The Slavic languages are different enough from each other to make it very hard for the speaker of one language to understand written or spoken text in another language, especially when the latter is not exactly a close neighbour. However, it is possible to build a generic language that makes it possible for speakers of all Slavic languages to understand at least the basics of it. Once upon a time, such a language existed naturally as Proto-Slavic or its close relative Old Church Slavonic. Nowadays, the language is strictly hypothetic, but we can still try to reconstruct it. Because we shouldn't be mistaken about one thing: Interslavic not something anybody can create, because it is already there. All we need to do is discover it and put it on paper.
Every Interslavic project is a shadow of this language and reveals some information about it. Since its inception in 2006, Slovianski has give rise to constant and never-ending discussions about orthographical issues and other questions regarding the way it should relate to the common ancestor of all Slavic language, Proto-Slavic. There are many different criteria involved here: understandability, learnability, ease of use, aesthetics, internal logic, predictability, dealing with different keyboard definitions... As a result, we always need to make choices, and every choice has its own advantages and disadvantages: what makes things easier for a Russian can make things harder for a Serb or vice versa. Whatever we come up with, the result is always deemed to be a compromise that might not always be the best solution for every specific situation. Besides, all these different approaches do not change the fact that we are still speaking about the same generic Slavic language. What the latter looks like is something everyone basically agrees about, but ideas regarding its representation can be very different.
Let's suppose we don't care about aesthetics or practicality, and limit ourselves to the graphic representation of this generic Slavic language. If we do so, we should no longer worry about the question whether TorT sequences become -ro- or -ra- or whether ę should become e as in South Slavic or ja as in East Slavic: we simply use a special character that makes it possible for people to read it in a way that suits them best. The result is something that we can call Naučny Medžuslovjanski, „Scientific Interslavic”.
Naučny Medžuslovjanski (NMS) is an orthography that deals with the elementary differences between the Slavic languages, as well as the differences between several Interslavic projects that have been created over the centuries with the purpose of giving an approximation of this generic Slavic language. It features several special characters that convey etymological information and can easily be converted into several different orthographies. Thus, it can serve as the „source code” of all previous Interslavic projects, brought in such way that it can still easily be read if we ignore the diacritics. It is not meant to be pretty, simple or convenient, and its use in direct communication is definitely not recommended. Yet, it can be useful for several other purposes:
Naučny Medžuslovjanski uses the Latin alphabet, without q, w and x, and with the following additional characters:
tj/kt (> c/č/ć/št) and dj/gd (> dz/ž/dž/đ/žd)kv/gv + front vowel (> kv/gv in West Slavic, cv/zv elsewhere)
tl/dl (preserved in West Slavic, reduced to l elsewhere)
r/l-y(j)/-i(j) (m.sg.), -a(ja) (f.sg.), -(yj)e (pl.)-o/-e, -ogo/-ego etc. (where some languages have o and other languages have e, usually due to forward or backward contraction)-i/-'au or eu-aje- > -a-
This gives the following alphabet:
| a á å b c ç ć č d ḓ ď đ e é è ė ě ę f g h i í ì ı j ĵ k l ľ ŀ ĺ m n ň o ò œ p r ř ṙ ŕ s ś š t ṱ ť u ų ù v y ý z ʒ ź ž |
All characters have been selected in such way that:
Not every character would necessarily affect pronunciation: some of them are used only to provide other information; they only make a difference when it comes to transposing Naučny Medžuslovjanski into one of the national variants. The additional characters can be subdivided into five categories:
Not surprisingly, a text written in „full” Naučny Medžuslovjanski is dominated by diacritical marks. A text in which almost every word contains one or more diacritics is not very pleasing to the eye, especially since most of these diacritics do not really serve understandability anyway. Therefore, whenever NMS is used for communicative purposes, it deserves recommendation to use only a subset of the characters provided, to avoid your text from looking like Vietnamese.
Medžuslovjanski Plus can basically be anything between ordinary Interslavic and Naučny Medžuslovjanski. In other words, depending on your point of view it is either „Interslavic with optional additions” or „Naučny Medžuslovjanski with omissions”. Ideally, Medžuslovjanski Plus should only contain those characters that can really make a difference in improving understandability. This goes for example for ň, å, ě and ę. On the other hand, characters like ė or ù are not needed at all, because in a vast majority of cases it behaves exactly the same anyway.
„Traditional” Slovianski uses the Latin alphabet with š ž č and the five soft consonants ľ ň ř ť ď. Recommended additions for use in MS Plus are: å (except in the prefix raz-) ě ę ų ò (except in endings) ŕ ś ź ć đ (preferably written as dź). Not needed very much or not at all are: á ç ḓ é ė è í ı ì ĵ ŀ ĺ œ ṙ ṱ ù ý ʒ.
How characters in Naučny Medžuslovjanski relate to Medžuslovjanski Plus and other, lower levels, is displayed in the following tables:
| Naučny Medžuslovjanski | a | á | å | o | œ | ò | u | ų | e | é | ė | è | ě | ę | ı | i | í | ì | y | ý |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medžuslovjanski Plus | a | å | o | ò | u | ų | e | ě | ę | — | i | y | ||||||||
| Trad. Slovianski | a | o | u | e | — | i | y | |||||||||||||
| Slovianto | a | o | u | e | — | i | ||||||||||||||
| Naučny Medžuslovjanski | p | b | f | v | ù | m | t | ť | d | ď | s | ś | š | ʒ | z | ź | ž | n | ň | r | ṙ | ŕ | ř | l | ľ | ŀ | ĺ | k | g | h | ç | c | ć | č | dz | đ | dž | j | ĵ | ŧ | đ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medžuslovjanski Plus | p | b | f | v | m | t | ť | d | ď | s | ś | š | z | ź | ž | n | ń | r | ŕ | l | ľ | òl | k | g | h | c | ć | č | dz | dź | dž | j | — | ||||||||
| Trad. Slovianski | p | b | f | v | m | t | ť | d | ď | s | š | z | ž | n | ń | r | ŕ | l | ľ | ol | k | g | h | c | č | dz | dž | j | — | ||||||||||||
| Slovianto | p | b | f | v | m | t | d | s | š | z | ž | n | r | l | ol | k | g | h | c | č | dz | dž | j | — | |||||||||||||||||
MS Plus is also the orthography used on these pages.
Below follows an example of a text in Naučny Medžuslovjanski that contains almost all characters used in NMS. By selecting an orthography and a flavour, you can choose many different possibilities for representating it:
Međuslovjanskí język može bytì veliká pomoć dľa pųtujųćih i takože jest doskonalœ orųdıje dľa tyh, ktori hoćųt bṙzo naučitì sę jednœgo ili vęće slovjanskih językov. Učenıje sę takœgo języka ne jest tęžkœ i usilıje ne zajmaĵe mnogo časa. Kògda člověk dobro znaĵe takí język, on aùtomatično imaĵe možnosť izražanıja sę v vśakœm slovjanskœm kraji i može råzumětì bliz vse, čto ľudi k ňemu govoręt ili pišųt.
«Naučný Međuslovjanskí» jest ortografičný sistem, ktorý možno koristatì k pisanıju råznyh językoprojektov, vkľučajųć Slovjanskí i Novoslověnskí. Tœj pravopis råzni sę od drugih jedino tym, že imaĵe pŀnų i dosť råzšiřenų abecedų i v’slěd tœgo podavaĵe čitateľu vęće informacije o izgovorě i etimologiji slov. Očevidno zvųči komentař: po čto sųt nam té divné znaki, ktoryh ne imaĵemò v svojih vlastnyh piśmah i črėz ktoré tekst izględaĵe skaredno i jedino odstrašaĵe potenciaľnyh čitateľev. Da, ne odvŕgaĵų, že imaĵete pravdų. Ale ne zabųďte, že cěľ tœj ortografije ne jest ni lěposť ni vygoda, ale prėd vsem kompletnosť. Nikto ne očěkivaĵe, že by kto-nebųď načęl pisatì takim sposobòm.
Pomimo pozorov, Naučný Međuslovjanskí ne jest nikakœ arhaičnœ prodŀženıje mŕtvœgo praslovjanskœgo języka i takože ne imaĵe ničto obćego s cŕkòvnoslovjanskim. Protivno, on byl s’tvořený na osnově vsěh živųćih ješče slovjanskih językov. Vśako, cělkòm ne treba, že by někto iměl naučný stųpèň ili moḓlil sę k ʒvězdam, že by dobro råzuměl teksty napisané tym pravopisòm.
The example above shows the enormous possibilities of Naučny Medžuslovjanski, especially also when it comes to creating „national versions”. The Polish version goes much further than applying a Polish-based orthography only; it also applies certain other specificalities characteristic for Polish. The result is something that reads like a funny Polish dialect, or perhaps like a text of somebody trying to write in Old Polish. Yet, it is nothing but good old Interslavic run through a few algorithms, and not a single word has been altered. Obviously, this is only a demo, and these algorithms could be refined much further. However, it shows how understandability can be further increased by using these simple methods.
The same options can also be applied in the samples texts section.