Interslavic language

Slovianski
Created by	Ondrej Rečnik, Gabriel Svoboda, Jan van Steenbergen, Igor Polyakov
Date	2006
Setting and usage	Auxiliary language, intended for communication between or with speakers of different Slavic languages
Users	(no estimate available)
Purpose	Constructed languages International auxiliary languages Zonal constructed languages Slovianski
Writing system	Latin, Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)

Slovianski (Словянски and Словјански in Cyrillic) is a Slavic interlanguage, created in 2006 by a group of language creators from different countries. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between representatives of different Slavic nations, as well as to allow people who don't know any Slavic language to communicate with Slavs. For the latter, it can fulfill an educational role as well. It is spoken by around 4600 people according to the language's Facebook page.^[1]

Slovianski can be classified as a semi-artificial language. It has its roots in the various improvised language forms Slavs have been using for centuries to communicate with Slavs of other nationalities, for example in multi-Slavic environments and on the Internet. The purpose of Slovianski is to provide these with a scientific base. Thus, both grammar and vocabulary are based on the commonalities between the Slavic languages, and artificial elements are avoided. Its main focus lies on instant understandability rather than easy learning, a balance typical for naturalistic (as opposed to schematic) languages.^[2]

Slovianski can be written using the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets.

Background

Over the centuries, numerous efforts have been made to create an umbrella language for the speakers of Slavic languages.^[3] Most of these efforts were ideologically rooted in Pan-Slavism. Even though Pan-Slavism has not played a role of any significance since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, adherents of it can still be found, predominantly in Slavic émigré circles and on the Internet, and the rise of the Internet has also led to the appearance of new Pan-Slavic languages.^[4][5]

What these languages have in common is that they are based on the Slavic languages, in particular on the assumption that they are sufficiently similar to each other to allow for a compromise language that is roughly understandable to every Slav. However, opinions vary about the question how grammar should be dealt with. A high degree of simplification, characteristic for most international auxiliary languages, makes it easier to learn for non-Slavs, but widens the distance with the natural Slavic languages and give the language an overly synthetic character, which by many is considered a disadvantage.^[6]

The Slovianski project was started in March 2006, when several people from different countries in the world felt the need for a simple and neutral Slavic language that the Slavs could understand without prior learning.^[7] In part, it was also motivated by numerous non-Slavic elements (including a grammar that is largely based on Esperanto^[8]) and the predominance of Russian-based words in Slovio, the best-known Slavic interlanguage those days.^[9] The purpose of the authors was therefore to create a naturalistic language that would consist of material existing in most Slavic languages only, without adding any artificial elements.^[6] As a result, Slovianski has three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and six cases, while verbs are fully conjugated. In spite of these features - usually avoided in international auxiliary languages - Slovianski has a high level of simplification anyway, because endings are simple and unambiguous, and irregularity is kept to a minimum. While according to its authors Slovio is the Slavic counterpart of Esperanto, Slovianski is the Slavic counterpart of Interlingua.^[10] Another characteristic of Slovianski, which it shares with Interlingua, is that it is being developed by its own user base, instead of being regulated from above.^[11]

The language is mostly used in Internet traffic and in a news letter, Slovianska Gazeta.^[12][13]

Publicity

In February and March 2010 there was much publicity about Slovianski after articles had been dedicated to it on the Polish internet portal Interia.pl^[14] and the Serbian newspaper Večernje Novosti.^[15] The latter, an interview with one of the creators of Slovianski, was picked up by the news agency BalkanInsight,^[7] and shortly after that articles appeared in the Slovak newspaper Pravda,^[16] on the news site of the Czech broadcasting station ČT24,^[17] in the Slovene newspaper Žurnal24,^[18] as well as other newspapers and internet portals in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Ukraine.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]} Slovianski was also discussed in the Serbian edition of Reader's Digest.^[30]

Variants

Before 2009, Slovianski existed in two variants. The current format of the language was previously known as Slovianski-N (initiated by Jan van Steenbergen and further developed by Igor Polyakov). A simplified form of it was known as Slovianski-P (initiated by Ondrej Rečnik and further developed by Gabriel Svoboda). The difference was that Slovianski-N had six grammatical cases, while Slovianski-P—like English, Bulgarian and Macedonian—used prepositions instead. Apart from these two variants (N stands for naturalism, P for pidgin or prosti "simple"), a schematic version, Slovianski-S, has been experimented with as well, but was abandoned in an early stage of the project.^[31]

Slovianski has played a role in the development of other, related projects as well. Rozumio and Slovioski are both efforts to create a compromise between Slovianski and Slovio, which in the case of Slovioski led to the creation of a new language. In January 2010 a new language was published, Novosloviensky jezyk (New-Slavic), based on Old Church Slavonic grammar but using part of Slovianski's vocabulary.^[32]

In 2011, Slovianski, Slovioski and Novosloviensky merged into one common project under the name Interslavic (Medžuslovjanski).^[33]

Alphabet

One of the main principles of Interslavic is that it can be written on any Slavic keyboard.^[34] The border between Latin and Cyrillic runs through the middle of Slavic territory, and therefore both alphabets can be used. Because of the differences between for example the Polish alphabet and other Latin alphabets, as well as between Serbian/Macedonian Cyrillic and other forms of Cyrillic, Interslavic has no official orthography, but uses a prototype orthography instead, which means that many phonemes can be written and pronounced in various ways. For example, the distinction between hard and soft consonants (t vs. ť, r vs. ŕ, etc.), characteristic for the West and East Slavic languages, it optional both in speaking and in writing. Because Interslavic is not an ethnic language, there are no severe rules regarding accentuation either.

What all varieties of Interslavic have in common is the following basic set of phonemes that can be found in all Slavic languages:

Apart from the basic alphabet above, other characters are used as well, usually carrying a diacritic, convey additional etymological information and linking directly to Proto-Slavic and Old Church Slavonic. Their usage is not mandatory. The purpose of these characters is threefold:

• they allow for a more precise pronunciation,
• because sound changes from Proto-Slavic tend to be regular in all Slavic languages, they can be linked to a particular phoneme in every individual Slavic language, thus enhancing comprehensability,
• by writing and/or pronouncing them in a different way, they can be used to manipulate the language in such way that it becomes more understandable for speakers of particular languages (in a process called "flavorization").

At last, the following ligatures can also be encountered in Interslavic:

Soft consonants

The consonants ľ, ń, ŕ, ť, ď, ś and ź are softened or palatalized counterparts of l, n, r, t, d, s and z. The latter may also be pronounced like their softened/palatalized equivalents before i, ě, ę and possibly before e. This pronunciation is not mandatory, though: they may as well be written and pronounced hard.

Soft consonants are normally represented by an acute or a haček, but other ways of writing are possible as well: nj, n’, etc. To avoid texts from becoming heavy on diacritics, it is recommended that before a vowel, soft consonants are written as a hard consonant followed by a j: nom. koń, gen. konja (instead of końa).

Morphology

Interslavic grammar is based on the greatest common denominator of that of the natural Slavic languages, and partly also a simplification thereof. It consists of elements that can be encountered in all or at least most of them.^[35]

Nouns

Interslavic is an inflecting language. Nouns can have three genders, two numbers (singular and plural), as well as six cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and locative). Since several Slavic languages also have a vocative, it is usually displayed in tables as well, even though strictly speaking the vocative is not a case. It occurs only in the singular of masculine and feminine nouns.

There is no article. The complicated system of noun classes in Slavic has been reduced to four or five declensions:

• masculine nouns (ending in a - usually hard - consonant): dom "house", mųž "man"
• feminine nouns ending in -a: žena "woman", zemja "earth"
• feminine nouns ending in a soft consonant: kosť "bone"
• neuter nouns ending in -o or -e: slovo "word", morje "sea"
• Old Church Slavonic also had a consonantal declension that in most Slavic languages merged into the remaining declensions. Some Interslavic projects and writers preserve this declension, which consists of nouns of all three genders, mostly neuters:
  • neuter nouns of the group -mę/-men-: imę/imene "name"
  • neuter nouns of the group -ę/-ęt- (children and young animals): telę/telęte "calf"
  • neuter nouns of the group -o/-es-: nebo/nebese "heaven"
  • masculine nouns of the group -en-: kameń/kamene "stone"
  • feminine nouns with the ending -òv: cŕkòv/cŕkve "church"
  • feminine nouns with the ending -i/-er-: mati/matere "mother"

Adjectives

Adjectives are always regular. They agree with the noun they modify in gender, case and number, and are usually placed before it. In the column with the masculine forms, the first relates to animate nouns, the second to inanimate nouns. A distinction is made between hard and soft stems, for example: dobry "good" and svěži "fresh":

Some writers do not distinguish between hard and soft adjectives. One can write dobrego instead of dobrogo, svěžogo instead of svěžego.

Comparison

The comparative is formed with the ending -(ěj)ši: slabši "weaker", pòlnějši "fuller". The superlative is formed by adding the prefix naj- to the comparative: najslabši "weakest". Comparatives can also be formed with the adverbs bolje or vyše "more", superlatives with the adverbs najbolje or najvyše "most".

Adverbs

An adjective can be turned into an adverb with the ending -o: dobro "well", svěžo "freshly". Comparatives and superlatives can be adverbialized with the ending -ěje: slaběje "weaker".

Pronouns

The personal pronouns are: ja "I", ty "you, thou", on "he", ona "she", ono "it", my "we", vy "you" (pl.), oni "they". When a personal pronoun of the third person is preceded by a preposition, n- is placed before it.

Other pronouns are inflected as adjectives:

• the possessive pronouns moj "my", tvoj "your, thy", naš "our", vaš "your" (pl.), svoj "my/your/his/her/our/their own", as well as čij "whose"
• the demonstrative pronouns toj "this, that", tutoj "this" and tamtoj "that"
• the relative pronoun ktory "which"
• the interrogative pronouns kto "who" and čto "what"
• the indefinite pronouns někto "somebody", něčto "something", nikto "nobody", ničto "nothing", ktokoli "whoever, anybody", čto-nebųď "whatever, anything", etc.

Numerals

The cardinal numbers 1–10 are: 1 - jedin/jedna/jedno, 2 - dva/dvě, 3 - tri, 4 - četyri, 5 - pęť, 6 - šesť, 7 - sedm, 8 - osm, 9 - devęť, 10 - desęť.

Higher numbers are formed by adding -nadsęť for the numbers 11-19, -desęt for the tens, -sto for the hundreds. Sometimes (but not always) the latter is inflected: dvasto/tristo/pęťsto and dvěstě/trista/pęťsòt are both correct.

The inflection of the cardinal numerals is shown in the following table. The numbers 5-99 are inflected either as nouns of the kosť type or as soft adjectives.

Ordinal numbers are formed by adding the adjective ending -y to the cardinal numbers, except in the case of pŕvy "first", drugi/vtory "second", tretji "third", četvŕty "fourth", stoty/sòtny "hundredth", tysęčny "thousandth".

Fractions are formed by adding the suffix -ina to ordinal numbers: tretjina "(one) third", četvŕtina "quarter", etc. The only exception is pol (polovina, polovica) "half".

Interslavic has other categories of numerals as well:

• collective numerals: dvoje "pair, duo, duet", troje, četvero..., etc.
• multiplicative numerals: jediny "single", dvojny "double", trojny, četverny..., etc.
• differential numerals: dvojaki "of two different kinds", trojaki, četveraki..., enz.

Verbs

Aspect

Like all Slavic languages, Interslavic verbs have grammatical aspect. A perfective verb indicates an action that has been or will be completed and therefore emphasizes the result of the action rather than its course. On the other hand, an imperfective verb focuses on the course or duration of the action, and is also used for expressing habits and repeating patterns.

Verbs without a prefix are usually imperfective. Most imperfective verbs have a perfective counterpart, which in most cases is formed by adding a prefix:
dělati ~ sdělati "to do"
čistiti ~ izčistiti "to clean"
pisati ~ napisati "to write"
Because prefixes are also used to change the meaning of a verb, "secundary" imperfective forms based on perfective verbs with a prefix are needed as well. These verbs are formed regularly:

• -ati becomes -yvati (e.g. zapisati ~ zapisyvati "to note, to register, to record", dokazati ~ dokazyvati "to prove")
• -iti become -jati (e.g. napraviti ~ napravjati "to lead", pozvoliti ~ pozvaljati "to allow", oprostiti ~ oprašćati "to simplify")

Some aspect pairs are irregular, for example nazvati ~ nazyvati "to name, to call", prijdti ~ prihoditi "to come", podjęti ~ podimati "to undertake".

Stems

The Slavic languages are notorious for their complicated conjugation patterns. To simply these, Interslavic has a system of two conjugations and two verbal stems. In most cases, knowing the infinitive is enough to establish both stems:

• the first stem is used for the infinitive, the past tense, the conditional mood, the past passive participle and the verbal noun. It is formed by removing the ending -ti from the infinitive: dělati "to do" > děla-, prositi "to require" > prosi-, nesti "to carry" > nes-. Verbs ending in -sti can also have their stem ending on t or d, f.ex. vesti > ved- "to lead", gnesti > gnet- "to crush".
• the second stem is used or the present tense, the imperative and the present active participle. In most cases both stems are identical, and in most of the remaining cases the second stem can be derived regularly from the first. In particular cases they have to be learned separately. In the present tense, a distinction is made between two conjugations:
  • the first conjugation includes almost all verbs that do not have the ending -iti, as well as monosyllabic verbs on -iti:
    • verbs on -ati have the stem -aj-: dělati "to do" > dělaj-
    • verbs on -ovati have the stem -uj-: kovati "to forge" > kuj-
    • verbs on -nųti have the stem -n-: tęgnųti "to pull, to draw" > tęgn-
    • monosyllabic verbs have -j-: piti "to drink" > pij-, čuti "to feel" > čuj-
    • the second stem is identical to the first stem if the latter ends in a consonant: nesti "to carry" > nes-, vesti "to lead" > ved-
  • the second conjugation includes all polysyllabic verbs on -iti and most verbs on -ěti: prositi "to require" > pros-i-, viděti "to see" > vid-i-

There are also mixed and irregular verbs, i.e. verbs with a second stem that cannot be derived regularly from the first stem, for example: pisati "to write" > piš-, spati "to sleep" > sp-i-, zvati "to call" > zov-, htěti "to want" > hoć-. In these cases both stem have to be learned separately.

Conjugation

The various moods and tenses are formed by means of the following endings:

• Present tense: -ų, -eš, -e, -emo, -ete, -ųt (first conjugation); -jų, -iš, -i, -imo, -ite, -ęt (second conjugation)
• Past tense – simple (as in Russian): m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li
• Past tense – complex (as in South Slavic):
  • Imperfect tense: -h, -še, -še, -hmo, -ste, -hų
  • Perfect tense: m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li + the present tense of byti "to be"
  • Pluperfect tense: m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li + the imperfect tense of byti
• Conditional: m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li + the conditional of byti
• Future tense: the future tense of byti + the infinitive
• Imperative: -Ø, -mo, -te after j, or -i, -imo, -ite after another consonant.

The forms with -l- in the past tense and the conditional are actually participles known as the L-participle. The remaining participles are formed as follows:

• Present active participle: -ųći (first conjugation), -ęći (second conjugation)
• Present passive participle: -omy/-emy (first conjugation), -imy (second conjugation)
• Past active participle: -vši after a vowel, or -ši after a consonant
• Past passive participle: -ny after a vowel, -eny after a consonant. Monosyllabic verbs (except for those on -ati) have -ty. Verbs on -iti have the ending -jeny.

The verbal noun is based on the past passive participle, replacing the ending -ny/-ty with -nje/-tje.

Examples

Whenever the stem of a verbs of the second conjugation ends in s, z, t, d, st or zd, an ending starting -j causes the following mutations:

• prositi "to require": pros-jų > prošų, pros-jeny > prošeny
• voziti "to transport": voz-jų > vožų, voz-jeny > voženy
• tratiti "to lose": trat-jų > traćų, trat-jeny > traćeny
• slěditi "to follow": slěd-jų > slědžų, slěd-jeny > slědženy
• čistiti "to clean": čist-jų > čišćų, čist-jeny > čišćeny
• jezditi "to go (by transport)": jezd-jų > ježdžų, jezd-jeny > ježdženy

Alternative forms

Because Interslavic is not a highly formalized language, a lot of variation occurs between various forms. Often used are the following alternative forms:

• In the first conjugation, -aje- is often reduced to -a-: ty dělaš, on děla etc.
• Instead of the 1st person singular ending -(j)ų, the ending -(e)m is sometimes used as well: ja dělam, ja hvalim, ja nesem.
• Instead of -mo in the 1st person plural, -me can be used as well: my děla(je)me, my hvalime.
• Instead of -hmo in the imperfect tense, -smo and the more archaic -hom can be used as well.
• Instead of the conjugated forms of byti in the conditional (byh, bys etc.), by is often used as a particle: ja by pisal(a), ty by pisal(a) etc.
• Verbal nouns can have the ending -ije instead of -je: dělanije, hvaljenije.

Irregular verbs

A few verbs have an irregular conjugation:

• byti "to be" has jesm, jesi, jest, jesmo, jeste, sųt in the present tense, běh, běše... in the imperfect tense, and bųdų, bųdeš... in the future
• dati "to give", jěsti "to eat" and věděti "to know" have the following present tense: dam, daš, da, damo, date, dadųt; jem, ješ...; věm, věš...
• idti "to go by foot, to walk" has an irregular L-participle: šel, šla, šlo, šli.

Vocabulary

Words in Interslavic are based on comparison of the vocabulary of the modern Slavic languages. For this purpose, the latter are subdivided into six groups:

• Russian
• Ukrainian and Belarusian
• Polish
• Czech and Slovak
• Slovene, Croat, Serbian
• Bulgarian and Macedonian

These groups are treated equally. Interslavic vocabulary has been compiled in such way that words are understandable to a maximum number of Slavic speakers. The form in which a chosen word is adopted depends not only on its frequency in the modern Slavic languages, but also on the inner logic of Interslavic, as well as its form in Proto-Slavic: to ensure coherence, a system of regular derivation is applied.^[36]

Example

The Pater Noster:

See also

• Pan-Slavic language
• Zonal constructed languages

References

External links

• Interslavic
• Interslavic news site
• Interslavic Wiki