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Nearly every Ukrainian understands Russian, but many Russians would only understand the gist of what Ukrainians are saying, because the languages only share abo

by 0x38B 3y ago

Nearly every Ukrainian understands Russian, but many Russians would only understand the gist of what Ukrainians are saying, because the languages only share about 60% of their vocabulary. A lot of common, everyday words differ in Ukrainian and or arise from different roots (e.g Polish).

beebeepka 3y ago
Oh no, only 60%? Surely that's plenty for a conversation, no? Now I wonder if this number, provided it is a real one, went up or down during the last 30 years. I would bet on lower but it's only a gut feeling.
- vkou 3y ago
  > Oh no, only 60%? Surely that's plenty for a conversation, no? It's plenty for communication, not plenty for a conversation. (It's also a mirror for colonialism, by the way, where the occupied speak the language of the occupier, but the occupiers can't be arsed to learn the language of the occupied.)
  - mabster 3y ago
    It's not even necessarily enough for communication. With the Pareto curve on word commonality it's really quick to get high percentages of vocabulary. But it's the words you don't know on a sentence that are usually the important ones.
  - beebeepka 3y ago
    You are right. 60% is nothing, especially given the political situation /s can't even talk about chips and language without being attacked by the crew
    - MiguelX413 3y ago
      • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39295035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39295035 • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39294267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39294267 • https://german.stackexchange.com/a/53783 https://german.stackexchange.com/a/53783 It's a linguistic topic. Good luck trying to talk with Germans as an English speaker.
- sergeykish 3y ago
  Ukrainian shares 84% of vocabulary with Belarusian, 70% with Polish, 66% with Slovak. English and German share 60% of vocabulary.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    Except English, German, and Dutch are not mutually intelligible. Although as an English-speaking native who has studied German, Dutch often maddeningly looks like it should make sense, but it doesn't.

by 0x38B 3y ago

beebeepka 3y ago

Oh no, only 60%? Surely that's plenty for a conversation, no? Now I wonder if this number, provided it is a real one, went up or down during the last 30 years. I would bet on lower but it's only a gut feeling.

vkou 3y ago
> Oh no, only 60%? Surely that's plenty for a conversation, no? It's plenty for communication, not plenty for a conversation. (It's also a mirror for colonialism, by the way, where the occupied speak the language of the occupier, but the occupiers can't be arsed to learn the language of the occupied.)
- mabster 3y ago
  It's not even necessarily enough for communication. With the Pareto curve on word commonality it's really quick to get high percentages of vocabulary. But it's the words you don't know on a sentence that are usually the important ones.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  You are right. 60% is nothing, especially given the political situation /s can't even talk about chips and language without being attacked by the crew
  - MiguelX413 3y ago
    • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39295035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39295035 • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39294267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39294267 • https://german.stackexchange.com/a/53783 https://german.stackexchange.com/a/53783 It's a linguistic topic. Good luck trying to talk with Germans as an English speaker.
sergeykish 3y ago
Ukrainian shares 84% of vocabulary with Belarusian, 70% with Polish, 66% with Slovak. English and German share 60% of vocabulary.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Except English, German, and Dutch are not mutually intelligible. Although as an English-speaking native who has studied German, Dutch often maddeningly looks like it should make sense, but it doesn't.