Developed to help with language barriers in Austria-Hungary, Army Slav was a rump language consisting of about eighty key words. It was in use until the end of the Great War.
Part of the reason for the existence of this specialized language was the fact that while German was the official language, half of the soldiery was called from areas that spoke various Slavic languages. In all, there were eleven different official languages and many more dialects to contend with. While efforts were made to keep soldiers grouped according to language, mixed language units still occurred.
English: This is the most expensive dress in her closet.
Croatian: Ovo je najskuplja haljina u njenom ormaru.
Slovene: To je najdraľja obleka v njeni omari.
Russian: Это самое дорогое платье в её шкафу.
Slovio: Tut es nai-dragoju odev v onai kabinet.
The idea of Army Slav made me think about a language for Austrian Slavic civilians. Here it is:
Just like Interlingua has four source languages and uses the Latin word if at least three source languages don't agree, Austroslawisch uses the German word if at least three source languages don't agree. The source languages are:
- east Slavic (Ruthenian/Ukrainian - 8% of A-H inhabitants)
- Polish (10% of A-H inhabitants)
- Czech-Slovak (13%+4% = 17% of A-H inhabitants)
- south Slavic (Croatian+Serbian+Slovenian = 5%+4%+3% = 12% of A-H inhabitants)
If the German word obviously agrees with the Slavic one, the German form is used (Ungarn, logisch, ideal).
The orthography is basically German. Even if the source languages agreed on the Latin alphabet (which they don't, it has only 2,5 votes), the Slavic Latins are not less different from one another than they are different from German.
The alphabet for Slavic words is: a, b, d, e, f, g (in foreign words only), gy (soft d, a Hungarian loan), h (Slovianski g), ch (Slovianski h), i (also stands for [j] in most cases), ie (yat, spelled as in Polish/Slovak but pronounced as in Ukrainian/Czech/Ikavian), j (only at the beginning of the word, or after "i" before a consonant), k, l, ly (a Hungarian-like imitation of soft l), m, n, ny (soft n, a Hungarian loan), o, p, r, rz (soft r, a Polish loan), s (Slovianski z), ss (Slovianski s), st (Slovianski szcz, proncounced /szt/ as in German), t, tsch (Slovianski cz), ty (soft t, a Hungarian loan), u, w (Slovianski v), z (Slovianski c), zs (Slovianski z', a Hungarian loan).
German words retain the original orthography and pronunciation. An umlaut may be replaced by following "e".
Both Slavic and German nouns are declined. German nouns ending in -i or -u are indeclinable, German nouns ending in -o are declined like Slavic neuter nouns. Other masculine and neuter German nouns are declined like Slavic masculine nouns, German feminine nouns are given the -a ending and declined like Slavic feminine nouns. All nouns are capitalised, just like in German.
Adjectives are not declined. Slavic adjectives are used in the masculine singular short form (to end in a consonant, just like German adjectives). Adverbs are not differentiated from adjectives. Comparison words: mehr (comparative), meist (superlative).
Verb infinitives end in -ty. German verbs are transformed into Slavic by replacing -en with -aty. Present tense conjugation: -m, -sch, -0, -mo, -te, -ju. Verbs tend to be placed at the end of the sentence.
Sound laws: draha, hlawa, breh, trh, dolh.
Example:
Sto Austroslawisch je? Austroslawisch now medsunaroden Jasik je, ktor tridssety million Lyudi w ziel Austro-Ungarnu rosumieju. Wi Austroslawisch fuer Howorenie ss tridssety million Slawami uzsity mozsete od Bruenna do Tschernowitza; od Lemberga pres Agram do Sarajewa; od Weichseli i od Dnjestra do Adrii. Austroslawisch prost, logisch Grammatiku ma i Austroslawisch ideal Jasik fuer Narodi Kaisera Karla je. Utschijte sse Austroslawisch jetzt!
Oh, what a nostalgy. Why the hell did we break up the Empire?
Great idea. Really great. There some things I don't agree with though.
Your voting system is anachronic -- there could be no four equal votes. Obviously the language would be most heavily influenced by Czech, since the Czech was considered the most "civilized" Slavic language of the Empire. Slovak would be ignored, since it was nothing else but misspelled Czech. Ukrainian was an "illiterate language" and obviously would be ignored too. Of the South Slavic languages the only seriously considered would be Ijekavski Serbo-Croatian. (In fact I believe Ijekavski would be an important source of inspiration for the language, since it's largely is an artificial langauge too.) So there would be just three votes: Czech, Polish, and Ijekavski -- for the three Slavic well developed languages of that time. The feature present in two of them wins. When there is no winner, the feature is taken from German. When a Slavic feature exists in several variants, the Czech one is prefered, except the cases when it's over-voted by both Polish and Ijekavski.
The name of the language is wrong. It sounds too much like Austro-Hungarian, and therefore would be perceived as "Austrian and Slavic", instead "Austrian Slavic". I suggest something like "Reichsslawisch", a good bureaucratic term Germans like so much.
It's good idea to make the language completely compatible with German spelling. And yet I see no reason why it would have been ASCII'ized -- there were no computers in Austro-Hungary, and carons were as good as digraphs. It's okay to use diacritics for non-German sounds. I suggest to use š for /z'/ sound (since s is used for /z/ sound). For the rule for st don't forget that it works in word beginnings only, and doesn't work with words like prost. Back then gy co-existed with alternative digraph dy, and the latter obviously would be chosen for the Slavic language. For /s/ sound we could use the ligature ß. Considering all the above, the digraph rz looks too weird, it should be either ry or ř. You should also add a rule, that the consonants d, t, l, n are considered soft when followed by i (You aren't going to spell nyich, are you?).
Don't forget that the language most likely would be based on "Deutsches Alphabet" (Fraktur typeface).
Another graphic suggestion: most western languages don't tolerate "lonesome i" word. They usually sustitute it either with uppercase version of the latter (like in English pronoun I), or with the letter y (like in Spanish and French). I suggest to use the second method for Reichsslawisch.
Why you think adjectives shouldn't decline? Anyway, short adjectives look really bad when they are flat, i.e. have no endings at all. I suggest a rule: when an adjective does not have an adjective suffix (like -isch in slawisch or -en in tscherwen) it should take the suffix -e: nowe.
There should be no words consisting of just one consonant. Words like that should take schwa sound (spelled -e).
medsunaroden -- why you spell it with /z/ sound? Sarajeva -- same. Dnjestra -- should be Dniestra I believe (or Dnyestra?).
To distinguish pronunsiation of words like Slav and zlo you have to spell Sslaw.
I don't like your word order. I would prefer something more SVO-like.
Hellerick, so far I thought you are intelligent guy but I was mistaken - you are IDIOT x 1000 !
Who, the fucking wanker, told you that : " ... since it was nothing else but misspelled Czech....
- Slovak langauge is as old as Czech and ther were no more meanings in czech language than in slovak.
Remember one important think ! - Slovak langauge is NOT "misspelled Czech" and it's NOT any
czech dialect or like that.
...So there would be just three votes: Czech, Polish, and Ijekavski -- for the three Slavic well developed languages of that time...
- What do you consider for "well developed language" ?
Or I ask you other way : " what do you think Czech, Polish and Ijkavski have so special tha can be
considered "well developed languages of the time" ???
What do these 3 languages more comparing to other slavic languages ?
( but please keep facts - don't think out some stupidities ! )
I suggest something like "Reichsslawisch", ... It's good idea to make the language completely compatible with German spelling...."Deutsches Alphabet" (Fraktur typeface).
- I think your are some kind nazi or nazi german fanatic, like Gabriel Svoboda ( Gabriel von Freiheit).
What the fucking country are you from ? I bet you are not of slavic origin (Your name says that, too.
You fucking bastard, what do you think by " Reichsslawisch " ?
Or do you think the Slavs are some nazi-fuckers ???!!!
Everybody here knows that Herr Gabriel is a Reichsdeutscher.
Gabriel pisal:
Both Slavic and German nouns are declined. German nouns ending in -i or -u are indeclinable, German nouns ending in -o are declined like Slavic neuter nouns...
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Maybe I am an ignorant concerning the German language, but, Herr Reichsdeutscher, could you please name us some German nouns ending with -o, -i and u? No Lehnswoerter please, like Libido, Harakiri and Guru.
Do you know what Alternative history is? Personally I like it very much. To develop alternative history you have to be able to think like a quite different person, a person who lives in quite different time and place. When I wrote the text above I was trying tp think like an Austrian of early 1900s. In the alternative history line of Reichsslawisch, the Greater Austria was transformed from Dual Empire into Triple Empire, something like Austro-Hungaro-Slavia (I think "Danubian Triple Monarchy" would be a proper name). In this alternative history it was decided that Slavs should become third ethnic elite class of the Empire, along with Germans and Hungarians -- and this newly emerging elite needs a language of their own.
Slovak langauge is as old as Czech and ther were no more meanings in czech language than in slovak
All the contemporary natural languages are equally old. But believe me there were much more meanings in Czech than in Slovak. Currently Slovak language is one of the official languages of EU, which means that most official documents have to be translated into Slovak, but 100 years ago the situation was quite different. Was it possible to get proper education in Slovak? Were there court trials held in Slovak? Were there any books on algebra or geology in Slovak? In fact I'm not sure if there were any okay Slovak schools at least. There was huge number topics never cover by Slovak language, and obviously it lacked of proper terminology in them. Slovaks like to tell how they were mistreated in Austro-Hungary, but who told you that introduction of common Austrian Slavic language was going to change that? Overwhelming majority of educated population of Slovakia spoke different languages: Hungarian, German, Czech, Polish -- anything but Slovak. Slovak remained the language of uneducated peasants -- why you think the creators of Reichsslawisch would care about them? It's discrimanation? Yup. Austro-Hungary is supposed to be discriminating otherwise it wouldn't be real Austro-Hungary.
Similar logic may be applied to Ukrainian. There was a small region were Ukrainian historically was the language of local elite ("Right Bank Ukraine"), but it was within Russian Empire at the time, and wouldn't matter for Austria.
Heck, even Russian wasn't well developed back them. I work with some 19th century books, and I can tell that in the science the Russian was a secondary language. The authors often had to refere to foreign terminology and books in German, French, and English. Maybe it was good for writing fiction literature, but it obviously was less developed than major Western European languages.
You don't like the name "Reichsslawisch"? Just because it's "Reich" of what? Don't forget that "The Third Reich" hadn't happened yet, and most likely wouldn't happen in that history line. It sounds bureaucratic, but not fascist. This term would be used along with "Reichsdeutsch" -- standard variant of the German language ("Hochdeutsch") accepted in the Empire.
You don't like "complete compatiblity with German spelling"? Most languages of the Soviet Union had complete compability with Russian spelling, which meant that all the borrowings from Russian kept their original orthography -- this fact influenced the orthography of "Minor Soviet Languages" very much, making it similar to Russian even when if it meant making it clumsy. I thought it would be quite natural to use the same policy for Austria as well. The same goes for "Deutsches Alphabet" -- in 1930s most Soviet languages were made to use Cyrillic script.
I wasn't trying to be fair or democratic, all I cared about was historical credibility.
And about where am I from... I'm ethnically Russian. Russian is the only language I can speak. My name is perfectly Russian. I live in Siberia, I never left Siberia since 1995, and have no desire to leave it ever. I'm proud citizen of the greatest region of the coolest country on the earth.
"Danubian Triple Monarchy" - there was NOTHING lke this in A-H Monarchy. Do you know why ?
Neither Austrians nor Hungarians recognized any Slavs as "equal to them".
(sorry guy, you are either so young or unexperienced in what was like in A-H Monarchy. I discussed this theme with people who lived in that time and nothing can change their personal experiences)
Was it possible to get proper education in Slovak?
Of course, there were several oportunities to "get proper education" in Slovakia since 1465 (Academia Istropolitana in Bratislava)and some other followed.
iopq, you must be the same historical idiot as hellerick. You shit know what was in Slovakia and you are talking about it.
I would propose to you (if you want to talk about Slovakia) read old books and historical and scientifical documentations about it.
Only stupid idiot can write about something that is not absolutely familiar.
"Danubian Triple Monarchy" - there was NOTHING lke this in A-H Monarchy. Do you know why ?
Neither Austrians nor Hungarians recognized any Slavs as "equal to them".
(sorry guy, you are either so young or unexperienced in what was like in A-H Monarchy. I discussed this theme with people who lived in that time and nothing can change their personal experiences)
What Hellerick wrote about was the alternative history, whose divergence point from our history was just the fact that Austrians and Hungarians started to recognise Slavs as equal to them, creating a triple monarchy.
Was it possible to get proper education in Slovak?
Of course, there were several oportunities to "get proper education" in Slovakia since 1465 (Academia Istropolitana in Bratislava)and some other followed.
I am a stupid idiot that is not absolutely familiar with this issue, but Academia Istropolitana only lasted till 1490, and if there was some university in Pressburg at the beginning of the 20th century, I bet it wasn't a Slovak language one.
Hellerick pisal:
All the contemporary natural languages are equally old.
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Repeating this nonsense again and again does not make it "trueer"! All Creol languages or English and Afrikaans for example are very young languages.
You cannot take what is based on - e.g. indonesian language consists of (or was influenced by) Sanskrit, Tamil, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch and English, namely regular quite old official languages but indonesian state language is just couple of decades years old.
Well, it official state language and is just couple of years old.
Igor/Hellerick pisal:
Creoles are based on two equally old languages.
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now I do understand you. You are a believer of the bible ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel ). Otherwise it is wrong what you are saying: English e.g. was a Creol language based on many languages which where not at all equally old.
Latin e.g. is by far older than French
Many thanks for your ideas, Hellerick. Really great. I agree with most of them.
I suggest to use š for /z'/ sound (since s is used for /z/ sound).
I'd still prefer zs - it's attested in Hungarian. The spelling doesn't have to be absolutely consistent. As both German and Hungarian were the leading languages in Austria-Hungary, let the Hungarian feature be used if the German one is not desired/available.
But otherwise I agree with you:
a, b, d, dy, e, f, h, ch, i, ie, j, k, l, ly, m, n, ny, o, p, r, ry, s, sch, st, ß, t, tsch, ty, u, w, z, zs
German and foreign only letters: ä, c, g, ö, ü, q, v, x, y
Unlike German, Reichsslawisch will often need an uppercase ß at the beginning of the word. Because of the origin of ß, I suggest to use Sz for this puprpose: Sziekira seems to look better than Ssiekira or ßiekira.
You should also add a rule, that the consonants d, t, l, n are considered soft when followed by i (You aren't going to spell nyich, are you?).
Yes, I'm not.
Don't forget that the language most likely would be based on "Deutsches Alphabet" (Fraktur typeface).
Yes. I should probably learn it.
Another graphic suggestion: most western languages don't tolerate "lonesome i" word. They usually sustitute it either with uppercase version of the latter (like in English pronoun I), or with the letter y (like in Spanish and French). I suggest to use the second method for Reichsslawisch.
...
There should be no words consisting of just one consonant. Words like that should take schwa sound (spelled -e).
Such undesired words could just be replaced with their German equivalents: i > und, k > zu, ß > mit, w > in.
Why you think adjectives shouldn't decline?
You know ... Reichsslawisch is a fiction, but Reichspolnisch, Reichstschechisch, Reichsserbokroatisch etc. were a reality to some degree. Till now, if we use a German loan noun, we give it a Czech ending and normally decline it. But we don't touch German loan adjectives, such as echt or heiß (spelled hajs). I can't imagine how German adjectives could be made Slavic - "echti"? "Reichsslawischi"? Sounds weird.
Anyway, short adjectives look really bad when they are flat, i.e. have no endings at all. I suggest a rule: when an adjective does not have an adjective suffix (like -isch in slawisch or -en in tscherwen) it should take the suffix -e: nowe.
Good.
medsunaroden -- why you spell it with /z/ sound?
Slovianski [dz'] is reflected [dz] in Polish, [z] in Czech, [dz'] in Serbo-Croatian, so [dz] is the most middle form.
Sarajeva -- same.
Dnjestra -- should be Dniestra I believe (or Dnyestra?).
To distinguish pronunsiation of words like Slav and zlo you have to spell Sslaw.
I use proper names and international words in the German form, because it's useless to Germanise from Slavic again what already has a traditional German form: hence Sarajewo, Dnjestr, Brünn, Tschernowitz, Lemberg, Agram, Slaw, Ungarn, logisch, ideal.
I don't like your word order. I would prefer something more SVO-like.
OK. Verb-always-last is more German than German itself. But we could use it in relative clauses at least. When elites started to speak Czech, they also just translated their German-language thoughts word-by-word.
Of course, there were several oportunities to "get proper education" in Slovakia since 1465 (Academia Istropolitana in Bratislava)
Academia Istropolitana was founded by Hungarians, and its working language obviously was Latin. I'm sure there were other educational institutions later, the point is they had nothing to do with Slovak language.
"Danubian Triple Monarchy" - there was NOTHING lke this in A-H Monarchy.
-Academia Istropolitana was founded by Hungarians, and its working language obviously was Latin. I'm sure there were other educational institutions later, the point is they had nothing to do with Slovak language-
Who told you that nonsense ? - stupid Magyars ? That came to Pannonia (Great Moravia territory) from
the stepes behind the Ural Mountain ?
(and as to that language at Academia Istropolitana - I don't know the old university in western or central Europe that wouldn't have used latin language as one of languages of scholars).
Where do you have such nonsenses, what you are writing, from ?
- If I were Christian I would say that most languages are equally old, but Hebrew is the oldest one - because it was spoken by Adam and Eve.
hellerick, you must be pretty naive person. Where it si proven that some Adam and Eve spoken hebrew and that hebrew is the oldest language. And moreover - if there was any Adam and Eve.
I think these 2 persons had lived before Lucy from Ethiopia and before Homo Neandertalis or Cromagnon or even before Homo Pekiniensis because otherwise they had to come from one of these.
You are either some emigrated jew or some kind of a naive teenager.
According to Slovak Wikipedia the university was "založená Matejom Korvínom", who "bol v rokoch 1458 až 1490 uhorský kráľ". Yeah, stupid Magyars who came from
the steppes behind the Ural Mountains have founded the first university in Slovakia.
I don't know the old university in western or central Europe that wouldn't have used latin language as one of languages of scholars
Yep. That's why you can't use the fact of the existence of the universities to prove that well developed national languages existed as well.
hellerick, you must be pretty naive person. Where it si proven that some Adam and Eve spoken hebrew and that hebrew is the oldest language. And moreover - if there was any Adam and Eve.
The expression "If I were Christian" emplies that I'm not Christian -- I hoped you'd understand that.
Of course it's very unilikely that there was an event that could be defined as "beginning of the languages". Even chimpanzees are able to produce some meaningful sounds (like "yum-yum"), and the evolution of the language most likely was very slow and gradual. But still all the contemporary languages evolved from the same source (the Yum-yum language) and therefore are equally old. Not to mention that today's scientists claim that not too long ago there existed a small community of humans all the contemporary mankind are descendents of. They were on a relatively high level of communicative abilites, and obviously spoke the same "language". In theory even Esperanto is not a new language. Only the a priori artificial languages can be considered truly new.
You are either some emigrated jew or some kind of a naive teenager.
When I told about Adam and Eve I was refering to a medieval Armenian scholar who stated that all the contemporary languages had been derived from Ancient Hebraic (I'm sorry, I can't remember his name). Back then it was commonly accepted idea that Hebrew is the "original language" unaffected by the "tower-building". That's why it was considered a sacred language (and still is considered by many mysticians).
By the way, French is not a younger language than Latin, it's a Latin dialect
it descended DIRECTLY from Latin
Latin is basically Old Old Old French = Old Old Old Italian
I think it is high time that Igor will be our new Eulenspiegel, for his latest Gabrielogik is really fantastic:
Igor pisal:
By the way, French is not a younger language than Latin, it's a Latin dialect
it descended DIRECTLY from Latin
Latin is basically Old Old Old French = Old Old Old Italian
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If French is directly DESCENDED from Latin, than Latin is logically older than French. Or do you want to tell us, Igor, that you are as old as your father?
---
Matej Korvín alebo Matej I. (po rumunsky Matei Corvin; po maďarsky Hunyadi Mátyás alebo len Mátyás király; * 23. február 1440 Kluž – 6. apríl 1490, Viedeň) bol v rokoch 1458 až 1490 uhorský kráľ, od roku 1486 rakúský vojvoda a od roku 1469 si nárokoval i titul českého kráľa.
It was founded in 1465 by Pope Paul II on the request of King Matthias Corvinus.
...When I told about Adam and Eve I was refering to a medieval Armenian scholar who stated that all the contemporary languages had been derived from Ancient Hebraic (I'm sorry, I can't remember his name). Back then it was commonly accepted idea that Hebrew is the "original language" unaffected by the "tower-building". That's why it was considered a sacred language (and still is considered by many mysticians)....
This theory is nowhere scientifically proved so it can be considered a saga or myth.
Old Testament is just a part of history (sometimes rewritten or contorted facts.
Or do you believe that somebody could live 800 years ?
Some facts in Old Testament might be partly true but fabricated saga about Adam and Eve and just one language is just a fable of the Jews.
Hellerick, heir apparent of the throne of Eulenspiegel:
But still all the contemporary languages evolved from the same source (the Yum-yum language) and therefore are equally old.
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According to your Gabrielogik we and everything existing now, are children of the "big bang". What is in fact true! but the big bang brought to us something very important, i.e. TIME!
And according to time some languages are older than others. And a creole language like e.g. English is a new language and not at all old, old Anglo-Saxon!
If you melt copper and tin and mix them you will create a totally different metal with different properties, namely bronze!
Dialects of a standard language like n. pr. Latin are far older than the standard language itself, this is not my opinion, it is just historical truth! Not only therefore French or Spanish n.pr. are creole languages of Latin dialects and languages of the people this Romans occupied.
I'm not talking about the standard Latin language, I'm talking about the set of dialects refered to as Latin, the conversational Latin, Vulgar Latin
French is part of the Vulgar Latin dialects
names for languages don't change the historic truth that the people in France have all been speaking Vulgar Latin since the Roman Empire conquered them and HAVE NEVER STOPPED
the name of the language French only comes after THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES started calling themselves French and their language French
The Gauls spoke one of the Celtic language dialects - not latin and even not french.
During Iulius Caesar's conquest on the Gauls territory those Gauls didn't speak french language - they spoke celtic dialect of present day Bretagne where this langauge is still preserved but slowly extincting.
When the Gauls were defeated by Caesar, they adopted latina vulgata and mixed it with original
celtic language and after that some kind of the French language started to arise (after 52 BC).
iopq, nobody can say that as we almost do not know much about the Celts.
Latin comes from one Appenine tribes called Italics and Etruscans - their langauges are considered celtic that were influenced by greek language and all together the latin language was created.
So these languages are absolutely not the same age.
Nasx Eulenspiegel iopq imat problem so logik.
Jazik "A" i jazik "B" mozxil but odnakju straszenstvo, no ne mozil but. Ale misxanka od A i B es OCXVIDUO bolsx mlodju nizx A i B.
Well, we can have various degrees of Slavicity and Germanity. The most Slavic variant would have two classes of adjectives (declined Slavic adjectives, indeclinable German ones - quite similar to English, where Germanic adjectives are compared in Germanic way, while Romance adjectives remain untouched, being compared by additional words), keep monoconsonant words (if they are OK for Slavic, they are OK for Reichsslawisch) and take international words from Slavic. Then of course, the self-name of the language would not be Reichsslawisch, but Reschßkoszlowanßki.
A creole of two languages is as old as the oldest language of the creole. There is no set way of counting language age because it's a stupid exercise anyway.
Languages can't be old and young, but they can be "archaic" and "innovative". These terms don't describe the languages' age, but describe their stablilty. German is more archaic than English, but less archaic than Icelandic; Lithuanian is more archaic than Latvian; Bulgarian is more innovative than most Slavic languages -- but all of them are equally old.
Forget Iopq and Hellerick, they are beyond hope. They are unable to grasp that time is changing everything also language.
They are unable to understand that "mixing" two or more languages will lead to a new language.
You don't seem to understand that languages don't have age. This conversation is pointless, languages don't age, they just change.
Your point that "new" languages are simpler is just retarded. Creoles are simple and by your definition creoles are the youngest languages. Why don't you just say that creoles are simple? Since you don't seem to have any other definition of a "young" or "new" language. Certainly, new artificial languages don't have to be simple. American Sign Language is also very complex.
You have not argumented your main point well. Neither is it true.
