Talk:Slavic vocabulary

Just to get people on the same page, this is what I hope this article will eventually encompass. If I do it by myself it'll probably take a long time.


 * 1) List of these 7(possibly change the number) languages in pure IPA and no orthography. Right now there's orthography so that even users not familiar with the languages can easily cross check and make sure the words are transcribed correctly.  A possible inclusion of reconstructed Common Slavonic should also be there.
 * 2) A detailed analysis of the changes that underwent the languages or branches from Common Slavonic to the modern day languages. Going from PIE might be too off-topic and more appropriate for the Common Slavonic article.
 * 3) Possibly some explanation of the historical contexts of these changes (migrations, political and technological impacts, etc).

Any help is much appreciated. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think orthography is important because it brings languages closer together - Russian words spelled with е could be pronounced as ё. I fixed the Russian pronunciation in a lot of cases. -iopq 04:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * We could probably put the two columns together and just have the IPA next to the spelling -iopq 04:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Russian pronunciation
I think that there are the same rules of voicing/devoicing consonants in Russian as in Czech or other Slavic languages. So, for instance, все should be trascribed [fsʲe], not [vsʲe] – compare with Czech všichni [fʃɪxɲɪ]. /v/ preceding devoiced consonants is realized as devoiced [f]. --Pajast 12:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh! Good catch.  I agree, I just failed to notice that one.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]

Merging with the Croatian list
In the beginning of this discussion there is written that this list is finally going to be only in IPA, while the Croatian list is orthographic. Therefore I do not think they should be merged. But I would suggest to make this list both orthographic and in IPA, as it partly is. I, for example, can read the cyrilics fluently but I have to think when reading the words in IPA (and I also have problems with displaying some IPA glyphs), so for me such a combination would be more friendly. And I would have no objections against merging the article with the Croatian list. Jan.Kamenicek 00:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The list can be orthographic and IPA for now. This page is very incomplete as is and it is okay if only the orthography is present (it's still a good start).  The Swadesh lists are used for proto-language reconstruction and so, to a certain extent, the orthography will not really be relevant.  Swadesh lists by themselves (and with no explanatory prose) have already been transfered to Wiktionary and if the Croatian list isn't merged here, it will have to be deleted.
 * I honestly don't know the differences between Serbian, Bosnian, Serbo-Croatian, and Croatian but I don't think that we would need both Serbo-Croatian and Croatian. If Croatian is significantly different enough from Serbo-Croatian, I'd rather have Serbo-Croatian. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I understand and I agree with the merging. But I would still prefer if the orthography remained later as well (and was added to the Russian column).
 * If you look at the Serbian/Croatian list in Wiktionary, you will see that the languages are practically identical. However, there are some slight changes from time to time, and therefore you will have to consider, in what way you will deal with them, if you want to have unified Serbo-Croatian on the list. Include both versions? Or prefer one of them? And which one?
 * Do you think that Slovak should be included as well? It is similar to Czech, but most words are more or less different (sometimes minor differences such as: velký - veľký (big), sometimes bigger differences, such as dítě - dieťa (child), and rarely completely different words, such as mnoho - veľa (many)). If you agree, I might add most of them some time. Jan.Kamenicek 01:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't want to add too many languages, partially because it makes it a lot harder to do the proper research, but also because the table becomes too wide. I'm tempted to even remove Ukrainian or Belarusian since they are similar to Russian.  If Slovak is similar to Czech, it might be redundant to include both in the list.  As for Croatian, if the most complete list we have right now is Croatian then we can go with Croatian.  The prose we include in the article can explain the nuances about South Slavic languages as well as include discussion of languages not on the list.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I suppose that Serbian and Croatian are even more similar than Slovak and Czech, however, differences do exist. For example, dialect is different, and due to that a lot of Croatian words have "extra js" - i.e. child (Serbian - dete, Croatian - dijete). Pronounciation is nearly the same. There are some words which are completely different (bread, S-hleb, C-kruh), but they are somewhat rare. I do have one dillema - Serbo-Croatian, now non-existent as an official language, can be written with any of the two scripts, Latin or Cyrillic. However, Croatian(s) never use Cyrillic (although they usually understand it), unlike Serbian(s), which de facto treats the scripts equally and it's up to the writer to chose which one will be used. Thus, it would be imperative to include both versions for common words, for example snake (zmija/змија). But, what should be done in case where the languages differ? Should only Serbian variant be spelled with both scripts (hleb/хлеб, kruh), or should both variants include Cyrillic and Latin (hleb/хлеб, kruh/крух)? Meelosh 12:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * We have three basic options: Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, or Croatian. Any of them are fine since this is an example that doesn't need to accomodate all South Slavic dialects.  Since we've got the Croatian list we can use Croatian and rename the column Croatian (that's probably simplest).  Any nationalists who have a problem with this should understand that we'll be discussing all South Slavic languages in the prose.  The orthographic complexities is part of the reason why I want to do away with orthography once we get the IPA down pat.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Since I don't know IPA, I'm of no help - however, as I am fluent in Serbian, Croatian and/or Serbo-Croatian, I will try to finish the orthographic list in a short time. Of course, existing Croatian list is of great help. Just one more thing - while Croatian and Serbian do differ at certain points, my personal belief is that it is the same language with differences comparable to those of British and American English. While most discussions about Serbian and Croatian being totally different do have nationalism at their core, I believe that the fact that two scripts are used on equal footing is a great, extremely rare and quite distinct feature of the language which should be stressed out at every possible occasion. That's why I'd like to see Cyrillic version of Croatian list here, as well. Best regards, Meelosh 22:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC).


 * Merging of Croatian and Serbian is not a good idea. Normally I'd agree that Serbian and Croatian are very similar, but this merging goes against the very purpose of this list, and its purpose is to illustrate and quantify differences between languages. It makes no sense to say "the languages are practically identical"; this list is supposed to show that fact (by letting the reader compare the two columns, of course), not imply it. GregorB 21:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The broad purpose of the article is, indeed, to illustrate and quantify differences between Slavic languages. However, there's already a page with the purpose of showing that Serbian and Croatian are similar: Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.  Because this article's scope encompasses all Slavic languages, there's naturally going to be a bit of glossing over lesser differences.  Also, as I said above, the table is just the beginning and the article's prose should deal with all Slavic languages whether they're on the table or not.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That link is red so I can't check whether the article in question covers this subject... Link fixed. Personally, I like the Swadesh list because it is probably as close as it gets to "objective measurement" of differences between two languages. Differences between Serbian and Croatian (and Bosnian and Montenegrin too) are still a politically charged issue, so I think this would be useful. But I agree with you, the table is pretty big as it is, and e.g. Slovenian and Bulgarian/Macedonian (another hot issue!) are missing. A separate table for South Slavic languages, perhaps? GregorB 08:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia is pretty comprehensive. There are side-by-side lists there too, but as I said, Swadesh lists are "objective" in that respect, i.e. the choice of words is neutral. Still, I see your point: this is about Slavic languages in general, so this level of detail would perhaps not be necessary. GregorB 14:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Russian pronunciation-2
In modern Russian soft /l/ never palatalizes preceding consonants. Therefore длинный isn't, but  etc.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.14.137 (talk) 20:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The Russian pronunciation is that of Standard Moscow dialect. In this dialect,  does indeed palatalize paired dental phonemes.  See Russian phonology.  Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  21:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This pronunciation was acceptable long time ago, now nobody who speaks Standard Russian palatalizes dentals before . There is mistake in "Russian phonology" article. Such pronunciation is very silly for native speakers (include me). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.14.137 (talk • contribs)


 * The source on that info is legitimate but it is old (almost 50 years!). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything more recent.  Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  23:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * At 30's Russians speak like now (except that some effects like typical Moscow осталась with hard final [s], тихий with hard [x] and some other were more frequent). Therefore Halle's book was obsolete already at 1959. The area of palatal assimilation in Russian had tendence to decrease. E. g. 100 years ago standard pronunciation was на травке, две . Now that couldn't be heard at TV.


 * Aeusoes1. Your pronunciation is archaic. NOBODY speaks like you describe. Please don't redo article. Bogobor (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 21:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I am native speaker. What kind of a source do you need? Bogobor (talk) 22:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Lack of context ambiguity to create correct list of Polish words
I have no experience with Swadesh list, but I'm native Polish and I find at least few of the translations awkward. Certain English words have several Polish equivalents which are context-dependent. I'll try to list them in case somebody cares and can tweak this list appropriately.
 * they - oni, one (one in case all of them are f. or n.; oni in mixed cases and purely m. groups)
 * this - ten, ta, to (masculine, feminine and neuter respectively)
 * that - tamten, tamta, tamto (masculine, feminine and neuter respectively)
 * all - wszyscy, wszystkie (wszyscy for masculine and mixed cases; wszystkie for feminine or neuter only; e.g. wszyscy obecni - all (people) present but wszystkie dzieci - all kids or wszystkie kobiety - all women)
 * many - dużo (quantity), bardzo (quality), wiele & wielu (quantity)
 * few - mało, niewiele
 * other - inny, inna, inne (m., f., n.)
 * big - duży/duża/duże/duzi, wielki/wielka/wielkie/wielcy (m., f., n. but also plural for feminine and neuter, plural for masculine and mixed)
 * long - długi/długa/długie/dłudzy (m., f., n. but also plural for feminine and neuter, plural for masculine and mixed)
 * wide - szeroki/szeroka/szerokie/szerocy (the same)
 * thick - gruby/gruba/grube/grubi, tłusty/tłusta/tłuste/tłuści (e.g. gruby papier - thick paper; rarely tłusty palec - thick finger)
 * heavy - ciężki/ciężka/ciężkie/ciężcy
 * small - mały/mała/małe/mali
 * short - krótki/krótka/krótkie/którcy
 * narrow - wąski/wąska/wąskie/wąscy
 * thin - cienki/cienka/cienkie/ciency
 * egg - jajo, jajko
 * neck - szyja, kark (front/back of the neck)
 * back - tył (back of the car), plecy (back of the body, upper part), tyłek, zad (lower back; note similarity to Czech záda)
 * to vomit - wymiotować, zwracać
 * to smell - wąchać (to smell with your nose; czuć has wider meaning to feel)
 * to fear - bać się, obawiać się
 * to split - dzielić, podzielić, rozdzielić
 * to stab - pchnąć, pchnąć nożem (pchnąć alone has wider meaning to push)
 * to scratch - skrobać, drapać
 * to fall - padać, upadać, spadać
 * to hold - trzymać, utrzymywać, dzierżyć (this is rare but not considered archaic; note similarity to Czech držet)
 * to squeeze - ściskać
 * to pull - ciągać, ciągnąć
 * to push - pchać, pchnąć
 * to throw - rzucić, rzucać
 * to float - pływać, płynąć, unosić się na wodzie (current IPA matches pływać)
 * to freeze - marznąć, zamarzać
 * sand - piach, piasek
 * dust - pył, kurz
 * ash - popiół, proch
 * to burn - palić, płonąć
 * red - czerwony/czerwona/czerwone/czerwoni (m., f., n. but also plural for feminine and neuter, plural for masculine and mixed)
 * green - zielony/zielona/zielone/zieloni
 * yellow - żółty/żółta/żółte/żółci
 * white - biały/biała/białe/biali
 * black - czarny/czarna/czarne/czarni
 * warm - ciepły/ciepła/ciepłe/ciepli
 * cold - zimny/zimna/zimne/zimni, chłodny/chłodna/chłodne/chłodni
 * full - pełny/-a/-e/-i
 * new - nowy/-a/-e/-i
 * old - stary/-a/-e/starzy
 * good - dobry/-a/-e/dobrzy
 * bad - zły/-a/-e/źli
 * rotten - zgniły/-a/-e/zgnili
 * dirty - brudny/-a/-e/-i
 * straight - prosty/-a/-e/prości
 * round - okrągły/-a/-e/okrągli
 * sharp - ostry/-a/-e/ostrzy
 * dull - tępy/-a/-e/-i
 * smooth - gładki/-a/-ie/gładcy
 * wet - mokry/-a/-e/mokrzy
 * dry - suchy/-a/-e/susi
 * correct - poprawny/-a/-e/-i, prawidłowy/-a/-e/-i, właściwy/-a/-e/-i
 * near - bliski/-a/-e/bliscy
 * far - daleki/-a/-ie/gładcy, odległy/-a/-e/odlegli
 * right - prawy/-a/-e/-i
 * left - lewy/-a/-e/-i
 * because - bo, dlatego że, ponieważ, przeto (archaic)
 * name - imię (for humans), nazwa (for objects and animals) —Preceding unsigned comment added by ConayR (talk • contribs) 19:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I doubt if including all the possible translations and grammatical forms is necessary. I think that best we can do is to choose the most often used ones and the ones most similar to the other Slavic forms in their grammatical form which is used in dictionaries (e.g. masculine singular nominative for adjectives). Pittmirg 14:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pittmirg (talk • contribs)


 * I can see similar contextual mistakes that still remain in the Polish list, and also in Russian, as I speak both. For example, "all" can differ depending on whether you are addressing animate or inanimate subjects, etc, but at least one of the forms will usually be close to the Proto-Slavic, and thus that is the form that is more relevant to this article's intention.  I'm not going to mess with the article, as I have no idea how to do the [pronunciation] bit for each thing, but if anyone cares to fix the mistakes at any point, I'll be happy to provide the corrections for Russian and Polish, just drop me a note on my talkpage.  The giant list provided by user ConayR above is less useful to someone who might want to "fix" this table, as it lists all possible versions in every possible context he could think of.  These are mostly not relevant to the intention of this article, which compares the retention of certain words throughout modern Slavonic languages that could trace their origins to a single source and have remained largely unchanged through the centuries.  RoseOfKali (talk) 04:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ideally, what we want is to find published Swadesh lists of these languages so that we avoid WP:OR. While I understand that any speaker of a given language can fill out each item, the above concerns demonstrate that linguists working with Swadesh lists would be best qualified as to determine which translation is best given the context and purpose.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  08:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I think, that although "robak" is a direct translation of "worm", it should be replaced with "czerw" (which means maggot), as it's more similar to other Slavic languages. 176.111.114.8 (talk) 11:37, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Already on Wiktionary
See wikt:Appendix:Swadesh lists for Slavic languages - relatively regularly updated/corrected, with many more languages (Kashubian left to be merged, and Sorbian/Old East Slavic yet to be compiled). Most of these Swadesh lists for various languages have already been transkwikied to Wiktionary a long time ago, I'm surprised that this remnant left populating Category:Swadesh lists. Does it make sense to have duplicate lists here and there? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * See the beginning of this talk page. This is not intended to be a simple list, though I'll admit that I haven't done much to make it seem elsewise.  I'll see if I can't add some information about Proto-Slavic here.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  05:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Addition of Proto-Slavic
This currently compares Slavic languages with each other but it should also compare them with Proto-Slavic. I know no PS words/roots, so this will probably be blank for a while. As Channon (1971) seems to break up Slavic dialects into East, South, and West, and since this list is already cumbersome enough as it is, I propose that we eliminate two or three languages. And, of course, deleting them from the list doesn't mean that we won't go into details on their developments. I'll wait a little for consensus and if nobody objects, I'll add PS and remove Ukrainian and Serbo-Croatian. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) East Ukrainian vs Russian - I prefer we keep Russian but this is mostly because I know it's phonology better.
 * 2) South Bulgarian vs Serbo-Croatian - I prefer Bulgarian simply to avoid potential Serbo-Croatian-wasn't-ever-a-real-language arguments and nationalism.
 * 3) West Czech vs Polish - Not sure about deleting either, since Channon divides west into Lechitic (Polish), Central Slovak, and other (Czech).


 * There's lots of kewl wrong going on recently on wikt:Category:Proto-Slavic language (big lists, and I've been creating separate articles in Appendix: so that individual NS:0 entries can link to them), so you could probably dig out of there, with, of course, the help of Derksen's Slavic inherited lexicon, most of the Late Proto-Slavic etymons of Swadesh list. However, lots of those LPSl. meanings/lexemes that have been lost in literary dialect have been preserved as archaisms or in subliterary dialects, so you're risking somebody adding a cognate that most native speakers wouldn't recognize (or would consider it uncommon) but still with reasonable argumentation, just to "demonstrate" how conservative his language is ^_^ This mostly refers to German/Turkish/Lithuanian borrowings in respective branches.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The link you've provided doesn't seem to work (but I've bookmarked it anyway.  Looks pretty cool).  I'll see if I can't find a book at my university library to help me out.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  07:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Finished up most of the rest; accent marks are still left to be added to protoetymons. Once the WT has entries on all of LPSl. lexemes in Appendix:, I'll cross-wikify: them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Transcription of Polish words
A transcription of polish "nasal vowels" like [ˈt͡ɕɛ̃ʂki], [ɔˈkrɔ̃ɡwɨ], [ˈpwɨnɔ̃t͡ɕ] is false. It isn't neither phonetic nor phonological. It's just based on orthography, what is total unacteptable in the case of a language, which orthography is etymological. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.18.177.61 (talk) 20:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Fee free to change it. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  00:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Other languages
I would like to comment about this issue regarding this article. The list should include more languages because this list is not sufficient and it does not present the general picture of the Slavic phonology, vocabulary and phonetics. The reader cannot conclude or realize how the Proto-Savic looked like (let's say like that) if (s)he reads the words of only four languages. If the reason for exclusion of the other languages is "the other languages are similar to those in the list", I would say it is not a good reason at all. Most Slavic languages are very similar and they are even more similar when the most basic and essential words are concerned. If we take a look at the present list, a huge number of the Russian, Czech, Polish and Bulgarian words are very similar (maybe the difference is in one letter). Therefore, I though adding more languages would be very useful and I added Macedonian. It is done very well and I rechecked it several times. I would like to keep Macedonian, and probably we may want to add Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovene, Slovak and Serbo-Croatian as well. This list is not the same as the list on Wikionary because this list provides the reader with phonetic symbols (pronunciation) and accent. Moreover, this list is named "Swadesh list of Slavic languages" and as such it needs to include most of the languages, otherwise it is incomplete. Thanks--MacedonianBoy (talk) 17:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As mentioned above, part of the scope of this article is a "detailed analysis of the changes that underwent the languages or branches from Common Slavonic to the modern day languages." This is the more difficult part of the article and it's also the shortest aspect, which means this article still mostly consists of a list.
 * Because this prose will work to flesh out the details of the history of Slavic languages, the list was never intended to include all Slavic languages. Doing so would make it much too cumbersome.  Instead, each example is representative of a major sub-branch of Slavic.  Bulgarian is representative of South Slavic languages, Russian of East Slavic, etc.
 * If people feel like Macedonian would be more representative of South Slavic languages, I'm warm to replacing Bulgarian with Macedonian. But having both is unnecessary for the article's goals.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  01:07, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I would not say exactly that . Bulgarian for example has less common features with the other South Slavic languages. Macedonian for example has got more in common with Serbian, Croatian and Slovene than Bulgarian (especially in vocabulary and phonetics/ phonology). Having more languages, I think, is more useful and gives the full picture of the evolution. You pointed out that one language of each subgroup has been selected, but we can see Czech and Polish, both of the group of West Slavic languages. Best--MacedonianBoy (talk) 12:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Like I said, the full picture of the evolution comes with the article prose.
 * I wasn't sure about deleting one or another. I didn't delete one or the other because, as this table shows, Lechitic languages seem to be more different from the other West Slavic languages.  I could be wrong, though.  Do you think removing Czech or Polish would be consistent with the general scheme of the table as I've laid it out? — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  14:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Having both Czech and Polish leaves space for other issues. For example, if we leave both languages, then we have to have one language for the Eastern South Slavic languages (Macedonian, Bulgarian, Church Slavonic) and one for the Western South Slavic languages (Serbo-Croatian or Slovene). Eastern Slavic languages are made of Russian (on one hand) and the Ruthenian languages (on the other). Western Slavic languages, besides Lechitic and Czechoslovak, we have Sorbian as separate sub-group as well. What we should do?--MacedonianBoy (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * So you're saying the differences between Czech and Polish are no greater than the differences between Macedonian and Slovene or Russian and Ruthenian? — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 18:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I was not referring to it, but I would say so. What I wanted to say that each Slavic group is further divided into sub-groups. All groups and subgroups are formed according to common features that the languages share. It is normal that languages are very similar, but the differences always exist, that's why they are separate languages. I am not sure about Russian-Ruthenian (in details), but between Macedonian and Slovene exist a number of (substantial) differences. At the moment, one group of Slavic languages has got two languages as examples of its two sub-groups. The other two groups do not have examples of languages of their sub-groups in this list. Additionally, if the reader takes a look at the article Slavic languages, particularly the section 'Selected cognates', (s)he will see a link of this list and would not find the languages that are listed in the section.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 18:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression, based on the table I referred to, that Polish was more divergent from other Western Slavic languages. If not, then I'd say having just one representative of West Slavic, making three total languages in the table, would be consistent.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  16:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, why it is not acceptable having more languages in the table? Are there any rules regarding this type of lists? If yes, then we can cut one out in order to have three languages. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 17:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As I've said, too wide of a table would make it so too cumbersome. Although I haven't devoted a lot of attention to this article lately, I have also considered shortening the list to just 100 items to put more emphasis on the article's prose.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  18:00, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Can't we have two or tree tables which will include most of the Slavic languages? Of course those tables will be, like you said, made of 100 words. Another solution, which I do not like, is deletion of two languages from the table (not considering Russian in this context). Third solution is to leave the table as it is now. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * At this point, I think we've said what we can. Perhaps other people can chime in and share their perspectives. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  23:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Two moments:
 * Bulgarian and Macedonian (if both are shown) must be neighbours in the table;
 * IPA is not very useful here but makes the table's width two times larger. I think standard stress marks (for languages without fixed stress position) would be enough. -- 68.127.102.86 (talk) 18:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I would question the choice of Macedonian to add to the table... Obviously we can't have every Slavic language on the table, unless you guys are okay with having to scroll left and right to see them all. With that in mind, one should choose languages that represent the diversity of the family as a whole. Bulgarian and Macedonian are so close that they are often called dialects of one-another (though there's political reasons for this too). At the same time, none of the Slavic languages of the West Balkans are present. I would suggest replacing Macedonian with either Slovene or some form of Serbo-Croat (preferably Croatian or Bosniak, as Serbian is slightly closer to Bulgarian, especially in the Torlak region). --Yalens (talk) 17:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Serbo-Croatian would be better for a lot of reasons, one of which is that Slovene is much less known from a historical perspective and has a lot of unusual sound changes that make it difficult to relate to Proto-Slavic. In basic vocabulary there's effectively no difference between Serbian, Croatian and Bosniak so we don't need to choose any version.  Ideally I'd actually suggest Ijekavian Chakavian Croatian in place of standard Serbo-Croatian because it preserves the accent so much better, but that's probably not realistic.  We should probably use Ijekavian S-C rather than Ikavian or Ekavian to make yat reflexes clearer.

BTW Torlakian isn't standard Serbo-Croatian (and might not even be the same language, depending on authority). Benwing (talk) 06:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Macedonian no, Serbo-Croatian yes
Zero surprise whatsoever to see that the Macedonian section was added after the fact by a certain User:MacedonianBoy. From a comparative standpoint, Macedonian has no usefulness in a table like this, because it's so close to Bulgarian (in fact, it would almost certainly be considered a dialect of Bulgarian were it not for political reasons) and because it is generally less conservative than Bulgarian in its phonology. OTOH Serbo-Croatian is *extremely* useful from a comparative standpoint, particularly if accent marks are supplied. I would hope someone competent in Serbo-Croatian can fill this in. Benwing (talk) 03:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

mistakes in the Russian words
There are several mistakes in the Russian words. This is especially noticeable in cases where the Proto-Slavic and Russian verbs look noticeably different. In such cases, the difference is because the Proto-Slavic word reflects the more basic form (sometimes perfective, sometimes imperfective) while the Russian word is always cited in the imperfective. Hence e.g. ubit' , plyt' , sest'  are all perfectly fine Russian verbs with the expected meanings.

Also, I am not a native speaker but I doubt the correctness of the IPA with [jæ] sequences. This is not how standard Russian sounds as I've heard it; AFAIK this nowadays is only a dialect feature.

Benwing (talk) 03:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

other comments

 * The Proto-Slavic adjectives are cited in their short form, but the modern languages all have the long form given. Proto-Slavic long form clearly existed as well, and many languages still preserve at least some short forms.
 * Bulgarian is citing the first person or sometimes the third person singular present indicative in place of the infinitive. This is because the infinitive has been lost.  However, (a) the proper translation of the infinitive has da preceding the indicative, (b) this isn't noted anywhere, (c) perhaps for comparative purposes the present tense 1st singular should be used everywhere rather than the infinitive, because they often differ in stem.

More generally, if this list is to be truly useful, it should compare the reflexes of the Proto-Slavic words (or at least cognates) whenever possible, not just give a random list of translations, otherwise it's little more than a dictionary exercise. Benwing (talk) 03:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Renaming
Aeusoes asked me to post about renaming this page to "History of the Slavic languages". Currently there's a large amount of info on the development of the Slavic languages, most in Proto-Slavic and some here, and in neither case did the name indicate that such info existed in the articles. I also notice that Aeusoes himself, in the intro post on the talk page, asked people to expand this article to include text on the development of the Slavic languages. Not surprisingly, this got done in the Proto-Slavic article rather than here. I've done much of this work but until today I had no idea this article here even existed. I called it a "prototypical example" of a badly named page and I stand by it -- who would have expected to find an article named "Swadesh list of the Slavic languages"? Even if this article had nothing but vocabulary, it doesn't agree with normal WP naming conventions, which would prefer something like "Slavic language vocabulary comparison" or similar name that's much more obvious to non-specialists. And adding general info about Slavic developments makes it even worse of a name.

In point of fact I suggest keeping the new name and moving the "Origin", "Historical Development" and "Dialectal Differentiation" sections from Proto-Slavic to here, and either copying or moving the "Notation" section. Maybe also moving "Loanwords". Another possibility, given the fact that significantly more than 50% of the text of Proto-Slavic would be moving here, would be to move this article out of the way, rename "Proto-Slavic" to "History of the Slavic languages" and then create a new "Proto-Slavic" article containing the intro, phonology and grammar sections. Benwing (talk) 06:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

suggestions for fixing up the list

 * 1) Place stress marks where appropriate in Russian and Bulgarian.
 * 2) Delete the IPA columns; the stress marks are enough.Instead, only give IPA when the pronunciation is irregular given the spelling.
 * 3) Put some simple pronunciation keys down below discussing the basic spelling -> IPA conversions.
 * 4) Delete the Macedonian column. Replace with Serbo-Croatian when possible.
 * 5) Create new columns for transliterating the Russian and Bulgarian.
 * 6) When verbs have two aspects with significantly different stems, include both, for Proto-Slavic as well as the various langs.
 * 7) Use Proto-Slavic reflexes wherever possible, even if the meaning has changed; if so, give the new meaning as well as the replacement word with the same meaning.
 * 8) Add accent marks to Proto-Slavic.

The Proto-Slavic accent marks, as well as cognates in various langs, can be found in Rick Derksen's etymological dictionary of the Slavic langs. Derksen unfortunately doesn't distinguish acute from neoacute, although he does give the accent paradigm (a, b, or c), and the neoacute can generally be worked out by the fact that it tends to occur in accent class (b), and the old acute always gets shortened. He claims that in Proto-Slavic the neoacute did not lengthen short syllables it fell on; if so, it would have fallen together with the acute and I have a hard time seeing how langs like Czech, Slovak and Polish could then sort the two out.

If we follow Derksen, we will need a lot of prosodies to deal with: short acute, long circumflex, short circumflex in multisyllabic roots, short neoacute, long neoacute, length in unstressed syllable. "Short circumflex in multisyllabic roots" is a regular change from long circumflex, so we could ignore it. But alternatively, we could just handle accent (acute/circumflex/neoacute) separately from length by indicating the length explicitly, with only three accents: acute ', circumflex ^, neoacute ~. Note that this accentuation represents a synchronic compression of what in reality was diachronic, i.e. it's unlikely there would more than two accent types ever distinguished on long or short syllables.

Some examples:


 * *svě̂:tƅ m. o (c) "light, world" i.e. a masculine o stem, class c (i.e. movable)
 * *sƅ̃nƅ m. o (b) "sleep, dream", i.e. a masculine o stem, class b (i.e. original suffix accent; (given in Derksen as *sъ̀nъ; short neoacute required by accent class b)
 * *sŷ:nƅ m. u (c) "son"
 * *sь̂rdьce n. jo (c) "heart" (given as *sь̏rdьce in Derksen with short falling accent due to shortening in multisyllables)
 * *dъkti f. r (c) "daughter" (no accent given)
 * *dǫ́ti v. (a) "blow"
 * *dra:žíti v. (b?) "incite, provoke" (neoacute *drã:žišь, *drã:žitь in present as shown by Chakavian (Vrg.) drå̄žȉti, 2sg. drå̃žiš)
 * *dušá f. jā (c) "soul"
 * *dь̂:nь m. n (c) "day" (lengthening under circumflex in monosyllables)
 * *dô:mъ m. u (c) "house" (same)
 * *pь̃sъ m. o (b) "dog" (given in Derksen as *pь̀sъ; short neoacute required by accent class b)
 * *pь́rsь f. i (a) "chest, breast" (given as *sь̏rdьce in Derksen with short falling accent due to shortening in multisyllables)
 * *pь̃rstъ m. o (b) "finger" (again, neoacute not indicated in Derksen)
 * pь̂:rxъ m. o (c) "dust" (lengthening under circumflex in monosyllables)

etc.

As mentioned above, Derksen indicates four-way long vs. short, rising vs. falling. Neoacute is inferred.

Benwing (talk) 23:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Not exist a common Serbo-Croatian vocabulary
Not exist a common Serbo-Croatian vocabulary, this is faked text! --31.45.151.127 (talk) 20:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The Big Slavic Dictionary
https://slavic.world/ - can we add any references? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.72.154.104 (talk) 09:28, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggested word additions
I think it should have affirmative and negation word like 'yes' and 'no'.
 * And what would those words be? Rua (mew) 10:29, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * POLISH yes=tak, no=nie, not=nie  Nyth 63  14:02, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * On further review, this list page seems to leave out many common words. See this list  for example.  Nyth  63  14:09, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Very few Ukrainian words
There's no entries in Ukrainian for a lot of rows. Is there a reason for it? 217.166.251.59 (talk) 20:09, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll try to add them in the upcoming few days. Another interesting question: why there is no column for Belarusian at all (even though the article on Belarusian references it)? 178.159.234.142 (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2021 (UTC)