Futari nara Doko e demo - Vol. 1 Ch. 1.1 - First time in Oarai

[Oeconomist]

Cursory research corroborates @hiddentheory's assertion. I don't know why nobody tried citing anything.

Cantonese and Mandarin are also dramatically different languages-- I remember learning that one in linguistics. They're both able to be written using Simplified Chinese, yes, but the differences are apparent even when written. It's difficult to consider them "dialects" of Chinese, even.

Not merely cursory research, but cursory thought, and only cursory thought.

I didn't claim that Ukrainian and Russian were dialects of the same language, as some Chinese imperialists claim that Mandarin and Cantonese are dialects of the same language.

But denying that Ukrainian and Russian are similar languages or that Mandarin and Cantonese are similar languages or that English and Frisian are similar languages is at best silly.

And the only differences relevant here are in writing. We didn't get audio or phonetic transcription.

Indeed, a larger sample size, if representative, will show us that we are looking at one and not the other, but that point is no refutation.

 

[hiddentheory]

Cursory research corroborates @hiddentheory's assertion. I don't know why nobody tried citing anything.

Cantonese and Mandarin are also dramatically different languages-- I remember learning that one in linguistics. They're both able to be written using Simplified Chinese, yes, but the differences are apparent even when written. It's difficult to consider them "dialects" of Chinese, even.

Well it's because I know russian duh and don't know shit about Ukrainian.

 

[Oeconomist]

Well it's because I know russian duh and don't know shit about Ukrainian.

The vast majority of Anglophones don't even know that Frisian exists; but that does't mean that it isn't a language similar to English.

 

[Eighty-six]

I didn't claim that Ukrainian and Russian were dialects of the same language

Nor did I claim that you claimed such-- the dialect talk was specifically about Cantonese and Mandarin. Regardless, "very similar" implies a similarity around what one would normally think about when they hear "dialect", and claiming that the Russian in this chapter could have been translated as Ukrainian bolsters that impression.

It can't, by the way. I checked. The first piece of Russian is just a transliteration of the English "super". The Russian and Ukrainian terms for "goodbye" are just different. The Russian and Ukrainian terms for "tasty" are completely different, as are their words for "very"/"really".

You'd be able to see that the words are similar (sometimes), but one cannot "translate the passages as Ukrainian". Putting aside the times where the Russian is Anglicized, there's also the following:

And the only differences relevant here are in writing.

Ukrainian orthography is "shallow", meaning the writing perfectly represents Ukrainian phonology. Russian orthography is not-- not totally, anyhow.

Ukrainian and Russian, despite their similarities, are not very mutually intelligible by all accounts. It's more appropriate and accurate to state that "there are similarities" rather than "they're very similar".

The vast majority of Anglophones don't even know that Frisian exists; but that does't mean that it isn't a language similar to English.

This isn't "similar to English". Not even by the broadest stretch. Not even accounting for orthography.

 

[Oeconomist]

Nor did I claim that you claimed such

But your attempted refutation doesn't work if I did not.

the dialect talk was specifically about Cantonese and Mandarin.

And, when I introduce into this discussion a comparison with the relationship between Mandarin and Cantonese, I called them two languages, not two dialects:

If someone spoke Cantonese where Mandarin Chinese prevailed, most of the listeners would at best struggle to understand. None-the-less, those two languages are closely related and written very similarly.

Regardless, "very similar" implies a similarity around what one would normally think about when they hear "dialect", and claiming that the Russian in this chapter could have been translated as Ukrainian bolsters that impression.

I explicitly used the word “language”.

It can't, by the way. I checked.

It can. I too checked. The idea that if a word is of Russian origin then a passage cannot be translated as Ukrainian is like the idea that if word is of French origin then a passage containing it cannot be English.

Ukrainian orthography is "shallow", meaning the writing perfectly represents Ukrainian phonology. Russian orthography is not-- not totally, anyhow.

Without audio, that point is irrelevant.

Ukrainian and Russian, despite their similarities, are not very mutually intelligible by all accounts. It's more appropriate and accurate to state that "there are similarities" rather than "they're very similar".

You want to argue about “very”. I'll leave that matter to people to decide for themselves.

This isn't "similar to English". Not even by the broadest stretch. Not even accounting for orthography.

One cannot find any natural language closer to English than is Frisian and an Anglophone listening to it would be able to pick-out quite a lot.

 

[Eighty-six]

But your attempted refutation doesn't work if I did not.

It does, in fact. Nothing else I said relies on the supposed idea that I'm refuting a claim (that you didn't make) of the two languages being dialects.

I explicitly used the word “language”.

You also explicitly stated that the Russian in this chapter could have been translated as Ukrainian.

It can.

It cannot, not really. I've described the differences. To be even more explicit:

• When Karen says "goodbye", she says "до свидания" ("do svidánija"). In Ukranian, this would be "до побачення" ("do pobáčennja").
• When Karen says "It's so tasty" (more literally, "very tasty"), she says "действительно вку́сно" ("Dejstivtel'no vkusno"). The Ukrainian equivalent would be the likes of "ді́йсно смачне́" ("diysno smachné").
  • "вку́сно" is also a "short form" (only relevant to qualitative adjectives, and is itself used for transient qualities) of the adjective вку́сный ("vkúsnyj"), whose etymology traces to the proto-Slavic "vъkusьnъ". "смачне́" is the neuter nominative of смачни́й ("smačnýj"), смачни́й is смач + ни́й, and "смач" ("smak")-- meaning "taste"-- is borrowed from Polish. There's zero basis for a Ukrainian who doesn't know Russian, to correctly interpret "действительно вку́сно" according to their own language.

The idea that if a word is of Russian origin then a passage cannot be translated as Ukrainian is like the idea that if word is of French origin then a passage containing it cannot be English.

Your claim was that "everything in the first chapter that made sense as Russian made sense as Ukrainian".

Without audio, that point is irrelevant.

No, it is not. The implication is that Russian orthography does not perfectly phonetically represent how the words are to be read, unlike Ukrainian.

You want to argue about “very”.

I'm primarily arguing against the idea that you could translate the Russian here as if it was Ukrainian-- that's the most concrete charge here, and it's demonstrably wrong. You claimed it, I contradicted with the words of someone who extensively compared both languages, you claimed it again, I contradicted with references to the words in this chapter and their Ukrainian equivalents, you claimed it again, and now I've explicitly compared the terms in this chapter with their Ukrainian equivalents.

Furthermore, a Russian (i.e. someone who knows one of the languages at hand) has contradicted you.

You have yet to even claim that you know either of the languages at hand.

One cannot find any natural language closer to English than is Frisian

That is not what you said-- you said it was "similar to English". What I brought up is not similar to English, nor would it ever be similar to English even in speaking.