Which are the Languages Similar to Russian for Translation Services?
Russian is the most-spoken Slavic language, with around 258 million speakers worldwide. Russian is the most natural approach into the world of Slavic languages. It was the fundamental of the SOVIET union until its dissolution in 1991. Do you know it is the third-largest native language in the world? If you have mastery over Russian, then there are certain other languages that are similar, and you tend to have an understanding of them. Scroll down to know these languages similar Russian:-
Russian is the most-spoken Slavic language, with around 258 million speakers worldwide. Russian is the most natural approach into the world of Slavic languages. It was the fundamental of the SOVIET union until its dissolution in 1991. Do you know it is the third-largest native language in the world? If you have mastery over Russian, then there are certain other languages that are similar, and you tend to have an understanding of them. Scroll down to know these languages similar Russian:-
#1 Ukrainian
Ukrainian is the most similar language to Russian compared to other Slavic languages. 67.5% of the residents in Ukraine speak Ukrainian, a language written in the form of the Cyrillic alphabet. Ukrainian is the nation’s official language and Russian is the native language of 29.6% of Ukraine’s population. This East Slavic language is highly complicated to learn with many baffling grammar rules and guidelines.
Importantly, Surzhyk language, popularly spoken in several parts of Ukraine and its adjacent lands, is a Ukrainian-Russian mixed language, and to acquire native-level expertise, you must be well-versed with both these languages. It is a funny-sounding language, because of the pronunciation of some of the words.
#2 Belarusian
Belarusian is another East Slavic language similar to Russian and is popularly spoken by the Belarusians. Belarusian and Russian are the two official languages of Belarus. Like the Ukrainian language, the Belarusian has taken several terms from Polish and this language is written in Cyrillic alphabet form. Hence, the language is spoken in some regions of Poland.
Also, the Trasyanka or Trasianka language is made from the language pair of Belarusian and Russian. The language is spoken in limited parts of the world. The Trasyanka language started gaining popularity in the 1990s, the time of the demise of the Soviet Union. The Russian elements & traits dominate this language.
#3 Polish
Polish and Russian are Slavic languages and they are similar although they belong to different subgroups of Slavic languages. Polish is a Western Slavic language and Russian is Eastern Slavic, but, they have very similar grammar, phonology, vocabulary and pronunciation. They only have about 38% lexical overlap.
#4 Czech
Spoken by 12 million people, Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic. It is quite distant to Russian, although has some similarities. It has a flexible word order and has a rich morphology system. The vocabulary of this language is quite extensive, mostly influenced by the German and Latin languages. Czech and Russian language have many common or very similar words and very similar grammar. In spite of these similarities, they are not mutually intelligible.
#5 Slovak
Slovak is a West Slavic language similar to Russian, which is widely spoken by the Czech–Slovak group. It is the official language of Slovakia and spoken by 5 million native speakers, majorly ethnic Slovaks. Apart from being the official language of Slovakia, it is one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Slovak and Russian have only some root words in common.
Let’s Wind Up
The Slavic language family is a large group of languages and there’s a lot of mutual intelligibility within it just like Surzhyk and Trasyanka. But in the end, each language has its set of rules and complexities even if they are similar. Therefore, if you don’t have professional training in the very language, then it is best advised to hire a professional to take care of your translation needs to deliver an accurate, culturally correct final document with no further proofreading by a native speaker required.
