Mutual intelligibility in the Slavic language area

In de geglobaliseerde wereld waar we vandaag de dag in leven is internationale samenwerking erg belangrijk, maar niet alle Europeanen spreken goed Engels. Als talen tot dezelfde familie behoren zou iedereen in staat moeten zijn hun eigen taal te spreken en de taal van hun gesprekspartner te begrijpen. Deze vorm van communicatie is bewezen effectief tussen zowel Deense, Zweedse en Noorweegse moedertaalsprekers; Nederlandse en Duitse sprekers; als de sprekers van het Tsjechisch en Slowaaks.Dit proefschrift beoogt te ontdekken hoe goed sprekers van verschillende Slavische talen elkaar begrijpen en welke factoren dit beïnvloedt. Ongeveer 12.000 sprekers van zes Slavische talen namen deel in een online verstaanbaarheidsexperiment. De resultaten tonen aan dat het belangrijkst is dat woorden met dezelfde stam ook op dezelfde manier worden uitgesproken in twee talen. Daarnaast geldt dat hoe meer je bent blootgesteld aan een taal die je probeert te verstaan, hoe beter je de taal ook daadwerkelijk zult begrijpen. Hoe woorden worden gevormd en gecombineerd in een zin maakt ook uit, hoe gelijker de processen, hoe groter de kans dat je het begrijpt. En in het geval van een laag verstaanbaarheidsniveau laten we zien dat het mogelijk is om mensen in een relatief korte periode te leren hoe ze een gerelateerde taal beter kunnen begrijpen.In the globalized world we live in today international cooperation is extremely important, but not all Europeans can speak English very well. If the languages in question belong to the same family, each person might be able to speak their native language and understand the language of their interlocutor. Thus type of communication has proved to be effective between native speakers of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian; Dutch and German; as well as between the speakers of Czech and Slovak.This thesis aims to discover how well speakers of different Slavic languages can understand each other and which factors influence this. About 12 000 speakers of six Slavic languages took part in a web-based intelligibility experiment. The findings show that the most important thing is how similarly words that have the same root are pronounced in two languages. Also, the more exposed you are to the language you are trying to understand, the better you will be at it. How words are formed and combined into sentences also matters, the more similar the processes, the more you are likely to understand. And in case that the level of intelligibility is relatively low, we showed that it is possible to teach people to understand a related language better in a relatively short time

Dialectal intelligibility of Assamese tested functionally

This paper includes a detailed discussion on the intelligibility of the speakers of four regional dialects of the Indo-Aryan language of Assamese. Prior research on Assamese dialects mostly being confined to examining structural variation lends this study relevance and urgency. The dialects of Standard Assamese, Central Assamese, Kamrupi, and Goalparia, covering three varieties each, were considered for the study. Using a functional intelligibility testing approach, the rate of overall intelligibility as well as of inter- and intra-dialectal mutual intelligibility of the dialects were determined. 24 speakers (1 male and 1 female from each variety) were asked to record ‘texts’— words, sentences, and connected speech in their native varieties of Assamese. 11 listeners from each variety (132 in total) were then tested on their comprehension of texts from non-native varieties. Thereafter, their rates of comprehension were used to determine the rates of mutual intelligibility between speakers of the different dialects and varieties of Assamese. This paper establishes that the rates of mutual intelligibility are unequal and asymmetric among the dialects— the native speakers of the Standard and Central Assamese dialects were more intelligible to the speakers of Kamrupi and Goalparia than vice-versa. Finally, the paper finds that the rate of intelligibility is the lowest for words in isolation and reinforces the important role of context in intelligibility