Slavic dialects. Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary

Just as a tree grows from a root, its trunk gradually grows stronger, rises to the sky and branches, the Slavic languages \u200b\u200b"grew" from the Proto-Slavic language (see Proto-Slavic language), whose roots go deep into the Indo-European language (see Indo-European family of languages). As you know, this allegorical picture served as the basis for the theory of the "family tree", which in relation to the Slavic family of languages \u200b\u200bcan be accepted in general terms and even historically justified.

The Slavic language "tree" has three main branches: 1) East Slavic languages, 2) West Slavic languages, 3) South Slavic languages. These main branches-groups branch in turn into smaller ones, so the East Slavic branch has three main branches - the languages \u200b\u200bRussian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, and the branch of the Russian language has, in turn, two main branches - the North Russian and South Russian dialects (see Adverbs of the Russian language ). If we pay attention to the further branches of at least the South Russian dialect, it will be seen how the branches-zones of the Smolensk, Upper Dnieper, Upper Desninsky, Kursk-Oryol, Ryazan, Bryansk-Zhizdrinsky, Tula, Yelets and Oskolsk dialects stand out in them, if you draw a picture of the allegorical "family tree" further, there are still branches with numerous leaves - the dialects of individual villages and settlements One could also describe the Polish or Slovenian branches, explain which of them has more branches, which has less, but the principle the descriptions 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 smaller branches and twigs. Yes, and it did not always grow comfortably and exactly some branches dried up, some were chopped off. But more on that later. In the meantime, we note that the "branching" principle of classification of Slavic languages \u200b\u200band dialects presented by us refers to natural Slavic languages \u200b\u200band dialects, to the Slavic language element outside of its written form, without a normative-written form. And if the various branches of the living Slavic language "tree" - languages \u200b\u200band dialects - did not appear immediately, then the written, bookish, normalized, largely artificial language systems, literary languages, formed on their basis and in parallel with them, did not appear immediately (see Literary tongue).

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 Sorbian and Lower Sorbian, and four South Slavic - Serbo Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.

In addition to these languages, polyvalent languages, that is, speakers (like all modern national literary languages) and 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 colored dialect languages. These languages \u200b\u200bwith limited use usually function along with the national literary languages \u200b\u200band serve either relatively small ethnic groups, or even separate literary genres. Such languages \u200b\u200balso exist in Western Europe: in Spain, Italy, France and in German-speaking countries. The Slavs know the Ruthenian language (in Yugoslavia), the Kaikavian and Chakavian languages \u200b\u200b(in Yugoslavia and Austria), the Kashubian language (in Poland), the Lyash language (in Czechoslovakia), etc.

On a rather vast territory in the basin of the Elbe River, in Slavic Labs, the Polabian Slavs lived in the Middle Ages, who spoke the Polabian language. 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, individual records of Polabian words, texts, translations of prayers, etc. have come down to us, from which it is possible to restore not only the language, but also the life of the disappeared Polabyans. And at the International Congress of Slavists in Prague in 1968, the famous West German Slavist R. Olesch read a lecture in the Polabian 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), in principle, can be the basis of a literary language. However, not only Slavic, but also another family of languages, as shown by numerous examples of early-written languages \u200b\u200bof our country.

In the IX century. The first Slavic literary language, Old Slavonic, was created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius. It was based on the dialect of the Solunsk Slavs, translations from Greek of a number of church and other books were made on it, and later some original works were written. The Old Slavic language existed first in the West Slavic environment - in Great Moravia (hence a number of its inherent Moravisms), and then spread among the southern Slavs, where the Ohrid and Preslav book schools played a special role in its development. Since the X century. this language began to be used among the Eastern Slavs, where it was known under the name of the Slovenian language, and scientists call it the language of Church Slavonic or Old Slavic. The ancient 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 Slavic monuments have come down to us with two systems of writing - Glagolic and Cyrillic (see. The emergence of writing among the Slavs).

Proto-Slavic language. Old Slavonic language. Modern Slavic languages

Common Slavic or proto-Slavicthe language spoken by the ancestors of the modern Slavic peoples who lived on the territory of the ancestral homeland was preserved in the first centuries AD. e. (at least until the middle of the first millennium), but the resettlement of the Slavs to ever more extensive 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 relate mainly to its phonology and morphology; it is unlikely that anyone will undertake to compose a long coherent phrase on it, or even more so to try to "speak in Proto-Slavonic". The fact is that the Proto-Slavic language was a language preliterate; there are no texts on it, and philologists derive its word forms, features of its phonology and phonetics by the method of reconstruction. Philology students are introduced to the principles of such reconstruction in detail, in particular, in the course of the Old Church Slavonic language. 47 ... The course "Introduction to Slavic Philology", avoiding duplication of such information, nevertheless includes its necessary beginnings in a short "familiarization-reminder" form.

In the Proto-Slavic language, for example, a very peculiar system of verbal conjugation and declension of names has developed, separate scattered features of which are still preserved to one degree or another by modern Slavic languages. A complex system of childbirth (male, female, and even middle) corresponded to several declensions. Sonorous("Smooth") consonants j, w, r, l, m, n in Proto-Slavic were able to form an independent syllable (without the participation of a vowel phoneme). In the process of historical evolution, the Proto-Slavic language has repeatedly experienced a softening ( palatalization) consonants.

In the Proto-Slavic language, some of the consonants were only hard, but then they softened, and * k, * g, * h in front of the front vowels turned into hissingk\u003e h ’, g\u003e z’, x\u003e w ’(under certain conditions, k, g, x later also passed into soft whistlingk\u003e c ', g\u003e z', x\u003e c ').

In recent centuries, the Proto-Slavic language has gone through the process of transition of closed syllables to open ones. There were diphthongs among the vowels. Diphthongic combinations of vowels are still found in some other Indo-European languages. As a result of complex processes, they were lost, as a result of which from the diphthong ei it turned out to be Old Slavonic and, from oi, ai - (yat), etc. On a new basis, diphthongs developed later in the Slovak and Czech languages.

Brothers Greeks Konstantin(in monasticism Cyril, c. 827-869) and Methodius(c. 815-885) were natives of Thessaloniki and knew the local South Slavic dialect, which was, apparently, a dialect of the Old Bulgarian language. The Old 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". (Its other name is Old Church Slavonic.) Constantine created the Slavic alphabet, using which the brothers translated the most important Christian sacred books into Old Church Slavonic. Due to the presence of writing and monuments, Old Slavic, in contrast to Proto-Slavic, has been well studied by philologists.

Major Glagolic Monuments - Kiev Leaves, Assemane Gospel, Zograf Gospel, Sinai Psalter, Mariinsky Gospel etc. The main Cyrillic monuments are Savvin's book, Suprasl manuscript, Khilandar leaflets and etc.

The Old Church Slavonic language is characterized by a complex system of verb forms that convey various shades of the past tense - aorist (past perfect), perfect (past indefinite), imperfect (past imperfect), pluperfect (long-past).

It had reduced vowels ъ and ь, which were subsequently lost at the end of the word and in a weak position (for example, windowfrom Art. Slav. ok, housefrom Art. Slav. dom), and in a strong position they developed into "full-voiced" ( fatherfrom Art. Slav. father) 48 ... A characteristic Old Church Slavonic feature was the nasal vowels [o n] and [e n] - displayed by the letters ѫ ("yus large") and ѧ ("yus small"). The nasals have survived, for example, in Polish, but in Russian [o n] has passed into [y], and [e n] - into [’a].

The fate of the Proto-Slavic vowels * o and * e in combination with the sonorous 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 South Slavs, for example, in the same Old Slavonic language, the vowel was lengthened with its subsequent change of places with the consonant * r, * l: * tort\u003e * to: rt\u003e tro: t\u003e trat; * tolt\u003e to: lt\u003e tlo: t\u003e tlat; * tert\u003e te: rt\u003e tre: t\u003e trht; * telt\u003e te: lt\u003e tle: t\u003e tlѣt (that is, the so-called disagreement of the type -ra-, -la-, -pѣ- developed: hail, head, gold, power, milko, wedda, etc.). Among the Western Slavs, this corresponded to an inconsistency of the type -ro-, -lo- (compare Polish głowa, krowa). The Eastern Slavs, on the other hand, developed a full accord of the type -oro-, -olo-, -re- (city, head, gold, parish, milk, middle, etc.): * tort\u003e tort\u003e tor ° t\u003e torot; * tårt\u003e tert\u003e ter e t\u003e teret, etc. (a small uppercase letter denotes an initially faint overtones).

Russian classical poetry actively used Old Slavonic synonymous words (familiar to Russian readers through the Church Slavonic language) - for example, to give "height" to the style.

There were seven cases in the Old Slavonic language. Usually, the endings of the nominative and accusative singular cases coincided in both animate and inanimate nouns (an exception was made to denote 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 one. By the way, as for the Old Slavonic words and their declension in cases, we will mention such interesting phenomena as the vocative case of nouns (seventh) lost by the Russian language - goro (from mountain), earth (from earth), sonou (from son), etc. , as well as the dual, also lost by the Slavic languages \u200b\u200b(except for the language of the Lusatian Serbs). The Bulgarian and Macedonian languages \u200b\u200bhave generally lost the declension of nouns - in them, as in other languages \u200b\u200bof the analytical structure (like, for example, French), prepositions and word order indicate the contextual meanings of nouns (they also developed the characteristic post-positive definite article, written together after words - eg Bulgarian "book that"From" book ").

In Polish speech, the 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 pani), transforming the phrase accordingly - so that the appeal is made in the form of a third person, for example: co pan chce? (that is, "what do you want"?)

A characteristic feature of the Slavic languages \u200b\u200bis the verb form (imperfect and perfect), which allows one to compactly express semantic nuances associated with an action that lasts or repeats, on the one hand, and complete, on the other.

Slavic languages \u200b\u200bconstitute a group belonging to the Indo-European language family. The Slavic languages \u200b\u200bare currently spoken by over 400 million people. The languages \u200b\u200bof the group under discussion break down, in turn, into West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish, Kashubian, Serboluzhytsky, including 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 from the beginning of the XX century. Slovyn) and East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian) 50 ... As a result of a detailed comparative historical study of the Slavic languages, one of the greatest philologists of the 20th century. prince Nikolay Sergeevich Trubetskoy(1890-1938) wrote:

"We have seen that in relation to language, the Russian tribe occupies a completely exclusive position among the Slavs in terms of 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, which originates from the holy first teachers of the Slavic, i.e. e. from the end of the era of Proto-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 huge 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, Lev 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 his "Dedication", preceded by his "Russian grammar", declares:

“Charles the Fifth, the Roman emperor, used to say that it’s okay to speak Ishpane with God, French with friends, German with enemies, and Italian — it’s decent to speak with women. But if he had been skilled in the Russian language, then, of course, he would have added to that that it is decent for them to talk to all of them, because he would find in him the splendor of Ishpansky, the liveliness of the French, the strength of the German, the tenderness of the Italian, moreover, wealth and strong in images conciseness of Greek and Latin " 53 .

As for understanding the Russian literary language as a "Russianized form" of Church Slavonic, for the sake of objectivity it is necessary to dwell a little on this topic.

There are two groups of concepts of the origin of the Russian literary language. Some concepts that go back in part to the academician Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky(1812-1880), partly to the academician Alexey Alexandrovich Shakhmatov(1864-1920), one way or another see in the Old Russian literary language 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“ Russkaya Pravda ”made it possible to clothe the concept of this literary Russian language of the older period in flesh and blood. Its essential features are a certain artlessness of structure, that is, closeness to the spoken element of speech,<...> lack of traces of interaction with the Bulgarian, general - the Bulgarian-Byzantine culture ... " 54 .

The conclusion of the scientist that the Russians already in the X century. there was a literary language independent from Old Slavonic, it was revolutionary, and they immediately tried to challenge it, emphasizing that "Russian Truth" is not a literary monument, but a work of "business content." Then S.P. Obnorsky attracted to the analysis "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", "Instructions" by Vladimir Monomakh, "Prayer of Daniel the Zatochnik" - that is, the most important in the artistic sense of the ancient Russian monuments.

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 ... The 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 the Soviet era.

The essence of the conclusions of Academician Obnorsky is that the Russian literary language developed independently - that is, "the Russian literary language is by its nature Russian, Church Slavonic elements are secondary in it" 57 .

Indeed, all the above-mentioned monuments studied by Obnorsky - both the set of ancient legal norms "Russian Truth" and literary and artistic masterpieces - are typically Russian in terms of their linguistic structure.

(This does not negate the fact that, in parallel, in a number of genres, Russians wrote in Church Slavonic - for example, "The Word of Law and Grace" by Metropolitan Hilarion, the Lives of the Saints, Church teachings, etc. And oral speech in Church Slavonic was heard during church services.)

For comparison, one can point, for example, to the Polish language, in the vocabulary of which the results of centuries of pressure on it from Latin are tangibly reflected, explained by the fact that the direction of development of Polish culture has long been set by the Catholic Church. Poles have been writing in Latin for centuries, while Orthodox Slavic peoples have created literature in Church Slavonic 58 ... But, on the other hand, it was Polish, as already mentioned, that preserved the Proto-Slavic nasal vowels [e n] 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 \u200b\u200bhave also retained some Proto-Slavic features. So, in Czech to this day there are so-called syllabic smooth, for example vlk - wolf. Bulgarian, on the other hand, still uses such ancient verb tenses as aorist (past perfect), perfect (past indefinite) and imperfect (past imperfect); in Slovene, the “long-past” (“pre-past”) verb tense, plusquamperfect, and such a special non-conjugated verb form (formerly in Old Church Slavonic) as supin (attainable 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 survived, which also included individual phrases in Polabian. This text, invaluable for philologists, was compiled in the 18th century. literate Polanian 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 places of historical residence of the Polabians, compiled an extensive German-Polabian dictionary.

The language of the Polabians, like Polish, retained nasal vowels. It had an aorist and an imperfect, as well as a dual noun. It is very interesting that the stress in this West Slavic language was, judging by a number of data, different places 59 .

The status of some Slavic languages \u200b\u200bis still philologically debatable.

They consider themselves to be a separate independent people, for example, rusyns,living now on the territory of Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia and other regions 60 ... In the conditions of the USSR, they stubbornly tried to classify them as Ukrainians, which caused constant protests in the Rusyn environment. Based on their self-name, Rusyns usually associate themselves with Russians (according to their folk etymology, Rusyns - “ Rus sons"). The question of the degree of real closeness of the Rusyn language to Russian has not yet been unequivocally resolved. In medieval texts "Rusyns" are often called "Russians".

In Poland, attempts were made repeatedly to prove that the Kashubian language is not an independent Slavic language, but only the dialect of the Polish language, that is, otherwise, 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 language of the Macedonians.

In Russia, before the October Revolution, philological science was dominated by the point of view, according to which the Russian language splits into three unique huge dialects - Great Russian (Moscow), Little Russian and Belarusian. Its presentation can be found, for example, in the works of such prominent linguists as A.A. Shakhmatov, acad. A.I. Sobolevsky, A.A. Potebnya, T.D. Florinsky and others.

So, academician Alexey Alexandrovich Shakhmatov(1864-1920) wrote: “The 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, is one of the Great Russian dialects " 61 .

Looking ahead, one cannot but emphasize that at present the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, which are qualitatively different from Russian, are already undoubted reality.

This, in particular, is the result of the fact that during the XX century. After the October Revolution, the artificial distancing of Little Russians and Belarusians from the 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 have to hear talk that, they say, Ukrainization is being carried out too sharply, that the masses do not need it, that the peasantry seems to be good at 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 confessed, further declaring with pathos: “All such conversations - no matter what ultra-revolutionary and“ internationalist ”outfits they wear - the party represented by its leaders and each individual rational party member is considered a manifestation the 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 is able, as almost ten years of experience has shown, to complete any business recognized as useful for the revolution, and will overcome all resistance against their activities. So it will be with the national policy, which the vanguard of the proletariat decided to implement, its spokesman and leader - the All-Union Communist Party " 62 .

M.V. Lomonosov in the 18th century. not unreasonably believed that before philologists it is not a separate Slavic language, but a “Little Russian dialect”, and “although this dialect is very similar to ours, however, its stress, pronunciation and endings of utterances from the neighborhood with the Poles and from the long-term existence under their rule were much canceled or, frankly, spoiled " 63 ... Other philologists also shared the conviction that the local dialect of Little Russians is simply “Russian for the Polish model”.

N.S. Trubetskoy in the 20s of the XX century. continued to believe that the Ukrainian folk dialect is an offshoot of the Russian language (“There is no need to speak about the depth or the 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 \u200b\u200b- Great Russian and Little Russian - are closely related and similar to each other. But those Ukrainian intellectuals who advocated 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 way to create 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 solely on the basis of the popular dialect, while making this language as little as possible into Russian ".

“As expected,” N. S. writes. Trubetskoy, - this enterprise in this form turned out to be unfeasible: the vocabulary of the folk language was insufficient to express all shades of thought necessary for the literary language, and the syntactic structure of folk speech is too clumsy to satisfy even the elementary requirements of literary stylistics. But out of necessity it was necessary to adhere to some already existing and well-finished literary and linguistic tradition. And since they didn’t want to join the Russian literary and linguistic tradition for anything, it only remained to join the tradition of the Polish literary language ” 64 ... Wed See also: "And indeed, the modern Ukrainian literary language ... is so overflowing with Polonisms that it gives the impression of just Polish, slightly flavored with the Little Russian element and squeezed into the Little Russian grammatical system" 65 .

In the middle of the XIX century. Ukrainian writer Panteleimon A. Kulish(1819-1897) invented a spelling system based on the phonetic principle, since then usually called "kulishivka" for "helping the people to enlightenment". She, for example, canceled the letters "y", "e", "ъ", but introduced "є" and "ї".

Later, in his declining years, P.A. Kulish tried to protest against the attempts of political intriguers to expose this "phonetic spelling" of his "as the banner of our Russian discord," even declaring that in the form of a rebuff to such attempts, from now on he would "print in the etymological old-world spelling" (that is, in Russian. - Yu.M.).

After the October Revolution, kulishivka was actively used to create the modern Ukrainian alphabet. 66 ... For Belarusians, after the revolution, an alphabet was also invented based on a phonetic, not an etymological principle (for example, Belarusians write "malako", and not milk,"Naga" and not legetc.).

The vast majority of words are common for the Slavic languages, although their meaning nowadays does not always coincide. For example, the Russian word “palace” in Polish corresponds to the word “pałac”, “dworzec” in Polish is not a palace, but “station”; rynekin Polish not a market, but "square", "beauty" in Polish "uroda" (compare with Russian "freak"). Such words are often called "false friends of the translator."

Sharp differences between Slavic languages \u200b\u200bare associated with stress. In Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian, as well as in Bulgarian, there is a misplaced (free) stress: it can fall on any syllable, that is, words with stress on the first syllable, on the second, on the last, etc. There is already a limitation in Serbo-Croatian stress : 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 words), 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 maintain a conversation with each other, even without knowing each other's languages, which once again reminds of both close linguistic affinity and ethnic kinship. 67 ... Even wishing to declare his inability to speak one or another Slavic language, a Slav involuntarily expresses himself clearly for the surrounding native speakers of this language. The Russian phrase “I can’t speak Russian” corresponds to the Bulgarian phrase “I don’t speak Bulgarian”, the Serbian “Ja do not speak Srpski”, the Polish “Nie muwię po polsku” (Do not move in Polish), etc. Instead of Russian “Enter!” Bulgarian says "Get in!", Serb "Slobodno!", Pole "Proszę!" (usually specifying who he "asks": pana, pani, państwa). The speech of the Slavs is filled with such mutually recognizable, generally understandable words and expressions.

The Slavic group of languages \u200b\u200bis a large branch of the Indo-European languages, since the Slavs are the largest group of people in Europe, united by a similar speech and culture. More than 400 million people use them.

General information

The Slavic language group is a branch of Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bused in most of the Balkans, parts of Central Europe, and northern Asia. It is most closely related to the Baltic languages \u200b\u200b(Lithuanian, Latvian and the extinct Old Prussian). The languages \u200b\u200bbelonging to the Slavic group originated from Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine) and spread to the rest of the above territories.

Classification

There are three groups of South Slavic, West Slavic and East Slavic branches.

In contrast to the clearly diverging literary, linguistic boundaries are not always obvious. There are transitional dialects connecting different languages, with the exception of the area where the South Slavs are separated from other Slavs by the Romanians, Hungarians and German-speaking Austrians. But even in these isolated areas there are some remnants of the old dialectal continuity (for example, the similarity of Russian and Bulgarian).

Therefore, it should be noted that the traditional classification in the form of three separate branches should not be considered as a true model of historical development. It is more correct to imagine it as a process in which the differentiation and reintegration of dialects constantly took place, as a result of which the Slavic group of languages \u200b\u200bhas an amazing homogeneity throughout the territory of its distribution. For centuries, the paths of different peoples have crossed, and their cultures have mixed.

Differences

But it would still be an exaggeration to assume that communication between any two speakers of different Slavic languages \u200b\u200bis possible without any linguistic difficulties. Many differences in phonetics, grammar and vocabulary can cause misunderstandings even in simple conversation, not to mention difficulties in journalistic, technical and artistic speech. Thus, the Russian word "green" is recognizable for all Slavs, but "red" means "beautiful" in other languages. Suknja is “skirt” in Serbo-Croatian, “coat” in Slovenian, a similar expression for “cloth” - “dress” in Ukrainian.

Eastern group of Slavic languages

It includes Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. Russian is the native language of nearly 160 million people, including many residents of countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. Its main dialects are northern, southern and transitional central. It also includes the Moscow dialect, on which the literary language is based. In total, about 260 million people speak Russian in the world.

In addition to the "great and mighty", the Eastern Slavic group of languages \u200b\u200bincludes two more major languages.

• Ukrainian, which is divided into northern, southwestern, southeastern and Carpathian dialects. The literary form is based on the Kiev-Poltava dialect. More than 37 million people speak Ukrainian in Ukraine and neighboring countries, and more than 350,000 people speak Ukrainian in Canada and the United States. This is due to the presence of a large ethnic community of settlers who left the country at the end of the 19th century. The Carpathian dialect, also called Carpatorusinian, is sometimes viewed as a separate language.
• Belarusian - it is spoken by about seven million people in Belarus. Its main dialects are: southwestern, some of the features of which can be explained by the proximity to Polish lands, and northern. The Minsk dialect, which serves as the basis for the literary language, is located on the border of these two groups.

West Slavic branch

It includes Polish and other Lechits (Kashubian and its extinct version - Slovin), Lusatian and Czechoslovak dialects. This Slavic group is also quite common. More than 40 million people speak Polish not only in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe (in particular, in Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Belarus), but also in France, the USA and Canada. It is also divided into several subgroups.

Polish dialects

The main ones are the northwestern, southeastern, Silesian and Mazovian. The Kashubian dialect is considered part of the Pomeranian languages, which, like Polish, are classified as Lechitic. Its speakers live west of Gdansk and on the Baltic Sea coast.

The extinct Slovinian dialect belonged to the northern group of Kashubian dialects, which differs from the southern one. Another unused Lechitic language is Polabian, which was spoken in the 17th and 18th centuries. Slavs who lived in the region of the Elbe River.

His is Serbolic, which is still spoken by the inhabitants of Lusatia in East Germany. It has two literary (used in Bautzen and the surrounding area) and Lower Sorbian (common in Cottbus).

Czechoslovak language group

It includes:

• Czech, spoken by about 12 million people in the Czech Republic. His dialects are Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian. The literary language was formed in the 16th century in Central Bohemia based on the Prague dialect.
• Slovak, used by about 6 million people, the majority are residents of Slovakia. Literary speech was formed on the basis of the dialect of Central Slovakia in the middle of the 19th century. Western Slovak dialects are similar to Moravian and differ from the central and eastern dialects, which have common features with Polish and Ukrainian.

South Slavic language group

Among the three main ones, it is the smallest in terms of the number of speakers. But this is an interesting group of Slavic languages, the list of which, as well as their dialects, is very extensive.

They are classified as follows:

1. Eastern subgroup. It includes:

2. Western subgroup:

• Serbo-Croatian language - about 20 million people use it. The basis for the literary version was the Shtokav dialect, which is common in most of the Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin territories.
• Slovenian - Spoken by over 2.2 million people in Slovenia and the surrounding regions of Italy and Austria. It shares some common features with the Croatian dialects and includes many dialects with great differences between them. In Slovenian (in particular, its western and northwestern dialects), traces of old ties with the West Slavic languages \u200b\u200b(Czech and Slovak) can be found.

The structure of the word, the use of grammatical categories, the structure of the sentence, the system of regular sound correspondences, morphonological alternations. This closeness is explained both by the unity of origin of the Slavic languages, and by their long and intensive contacts at the level of literary languages \u200b\u200band dialects. 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 and cultural conditions, their contacts with related and unrelated ethnic groups.

According to the degree of their proximity to each other, Slavic languages \u200b\u200bare usually divided into 3 groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian languages) and West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish with a Kashubian dialect that has preserved a certain genetic independence, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian languages). Small local groups of Slavs with their own literary languages \u200b\u200bare also known. Thus, the Croats in Austria (Burgenland) have their own literary language based on the Chakavian dialect. Not all Slavic languages \u200b\u200bhave come down to us. In the late 17th - early 18th centuries. the Polabian language disappeared. The distribution of Slavic languages \u200b\u200bwithin each group has its own characteristics (see East Slavic languages, West Slavic languages, South Slavic languages). Each Slavic language includes a literary language with all its stylistic, genre and other varieties and its own territorial dialects. The ratios of all these elements in the Slavic languages \u200b\u200bare different. The Czech literary language has a more complex stylistic structure than Slovak, but the latter better preserves the peculiarities of dialects. Sometimes dialects of one Slavic language differ more strongly than independent Slavic languages. For example, the morphology of the Shtokavian and Chakavian dialects of the Serbo-Croatian language differ much deeper than the morphology of the Russian and Belarusian languages. The proportion of identical elements is often different. For example, the category of diminutiveness in the Czech language is expressed in more diverse and differentiated forms than in the Russian language.

Of the Indo-European languages, the Slavic languages \u200b\u200bare closest to the Baltic languages. This closeness served as the basis for the theory of the "Balto-Slavic proto-language", according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language was first separated from the Indo-European proto-language, which later split into Pro-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, most modern scientists explain their special closeness by the long-term contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs. It is not established in which territory the separation of the linguistic continuum from Indo-European took place. It can be assumed that it happened south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral home. There are many such theories, but they all do not localize the ancestral home where the Indo-European proto-language could be 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 an identical structure. Later, dialect variants appear. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language and its dialects into independent Slavic languages \u200b\u200bwas long and complicated. It took place most actively in the second half of the first millennium AD, during the formation of the early Slavic feudal states in Southeast and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of different geographic 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 is reflected in the history of the Slavic languages.

The Proto-Slavic language was preceded by the period of the Proto-Slavic language, the elements of which can be restored using the ancient Indo-European languages. The Proto-Slavic language in its main part is restored with the help of these Slavic languages \u200b\u200bfrom different periods of their history. The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into three periods: the oldest - before the establishment of a close Balto-Slavic language contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialectical 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 took shape, consonantism became much simpler, the reduction stage became widespread in the Ablaut, the root ceased to obey ancient restrictions. According to the fate of the middle palates, the Proto-Slavic language is included in the satəm group ("sьrdьce", "pisati", "prositi", compare Latin "cor" - "cordis", "pictus", "precor"; "zьrno", "znati", "Zima", compare the Latin "granum", "cognosco", "hiems"). However, this feature was realized inconsistently: cf. Proto-Slavic “* kamy”, “* kosa”, “* gąsь”, “gordъ”, “bergъ”, etc. The Proto-Slavic morphology presents 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 formed already on the Proto-Slavic soil. Proto-Slavic vocabulary is distinguished by its great originality; already the early period of its development, the Proto-Slavic language experienced a number of significant transformations in the field of lexical composition. Having retained in most cases the old lexical Indo-European fund, he at the same time lost many old Indo-European lexemes (for example, some terms from the field of social relations, nature, etc.). Many words have been lost due to various kinds of prohibitions. For example, the name of the oak was forbidden - the Indo-European "* perkuos", whence the Latin "quercus". The old Indo-European root has come down to us only in the name of the pagan god Perun. In Slavic languages, the taboo "* dąbъ" was established, whence the Russian "oak", Polish "dąb", Bulgarian "dab", etc. The Indo-European name of the bear has been lost. It remains only in the new scientific term "Arctic" (cf. Greek "αρκτος"). The Indo-European word in the Proto-Slavic language was replaced by the taboo word composition "* 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 were diphthongic combinations in the position in front of consonants and the sequence “vowel sonant before vowels” (“smürti”, but “umirati”), intonation (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 the ancient diphthongic combinations into monophthongs, syllabic smooth, nasal vowels arose, the syllable section moved, which, in turn, caused a simplification of consonant groups, the phenomenon of intersyllabic dissimilation. These ancient processes have left their mark on all modern Slavic languages, which is reflected in many alternations: cf. Russian "reap - reap", "take - take", "name - yen", Czech "žíti - žnu", "vzíti - vezmu", Serbo-Croatian "zheti - we press", "uzeti - uzm", "name - names" ... The softening of consonants before iota is reflected in the form of alternations s / š, z / ž and others. All these processes had a strong impact on the grammatical structure, on the system of inflections. In connection with the softening of the consonants before the iota, the process of the so-called first palatalization of the posterior palatine was experienced: [k]\u003e [č], [g]\u003e [ž], [x]\u003e [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 the nominal and verb word formation. later, the so-called second and third palatalizations of the posterior palatine began to operate, as a result of which alternations of k / c, g / z, x / s appeared. The name changed in cases and numbers. In addition to the singular and plural, there was a dual, which was later lost in almost all Slavic languages. There were nominal stems that served as definitions. In the late Proto-Slavic period, pronominal adjectives arose. The verb had infinitive and present stems. From the first, the infinitive, supin, aorist, imperfect, participles in "-l", participles in the past tense in "-vъ" and participles in the passive voice in "-n" were formed. From the foundations of the present tense, the present tense, the imperative mood, the participle of the active voice of the present tense were formed. Later, in some Slavic languages, an imperfect began to form from this basis.

Even in the depths of the Proto-Slavic language, dialectical formations began to form. The most compact was the group of Proto-Slavic dialects, on the basis of which the East Slavic languages \u200b\u200blater arose. There were three subgroups in the West Slavic group: Lehitsky, Serboluzhytsky and Czech-Slovak. The most dialectically differentiated 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 prevailed. Significant changes took place during the period of early feudalism. This was reflected in the further differentiation of the Slavic languages. By the XII-XIII centuries. there was a loss of the super-short (reduced) vowels [b] and [b] characteristic of the Proto-Slavic language. In some cases, they disappeared, in others they passed into the vowels of complete education. As a result, there have been significant changes in the phonetic and morphological structure of the Slavic languages. Slavic languages \u200b\u200bhave experienced many common processes in the field of grammar and vocabulary.

For the first time, the Slavic languages \u200b\u200breceived literary processing in the 60s. IX century. The brothers Cyril (Constantine the Philosopher) and Methodius were the creators of Slavic writing. They translated liturgical texts from Greek into Slavic for the needs of Great Moravia. At its core, the new literary language had a South Macedonian (Solunian) dialect, but in Great Moravia it acquired many local linguistic features. It was later developed further in Bulgaria. In this language (usually called the Old Slavonic language), the richest original and translated literature was created in Moravia, Pannonia, Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From the IX century. no Slavic texts have survived. The most ancient ones belong to the 10th century: the Dobrudjan inscription 943, the inscription of Tsar Samuel 993, etc. From the 11th century. many Slavic monuments have already survived. The Slavic literary languages \u200b\u200bof the feudal era, as a rule, did not have strict norms. Some important functions were performed by foreign languages \u200b\u200b(in Russia - the Old Slavonic language, in the Czech Republic and Poland - Latin). The unification of literary languages, the development of written and pronunciation norms, the expansion of the sphere of use of the native language - all this characterizes the long period of the formation of national Slavic languages. The Russian literary language has gone through a centuries-old and complex evolution. It absorbed folk elements and elements of the Old Church Slavonic, influenced by many European languages. It has developed without interruption for a long time. The process of formation and history of a number of other literary Slavic languages \u200b\u200bproceeded differently. In the Czech Republic in the 18th century. literary language, which reached in the XIV-XVI centuries. great perfection, almost disappeared. The German language predominated in the cities. During the period of national revival, the Czech "awakeners" artificially revived the language of the 16th century, which at that time was already far from the popular language. The whole history of the Czech literary language of the XIX-XX centuries. reflects the interaction of the old book language and the spoken language. The development of the Slovak literary language proceeded differently. Not weighed down 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 prevailed. In the 18th century. the process of rapprochement of this language with the folk began. As a result of the reform carried out by V. Karadzic in the middle of the 19th century, a new literary language was created. This new language began to serve not only the Serbs, but also the Croats, in connection with which it began to be called Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian. The Macedonian literary language was finally formed in the middle of the 20th century. Slavic literary languages \u200b\u200bhave developed and are developing in close communication with each other. The Slavic languages \u200b\u200bare studied by Slavic studies.