical events when the Slavic language was a "patois" ("pigeon English") for other peoples?

Somewhat distrubing are some un usual endings, like the plural with "is" which is not Slavic type and the "objective" clause with the "f" ending.

From my experience the worst problem in inter-slavic communication is the different word meaning, even if 80% of roots are the same. Slovio as a "standard vocabulary" reference may be useful. But the project is only at a begining. MGTom 00:38, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

Hmmm, interesting language. As a russian, i can understand it without having known about it before.

Well, I don't like Slovio one bit, not because of its linguistic value (though I can't seem to find any elegance or beauty in it), but because it is a thinly disguised version of Russian and as such the tool of Pan-Slavism (see the Slovio home page for a bunch of links to Panslavistic organizations).

There isn't a single phoneme in it that wouldn't be found in Russian, on the other hand there are no phonemes which occur in other Slavic languages but not in Russian, such as nasals or palatalized velars.

Word roots such as slucxit- "to happen" or nacxit- "to start" cry Russian. There are also very few synonyms (a source of trouble to many conlangers who think a 1:1 relationship in words is enough), so that the verbs "arrest", "detain", "imprison", "incarcerate", "jail" and "put into custody", are all given as "zaklucxit".

Also, the method of creating a Slavic conlang has been flawed from the start. Fancy doing a Romance lingua franca if you only know school French! (pun intended). Yet this seems exactly what Mark Hucko did or tried to do. You can't dream about creating a historically viable conlang without going back to Old Church Slavonic and being proficient with the history of at least four or five Slavic languages, including Polish, Czech and Serbian/Croatian (since they are the most important regional representatives). Anything else you may come up with is either 1) a code of your own devising, 2) a pidgin consisting of a mutilated version of one of the languages sine flexione.

Silvermane 12:19, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other

"Hard h"? -Branddobbe 22:08, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing. Updated the description of "hq" and "hx" according to the description at slovio.com [1]. —Michael Z. 2005-01-31 04:15 Z

[edit] Slovio usage

I wisited www.slovio.com by accident and I was amazed how much I could understand. Originaly,I speak serbo-croat language.

Looks more like Esperanto using slavic vocab (as discribed), the text is very clear, howeveer such text and the lord's prayer, are intelligible in (almost?) any slavic language, to a speaker of (almost?) any other slavic language. Has there been a comparitive study, contrasting comprehensibility of slovio vs 'natural' slavonics? doesn't the automatic 'rule-based' system sound too strange for everyday situations? (bez-* ... etc) can anyone add some sociological data about usage/acceptance? are there 'slovio-clubs' like 'esperanto-clubs'?

I can only understand certain words when listening to russian, and certain endings to determine if the word might be a verb or similiar... but slovio i can understand very vell, just about everything, im amazed :) Wonder if russians can understand it too. My mothertounge is bosnian/croatian/serbian.

[edit] Slovio Wikipedia

Anyone interested in Slovio may be interested in that someone has made a request for a Slovio wikipedia on meta here. Almafeta 19:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Slavopedia

Slavopedia is a inter-Wikipedia project created to help cooperation between Slavic Wikipedias amd Slovio is intended as its common language of communication. Kpjas 11:30, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Papers

Are there any papers published about Slovio? I would like to cite something in my dissertation, and I'd rather not cite a web source. Ornil 23:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Learning Slovio

Out of curiosity, is there any value in learning the language to someone who isn't sure which Slavic language to start learning first? I don't have as much time as I'd like to learn an entire language but if the language is as easy as Espo and the vocab is stable then I might be interested. Mithridates 08:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

This is a wiki-discussion page. We discuss the improvements on the wiki-article. This is not a slovio-discussion forum. For discussing slovio, go to: slavopedia 131.211.37.243

Thanks, but I already knew that. Actually it does apply as Slovio is intended to be a language with propadeutic value for those who are interested in Slavic languages in general, so it does apply and could go on the page later on. Also, sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~) next time. Mithridates 07:42, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] He?

"This, however, may be a side effect of the long exposure of speakers of Slavic languages to the compulsory education of Russian during the communist era."

Well, it was compulsory to learn Russian for me in 1989 - only one year. Except reading cyrilic alphabet, I can say that I forgot practically everything. But I can still understand much of Russian or any other Slavic language. It is not because of any compulsory education, it is because 1) Slavic languages are still quite close each to other, 2) Slavic languages use more complicated grammars which are similar and bring redundancies into the languages which help to understand, and 3) more or less common history and culture of Slavic countries. Miraceti 23:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the cyrillic version like a distorted Russian. But while I am Russian, it seems easier to try to read directly Bulgarian or Serbian, not mention Ukrainian, than this language. The latin version is much less understandable. Though, the idea is brilliant.--Nixer 18:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Why this "...may be a side effect..." in the text? Where is the logical connection between "Slovio is understandable to many people" and "this may be a side effect of Russian lessons"? It needs (1) extra info, like "Slovio is almost the same as Russian" or "during compulsory Russian lessons students also had to learn Slovio", or (2) this sentence needs to be deleted. 131.211.44.145 08:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The vocabulary of Slovio is predominantly based on Russian (eg. words such as sobaka or govorit). I suppose I stated it clearly earlier on this page. Now if people claim that they can read Slovio with little difficulty (and how much difficulty do they have? there have been no formal studies of intelligibility), it must be because they were formerly exposed to Russian; it need not have occurred at school, because during the communist era, Russian influences pervaded every corner of everyday lives. However, it is far from completely understandable if one did not have the exposure to Russian. A Polish (Czech, Slovak) native speaker who does not know Russian would not understand the words "upotrebit", "gvorenie", "cxerez", "dnesju", "tper" (whose Polish equivalents are wykorzystać, mowa, przez, dzisiejszy, teraz), and might understand others, such as "sxto" or "severnju", solely through context. All these words are taken from the Slovio front page, so they are far from esoteric. Silvermane 15:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It is not only Russian. If some word exist in Russian and do not exist in western Slavic languages that do not mean that word is only Russian. For example upotrebit is pure Serbocroatian word (uporabit is Slovenian and probably something similar in Bulgarian and Macedonian). Cxerez is archaic in Serbocroatian but is normal in Bulgarian and Macedonian. Dnesju is from den, dn also archaic in Serbocroatian and Slovenian but normal in Bulgarian and Macedonian. Teper do not exist in Serbocroatian but I know that it means "now", because I had Russian as my second foreign language (in former Yugoslavia Russian was just one of several foreign language so majority of Yugoslavs did not learn it).

Yes, you did state it earlier this discussion page, but it was not clear yet in the article text. The way the article is rewritten now, it is made clear. Very well done! 145.97.205.164 14:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It may not be completely understandable, but what do you mean with "far from completely" understandable? Using the linguistic Swadesh test, there is a lexical similarity of 76% between Russian and Polish words - much more than 50%. Also, you stated that Slovio words are based on Russian words for 90%. How did you calculate that number? Let's suppose your 90% is right, it still means that 10% is not based on Russian, and around 68% (which is 76% of 90%) is lexical similar to Polish - still more than 50%. -- ActiveSelective 02:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin spelling

I suggest to change the use of the latin letters:

X x - Х х

Sh sh - Ш ш

Сh ch - Ч ч

Zh zh - Ж ж

Gh gh - Дж дж

This would be much more readable.--Nixer 18:53, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, whatever but not CH. This letter means [x] in the Polish, Czech, Slovak and Belorussian alphabets. But, while Slovio has *g —> g (not h), the [x] sound must be spelled as H. Than, Š, Č, Ž and DŽ would be much more readable even then that what you suggest. ;)

Belorussian uses cyrillic. Yes but they use special symbols.--Nixer 11:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

NB: If they use Cyrillic, it doesn't mean that they don't use Latin. Look here.

Oh please, shut up. This is the discussion page about the WIKI-ARTICLE on Slovio. WIKIPEDIA is an encyclopedia. Here we discuss contents, lay-out and improvements of the WIKI-ARTICLE. If you want to improve other things like Belorussian, Mercedes Benz cars, Boeing airplaines, Berry's Biscuits, McDonald's hamburgers, or Slovio spelling, then go to the relevant sites! For the official Slovio institute: slovio.com. If you want to meet and argue with other Slovioniks, convince them of your POV that they should use different letters, then go to: slavopedia. Don't write down whatever is on your mind in here. 131.211.44.145 05:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I think they should just add a z for the digraphs like they do in Polish.Cameron Nedland 23:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligibility

I have provided actual examples of Slovio roots that are based on Russian and at the same time are unintelligible to speakers of Polish and Czech (and presumably Slovak, but the Swadesh list provided in the links section does not include this language). If someone still wants to argue that Slovio is not Russian in disguise, please do so here, of course first try to consult the list and find a few examples where the reverse is true (Slovio words based on Polish roots and not understandable to Russians). Silvermane 15:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, although I think you are right that Slovio is very similar to Russian, there is a negative tone when you formulate it as "Russian in disguise". There is no problem when a language that tries to be understandable in many countries, gives weights to the words it is based on. For example, I think it is natural that a Russian word gets more weight than a Czech word when establishing the Slovio word, because there are more Russian speakers than there are Czech speakers. In the end, Russian will have a big impact in the Slovio language. However, this is not the same as "disguising the Russian language". The intentions, goals and methods would then be different -- even when the outcomes would be very similar. Naming it "Russian in disguise" (and not just "similar to Russian") you are making presuppositions about the Slovioniks intentions/ goals/ methods and their sincerity. You will have to substantiate the supposed disguising with evidence. If you can't, then we may only name it "similar to Russian". Maintaining it is "disguise" without evidence of disguise, shows a negative POV (point of view) in this matter -- which you can very well have, but Wikipedia can not.

You can't mix up the similarity between Slovio and Russian with the disguising of Russian. Just as no-one can mix up the similarity between Interlingua and Italian with the disguising of Italian.

ActiveSelective, 3 January 2006

I asked a Polish speaker and he said he understood 90% of what was written. And he was born in the USA! So his vocabulary in Polish is worse than people born in Poland since he speaks English all the time. -Iopq 13:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

As a native Russian speaker, only the existence of the "to be" verb confused me, otherwise I can perfectly understand it, albeit it takes some time to "decipher". I can also understand folksprak well. <3 these kind of languages! I always dreamt about a language which could have "dialects" that fit certain regional speakers better based on their common language family, yet being intelligible with not too much trouble between other "dialects". I hope you know what I mean. :> --194.251.240.116 02:27, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flag

What does this flag have to do with Slavs? It's related to only some slavic nation, and neoslavic Russia. However, for Poland and Ukraine or Belarus it has absolutely no meaning.