Baltic vs Slavic: What's the difference?

[Flankerl]

I thought Poland WAS part of the USSR after Stalin took over half and set up Peoples' Republic of Poland (was it not officially part of USSR?)

if Yugoslavia and Czechslovakia were Communist why weren't they part of USSR? Same reason as China I.e the leaders wanting to control their own countries?

There is this amazing website called Wikipedia.
"Polish People's Republic - Member of the Warsaw Pact"
Warsaw Pact - Wikipedia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Wikipedia
China - Wikipedia

 

[ronki23]

By the way, do Slavic countries use the same alphabet? Are Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian and Slovenian mutually intelligible? What about Baltic languages?

 

[Igor]

By the way, do Slavic countries use the same alphabet? Are Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian and Slovenian mutually intelligible? What about Baltic languages?

Russia, Ukraine,Belarus, Bulgaria, Macedonia use the Cyrillic. Serbia and Montenegro use Cyrillic(mostly) and Latin. Any other countries use Latin alphabet only.
Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Ukrainian languages are intelligible partially, so people can understand many things.
Russian is another story--it's rather less intelligible with other Slavic languages because of Turkic(more) and Finno-Ugric(less) influence on this language.. Slovenian language is also differ from the other Slavic languages though it has similarities with Czech, Slovakian and Serbo-Croatian languages. Speaking of very old and archaic Baltic-- it considered that Baltic and Slavic languages basically belong to the same dialect group but as russian I can say it has nothing in common with Russian at all. Though I believe Poles can understand some things in this languages.
And by the way, Bulgarian is NOT Slavs--its Turkic tribe from Caspian-Volga region assimilated with Slavs and Thracians. The other branch of this tribe is Volga Tatars in Russia.
Concerning the other things in this thread, in short I can say that Flankerl is almost totally right about everything.

 

[ronki23]

Russia, Ukraine,Belarus, Bulgaria, Macedonia use the Cyrillic. Serbia and Montenegro use Cyrillic(mostly) and Latin. Any other countries use Latin alphabet only.
Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Ukrainian languages are intelligible partially, so people can understand many things.
Russian is another story--it's rather less intelligible with other Slavic languages because of Turkic(more) and Finno-Ugric(less) influence on this language.. Slovenian language is also differ from the other Slavic languages though it has similarities with Czech, Slovakian and Serbo-Croatian languages. Speaking of very old and archaic Baltic-- it considered that Baltic and Slavic languages basically belong to the same dialect group but as russian I can say it has nothing in common with Russian at all. Though I believe Poles can understand some things in this languages.
And by the way, Bulgarian is NOT Slavs--its Turkic tribe from Caspian-Volga region assimilated with Slavs and Thracians. The other branch of this tribe is Volga Tatars in Russia.
Concerning the other things in this thread, in short I can say that Flankerl is almost totally right about everything.

I thought Ukraine's national language was Russian?

Do Poles use Cyrillic?

 

[Igor]

I thought Ukraine's national language was Russian?

Do Poles use Cyrillic?

Oh no, Ukraine's national language is Ukrainian. In verbal communication many people also use Russian and so-called surzhyk--Pigin-like wild mix of often distorted Russian and Ukranian. Russian and Ukranian are intelligible in many aspects and people can get each other rather well. On the other hand Ukranian can understand Poles and Slovaks but Russian quite a bit only.
Necessary to say that many chauvinistic Russian don't accept the very existence of Ukranian nation and consider its language as distorted Russian. It's also semi-official position of many persons in the Kremlin. All of this is one of the reasons of conflict escalation between two countries in the last years.


As for Poles, they has never used Cyrillic.

In the times of USSR Cyrillic(sometimes with addition of some new letters) also used some Asian and Caucasian republics. Now some of them as Uzbekistan, Moldavia, Turkmenistan , Azerbaijan have switched to Latin and some still keep Cyrillic. This is Kazakhstan(it's to change into Latin by 2025 though), Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Mongolia as a former "16th Soviet republic" still uses Cyrillic as well.
Some national regions in Russia (notably turkic Tatarstan) also have been speaking of changing to Latin alphabet since the beginning of 90s but it was officially forbidden by Moscow.

 

[ronki23]

Oh no, Ukraine's national language is Ukrainian. In verbal communication many people also use Russian and so-called surzhyk--Pigin-like wild mix of often distorted Russian and Ukranian. Russian and Ukranian are intelligible in many aspects and people can get each other rather well. On the other hand Ukranian can understand Poles and Slovaks but Russian quite a bit only.
Necessary to say that many chauvinistic Russian don't accept the very existence of Ukranian nation and consider its language as distorted Russian. It's also semi-official position of many persons in the Kremlin. All of this is one of the reasons of conflict escalation between two countries in the last years.


As for Poles, they has never used Cyrillic.

In the times of USSR Cyrillic(sometimes with addition of some new letters) also used some Asian and Caucasian republics. Now some of them as Uzbekistan, Moldavia, Turkmenistan , Azerbaijan have switched to Latin and some still keep Cyrillic. This is Kazakhstan(it's to change into Latin by 2025 though), Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Mongolia as a former "16th Soviet republic" still uses Cyrillic as well.
Some national regions in Russia (notably turkic Tatarstan) also have been speaking of changing to Latin alphabet since the beginning of 90s but it was officially forbidden by Moscow.

Oh no, Ukraine's national language is Ukrainian. In verbal communication many people also use Russian and so-called surzhyk--Pigin-like wild mix of often distorted Russian and Ukranian. Russian and Ukranian are intelligible in many aspects and people can get each other rather well. On the other hand Ukranian can understand Poles and Slovaks but Russian quite a bit only.
Necessary to say that many chauvinistic Russian don't accept the very existence of Ukranian nation and consider its language as distorted Russian. It's also semi-official position of many persons in the Kremlin. All of this is one of the reasons of conflict escalation between two countries in the last years.


As for Poles, they has never used Cyrillic.

In the times of USSR Cyrillic(sometimes with addition of some new letters) also used some Asian and Caucasian republics. Now some of them as Uzbekistan, Moldavia, Turkmenistan , Azerbaijan have switched to Latin and some still keep Cyrillic. This is Kazakhstan(it's to change into Latin by 2025 though), Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Mongolia as a former "16th Soviet republic" still uses Cyrillic as well.
Some national regions in Russia (notably turkic Tatarstan) also have been speaking of changing to Latin alphabet since the beginning of 90s but it was officially forbidden by Moscow.

But Polish have their own script right? It's not latin as it has letters not in the Western European alphabet. Assume Polish letters have no meaning in Russia and vice versa?

 

[Flankerl]

But Polish have their own script right? It's not latin as it has letters not in the Western European alphabet.

That's like saying all the Germanic countries don't use the latin script because they got unique letters you don't find elsewhere.

 

[Igor]

But Polish have their own script right? It's not latin as it has letters not in the Western European alphabet. Assume Polish letters have no meaning in Russia and vice versa?

Polish does have some unique letters but basically Frankerl just has answered your question. There is no such a thing as Western European alphabet.
Polish alphabet is not an exception by any means. Many languages have the same.What about Finnish ä, German Ü , Turkish Ğ and Ö, Spanish ll and ñ and so on. Nevertheless all this alphabets based on Latin.
Some Polish(meaning western) letters do have meaning in Russian. Because there are some common letters in Latin and Cyrillic A=a, k=k, e=e etc. It's even more appropriate to say that Cyrillic has some letters that Latin doesn't.
By the way countries using Cyrillic have the own unique letters too
Russian alphabet has 33 letters, Bulgarian 30 , Kazakh 42.