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Old Church Slavonic
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Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Bulgarian, or Old Macedonian, was the first literary Slavic language, based on the old Solun dialect of the Thessalonica region by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who used it for translation of the Bible and other Ancient Greek ecclesiastical texts, and for some of their own writings. It played a great role in the history of Slavic languages and served as a basis and a role-model for later Church Slavonic traditions, where Church Slavonic is used as a liturgical language to this day by some Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches of the Slavic peoples.
language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia in 863 (see Glagolitic alphabet for details).
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Encyclopedia
Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Bulgarian, or Old Macedonian, was the first literary Slavic language, based on the old Solun dialect of the Thessalonica region by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who used it for translation of the Bible and other Ancient Greek ecclesiastical texts, and for some of their own writings. It played a great role in the history of Slavic languages and served as a basis and a role-model for later Church Slavonic traditions, where Church Slavonic is used as a liturgical language to this day by some Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches of the Slavic peoples.
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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, in the region of Macedonia (; in Old Church Slavonic, ), 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 (Velkomoravské ucilište) 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 recensions, 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 ; ; ; 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 Glagolitic 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.
Grammar
As an ancient Indo-European language, OCS has highly inflective morphology. Nominals can be declined in three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), three numbers (singular, plural, dual) and seven cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, genitive, and locative. Synthetic verbal conjugation is expressed in present, aorist and imperfect tenses, while perfect, pluperfect, future and conditional tenses/moods are made by combining auxiliary verbs with participles or synthetic tense forms.
Basis and local influences
Old Church Slavonic is evidenced by a relatively small body of manuscripts, most of which were written in Bulgaria 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 tsardom have, on the other hand, few 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:
- The nasal vowels and
- Supershort and .
- Open articulation of the yat vowel.
- and from Proto-Slavic *nj and *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:
- , by means of liquid metathesis of Proto-Slavic *or, *ol clusters
- from the Proto-Slavic *x before *ai
- and from the Proto-Slavic *kv', *gv'
- morphosyntactic
- use of the dative possessive case in personal pronouns and nouns: ; descriptive future tense using the verb ("to want"); use of the comparative form (smaller) to denote "younger".
- use of suffixed demonstrative pronouns (t?, ta, to). In Bulgarian and Macedonian these developed into suffixed definite articles.
Old Church Slavonic has some extra features in common with Bulgarian:
- Open articulation of the Yat vowel ; still preserved in the Bulgarian dialects of the Rhodope mountains;
- The existence of and as reflexes of Proto-Slavic *tj and *dj or *gt and *kt before front vowels.
- Use of possessive dative for personal pronouns and nouns, as in , etc
- Descriptive future tense with the auxiliary verb , for example
| Proto-Slavic | OCS | Bulg. | Czech | Maced. | Pol. | Rus. | Slovak | Sloven. | Cro./Serb. |
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Bulgarian recension
Eastern Bulgarian (Moesian) recension
The Eastern Bulgarian recension is the oldest recension of the Old Church Slavonic language, which flourished with the rise of the First Bulgarian Empire under Tsar Simeon I. The main literary centre of this recension was the Preslav Literary School, one of the two main literary schools of the First Bulgarian Empire along with the Ohrid Literary School. The existence of two major literary centres in the Empire led to the development of two recensions in the period from the ninth to the eleventh centuries. Thus:
- The Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets were used concurrently
- In some documents the original supershort vowels ? and ? merged with one letter taking the place of the other
- In Western Bulgarian recensions ? was sometimes substituted with ?
- In Eastern Bulgarian recensions the original ascending reflex (??, ??) of syllabic and was sometimes metathesized to ??, ??; or a combination of the ordering was used
- The central vowel ? merged with ??
- Sometimes the use of letter was merged with that of
- verb forms , ?????????? were substituted or alternated with , ????????
- Use of words with proto-Bulgar origin, such as ??????, ??????, ???????, ???????, etc.
Western Bulgarian (Macedonian) recension
The Western Bulgarian(Macedonian) recension is one of the oldest recensions of Old Church Slavonic and thrived in the period between the 10th and 14th centuries. The main literary centre of this recension was the Ohrid Literary School, one of the two main literary centres of the First Bulgarian Empire whose most prominent member, and most likely founder, was Saint Clement of Ohrid. This recension is represented by the Codex Zographensis and Marianus, among others. As this recension grew and thrived, several other literary centers emerged, among which most notable is the Lesnovo Literary School of the Lesnovo Monastery. The main features of this recension are the following:
- Continuous usage of the Glagolithic alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet;
- A feature called "mixing (confusion) of the nasals" so that became after , and in a cluster of a labial consonant and . became after sibilant consonants and .
- Wide use of the soft consonant clusters and ; in the later stages, these developed into the modern Macedonian phonems
- Strict distinction in the articulation of the yers and their vocalisation in strong position (? ? and ? ? ) or deletion in weak position;
- Confusion of with yat and yat with ;
- Denasalization in the latter stages: ? and ? , ??, ?;
- Wider usage and retainment of the phoneme (which in all Slavic languages but Macedonian has daffricated to );
Moravian recension
While in the Prague fragments the only Moravian influence is replacing with and with , the recension evidenced by the Kiev Folia is characterised by the following features:
- Confusion between the letters Big yus and Uk occurs once in the Kiev Folia, when the expected form is spelled
from Proto-Slavic *tj, use of from *dj, *skj
- use of the words m?ša, cirky, papež?, prefacija, klepati, piskati etc.
- preservation of the consonant cluster (e.g. modlitvami)
- use of the ending –?m? instead of –om? in the masculine singular instrumental, use of the pronoun c?so
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 of angular Croatian type. It is characterized by the following developments:
- de-nasalisation of PSl. *e > e, PSl. *o > u, e.g. Cr. ruka : OCS roka ("hand"), Cr. jezik : OCS jezyk? ("tongue, language")
- PSl. *y > i, e.g. Cr. biti : OCS byti ("to be")
- PSl. weak-positioned yers *? and *? in merged, probably representing some schwa-like sound, and only one of the letters was used (usually '?'). Evident in earliest documents like Baška tablet.
- PSl. strong-positioned yers *? and *? were vocalized into a in most Štokavian and Cakavian speeches, e.g. Cr. pas : OCS p?s? ("dog")
- PSl. hard and soft syllabic liquids *r and r' retained syllabicity and were written as simply r, as opposed to OCS sequences of mostly r? and r?, e.g. krst? and trg? as opposed to OCS kr?st? and tr?g? ("cross", "market")
- PSl. #v?C and #v?C > #uC, e.g Cr. udova : OCS. v?dova ("widow")
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 with [u]
- merging of letters e and ja
Serbian recension
The Serbian recension was at first written in the Glagolitic alphabet, but later switched to the Cyrillic alphabet. It appeared in the mid-12th century. Characteristics are as follows:
- nasal vowels were denasalised and in one case closed: *e > e, *o > u, e.g. OCS roka -> Sr. ruka ("hand"), OCS jezyk? -> Sr. jezik ("tongue, language")
- extensive use of diacritical signs by the Resava recension
- use of letters i, y, e for the sound by the Bosnian variant, and i, y for the sound by other variants of the Serbian recension.
Due to Turkey taking possession of Bulgaria while a semi-autonomous vassal status of Serbia was preserved, in late 15th century Serbian recension was influenced by an influx of educated refugee-scribes trained in the East-Bulgarian recension, which re-introduced a more classical form.
The canon of Old Church Slavonic
The core corpus of Old Church Slavonic manuscripts is usually referred to as canon. Manuscripts must satisfy certain linguistic, chronological and cultural criteria to be incorporated into the canon, i.e. it must not significantly depart from the language and tradition of Constantine and Methodius, usually known as the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition.
For example, the Freising Fragments, dating from the tenth century do show some linguistic and cultural traits of Old Church Slavonic, but are usually not included in the canon as some of the phonological features of the writings appear to belong to some Pannonian Slavic dialect of the time. Similarly, the Ostromir Gospels exhibits dialectal features that classify it as East Slavic, rather than South Slavic, so it's not included in the canon either. On the other hand, the Kiev Missal is included in the canon, even though it manifests some West Slavic features and contains Western liturgy, due to the Bulgarian linguistic layer and connection to the Moravian mission.
Manuscripts are usually classified in two groups, depending on the used alphabet, of Cyrillic and Glagolitic. With the exception of Kiev Missal and Glagolita Clozianus which exhibit West-Slavic and Croatian features respectively, all Glagolitic texts are assumed to be of Macedonian (Western Bulgarian) provenience:
- Kiev Missal (Ki, KM), seven folios, late tenth century
- Codex Zographensis, (Zo), 288 folios, tenth or eleventh century
- Codex Marianus (Mar), 173 folios, early eleventh century
- Codex Assemanius (Ass), 158 folios, early eleventh century
- Psalterium Sinaiticum (Pas, Ps. sin.), 177 folios, eleventh century
- Euchologium Sinaiticum (Eu, Euch), 109 folios, eleventh century
- Glagolita Clozianus (Clo, Cloz), 14 folios, eleventh century
- Ohrid Folios (Ohr), 2 folios, eleventh century
- Rila Folios (Ri, Ril), 2 folios and 5 fragments, eleventh century
All Cyrillic manuscripts are of Bulgarian provenience and date from the eleventh century, except for Zographos Fragments which are Macedonian (Western Bulgarian):
- Sava's book (Sa, Sav), 126 folios
- Codex Suprasliensis, (Supr), 284 folios
- Enina Apostol (En, Enin), 39 folios
- Hilandar Folios (Hds, Hil), 2 folios
- Undol'skij's Fragments (Und), 2 folios
- Macedonian Folio (Mac), 1 folio
- Zographos Fragments (Zogr. Fr.), 2 folios
- Sluck Psalter (Ps. Sl., Sl), 5 folios
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. The Second Book of Enoch was only preserved in Old Church Slavonic, although the original most certainly had been Greek or even Hebrew or Aramaic.
Nomenclature
The original name of the language in the Old Church Slavonic texts was simply Slavic (??????????? ?????, sloveniskyj jezyku), derived from the word for Slavs (???????, slovene), the self-designation of the compilers of the texts. This name is preserved in the modern names of the Slovak and Slovene languages. The language is sometimes called Old Slavic, which may be confused with the distinct Proto-Slavic language. The commonly accepted terms in modern English-language Slavic studies are Old Church Slavonic and Old Church Slavic.
Old Bulgarian (????? ??????????) is also widely used and is the only designation used by Bulgarian linguistics, as it corresponds to the earliest form of written Bulgarian, followed by Middle Bulgarian (Church Slavonic language) and New Bulgarian (the modern Bulgarian language). The designation Old Bulgarian was introduced in the 19th century by August Schleicher, Martin Hattala, Leopold Geitler, and August Leskien, who noted the similarities between the first literary Slavic works and the modern Bulgarian language. For similar reasons Russian linguist Aleksandr Vostokov used the term Slav-Bulgarian.
Similarly, Old Macedonian is used occasionally in Western scholarship for many of the same reasons, but in a regional context.
Modern Slavic nomenclature
Here are some of the names used by speakers of modern Slavic languages:
, ‘Old Slavic’
, ‘Old (Church) Slavic’
, ‘Old Bulgarian’
, ‘Old Slavic’
, ‘Old (Church) Slavic’
, ‘Old (Church) Slavic’
, ‘Old Church Slavic’
, ‘Old Slavic language’
, ‘Old (Church) Slavic’
, ‘(Old) Slavic’
, ‘Old Church Slavic’
, ‘Old Slavic’
See also
External links
- , a comprehensive tutorial at the A. Richard Diebold Center for Indo-European Language and Culture, Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
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