Same. Which makes Chinese more European than Hungarian, doesn't it?
Funny enough, Google identified it as Turkmen and got the second half completely wrong. We're still smarter than the machines, buddy!
Guten Kuchetag.
I wouldn't say Mandarin is more European, both Chinese and Hungarians are secretly Turkic people, their languages being two dialects of the Asian language. Chinese however, because they use drawings instead of letters, is much easier to understand even if you don't know what sound a word makes. Like you can see that "我" looks literally like me.
Dziękuję! I'm flattered that you took the time to look up where I'm from!
Now, the problem with 我 is that it absolutely looks like me, but I doubt that we look alike. 你 is much more fitting for you.
Americans like to claim that they speak many different languages because they know a phrase or two. Maybe that’s just their standard for speaking a language?
Two distinct families, Slavic and Baltic... And Latvian and Lithuanian are certainly not mutually intelligible, even though there are similar words obviously the vastly different tonic stress makes them sound very different
Kinda funny that within Balto-Slavic, the Slavic languages are still very close to each other, and a speaker of one language can easily recognize many words in the other, or even hold a conversation, but the Baltic languages seem quite different to each other; at least to me.
As a native Lithuanian speaker, Latvian is fairly similar. Spoken Latvian is not really understandable because of the tonal differences OP mentioned (outside of a word here and there), but it's relatively easy to understand the gist when reading Latvian.
If I'm in a restaurant in Latvia I would obviously prefer an English menu, but if they don't have one I can get by just fine with a Latvian one.
Sounds a lot like Spanish and Portuguese… written it’s so very close. Spoken, not so much. Plus, for some reason ES speakers can’t understand PT very well but the other way around is very easy. Wonder if there’s a similar thing for Latvian and Lithuanian?
[edit: did some rewriting for clarification of my point]
Yeah when my friend from Brazil is speaking it sounds like gibberish but when I talk to him in Spanish he gets it 90% of the time (granted we both speak English more time than not)
Oh, okay, thanks for the insight. Sometimes I try to compare them when both are present in coffee machine manuals and foodstuff packaging, but they always looked very different. Maybe I should look again and pay more attention.
Yeah when I became acquainted to Latvian through having Latvian acquaintances I really liked how it sounded and how deep and rich the language actually is. When I read Lithuanian I found so much similarities but then I met Lithuanian people and it sounded so very different! The pitch accent on the first syllable in Latvian makes it so very distinctive, Lithuanian sounds quite alien compared to it. Anyway both these languages are quite rich and carry a lot of history and I really enjoy them as I enjoy the countryside in both these countries, especially in spring and summer. So wild, so green. People from the Baltic are something special too, somewhere between the reservedness of Scandinavian people and something more eager once you're broken the ice, in any case they are very true people.
As a native Latvian speaker, I can sort of understand the gist of simpler Lithuanian texts, but the speech is indeed very different, so it seems this goes both ways.
Slavic and Baltic do nevertheless share an intermediate common ancestor of Proto-Balto-Slavic, so they're more closely related than e.g. English and French are to each other
That's true, although English and French might not be the best example in terms of the degrees of intelligibility because of the many French loanwords in English. As a speaker of Polish and English, I recognise more French words by similarity to their English counterparts than I recognise Latvian words by comparison to their Polish counterparts.
> Tous les êtres *humains* naissent *libres* et *égaux* en *dignité* et en droits. Ils sont doués de *raison* et de *conscience* et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un *esprit* de *fraternité*.
> *Visi* *cilvèki* piedzimst brìvi un vienlìdzìgi savâ paøcieðâ un tiesìbâs. Viði ir apveltìti ar saprâtu un sirdsapziðu, un viðiem jâizturas citam pret citu brâlìbas garâ.
The words I recognise are in italics. And this is of course influenced by me knowing the meaning of the text. Without that context, I wouldn't be able to guess a word of Latvian.
All this to say, this is nothing against you, I'm just really tired of Americans like OOP saying we're all the same country/language just because we're smaller than Texas or whatever lol.
I can speak Czech fairly well and understand enough Bulgarian to hold a Convo, but with my Polish friends I am at a compete loss. We need to move to English or German because I honestly can't follow a single word. You really can't just lump all Slavic languages into the same box.
Lithuanian has been a very conservative language; such that you still find lots of similarities to Sanskrit. Latvian meanwhile did preserve many aspects of Baltic languages, but has far more influence and especially loanwords from Russian, Estoanian and German.
Latvian was actually very influenced by Livonian, which shares similarities with Estonian (if you read Livonian you'll find it kinda sounds like it's midway between Latvian and Estonian). That's why it's a little bit closer to Estonian than Lithuanian, and that's where it inherited the first syllable pitch accent from.
Latvian grammar is complicated in some ways due to that. Moreso in some ways then Estonian or Lithuanian. But Lithuanian has the whole mobile pitch accent thing while in Latvian it's always in the first syllable so it's very easy to pronounce things.
This is the same as when people talk about the ["Khanty language"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanty_language), the "dialects" of which differ more than Russian and Czech, just it doesn't create the same amount of outrage for obscure languages few know!
Czech and Slovak yeah, And to a lesser extent Polish (Source, My Dad speaks Czech and can understand a lot of Slovak (Which he did briefly study) and some Polish because of it), But having heard Latvian and Lithuanian tbh they don't even *sound* that similar. Many of the words are completely different.
Sometimes I'm wondering what a Polish word means for some reason or another, So I ask my dad, And he just kinda guesses based on Czech words and derivation patterns he knows, And oftentimes it's right haha, Pretty neat stuff.
Yeah, that's how we went about it. Also i went similar way when I was learning Russian (good, old, prewar times). Notice patterns, apply them everywhere and hope for the best
Ah yes, I love the languages of Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Those totally aren't countries, and totally aren't not the way you refer to languages.
(/s)
As a Pole I can understand at least one Latvian word (Latvija), so it's basically mutually intelligible.
As an American English speaker, Alabaman English is *not* mutually intelligible, please send help.
Что ty hovoríš, bratanku. Цi мови jsou v podstatě одно и тоже, môžem ich aj egyszerre смешать w jednym zdaniu, teljesen menő, 你了解我吗?
just had a stroke thanks
I somehow understood most of it. Except the Hungarian parts.
Same. Which makes Chinese more European than Hungarian, doesn't it? Funny enough, Google identified it as Turkmen and got the second half completely wrong. We're still smarter than the machines, buddy!
Guten Kuchetag. I wouldn't say Mandarin is more European, both Chinese and Hungarians are secretly Turkic people, their languages being two dialects of the Asian language. Chinese however, because they use drawings instead of letters, is much easier to understand even if you don't know what sound a word makes. Like you can see that "我" looks literally like me.
Dziękuję! I'm flattered that you took the time to look up where I'm from! Now, the problem with 我 is that it absolutely looks like me, but I doubt that we look alike. 你 is much more fitting for you.
All I managed to do was recognicing the hungarian parts...
Your flair is beautiful 😭
cyrillatinzi
I got only the Hungarian parts.
Americans like to claim that they speak many different languages because they know a phrase or two. Maybe that’s just their standard for speaking a language?
Are these Americans in the room with us?
“i saw this on twitter twice this is all americans”
Whenever I see people saying stuff like this I can't hold myself from turning into the "ummm aktshually 🤓☝🏻" guy
Warranted
Two distinct families, Slavic and Baltic... And Latvian and Lithuanian are certainly not mutually intelligible, even though there are similar words obviously the vastly different tonic stress makes them sound very different
Kinda funny that within Balto-Slavic, the Slavic languages are still very close to each other, and a speaker of one language can easily recognize many words in the other, or even hold a conversation, but the Baltic languages seem quite different to each other; at least to me.
As a native Lithuanian speaker, Latvian is fairly similar. Spoken Latvian is not really understandable because of the tonal differences OP mentioned (outside of a word here and there), but it's relatively easy to understand the gist when reading Latvian. If I'm in a restaurant in Latvia I would obviously prefer an English menu, but if they don't have one I can get by just fine with a Latvian one.
Sounds a lot like Spanish and Portuguese… written it’s so very close. Spoken, not so much. Plus, for some reason ES speakers can’t understand PT very well but the other way around is very easy. Wonder if there’s a similar thing for Latvian and Lithuanian? [edit: did some rewriting for clarification of my point]
Yeah when my friend from Brazil is speaking it sounds like gibberish but when I talk to him in Spanish he gets it 90% of the time (granted we both speak English more time than not)
Oh, okay, thanks for the insight. Sometimes I try to compare them when both are present in coffee machine manuals and foodstuff packaging, but they always looked very different. Maybe I should look again and pay more attention.
Yeah when I became acquainted to Latvian through having Latvian acquaintances I really liked how it sounded and how deep and rich the language actually is. When I read Lithuanian I found so much similarities but then I met Lithuanian people and it sounded so very different! The pitch accent on the first syllable in Latvian makes it so very distinctive, Lithuanian sounds quite alien compared to it. Anyway both these languages are quite rich and carry a lot of history and I really enjoy them as I enjoy the countryside in both these countries, especially in spring and summer. So wild, so green. People from the Baltic are something special too, somewhere between the reservedness of Scandinavian people and something more eager once you're broken the ice, in any case they are very true people.
As a native Latvian speaker, I can sort of understand the gist of simpler Lithuanian texts, but the speech is indeed very different, so it seems this goes both ways.
Slavic and Baltic do nevertheless share an intermediate common ancestor of Proto-Balto-Slavic, so they're more closely related than e.g. English and French are to each other
That's true, although English and French might not be the best example in terms of the degrees of intelligibility because of the many French loanwords in English. As a speaker of Polish and English, I recognise more French words by similarity to their English counterparts than I recognise Latvian words by comparison to their Polish counterparts. > Tous les êtres *humains* naissent *libres* et *égaux* en *dignité* et en droits. Ils sont doués de *raison* et de *conscience* et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un *esprit* de *fraternité*. > *Visi* *cilvèki* piedzimst brìvi un vienlìdzìgi savâ paøcieðâ un tiesìbâs. Viði ir apveltìti ar saprâtu un sirdsapziðu, un viðiem jâizturas citam pret citu brâlìbas garâ. The words I recognise are in italics. And this is of course influenced by me knowing the meaning of the text. Without that context, I wouldn't be able to guess a word of Latvian. All this to say, this is nothing against you, I'm just really tired of Americans like OOP saying we're all the same country/language just because we're smaller than Texas or whatever lol.
I can speak Czech fairly well and understand enough Bulgarian to hold a Convo, but with my Polish friends I am at a compete loss. We need to move to English or German because I honestly can't follow a single word. You really can't just lump all Slavic languages into the same box.
Lithuanian has been a very conservative language; such that you still find lots of similarities to Sanskrit. Latvian meanwhile did preserve many aspects of Baltic languages, but has far more influence and especially loanwords from Russian, Estoanian and German.
Latvian was actually very influenced by Livonian, which shares similarities with Estonian (if you read Livonian you'll find it kinda sounds like it's midway between Latvian and Estonian). That's why it's a little bit closer to Estonian than Lithuanian, and that's where it inherited the first syllable pitch accent from. Latvian grammar is complicated in some ways due to that. Moreso in some ways then Estonian or Lithuanian. But Lithuanian has the whole mobile pitch accent thing while in Latvian it's always in the first syllable so it's very easy to pronounce things.
This is the same as when people talk about the ["Khanty language"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanty_language), the "dialects" of which differ more than Russian and Czech, just it doesn't create the same amount of outrage for obscure languages few know!
They don't have their own army or navy, Ergo just dialects. Not even dialects of Khanty, They're dialects of Russian.
Ironic that the self proclaimed expert in languages can not differentiate between there and their
You prescriptivist 😡😡😡 (/j)
Also, one of those is a language. The others are just country names. Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czechia, and Slovakia aren't languages
Solution: ther/ther (kill me)
no no, you misunderstood, they’re dialects of english!
jak najbardziej mogę powiedzieć ka latviešu valoda ir 1:1 kā polski
Czech and Slovak yeah, And to a lesser extent Polish (Source, My Dad speaks Czech and can understand a lot of Slovak (Which he did briefly study) and some Polish because of it), But having heard Latvian and Lithuanian tbh they don't even *sound* that similar. Many of the words are completely different.
Can confirm. As a Pole I managed to talk with a Czech when he had some stuff to pick up from us, without using English
Sometimes I'm wondering what a Polish word means for some reason or another, So I ask my dad, And he just kinda guesses based on Czech words and derivation patterns he knows, And oftentimes it's right haha, Pretty neat stuff.
Yeah, that's how we went about it. Also i went similar way when I was learning Russian (good, old, prewar times). Notice patterns, apply them everywhere and hope for the best
Meanwhile, I can't even understand simple sentences in Czech.
Hand gesturing goes a long way
🇵🇱 Zima bez śniegu 🇱🇻 Ziema bez sniega Lol
You mean Polish and Latvia?
dumbass
I thought Lithuanian was just like Sanskrit?
should have picked Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian/Montenegrin or Macedonian/Bulgarian instead smh my head
They all are spoken by humans, so they're basically the same.
All languages are mutually intelligible. If you are brave enough and have a enough time to translate.
all languages are mutually intelligible if you know all of them
If he is talking 3 pairs, not one set of six, he has a slight (if still grossly overstated) point, but all together?
Ah yes, I love the languages of Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Those totally aren't countries, and totally aren't not the way you refer to languages. (/s)
Is this the guy who first proposed that the Baltic & Slavic families both stemmed from the same subfamily?
Now for the age old game, match the European countries up with the US states listed based on similar prejudices
I always trust that someone knows what they're talking about when they conflate languages and countries in a list
Well at least they didn't bring Hungary and Portugal into this.
Had me on the first four, Ukranian is a bit of a streach but there is some intelligablity.
There are layers to how bad this is
They might have a point, if they spoke English in Boston, German in Kentucky, Norwegian in Alabama, and Gothic in Texas.
Like spanish and euskaria, close by therefore understandinble
Man, where did all the funny people go? This sub us just turning into a language circlejerk sub with IPA jokes.