# Old Church Slavonic: closest modern Slavic language



## jjdmk

What is the closest relative to "Old Church Slavonic"


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## Athaulf

jjdmk said:


> What is the closest relative to "Old Church Slavonic"



To get an answer to this question, you'll have to clarify what exactly you mean by "relative."


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## Maroseika

jjdmk said:


> What is the closest relative to "Old Church Slavonic"


Sometimes Old Slavonic is really called Old Church Slavonic, but more often they prefer to call it Ancient-Church-Slavonic so as to differ between the 2 concepts: *Old Slavonic* and *Church Slavoniс* languages.

*Old Slavonic* is the language of the most ancient written Slavonic sources (10-11 cent., in fact only 16 of such are known); it based on the religious translations of Kirill and Methody and therefore it was a language built upon the South-Makedonian (Solun) dialect.
As the first written Slavonic language it has become very soon a kind of the "Slavonic interlingua".
But each of the peoples developed it in the written form more or less independently, basing on their own kind of live (speech) Slavonic languages, that has resulted in development in the 11-14 cent. of different recentions of Old Slavonic (изводы):
Middle-Bulgarian-Makedonian
Russian (East-Slavonic)
Serbian
Croatian-Glagolic
Romanian
Czech
These recentions in common are called *Church-Slavonic.*
In the 14-18 cent. local Church-Slavonic languages and local live languages (already written) more and more dispersed, until 18 cent, when Old-Slavonic remained only in the religious sphere.


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## beclija

It should be noted, though, that even these later Church Slavonic recensions retained a large set of OCS South Slavic features besides their "local coloring". Especially in Russian even today you often have pairs of words derived from the same root, one with the typical East Slavic sound changes and one with a South Slavic form.


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## Kriviq

The Old Church Slavonic language was codified by the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius around the middle of the 9th century. After the failure of their mission in Great Moravia their students settled in Bulgaria. The language was adapted to the Old Bulgarian language at the Preslav and Ohrid literary schools and at the Church Council in 893 it was declared the official language of the Bulgarian Empire.
This recension of the language was later spread to other Slavic territories.


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## Marijka

Old Church Slavonic was first written Slavic language. As Jana wrote , it was a dialect spoken in Thessaloniki region.
Proto-language from which other Slavic languages ( including Old Church Slavonic) emerged was Proto-Slavic ( in Polish it is called prasłowiański). It is unclear when Proto-Slavic started to form, according to T.Lehr-Spławiński*, and S.B. Bernštejn** it would be about 10-11th century B.C., but there are opinions that Proto-Slavic emerged in 1st century AD***, so it's 1000 years difference. 
In 6th century AD Proto-Slavic was already separated into three groups (Western, Eastern, Southern) and there was of course a number of dialects. 
Old-Church Slavonic was based on South Slavic dialect. It is close related to Bulgarian and Macedonian ( so in Bulgaria it is often called Old Bulgarian - cтаробългарски език, and in Macedonia - Old Macedonian- старомакедонски). 
Old-Church-Slavonic can't be indentified with Proto-Slavic, but it was just three centuries after the Slavic group breakup when it was written down, so it is helpful in reconstructions and a lot of forms and words is indeed identical: byti=to be, dati=to give, synъ=son, žena=wife, woman etc. ( it should be of course written in cyryllics, I've made a transliteration). Old-Church-Slavonic was also mostly used as liturgical language, so it is well preserved, there is a lot of archaic forms.

*T.Lehr-Spławiński, O pochodzeniu i praojczyźnie Słowian, Poznań, 1946 p. 137
** S.B. Bernštejn, Očerk sravnitel'noj grammatiki slavjanskich jazykov, Moscow, 1961, p. 43
***Z.Stieber, Słownik starożytności słowiańskich, vol.IV, Wrocław, 1970-1972, p.309


it's my post from this  - http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=47289 - thread


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## Spectre scolaire

jjdmk said:
			
		

> What is the closest relative to "Old Church Slavonic"


As _Athaulf_ rightly states, there is no unambiguous answer to such a question. In fact, it is as meaningless as the question “Which is the closest relative to Arabic of the Qur’an” (about which there is a rather confusing thread).

First, I think we should correct the terminology. *Slavic* languages constitue a group of Indo-European languages which comprises Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, etc. (just to mention the main languages among East-Slavic, West-Slavic and South-Slavic languages). The term *Slavonic* is conventionally used for the first written Slavic language, i.e. _Old Slavonic_ or _Church Slavonic_ (or _Old Church Slavonic_) – this being a comment to _Maroseika_ who is not distinguishing the two. Subsequent contributors like _beclija_, _Kriviq_ and _Marijka_ observe this distinction.

Secondly, I think it is more interesting to consider Church Slavonic as a _liturgical language_ and the impact this _sacred language_ has had than to ask the above question. All Slavic languages have evolved in different ways since the first (major) written documents appeared in a Slavic language. The bible translation allegedly made by the _Greek orthodox_ monks Κύριλλος and Μεθόδιος was based on their south Slavic mother tongue spoken at that time in the Saloniki region. (The Greek version according to which the monks in question just _learned_ a Slavic language and translated the Greek bible into it, I think we can just disregard). Because the language of the Slavic bible is not the language spoken in the _Urheimat_ of the Slavs (wherever that precisely is), the question asked by _jjdmk_ implicitly mixes a sacred language influence with the purely linguistic question as to the development of Proto-Slavic which in turn, of course, is only postulated by comparing various Slavic languages back to a common Slavic linguistic denominator. 

Just to finish: Russian was heavily influenced by Church Slavonic until eminent writers (like Pushkin) managed to disentangle this wholly (and incidentally _holy_) artificial element in Russian from the Slavic vernacular that had developed on Russian soil. Bulgarian, on the other hand, has developed as a language in its own right inside a Balkan _Sprachbund_ which has conveyed some features which are highly peculiar to South Slavic. As the two alphabets being currently used to denote various Slavic languages have a notable religious link, the languages which today are written with the Cyrillic alphabet may be said to have received a stronger influence from Church Slavonic – but admittedly the question is not that simple!

In any case, I just repeat what _Athaulf_ is saying:


			
				Athaulf said:
			
		

> you'll have to clarify what exactly you mean by "relative."


Basically, I think the initial question is an “impossible” one and as such it does not favour a fruitful discussion.
 я ​


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## WannaBeMe

Hello, everybody!

As we know almost whole Europe learns Latin or ancient Greek.
So why wouldn´t we learn something (more) about Old-Slavonic?

I am interested in the unique characteristics that some slavic languages have inherited from Oldslavic concidering gramar and articulation.

And which of these languages have inherited the most of oldslavic characteristics ?

( If there are any "experts" on this field, I would like to contact them through msn or e-mail for more information so please send me a privat massige if you want! )


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## Kolan

Spectre scolaire said:


> Just to finish: Russian was heavily influenced by Church Slavonic until eminent writers (like Pushkin) managed to disentangle this wholly (and incidentally _holy_) artificial element in Russian from the Slavic vernacular that had developed on Russian soil.


This is seen opposite from a Russian point of view. Church Slavonic and Old Russian coexisted for centuries, but never merged until Pushkin, who, indeed, was the first to use them both largely together. His language is basically our modern Russian that we speak now. That's when the Church Slavonic - Old Russian paronyms became legitimate in the same text or speech.


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## sokol

Many has been said about this topic already, and the gist of it is of course that there is no straightforward answer to this one.

Bulgarian, even if historically one of the closest relatives, developped away further from Old Church Slavonic than probably any other Slavic language (though such things always are difficult to value ...) - with loss of declension and other Balkanic features.
Same goes for Macedonian of course.
On the other hand, both those languages have best preserved the ancient system of tenses (with aorist and imperfect).

Russian, even though heavily influenced by Old Church Slavonic, isn't the closest one historically.
Same goes for Belorussian and Ukrainian, but of both I know too little to be a judge.

Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian is [I won't say 'are' as it is basically one language] close historically but developped away from Old Church Slavonic - with the so-called Neo-Štokavian features (accent system first and foremost, and some other changes).

Czech and Polish are geographically distant from Old Church Slavonic and couldn't possibly be candidates for closest modern Slavic language; Slovak however shows some features which link it to Slovenian (and which might indicate that there was a dialect continuum between both languages before it was interrupted by Hungarian and German settlers).
Nevertheless, Polish has retained the Old Church Slavonic nasal sounds.

But Slovenian, the one that remains, too certainly isn't the closest one to Old Church Slavonic even though it still has the dual and doesn't share the Neo-Štokavian features of BC(M)S neither the Balkanisms of Bulgarian and Macedonian. Also Slovenian has preserved some ancient features in certain dialects (like nasals - as those of Polish - in several Carinthian dialects).
Nevertheless there's no aorist or imperfect (except in the dialect of Resia, a small valely in Friuli/Italy with probably a 1000 or so speakers where the - I guess - aorist [I always keep forgetting which one] of a few verbs still is alive).

Overall the successor of Old Church Slavonic in reality doesn't exist, or exists with all of them, to some degree, with a higher degree for South Slavic languages of course.

But as you see, the three major groups of South Slavic (SLO, BCMS, BG/MK) each share some and don't share other features.

So no straightforward answer, again.


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## darnil

Then I will reformulate the question:
- Which Slavic language has kept more common features with Old Slavonic in each of these fields:
a) Phonology / phonetics?
b) Morphology?
c) Syntax?
d) Vocabulary?


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## se16teddy

darnil said:


> Then I will reformulate the question:
> - Which Slavic language has kept more common features with Old Slavonic in each of these fields:
> a) Phonology / phonetics?
> b) Morphology?
> c) Syntax?
> d) Vocabulary?


It would help, darnil, if you explained the purpose of your question. I can't immediately think of any reason why anyone would be any the wiser for knowing the answer to these questions (if indeed it is possible to give any rational answer).


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## Darina

Maroseika said:


> But each of the peoples developed it in the written form more or less independently, basing on their own kind of live (speech) Slavonic languages, that has resulted in development in the 11-14 cent. of different recentions of Old Slavonic (изводы):
> Middle-Bulgarian-Makedonian
> Russian (East-Slavonic)
> Serbian
> Croatian-Glagolic
> Romanian
> Czech
> These recentions in common are called *Church-Slavonic.*
> In the 14-18 cent. local Church-Slavonic languages and local live languages (already written) more and more dispersed, until 18 cent, when Old-Slavonic remained only in the religious sphere.


 
The recentions are five:
Bulgarian
Moravian
Russian
Croatian
Serbian


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## sokol

darnil said:


> Then I will reformulate the question:
> - Which Slavic language has kept more common features with Old Slavonic in each of these fields: (...)


Sorry, but it really doesn't matter at all however you reformulate your question: there still can't be a to-the-point answer to this.

Even more, there's no _point _in claiming that one language were 'closer' as another one - because each of them has some features preserved better while hasn't preserved others.
Or what would be _your _point?

You should see each language in its own historical context (about which already much has been written), and then if you combine the view of all of what was said in this thread probably a picture of the brances of Slavic languages will evolve in your thoughts.

Of course it is interesting to discuss the connections (that is of course, for those interested in such things at all ), but it doesn't make much sence to proclaim any modern Slavic language as the "most ancient one"; that's nonsense because _none _of them (except the extinguished ones like the Polabian language once spoken where now Germans live) is "ancient" excatly.


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## Bruno 1234

Athaulf said:


> To get an answer to this question, you'll have to clarify what exactly you mean by "relative."




Postovani,

"Sveti Bože, Sveti Krepki, Sveti Besmrtni, pomiluj nas! " je Trisveto na srpskom, a  verzija na staroslavonskom je sa "Sveti Krjepki", zar ne? 

Slušao sam Trisveto i druge tropare na staroslavonskom samo kad horovi pevaju (govorim o srpskim crkvama u inozemstvu, u Francuskoj): u Srbiji ima li ostatak litugije samo na modernom srpskom (ili takođe na staroslavonskom)?


Pozdrav


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## Duya

Liturgije i većina crkvenih obreda se ne izvode na modernom srpskom. Nisam stručan, ali liturgijski jezik u srpskoj crkvi je tzv. ruska redakcija crkvenoslovenskog:

http://sr.wikipedia.org/sr-el/Crkvenoslovenski_jezik


> Danas je u svim slovenskim pravoslavnim crkvama u upotrebi ruska redakcija crkvenoslovenskog jezika. Zbog nedostatka štamparija  i turske okupacije balkanski narodi uvoze ruske bogoslužbene knjige  koje su i danas u upotrebi. Do kraja 18. veka ruske knjige su zamenile  "srbuljske". Izgovor ruske redakcije crkvenoslovenskog varira, te se u SPC čita sa srpskim akcenatskim sistemom, u Makedoniji se jat izgovara kao e itd.



Na savremenom srpskom su samo propovedi i druga obraćanja sveštenika pastvi.


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## nonik

jjdmk said:


> What is the closest relative to "Old Church Slavonic"




According to this research, ( http://www.phil.muni.cz/linguistica/art/novbla/nob-001.pdf ) see the page 12, it would be czech language, which got surprisingly 92,2%.


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

nonik said:


> According to this research, ( http://www.phil.muni.cz/linguistica/art/novbla/nob-001.pdf ) see the page 12, it would be czech language, which got surprisingly 92,2%.


But it also says that Polish and Kaszubian are 100% the same.


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## LilianaB

I agree with PolskadoBoju that it does not sound right. I would think that Czech is one of the most distant languages, but I am not a Slavist. Kashubian is also very different from Polish, almost unintelligible.


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## nonik

POLSKAdoBOJU said:


> But it also says that Polish and Kaszubian are 100% the same.



Polish has 85,4 and Kashubian 83,2 similarity with OCS. 
Maybe that 100% betwen polish-kashubian, claimed in table, is mistake. Who knows ?

Despite of creating ocs from south slavic dialect around Thesalonike, main purpose was use it as churche-state language on Great Moravia.
So, don't be surprised that ocs incomporated great value of features from that region, which can get 92,2% for todays czech language.


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## Arath

I think that Bulgarian, especially in its form before the spelling reform of 1945, is the closest one orthographically, before yat and big yus were removed. In some of its versions prior to the beginning of the 20-th century, Bulgarian spelling was even closer - it had iotified yuses, lost yers and so on. I also think that lexically it is pretty close.

Additionally, eastern Slavic languages + Bulgarian have preserved the original stress pattern, whereas the Western Slavic languages have regularized it (Polish has penultimate stress, Slovak and Czech on the first syllable), in BCS it is shifted one syllable to the beginning of the word.


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## Kartof

nonik said:


> Despite of creating ocs from south slavic dialect around Thesalonike, main purpose was use it as churche-state language on Great Moravia.
> So, don't be surprised that ocs incomporated great value of features from that region, which can get 92,2% for todays czech language.



Thats not entirely true since the Moravians didn't accept the Cyrillic script or Christian orthodoxy, hence they didn't adopt the language so it's influence from those Slavic tribes (or to them) would have been minimal.


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## nonik

Kartof said:


> Thats not entirely true since the Moravians didn't accept the Cyrillic script or Christian orthodoxy, hence they didn't adopt the language so it's influence from those Slavic tribes (or to them) would have been minimal.




1) Old church slavonic language and liturgy was used in Bohemia kingdom untill 1095 in Sazava monastery, perhaps together in latin liturgy. ( it is almost 200 year after K+M mision on great Moravia)

2) When K+M (Kyril+Method) was on the Great Moravia, they had students recruited from moravians nobility (around 200). In K+M way to Roma, they had around 50 students in Panonia ( king Kocel state). All that students brought language features from their mother tongue towards ocs-language. After destroying Great Moravia, those students were expelled and run to Bulgaria-Ohrid, Czech, south Poland, Croatia, Slovenia and worked there.

3) on Great Moravia empire time was written
Proglas
Zakon sudnyj ljudem...propably written on Moravia, other theory prefer Bulgaria.
Kyjevske listy-Kiev Folia....autor Gorazd, the text have amount of moravism and thus represented moravian variation of ocs. 
Moravian-panonian legend
Nomokánón

In the Bohemia, was written in ocs....The life of saint Ludmila
The life of saint Vaclav
Prague glagolitic fragments.
and others books, which was after 1100 destroyed, but we do not know the possibility of theirs influence from bohemia out.


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## Kartof

Thank you for the history; I wasn't aware of this aspect of old church Slavonic liturgy in Great Moravia.


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