In the 9th century, Saints Cyril and Methodius translated the Gospel into Slavic. Old Church Slavonic was similar to the Old Russian language; it was understood in Rus' without translation.

Here is a fragment of the Gospel in Old Church Slavonic and modern Russian. A translation of the Gospel in Russian was published in the mid-19th century.

Slavic letters

Vertical:
1. The capital of Ancient Rus'.
3. The name of the city in Macedonia, where the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius, educators of the Slavs, were born.
5. Bread that is blessed in church on Easter.
6. The name of the Patriarch of Constantinople during the life of the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius.
8. Head of a region in the Byzantine Empire during the life of the holy brothers.
9. What does the Greek word "sophia" mean?
Horizontal:
2. A type of painting on wet plaster.
4. Writing material that was used during the time of Saints Cyril and Methodius.
6. What was the name of Constantine among the people?
7. What name did St. Cyril have before becoming a monk?
9. What was the name of the Byzantine emperor who sent Constantine to preach to the Slavs?
10. The name of the prince under whom Rus' was baptized.
11. Set of rules.

Answers

38

(Materials for lessons: in sections 1 and 3 of this collection, as well as in the textbook by N.G. Gorelova, B.I. Pivovarov “Native History”, - Novosibirsk: “Ekor”, 1995)

Lesson No. I

Textbook on OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE

http://linguistica.spb.ru/

OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE

TUTORIAL

(didactic units)

The concept of the Old Church Slavonic language. Old Church Slavonic as a common written and literary language for the Slavs. Grouping of languages ​​of Slavic peoples based on their origin. The place of the Old Church Slavonic language among other Slavic languages.

Old Slavonic letter. Glagolitic and Cyrillic: the question of their origin. Characteristics of the Cyrillic letter.

The most important monuments of Glagolitic and Cyrillic writing. Brief description of them.

Sound processes that took place in the early and late periods of the development of the Proto-Slavic language: a) associated with a tendency towards open syllables; b) associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmonism; c) alternation of vowel sounds.

Phonetic system of the Old Church Slavonic language (IX–XI centuries).

1. Sound system of the Old Church Slavonic language of the second half of the 9th century: phonetic structure of the syllable; vowel sounds, their classification; reduced vowels, their positions; consonant sounds, their classification according to deafness/voice, hardness/softness;

2. Later sound processes reflected in the monuments of the 9th and partly 10th centuries: the fall of reduced vowels and changes in the phonetic system of the language associated with the loss of reduced vowels.

Morphology. Grammatical categories of words in the Old Church Slavonic language. Noun. Basic grammatical categories: gender, number,

case, types of declension.

Pronoun. Personal pronouns of 1st and 2nd persons and reflexive pronoun. Expression of the 3rd person by forms of demonstrative pronouns. Non-personal pronouns. Their classification by meaning. Features of the declension of personal and impersonal pronouns.

Adjective. Places, nominal and full forms, declension. Numeral. Quantitative, complex and ordinal numerals

Verb. Conjugated and inconjugated verb forms. Verb classes. Verb tense forms, their formation and conjugation. Verb moods, their formation. Nominal forms of the verb, their formation.

Syntax. A simple proposal. Ways of expressing subject and predicate. Peculiarities in the use of case forms. Complex sentences. Expression of denial.

Questions to prepare for the test and exam:

The examination card includes two theoretical questions: 1) on general issues related to the origin of Old Church Slavonic writing, characteristics of alphabets, written monuments and the phonetic structure of the Old Church Slavonic language; 2) in morphology - and a practical task: reading, translating an excerpt from the text of Old Slavonic written monuments; its phonetic and morphological analysis (4 - 6 lines).

1. Slavic languages, the place among them is the Old Church Slavonic language.

2. Slavs and Slavic languages. The question of the ancestral home of the Slavs.

3. Common Slavic language, its relationship to the Indo-European proto-language. Comparative-historical method of linguistics.

4. The question of the beginning of Slavic writing. The activities of Constantine and Methodius. The folk-colloquial basis of the Old Church Slavonic language.

5. Slavic alphabets, their origin.

6. Glagolitic and Cyrillic monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing.

7. Characteristics of the Cyrillic alphabet in terms of letter composition (compared to modern Russian writing).

8. Vowels at the beginning of a word. The system of Indo-European vowels, their quality and quantity.

9. Basic phonetic laws of the Proto-Slavic language.

10. Diphthongs of the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.

11. Diphthong combinations of vowels with nasal consonants and their transformation in the Proto-Slavic language.

12. Diphthong combinations *tort, *tolt, *tert, *telt in the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.

13. Diphthong combinations *ort, *olt in the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.

14. The fate of the combinations *dt, *tt in the Proto-Slavic language.

15. The fate of the combinations *tl, *dl in the Proto-Slavic language.

16.Qualitative and quantitative alternations of vowel sounds.

17. Diphthong and positional alternations of sounds.

18. First and second palatalization of velar consonants. 19. Changes in the back lingual consonants *g, *k, *ch and sibilant consonants

nykh *z, *s in combination with *j.

20. Change in labial consonants *b, *p, *w, *m in combination with *j. 21. Change of front-lingual consonants *d, *t in combination with *j. 22.Changing combinations of consonants ( *kw, *gw, *kt, *gt, *st, *sk, *zd),

associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmonism. 23. The vowel system of the Old Church Slavonic language. Vowels at the beginning of a word.

24. Reduced sounds ъ ь. Strong and weak positions. The fall of the reduced and the consequences of their loss.

25. Reduced sounds ы и и. Strong and weak positions. Loss of the reduced and its consequences.

26. System of consonant sounds in the Old Church Slavonic language. Their classification.

27. Basic grammatical categories of a noun in the Old Church Slavonic language.

28. Declension with an ancient base on *-a, -ja and its history. 29. Declension with an ancient base on *-o, -jo and its history. 30. Declension with an ancient basis on a consonant sound and its history. 31. Declension with ancient stems on *-ŭ and *-ū and their history. 32. Declension with an ancient base on *-ĭ and its history. 33. Pronouns in Old Church Slavonic. Places by value. Oso-

the importance of declension of personal pronouns.

34.Characteristics of demonstrative pronouns and their declension. The origin of n is the basis of indirect cases of pronouns.

35.Adjective. Classification of adjectives by meaning. Nominal and clause forms of adjectives. Formation of full adjectives and features of their declension.

36. Degrees of comparison of adjectives.

37. Basic grammatical categories of the verb in the Old Church Slavonic language.

38.Two verb stems. Verb classes.

39. Present tense of verbs. Features of conjugation of thematic and non-thematic verbs.

40.Aorist, its grammatical meaning. Types of aorist, their formation and conjugation.

41. Imperfect, its grammatical meaning. Formation of the imperfect and features of conjugation.

42.Perfect, its meaning. Formation and conjugation of the perfect. 43.Plusquaperfect, its meaning and education. Features

zheniya plusquaperfect.

44. Forms of the future tense of the verb, their formation and conjugation. 45. Conditional mood of the verb. Its formation and conjugation.

46. ​​Imperative mood in Old Church Slavonic. Its formation and conjugation.

47.Infinitive and supin in Old Church Slavonic. Their meaning and education.

48. Participles of the Old Church Slavonic language. Their formation and conjugation. 49. Features of the use of the predicate in the Old Church Slavonic language. 50. The phrase “independent dative” in Old Church Slavonic.

Abstract topics:

1. From the Indo-European language to the Slavic languages.

2. The activities of Constantine and Methodius in creating the Slavic alphabet

3. Characteristics of the Slavic alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

4. Monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing.

5. Linguistic, historical, cultural and pedagogical significance of studying the Old Church Slavonic language.

6. Development of Slavic linguistics and comparative historical method.

7. Slavic languages, their kinship.

8. History of views on the folk basis of the Old Church Slavonic language.

9. Words denoting number in Old Church Slavonic.

10. Syntactic features of the Old Church Slavonic language.

LITERATURE

1. *Gorshkov A.I. Old Church Slavonic language. M.: Higher School, 1963 1 .

2. Gorshkova O.V., Khmelevskaya T.A. Collection of exercises on the Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1960.

3. Dementiev A.A. Collection of problems and exercises in the Old Church Slavonic language. Samara: SGPU, 2001

4. Elkina N.M. Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1963.

5. *Istrin V.A. 1100 years of the Slavic alphabet. M., 1963.

6. *Krivchik V.F., Mozheiko N.S. Old Church Slavonic language. Minsk: Publishing house "Higher School", 1970.

7. Nikiforov S.D. Old Church Slavonic language. Ed. 2nd. M.: Uchpedgiz, 1955.

8. *Tikhonova R.I. Old Church Slavonic language. Samara, 1993.

9. *Tikhonova R.I. Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1995.

10. Khaburgaev G.A. Old Church Slavonic language. M.: Education, 1974.

1 Note: * marks the work, excerpts from which formed a file of materials for study.

THE CONCEPT OF THE OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE

Old Church Slavonic is the oldest literary language of the Slavs. This is the earliest written processing and written consolidation of Slavic speech that has reached us. The first monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing date back to the second half of the 9th century. (60s of the 9th century). They represent both translations of liturgical books from Greek and later untranslated, original works. Since the Old Church Slavonic language had a sound system, grammatical structure and vocabulary close to other Slavic languages, it very quickly spread in Slavic countries as the language of church, scientific and partly fiction. All other Slavic languages ​​were fixed in writing much later (the oldest surviving Russian written monuments date back to the second half of the 11th century; ancient Czech - to the 13th century; among the surviving Polish monuments, the oldest date back to the 14th century). Thus, the Old Church Slavonic language in a number of cases makes it possible to present Slavic sounds and forms at their most ancient stage of development.

The Old Church Slavonic language came to Rus' at the end of the 10th century (988) in connection with the adoption of Christianity as the language of church writing.

Currently, the Old Church Slavonic language is dead: it is not spoken or written. The disappearance of the Old Church Slavonic language as a living language passed early, no later than the 11th century, and is explained by the fact that, being close to the languages ​​of those Slavic peoples among whom it was widespread, it itself was so exposed to the influence of the vernacular languages ​​of these peoples that it lost its original quality and finally disappeared like a language. However, his disappearance did not happen instantly. More and more elements of colloquial Slavic speech penetrated into church and religious literature. That type of Russian literary language, which was based on the Old Church Slavonic language, is called Church Slavonic language of the Russian version.

The Church Slavonic language has long been a supra-ethnic language, performing the functions of a church-religious language. In Rus' they knew him, they studied him, but for the Russians he was not native. Scientists explain the preservation of the Church Slavonic language in Rus' right up to the times of Peter the Great by the needs of the church and cultural traditions.

All Slavic languages ​​of our time are united into three groups: eastern, western and southern2.

2 Old Church Slavonic was part of the South Slavic family of languages.

All Slavic languages ​​are related in origin. Their common source is the Proto-Slavic, or common Slavic language. Proto-Slavic, or common Slavic, language is a language system that summarizes the living speech of the Slavic tribes from the time of their formation (the ancestor of the group of tribes was one tribe) until the time of the emergence of early Slavic peoples on their basis, that scientifically restored language that served as a means of communication among the Slavs in the early period their stories3. Most modern linguists believe that the formation of the Slavs should be attributed to the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. This is the stage of tribal life when cattle breeding is already widely developed and agriculture is known.

The collapse of Slavic unity began with the emergence of the “Iron” Age, i.e. even before the advent of the new era. The final disintegration of Slavic unity and the formation of three groups of Slavs: eastern, western and southern - coincides with the period of decomposition of the primitive communal classless system. The end of the Proto-Slavic language can be dated to the second half of the first millennium AD. (VI-VII centuries AD).

The Proto-Slavic language itself is a branch of a more ancient linguistic unity - Indo-European. Indo-European proto-language that existed from the 4th-3rd millennium BC. and further into the depths of centuries, is the common source of all languages ​​called European. Indo-European languages ​​include most of the native languages ​​of Europe and some languages ​​of Asia. Later, Indo-European languages ​​became widespread on the other three continents.

HISTORY OF WRITING AMONG THE SLAVS

In 862 or 863, the Moravian prince Rostislav sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor Michael III with a request to send preachers to Moravia4 who would teach the Moravians the Christian faith in their native language. Apparently, the request of the Moravian prince was caused by the fact that he, fighting against the Latin-German clergy, who was the guide

3 It is generally accepted to write Proto-Slavic forms under the sign* and Latin letters: *woda, *sestra, *stolos and so on.

4 The boundaries of the Moravian principality included the areas of present-day Slovakia.

influence of the German Emperor Louis, wanted to receive political and church support for his power from Byzantium. Byzantium treated ambassadors favorably, as this opened up prospects for the spread

And strengthening the influence of Byzantium in the west, in the regions of the Moravian Principality. It was decided to send a mission to Moravia, headed by two Greek brothers Constantine and Methodius. The first of them, who devoted himself to church service, was known for his learning and missionary activities. His name in sources is usually used with the epithet “philosopher”. Methodius was for some time the ruler of one of the Slavic regions. Both of them are natives of the city of Thessaloniki, which at that time was a Greek colony on Slavic territory and was surrounded by Slavic settlements. Constantine and Methodius knew well the language of the Slavs who lived both in the city itself and in its environs. This is precisely what, according to the testimony of the “Life of Methodius,” the Byzantine emperor said when addressing the brothers: “You are both Thessalonians, and the Thessalonians all speak Slavic well.”

According to the Lives of Constantine and Methodius, Constantine, even before leaving for Moravia, compiled the Slavic alphabet and began to translate the gospel into the Slavic language.

The brothers spent more than three years in Moravia, where they trained cadres of Slavic “book people”, future ministers of the church, and translated Greek liturgical books into Slavic. From the very first days, the Slavic language in writing and church ritual was met with hostility by the German clergy, who saw a great danger to themselves in the activities of Constantine and Methodius. To get support, Konstantin

And Methodius and a group of his students went to Rome, to the pope. Along the way they stopped in Pannonia 5, a Slavic principality inhabited by the ancestors of today's Slovenes. There they were warmly welcomed by Prince Kotsel, who gave them about 50 students to teach Slavic writing.

IN In Rome, Constantine and Methodius were received by Pope Adrian II, who,

trying to strengthen his influence in Moravia and Pannonia, he recognized the Slavic language in writing and liturgy6. There Constantine fell ill and died in 869, shortly before his death he became a monk under the name of Cyril. After the death of Constantine, Methodius and his disciples first returned to Pannonia. In Moravia at this time, Svyatopolk, Rostislav’s nephew, ascended the throne, changing his political orientation to Latin-German. In order to consolidate his influence in Moravia and Pannonia, Pope Adrian II founded a special Slavic bishopric for these areas, and Methodius was

5 The territory of Pannonia was located between the upper Danube, Drava and Mur.

6 In the Middle Ages, worship was allowed only in three languages: Latin, Greek and Hebrew (as the Gospel legend tells, An inscription was made in ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek and Latin on the cross on which Jesus was crucified). Constantine and Methodius obtained from the Pope recognition of the Old Church Slavonic language as the fourth language of the church, which was a major victory in their struggle for the rights of the Slavs to conduct worship in their native language.

appointed Bishop of Pannonia. But he soon fell into the hands of the German clergy and was imprisoned in Bavaria. Methodius stayed there for more than two years. After his release, he returns to Moravia, where great changes have taken place during this time. After the uprising against the Franks, Svyatopolk became the independent ruler of this country. Increasingly subject to German influence, he was not a supporter of Slavic writing. Therefore, the activities of Methodius and his disciples took place in extremely difficult conditions.

In 885 Methodius died. After his death, opponents of Slavic writing obtained from Pope Stephen V a ban on the Slavic language in church liturgy. Methodius's disciples were expelled from Moravia. Having left its borders, some of them headed south, to the Croats, and others to the southeast, to Bulgaria, where they continued the work of Slavic writing.

Particularly favorable conditions for Slavic writing were created in Bulgaria. The most talented student of Methodius was Clement, whose activities took place in Macedonia and southeastern Albania. In Macedonia, he and his students rewrote the original Cyril and Methodius liturgical books and made new translations from Greek.

The heyday of Slavic writing falls during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), when the capital of Bulgaria, Preslav, becomes not only a state center, but also the center of Slavic writing in eastern Bulgaria. The Preslav scribes used the same language as they wrote in Macedonia, but in their manuscripts deviations from the previous linguistic book norms were reflected more significantly than in the West.

In Moravia and the Czech Republic, after the expulsion of the disciples of Methodius, Slavic writing continued until the end of the 11th century, when in the Czech Sazavsky monastery, where it was still preserved, Slavic books were either destroyed by supporters of the Latin script, or were so damaged that they could no longer be read.

Slavic alphabet

The oldest Old Church Slavonic alphabets that have come down to us are written in two alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

The Cyrillic alphabet later formed the basis of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian alphabets. The Glagolitic alphabet fell out of use and was preserved only in Croatia in church use (until the 17th century it was used there for secular purposes).

The question of the origin of the two Slavic alphabets and their mutual relationship has occupied scientists for a long time. Old Slavonic monuments indicate that two alphabets that were very different from each other already existed in ancient times.

The Czech scientist I. Dobrovsky believed that the more ancient alphabet was the Cyrillic alphabet and it was it that was compiled by Constantine. As for the Glagolitic alphabet, in his opinion, it arose around the 14th century. in Croatia. He explains its emergence as follows: the Roman Church in the areas that were under its subordination persecuted everything that testified to a connection with Byzantium, i.e. with the Greek Church. And since the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Greek letter, clearly spoke of this connection, it was replaced by the Glagolitic alphabet in order to preserve worship in the Slavic language.

In 1836, the Slavic philologist V. Kopitar discovered an ancient manuscript written in Glagolitic alphabet in the library of Count Klotz. According to paleographic data, it was much older than those manuscripts that were still known and dated no earlier than the 14th century. This discovery led to a revision of the previous point of view on the origin of the Slavic alphabet. V. Kopitar put forward a hypothesis about the comparative antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet in comparison with the Cyrillic alphabet.

Further discoveries in this area confirmed the point of view of V. Kopitar.

The greater antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet is indicated by the following:

1. The Glagolitic alphabet is poorer in the number of letters, and, therefore, the Cyrillic alphabet is a more advanced alphabet.

2. The oldest linguistic monuments are written in Glagolitic alphabet (for example, the Kyiv leaves, the Zografsky and Mariinsky Gospels).

3. There are many manuscripts written in Cyrillic on parchment with

the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet, but there are no manuscripts written in the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet in the washed-out Cyrillic alphabet.

All this gave reason to believe that the more ancient alphabet created by Constantine was Glagolitic. The Cyrillic alphabet arose in eastern Bulgaria during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), i.e. then, when the Christian religion had long been accepted there, but services were performed by Greek priests in Greek. Tsar Simeon wanted to oppose Byzantium not only with state power, but also with cultural power. To protect the independence of Bulgarian culture from unnecessary encroachments by Byzantium, it was necessary to introduce worship in the Slavic language. But the Greek priests had difficulty mastering the Glagolitic alphabet. Therefore, it was necessary to make a compromise solution: replace the Glagolitic alphabet with another alphabet, similar to Greek. It is believed that, based on the model of the Greek alphabet, this new Slavic alphabet was compiled by Methodius’s student, Presbyter Constantine. Later, Slavic scribes began to identify the presbyter Constantine with the first teacher Constantine - Cyril, and the alphabet he invented began to be called by the name of the second - the Cyrillic alphabet.

Pushkin exclaimed passionately: “My children will read the Bible in the original with me.” “In Slavic?” – asked Khomyakov. “In Slavic,” Pushkin confirmed, “I will teach them myself.”
Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky).
Pushkin in his attitude to religion and the Orthodox Church

The Russian rural school is now obliged to impart knowledge to its pupils... this is a pedagogical treasure that no rural school in the world possesses. This study, constituting in itself an excellent mental gymnastics, gives life and meaning to the study of the Russian language.
S.A. Rachinsky. Rural school

To ensure that children continue to master Slavic literacy, we periodically write texts in this language. We don’t sit down at the table and write down dictations with an A, but we do this. For every twelfth holiday, or great one, or name day, we prepare troparia, kontakia, and magnifications, written in Church Slavonic on beautiful cardboard. One child gets one prayer, the other gets another. Older children copy the text from the prayer book themselves; younger children find it easier to circle what their mother wrote. Very little children color the initial letter and the ornamental frame. Thus, all children participate in preparation for the holiday, for younger children this is the first acquaintance, for older children it is training, for those who already know how to read it is consolidation. And we take these leaves to the church for the all-night vigil to sing along with the choir. At home on holidays, we also sing troparia, kontakion and magnification - before meals and during family prayers. And it is very convenient for everyone to look not at the prayer book, where the troparion still needs to be found and it is written in small print, but at the text prepared by the children. Thus, children regularly engage in activities without even knowing it. Such activities in themselves teach the child to write correctly in this ancient language. Once I suggested that my nine-year-old son write a kontakion for some holiday, but I could not find the Church Slavonic text. I gave him this kontakion in Russian, offering to write it off. And he copied it, but in Church Slavonic, according to his own understanding, placing ers at the end of masculine nouns, stress and even aspiration, writing down almost all the necessary words under titles. As he explained, it is much more beautiful. True, his yati and izhitsy were written in the wrong places; of course, there were mistakes. But in general, a child who had not attended a single lesson in the Church Slavonic language, who studied it in the primitive form as described in this article, simply following his memory, wrote down the unfamiliar text almost correctly.

To study a language at a more serious level, of course, you will still have to turn to grammar. If you are not satisfied with the method of natural immersion in the language and unobtrusive acquisition of knowledge given here, you can conduct something similar to lessons in the Church Slavonic language. Having introduced the Slavic alphabet to a child (in this case, who already knows how to read Russian), we will highlight those letters that are not similar to modern Russian ones - there are not many of them. Let's ask the child to write them down and indicate how they are read. Then we will look at superscript and lowercase characters, including simple and alphabetic titles. We will separately analyze the recording of numbers in Church Slavonic. If a child already knows how to read Slavic, such lessons will not be difficult for either him or his parents. If you have a goal to truly study the Church Slavonic language, then in the future you can either purchase textbooks on this subject and master them at home, or go to courses, then to a specialized university... From textbooks, we can recommend N.P.’s manual. Sablina “Slavic initial letter”, for older children and parents - self-teacher of the Church Slavonic language Yu.B. Kamchatnova, unique in that it was not written for philologists and in accessible language. But all this will be learning a language that has already become native.

The “teaching method” described here can not only be implemented in the family - it is designed specifically for the family. After all, the culture of the parental family first of all becomes our native culture, and it is the language of our parents that becomes our native language. School study can give us knowledge, perhaps brilliant - but for a child this knowledge will not become a part of life if it is not part of the life of the family. Home “immersion in the language”, of course, will not make the child a specialist - but it will make Church Slavonic his native language, whether he will be a specialist in this field of linguistics in the future or will not study the language as a subject at all. And most importantly: such home education, even in its simplest form, opens up new opportunities for communication between parents and children, allows them to find new common topics, without requiring much effort and time from adults.

Such home studies educate the parents even more than their students; Parents study together with their children and receive unlimited opportunities for free pedagogical creativity, which also brings all family members closer together. Maybe this is not possible in every family, but everyone can try. Try to make your home a place of education.

In the Church Slavonic language, the alphabet consists of 40 letters, most of which correspond to Russian letters in spelling and pronunciation. Each letter of the Church Slavonic language has its own traditional name.

The following letters and combinations of letters are written differently, but pronounced the same:

1. e є e
2. and і m v3 Ђ
3. o o w q
4. t from
5. x x
6. p ps

The Church Slavonic alphabet was created on the basis of Greek. This explains the presence of a number of letters (f w x p v) that are redundant for the transmission of Slavic speech. Greek influence also explains the rule according to which the combination gg is read as [ng], and the combination gk - as [nc], for example: є3vaggelіe, смгкл1т.

The letter e was used to convey a special vowel sound, represented in many Slavic dialects. Some dialects of the Russian language have distinct sounds e and e. In Western Ukraine, when reading ordinary Church Slavonic texts, e under stress is pronounced as [and].

Superscripts and punctuation marks

In the Church Slavonic language, special icons are used, which are placed above the line level and are called superscript. This accent marks, special aspiration sign And word abbreviations. A strict system of using superscripts appears quite late. The oldest manuscript with accent marks is the Miracle New Testament (mid-14th century), a new translation from Greek into Slavic, made, according to legend, by St. Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow. The system of superscript characters was finally formed by the beginning of the 18th century.

Accent marks

In Church Slavonic there are three types of stress:

• a - acute accent, or nxjz
• A - heavy stress, or varjz
• † - light stress, or kam0ra

The difference in accent marks is not related to pronunciation features. Thus, the words rab and r†b, zemS and zemls are read the same. Church Slavonic accent marks are borrowed from Greek. Acute stress is placed over the vowel at the beginning and middle of the word, for example Гдъ, соторi1ти. Heavy is placed if the word ends with a stressed vowel, for example cruci2 є3го2. However, if after such a word there are words: bo, same, li, mz, mi, tz, ti, cz, si, us, you, which do not have their own stress, then the acute stress is retained on the previous vowel, for example: the earth is invisible and unstructured[Gen. 1. 2].

Light stress serves to distinguish between singular forms and plural (dual) forms. For example:

• tsar (I. unit) - tsar (R. pl.)
• tsarS (R. unit) - tsar‰ (I. or V. dv.)

Aspirate sign

If a word begins with a vowel, then an aspiration sign is placed above this vowel, which in Slavic is called zvateltso: ґ. This icon is not pronounced at all. In Slavic texts it appeared in connection with the orientation towards Greek orthography. In ancient Greek, aspiration marks influenced pronunciation.

The aspirate mark can be combined with the accent mark. The combination of these signs has special names. The combination of acute stress and aspiration is called u4so, and the combination of aspiration with heavy stress a5 is called gostrophe

Title signs

A number of words in Church Slavonic are written not in full, but in abbreviation. Abbreviations are highlighted using a special sign called the title sign. Under the title are written words related to the sacred sphere, i.e. denoting sacred, revered objects, for example bGъ - God, btsda - Mother of God, sp7s - Saved.

In some cases, the title sign is used to distinguish God (this word is written under the title sign when talking about the God in whom Christians believe) from pagan gods (in this case, b0gъ, b0zi is written without the title sign). In the same way, when talking about the angels of God, the word GgGl is written under the title sign, and if it is talking about the fallen angel, Satan, then the word Gggel is written completely without the title sign and is read [aggel].

There are several options for the title sign:

1. 7 - simple title.
2. alphabetic titles (i.e., a way of abbreviating a word when one of the missing letters is placed above the line):
   • d good-title - btsda
   • g verb-title - є3ђліе
   • b he-title - prрb0къ
   • > rtsy-titlo - i3m>k
   • c word-title - кртъ

Punctuation marks

In Church Slavonic, the rules for placing punctuation marks are less strict than in Russian, i.e. in the same case there may be different signs, or there may be no punctuation mark at all. You should pay attention to the most significant differences between Church Slavonic punctuation marks and modern Russian ones:

• A semicolon in Church Slavonic indicates interrogative intonation, i.e. performs the same functions as the question mark in modern Russian: of little faith, almost2 ўdoubtedz є3сi2; - You of little faith, why did you doubt?[Matt. 14.31].
• In liturgical books, instead of frequently repeated prayers and exclamations, only the first words are given. So, instead of exclamation Glory nts7Y and3 sn7u and3 s™0mu d¦u, and3 nhne and3 pr1snw and3 forever and ever, ґmi1n the words Slava and 3 nhne are quoted: . In this case, a colon is placed instead of an ellipsis. If the liturgical book says Џ§е ours: , then the prayer is read in its entirety in this place Our Father[Matt. 6.9-13].
• We have seen that in Church Slavonic the sign<;>(semicolon) corresponds to the question mark of the modern Russian language. The function of the semicolon in Church Slavonic is the dot, which in this case is called small point. It is no different in size from a regular period, but after it the sentence continues with a small letter.
• There are no strict rules for placing commas in the Church Slavonic language. But commas, as in modern Russian, help to understand the division of a sentence and highlight its main parts.

Numerical letter values

Arabic and Latin numerals are not used in Church Slavonic texts. To write numbers, letters of the Church Slavonic alphabet are used, which have numerical values. In this case, a title sign is placed above the letter.

If a number is written in two or more letters, then the title sign is usually placed above the second letter from the end.

Numbers from 11 to 19 are written like this: in the first place are the letters denoting units, and in the second place is the letter i, which has the digital value “ten”, for example №i - 11, В7i - 12, Gi - 13, etc.; numbers from 21 onwards are written like this: first the letter denoting ten is written, then the letter denoting one, for example k7z - 27, n7g - 53, o7a - 71. This rule is easy to remember if you understand that the letters in the Church Slavonic number are written like this: how to pronounce a number, for example 11 - one-over-twenty (twenty - ten), 13 - three-over-twenty, 23 - two-twenty-three

Thousands are indicated by the sign ¤, which can be attached to any letter below the line level, for example ¤в7 - 2000, ¤f7 - 9000, ¤… - 60,000, ¤ф\ - 500,000.

Calculation can be carried out both from the Nativity of Christ and from the creation of the world. The time interval between these events, according to church tradition, is 5,508 years. Therefore, if the date is indicated as ¤з7ф (7 500), then this means 1992 from the Nativity of Christ or in Slavic ¤ац§в

One of the most interesting is the Old Church Slavonic language. The words that were part of his vocabulary, the rules of grammar, even some phonetic features and the alphabet became the basis of the modern Russian language. Let's look at what kind of language it is, when and how it arose, and whether it is used today and in what areas.

We will also talk about why it is studied at universities, and also mention the most famous and significant works devoted to the Cyrillic alphabet and Old Church Slavonic grammar. Let us also remember Cyril and Methodius, the world-famous Thessaloniki brothers.

General information

That for centuries scientists have been paying attention to this language, studying the Old Church Slavonic alphabet and the history of its development, but there is not much information about it. If the grammatical and phonetic structure of the language, the lexical composition has been more or less studied, then everything related to its origin is still in question.

The reason for this is that the creators of writing themselves either did not keep records regarding their work, or these records were completely lost over time. A detailed study of the writing itself began only several centuries later, when no one could say with certainty what kind of dialect became the basis of this writing.

It is believed that this language was artificially created on the basis of dialects in the 9th century and was used in Rus' for several centuries.

It is also worth noting that in some sources you can find a synonymous name for the language - Church Slavonic. This is due to the fact that the origin of literature in Rus' is directly connected with the church. At first, literature was church literature: books, prayers, parables were translated, and original scriptures were created. In addition, mainly only people serving the church spoke this language.

Later, with culture, Old Church Slavonic was replaced by the Old Russian language, which largely relied on its predecessor. This happened around the 12th century.

Nevertheless, the Old Church Slavonic initial letter has reached us practically unchanged, and we still use it to this day. We also use a grammatical system that began to emerge even before the emergence of the Old Russian language.

Creation versions

It is believed that the Old Church Slavonic language owes its appearance to Cyril and Methodius. And it is this information that we find in all textbooks on the history of language and writing.

The brothers created a new writing based on one of the Solunsky dialects of the Slavs. This was done primarily in order to translate biblical texts and church prayers into the Slavic language.

But there are other versions of the origin of the language. Thus, I. Yagic believed that the basis of Old Church Slavonic was one of the dialects of the Macedonian language.

There is also a theory according to which the basis of the new writing was the Bulgarian language. She will be nominated by P. Safarik. He believed that this language should be called Old Bulgarian, and not Old Slavonic. Some researchers are still arguing about this issue.

By the way, Bulgarian linguists still believe that the language we are considering is Old Bulgarian, and not Slavic.

We can even assume that there are other, less well-known theories of the origin of language, but they either have not been considered in scientific circles, or they have been proven completely untenable.

In any case, Old Church Slavonic words can be found not only in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages, but also in Polish, Macedonian, Bulgarian and other Slavic dialects. Therefore, discussions about which language is closest to Old Church Slavonic are unlikely to ever be completed.

Thessalonica brothers

The creators, Cyril and Methodius, came from the city of Thessaloniki in Greece. The brothers were born into a fairly wealthy family, so they were able to receive an excellent education.

The elder brother, Mikhail, was born around 815. When ordained as a monk, he received the name Methodius.

Constantine was the youngest in the family and was born around 826. He knew foreign languages ​​and understood the exact sciences. Despite the fact that many predicted success and a magnificent future for him, Constantine decided to follow in the footsteps of his older brother and also became a monk, receiving the name Cyril. He died in 869.

The brothers were actively involved in spreading Christianity and the scriptures. They visited different countries, trying to convey the word of God to people. But nevertheless, it was the Old Church Slavonic alphabet that brought them world fame.

Both brothers were canonized. In some Slavic countries, May 24 is also celebrated by cultures (Russia and Bulgaria). In Macedonia, Cyril and Methodius are honored on this day. Two more Slavic countries - the Czech Republic and Slovakia - moved this holiday to July 5.

Two alphabets

It is believed that the Old Slavonic initial letter was created by the Greek enlighteners. In addition, there were originally two alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Let's look at them briefly.

The first one is Glagolitic. It is believed that its creators were Cyril and Methodius. It is believed that this alphabet has no basis and was created from scratch. In Old Rus' it was used quite rarely, in isolated cases.

The second is Cyrillic. Its creation is also attributed to the Solun brothers. It is believed that the statutory Byzantine letter was taken as the basis for the alphabet. At the moment, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians use the letters of the Old Church Slavonic alphabet, or rather the Cyrillic alphabet.

As for the question of which one, there is also no clear answer. In any case, if we assume that both the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet were created by the Thessaloniki brothers, then the difference between the time of their creation hardly exceeded ten to fifteen years.

Was there writing before the Cyrillic alphabet?

It is also interesting that some researchers of the history of language believe that there was writing in Rus' even before Cyril and Methodius. This theory is confirmed by the “Book of Veles,” which was written by the ancient Russian Magi even before the adoption of Christianity. At the same time, it has not been proven in what century this literary monument was created.

In addition, scientists claim that in various records of ancient Greek travelers and scientists there are references to the presence of writing among the Slavs. Also mentioned are the agreements that the princes signed with Byzantine merchants.

Unfortunately, it has not yet been established exactly whether this is true, and if so, what exactly was the written language in Rus' before the spread of Christianity.

Learning Old Church Slavonic

Regarding the study of the Old Church Slavonic language, it was of interest not only to scientists studying the history of the language and dialectology, but also to Slavic scholars.

Its study began in the 19th century with the emergence of the comparative historical method. We will not dwell on this issue in detail, since, in fact, a person who is not closely familiar with linguistics will not be interested or familiar with the names of scientists. Let's just say that more than one textbook has been compiled on the basis of research, many of them are used to study the history of language and dialectology.

In the course of research, theories of the development of the Old Church Slavonic language were developed, dictionaries of Old Church Slavonic vocabulary were compiled, and grammar and phonetics were studied. But at the same time, there are still unsolved secrets and mysteries of the Old Church Slavonic dialect.

We will also allow ourselves to give a list of the most famous dictionaries and textbooks of the Old Church Slavonic language. Perhaps these books will interest you and help you delve deeper into the history of our culture and writing.

The most famous textbooks were published by such scientists as Khabugraev, Remneva, Elkina. All three textbooks are called “Old Church Slavonic”.

A rather impressive scientific work was published by A. Selishchev. He prepared a textbook, consisting of two parts and covering the entire system of the Old Church Slavonic language, containing not only theoretical material, but also texts, a dictionary, and some articles on the morphology of the language.

The materials devoted to the Solunsky brothers and the history of the alphabet are also interesting. Thus, in 1930, the work “Materials on the History of the Origin of Writing”, written by P. Lavrov, was published.

No less valuable is the work of A. Shakhmatov, which was published in Berlin in 1908 - “The Legend of the Translation of Books into the Slovenian Language.” In 1855, O. Bodyansky’s monograph “On the Time of the Origin of Slavic Writings” was published.

An “Old Church Slavonic Dictionary” was also compiled, based on manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries, which was published under the editorship of R. Tseitlin and R. Vecherka.

All these books are widely known. Based on them, they not only write abstracts and reports on the history of the language, but also prepare more serious works.

Old Slavonic layer of vocabulary

A fairly large layer of Old Church Slavonic vocabulary was inherited by the Russian language. Old Church Slavonic words are quite firmly entrenched in our dialect, and today we cannot even distinguish them from native Russian words.

Let's look at a few examples so that you understand how deeply Old Slavonicisms have penetrated into our language.

Such church terms as “priest”, “victim”, “rod” came to us precisely from the Old Slavonic language, and abstract concepts such as “power”, “disaster”, “harmony” also belong here.

Of course, there are many more Old Slavonicisms themselves. We will give you several signs that indicate that the word is Old Church Slavonic.

1. Availability of prefixes voz- and through-. For example: return, excessive.

2. Compound lexemes with the words god-, good-, sin-, evil- and others. For example: evil, fall.

2. The presence of suffixes -stv-, -zn-, -ush-, -yush-, -ash- -yash-. For example: burning, melting.

It would seem that we have listed only a few signs by which Old Church Slavonicisms can be identified, but you probably already remembered more than one word that came to us from Old Church Slavonic.

If you want to find out the meaning of Old Church Slavonic words, we can advise you to look in any explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. Almost all of them have retained their original meaning, despite the fact that more than one decade has passed.

Modern use

At the moment, the Old Church Slavonic language is studied at universities in individual faculties and specialties, and is also used in churches.

This is due to the fact that at this stage of development this language is considered dead. Its use is possible only in church, since many prayers are written in this language. In addition, it is worth noting the fact that the first sacred scriptures were translated into the Old Church Slavonic language and are still used by the church in the same form as centuries ago.

Regarding the world of science, we note the fact that Old Church Slavonic words and their individual forms are often found in dialects. This attracts the attention of dialectologists, allowing them to study the development of language, its individual forms and dialects.

Researchers of culture and history also know this language, since their work is directly related to the study of ancient monuments.

Despite this, at this stage this language is considered dead, since, like Latin and Ancient Greek, no one has been communicating in it for a long time, and only a few know it.

Use in church

This language is most widely used in the church. Thus, Old Slavonic prayers can be heard in any Orthodox church. In addition, excerpts from church books and the Bible are also read on it.

At the same time, we also note that church employees and young seminary students also study this adverb, its features, phonetics and graphics. Today, Old Church Slavonic is rightfully considered the language of the Orthodox Church.

The most famous prayer, which is often read in this dialect, is “Our Father.” But there are still many prayers in Old Church Slavonic that are less known. You can find them in any old prayer book or hear them by visiting the same church.

Studying at universities

Today, the Old Church Slavonic language is studied quite widely in universities. They take it at the faculties of philology, history, and law. In some universities it is also possible to study for philosophy students.

The program includes the history of origin, the Old Church Slavonic alphabet, features of phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar. Basic syntax.

Students not only study the rules, learn to inflect words, parse them as part of speech, but also read texts written in a given language, try to translate them and understand the meaning.

All this is done so that philologists can further apply their knowledge to study ancient literary monuments, features of the development of the Russian language, and its dialects.

It is worth noting that it is quite difficult to study the Old Church Slavonic language. The text written on it is difficult to read, since it not only contains many archaisms, but also the very rules for reading the letters “yat”, “er” and “er” are difficult to remember at first.

Thanks to the knowledge gained, history students will be able to study ancient cultural and written monuments, read historical documents and chronicles, and understand their essence.

The same applies to those who study at the faculties of philosophy and law.

Despite the fact that today Old Church Slavonic is a dead language, interest in it still does not subside.

Conclusions

It was Old Church Slavonic that became the basis of the Old Russian language, which, in turn, replaced the Russian language. Words of Old Church Slavonic origin are perceived by us as originally Russian.

A significant layer of vocabulary, phonetic features, grammar of the East Slavic languages ​​- all this was laid down during the period of development and use of the Old Church Slavonic language.

Old Church Slavonic is a formally dead language, in which only church ministers currently communicate. It was created back in the 9th century by the brothers Cyril and Methodius and was initially used for translating and recording church literature. In fact, Old Church Slavonic has always been a written language that was not spoken among the people.

Today we no longer use it, but at the same time it is widely studied in philological and historical faculties, as well as in theological seminaries. Today, Old Church Slavonic words and this ancient language can be heard by visiting, since all prayers in Orthodox churches are read in it.