Re: OT: Russian and Ukrainian was Re: semi-OT: bilingual communication

Peter Clark scripsit:

<<On Saturday 25 January 2003 12:37 pm, Isaac A. Penzev wrote:
> I was interested in this question for a long time.
> Here are some observations based on what I heard from many people:
> - Ukrainians have no problem with understanding both Russian and
> Belarussian; - most Belarussians are bilingual, so Russian is no problem
> for them, but I have no data about their understanding of Ukrainian;
        Is this because Russian was/is the dominant language>>

I think it's the explanation. As for Ukrainian and Belarussian, they are close
enough. My wife (Uk. is her L1) says she perceives Be. like Uk. pronounced with
strong Ru. accent and admixture of Polish words.

<<or because of their
similarity? You said below that "Russians who live in Russia, don't
understand Ukrainian at all," which makes me think that Ukrainians understand
Russian more from long exposure to it, likewise with Russians in Ukraine.>>

It seems true.

<< My one experience with Ukrainian was when I went to a Ukrainian Baptist
Church here in Minnesota. The preaching was in Ukrainian, but the hymns were
in Russian.>>

A common practice among local Baptists :-(
Church culture in free churches is mostly Russian speaking because in Soviet
times it was easier to find a Ru. Bible than a Uk. one!

<< I understood the Russian well enough, but got a splitting
headache listening to the Ukrainian--it sounds close enough to Russian that
my brain was certain that it should be able to understand something, but
couldn't! :)>>

I heard about the same kind of experience from other Russian spekers. They say
they can understand only occasional words!

<< What are the verb types?>>

Sorry, I meant verb classes (types of conjugation divided not by endings only
(those are two both in Ru. and Uk.), but by changes in stems too).
As in Ru., Uk. distinguishes between preterite and present stems, e.g. (stems
showen by _'s):
_c^ytá_ty (c^ytá_w) "to read" -- _c^ytáj_e "he reads",
_hotuwá_ty (_hotuwá_w) "to prepare" -- _hotúj_e "he prepares",
_bereh_tý (_beríh_) "to guard" -- _berez*_é "he guards",
and even irregular
_hná_ty (_hna_w) "to drive away" -- _z*en_é "he drives away",
_slá_ty (_sla_w) "to send" -- _s^l_e "he sends".
In some verb classes they coincide:
_chodý_ty (_chodý_w) "to walk" -- _chódy_t' "he walks", but it is obscured by
mutations in 1sn: _chodz*_ú "I walk".

> :Peter
Yitzik
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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