Do Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian sound less slavic to you then other slavic languages?
Posted by PreWiBa@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 118 comments
Inspired by a other recent post, i wanted to ask this.
As i was younger, i always thought that south slavic languages sound completely different then other slavic languages. However, when i heard other south slavic people speaking, and noted that they sound very slavic but still very similar, i realized that it was probably me and that i just don't hear the "stereotypical" slavic things about it because i am so accustomed to it.
Ok_Stretch_405@reddit
It is all greek to me 😅
Bilbolbu@reddit
What makes one Slavic language more Slavic than another one?
vukgav@reddit
In this context Slavic = stereotypically Russian sounding.
Russian is the default "Slavic", thanks to Hollywood
veezy53@reddit
As an Albanian, the Slavic language from our beautiful and beloved Balkans sounds the most beautiful to my ears. That Russian shit sounds like a whore, especially in Hollywood movies 😂😂
Legal_Mastodon_5683@reddit
Which is ironic because Russian is at least equally, if not even more distant from Proto-Slavic than the rest.
petrosteve@reddit
It has less loan words.
tensesushi@reddit
What makes you think this?
Pederakis@reddit
Most people believe Macedonian to be Russian when they hear it being spoken
Local_Geologist_2817@reddit
Not to me. They all have that slavic sounding phonetics (including bulgarian), it's just different from russian, polish etc.
BornaBorski@reddit
It's because of the pitch-accent system that still exists in Western South Slavic languages. All Slavic languages (Old Slavic) used to have it!
This feature gives an impression of Romance (Italian) influence, but this is false. The only noticable "Italian"; influence can be heard in dialects of Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). There is this light Italian undertone you hear when they speak. On the other hand local Italians have Slavic undertone!
SignificantCamel1558@reddit
Whole croatian coast and island have this . Just different type of dialects. Old Dalmatic - Vegliote, spoken on islands and coastal cities in Dalmatia, Ragusan (both had Venetian influence) spoken in Dubrovnik Republic and Istriot language spoken in some parts of Istria
SignificantCamel1558@reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatian_language
Old Dalmatian Language (not slavic) has a deep influence on today's Croatian dialects especially on islands and coast. These dialects are mixture of old Dalmatian and south slavic
ContributionLatter32@reddit
As a native english speaker living in Bulgaria, Bulgarian sounds much more Russian than Serbian. Serbian sounds like a spanishified Slavic language to me, with more words ending in vowels. For example "brat" vs "brate"
milutinovici@reddit
It's brat in Serbian as well. Brate is just a declination (padež).
Fancy-Persimmon9660@reddit
It might’ve been a weak example, but I think he has a point. Serbian has more cases, so its words are more likely to end in vowels. For example, Bulgarian shares “Брате”, but doesn’t make use of “Брату” or “Брата”.
Also, past tense often ends in a vowel in Serbian but not in Bulgarian:
Био сам / Бил съм Имао сам / Имал съм
milutinovici@reddit
I suspected that Bulgarian has fewer cases, but I wasn't sure
Stealthfighter21@reddit
Same in Bulgaria. He has no idea what he's talking about.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Still, we tend to say "brat" rather than "brate" even given the "imenitelen padezh" (the only one somewhat preserved in the language). Especially the younger folks. I find it a bit annoying, that "brat, something".
Stealthfighter21@reddit
Звятелен, не именителен.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Да, моя грешка.
Content-Departure-77@reddit
I am from southeastern Serbia and consider Bulgarians as my "bros" considering the fact that we share so much in everyday culture, but I understand Slovakian and Polish better than Bulgarian. Bulgarian sounds so "raw" and "unrefined", its like striking iron with hammer.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Yes, I guess a big part of it is having cases/having no cases plus the definite article. To us, Serbian tends to sound like provincial/outdated Bulgarian, even my wife says it sounds like peasant Bulgarian. Objectively speaking, it's all due to the differences, there isn't right or wrong there.
XRaisedBySirensX@reddit
I feel like this is just a common way speakers of one language view the languages most closely related their own. Russians tend to view Ukrainian and Belarusian as village/peasant Russian. Ukrainians view Carpatho-Ruthenian/Rusyn as village/peasant Ukrainian. Poles view Kashubian/Sorbian as village/peasant Polish.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
True.
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
I think that's because Bulgarian had some influence on Russian, actually. Yes, I know it sounds strange that a tiny country had a linguistic influence on an enormous one, but it happened about a thousand years ago.
ContributionLatter32@reddit
Yes as far as I'm aware the modern cryllic alphabet originated in Bulgaria. There's even a holiday here dedicated to it.
Few_Owl_6596@reddit
They sound similar to Western Slavic languages to me (except Polish 😂). I think most Southern Slavic languages have a sound set more similar to Italian than to Russian.
NoEatBatman@reddit
Idk how that is, but to me it's completely different, my interactions were with serbian and bulgarian and I felt a familiarity from them, i could at least understand where a word began and where it ended, i didn't understand shit from polish or czech
Fluid_Intention_875@reddit
Yes. Slovak is the closest Slavic language to the Balkan Slavic group, together with Czech
Stverghame@reddit
The more I introduce myself to other Slavic languages, the more I realize we do actually sound a bit different. Sounds more... southern (no shit)?
PreWiBa@reddit (OP)
I always see it like this
If id give an Italian Slavic vocabulary, it'll end up like South slavic languages.
If i give it to an German, i get Western ones, f. ex. Polish.
BlackCATegory@reddit
Oh, it sounds Italian-ish? Then I like the comparison :D
ReasonResitant@reddit
Yeah, I've heard "you sound like a mix between an Italian and a Russian" enough time to believe this.
jebac_keve_finalboss@reddit
Ive heard people say that Serbian sounds like Slavic Italian so i guess there is truth to that and it also makes sense when you consider the fact that almost 50% of our DNA comes from Romanised vulgar Latin speaking peoples of Balkans before Slavic migrations.
oduzmi@reddit
There was Russian lady on TikTok who moved to Serbia around 2022, and she said Croatian sounded much more like Russian to her, while Serbian sounded "foreign".
Careless-Walrus2568@reddit
I can't understand how she could claim such differences when they are almost the same language
PreWiBa@reddit (OP)
Most local people in Zagreb locals talk in their own dialect which is a bit close to Slovenian.
For example "Vidjet ćemo šta da uradimo", translates to "Bum videli kaj ćemo". (the missing j in videli is on purpose, the dialect itself often uses ekavian version of words).
TwoFistsOneVi@reddit
Bumo*
Arktinus@reddit
Very interesting! In Slovenian it's Bomo videli, kaj bomo or Bomo vid'li, kaj bomo in certain dialects.
I always wondered what Croatian would look like if it was based on Kajkavian.
PreWiBa@reddit (OP)
Thank you.
I only it from media
Big admirer of Zauvijek susjedi and Bitange i princeze.
oduzmi@reddit
I was wondering the same. Maybe she heard northern dialects of Croatian.
Wishart2016@reddit
Aren't Croatian and Serbian the same?
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
Just like any language, there are dialects, accents, etc.
Wishart2016@reddit
True. For me, Bosnian and Serbian sound more Turkish/Arabic/Greek whereas Croatian sounds more Italian/Spanish/Portuguese.
kiki885@reddit
The differences are not that big at all, holy moly. You're talking out of your ass.
Wishart2016@reddit
It's the accents.
kiki885@reddit
Yeah, the accent which Bosnians and Croats share almost 1:1.
The only difference between how Croats and how Bosnians speak is the vocabulary, so what you said above about "Serbian and Bosnian = Turkish/Arabic/Greek" and "Croatian = Italian/SpanishPortugese" is complete and utter bullshit.
And as I said, the differences in vocabulary (and the accents for that matter) aren't even that significant in the first place.
Wishart2016@reddit
Gotcha. Now that makes sense.
BlackCATegory@reddit
Which dialects?
Wishart2016@reddit
Dalmatian dialects sound Italian.
BlackCATegory@reddit
Kind of yes, but how about other Croatian dialects? I wouldn't know the difference between say Salvonian and dialects of northern Bosnia so I was wondering what sounds so Turkish/Arabic/Greek there?
Fluid_Intention_875@reddit
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
milutinovici@reddit
I would guess because of ijekavica
True-Blacksmith4235@reddit
I can’t 🤣
No-Championship-4632@reddit
To be honest, in Zagreb I understood better than in Novi Sad, but I don't know why is that. Doesn't apply to the seaside, they speak totally foreign language there.
Renandstimpyslog@reddit
They sound unquestionably Slavic, only somewhat softer than Russian which is the popular stereotype. Apart from that, you can't confuse them with any other language family.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
They are much harder than Russian. Russian is very very soft.
PreWiBa@reddit (OP)
They are, but in south slavic languages a lot of words are latinized, at least in the BHS ones.
For example, i think Russians also say "litrov", in Bosnian its "litar, pl. litri".
The typical "v" for "in" becomes an "u" in Bosnian as well.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
No, that's just the cases being different. In Russian your "litri" would be литры which is quite similar (yet sounds softer).
ExtremeProfession@reddit
It absolutely doesnt sound softer because of the ы, as many non-Slavs have confirmed here. Only Russians and Bulgarians believe that throat sound makes it softer.
PreWiBa@reddit (OP)
But Bosnians don't have a case in which they say "litrov".
Arktinus@reddit
Slovenian (a South Slavic language) does: pet litrov vode (five litres of water). It's the genitive case used with certain numbers, usually five and beyond. But I don't see how that is related to latinisation of words? In BCSM, it's just how words evolved.
Latinisation, to me, would be lots of Latin loan words and Latin influence on grammar etc.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Yes, like I said cases are different. We don't have them at all for example.
Renandstimpyslog@reddit
I don't speak any of these languages; Russian sounds quite rough to me.
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
I think it comes down to what you mean by "soft-sounding"/"hard-sounding". Slavs tend to think palatalization (sh, ch, zh, tsch, etc.) makes a language softer sounding - with this understanding Polish and Russian are extremely soft - but non-Slavs tend to characterize palatalization as "harsh"/"hard" sounding.
South Slavic languages are among the least palatalized Slavic languages but still more than non-Slavic languages.
Renandstimpyslog@reddit
I meant harsh or rough. Russian sounds rougher to me. It's my subjective opinion ( feeling maybe?). Maybe it's because I don't speak a Slavic language. Your perception of cousin languages might be different from a total outsider such as me.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Now that I think of it "softening of the vowels" don't really make sense (the official term was "vowel reduction" or something). "Softening" is really subjective. In any case, the result is spoken Russian diverging a lot from written one and the grand idea of the cyrillic alphabet was to have a phonetic alphabet that you speak as you read. Russian diverges from this a lot. Serbian doesn't. Bulgarian is like it depends on the region, but never as extreme as it is in Russian/Belorussian/Ukrainian.
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
It makes sense. I've heard a few people, for example, characterize Slavic languages as "guttural" which I take that to mean they just don't like the way they sound. Slavic languages are not guttural (meaning making throaty sounds) at all. I don't think there is a universally understood definition of a rough or harsh sounding language.
crolionfire@reddit
This! People don't understand that for most of the world, when they speak about "harsh" and "soft" language, they don't speak about palatalization level.
I know what it's about, I've studied the basics in college-but to be honest, as croatian native speaker, Russian does sound a lot of harsher than Bosnian or even Serbian to me.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Might sound like that due to their palatization, but the use of ь is excessive in Russian and the softening of the vowels is kind of extreme there, eastern Bulgarian accents have that too, but Russian is on a completely different level.
djavolja_rabota@reddit
that's also my impression when comparing our languages to russian, I'm constantly puzzled by foreigners saying b/c/s/etc sounds "like russian, but softer".
kiki885@reddit
Softer than Russian?! You got it the other way around my man.
Stverghame@reddit
People consider "hardness" to be bad for sound, so automatically label Russian as harsh rather than soft since they don't like it. That is far from truth, as south Slavic languages are less soft than Russian (have lower number and frequency of soft sounds).
Ok_Detail_1@reddit
Ukrainuan is more harsh than Russian.
Stverghame@reddit
It is, as are most of Slavic languages. Most of us don't even have soft versions for consonants, while for most of their (Russian) consonants have the regular hard pronunciation as well as soft pronunciation when combined with soft sign or soft vowel.
Fluid_Intention_875@reddit
Russian is much more softer than South Slavic languages. South Slavs have some of the most harsh sounds among all european languages. Also Turkish is also softer than South Slavic languages.
crolionfire@reddit
Yes, in terms of palatalization. But for most of the mon-Slavic world, "harsh" and "soft" soundong language has nothing to do with palatalization, but how the listeners hears it.
For example, as a Croatian, Russian does sound harsher to me than Macedonian or Serbian or Croatian or Slovenian, although I know about palatalization factor. It can sound beautiful, especially in literature(bewitching, I really do love it) but very often it sounds like German translated into Slavic, with similar intonation.
NightZT@reddit
That's fascinating, I find them to sound quite hard, but in a good way. Russian on the other hand sounds quite soft to me
Fluid_Intention_875@reddit
Because you're right, thats how it is.
BlackCATegory@reddit
Well if you are native German speaking, no wonder you like it harsh :p
TramaDoll-@reddit
That's interesting because when russiana try to speak these languages, they Sound much softer.
Daj_Dzevada@reddit
I studied Russian in school. In my opinion our language “flows” more smoothly. To quote comedian Russell Peters, Russian sounds like someone speaking in reverse. The grammar is pretty similar and the vocabulary overlaps quite a bit but the pronunciation and way they emphasize syllables is different. For example Russian мы будем takes more effort to say mi budemo in our language
noiserr@reddit
I went to school with someone from Russia. The class was in Fench. My French was slightly better, and when she was confused and didn't understand something she would ask me to translate to Bosnian (Serbo-Croatian).
Sometimes she would crack up. She would say Bosnian sounds like some archaic proto-Russian. This was many years ago, but I never forgot it.
ExtremeProfession@reddit
I mean Russian also sounds archaic to us plus the fake accentuation they put on every word (the -y sound)
Observe_Report_@reddit
Speaking in reverse is perfect, also more nasal
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
I had an "argument" whether it was easier to say "stop" in Croatian (prestani) vs in Polish (przestań, which would be pšestanj in BCMS orthography). It was inconceivable to me at the time that pšestanj was somehow easier to pronounce.
BlackCATegory@reddit
Can they also say it shorter like - stati? Also, you reminded me of my experience with that word when one Polish guy recognized when I said "Kiša je prestala." He said (don't have their diacritics so I'm just going to write it as it sounds to me) "Dažč pšestala."
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
pšestau would be a bit closer (ir's przestał in Polish orthography, deszcz is masculine) but it's true they don't need the conjugated form of biti to make the past tense. Deszcz przestał.
Not sure what you mean, like the same imperative? Stani in BCMS would be stań (pronounced like stanj) in Polish but here the meaning diverges a bit too; stać means more to stand or to become.
BlackCATegory@reddit
Kiša je stala umjesto prestala
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
No, at least in Polish you couldn't stay deszcz stał, even if you can say kiša je stala in BCMS
BlackCATegory@reddit
Thanks!
Strange-Oil1930@reddit
All the languages all the same, but they understand each other the only one that is different is Albanian nothing in comparison of these guys
V3LKAN@reddit
I always tought that other slavic languages sounded more colder compared to ours
AdelphicHitter4514@reddit
When I went to Istria I noticed people spoke Croatian with an Italian inflection. The style and pattern of the speech was Italian but I couldn't make anything out.
OsarmaBeanLatin@reddit
According to my mom Serbo-Croatian is the Slavic language which sounds the most "Western European" (her words not mine)
tipoftheiceberg1234@reddit
The reason for that is because we retained the original proto-Slavic phonology, or made very little changes to it. The vowels weren’t reduced like they became in many other Slavic languages.
That being said it depends on the time or case. Sometimes someone speaking Bosnian sounds “Russian”, especially because there’s new trend I noticed where Bosnian (specifically Muslims) round their “o’s” the same way that Russians do.
You know the famous “Ken Lee” video of the Bulgarian woman singing Mariah Carey wrong? When I was very little I thought they were speaking Spanish. And I also remember Czech sounding like Swiss German/not Slavic growing up.
But in general all Slavic languages sound sort of like each other even at opposite ends of the spectrum.
crolionfire@reddit
I mean, if we' re going by the language closest to the Old Slavic pa language, it's actually Slovenian. And I don't know another Slavic language that sounds Slovenian. To me, all of the south Slavic, west Slavic and east Slavic languages are easily recognizable as Slavic and that is their main common characteristic-you know it's Slavic after hearing the first sentence.
mrocznyduch@reddit
Fact you may find weird : Polish and Serbian for me are closer than Polish and Russian or Serbian and Russian.
kouyehwos@reddit
In terms of lack of vowel reduction, yes. And no words being stressed on the last syllable. And some grammar things like clitics. And maybe the differences in vocabulary are somewhat similar.
But in terms of underlying phonology, and declension, and the way verb aspects work, and diminutives… I think on the whole Polish is clearly a bit closer to East Slavic than to South Slavic.
One-Photograph8443@reddit
Fact, learning russian and polish. Polish has more similaritys imo if you just exchange ł > l and w > v
Russian feels a bit different when it comes to wording. Just don’t tell your polish wife idi pravo…. It is not the same!!!
mrocznyduch@reddit
What you wrote about Russian is also applicable to Serbian.
I speak the three actually and I guarantee you Serbian and Polish are more similar.
One-Photograph8443@reddit
I speak serbian, before I learned the other two I foudn polish easyer to understand. Easiest from the upper languages still is czech, it is like a mix of polish and serbocroatian with some strange letters
loleenceee@reddit
I think this is true, when I was in Egypt a ukranian girl thought that I was speaking polish at first.
Pleasant_Comedian405@reddit
Idk to me all of them sound the same but I also do not speak a single slavic language
IchKomme97@reddit
Idk, but Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian etc sound so good to me. I think they are very beautiful languages and I’d love to learn them.
IchKomme97@reddit
Idk, but Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian etc sound so good to me. I think they are very beautiful languages and I’d love to learn them.
cincihoca66@reddit
Half of Serbian's words are Turkish.
Unusual_Emergency_13@reddit
I have had russian friends. Worked for/with serbians, croatians, macedonians (north), bulgarians and polish.
They all do sound very slavic to me. The only different one for me is polish with that many consonants.
HeyVeddy@reddit
I was in France speaking Serbian and a French couple next to us thought it was an Italian dialect. My partner is also Russian/German speaking and says it sounds much different than other slavic languages
End of the day, we have ž, đ, and š but not nearly as much as other slavs
sjedinjenoStanje@reddit
I think BCMS has a more sing-songy aspect to it that it has in common with Italian. I know for example that Polish does not, at all - there are no tones, no longer/shorter vowels, etc.
HeyVeddy@reddit
That's true, we do have clear and strong r, k, t, like Italians, although less vowels than them. But if we have a balanced sentence it can come off quite nice
Judestadt@reddit
What is "Slavic" supposed to sound like? They do sound different than western and eastern Slavic languages, but that doesnrt mean its any less Slavic. One may argue that our phonetics are "latinized" but we can make that argument for every group of Slavic languages - WS influenced by German phonetics; ES influenced by Uralic, Turkic and Mongolian phonetics; SWS influenced by "Adriatic Romance" phonetics.
Stealthfighter21@reddit
No, they sound very Slavic to me.
matriyarka@reddit
No. They all sound Slavic to me.
deviendrais@reddit
They do sound less stereotypically Slavic to me yeah. Especially Serbian since it doesn’t palatalise its consonants as often as the other variants of Serbo-Croatian do (“koleno” (knee) in Serbia vs. “koljeno” in Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro). I think the L turning into a vowel or just completely disappearing is the main reason why it sounds less like Polish or Russian to outsiders (Russian “byl”(was) sounds more stereotypically slavic than Serbo-Croatian “bio)
TramaDoll-@reddit
They’re much different from east slavic languages
Sodinc@reddit
No, definitely not. That group of languages/dialects sounds harsher than other slavic languages, but definitely slavic. The least slavic languages I heard was Sorbian and that is probably because they mostly speak German and thus have an accent
Ok-Health-3929@reddit
I may be really biased here but I wouldn't say they sound less slavic. They sound to me somewhat milder and prettier than slavic languages like Russian and Polish. Especially Russian I find so ugly and harsh, next to that B-HR-S sound more melodic and soft. Not REALLY melodic and soft (my friends would think my parents argue which I answered with 'no, they just speak Serbocroatian'), but a ton softer and prettier and Russian.