Talk:Slavonic languages

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[edit] Etymology of Quark

This page claims that Quark is from Slavic languages through German, but I've found multiple sources which say that the physicist who invented the word was quoting a nonsense word from an English novel (James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake")

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=quark&searchmode=none

http://www.takeourword.com/TOW111/page2.html

I think the tvorog claim, while interesting, is suspicious and should probably be removed until solid evidence controverting the two sources I just posted can be found. If no one responds within the next several days, I'll just remove that sentence. BryanC 05:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Quark is a type of spread dairy product long popular in Central Europe. It is this which is said to come from Slavonic, not the name of the recently discovered subatomic particle. I take it you've never been to Germany. CRCulver 14:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have been to Germany, and I'm not disputing that the German word Quark comes from a Slavonic root. Here's the relevant sentence from the article: "English derives quark from the German Quark, which in turn is derived from the Slavic tvarog, which means "curd"". I believe this claim to be incorrect, since English does not derive the word quark from the German Quark.BryanC 21:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Look at the OED. There are English authors who have used the word "quark" in English-language texts for the dairy spread. CRCulver 21:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
You're right, I didn't know of that secondary meaning for the word "quark". Perhaps we should make the text clearer, so as not to lead people into the misapprehension that the subatomic particle is named after curds. BryanC 22:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I changed the wording to make it clear that the subatomic particle was not named after the cheese. BryanC 03:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] under occupation

I've added a bit on the development of Eastern Slavic language under foreign rule in the Russian Federation, why was it removed?

[edit] notes on history

I only want to point, that:

  1. Slavic scientists usually use words like ,,peacefuly assimilated" instead of ,,conquered" :) Just like Balts do the same when speaking about Ugrofinns
  2. There is some wild theory that Slavs are those Balts, who left their homeland and where conquered by Huns etc. I've read that once in one, single article.
  3. Note about Slavs pledging allegiance to Emperor is irrevelant, since only small group of Slavs, (only from Western branch) did that, while expansion was done mainly by Eastern branch. I would suggest removing that sentence or putting more about other political entities which tried to overrun Slavic tribes plus info about states Slvs do.
  1. anyway HRE is anachronic, since the term started to be used in, IIRC some XIII century. . --150.254.31.xxx, 15:17, 13 Dec 2001

IIRC == If I Remember Correctly.

What's "HRE"? Both of the words "conquered" and "peacefully" detract from the neutral point of view, though usually from opposite sides of an issue. Eclecticology

[edit] difference from Baltic

The Slavic group of languages is completely different from the neighboring Baltic group

They're not "completely different", as they're both IE, and probably in closer genetic relation to each other than to any other group of IO languages. --Taw

What does "completely different" mean? Difference in languages is often only a question of degrees. Eclecticology

There are two ways to explain the similarities between Slavic and Baltic languages:

  1. the common ancestor, Proto-Balto-Slavic;
  2. coexistence of ancient Slavic and Baltic tribes in the same land (the geographic closeness made some common processes possible).

Some linguists claim that there was no Proto-Balto-Slavic language. They explain all the similarities in the second way. They point at some structural differences between Baltic and Slavic languages. On the other hand, numerous similarities between these two groups support the Proto-Balto-Slavic theory.
Boraczek 11:36, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Who are those "some linguists"? -- Naive cynic 21:48, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Frankly, I can't remember who the most prominent supporters of that theory are. But I'll check it and let you know in a few days, OK? Boraczek 14:52, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thank you. It will hopefully help to deweaselize the wording of the article somewhat. -- Naive cynic 02:31, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, the one who questioned the Proto-Balto-Slavic theory was Antoine Meillet. Since then, there is no consensus among linguists whether Proto-Balto-Slavic existed. Boraczek 09:09, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Sources are from position one ((1)) in Szopen/Literature. Avaiable from amazon, i guess, although i didn't try to bought it from there :) Book is in Polish, of course. szopen

[edit] Slavic vs. Slavonic

I would like to see comments on the uses of the words "slavic" vs. "slavonic". It seems to me that "slavic" has a much broader application, and that "slavonic" would correctly apply only in certain specific circumstances. Eclecticology

Comrie ("The Slavonic Languages", Routledge) states that Slavonic is the preferred term among scholars. Based on this, we should move the article to "Slavonic languages" and put a redirect at "Slavic languages". Any naysayers? (And if you protest, please explain how you are competent to stand against the experts in the field so we don't get accusations of anti-elitism). Crculver 03:02, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You're going to get a lot of push-back from those who insist that WP page names must be the most popular usage, and not the most authoritative. Google search result counts will be held up as The Holy Word. —Michael Z. 2005-01-24 06:23 Z
You see both uses in scholarly work on the subject; the difference is, I think, primarily geographic. "Slavic" tends to be used by American Slavists, "Slavonic" by British and Australian Slavists. But the meaning of the two terms is identical. Any other Slavists out there care to support/dispute this? --Neil

[edit] Belarusian

Belarusan is the name form used by ethnologue.com and its Summer Institute of Linguistics in its development of the "SIL" codes. It also has been accepted by the Rosetta Project at http://www.rosettaproject.org:8080/live/search/detailedlanguagerecord?ethnocode=RUW. Both of these organizations cross reference the other versions to "belarusan".

I know SIL use it, and I normally attach great (but not exclusive) weight to their findings: on this occasion, though, they and the Rosetta folk are out on a limb, and in a tiny minority: the Engish form used in Belarus(i)an official (and most other) sources is Belarus(s)ian, with one "s" I think in the majority. But there's definitely an "i", unless you want to reject the way they and most others describe it. User:David Parker

Re: compromise - yes, please: but I don't feel at liberty to compromise the way speakers of the language choose (with the assent it seems of the overwhelming majority of non-speakers) to describe it. I'm all for including alternative renditions, but your suggestion crucially leaves the future article on the language as "Belorusan". Now I've a lot of respect for SIL and other experts in the field who may have their own spellings, but this is an international project, and I can't accept that a minority of western linguists should so dictate the name of a language, especially when their version is so at odds with related adjectival forms (Russian, Rusyn, Ruthene - nowhere do we have Rusa-/Russa-). User:David Parker

  • As a compromise, I've changed back to Belarusan in only one of the two places in the article where the name appears. After spending a couple hours googling on this, I'm no better off than when I started. The most influential body on the net to use Belarusan is the US State Department, for what that's worth. The English-B*** dictionary page, at http://ceti.pl/~hajduk/ to which many links eventually only makes matters worse by using both forms on its home page. I've e-mailed them asking for an explanation. As long as the experts have both versians on their page why can't Wikipedia. At least we seem to agree on the other three points of contention in this single name. It's "Be-" instead of "Bie-" or "Bye-"; it's "Bela-" instead of "Belo-"; and it's a single "s". Perhaps the whole matter should be revisited when there is clearer information. Eclecticology

[edit] Kashubian and Polish

I don't think that Kashbian and Polish is closer then Polish and Czech! --212.144.61.43, 03:56, 11 Dec 2003

Great! Now that you've commented, how about you follow that up? Because that does not follow. If you even look at written Kashubian, it is very clear that Polish and Kashubian are more mutually intelligable than Polish and Czech, to the point where Polish linguists consider it a dialect. --Vegalabs 19:02, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It is just like Russian and Ukrainian, I believe. Nobody would have thought these were different languages, if they were not spoken in different states. --Ghirla -трёп- 14:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] newest map

Image talk:Slavic languages.jpg

The map contains numerous mistakes. Click the map for more info. Boraczek 10:23, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The map was corrected :-) Boraczek 14:49, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Correction to the map - Kashubian language

I was born and raised in Gdynia (Northern Poland). I travelled northern Poland extensively (due to family ties).

I never heard Kashubian language east of Vistula River. The range of the Kashubian language west of Vistula River seems OK, but the part of the range east of Vistula River should be erased.

Tadeusz Piorkowski tadeuszp@yahoo.com

[edit] The new map

I finally posted a version of the map according to the references and requests I got. If anything more needs to be done on it, and if it is possible to comply, I will gladly adapt it. However, I do hope it is better than the first version for everybody... Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 00:13, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

One more thing that I happened to notice... there should be areas with yellow stripes for Polish in western Ukraine. There are at least twice as many Poles in Ukraine than there are Slovaks in Vojvodina, so this seems worthy of rendering on the map. --Joy [shallot] 21:36, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
An additional point regarding the map: The city of Daugavpils in Latvia and its surroundings are predominantly Russian-speaking, and require at least striped graphics. Virtually all public business in the city is carried out in Russian, with the exception of the University and certain government departments. The city is unique in Latvia in having openly Russian street signs and advertisements. C Bartlett, 06 May 2006

[edit] History of Slavic Languages, Origins

I am writing this as a casual reader (knowing almost nothing about language except for my traditional Latin & Spanish courses in high school) who wants to point out to whom ever has the knowledge that this article fails to explain (where needed) the origin and history of Slavic languages. I know that it's a harsh criticism but I can't help to just see "nerd speak" in the article and as a casual reader I'm turned off. Thanks/Sorry, JoeHenzi 09:14, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Have you tried reading... the history section? Maybe someone should update the simple Wikipedia article.-Iopq 14:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] autochtonous Balkan languages

In recent times the scholarly synthesis of linguistic, archaeological, genetic and anthropological data under the name of Paleolithic Continuity Theory treats the Southern Slavonic languages as autohtonous Balkan languages.

I find this information dubious. Could you please indicate the source of this information? Any reference? Boraczek 23:12, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I received no answer, so I'm removing the quoted paragraph until some substantiation is presented. Boraczek 23:31, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] independent state of the Macedonian speech-group

a couple of unexplained removals of the term "Macedonian" from a sentence by VMORO

Joy wrote: reverted again - Macedonian speech-group did indeed long lack the resources to establish an independent state, using it as an example in that sentence is perfectly valid

VMORO wrote: rvt again, there has been a solid Macedonian national consciousness since the beginning/middle of the 20th cent, unless you mean the interwar period, the sentence is not valid

I have no idea what you are talking about. I can fathom how the Macedonians who decided on the Bulgarian state had independence, but those who decided on the other states did not have it up until recently when the Republic of Macedonia became independent, and probably some still don't have it in northern Greece. And the phrase "Macedonian language" refers today to the language of those people, not the Bulgarian Macedonians which use the term "Bulgarian language". Do they not? --Joy [shallot] 12:21, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Now I don't understand what you are talking about:-)) The people who call themselves Macedonians now have had a Macedonian consciousness and national identity since the 1940s and probably to some extent (I can't really argue about that) in the interwar period. If these people used the name Bulgarians and Bulgarian language before that time (that's something i can argue about), then what was said in the article does not really apply to them as the Bulgarians had a well-developed medieval state, which was even at one point centered in Macedonia. VMORO
Ah, you have a point, I didn't look at it that way. While they were all Bulgarians, they could have had Bulgaria; when they became Macedonians, they could have R. Macedonia. This is a quirky exception... --Joy [shallot] 22:02, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Until the 20th century, certain speech-groups (such as speakers of Slovenian or of Macedonian) lacked the resources to establish their own distinctive independent nation-states.

In my opinion this phrase suggests that there was a separate Macedonian-speaking group before the 20th century, which is very dubious. Besides, this phrase is meant to give some EXAMPLES rather than to list all speech-groups which did not have their own nation-states. Hence, the dubious (if not wrong) example of Macedonian speakers is superfluous. The clear example of Slovene speakers is in my opinion enough. That is why I am removing "or of Macedonian". Boraczek 11:06, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Modern developments"

The section is very simplistic and hence inaccurate, sometimes grossly. The linguistic processes were very controversial. Also, Warsaw Pact thingy is of dubious relevance, unless explained. mikka (t) 18:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup. I'd support removing this section until someone can rewrite it. —Michael Z. 2005-09-26 20:59 Z
Agreed. I'll move it here for now. Zocky | picture popups 16:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Modern developments

In the 19th century Pan-Slavism combined with nationalism to foster linguistic and literary expansion and revival: often under the aegis of the Russian tsars. The arrival of Communist regimes in the 20th century fostered the separate lingustic development of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Macedonian, for example, but the years from 1945 to 1990 saw the vast majority of Slavic speakers grouped in the institutions of the Warsaw Pact under Soviet Russian domination. The following trend to political independence and the break-up of the old unified polities (Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia) has encouraged a greater diversity of Slavic linguistic paths.

[edit] Removing picture

Removed the picture since it contained "serbo-croat" a language that no longer is accepted by either history or countries. The article needs to have an updated picture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.209.175.110 (talk • contribs) .

Yes, this is completely true, but picture somehow re-appeared. So, I've marked it dubious. Readers are advised to check pages about Croatian language and Serbian language to see the origin of this so called "serbo-croat" language.

[edit] Correction to the map needed - Belarusian language

The Podlasie Voivodship in Poland (capital - Białystok) is heavily populated by ethnic Belarusians. They are natural residents, not immigrants from Belarus. In some powiats, especially in Hajnówka, Belarusian is a predominant language. This should definitely be reflected on the map. Also, the rural population in Eastern Belarus and Russian territories, adjacent to Belarus, speaks neither Russian, nor Belarusian, but rather a mix of two languages called "trasianka". I think this should be shown too. Natural residents (especially rural) of Smolenk and Briansk regions of Russia are very close to Belarusians in terms of culture and dialects. These regions were incorporated into Russia in the early 1920-s, and many consider them to be Belarusian ethnic lands. On the official level, however, people from those regions are considered Russian. Juras14 3:11, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)


"In some powiats, especially in Hajnówka, Belarusian is a predominant language" - I feel great sympathy for the Belarusian people, but that statement is simply not true. Most Belarusians in Poland are completly Polonised. --Barry Kent 02:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Description?

This article doesn't tell us anything about what Slavic languages are like, what are their common traits, etc. Zocky | picture popups 16:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What have I done to you, precisely

that you have to insult me twice?

Twice!

--VKokielov 07:10, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Jan Kochanowski predated Lomonosov by 300 years. So did Gundulic. So did Hus. --VKokielov 07:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Mea culpa, by two hundred. --VKokielov 07:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Mr Kokielov, please stop obliterating history with your sloppy and POVish edits which may be classified as original research. After 30,000+ edits in WP, I have been through hundreds edit conflicts with POV pushers using this project to propagate their fringe theories. And I don't recall a single instance when they did succeed. Therefore, please find something more useful to do than to glorify dwarf literatures at the expense of the Russian one which thrived in the 11th and 12th centuries, when we have not a line recorded in either Polish or Czech. --Ghirla -трёп- 14:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

What in hell's name is that, fringe theories, huh? Does your battle creed entail the removal of large portions of text written by others without any explanation or criticism? That's just rude. --VKokielov 14:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed

Please note the considerable revisions we have undertaken to my original, slanted text. But neither was the purpose of the original text to attack the East Slavs. The purpose of the original text was to highlight how long it took the Slavic vernaculars in the East to become languages of literature and culture. Do you know that both the Serbs and the Bulgarians tried to introduce Slavonic as a secular language? This, a hundred and fifty years after Russia had shaken off that yoke. Now, I appreciate writings like Frol Skobeev and Protopop Avvakum, but they were sparse and usually written in an ugly mixture. Simeon Polotsky wrote poetry in Church Slavonic...now there's a story to tell. --VKokielov 14:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Let me repeat slowly and for the umpteenth time. "Slavic vernaculars in the East" became "languages of literature and culture" by the 12th century, when the Lay of Igor's Campaign was written. We don't have any record of Czech and Polish languages of the time. Therefore, your tenet that they were "culturally superior" does not hold water. I know little about Serban and Bulgarian and can't make any statements about them. As to your assertion that Avvakum's Life "is an ugly mixture" I consider this statement as a grave offence to any student of Russian literature or anyone who held the original text in his hands. No Russian language can be purer than his. I advise you to revise deficient and biased sources which you apparently consult for editing Wikipedia. Cheers, Ghirla -трёп- 15:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Originally posted by Ghirlandajo: Therefore, your tenet that they were "culturally superior" does not hold water.
Huh?! Where did I say that they were culturally superior?! --VKokielov 15:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Your text implicated that their development was accelerated as compared to Russian which is clearly not the case. You presume that the Russian literature started with Lomonosov, which is a point of view offensive to any Russian. Cheers, Ghirla -трёп- 15:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Прочитайте внимательнее. The word vernacular means "spoken language". And this is an article about language, not literature. --VKokielov 15:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
If so, why you keep talking about Kochanewski, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and even the immensely obscure Leskov?? How did they advance the development of Slavic "vernacular"s? --Ghirla -трёп- 15:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd strongly advised all parties to cite your sources. The article, as it stands, is virtually unreferenced, and for all that casual reader may know, 99% of this is complete fiction.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be no question in the scholarship that OCS was the first Slavonic literary language. I'm removing the disputed tag from that sentence. CRCulver 02:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, the disputed tag is for the map, not for the sentence it's right under. Nevermind. CRCulver 02:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kokielov's version of the evolution of Slavic literatures

In general, the division in linguistic practice in Slavic countries is well-defined by the religious seam (Catholic/Orthodox) which ran between the eastern and western lands. In the West, where Latin was by decree and of necessity the language of worship, there was a clear separation between the people's language and the language of high culture. Literature developed slowly in the Western Slavic lands because of this domination, but when it did, it developed right away in the vernacular. At the dawn of nationalism during the Renaissance, the first modern literary works (usually poems) began to appear -- in Dubrovnik (Ivan Gundulić), in Dalmatia, in Poland (Jan Kochanowski), in Bohemia (Jan Hus). (Two hundred years earlier, Geofrey Chaucer with similar intentions wrote the first books in English under the overwhelming imposition of English French, or, as it is now called, Anglo-Norman).

Even though Russian writers (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov) would enter the company of the best writers ever to live, the tradition of literature in the vernacular language in the East Slav countries was slower to develop. Although the first texts in East Slavic appeared some three hundred years before the Renaissance, these texts, including the prominent Slovo o polku Igoreve, were (with the prominent exception of the literarily unremarkable Afanasiy Nikitin's chronicle) all written in Church Slavic. In general, Orthodox Slavs were under the hand of many invaders: the Russians were under the Tatars until the sixteenth century, the Ukrainians and Belorussians under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania until the 1700s, and the Balkans were part of the Ottoman Empire until almost its fall in the twentieth century. The liturgical tradition, which used Church Slavonic as the primary language, quickly became a literary tradition. Church Slavonic was a rigidly codified literary language based on Old Church Slavonic, and by the sixteenth century was far removed from the vernacular. The first literature in (as nearly as possible) a spoken Russian language began to appear after the ascension of Peter the Great, espoused by grammarians like Lomonosov and finally brought to victory over the old tradition by Aleksandr Pushkin. It was Pushkin who laid the foundation for modern Russian literature, with his beautiful writing in the contemporary vernacular with only the most vital admixtures of bookish Church Slavonic. After Pushkin, on the shoulders of Leskov and Gogol, Russian literature grew rapidly in importance to gain upon and then outpace the Western Slavs.

At about the same time, the Serbs and the Bulgarians, suppressed under the Ottomans and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, began to awaken with a national consciousness to the monumental task of reforming their languages. Both in Bulgaria and in Serbia, the Church resisted these attempts, fearing revolution and seeing language reform as an attempt of assimilation by the West. While Vuk Karadžić was fighting with the patriarch in Vojvodina for his attempts at ensuring a uniform literary and spoken language, inside Bulgaria the Church tried to establish firmly the Church Slavonic language as the literary language of the country.

The current state of many Slavic languages reveals foreign influence -- some of it executed by the literati (as the French words of Polish or the Russian words of Bulgarian), while some came from extensive bilingualism, such as the Turkish words in Bulgarian and Serbian, the German words in Slovenian, and the Polish words in Belarussian and Ukrainian.

[edit] Polish literature

Please take a look at Polish literature. Holy Cross Sermons and Mikołaj Rej may be worth mentioning, both predate Kochanowski.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV statement

Modern mass media, however, has helped to minimize variation in all the Slavic languages. This generalisation is unsourced and out of touch of reality. Therer are virtually no Russian films or productions in Poland's mass media for example. Furthermore I don't see Poles using cyrillic. --Molobo 16:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

That claim is inaccurate. Mass media are intentionally used to increase the differences between Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, and between Bulgarian and Macedonian. It's all politics... --Telex 16:40, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
That isn't really POV, it's just an unfounded statement. Just remove it until it is sourced. - Kuzain 16:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
What was meant, I think, is that modern mass media have increased standardisation of Slavic languages. That is, modern Slavian languages are not becoming more similar to each other but each of them is becoming more standardised.--Unoffensive text or character 16:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balto-Slavonic

I've removed a bit saying that similarities between Baltic and Slavonic can be explained by the Slavs living alongside the Baltic-speaking peoples after AD 600. That makes no sense, for if that were the case, only the East Slavonic languages would be similar to the Baltic languages, since the South Slavonic languages had already moved south around AD 500. Since all Slavonic languages, however, show similarities, one must assume that Proto-Slavic itself, the language spoken before the spread of the Slavs, had some kind of relationship with the Baltic languages. CRCulver 11:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

The map conveys the impression that Slavic languages are spoken over large parts of East Germany. The problem is that historical information (the long-extinct Polabian language) is mixed with information on the contemporary status of Slavic languages. Polabian should be removed entirely from the map (or maybe just printed across northeast Germany in brackets) and the speech-area of the Sorbian languages are a lot smaller than shown on the map.--Unoffensive text or character 16:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrillics in Wikipedia

A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The best known Slavic word

"The best known Slavic word in almost all European languages is probably vodka" Probably??? Without any reference?

How about robot?

Robot is definitely more common worldwide.

[edit] section cut

[edit] Evolution of literary languages

The 11th-century Novgorodian children were literate enough to send each other letters written on birch bark
The 11th-century Novgorodian children were literate enough to send each other letters written on birch bark

The imposition of Church Slavonic and Latin on Slavs was often at the expense of the vernacular. Says W.B. Lockwood, a prominent Indo-European linguist: "It [O.C.S] remained in use to modern times, but was more and more influenced by the living, evolving languages, so that one distinguishes Bulgarian, Serbian, and Russian varieties. The use of such media hampered the development of the local languages for literary purposes and when they do appear the first attempts are usually in an artificially mixed style." (148) Lockwood also notes that these languages have enriched themselves by drawing on Church Slavonic for the vocabulary of abstract concepts. Unlike Latin loans, Church Slavonic borrowings did not sound foreign to the Russian ear and were organically incorporated into everyday speech, since both Slavic languages were easily intelligible. As a result, Russian language acquired the stratum of high speech, which made other Slavic languages appear one-dimensional in comparison, Nikolai Trubetzkoy has observed.[1]

Some of the earliest texts in Slavonic vernaculars include the Russkaya Pravda, an 11th-century legal code of Kievan Rus, and the 12th-century Tale of Igor's Campaign, the only surviving Slavonic epic. The Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible, his adversary Andrey Kurbsky, Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski and the Croatian Baroque writers of sixteenth century all wrote in their respective vernaculars (though Polish itself had drawn amply on Latin in the same way Russian would draw on Church Slavonic).

Although the Church Slavonic language hampered vernacular literatures, it nonetheless fostered Slavonic literary activity and abetted linguistic independence from external influences. The languages of the Catholic Slavs tottered precariously near extinction on many occasions. The earliest Polish is attested in the fourteenth century; before then, the language of administration was Latin. Czech was always in danger of giving way to German, and Czech's relatives Upper and Lower Sorbian, spoken only in Germany, have nearly succumbed just recently. Under German and Italian influence for many centuries, the Slovene language was a regional language spoken by peasants, and was brought to written standards only by the followers of the Reformation in the 16th century. The Serbo-Croatian vernacular literary tradition began with the Vinodol Codex in 1288 and continued through the Renaissance until the codifications of Serbo-Croatian in 1850, though much of the literature between 1300 and 1500 was written in much the same mixture of the vernacular and Church Slavonic as prevailed in Russia and elsewhere. The independence of Ragusa facilitated the continuity of the tradition.

More recent foreign influences follow the same general pattern in Slavic languages as elsewhere, and are governed by the political relationships of the Slavs. In the seventeenth century, bourgeois Russian (delovoi iazyk) absorbed German words through Polish. In the Petrovian era, close contacts with France invited countless loans and calques from French, a significant fraction of which not only survived, but replaced older Slavonic loans. Russian, in turn, influenced most literary Slavic languages by one means or another in the nineteenth century. Croatian writers borrowed Czech words liberally, whereas Czech writers, scrambling to revive their dying language, had in turn borrowed many words (cf. vzduch, air) from Russian. A more direct role for Russian came vis-a-vis Bulgarian, where Russian words were imported en-masse to replace Turkish and Greek loans, so that many Bulgarian words now carry a Russian phonetic footnote (i.e., have a phonetic structure unusual for the Bulgarian language or, indeed, the South Slavic languages in general).

I give up. I give up! --VKokielov 01:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Etymology of Vampire

Search for упырь *ǫруrь would become vampir only in Polish or Polabian since most other Slavic languages lost nasal vowels. -iopq 16:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)