language question out of curiosity

[cab67]

Something I've wondered for a while - are the Ukrainian and Russian languages mutually intelligible when spoken?

I realize it's not an important question.

[Claustrum]

1. This is what I got when I put "are ukrainian and russian mutually intelligible" in google

They are NOT mutually intelligible. Accordingly to the linguistic studies (see also), Ukrainian and Russian have lexical distance of 38, the same as French and Portuguese, and considerably more than any from the Swedish-Norwegian-Danish trio.

Edit: you are not alone for wondering about it. Google suggestion showed up quickly after I typed Ukrainian and Russian.

[MineralMan]

2. That depends on who is listening.

The languages are different enough in the spoken form to confound many speakers of either language when encountering the other. However, for those frequently exposed to both languages understanding both is not uncommon at all.

In written form, it's pretty easy to get the sense of either if you know either language, though.

I was a Russian linguist while in the USAF. I was stationed in Turkey at a small base on the Black Sea. For one reason or another, I heard both Russian and Ukrainian spoken while I was there. Before long, I found that I could understand Ukrainian when I heard it, at least well enough to gist out what was being said.

My assumption is that people living in Ukraine are probably pretty good at understanding both languages, whichever one they speak.

However, it would be difficult for a Russian speaker to speak Ukrainian well, and vice-versa. There is enough differences in grammar and pronunciation to make that difficult.

[cab67]

4. Thanks.

My father was a French linguist in the USN. He spent some time in Vietnam in 1963 for this purpose. Everything between Hanoi and Moscow was in French.

He grew up bilingual; most of his family was from Quebec. I only learned French in high school, so I was never as fluent, and I still struggle when listening to Quebecois French. (Though I can mimic the accent of a Quebecker speaking English dead on.)

[Ocelot II]

3. I have read that it's somewhat more similar to Polish, although Russian and Ukrainian

both use the Cyrillic rather than the Roman alphabet like Polish.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. It depends. There's kind of a range, especially when it comes to the differences between speaking,

understanding and reading. I'm fluent in Russian and can understand about 90% of what Zelenskyy says when he speaks Ukrainian, but I can't speak Ukrainian beyond speaking Russian with a Ukrainian accent. I can read it well. I can read about 50-60% of Polish and Czech, can understand a little if someone speaks slowly, but can't speak any of it.

[MineralMan]

7. All good points.

It also varies from person to person. Some people are better than others at dealing with differences between related languages.

[Wounded Bear]

6. There was a youtube video posted last week about this...

was pretty interesting, pointing out the similarities and differences in the two languages.

One thing, of course, is that there is a LOT of 'cross pollination' between the two countries, including many thousands in both countries who have relatives on the other side of the border. In that respect it is almost like a civil war, though the two countries are distinctly separate, no matter what Putin says. I've heard a lot of anecdotal reports of people who speak Russian, some as their primary language pre-invasion, who are intentionally speaking only Ukrainian now.

on edit: Here is the video:

[LisaL]

8. They are similar but not identical.

So they would be partially understandable.