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Old Church Slavonic (also called Old Bulgarian or Old Slavic[1]) is the first literary Slavic language,
developed from the Slavic dialect of Thessalonica (modern Thessaloniki) by the
9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries,
Saints Cyril and Methodius. It was used by them for translation of the
Bible and other texts from Greek and for some of their own
writings. It played a great role in the history of Slavic languages and evolved into Church Slavonic, which is still used as a liturgical
language by some Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches of the Slavic peoples.
History
The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia in
863 (see Glagolitic alphabet for details). For that
purpose, Cyril and his brother Methodius first
codified Old Church Slavonic from the Southern Slavic dialect spoken in the neighbourhood (hinterland) of their city,
Thessalonica (Solun in Slavic), in the Byzantine
Empire.
As part of the preparation for the mission, in 862/863, the
Glagolitic alphabet was created and the most important prayers and liturgical books,
including the Aprakos Evangeliar (a Gospel Book lectionary containing only feast-day and Sunday readings), the Psalter, and
Acts of the Apostles, were translated. (The Gospels were also translated early, but
it is unclear whether Sts. Cyril or Methodius had a hand in this). The language and the alphabet were taught at the Great
Moravian Academy (Veľkomoravské učilište) and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the
Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia.
In 885, the use of the Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by the Pope in favour
of Latin. Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet and the Old Church Slavonic language to the Bulgarian Empire. It was taught at
two Bulgarian academies - in Preslav (capital
893-972) and Ohrid
(capital 991/997-1015). The
Cyrillic alphabet was developed shortly afterwards in the Preslav Literary School and replaced the Glagolitic one. The texts written during this era
contain characteristics of the vernacular of Bulgaria. There are some linguistic differences between texts written in the two
academies.
Thereupon the language, in its Bulgarian recension, spread to other South-Eastern and Eastern European Slavic territories,
most notably to Croatia, Serbia,
Bohemia, Lesser Poland, and the Russian principalities. The texts written in each country contain characteristics of the local Slavic
vernacular.
Much later, local redactions of Old Church Slavonic were created for ecclesiastical and administrative use, and are
collectively known as Church Slavonic (Macedonian: црковнословенски јазик, crkovnoslovenski jazik; Bulgarian: църковнославянски език, ts'rkovnoslavyanski ezik; Russian: церковнославя́нский язы́к, tserkovnoslavyánskiy yazík), but these terms are often
confused. Church Slavonic maintained a prestige status, particularly in Russia, for many
centuries—among Slavs in the East it had a status analogous to that of the Latin language in
western Europe, but had the advantage of being substantially less divergent from the
vernacular tongues of average parishioners. Some Orthodox churches, such as the
Russian Orthodox Church, Bulgarian
Orthodox Church and Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as several
Greek Catholic churches, still use Church Slavonic in their services and
chants today.
Script
Initially Old Church Slavonic was written with the Glagolitic alphabet, but later
it was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet. Only in Croatia was the local variant of the Glagolitic alphabet preserved. See Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the
sounds it originally expressed.
Basis and local influences
Old Church Slavonic is evidenced by a relatively small body of manuscripts, most of which
were written during the late 10th and the early 11th centuries. The language has a Southern Slavic basis with an admixture of
Western Slavic features inherited during the mission of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius to Great Moravia (863 - 885). The only well-preserved manuscript of Moravian recension, the Kiev Folia,
is characterised by the replacement of some Southern Slavic phonetic and lexical features with Western Slavic ones. Manuscripts
written in the medieval Bulgarian kingdom have, on the other hand, fewer Western Slavic features.
Old Church Slavonic is valuable to historical linguists since it preserves archaic features believed to have once been common
to all Slavic languages. Some of these features are:
- nasal counterparts of the vowels o and e
- use of supershort vowels ь and ъ for Proto-Indo-European short i
and u
- open articulation of the yat vowel
- [ň] and [ľ] for the Proto-Slavic [nj], [lj]
- Proto-Slavic declension system based on stem-endings (so-called o-stems, jo-stems, a-stems and ja-stems)
- aorists, the imperfect, Proto-Slavic paradigms for participles etc. were still used
The Southern Slavic nature of the language is evident from the following variations:
- phonetic:
- use of [ra-], [la-] for the Proto-Slavic [or̃-], [ol̃-]
- use of [s] for the Proto-Slavic [x] before the Proto-Slavic åi
- use of [cv-], [dzv-] for the Proto-Slavic [kv'-], [gv'-]
- morphosyntactic
- use of the dative possessive case in personal pronouns and nouns: рѫка ти; отъпоуштенье грѣхомъ;
descriptive future tense using the verb хотѣти (to want); use of the comparative form мьнии (smaller) to denote "younger".
- use of suffixed demonstrative pronouns (тъ, та, то). In Bulgarian and Macedonian these developed into suffixed definite
articles.
Some of the phonetic features in Old Church Slavonic are typical only for Bulgarian, as follows:
- very wide articulation of the Yat vowel (Ѣ); originally
still preserved in the Bulgarian dialects of the Rhodope mountains;
- Proto-Slavic reflexes of *tj ([t']) and *dj ([d']):
| Proto-Slavic |
Old Church Slavonic |
Bulgarian |
Czech |
Macedonian |
Polish |
Russian |
Slovak |
Slovenian |
Serbian |
| *dʲ |
ʒd |
ʒd |
z |
gʲ |
ʣ |
ʐ |
ʣ |
j |
ʥ |
| *tʲ |
ʃt |
ʃt |
ʦ |
kʲ |
ʦ |
tɕ |
ʦ |
ʧ |
ʨ |
| *gt/kt |
ʃt |
ʃt |
ʦ |
kʲ |
ʦ |
tɕ |
ʦ |
ʧ |
ʨ |
Macedonian recension
Macedonian is one of the oldest recensions of the Old Church Slavonic language and thrived in the period between the
10th and 14th centuries. The main literary center of
this recension was the Ohrid Literary School (founded in the First Bulgarian Empire) whose most prominent member, and most likely founder, was
Saint Clement of Ohrid. As this recension grew and thrived, several other literary
centers emerged, among which most notable is the Lesnovo Literary School of the Lesnovo
Monastery in north-eastern Macedonia. The main features are the following:
- the traditional form of writing i.e. continuous usage of the Glagolithic
alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet;
- a feature called mixing (confusion) of the nasals which is a unique Macedonian feature. Thus the development
ѫ > ѧ occurs: behind the soft consonants р, л and н and in the
cluster labial consonant + soft л. The vice versa case, development ѧ > ѫ occurs behind ш, ж, ц, ч, щ (шт), жд and j;
- wide usage of the soft consonant clusters шт and жд and, in the later stages, their development in the modern Macedonian
phonems ќ = /kʲ/ and ѓ = /gʲ/ respectively;
- Strict distinction in the articulation of the yers and their vocalisation in strong position (ъ > o and ь > e) or
omission in weak position;
- Confusion of ѧ with Ѣ and Ѣ with
e;
- Denasalization in the latter stages: ѧ > e and ѫ > a,
ѹ, ъ;
- Wider usage and keeping of the phoneme ѕ = /dz/ (which in all Slavic
languages but Macedonian has merged with з);
Bulgarian recension
Several literary centres were operated in the Bulgarian Empire. These centred around
the two main academies in Ohrid and Preslav. This led to the appearance of multiple Bulgarian recensions in the period from the
9th to the 11th centuries. Thus:
- both Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets were concurrently used
- in some documents the original supershort vowels [ъ] and [ь] merged and only one of the letters was used to represent both of
them
- in West-Bulgarian recensions [ъ] was sometimes substituted with [o]
- in East-Bulgarian recensions the original ascending reflex (rь, lь) of syllabic 'r' and 'l' was sometimes changed to
descending ьr, ьl or a combination of both was used
- original [ы] and [ъi] merged to [ы]
- sometimes the use of letter 'Ѕ' (dz) was unified with that of 'З' (z)
- verb forms naricajǫ, naricaješi were substituted or alternated with naričǫ, naričeši
- lexical - use of words with proto-Bulgar origin, such as кумиръ, капище, чрьтогъ,
блъванъ, etc.
Moravian recension
While in the Prague fragments the only Moravian influence is replacing [št] with [c] and [žd] with [z], the recension
evidenced by the Kiev Folia is characterised by the following features:
- confusion between the letters Big yus (Ѫ) and Uk (ѹ)
occurs once in the Kiev Folia, when the expected form въсѹдъ is spelled въсѫдъ
- use of [c] for the Proto-Slavic *tj, use of [dz] for the Proto-Slavic *dj, use of šč for the Proto-Slavic *skj
- use of the words mьša, cirky, papežь, prěfacija, klepati, piskati etc.
- preservation of the group dl (e.g. modlitvami)
- use of the ending –ъmь instead of –omь in the masculine singular instrumental, use
of the pronoun čьso
Later recensions (Church Slavonic)
Later use of the language in a number of medieval Slavic states resulted in the adjustment of Old Church Slavonic to the local
vernacular, though a number of Southern Slavic, Moravian or Bulgarian features were also preserved. Some of the significant later recensions of Old Church Slavonic
(referred to as Church Slavonic) in the present time are: Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian,
Russian.
Croatian recension
The Croatian recension of Old Church Slavonic is one of the earliest known today. It only used the Glagolitic alphabet. The
nasal sounds [ǫ] / [ę] had been substituted with [o] / [u] and a variety of
reflections of the proto-Slavic *tj and *dj emerged.
Russian recension
The Russian recension was developed after the 10th century on the basis of the earlier
Bulgarian recensions, from which it differed slightly. Its main features are:
- substitution of the nasal sound [ǫ] with [u]
- merging of letters [ě] and [ja]
Serbian recension
The Serbian recension was at first written in Glagolitic alphabet, but later switched to Cyrillic alphabet. It appeared in the
12th century on the basis of the East-Bulgarian recensions:
- nasal vowels [ǫ] and [ę] were replaced with [u] and [е]
- use of diacritical signs by the Resava recension
Authors
The history of Old Church Slavonic writing includes a northern tradition begun by the mission to Great Moravia, including a short mission in the Balaton
principality, and a Bulgarian tradition begun by some of the missionaries who relocated to Bulgaria after the expulsion from Great Moravia.
Old Church Slavonic's first writings, translations of Christian liturgical and Biblical texts, were produced by Byzantine
missionaries Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius,
mostly during their mission to Great Moravia.
The most important authors in Old Church Slavonic after the death of Methodius and the dissolution of the Great Moravian
academy were Clement of Ohrid (active also in Great Moravia), Constantine of Preslav, Chernorizetz Hrabar and
John Exarch, all of whom worked in medieval Bulgaria at
the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th
century.
Nomenclature
The original name of the language in the Old Church Slavonic texts was simply "Slavic" (словѣньскыи ѩзыкъ slověnĭskyj
językŭ),[2] derived from the word словѣне
slověne, the self-designation of the compilers of the texts.
The language is sometimes called "Old Slavic", but that term is undesirable as it may be confused with the distinct
Proto-Slavic language.
The designation Old Bulgarian (German Altbulgarisch) was introduced in the
19th century by reputable linguists as August
Schleicher, Martin Hattala and Leopold Geitler who
noticed that the linguistic features of the first Slavic literary works are the same as those of the Bulgarian language. For
similar reasons Russian linguist Aleksandr Vostokov
used the term Slav-Bulgarian. The designation is, however, now considered by some as incorrect, as it implies that Old
Church Slavonic was the ancestor exclusively of Bulgarian and that all manuscripts
have a connection to Bulgarian.
The commonly accepted terms in modern English-language Slavic studies are Old Church Slavic (American usage) and Old
Church Slavonic (British usage). Old Bulgarian can still be found in a number of sources and is the only designation
used by Bulgarian linguistics. Some scholars use these terms for tradition's sake but believe that Old Macedonian better
reflects the language's basis in the dialect of Thessaloniki spoken by Cyril and Methodius. This name is unrelated to current
ethnic and political polemics surrounding the Republic of Macedonia, and its use
predates these issues.
Modern Slavic nomenclature
Here are some of the names used by speakers of modern Slavic languages:
- Belarusian: старажытнаславянская мова (staražytnasłavianskaja
mova) — 'Old Slavic'
- Bosnian: staro(crkveno) slavenski — 'Old (Church)
Slavic'
- Bulgarian: старобългарски (starobălgarski) — 'Old
Bulgarian'
- Czech: staroslověnština — 'Old Slavic'
- Croatian: staro(crkveno) slavenski — 'Old (Church)
Slavic'
- Macedonian: старо(црковно) словенски (staro(crkovno)
slovenski) — 'Old (Church) Slavic'
- Polish: staro-cerkiewno-słowiański — 'Old Church
Slavic'
- Russian: старославянский язык (staroslavjánskij
jazýk) — 'Old Slavic'
- Serbian: старо(црквено)словенски /
staro(crkveno)slovenski — 'Old (Church) Slavic'
- Slovak: (staro) slovienčina — '(Old) Slavic'
- Slovenian: stara cerkvena slovanščina — 'Old Church
Slavic'
- Ukrainian: старослов’янська мова (staroslovjans'ka
mova) — 'Old Slavic'
References
- ^ "Old Church Slavonic language." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia
Britannica Online. <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9056967>. In older writing and in Bulgaria, it
is often called Old Bulgarian — University of Texas Linguistics Research Center: Old Church Slavonic Online. Because of the
language's importance in the development of Macedonian, it is sometimes called
Old Macedonian (distinct from Ancient Macedonian) in the
Republic of Macedonia — The European
Library
- ^ Nandris, Grigore (1959). Old Church Slavonic Grammar,
p. 2 (London: University of London Athlone Press).
See also
External links
cu:Словѣньскъ ѩзыкъ
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