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Does the Russian language have more innovations and divergent development from other languages in the Slavic branch?

I am asking, because I always had the feeling, that the tense and pronunciation in Russian is very distinct from its other Slavic counterparts. I also notice, that unlike other Slavic languages, Russian has a lot of vowels, whereas ones like Polish or Serbo-Croatian are defined by heavy consonant clusters. Moloko versus mleko, golova versus glava, etc.

Comparing verbs and nouns between Slavic tongues:

Czech - Slovak - Polish - Slovenian - Serbo-Croatian - Bulgarian - Ukrainan/Belarusian - Russian

Think:

misliet - misliet - misliec - misliti - misliti - mislityi - mislyati - dumat

Do:

robit - robit - zrobriti - robiti - raditi - naprati - rabit - rabitsi - delat

I have:

mam - mam - mam - ja imam - ja imam - az imam - ja imayu - u menya est

Forty:

chitrideset - chitredest - chitrydisy - chetridesit - chetrdeset - chetryadeset - chitredesyat - sorok

Question:

pitanie - pitanie - pytanie - pitani - pitanje - pitanja - zapytanie - vopros

Happen:

stati - stati - zdarit - zdariti - desiti - slachiti - statisti - proisyodoti

Thank You:

dekuji - dakujem - diekuje - hvala - hvala - diekuya - dyakuyu - spasibo

Eyes:

oci - oci - oci - oci - oci - oci - oci - glaza

Tie:

kravata - kravata - krawata - kravati - kravata - kravata - kravaty - galstuk

World:

svet - svet - swiat - svet - svet - svet - swiet - mir

Good:

dobry - dobry - dobry - dobre - dobro - dobre - dobri - dobru - horosho

Maybe it's just my bias, but I'm noticing countless examples whereas the Russian term is completely different whereas in other Slavic languages the terms are intelligible.

Oftentimes, when I read Russian, a lot more words stick out to me as unusual compared to other Slavic scripts, such as the word "something" which in the other languages is either "nesto" or "c/shos" but in Russian it's "chto-nibud". This is just a random instance of the completely alien inventory of Russian vocabulary.

The features of Russian seem very divergent from other Slavic tongues. When I compare Polish to South Slavic tongues, as well as to Ukrainian and Belarusian, they all seem to share more overlap with each particularly in the intonation, verb conjugation, and nouns whereas Russian has been very isolated in this regard. The anomalies that I find in Russian texts are unlike anything Slavic and they stick out to me as very diverged and weird.

If I even take a random sentence like "what is going on in the world":

Slovenian: ka se degava po svetu

Bulgarian: kako desvata na svetu

Ukrainian: sho se diyetsava po svietu

Russian: chto proiskhodit v mire

If I just type a random sentence on translate, and compare many Slavic languages to how they say it, the Russian sentence is evidently unique in its construction and features compared to the others. There is something about the Russian phrasing that is off compared to the others.

Tristan
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Zlar Vixen
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  • See also this question and its answers: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q/17400/9781 – Russian seems to be somewhat different from the rest of Slavic languages, but does not look like an outlier. – Sir Cornflakes May 26 '23 at 10:36
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    with the examples of moloko & golova it's worth noting that this is actually common to all of East Slavic, not specific to Russian. It's also not a sign that East Slavic is more divergent, as both East Slavic olo and West & South lV result from earlier Vl through Slavic Liquid Metathesis & Pleophony (which occurred around the 8th/9th centuries). In each case the result is an innovation, and it's not clear that inserting an echo vowel is more significant an innovation than swapping the location of the vowel and liquid – Tristan May 26 '23 at 10:45
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    I’ve formatted your examples in a table, because they were impossible to get an overview of. But you had too many words in two lines (eight languages, but nine word forms for ‘do’ and ‘good’). Since I don’t actually speak any Slavic languages, I used Google Translate to see if I could figure out which words were superfluous, but virtually none of your examples matched up with the language they were supposed to be, so I couldn’t make much sense of it and ended up just removing a word randomly. You should check those. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '23 at 11:45
  • @JanusBahsJacquet whilst I agree that reformatting the question is good, I've rolled your changes back as removing a word essentially at random makes meaningful changes to the question asked beyond merely improving the formatting, and risks making information even less accurate. Hopefully someone else will be able to verify the sample words and which language they belong to. Once that's been done it can be reformated – Tristan May 26 '23 at 12:13
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    You absolutely with the same meaning can say in Russian "chto proiskhodit na svete" or even (a bit more awkward) "chto delayetsa na svete" – Anixx May 26 '23 at 13:52
  • On quite a few lines, the first word is either not Czech at all, badly misspelled, or an unusal way to express the given English word. – Angew is no longer proud of SO May 26 '23 at 17:26
  • "proisyodoti" - no such word in Russian. There is "proizoyti" – Anixx May 26 '23 at 17:44
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    @Tristan Given the later comments, I think the underlying issue (apart from the number of forms being wrong) is that a lot of the data given are quite simply wrong. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '23 at 20:11
  • correct data – ngn May 27 '23 at 01:13
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    Your Bulgarian word for "thanks" looks very iffy - the most common word is благодаря followed by мерси (obvious French borrowing). I've never heard what you wrote used in Bulgaria, it may exist but it's probably not common. Note that Russian has благодарю as a formal variant of спасибо. – Denis Nardin May 27 '23 at 08:37
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    The Bulgarian sentence in the last table is nowhere near to modern Bulgarian. While understandable for most Bulgarians, it is from somewhere west from Bulgaria - maybe Serbia or Macedonia? – fraxinus May 27 '23 at 10:31
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    You may want to state what kind of divergence we talk about. E.g. Bulgarian formally has no gramatical cases anymore. Other Slavic languages do have them. – fraxinus May 27 '23 at 10:33
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    As a native Czech speaker, I can say that your Czech is quite bad. For example, we do not say “robit” in normal speech, we say “dělat” instead (compare with Russian!). – jiwopene May 27 '23 at 12:14
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    And “question” in Czech is “otázka”. – jiwopene May 27 '23 at 12:15
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    I’m voting to close this question because it is based on false data, without which the question is meaningless. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 27 '23 at 18:03
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    I’m voting to close this question because fellow users who are fluent in the languages in question identified some of the data cited as dubious or inaccurate. – James Grossmann May 28 '23 at 16:25

3 Answers3

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Your question shows that you are unfamiliar with both Russian and other slavic languages. To add to Anixx's answer:

Think:
misliet - misliet - misliec - misliti - misliti - mislityi - mislyati - dumat

Dumat' == think casually, Myslit' == think deeply. It's the same in other Slavic languages, e.g. in Polish, the equivalent is dumać. So in Russian, you can myslit' or dumat', and in Polish you can mysliech or dumach(changed spellings to match phonetics in English)

Do:

robit - robit - zrobriti - robiti - raditi - naprati - rabit - rabitsi - delat

Doesn't actually mean "do" as an English, but more like to "do something useful/do work". So in Russian rаbota is work and in Polish it's robota

I have:

mam - mam - mam - ja imam - ja imam - az imam - ja imayu - u menya est

In Russian, imet' == to have(ownership of). Saying imet' about something you don't own is vulgar, because of it's slang meaning of "to fuck" when applied to another person. Kinda like the English "owned" in "I owned Bob in tennis", but in English it's not sexual.

Forty:

chitrideset - chitredest - chitrydisy - chetridesit - chetrdeset - chetryadeset - chitredesyat - sorok

In Russian chetyredesyat' == four-ten. A sorok in Old Slavic is a short fur coat, which takes about 40 marten skins to make. So a sorok was a bundle of 40 marten skins, used a standard package size in the fur trade. The fur trade was waaaay more important in Russia due to geography, so the slang sorok for 40 stuck in Russian. The other numbers follow the normal pattern, so e.g 30 is tritsat' three-ten, 50 is pyat'desyat' five-ten, etc

Happen:

stati - stati - zdarit - zdariti - desiti - slachiti - statisti - proisyodoti

stat' == to finish happening, for a long-duration event. E.g. "if I complete 4 years of uni, I can stat' a graduate", or "A cattapillar can stat' a butterfly, in its cocoon". Proizoyti(no idea where you got proisyodoti from) referes to the happening of a short duration/instantaneous event.

Thank You:

dekuji - dakujem - diekuje - hvala - hvala - diekuya - dyakuyu - spasibo

Spasibo is an abbreviation of Spasi tebya Bog == Preserve you God == May God Preserve you. In the languages where it's hvala(praise), it's an abbreviation of "Praise be to God". Dziekuje and all of it's variants comes from Polish, where it's a contraction of the Latin(because Poles were very Catholic) "Deo gratias facere" = "thanks be to god"(so for thank you, the variants of Dziekuje, are the diverged ones, since it's from another language) The English equivalent is goodbye == "God be with ye".

Eyes:

oci - oci - oci - oci - oci - oci - oci - glaza

Nothing to add, it's ochi in Russian.

Tie:

kravata - kravata - krawata - kravati - kravata - kravata - kravaty - galstuk

Where each nation enecountered it first. Russians first encountered it in Holland, with Peter the Great's trade mission, so they borrowed the Dutch halsdoek. The rest encountered French cravats first.

World:

svet - svet - swiat - svet - svet - svet - swiet - mir

In Russian, originally, svet == God's world, mir == secular world. Used interchangeably now.

Good:

dobry - dobry - dobry - dobre - dobro - dobre - dobri - dobru - horosho

Dobro == big Good, as in Good and Evil, horosho == small good, as in I'm feeling good after a tasty meal.

And as Anixx pointed out in a comment(not the answer), kako desvata na svetu == chto delayetsa na svete. Kak delayetsa na svete is valid Russian, but Kak means how, instead of what in Russian.

Eugene
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  • "stat' == to finish happening" - hmm, stat' is "to become" – Anixx May 26 '23 at 17:07
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    "Kak means why, instead of how in Russian." - wrong, kak means "how" in Russian. Never means "why" – Anixx May 26 '23 at 17:13
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    @Anixx chetyre == 4, desyat` == 10, so chetyredesyat' == fourten, what's the problem? I'm not saying it's a real word, just that's how it would be constructed if needed. Also, "to become" == to finish happening, literally. Again, not how it would be used, but I'm providing an answer about "Happen". – Eugene May 26 '23 at 17:15
  • No, fourteen in Russian is chetyrnadtsat', the same as in other Slavic languages – Anixx May 26 '23 at 17:16
  • @Anixx re: kak - whoops brain fart, corrected. – Eugene May 26 '23 at 17:16
  • @Anixx chetyrnadtsat' == fourteen, chetyredesyat' == fourten. Neither chetyredesyat' or fourten are real words, because both languages have other words for it, it's simply an example of how it could be constructed in Russian, the same way as something like "chitrideset" – Eugene May 26 '23 at 17:19
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    Hmmm. fourten? Well, I suggest to change it to four-ten so to empathise you did not meen fourteen. – Anixx May 26 '23 at 17:20
  • "to become" == to finish happening" - I disagree. It is rather, "to finish becoming" – Anixx May 26 '23 at 17:22
  • @Anixx four-ten, good idea, added. Re: stat', added clarification about long vs short duration. – Eugene May 26 '23 at 17:31
  • Yeah... and I was saying spasibo is unique to Russian unlike the other languages. – Zlar Vixen May 26 '23 at 19:18
  • @zlarvixen your question is: why is Russian divergent? I'm pointing out that the examples you give aren't actually divergent and have Russian synonyms that sound similar. Hvala isn't divergent, since the full form, "hvala bogu", is something that could be said in the same circumstances by religious Orthodox. Dzjakuje is the standout, but it's still pretty much the same contraction, only in Latin, since Poles were Catholic and Poland ruled and heavily influenced it's Slavic neighbors for a long time. – Eugene May 26 '23 at 19:31
  • For several of these (иметь, спасибо, сорок), you have explained the difference, but cannot deny that there is one. On the basis of such words one could still argue that Russian vocabulary is more divergent (for a variety of reasons), so though interesting I’m not sure how relevant those comments are? – Keelan May 27 '23 at 06:11
  • Not "Preserve you God", but "God save you", similar to the name of the anthem of the UK. Christian "saving" (which the word spasibo refers to) has a different meaning from "preservation". "Preserve" would fit better to the verb in the anthem of the Russian Empire. – Ruslan May 27 '23 at 15:55
  • @Keelan спасибо is different, but in that case, djakuje is the diverged one, since it's from Latin. Сорок is the only exception, 10-90 otherwise follow the usual Slavic pattern. For иметь/есть, commenters for other questions have provided examples of other Slavic languages using both. – Eugene May 28 '23 at 01:58
  • I’m only pointing out that your argumentation is cutting corners, not that it may lead to an incorrect conclusion. – Keelan May 28 '23 at 09:20
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You have just picked Russian synonyms that are not related to the words in the other Slavic languages that you picked. You can pick other synonyms.

Think: мыслить (myslit')

I have: я имею (ya imeyu)

Happen: статься (statsa), настать (nastat')

Eyes: очи (ochi)

World: свет (svet)

Good: добро (dobro).

Anixx
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    Incorrect. In Russian when you say "I have" in the locative possession, it's "u menya est". If someone says "ya imayu" they are most likely Ukrainian/Belarusian. – Zlar Vixen May 26 '23 at 19:16
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    @ZlarVixen it is absolutely correct way to say "I have" in Russian. In formal style, the more preferred one. In Ukrainian and Belarusian you also can say "у мене є машина" / "у мяне ёсць машына", which is more common, like in Russian. No difference here. https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=uk&text=%D1%83%20%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C%20%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0&op=translate ;https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=be&text=%D1%83%20%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8F%20%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C%20%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0&op=translate – Anixx May 26 '23 at 19:54
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    Even if there are cognates in Russian with a more or less similar meaning, if these are somehow not the default/least marked way to express something, the question still makes sense. This seems to be the case for at least думать, possession, хорошо, and perhaps глаза, but I really don’t know enough about it to weigh those factors—just wanted to point out that you can still make an argument that Russian diverged more, if, though there are cognates, they shifted in meaning and/or register. – Keelan May 27 '23 at 06:06
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    @Keelan the case with possession is absolutely common between all East Slavic at least. It is absolutely the same as in Russian, the default possession phrase is proximal, not what the OP gave as examples (although such expression is also correct and can be used as well). At most, here one can make conclusion that it is whole East Slavic branch that diverged, not Russian. – Anixx May 27 '23 at 06:54
  • @Keelan also, according to Google translate (not a good source), the phrase for "I think" is written and spoken the same in Russian and Belarusian (it gives a different variant for Ukrainian, but not what the OP gives in the question anyway). Bing translator gives for "I think" in Ukrainian the same result as for Russian and Belarusian. https://www.bing.com/translator/?ref=TThis&text=I+think&from=en&to=uk – Anixx May 27 '23 at 06:58
  • Thanks. I know most (and even that is little) about Russian, and was assuming the words in other languages were unmarked. – Keelan May 27 '23 at 07:11
  • "очи" is not really a word in common use at the moment. It will be understood, but only as archaic, or poetic, in some idioms as well. Same goes for "свет" as "world", though in some derived words ("кругосветное путешествие", etc) it's quite common. So these aren't really counterexamples, more like exactly the examples of common Slavic roots getting replaced in Russian. – IMil May 27 '23 at 07:59
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    @IMil I disagree that свет in any way archaic or poetic. – Anixx May 27 '23 at 08:17
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It's totally ok to compare and contrast different languages based on the factors other than their genetic affinity. Even though you'd hardly find a serious linguist questioning the status of Russian being a Slavic language, one could also compare the present-day Slavic languages, and that's what you are seemingly doing in your question (e.g. you included Russian glaz 'eye' and not oko).

Unfortunately, there are many inaccuracies in your question. Let me address one point only for now.

You claim the following,

"I also notice, that unlike other Slavic languages, Russian has a lot of vowels, whereas ones like Polish or Serbo-Croatian are defined by heavy consonant clusters. Moloko versus mleko, golova versus glava, etc."

You are confusing the number of vowel phonemes with syllable structure.

If we compare the number of vowel phonemes in the present-day Slavic languages, then we have the following list: e.g. Russian has 5, Bulgarian 6, Ukrainian 6, Czech 10, Slovene 13.

The data above is taken from one of the best reference books on the Slavic Languages, Iazyki mira: Slavianskie iazyki (2nd ed., 2017), where the individual chapters on the Slavic languages were written by a large group of linguists specializing in the Slavic languages.

also see table 3.5 from Sussex and Cubberley 2006:

enter image description here

As you can see, Russian has a very small number of vowel phonemes.

Now let's take a closer look at how these vowels are used in Slavic.

Irene Sawicka writes the following in the section on CV clusters (i.e. consonant-vowel clusters),

“Taking stock of the differences between Slavic languages, two polarized groups can be identified [emphasis mine - A.B.]. The north pole is characterized by a richer consonantal system, mostly thanks to … and a great number and frequency of the occurrence of consonant clusters. Of all Slavic languages, Polish has the greatest number of consonant clusters and the fewest restrictions on consonant combinations. The south-western pole has a more elaborate vowel system … and more restrictions on the structure of consonant combinations.”

“Differences between the two polarized types of Slavic are slightly more manifest in the frequencies of particular kinds of syllables” (p. 54)

e.g. Macedonian has the greatest frequency of vowel clusters (VV), vowel clusters being relatively rare in Slavic.

e.g.

enter image description here

e.g. Arakin 1989 writes that the most frequent syllable types in present-day Russian are CCVC, CVC, and CVCC (pp. 89-93).

So far, from the point of view of contrastive phonological typology, I don't see how Russian is particularly divergent from the rest of the Slavic group.

NB: I decided to use the quotes above in my answer (instead of paraphrasing them) because I wanted you and everyone else to take a look at what linguists trained in Slavic have to offer and decide for yourselves.

Alex B.
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