There are, however, differences of a material, functional and typological nature, due to the long-term independent development of Slavic tribes and nationalities in different ethnic, geographical and historical-cultural conditions, their contacts with related and unrelated ethnic groups.
Slavic languages, according to the degree of their proximity to each other, are usually divided into 3 groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian) and Western Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish with a Kashubian dialect that has retained a certain genetic independence , Upper and Lower Sorbians). Small local groups of Slavs with their own literary languages are also known. Thus, Croats in Austria (Burgenland) have their own literary language based on the Chakavian dialect. Not all Slavic languages have reached us. At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. The Polabian language disappeared. The distribution of Slavic languages within each group has its own characteristics (see East Slavic languages, West Slavic languages, South Slavic languages). Every Slavic language includes literary language with all its stylistic, genre and other varieties and its own territorial dialects. The ratios of all these elements in Slavic languages are different. The Czech literary language has a more complex stylistic structure than Slovak, but the latter better preserves the features of the dialects. Sometimes dialects of one Slavic language differ from each other more than independent Slavic languages. For example, the morphology of the Shtokavian and Chakavian dialects of the Serbo-Croatian language differs much more deeply than the morphology of the Russian and Belarusian languages. Often the specific gravity of identical elements is different. For example, the category of diminutive in the Czech language is expressed in more diverse and differentiated forms than in the Russian language.
Of the Indo-European languages, S. are closest to the Baltic languages. This proximity served as the basis for the theory of the “Balto-Slavic proto-language”, according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first emerged from the Indo-European proto-language, which later split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, most modern scientists explain their special closeness to the long-term contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs. It has not been established on what territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European one took place. It can be assumed that it occurred to the south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral homelands. There are many such theories, but all of them do not localize the ancestral home where the Indo-European proto-language could have been located. On the basis of one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavic), the Proto-Slavic language was later formed, which is the ancestor of all modern Slavic languages. The history of the Proto-Slavic language was longer than the history of individual Slavic languages. For a long time it developed as a single dialect with the same structure. Later, dialect variants arise. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language and its dialects into independent S. languages. was long and difficult. It took place most actively in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e., during the formation of early Slavic feudal states in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of various geographical zones with different natural and climatic conditions were developed, the Slavs entered into relationships with peoples and tribes at different stages of cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of Slavic languages.
The Proto-Slavic language was preceded by a period of Proto-Slavic language, elements of which can be reconstructed with the help of ancient Indo-European languages. The Proto-Slavic language in its main part is restored with the help of data from S. I. different periods of their history. The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the oldest - before the establishment of close Balto-Slavic linguistic contact, the period of Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialect fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.
The individuality and originality of the Proto-Slavic language began to take shape in the early period. It was then that a new system of vowel sonants was formed, consonantism was significantly simplified, the reduction stage became widespread in ablaut, and the root ceased to obey ancient restrictions. According to the fate of the middle palatal k' and g', the Proto-Slavic language is included in the satəm group (sрьдьce, pisati, prositi, Wed. Lat. cor - cordis, pictus, precor; zьrno, znati, zima, Wed. Lat. granum, cognosco, hiems). However, this feature was implemented inconsistently: cf. Praslav *kamy, *kosa, *gǫsь, *gordъ, *bergъ, etc. Proto-Slavic morphology represents significant deviations from the Indo-European type. This primarily applies to the verb, to a lesser extent to the name. Most of the suffixes were already formed on Proto-Slavic soil. Proto-Slavic vocabulary is highly original; already in the early period of its development, the Proto-Slavic language experienced a number of significant transformations in the field of lexical composition. Having preserved in most cases the old lexical Indo-European fund, it at the same time lost many old Indo-European lexemes (for example, some terms from the field of social relations, nature, etc.). Many words were lost due to various kinds of prohibitions. For example, the name of oak - Indo-European - was forbidden. perku̯os, from Lat. quercus. The old Indo-European root has reached us only in the name of the pagan god Perun. In Slavic languages, the tabooistic dǫbъ was established, from where Russian. "oak", Polish dąb, Bulgarian dab, etc. The Indo-European name for the bear has been lost. It is preserved only in the new scientific term “Arctic” (cf. Greek ἄρκτος). The Indo-European word in the Proto-Slavic language was replaced by the taboo compound medvědь ‘honey eater’. During the period of the Balto-Slavic community, the Slavs borrowed many words from the Balts. During this period, vowel sonants were lost in the Proto-Slavic language, in their place diphthong combinations appeared in the position before consonants and the sequence “vowel sonant before vowels” (sъmьrti, but umirati), intonations (acute and circumflex) became relevant features. The most important processes of the Proto-Slavic period were the loss of closed syllables and the softening of consonants before the iota. In connection with the first process, all ancient diphthong combinations turned into monophthongs, smooth syllabic, nasal vowels arose, and a shift in the syllable division occurred, which in turn caused a simplification of consonant groups and the phenomenon of intersyllabic dissimilation. These ancient processes left their mark on all modern Slavic languages, which is reflected in many alternations: cf. rus. “reap - reap”; “take - I’ll take”, “name - names”, Czech. žíti - žnu, vzíti - vezmu; Serbohorv. zheti - press, uzeti - uzme, ime - names. The softening of consonants before the iot is reflected in the form of alternations s - š, z - ž, etc. All these processes had a strong impact on grammatical structure, to the system of inflections. In connection with the softening of the consonants before the iota, the process of the so-called first palatalization of vesterior palatals was experienced: k > č, g > ž, x > š. On this basis, even in the Proto-Slavic language, the alternations k: č, g: ž, x: š were formed, which had a great influence on nominal and verbal word formation. Later, the so-called second and third palatalization of the posterior palatals began to operate, as a result of which the alternations k: c, g: ʒ (z), x: s (š) arose. The name changed according to cases and numbers. In addition to the singular and plural, there was a dual number, which was later lost in almost all Slavic languages. There were nominal stems that performed the functions of definitions. In the late Proto-Slavic period, pronominal adjectives arose. The verb had the stems of the infinitive and present tense. From the former, the infinitive, supine, aorist, imperfect, participles in ‑l, active past participles in ‑vъ and passive participles in ‑n were formed. From the bases of the present tense, the present tense, the imperative mood, and the active participle of the present tense were formed. Later, in some Slavic languages, an imperfect began to form from this stem.
Even in the depths of the Proto-Slavic language, dialect formations began to form. The most compact was the group of Proto-Slavic dialects, on the basis of which the East Slavic languages later arose. In the West Slavic group there were 3 subgroups: Lechitic, Serbo-Sorbian and Czech-Slovak. The most differentiated in terms of dialect was the South Slavic group.
The Proto-Slavic language functioned in the pre-state period of the history of the Slavs, when tribal social relations dominated. Significant changes occurred during the period of early feudalism. This was reflected in the further differentiation of Slavic languages. By the 12th-13th centuries. there was a loss of the super-short (reduced) vowels ъ and ь, characteristic of the Proto-Slavic language. In some cases they disappeared, in others they became fully formed vowels. As a result, significant changes occurred in the phonetic and morphological structure of the Slavic languages. The Slavic languages have experienced many common processes in the field of grammar and lexical composition.
Slavic languages received literary treatment for the first time in the 60s. 9th century By the creators Slavic writing there were brothers Cyril (Constantine the Philosopher) and Methodius. They translated liturgical texts from Greek into Slavic for the needs of Great Moravia. The new literary language was based on the South Macedonian (Thessalonica) dialect, but in Great Moravia it acquired many local linguistic features. Later it was further developed in Bulgaria. In this language (usually called Old Church Slavonic) a wealth of original and translated literature was created in Moravia, Pannonia, Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabet: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From 9th century no Slavic texts have survived. The most ancient ones date back to the 10th century: the Dobrudzhan inscription 943, the inscription of King Samuel 993, etc. From the 11th century. Many Slavic monuments have already been preserved. Slavic literary languages of the feudal era, as a rule, did not have strict norms. Some important functions were performed by foreign languages (in Rus' - Old Church Slavonic, in the Czech Republic and Poland - Latin language). Unification of literary languages, development of written and pronunciation standards, expansion of the scope of use native language- all this characterizes the long period of formation of national Slavic languages. The Russian literary language has experienced centuries-long and complex evolution. It absorbed folk elements and elements of the Old Church Slavonic language, and was influenced by many European languages. It developed without interruption for a long time. The process of formation and history of a number of other literary Slavic languages proceeded differently. In the Czech Republic in the 18th century. literary language, which reached in the 14th-16th centuries. great perfection, has almost disappeared. The German language was dominant in the cities. During the period of national revival, Czech “awakeners” artificially revived the language of the 16th century, which at that time was already far from the national language. The entire history of the Czech literary language of the 19th and 20th centuries. reflects the interaction between the old book language and the spoken language. The development of the Slovak literary language proceeded differently. Not burdened by old book traditions, it is close to the folk language. In Serbia until the 19th century. The Church Slavonic language of the Russian version dominated. In the 18th century the process of bringing this language closer to the folk one began. As a result of the reform carried out by V. Karadzic in the mid-19th century, a new literary language was created. This new language began to serve not only the Serbs, but also the Croats, and therefore began to be called Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian. The Macedonian literary language was finally formed in the mid-20th century. Slavic literary languages have developed and are developing in close communication with each other. For the study of Slavic languages, see Slavic studies.
- Maye A., Common Slavic language, trans. from French, M., 1951;
- Bernstein S. B., Essay on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Introduction. Phonetics, M., 1961;
- his, Essay on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Alternations. Name bases, M., 1974;
- Kuznetsov P.S., Essays on the morphology of the Proto-Slavic language. M., 1961;
- Nachtigal R., Slavic languages, trans. from Slovenian, M., 1963;
- Entry into the historical-historical learning of Slovenian language. Per ed. O. S. Melnichuk, Kiev, 1966;
- National revival and formation of Slavic literary languages, M., 1978;
- Boskovic R., Fundamentals of comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Phonetics and word formation, M., 1984;
- Birnbaum Kh., Proto-Slavic language. Achievements and problems of its reconstruction, trans. from English, M., 1987;
- Vaillant A., Grammaire comparée des langues slaves, t. 1-5, Lyon - P., 1950-77.
SLAVIC LANGUAGES, a group of languages belonging to the Indo-European family, spoken by more than 440 million people in Eastern Europe and in North and Central Asia. The thirteen currently existing Slavic languages are divided into three groups: 1) the East Slavic group includes Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages; 2) West Slavic includes Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian (spoken in a small area in northern Poland) and two Lusatian (or Serbian) languages - Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian, spoken in small areas in eastern Germany; 3) the South Slavic group includes: Serbo-Croatian language (spoken in Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian language. In addition, there are three dead languages - Slovinian, which disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century, Polabian, which died out in the 18th century, as well as Old Church Slavonic - the language of the first Slavic translations Holy Scripture, which is based on one of the ancient South Slavic dialects and was used in worship in Slavic Orthodox Church but was never everyday spoken language (cm. OLD SLAVONIC LANGUAGE).
Modern Slavic languages have many words in common with other Indo-European languages. Many Slavic words are similar to the corresponding English ones, for example: sister –sister,three – three,nose – nose,night – night and etc. In other cases, the common origin of the words is less obvious. Russian word see cognate with Latin videre, Russian word five cognate with German fünf, Latin quinque(cf. musical term quintet), Greek penta, which is present, for example, in a borrowed word pentagon(lit. "pentagon") .
An important role in the system of Slavic consonantism is played by palatalization - the approach of the flat middle part of the tongue to the palate when pronouncing a sound. Almost all consonants in Slavic languages can be either hard (non-palatalized) or soft (palatalized). In the field of phonetics, there are also some significant differences between the Slavic languages. In Polish and Kashubian, for example, two nasal vowels have been preserved - ą And ERROR, disappeared in other Slavic languages. Slavic languages vary greatly in stress. In Czech, Slovak and Sorbian the stress usually falls on the first syllable of a word; in Polish – to the penultimate; in Serbo-Croatian, any syllable except the last one can be stressed; in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, stress can fall on any syllable of a word.
All Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, have several types of declension of nouns and adjectives, which vary in six or seven cases, in number and in three genders. The presence of seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative or prepositional and vocative) indicates the archaic nature of the Slavic languages and their closeness to the Indo-European language, which supposedly had eight cases. Important feature Slavic languages is the category of verbal aspect: every verb refers to either the perfect or imperfect form and denotes, respectively, either a completed, or a continuing or repeating action.
The territory inhabited by Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe in the 5th–8th centuries. AD expanded rapidly, and by the 8th century. The common Slavic language spread from the north of Russia to the south of Greece and from the Elbe and the Adriatic Sea to the Volga. Up to the 8th or 9th century. it was basically a single language, but gradually the differences between territorial dialects became more noticeable. By the 10th century. There were already predecessors to modern Slavic languages.
Just as a tree grows from a root, its trunk gradually becomes stronger, rises to the sky and branches, the Slavic languages “grew” from the Proto-Slavic language (see Proto-Slavic language), the roots of which go deep to the Indo-European language (see Indo-European family of languages). This allegorical picture, as we know, served as the basis for the theory of the “family tree,” which, in relation to the Slavic family of languages, can be accepted in general terms and even historically substantiated.
The Slavic language “tree” has three main branches: 1) East Slavic languages, 2) West Slavic languages, 3) South Slavic languages. These main branch groups branch in turn into smaller ones - for example, the East Slavic branch has three main branches - the languages Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, and the branch of the Russian language in turn has two main branches - Northern Russian and Southern Russian adverbs (see Adverbs of the Russian language ). If you pay attention to further branches of at least the South Russian dialect, you will see how it distinguishes the branch-zones of Smolensk, Upper Dnieper, Upper Desna, Kursk-Oryol, Ryazan, Bryansk-Zhizdra, Tula, Yelets and Oskol dialects. On them, if you draw a picture of the allegorical “family tree” further, there are also branches with numerous leaves - dialects of individual villages and settlements One could also describe the Polish or Slovenian branches, explain which of them has more branches, which has fewer, but the principle of description would remain the same.
Naturally, such a “tree” did not grow immediately, that it did not immediately branch out and grow so much, that the trunk and its main branches are older than the smaller branches and twigs. And it did not always grow comfortably and some branches withered away, some were chopped off. But more on that later. For now, we note that the “branched” principle of classification of Slavic languages and dialects presented by us refers to the natural Slavic languages and dialects, to the Slavic linguistic element outside its written form, without a normative written form. And if the various branches of the living Slavic linguistic “tree” - languages and dialects - did not appear immediately, then the existing written, bookish, standardized, and largely artificial language systems - literary languages - formed on their basis and in parallel with them did not immediately appear (see Literary language).
In the modern Slavic world, there are 12 national literary languages: three East Slavic - Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, five West Slavic - Polish, Czech, Slovak, Upper Lusatian-Serbian and Lower Lusatian-Serbian and four South Slavic - Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.
In addition to these languages, polyvalent languages, that is, speaking (like all modern national literary languages) both in the function of written, artistic, business speech, and in the function of oral, everyday, colloquial and stage speech, the Slavs also have “small” literary, almost always brightly dialectally colored languages. These languages are from limited use They usually function alongside national literary languages and serve either relatively small ethnic groups or even individual literary genres. There are such languages in Western Europe: in Spain, Italy, France and German-speaking countries. The Slavs know the Rusyn language (in Yugoslavia), the Kajkavian and Chakavian languages (in Yugoslavia and Austria), the Kashubian language (in Poland), the Lyash language (in Czechoslovakia), etc.
In the Middle Ages, the Polabian Slavs, who spoke the Polabian language, lived on a fairly vast territory in the Elbe River basin, called Laby in Slavic. This language is a severed branch from the Slavic language “tree” as a result of the forced Germanization of the population that spoke it. He disappeared in the 18th century. Nevertheless, separate records of Polabian words, texts, translations of prayers, etc. have reached us, from which it is possible to restore not only the language, but also the life of the disappeared Polabians. And at the International Congress of Slavists in Prague in 1968, the famous West German Slavist R. Olesh read a report in the Polish language, thus creating not only literary written (he read from typescript) and oral forms, but also scientific linguistic terminology. This indicates that almost every Slavic dialect (dialect) can, in principle, be the basis of a literary language. However, not only Slavic, but also another family of languages, as shown by numerous examples of newly written languages in our country.
In the 9th century. Through the labors of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, the first Slavic literary language was created - Old Church Slavonic. It was based on the dialect of the Thessaloniki Slavs; translations from Greek of a number of church and other books were made in it, and later some original works were written. The Old Church Slavonic language first existed in the West Slavic environment - in Great Moravia (hence a number of Moravises inherent in it), and then spread among the southern Slavs, where book schools - Ohrid and Preslav - played a special role in its development. From the 10th century this language also begins to exist among the Eastern Slavs, where it was known under the name of the Slovenian language, and scientists call it the Church Slavonic or Old Slavic language. The Old Slavic language was an international, inter-Slavic book language until the 18th century. and had a great influence on the history and modern appearance of many Slavic languages, especially the Russian language. Old Church Slavonic monuments have reached us with two writing systems - Glagolitic and Cyrillic (see The emergence of writing among the Slavs).
Proto-Slavic language. Old Slavonic language. Modern Slavic languages
Common Slavic or Proto-Slavic the language spoken by the ancestors of modern Slavic peoples who lived on the territory of their ancestral home was preserved in the first centuries AD. e. (at least until the middle of the first millennium), but the settlement of the Slavs into increasingly vast territories naturally led to the development of local dialects, some of which then underwent transformation into independent languages 46 .
Modern philological ideas about this language concern mainly its phonology and morphology; It’s unlikely that anyone will undertake to compose a long coherent phrase on it, or even more so to try to “speak Proto-Slavic”. The fact is that the Proto-Slavic language was a language preliterate; There are no texts on it, and philologists deduce its word forms, features of its phonology and phonetics using the method of reconstruction. Philology students are introduced in detail to the principles of such reconstruction, in particular, in the course of the Old Church Slavonic language 47 . The course “Introduction to Slavic Philology,” while avoiding duplication of such information, still includes its necessary beginnings in a brief “introductory and reminder” form.
In the Proto-Slavic language, for example, a very unique system of verbal conjugation and declension of names developed, some scattered features of which are still preserved to one degree or another by modern Slavic languages. The complex system of genders (male, female, and even neuter) corresponded to several declensions. Sonorous(“smooth”) consonants j, w, r, l, m, n in Proto-Slavic were capable of forming an independent syllable (without the participation of a vowel phoneme). In the process of historical evolution, the Proto-Slavic language repeatedly experienced softening ( palatalization) consonants.
In the Proto-Slavic language, among the consonants, some were only hard, but then they were softened, and *k, *g, *h before front vowels became sizzling k > h', g > w', x > w' (under certain conditions k, g, x subsequently also turned into soft whistling k > c’, g > z’, x > c’).
In recent centuries, the Proto-Slavic language has experienced a process of transition from closed syllables to open ones. There were diphthongs among the vowels. Diphthong vowel combinations still exist in some other Indo-European languages. As a result of complex processes, they were lost, as a result of which the Old Slavonic and from the diphthong ei, from oi, ai - ѣ (yat), etc. On a new basis, diphthongs developed later in the Slovak and Czech languages.
Greek brothers Konstantin(in monasticism Cyril, c. 827-869) and Methodius(c. 815-885) were natives of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki) and knew well the local South Slavic dialect, which was apparently a dialect of the Old Bulgarian language. The Old Church Slavonic language was originally based on it, preserved in many ancient texts of the end of the 1st millennium AD. e., written in Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet. (Another name for it is Old Church Slavonic.) Constantine created the Slavic alphabet, using which the brothers translated the most important Christian sacred books into Old Church Slavonic. Thanks to the presence of writing and monuments, Old Church Slavonic, unlike Proto-Slavic, has been well studied by philologists.
The main Glagolitic monuments are Kyiv leaflets, Assemanian Gospel, Zograf Gospel, Sinai Psalter, Mariinsky Gospel etc. The main Cyrillic monuments are Savvin's book, Suprasl manuscript, Hilandar leaves and etc.
The Old Church Slavonic language is characterized by a complex system of verbal forms that convey various shades of the past tense - aorist (past perfect), perfect (past indefinite), imperfect (past imperfect), plusquaperfect (long past).
It contained reduced vowels ъ and ь, which were subsequently lost at the end of the word and in a weak position (for example, window from old glory window, house from old glory dom), and in a strong position they developed into “full vowels” ( father from old glory father) 48 . A characteristic Old Slavonic feature was the nasal vowels [он] and [ен] - represented by the letters ѫ ("yus big") and ѧ ("yus small"). Nasals have been preserved, for example, in the Polish language, but in Russian [он] has moved to [у], and [ен] to [’a].
The fate of the Proto-Slavic vowels *o and *e in combination with the sonorant consonants *r and *l was very interesting. If we conventionally designate all other consonants with the letter t, then it turns out that among the southern Slavs, for example, in the same Old Church Slavonic language, the vowel was lengthened with its subsequent change in places with the consonant *r, *l: *tort > *to:rt > tro: t > trat; *tolt > to:lt > tlo:t > tlat; *tert > te:rt > tre:t > trht; *telt > te:lt > tle:t > tlet (that is, the so-called disagreement of the type -ra-, -la-, -rѣ- has developed: hail, head, gold, power, milk, environment, etc.). Among the Western Slavs, this corresponded to disagreement of the type -ro-, -lo- (cf. Polish głowa, krowa). The Eastern Slavs developed full consonance of the type -oro-, -olo-, -ere- (city, head, gold, parish, milk, middle, etc.): *tort > tort > tor°t > torot; *tårt > tert > ter e t > teret, etc. (a small letter in upper case indicates the initially weak overtone that appeared).
Russian classical poetry actively used Old Church Slavonic words-synonyms (familiar to Russian readers through the Church Slavonic language) - for example, to give “height” to the style.
There were seven cases in the Old Church Slavonic language. Usually the endings of the nominative and accusative singular cases coincided in both animate and inanimate nouns (an exception was made to designate persons standing hierarchically high: prophet, prince, father, etc. - here the accusative form could coincide with the genitive form, as in modern Russian). The modern prepositional case, the sixth in a row, corresponded to the local. By the way, as for Old Church Slavonic words and their declension by case, let us mention such interesting phenomena as the vocative case of nouns (seventh) lost in the Russian language - goro (from mountain), earth (from earth), sonou (from son), etc. , as well as the dual number, also lost in the Slavic languages (except for the language of the Lusatian Serbs). The Bulgarian and Macedonian languages have generally lost the declension of nouns - in them, as in other languages of the analytical system (like, for example, French), prepositions and word order indicate the contextual meanings of nouns (they also developed a characteristic postpositive definite article, written together after words - for example, Bulgarian "book that" from "book").
In Polish speech, personal pronouns ja, ty, my, wy, on, etc. are rarely used, although they are provided for by the language system. Instead of the second person pronoun wy, Poles usually use the word "pan" (in relation to a woman or girl pani), transforming the phrase accordingly - so that the address is made in the third person form, for example: co pan chce? (i.e. “what do you want”?)
A characteristic feature of Slavic languages is the verb aspect (imperfect and perfect), which allows compact expression of semantic nuances associated with an action that is ongoing or repeated, on the one hand, and completed, on the other.
Slavic languages form a group belonging to the Indo-European language family. Slavic languages are currently spoken by more than 400 million people. The languages of the group under discussion fall, in turn, into West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish, Kashubian, Serbo-Sorbian, which includes two dialects (Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian), and Polabian, which has been dead since the end of the 18th century), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian 49 , Slovenian, Macedonian and dead since the beginning of the 20th century. Slovinsky) and East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian) 50 . As a result of a detailed comparative historical study of Slavic languages, one of the largest philologists of the 20th century. prince Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoy(1890-1938) wrote:
“We saw that in relation to language the Russian tribe occupies a position among the Slavs that is completely exceptional in its historical significance” 51 .
This conclusion of Trubetskoy is based on the unique historical and cultural role of the Russian language, which he understands as follows: “Being a modernized and Russified form of the Church Slavonic language, the Russian literary language is the only direct successor to the common Slavic literary and linguistic tradition, originating from the holy Slavic first teachers, i.e. i.e. from the end of the era of pre-Slavic unity" 52 .
To substantiate the question of the “historical significance” of the “Russian tribe,” it is necessary, of course, in addition to the peculiarities of the language, to involve the spiritual culture created by the Russian people. Since this is a hugely complex problem, we will limit ourselves here to simply listing the main names: in science - Lomonosov, Lobachevsky, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Korolev; in literature - Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Sholokhov; in music - Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Sviridov; in painting and sculpture - Bryullov, Surikov, Repin, Vasnetsov, Valentin Serov, Kustodiev, Konenkov, etc.
And M.V. Lomonosov, in the “Dedication” prefaced by his “Russian Grammar,” states:
“Charles the Fifth, the Roman Emperor, used to say that it is decent to speak Spanish with God, French with friends, German with enemies, Italian with women. But if he were skilled in the Russian language, then, of course, he would have added that it is decent for them to speak with all of them, for he would have found in him the splendor of Spanish, the liveliness of French, the strength of German, the tenderness of Italian, in addition to the richness and strength in the images brevity of Greek and Latin" 53 .
As for understanding the Russian literary language as a “Russified form” of Church Slavonic, for the sake of objectivity it is necessary to dwell a little on this topic.
Two groups of concepts of the origin of the Russian literary language can be distinguished. Some concepts, partly going back to the academician Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky(1812-1880), partly to the academician Alexey Alexandrovich Shakhmatov(1864-1920), one way or another they see in the Old Russian literary language the Russified Old Church Slavonic. Others go back to the works of the academician Sergei Petrovich Obnorsky(1888-1962).
In the work of S.P. Obnorsky " “Russian Truth” as a monument of the Russian literary language" says:
“The analysis of the language of “Russian Pravda” made it possible to put into flesh and blood the concept of this literary Russian language of the older period. Its essential features are a certain artlessness of structure, i.e. closeness to the colloquial element of speech,<...>absence of traces of interaction with the Bulgarian, general - Bulgarian-Byzantine culture..." 54 .
The scientist’s conclusion is that the Russians already in the 10th century. it had its own literary language, independent from Old Church Slavonic, was revolutionary, and they immediately tried to challenge it, emphasizing the fact that “Russian Truth” was not a literary monument, but a work of “business content.” Then S.P. Obnorsky attracted to the analysis “The Tale of Igor’s Host”, “The Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh, “The Prayer of Daniil the Zatochnik” - that is, the most important ancient Russian monuments in artistic terms.
Academician Obnorsky published the famous book “ Essays on the history of the Russian literary language of the older period» 55 . In it, in particular, he wrote “about the Russian basis of our literary language, and, accordingly, about the later collision of the Church Slavonic language with it and the secondary nature of the process of penetration of Church Slavonic elements into it.” 56 . Works of S.P. Obnorsky were deservedly awarded the Stalin Prize (1947) and the Lenin Prize (1970, posthumously) - that is, the highest creative awards of Soviet times.
The essence of Academician Obnorsky’s conclusions is that the Russian literary language developed independently - that is, “the Russian literary language is Russian by nature, Church Slavonic elements in it are secondary” 57 .
Indeed, all of the monuments listed above studied by Obnorsky - both the set of ancient legal norms “Russian Truth” and literary and artistic masterpieces - are typically Russian in their linguistic structure.
(This does not negate the fact that at the same time, in a number of genres, Russians wrote in Church Slavonic - for example, Metropolitan Hilarion’s “Sermon on Law and Grace,” the lives of saints, church teachings, etc. And oral speech was heard in Church Slavonic during church services.)
For comparison, we can point out, for example, the Polish language, the vocabulary of which significantly reflected the results of centuries-old pressure on it from Latin, explained by the fact that the direction of development of Polish culture has long been set by the Catholic Church. The Poles generally wrote in Latin for centuries, while the Orthodox Slavic peoples created literature in Church Slavonic 58 . But, on the other hand, it was Polish, as already mentioned, that preserved the Proto-Slavic nasal vowels [en] and [o n] (in Polish they are designated by the letters ę and ą: for example, księżyc - moon, month; dąb - oak). Some other Slavic languages also retained some Proto-Slavic features. So, in Czech to this day there are so-called smooth syllabics, for example vlk - wolf. Bulgarian still uses such ancient verb tenses as aorist (past perfect), perfect (past indefinite) and imperfect (past imperfect); in Slovene, the “long-past” (“pre-past”) verbal tense plusquaperfect and such a special unconjugated verbal form (which was also in Old Church Slavonic) as supin (accomplishment mood) have been preserved.
The language of the Polabian Slavs (Polabyans), who lived along the western bank of the Laba (Elbe) River, disappeared by the middle of the 18th century. His small dictionary has been preserved, including some phrases in Polish. This text, invaluable for philologists, was compiled in the 18th century. literate Polabian Jan Parum Schulze, who was, apparently, not a simple peasant, but a village innkeeper. Around the same time, the German pastor H. Hennig, a native of the historical residence of the Polabians, compiled an extensive German-Polabian dictionary.
The Polabian language, like Polish, retained nasal vowels. It had an aorist and an imperfect, as well as a dual number of nouns. It is very interesting that the stress in this West Slavic language was, judging by a number of data, varied 59 .
The status of some Slavic languages is still philologically debatable.
For example, they consider themselves a separate independent people Rusyns, currently living in Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia and other regions 60 . Under the conditions of the USSR, they persistently tried to classify them as Ukrainians, which caused constant protests among the Ruthenians. Based on their self-name, Rusyns usually associate themselves with Russians (according to their folk etymology, Rusyns are “ Sons of Rus'"). The question of the degree of real closeness of the Rusyn language to Russian has not yet been clearly resolved. In medieval texts, “Rusyns” often refer to themselves as “Russians.”
In Poland, attempts have been made repeatedly to prove that the Kashubian language is not an independent Slavic language, but only an adverb of the Polish language, that is, in other words, its dialect (thus the Kashubians were denied the status of an independent Slavic people). Something similar can be found in Bulgaria in relation to the Macedonian language.
In Russia until October revolution In philological science, the dominant point of view was that the Russian language is divided into three unique huge dialects - Great Russian (Moscow), Little Russian and Belarusian. Its presentation can be found, for example, in the works of such major linguists as A.A. Shakhmatov, acad. A.I. Sobolevsky, A.A. Potebnya, T.D. Florinsky and others.
Yes, academician Alexey Alexandrovich Shakhmatov(1864-1920) wrote: “Russian language is a term used in two meanings. It means: 1) a set of dialects of Great Russian, Belarusian and Little Russian; 2) the modern literary language of Russia, which at its core appears to be one of the Great Russian dialects" 61 .
Looking ahead, it is impossible not to emphasize that at present the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, qualitatively different from Russian, are already undeniably reality.
This is, in particular, the result of the fact that throughout the 20th century. After the October Revolution, the artificial distancing of Little Russians and Belarusians from Russians and the Russian language was systematically ideologically provoked under the pretext of pursuing the so-called “Leninist” national policy, which consciously and consistently aroused local nationalist sentiments:
“It happens that we hear conversations that, they say, Ukrainization is being carried out too sharply, that the masses do not need it, that the peasantry seems to be good and understands the Russian language, that the workers do not want to assimilate Ukrainian culture, because it alienates them from their Russian brothers.” , - one of the party leaders of the 1920s franked, further declaring with pathos: “All such conversations - no matter what ultra-revolutionary and “internationalist” outfits they dress in - are considered by the party in the person of its leaders and every individual reasonable party member to be a manifestation anti-worker and anti-revolutionary influence of bourgeois-NEP and intellectual sentiments on the working class... But the will of the Soviet government is unshakable, and it knows how, as almost ten years of experience has shown, to bring to the end any task recognized as useful for the revolution, and will overcome all resistance against their events. So it will be with the national policy, which the vanguard of the proletariat, its spokesman and leader, the All-Union Communist Party, decided to implement.” 62 .
M.V. Lomonosov in the 18th century. not unreasonably believed that philologists are faced with not a separate Slavic language, but a “Little Russian dialect”, and “although this dialect is very similar to ours, its emphasis, pronunciation and endings of utterances have been greatly abolished due to the proximity to the Poles and from the long-term existence under their rule, or, to put it bluntly, they've gone bad" 63 . The conviction that the local dialect of the Little Russians was simply “Russian, modified to the Polish model” was shared by other philologists.
N.S. Trubetskoy in the 20s of the XX century. continued to believe that the Ukrainian folk dialect is a branch of the Russian language (“There is no need to talk about the depth or antiquity of the differences between the three main Russian (East Slavic) dialects”). At the same time, a well-informed scientist noted the following curious fact:
“The corresponding folk languages - Great Russian and Little Russian - are closely related and similar to each other. But those Ukrainian intellectuals who advocated for the creation of an independent Ukrainian literary language did not want precisely this natural similarity with the Russian literary language. Therefore, they abandoned the only natural path to creating their own literary language, completely broke not only with the Russian, but also with the Church Slavonic literary and linguistic tradition and decided to create a literary language exclusively on the basis of the folk dialect, and in such a way that this language would resemble as little as possible into Russian."
“As one would expect,” N.S. further writes. Trubetskoy, this enterprise in this form turned out to be unfeasible: the vocabulary of the folk language was insufficient to express all the shades of thought necessary for a literary language, and the syntactic structure of folk speech was too clumsy to satisfy even the elementary requirements of literary stylistics. But out of necessity it was necessary to join some already existing and well-developed literary and linguistic tradition. And since they never wanted to join the Russian literary and linguistic tradition, all that remained was to join the tradition of the Polish literary language.” 64 . Wed. also: “And indeed, the modern Ukrainian literary language... is so full of Polonisms that it gives the impression of simply a Polish language, slightly flavored with a Little Russian element and squeezed into a Little Russian grammatical system.” 65 .
In the middle of the 19th century. Ukrainian writer Panteleimon Alexandrovich Kulish(1819-1897) invented a spelling system based on the phonetic principle, since then usually called “Kulishivka” to “help the people to enlightenment”. For example, she canceled the letters “ы”, “е”, “ъ”, but instead introduced “є” and “ї”.
Later, in his declining years, P.A. Kulish tried to protest against the attempts of political intriguers to present this “phonetic spelling” of his “as a banner of our Russian discord,” even declaring that, as a rebuff to such attempts, from now on he would “print with etymological old-world spelling” (that is, in Russian. - Yu.M.).
After the October Revolution, Kulishivka was actively used in the creation of the modern Ukrainian alphabet 66 . For Belarusians, after the revolution, an alphabet was also invented, based on a phonetic rather than an etymological principle (for example, Belarusians write “malako”, not milk,"naga" and not leg and so on.).
The vast majority of words are common to Slavic languages, although their meaning now does not always coincide. For example, the Russian word palace in Polish corresponds to the word “pałac”, while “dworzec” in Polish is not a palace, but a “station”; rynek in Polish not a market, but “square”, “beauty” in Polish “uroda” (cf. Russian “freak”). Such words are often called “the translator’s false friends.”
The sharp differences between Slavic languages are related to stress. In Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as in Bulgarian, there is a variable (free) stress: it can fall on any syllable, that is, there are words with stress on the first syllable, on the second, on the last, etc. In Serbo-Croatian stress there is already a limitation : it falls on any syllable except the last. Fixed stress in Polish (on the penultimate syllable of a word), in Macedonian (on the third syllable from the end of the word), as well as in Czech and Slovak (on the first syllable). These differences entail considerable consequences (for example, in the field of versification).
And yet, the Slavs, as a rule, are able to carry on a conversation among themselves, even without knowing each other’s languages, which once again reminds us of both close linguistic proximity and ethnic kinship 67 . Even if he wants to declare his inability to speak this or that Slavic language, the Slav involuntarily expresses himself clearly for the surrounding speakers of this language. The Russian phrase “I can’t speak Russian” corresponds to the Bulgarian “Not speaking Bulgarian”, the Serbian “We don’t speak Srpski”, the Polish “Nie muwię po polsku” (Not muve n in Polish), etc. Instead of the Russian “Come in!” the Bulgarian says “Get in!”, the Serb “Slobodno!”, the Pole “Proszę!” (usually with clarification of whom he “asks”: pana, pani, państwa). The speech of the Slavs is filled with such mutually recognizable, commonly understood words and expressions.
SLAVIC LANGUAGES, a group of languages belonging to the Indo-European family, spoken by more than 440 million people in Eastern Europe and North and Central Asia. The thirteen currently existing Slavic languages are divided into three groups: 1) the East Slavic group includes Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages; 2) West Slavic includes Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian (spoken in a small area in northern Poland) and two Lusatian (or Serbian) languages - Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian, spoken in small areas in eastern Germany; 3) the South Slavic group includes: Serbo-Croatian (spoken in Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian. In addition, there are three dead languages - Slovinian, which disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century, Polabian, which died out in the 18th century, as well as Old Church Slavonic - the language of the first Slavic translations of the Holy Scriptures, which is based on one of the ancient South Slavic dialects and which was used in worship in the Slavic Orthodox Church, but was never an everyday spoken language ( cm. OLD SLAVONIC LANGUAGE).
Modern Slavic languages have many words in common with other Indo-European languages. Many Slavic words are similar to the corresponding English ones, for example: sister –sister,three – three,nose – nose,night – night and etc. In other cases, the common origin of the words is less obvious. Russian word see cognate with Latin videre, Russian word five cognate with German fünf, Latin quinque(cf. musical term quintet), Greek penta, which is present, for example, in a borrowed word pentagon(lit. "pentagon") .
An important role in the system of Slavic consonantism is played by palatalization - the approach of the flat middle part of the tongue to the palate when pronouncing a sound. Almost all consonants in Slavic languages can be either hard (non-palatalized) or soft (palatalized). In the field of phonetics, there are also some significant differences between the Slavic languages. In Polish and Kashubian, for example, two nasal vowels have been preserved - ą And ERROR, disappeared in other Slavic languages. Slavic languages vary greatly in stress. In Czech, Slovak and Sorbian the stress usually falls on the first syllable of a word; in Polish – to the penultimate; in Serbo-Croatian, any syllable except the last one can be stressed; in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, stress can fall on any syllable of a word.
All Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, have several types of declension of nouns and adjectives, which vary in six or seven cases, in number and in three genders. The presence of seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative or prepositional and vocative) indicates the archaic nature of the Slavic languages and their closeness to the Indo-European language, which supposedly had eight cases. An important feature of Slavic languages is the category of verbal aspect: every verb belongs to either the perfective or imperfective form and denotes, respectively, either a completed, or a continuing or repeating action.
The territory inhabited by Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe in the 5th–8th centuries. AD expanded rapidly, and by the 8th century. The common Slavic language spread from the north of Russia to the south of Greece and from the Elbe and the Adriatic Sea to the Volga. Up to the 8th or 9th century. it was basically a single language, but gradually the differences between territorial dialects became more noticeable. By the 10th century. There were already predecessors to modern Slavic languages.
