Interslavic ( / ) is a
pan-Slavic auxiliary language. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between speakers of various
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...
, as well as to allow people who do not speak a Slavic language to communicate with Slavic speakers by being
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...
with most, if not all, Slavic languages. For Slavs and non-Slavs, it can be used for educational purposes as well. Its use spans a broad range of fields, including tourism and education.
Interslavic can be classified as a
semi-constructed language. It is essentially a modern continuation of
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
, and also draws on the various
improvised language forms that Slavs have used for centuries to communicate between nationalities, for example in multi-Slavic environments and on the Internet, providing them with a scientific base. Thus, both grammar and vocabulary are based on common elements between the Slavic languages. Its main focus lies on instant intelligibility rather than easy learning, a balance typical for naturalistic (as opposed to
schematic) languages.
The Interslavic project began in 2006 under the name Slovianski. In 2011, Slovianski underwent a thorough reform and merged with two other projects, with the result called "Interslavic", a name that was first proposed by the Czech
Ignác Hošek in 1908.
[Л.П. Рупосова, ''История межславянского языка'', in: ''Вестник Московского государственного областного университета'' (Московский государственный областной университет, 2012 no. 1, p. 55. ]
As with the languages of the Slavic language family, Interslavic is generally written using either
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
or
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
letters, or on rare occasions the
Glagolitic
The Glagolitic script ( , , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodi ...
script.
History
Precursors of Interslavic have a long history and predate constructed languages like
Volapük and
Esperanto
Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
by centuries: the oldest description, written by the Croatian priest
Juraj Križanić
Juraj Križanić ( – 12 September 1683), also known as Jurij Križanič, Yuriy Krizhanich, Iurii Krizhanich, and Yury Krizanitch (; , , ), was a Croatian Catholic missionary and polymath who is often regarded as the earliest recorded pan-Slav ...
, goes back to the years 1659–1666.
The history of Pan-Slavic language projects is closely connected with
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism, a movement that took shape in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with promoting integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had ruled the South ...
, an ideology that endeavors cultural and political unification of all Slavs, based on the conception that all Slavic people are part of a single Slavic nation. Along with this belief came also the need for a Slavic umbrella language.
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
had partly served this role in previous centuries, as an administrative language in a large part of the Slavic world, and it was still used on a large scale in
Orthodox liturgy, where it played a role similar to
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
in the West. A strong candidate for a more modern language is
Russian, the language of the largest (and during most of the 19th century the only) Slavic-speaking majority country and also mother tongue of more than half of Slavic speakers. However, the role of the Russian language as a lingua franca in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
and the
Balkans
The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
diminished after the
collapse of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
.
In March 2006, the Slovianski project was started by a group of people from different countries, who felt the need for a simple and neutral Slavic language that the Slavs could understand without prior learning. The language they envisioned should be naturalistic and only consist of material existing in all or most Slavic languages, without any artificial additions.
[Bojana Barlovac]
Creation of 'One Language for All Slavs' Underway
BalkanInsight, 18 February 2010. Initially, Slovianski was being developed in two different variants: a naturalistic version known as Slovianski-N (initiated by
Jan van Steenbergen
Johannes Hendrik "Jan" van Steenbergen (; born June 3, 1970) is a Dutch translator and interpreter. He is known for being the author of several constructed languages, notably Interslavic and Wenedyk.
He was born in Hoorn, where he spent most of ...
and further developed by
Igor Polyakov), and a more simplified version known as Slovianski-P (initiated by
Ondrej Rečnik and further developed by
Gabriel Svoboda). The difference was that Slovianski-N had six grammatical
cases, while Slovianski-P—like
English,
Bulgarian and
Macedonian—used
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
s instead. Apart from these two variants (N stands for ''naturalism'', P for ''
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
'' or ''prosti'' "simple"), a schematic version, Slovianski-S, has been experimented with as well, but was abandoned in an early stage of the project.
In 2009 it was decided that only the naturalistic version would be continued under the name Slovianski. Although Slovianski had three
genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), six
cases and full
conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:
Linguistics
*Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form
*Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language
Mathematics
*Complex conjugation, the change o ...
of verbs—features usually avoided in international auxiliary languages—a high level of simplification was achieved by means of simple, unambiguous endings and irregularity being kept to a minimum.
Slovianski was mostly used in Internet traffic and in a
newsletter
A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers.
Newsletters generally contain one main topic of ...
, ''Slovianska Gazeta''. In February and March 2010 there was much publicity about Slovianski after articles had been dedicated to it on the Polish internet portal ''
Interia.pl'' and the Serbian newspaper ''
Večernje novosti''. Shortly thereafter, articles about Slovianski appeared in the Slovak newspaper ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...
'', on the news site of the Czech broadcasting station
ČT24
ČT24 () is a 24-hour news channel in Czechia, owned and operated by Czech Television. The channel was launched on 2 May 2005.
ČT24 broadcasts from Prague, but has branches and broadcasts in Brno and Ostrava.
Broadcast
ČT24 broadcasts live ...
, in the Serbian blogosphere and the Serbian edition of ''
Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'', as well as other newspapers and internet portals in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Slovianski has played a role in the development of other, related projects as well. Rozumio (2008) and Slovioski (2009) were both efforts to build a bridge between Slovianski and
Slovio. Originally, Slovioski, developed by Polish-American
Steeven Radzikowski, was merely intended to reform Slovio, but gradually it developed into a separate language. Like Slovianski, it was a collaborative project that existed in two variants: a "full" and a simplified version. In 2009 a new language was published, Neoslavonic ("Novoslovienskij", later "Novoslověnsky") by the Czech
Vojtěch Merunka, based on
Old Church Slavonic grammar but using part of Slovianski's vocabulary.
In 2011, Slovianski, Slovioski and Novoslověnsky merged into one common project under the name Interslavic (''Medžuslovjanski'').
Slovianski grammar and dictionary were expanded to include all options of Neoslavonic as well, turning it into a more flexible language based on prototypes rather than fixed rules. From that time, Slovianski and Neoslavonic have no longer been developed as separate projects, even though their names are still frequently in use as synonyms or "dialects" of Interslavic.
In the same year, the various simplified forms of Slovianski and Slovioski that were meant to meet the needs of beginners and non-Slavs were reworked into a highly simplified form of Interslavic, Slovianto. Slovianto is intended to have stages of complexity: level 1 with plurals, tenses, and basic vocabulary; level 2 with grammatical gender and basic verb conjugation; and a to-be-done level 3 with noun declension.
After the 2017 Conference on Interslavic Language (CISLa), the project of unifying the two standards of Interslavic had been commenced by Merunka and van Steenbergen, with a planned new, singular grammar and orthography. An early example of this endeavor is Merunka and van Steenbergen's joint publication on Slavic cultural diplomacy, released to coincide with the conference.
After two failed applications for an
ISO 639-3
ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
code for Interslavic from 2012 and 2014, a third request was filed in September 2019 and resulted in the adoption of the ISO 639-3 code '' in April 2024.
Community
The number of people who speak Interslavic is difficult to establish; the lack of demographic data is a common problem among constructed languages, so that estimates are always rough. In 2012, the Bulgarian author G. Iliev mentioned a number of "several hundreds" of Slovianski speakers.
[G. Iliev, ]
Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet
' (Plovdiv, 2012), p. 67
/ref> For comparison, 320,000 people claimed to speak Esperanto in the same year. In 2022, the Russian magazine ''Mel'' mentioned a number of 20,000 speakers. This number clearly refers to the size of the Interslavic community as a whole and not necessarily to the number of active participants. As for the latter, Kocór e.a. (2017) estimated the number of active users of Interslavic to be 2,000.[Kocór, p. 21.]
Interslavic has an active online community, including four Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
groups with 16,280, 835, 330 and 120 members respectively by 4 April 2022 and an Internet forum with around 490 members. Apart from that there are groups on VKontakte
(short for its original name ''VKontakte''; , meaning ''InContact'') is a Russian online social media and social networking service based in Saint Petersburg. VK is available in multiple languages but it is predominantly used by Russian speake ...
(1,810 members), Discord
Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...
(5,505 members).
The project has two online news portals, a peer-reviewed expert journal focusing on issues of Slavic peoples in the wider sociocultural context of current times and a wiki
A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
united with a collection of texts and materials in Interslavic language somewhat similar to Wikisource
Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...
. Since 2016, Interslavic is used in the scientific journal ''Ethnoentomology'' for paper titles, abstracts and image captions.
In June 2017, the first CISLa (Conference on InterSlavic Language) took place in the Czech town of Staré Město near Uherské Hradiště
Uherské Hradiště (; ) is a town in the Zlín Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 25,000 inhabitants. The agglomeration with the two neighbouring towns of Staré Město (Uherské Hradiště District), Staré Město and Kunovice has over ...
. The presentations were either held in Interslavic or translated into Interslavic. Two Interslavic conferences have been held since: CISLa 2018, again in Staré Město as well as in Hodonín, and CISLa 2020, held in Uherský Brod
Uherský Brod (; ) is a town in Uherské Hradiště District in the Zlín Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 16,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
Administrati ...
. An Insterslavic Day was held in Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
on September 21, 2022.
Various experiments with Interslavic practical use are being made: namely, short songs and film translations. In 2022, an Interslavic version of the song '' Jožin z bažin'' appeared. In the same year, a social app in early development was translated into Interslavic. The translation served as a "prosthesis" for the lack of translations into Slavic languages.
A volunteer group consisting of native speakers of all standard Slavic languages was established by one of the members of the Interslavic Language Committee. Small Slavic languages and dialects like Rusyn or Upper Sorbian are also included. The group task is to improve the quality of the Interslavic language dictionary by intelligibility analysis.
Phonology
The phonemes
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
that were chosen for Interslavic were the most popular Slavic phonemes cross-linguistically. Since stress patterns vary greatly between Slavic languages and Interslavic is not an ethnic language, there are no hard and fast rules regarding stress.
Consonants and vowels in brackets are "optional" and link directly to Old Church Slavonic.
Alphabet
One of the main principles of Interslavic is that it can be written on any Slavic keyboard. Since the border between Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
runs through the middle of Slavic territory, Interslavic allows the use of both alphabets. Because of the differences between, for instance, the Polish alphabet
The Polish alphabet ( Polish: , ) is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters (9) with diacritics: the stroke (acute accent or bar) ...
and other Slavic Latin alphabets, as well as between Serbian and other Cyrillic alphabets, orthographic variation is tolerated.
The Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are as follows:[
(Pronunciation is approximate; the exact realization will depend on the accent of the speaker. For example, southern Slavs will typically substitute for ''y'' / ''ы'')
]
Extension
Apart from the basic alphabet above, the Interslavic Latin alphabet has a set of optional letters as well. They differ from the standard orthography by carrying a diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
which conveys etymological
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
information linking directly to Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...
and Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
(OCS). Pronunciation may not be distinct from the regular alphabet.
The consonants ď, ť, ľ, ń, ŕ, ś and ź are softened or palatalized counterparts of d, l, n, r, s, t and z. The latter are also palatalized before ě and j, and possibly before i, ę and e however it is recommended to keep a hard pronunciation.
Cyrillic equivalents of the etymological alphabet and ligatures can also be encountered in some Interslavic texts, though such spelling is not officially sanctioned.
Morphology
Interslavic grammar is based on the greatest common denominator of that of the natural Slavic languages, and partly also a simplification thereof. It consists of elements that can be encountered in all or at least most of them.
Nouns
Interslavic is an inflecting language. Noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
s can have three genders, two numbers (singular and plural), as well as six cases (nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
, accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
, genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
, dative, instrumental
An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...
and locative
In grammar, the locative case ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and " ...
). Since several Slavic languages also have a vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
, it is usually displayed in tables as well, even though strictly speaking the vocative is not a case. It occurs only in the singular of masculine and feminine nouns.[ (follow links in "advanced grammar for subpages on nouns, adjectives, etc.)]
There is no article. The complicated system of noun classes in Slavic has been reduced to four or five declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...
s:
* masculine nouns, ending in a (usually hard) consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
: ''dom'' "house", ''mųž'' "man"
* feminine nouns ending in -a: ''žena'' "woman", ''zemja'' "earth"
* feminine nouns ending in a soft consonant: ''kosť'' "bone"
* neuter nouns ending in -o or -e: ''slovo'' "word", ''morje'' "sea"
* Old Church Slavonic also had a consonantal declension that in most Slavic languages merged into the remaining declensions. Some Interslavic projects and writers preserve this declension, which consists of nouns of all three genders, mostly neuters:
** neuter nouns of the group -mę/-men-: ''imę/imene'' "name"
** neuter nouns of the group -ę/-ęt- (children and young animals): ''telę/telęte'' "calf"
** neuter nouns of the group -o/-es-: ''nebo/nebese'' "sky"
** masculine nouns of the group -en-: ''kameń/kamene'' "stone"
** feminine nouns with the ending -ȯv: ''cŕkȯv/cŕkve'' "church"
** feminine nouns with the ending -i/-er-: ''mati/matere'' "mother"
Adjectives
Adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
s are always regular. They agree with the noun they modify in gender, case and number, and are usually placed before it. In the column with the masculine forms, the first relates to animate nouns, the second to inanimate nouns. A distinction is made between hard and soft stems, for example: ''dobry'' "good" and ''svěži'' "fresh":
Some writers make no distinction between hard and soft adjectives. One can write ''dobrego'' instead of ''dobrogo'', ''svěžogo'' instead of ''svěžego''.
Comparison
The comparative
The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
is formed with the ending -(ěj)ši: ''slabši'' "weaker", ''pȯlnějši'' "fuller". The superlative
The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
is formed from the comparative with the prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
naj-: ''najslabši'' "weakest". Comparatives can also be formed with the adverbs ''bolje'' or ''vyše'' "more", superlatives with the adverbs ''najbolje'' or ''najvyše'' "most".
Adverbs
Hard adjectives can be turned into an adverb with the ending -o, soft adjectives with the ending -e: ''dobro'' "well", ''svěže'' "freshly". Comparatives and superlatives can be adverbialized with the ending -ěje: ''slaběje'' "weaker".
Pronouns
The personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...
s are: ja "I", ty "you, thou", on "he", ona "she", ono "it", my "we", vy "you" (pl.), oni/one "they". When a personal pronoun of the third person is preceded by a preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
, n- is prepended onto it.
Other pronouns are inflected as adjectives:
* the possessive pronoun
A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or le ...
s moj "my", tvoj "your, thy", naš "our", vaš "your" (pl.), svoj "my/your/his/her/our/their own", as well as čij "whose"
* the demonstrative pronouns toj "this, that", tutoj "this" and tamtoj "that"
* the relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the relative pronoun ''which'' introduces the relative clause. The relative clause modifies th ...
ktory "which"
* the interrogative pronoun
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most ...
s kto "who" and čto "what"
* the indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific, familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns.
Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related for ...
s někto "somebody", něčto "something", nikto "nobody", ničto "nothing", ktokoli "whoever, anybody", čto-nebųď "whatever, anything", etc.
Numerals
The cardinal number
In mathematics, a cardinal number, or cardinal for short, is what is commonly called the number of elements of a set. In the case of a finite set, its cardinal number, or cardinality is therefore a natural number. For dealing with the cas ...
s 1–10 are: 1 – jedin/jedna/jedno, 2 – dva/dvě, 3 – tri, 4 – četyri, 5 – pęt́, 6 – šest́, 7 – sedm, 8 – osm, 9 – devęt́, 10 – desęt́.
Higher numbers are formed by adding -nadsęť for the numbers 11–19, -desęt for the tens, -sto for the hundreds. Sometimes (but not always) the latter is inflected: ''dvasto/tristo/pęt́sto'' and ''dvěstě/trista/pęt́sȯt'' are both correct.
The inflection of the cardinal numerals is shown in the following table. The numbers 5–99 are inflected either as nouns of the ''kosť'' type or as soft adjectives.
Ordinal number
In set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, th, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets.
A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the leas ...
s are formed by adding the adjective ending -y to the cardinal numbers, except in the case of ''pŕvy'' "first", ''drugy/vtory'' "second", ''tretji'' "third", ''četvŕty'' "fourth", ''stoty/sȯtny'' "hundredth", ''tysęčny'' "thousandth".
Fractions
A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...
are formed by adding the suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
-ina to ordinal numbers: ''tretjina'' "(one) third", ''četvŕtina'' "quarter", etc. The only exception is ''pol'' (''polovina, polovica'') "half".
Interslavic has other categories of numerals as well:
* collective numerals: ''dvoje'' "pair, duo, duet", ''troje, četvero...'', etc.
* multiplicative numerals: ''jediny'' "single", ''dvojny'' "double", ''trojny'', ''četverny...'', etc.
* differential numerals: ''dvojaky'' "of two different kinds", ''trojaky, četveraky...'', enz.
Verbs
Aspect
Like all Slavic languages, Interslavic verbs have grammatical aspect
In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time. For instance, perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference t ...
. A perfective verb indicates an action that has been or will be completed and therefore emphasizes the result of the action rather than its course. On the other hand, an imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated , , or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ...
verb focuses on the course or duration of the action, and is also used for expressing habits and repeating patterns.
Verbs without a prefix are usually imperfective. Most imperfective verbs have a perfective counterpart, which in most cases is formed by adding a prefix:
* ''dělati ~ sdělati'' "to do"
* ''čistiti ~ izčistiti'' "to clean"
* ''pisati ~ napisati'' "to write"
Because prefixes are also used to change the meaning of a verb, secondary imperfective forms based on perfective verbs with a prefix are needed as well. These verbs are formed regularly:
* -ati becomes -yvati (e.g. ''zapisati ~ zapisyvati'' "to note, to register, to record", ''dokazati ~ dokazyvati'' "to prove")
* -iti become -jati (e.g. ''napraviti ~ napravjati'' "to lead", ''pozvoliti ~ pozvaljati'' "to allow", ''oprostiti ~ oprašćati'' "to simplify")
Some aspect pairs are irregular, for example ''nazvati ~ nazyvati'' "to name, to call", ''prijdti ~ prihoditi'' "to come", ''podjęti ~ podimati'' "to undertake".
Stems
The Slavic languages are notorious for their complicated conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:
Linguistics
*Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form
*Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language
Mathematics
*Complex conjugation, the change o ...
patterns. To simplify these, Interslavic has a system of two conjugations and two verbal stems. In most cases, knowing the infinitive is enough to establish both stems:
* the first stem is used for the infinitive
Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...
, the past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
, the conditional mood
The conditional mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual.
It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
, the past passive participle and the verbal noun
Historically, grammarians have described a verbal noun or gerundial noun as a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The ''sacking'' of the city was an epochal event" (wherein ...
. It is formed by removing the ending -ti from the infinitive: ''dělati'' "to do" > ''děla-'', ''prositi'' "to require" > ''prosi-'', ''nesti'' "to carry" > ''nes-''. Verbs ending in -sti can also have their stem ending on t or d, f.ex. ''vesti > ved-'' "to lead", ''gnesti > gnet-'' "to crush".
* the second stem is used for the present tense, the imperative and the present active participle. In most cases both stems are identical, and in most of the remaining cases the second stem can be derived regularly from the first. In particular cases they have to be learned separately. In the present tense, a distinction is made between two conjugations:
** the first conjugation includes almost all verbs that do not have the ending -iti, as well as monosyllabic verbs on -iti:
*** verbs on -ati have the stem -aj-: ''dělati'' "to do" > ''dělaj-''
*** verbs on -ovati have the stem -uj-: ''kovati'' "to forge" > ''kuj-''
*** verbs on -nųti have the stem -n-: ''tęgnųti'' "to pull, to draw" > ''tęgn-''
*** monosyllabic verbs have -j-: ''piti'' "to drink" > ''pij-'', ''čuti'' "to feel" > ''čuj-''
*** the second stem is identical to the first stem if the latter ends in a consonant: ''nesti'' "to carry" > ''nes-'', ''vesti'' "to lead" > ''ved-''
** the second conjugation includes all polysyllabic verbs on -iti and most verbs on -ěti: ''prositi'' "to require" > ''pros-i-'', ''viděti'' "to see" > ''vid-i-''
There are also mixed and irregular verbs, i.e. verbs with a second stem that cannot be derived regularly from the first stem, for example: ''pisati'' "to write" > ''piš-'', ''spati'' "to sleep" > ''sp-i-'', ''zvati'' "to call" > ''zov-'', ''htěti'' "to want" > ''hoć-''. In these cases both stem have to be learned separately.
Conjugation
The various moods and tenses are formed by means of the following endings:
* ''Present tense'': -ų, -eš, -e, -emo, -ete, -ųt (first conjugation); -jų, -iš, -i, -imo, -ite, -ęt (second conjugation)
* ''Past tense – simple'' (as in Russian): m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li
* ''Past tense – complex'' (as in South Slavic):
** ''Imperfect tense'': -h, -še, -še, -hmo, -ste, -hų
** ''Perfect tense'': m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li + the present tense of ''byti'' "to be"
** ''Pluperfect tense'': m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li + the imperfect tense of ''byti''
* ''Conditional'': m. -l, f. -la, n. -lo, pl. -li + the conditional of ''byti''
* ''Future tense'': the future tense of ''byti'' + the infinitive
* ''Imperative'': -Ø, -mo, -te after j, or -i, -imo, -ite after another consonant.
The forms with -l- in the past tense and the conditional are actually participles known as the ''L-participle''. The remaining participles are formed as follows:
* ''Present active participle'': -ųći (first conjugation), -ęći (second conjugation)
* ''Present passive participle'': -omy/-emy (first conjugation), -imy (second conjugation)
* ''Past active participle'': -vši after a vowel, or -ši after a consonant
* ''Past passive participle'': -ny after a vowel, -eny after a consonant. Monosyllabic verbs (except for those on -ati) have -ty. Verbs on -iti have the ending -jeny.
The ''verbal noun'' is based on the past passive participle, replacing the ending -ny/-ty with -ńje/-.
Examples
Whenever the stem of verbs of the second conjugation ends in s, z, t, d, st or zd, an ending starting -j causes the following mutations
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosi ...
:
* ''prositi'' "to require": ''pros-jų > prošų, pros-jeny > prošeny''
* ''voziti'' "to transport": ''voz-jų > vožų, voz-jeny > voženy''
* ''tratiti'' "to lose": ''trat-jų > traćų, trat-jeny > traćeny''
* ''slěditi'' "to follow": ''slěd-jų > slěđų, slěd-jeny > slěđeny''
* ''čistiti'' "to clean": ''čist-jų > čišćų, čist-jeny > čišćeny''
* ''jezditi'' "to go (by transport)": ''jezd-jų > ježđų, jezd-jeny > ježđeny''
Alternative forms
Because Interslavic is not a highly formalized language, a lot of variation occurs between various forms. Often used are the following alternative forms:
* In the first conjugation, -aje- is often reduced to -a-: ''ty dělaš'', ''on děla'' etc.
* Instead of the 1st person singular ending -(j)ų, the ending -(e)m is sometimes used as well: ''ja dělam'', ''ja hvalim'', ''ja nesem''.
* Instead of -mo in the 1st person plural, -me can be used as well: ''my děla(je)me'', ''my hvalime''.
* Instead of -hmo in the imperfect tense, -smo and the more archaic -hom can be used as well.
* Instead of the conjugated forms of ''byti'' in the conditional (''byh, bys'' etc.), ''by'' is often used as a particle
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
: ''ja by pisal(a)'', ''ty by pisal(a)'' etc.
* Verbal nouns can have the ending -ije instead of -je: ''dělanije'', ''hvaljenije''.
Irregular verbs
A few verbs have an irregular conjugation:
* byti "to be" has ''jesm, jesi, jest, jesmo, jeste, sųt'' in the present tense, ''běh, běše...'' in the imperfect tense, and ''bųdų, bųdeš...'' in the future
* dati "to give", jěsti "to eat" and věděti "to know" have the following present tense: ''dam, daš, da, damo, date, dadųt''; ''jem, ješ...''; ''věm, věš...''
* idti "to go by foot, to walk" has an irregular L-participle: ''šel, šla, šlo, šli''.
Vocabulary
Words in Interslavic are based on comparison of the vocabulary of the modern Slavic languages. For this purpose, the latter are subdivided into six groups:
* Russian
* Ukrainian and Belarusian
* Polish
* Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
and Slovak
* Slovene and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
* Bulgarian and Macedonian
These groups are treated equally. In some situations even smaller languages, like Kashubian, Rusyn and Sorbian languages
The Sorbian languages (, ) are the Upper Sorbian language and Lower Sorbian language, two closely related and partially mutually intelligible languages spoken by the Sorbs, a West Slavs, West Slavic ethno-cultural minority in the Lusatia region ...
are included. Interslavic vocabulary has been compiled in such way that words are understandable to a maximum number of Slavic speakers. The form in which a chosen word is adopted depends not only on its frequency in the modern Slavic languages, but also on the inner logic of Interslavic, as well as its form in Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...
: to ensure coherence, a system of regular derivation is applied.
Example
; (Latin)
; (Cyrillic)
; (Latin, etymological)
In popular culture
Interslavic is featured in Václav Marhoul's movie ''The Painted Bird'' (based on the novel of the same title written by Polish-American writer Jerzy Kosiński), in which it plays the role of an unspecified Slavic language, making it the first movie to use the language. Marhoul stated that he decided to use Interslavic (after searching on Google for "Slavic Esperanto") so that no Slavic nation would nationally identify with the villagers depicted as bad people in the movie. The film also contains a song in Interslavic, titled ''Dušo moja''.
Several musicians and bands have recorded music in Interslavic, including: the album ''Počva'' by the Czech pagan folk group ''Ďyvina'', the song ''Idemo v Karpaty'' by the Ukrainian reggae band ''The Vyo'', the song ''Masovo pogrebanje'' by the Croatian folk band ''Mito Matija'' and several albums recorded by the Polish YouTuber ''Melac''.
Books in Interslavic include:
* ''Čitateljnik'' ("Reader"), an anthology of short Interslavic texts by sixteen different authors (2018)
* ''Maly princ'', a translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator.
Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...
's work '' The Little Prince'' by Jan van Steenbergen
Johannes Hendrik "Jan" van Steenbergen (; born June 3, 1970) is a Dutch translator and interpreter. He is known for being the author of several constructed languages, notably Interslavic and Wenedyk.
He was born in Hoorn, where he spent most of ...
(2021)
References
Literature
* . ''Panslawische Variationen''. Brosch, Ciril i Fiedler, Sabine (ed.), Florilegium Interlinguisticum. Festschrift für Detlev Blanke zum 70. Geburtstag. Peter Lang Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main, 2011, , pp. 209–236.
* . ''Pravigo de la slava interlingvistiko: slava reciprokeco kaj tutslava lingvo en la historio de Slavoj''. Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und Geisteswissenschaft, no. 57:2, June 2016, Akademia Libroservo, ISSN 0723-4899, pp. 75–101.
* . ''Zonal Constructed Language and Education Support of e-Democracy – The Interslavic Experience''. , E-Democracy – Privacy-Preserving, Secure, Intelligent E-Government Services. 7th International Conference, E-Democracy 2017, Athens, Greece, December 14–15, 2017, Proceedings (Communications in Computer and Information Science no. 792, Springer International Publishing, 2017, , 978-3-319-71117-1), pp. 15–30.
* . ''The Interslavic Language: Way of Communication Among the Slavic Nations and Ethnic Groups.'' Journal of Ethnophilosophical Questions and Global Ethics 2.1 (2018): pp. 18–28.
*
''Slavic constructed languages in the internet age''
Language Problems & Language Planning, vol. 40 no. 3 (January 2016), pp. 287–315.
* . ''Wiederbelebung einer Utopie. Probleme und Perspektiven slavischer Plansprachen im Zeitalter des Internets''. Bamberger Beiträge zur Linguistik 6, Bamberg: Univ. of Bamberg Press, 2014, .
* , ''Interslavic zonal constructed language: an introduction for English-speakers'' (Lukáš Lhoťan, 2018, ).
* . ''Neoslavonic zonal constructed language''. České Budějovice, 2012, .
* . ''Neoslavonic Language''. Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und Geisteswissenschaft, no. 57:2, June 2016, Akademia Libroservo, ISSN 0723-4899, pp. 114–134.
*
''История межславянского языка''
. Вестник Московского государственного областного университета. Московский государственный областной университет, 2012 no. 1 (), pp. 51–56.
* . ''Constructed Slavic languages in the 21st century''. Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und Geisteswissenschaft, no. 57:2, June 2016, Akademia Libroservo, ISSN 0723-4899, pp. 102–113.
* .
Język międzysłowiański jako lingua franca dla Europy Środkowej
''. Ilona Koutny, Ida Stria (eds.): Język / Komunikacja / Informacja nr XIII (2018). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Rys, 2018. , ISSN 1896-9585, pp. 47–61.
External links
Interslavic – official website
Interslavic language portal
Multilingual Interslavic dictionary
Interslavic news site
old server
)
Interslavic wiki
collection of texts
Professional peer-reviewed journal in Interslavic language — SLOVJANI.info
CISLa – Conference on InterSlavic Language
Medžuslovjanska funkcija (Interslavic function) – organization website
{{Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism
Slavic languages
Zonal auxiliary languages
Constructed languages
2006 introductions
Constructed languages introduced in the 2000s
Languages written in Cyrillic script
Slavic languages written in Latin script