# What are these cyrillic languages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109 "2023-01-12T16:48:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/21 "2023-01-13T16:27:48Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Cyrillic is not a language–it names a group of closely related alphabets. And they are largely, but not exclusivity, Slavic languages. The “largely” bit isn’t true—there are far more non-Slavic languages than Slavic languages using Cyrillic. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/22 "2023-01-13T16:36:40Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Moldovan is highly intelligible with Romanian just like Bulgarian and Macedonian, but considered separate for historic reasons. I don’t know anyone who considers Moldovan and Romanian to be separate languages. I’ve spoken to a lot of Romanians and Moldovans about the matter, both abroad and in their native lands, including both lay people and academic linguists, and without exception they’ve all dismissed the notion that they speak different languages. Even the Moldovan government considers the terms “Moldovan” and “Romanian” to be synonyms (when referring to the language). Surely there are some folks that assert a difference, though they don’t seem to be taken too seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/23 "2023-01-13T17:06:02Z")
As far as Serbian and Croatian, let me tell one anecdote. I was having dinner one evening with a Serbian and a man from Georgia (American version–he grew up partly in Atlanta, partly in Savannah). We asked the Serbian what was the difference between Serbian and Croatian. He replied that it was less than the difference between Georgian and Philadelphian. He lived, BTW, in Philly. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/24 "2023-01-13T18:24:13Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > the main difference between Serbian and Croatian is the alphabet That difference is less and less nowadays, as the use of Roman letters increases in Serbia. It’s no problem to get by in Croatia without reading Cyrillic, but you would be partially illiterate in Serbia if you didn’t know Roman letters. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/25 "2023-01-13T23:41:05Z")
Looks like that is indeed correct, I had thought it was a similar situation to Macedonian. So I guess they use the same pronouns in Romanian versions, nothing as weird as the Philly “youse” thing eh? ---
**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:** [January 14, 2023, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/26 "2023-01-14T02:17:44Z")
A good friend of mine is half Croatian, half Bosnian. He decided to learn his childhood kitchen Croatian for real, and signed up at the U. of Illinois for “Introductory Serbian or Croatian.” At the beginning of the semester, each student had to choose an alphabet for their homework assignments. But he got yelled at by his Croatian mom whenever he would use vocabulary he learned in class that she considered incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/27 "2023-01-14T03:09:55Z")
This scene is being repeated over kitchen tables across much of Croatia and the diaspora Croat community. Since the nation was founded they’ve made deliberate choices about the ‘right’ dialect to represent Croatian as a national language, which inevitably leaves all other dialects being to a greater or lesser proportion unofficial and increasingly anomalous. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/28 "2023-01-14T03:37:56Z")
Uzbekistan has officially switched to the Latin alphabet, but the Uzbek people are still in the habit of writing and publishing in Cyrillic. Azerbaijan switched to Latin script in 1991 and made it stick. Azerbaijan had been the first Turkic-speaking country to use Latin script a hundred years ago, and their example gave Atatürk the idea. ---
**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:** [January 14, 2023, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/29 "2023-01-14T04:03:54Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > But he got yelled at by his Croatian mom whenever he would use vocabulary he learned in class that she considered incorrect. Yeah, there are dialectal differences, for sure. The big one I remember is “bread” is “kruh” in Croatian and “hleb” in Serbian. There is also instering a “j” (or “y”) sound in between vowels and stuff like that. When I volunteered in Croatia in 1996, we were explicitly taught not to say “hrvatski” (“Croatian”) or “srpski” (“Serbian”) when saying we did or did not speak the language, but rather “vaš jezik” (“your language”) so as not to unintentionally cause offense. But, yes, they are rather mutually intelligible. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/30 "2023-01-14T04:22:08Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > So I guess they use the same pronouns in Romanian versions, nothing as weird as the Philly “youse” thing eh? There are certainly very slight regional variations, as you’d find in any language. I don’t know whether or not any of them occur in the pronoun system. (As far as such variations go, English “youse” is pretty low on the weirdness scale, since non-Philadelphians find it perfectly comprehensible.) ---
**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:** [January 14, 2023, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/31 "2023-01-14T04:26:59Z")
Yeah, in Chicago “youse” is perfectly fine, too. “What’yoose up to?” or “Whu’ choose up ta?” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/32 "2023-01-14T22:58:31Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > That difference is less and less nowadays, as the use of Roman letters increases in Serbia. It’s no problem to get by in Croatia without reading Cyrillic, but you would be partially illiterate in Serbia if you didn’t know Roman letters. That’s interesting because my Serbian informant told me about that, but added that he had heard from relatives that after the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Serbs were largely returning to Cyrillic. Perhaps that has reversed. My son did a gig in Belarus. While there he went to a hockey game and took a photograph of Belarusian player and the name on his back–Gretzky–was in Roman. (And his number was 99, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/33 "2023-01-31T02:43:48Z")
I wouldn’t even consider those difference “dialectal”, just regional. There are three dialects in Croatia - first one in the continental part, with German loanwords, sharing some similarities with Slovene language. Second one is the old coastal dialect, spoken on the coast and the islands. Third dialect is the most prevalent . It’s most prestigious, it’s the dialect of media, academia and it’s spoken by majority of Croats. It’s spoken by all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity. It’s spoken by all of Montenegro. It’s spoken by all of Serbia save a small dialectal area near Bulgarian/Macedonian borders. Croatian and Serbian are not only the same language, they’re the same dialect. But, as they say, a language is a dialect with an army and navy, so there’s that. There are regional variants and accents, of course, and some lexical differences (“truck-lorry” situations). But generally speaking, the difference is only slightly bigger than General American English - British English but less drastic than, for example, Alabama English and Scottish English. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/34 "2023-01-31T03:15:39Z")
Wow, this thread was quite an ignorance-buster for somebody who just wanted to know what languages were on their candy bar wrapper! ---
**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:** [January 31, 2023, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/35 "2023-01-31T04:47:09Z")
> [@Moris](#): > > There are three dialects in Croatia Is that the štokavian, kajkavian, and čakavian you’re referring to? Regional, dialectal … I’m pretty careful, as an outsider. Though that’s all Croatian, so I’m pretty safe. With Serbo-Corat, Or Croat-Serb, one side has plain “i” another side has “ij.” I don’t want to dip my toes too far into it. ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/36 "2023-01-31T06:06:59Z")
While I admire and respect your carefulness, I doubt any Croatians or Serbians on SDMB are so faint-hearted 😀 or would get offended by innocent discussion about language. While I’m far from alone, I know I’m in minority in my own country when it comes to a particular language opinion. It’s a fascinating topic, both beautiful and nightmarish at the same time! ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109/37 "2023-01-31T18:43:18Z")
> [@Moris](#): > > but less drastic than, for example, Alabama English and Scottish English. “Y’all gots any haggis?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-cyrillic-languages/978109.md?page=1)