the language question in panslavism

[Uladzimir Katkouski]

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: "TsyhankouV" <tsyhankouv at rferl.org>

Is French a special language or just a dialect of Latin? If this
question looks funny and foolish, then not more stupid than such
question about Ukranian and Belarusian.

Of course, every language and nation has some historical roots, but
it doesn`t mean, that children must have the same destiny like their
parents. By the way, Belarusian language consists not only of Slavic
components, but also German (came from Polish), Tatar (not Mongols,
which captured Russia, but stopped on the border of our lands; our
Tatars came from Crimea and have been living in Belarus for 600
years) and Baltic. In fact, majority of our scientists agree that
Belarusian nationality is also a baltic substract.

Generally, no Russian can undestand Czech or Polish (without
lessons/experience), majority of Russians can`t understand literary
Belarusian either. More than 95% of Belarus citizens can undestand
Belarusian, but just 60-70% can speak it. As a Belarusian, I can
understand Ukranian and 50% of Polish, but can`t speak either
language. I live in Praque for one year, but haven't yet grasped the
Czech language because it`s very difficult. I think there are
probably more difference between the Slavic languages than, for
instance, between Spanish and Portuguese.


P.S.  I wouldn't pay too much attention to what Russian authors have
to say about Slavic languages;  they tend not to recognize the
validity of anything but Russian;  everything else to them is a
dialect.

>From:           "P. Seriot" <Patrick.Seriot at slav.unil.ch>
>Subject:        the language question in panslavism
>To:             SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>
>Dear colleagues
>I am interested in the language question in the panslavist ideology in the
>19th Century. What was at stake was the classical problem of "parts and