# Mutual intelligibility of Russian and Ukrainian **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [March 9, 2022, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765 "2022-03-09T18:15:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/1 "2022-03-09T18:15:23Z")
Obviously inspired by current events. How much would two monolingual speakers be able to understand each other if at all. I realize lots of Ukrainians are likely to have at least a passing familiarity with Russian, (I hear Zelenskyyky’s comedy show was in Russian) but how much would a native of Kiev understand someone from Novosibirsk and vice versa). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/2 "2022-03-09T18:19:58Z")
Here’s what the Wikipedia article on Belarusian language says: > [@](#): > > As one of the [East Slavic languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Slavic_language), Belarusian shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. To some extent, [Russian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language), [Rusyn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusyn_language), [Ukrainian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language), and Belarusian retain a degree of [mutual intelligibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility). Its predecessor stage is known in Western academia as [Ruthenian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenian_language) (14th to 17th centuries), in turn descended from what is referred to in modern linguistics as [Old East Slavic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_East_Slavic) (10th to 13th centuries). This is a political point, of course. Ukrainians maintain that their language is a separate language from Russian, in support of their argument that Ukraine is a natural nation-state, separate from Russia. Russians argue that Ukrainian is simply a dialect of Russian, in support of their argument that Ukraine is “naturally” part of Russia. Linguists support the Ukrainian position, but the degree of mutual intelligibility muddies the political waters. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/3 "2022-03-09T18:28:33Z")
I have been told that Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarussians can more or less understand each other if they talk slowly and simply. Russia Russian seems to be further off and needs to be properly learned, to cross-communicate. No personal knowledge, just relating what I’ve been told. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/4 "2022-03-09T18:32:19Z")
Paging @pulykamell ! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/5 "2022-03-09T18:35:48Z")
I appreciate the page, but I grew up with Polish (both parents from the south of Poland), so I can’t speak directly to the intelligibility of Russian and Ukrainian. I know that via Polish I can pick out Ukrainian a bit better than I can pick out Russian, so there’s definitely notable differences there, but I have no idea what a Ukrainian would understand in regards to Russian. I suspect a good fair bit, and I’m sure they are exposed to Russian as well. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/6 "2022-03-09T18:50:41Z")
Here’s an 2019 video that got popular again recently about that subject: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/CQLM62r5nLI/maxresdefault.jpg "How Different Are Russian and Ukrainian???") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQLM62r5nLI) Essentially, monolingual Ukrainians are rare, but monolingual Russian speakers usually can’t understand Ukrainian very well. It actually has more lexical similarity with Polish. The video is as long as it is because it does some comparisons. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/7 "2022-03-09T18:52:36Z")
Kinda related - I used to have a good friend who was Ukrainian. 20+ yrs ago he related a story of being at a ski resort. There were some Eastern Europeans in line ahead of him, and someone else said something disparaging about the “@$^#! Ukrainians.” My buddy was irate, saying, “They weren’t Ukrainians - they were Russian!” I just thought it so funny, why the other folk would’ve specified Ukrainian when hearing a Slavic tongue, and that my buddy thought anyone would be able to distinguish between a Ukrainian and a Russian. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/8 "2022-03-09T19:00:48Z")
Yep, that seems to accord with my being able to pick out Ukrainian better than Russian. Even the examples of the months were direct cognates. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/9 "2022-03-09T19:22:43Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Russians argue that Ukrainian is simply a dialect of Russian, in support of their argument that Ukraine is “naturally” part of Russia. Gives the old saw “A language is just a dialect with an army” a little more immediacy than one would like. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/10 "2022-03-09T19:26:50Z")
I was thinking that as I typed it. 😬 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/11 "2022-03-09T19:44:58Z")
Wiki: Yiddish scholar **Max Weinreich** had a quote:\* A language is a dialect with an army and navy. While linguists say that Yiddish is a dialect of German, Mrs. Plant(v.2.0), a Jewish person, vehemently denies it. Another example of language and politics. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/12 "2022-03-09T21:20:50Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Gives the old saw “A language is just a dialect with an army” a little more immediacy than one would like. That showed up in the Balkan wars back in the 90s. Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and others are just dialects of the same language, but after those wars, you started to get them treated like they were distinct. For example, bilingual dictionaries can be found for Bosnian-English, Serbian-English, and Croatian-English and they’re basically going to be the same book. Some differences, of course, but not enough to really deserve a separate book. ETA: I forgot that the Serbian part of a Serbian-English dictionary may be in Cyrilic, so that one would be different. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/13 "2022-03-09T21:36:46Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Its predecessor stage is known in Western academia as [Ruthenian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenian_language) (14th to 17th centuries), in turn descended from what is referred to in modern linguistics as [Old East Slavic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_East_Slavic) (10th to 13th centuries). When I was studying Russian about 50 years ago, we were told the early Russian language was called Old Church Slavic (OCS). I wonder when it was changed to Old East Slavic. Also, our instructor said a modern Russian speaker would likely be mutually intelligible with someone speaking OCS. However, a modern English speaker could never understand someone speaking Old English (roughly comparable in timeline to OCS), I read parts (teeny tiny parts) of Beowulf, and, yeah, it’s a completely separate language. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/14 "2022-03-09T21:43:12Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > That showed up in the Balkan wars back in the 90s. Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and others are just dialects of the same language, but after those wars, you started to get them treated like they were distinct. Yeah – I was a volunteer down there in 1996, post hostilities (the last major one in my region was Operation Flash in May 1995). The town I was living in was a mix of Serb and Croat, and we were told very clearly not to refer to languages as “hrvatski” (Croatian) or “srpski” (Serbian) or “srpskohrvatski” (Serboi-Croatian) lest we make a awkward error, and instead just use variants of “tvoj jezik” (“your language”) as language was so politicized. I can’t think of any examples, but I do remember Croats reintroducing old Croatian terms and words to separate their language from Serbian, whereas before the war, they were mostly treated as dialects within the same language. They are mutually intelligible, though vocabulary may change (for example, “kruh” is the Croatian word for “bread,” while “hleb” is the Serbian word.) It was somewhat odd, as to us neutral observers, it felt like the same language, with some dialectal differences in vocabulary and spelling (like whether a “j” (“y” sounds as in “yell”) was used to elide vowels), but it was clearly very important for the locals to treat them as separate languages as part of their national identity. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/15 "2022-03-09T21:49:48Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Gives the old saw “A language is just a dialect with an army” a little more immediacy than one would like. So maybe, based on what we’re seeing, Russian is actually a dialect of Ukranian? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/16 "2022-03-09T21:52:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So maybe, based on what we’re seeing, Russian is actually a dialect of Ukranian? No, because it split off before Russian existed. Like I said, Ukrainian has more lexical similarity with Polish than Russian. It’s not really a dialect if a language when it has more in common with a different language. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/17 "2022-03-10T01:46:22Z")
I speak Russian (I’m not a native speaker, and I am a tad rusty right now, but used to be fluent enough that the family of my ex, born and raised in Moscow, asked how old I was when I immigrated to the U.S.) Sometimes I understand Ukrainian fine, and sometimes there are words that are just not at all like Russian. I find it much easier to read Ukrainian than to understand it when spoken. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2022, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/18 "2022-03-10T01:56:46Z")
Mm, Russian is East Slavic, while Old Church Slavonic is South Slavic. I think it’s not the case that it is “mutually intelligible” with Russian as much as “Some Russians learn some OCS in school and/or church.” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2022, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/19 "2022-03-10T02:59:53Z")
Map: [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Slavic_languages_tree_and_map_from_Kushniarevich_article.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Slavic_languages_tree_and_map_from_Kushniarevich_article.png) ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2022, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765/20 "2022-03-10T04:53:52Z")
Can you, Understand overhead conversations ? Ask for directions? Order a meal? In Ukrainian [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutual-intelligibility-of-russian-and-ukrainian/960765.md?page=2)