Slavic language group. School encyclopedia

Slavic countries are states that existed or still exist, having the majority of their population Slavs (Slavic peoples). Slavic countries of the world are those countries in which the Slavic population is about eighty to ninety percent.

Which countries are Slavic?

Slavic countries of Europe:

But still, to the question “which country’s population belongs to the Slavic group?” The answer immediately arises - Russia. The population of Slavic countries today is about three hundred million people. But there are other countries in which Slavic peoples live (these are European countries, North America, Asia) and speak Slavic languages.

The countries of the Slavic group can be divided into:

• Western Slavic.
• East Slavic.
• South Slavic.

The languages ​​in these countries originate from one common language (it is called Proto-Slavic), which once existed among the ancient Slavs. It was formed in the second half of the first millennium AD. It is not surprising that most words are consonant (for example, Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​are very similar). There are also similarities in grammar, sentence structure, and phonetics. This is easy to explain if we take into account the duration of contacts between the inhabitants of the Slavic states. Russian occupies the lion's share in the structure of Slavic languages. Its carriers are 250 million people.

It is interesting that the flags of Slavic countries also have some similarities in color scheme and the presence of longitudinal stripes. Does this have something to do with their common origin? More likely yes than no.

Countries where Slavic languages ​​are spoken are not that numerous. But Slavic languages ​​still exist and flourish. And several hundred years have passed! This only means that the Slavic people are the most powerful, persistent, and unshakable. It is important that the Slavs do not lose the originality of their culture, respect for their ancestors, honor them and preserve traditions.

Today there are many organizations (both in Russia and abroad) that revive and restore Slavic culture, Slavic holidays, even names for their children!

The first Slavs appeared in the second and third millennium BC. Of course, the birth of this mighty people took place in the area of ​​modern Russia and Europe. Over time, the tribes developed new territories, but still they could not (or did not want to) go far from their ancestral homeland. By the way, depending on migration, the Slavs were divided into eastern, western, southern (each branch had its own name). They had differences in their way of life, agriculture, and some traditions. But still the Slavic “core” remained intact.

The emergence of statehood, war, and mixing with other ethnic groups played a major role in the life of the Slavic peoples. The emergence of separate Slavic states, on the one hand, greatly reduced the migration of Slavs. But, on the other hand, from that moment on their mixing with other nationalities also dropped sharply. This allowed the Slavic gene pool to gain a strong foothold on the world stage. This affected both the appearance (which is unique) and the genotype (hereditary characteristics).

Slavic countries during the Second World War

The Second World War brought great changes to the countries of the Slavic group. For example, in 1938, the Czechoslovak Republic lost its territorial unity. The Czech Republic ceased to be independent, and Slovakia became a German colony. The following year the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came to an end, and in 1940 the same happened to Yugoslavia. Bulgaria sided with the Nazis.

But there were also positive sides. For example, the formation of anti-fascist movements and organizations. A common misfortune united the Slavic countries. They fought for independence, for peace, for freedom. Such movements especially gained popularity in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.

The Soviet Union played a key role in World War II. The citizens of the country selflessly fought against the Hitler regime, against the cruelty of German soldiers, against the fascists. The country has lost a huge number of its defenders.

Some Slavic countries during the Second World War were united by the All-Slavic Committee. The latter was created by the Soviet Union.

What is Pan-Slavism?

The concept of Pan-Slavism is interesting. This is a direction that appeared in the Slavic states in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It had the goal of uniting all the Slavs of the world on the basis of their national, cultural, everyday, and linguistic community. Pan-Slavism promoted the independence of the Slavs and praised their originality.

The colors of Pan-Slavism were white, blue and red (these same colors appear on many country flags). The emergence of such a movement as Pan-Slavism began after the Napoleonic wars. Weakened and “tired,” the countries supported each other in difficult times. But over time, they began to forget about Pan-Slavism. But at the present time there is again a tendency to return to the origins, to the ancestors, to the Slavic culture. Perhaps this will lead to the formation of a neo-Panslavist movement.

Slavic countries today

The twenty-first century is a time of some discord in the relations of the Slavic countries. This is especially true for Russia, Ukraine, and EU countries. The reasons here are more political and economic. But despite the discord, many residents of countries (from the Slavic group) remember that all the descendants of the Slavs are brothers. Therefore, none of them wants wars and conflicts, but only want warm family relationships, as our ancestors once had.

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

General information

The Slavic group of languages ​​is a branch of the Indo-European languages ​​used in most of the Balkans, parts of Central Europe and northern Asia. It is most closely related to the Baltic languages ​​(Lithuanian, Latvian and the extinct Old Prussian). Languages ​​belonging to the Slavic group originated from Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine) and spread to the remaining territories listed above.

Classification

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

In contrast to the clearly divergent literary, linguistic boundaries are not always obvious. There are transitional dialects connecting different languages, except in the area where the South Slavs are separated from other Slavs by 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 between Russian and Bulgarian).

It should therefore be noted that the traditional classification into 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 differentiation and reintegration of dialects constantly took place, as a result of which the Slavic group of languages ​​has a striking homogeneity throughout the territory of its distribution. For centuries, the paths of different peoples crossed, and their cultures mixed.

Differences

But it would still be an exaggeration to assume that communication between any two speakers of different Slavic languages ​​is possible without any linguistic difficulties. Many differences in phonetics, grammar and vocabulary can cause misunderstandings even in a simple conversation, not to mention difficulties in journalistic, technical and artistic speech. Thus, the Russian word “green” is recognizable to all Slavs, but “red” means “beautiful” in other languages. Suknja is “skirt” in Serbo-Croatian, “coat” in Slovenian, a similar expression “suknya” is “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 group. 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 ​​includes two more large 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 the language in Canada and the United States. This is explained by the presence of a large ethnic community of migrants who left the country at the end of the 19th century. The Carpathian dialect, which is also called Carpatho-Rusyn, is sometimes considered a separate language.
• Belarusian is spoken by about seven million people in Belarus. Its main dialects are: southwestern, some features of which can be explained by its proximity to Polish lands, and northern. The Minsk dialect, which serves as the basis for the literary language, lies on the border of these two groups.

West Slavic branch

It includes Polish and other Lechitic (Kashubian and its extinct variant Slovinian), 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 (particularly 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 northwestern, southeastern, Silesian and Masovian. 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 Elbe River area.

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

Czechoslovakian group of languages

It includes:

• Czech, spoken by approximately 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 on the basis of the Prague dialect.
• Slovak, it is 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 central and eastern ones, which share features with Polish and Ukrainian.

South Slavic group of languages

Among the three main ones, it is the smallest in terms of the number of native 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. These include:

2. Western subgroup:

• Serbo-Croatian language - about 20 million people use it. The basis for the literary version was the Shtokavian dialect, which is widespread in most of the Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin territories.
• Slovene is a language spoken by more than 2.2 million people in Slovenia and surrounding areas of Italy and Austria. It shares some common features with the dialects of Croatia and includes many dialects with large differences between them. In Slovenian (in particular its western and northwestern dialects) traces of old connections with the West Slavic languages ​​(Czech and Slovak) can be found.

The Slavic group of languages ​​is the closest of this family to the Baltic group, so some scientists combine these two groups into one - Balto-Slavic subfamily Indo-European languages. The total number of native speakers of Slavic languages ​​is over 300 million. The majority of speakers of Slavic languages ​​live in Russia and Ukraine.

The Slavic group of languages ​​is divided into three branches: East Slavic, West Slavic And South Slavic. The East Slavic branch of languages ​​includes: Russian language or Great Russian, Ukrainian, also known as Little Russian or Ruthenian, and Belarusian. These languages ​​are collectively spoken by about 225 million people. The West Slavic branch includes: Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lusatian, Kashubian and the extinct Polabian language. Living West Slavic languages ​​are spoken today by approximately 56 million people, mainly in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The South Slavic branch consists of Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian and Macedonian languages. The language of church services, Church Slavonic, also belongs to this branch. The first four languages ​​are collectively spoken by more than 30 million people in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

All Slavic languages, according to linguistic research, are rooted in one common ancestor language, usually called Proto-Slavic language, which in turn separated much earlier from Proto-Indo-European language(around 2000 BC), the ancestor of all Indo-European languages. The Proto-Slavic language was probably common to all Slavs as early as the 1st century BC, and already from the 8th century AD. Separate Slavic languages ​​begin to form.

General characteristics

Conversational Slavic languages very similar to each other, stronger than Germanic or Romance languages between themselves. However, even though they have similarities in vocabulary, grammar and phonetics, they still differ in many aspects. One of the common characteristics of all Slavic languages ​​is the relatively large number of consonants. A striking example of different usage is the variety of basic stress positions in individual Slavic languages. For example, in Czech the stress falls on the first syllable of a word, and in Polish - on the next syllable after the last, while in Russian and Bulgarian the stress can fall on any syllable.

Grammar

Grammatically, Slavic languages, with the exception of Bulgarian and Macedonian, have a highly developed system of noun inflections, up to seven cases(nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional and vocative). The verb in Slavic languages ​​has three simple tenses(past, present and future), but is also characterized by such a complex characteristic as species. A verb can be imperfect (shows continuity or repetition of an action) or perfect (denotes the completion of an action). Participles and gerunds are widely used (one can compare their use with the use of participles and gerunds in English). In all Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, there is no article. The languages ​​of the Slavic subfamily are more conservative and therefore closer to Proto-Indo-European language than the languages ​​of the Germanic and Romance groups, as evidenced by the preservation by the Slavic languages ​​of seven of the eight cases for nouns that were characteristic of the Proto-Indo-European language, as well as the development of the aspect of the verb.

Vocabulary composition

The vocabulary of Slavic languages ​​is predominantly of Indo-European origin. There is also an important element of the mutual influence of the Baltic and Slavic languages ​​on each other, which is reflected in the vocabulary. Borrowed words or translations of words go back to Iranian and German groups, and also to Greek, Latin, and Turkic languages. They influenced the vocabulary of such languages ​​as Italian and French . Slavic languages ​​also borrowed words from each other. The borrowing of foreign words tends to translate and imitate rather than simply absorb them.

Writing

Perhaps it is in the written form that the most significant differences between the Slavic languages ​​lie. Some Slavic languages ​​(notably Czech, Slovak, Slovenian and Polish) have a written language based on Latin alphabet, since the speakers of these languages ​​belong predominantly to the Catholic denomination. Other Slavic languages ​​(such as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian) use adopted variants of the Cyrillic alphabet as a result of the influence of the Orthodox Church. The only language, Serbo-Croatian, uses two alphabets: Cyrillic for Serbian and Latin for Croatian.
The invention of the Cyrillic alphabet is traditionally attributed to Cyril, a Greek missionary who was sent by the Byzantine Emperor Michael III to the Slavic peoples who were present at the time - in the 9th century AD. in the territory of present-day Slovakia. There is no doubt that Kirill created the predecessor of the Cyrillic alphabet - Glagolitic, based on the Greek alphabet, where new symbols were added to represent Slavic sounds that did not find a correspondence in the Greek language. However, the very first texts in Cyrillic dating back to the 9th century AD. not preserved. The oldest Slavic texts preserved in the ecclesiastical Old Church Slavonic language date back to the 10th and 11th centuries.

Slavic programming languages, Slavic languages ​​of the world
branch

Languages ​​of Eurasia

Indo-European family

Compound

East Slavic, West Slavic, South Slavic groups

Separation time:

XII-XIII centuries n. e.

Language group codes GOST 7.75–97: ISO 639-2: ISO 639-5: See also: Project: Linguistics Slavic languages. According to the publication of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Languages ​​of the World”, volume “Slavic Languages”, M., 2005

Indo-Europeans
Indo-European languages
Anatolian Albanian Armenian · Baltic · Venetian Germanic Illyrian Aryan: Nuristan, Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Dardic Italian (Roman) Celtic · Paleo-Balkan Slavic· Tocharian Dead language groups are in italics
Indo-Europeans
Albanians · Armenians · Balts Veneti · Germans · Greeks Illyrians · Iranians · Indo-Aryans Italics (Romans) · Celts Cimmerians · Slavs · Tocharians Thracians · Hittites in italics indicate now defunct communities
Proto-Indo-Europeans
Language · Ancestor · Religion
Indo-European Studies p·o·r

Slavic languages- a group of related languages ​​of the Indo-European family. Distributed throughout Europe and Asia. The total number of speakers is more than 400 million people. They are distinguished by a high degree of closeness to each other, which is found in the structure of the word, the use of grammatical categories, sentence structure, semantics, a system of regular sound correspondences, and morphonological alternations. This closeness is explained by the unity of origin of the Slavic languages ​​and their long and intensive contacts with each other at the level of literary languages ​​and dialects.

The long-term independent development of the Slavic peoples in different ethnic, geographical, historical and cultural conditions, their contacts with various ethnic groups led to the emergence of differences of a material, functional and typological nature.

• 1 Classification
• 2 Origin
  • 2.1 Modern research
• 3 Development history
• 4 Phonetics
• 5 Writing
• 6 Literary languages
• 7 See also
• 8 Notes
• 9 Literature

Classification

Slavic languages, according to the degree of their proximity to each other, are usually divided into 3 groups: East Slavic, South Slavic and West Slavic. The distribution of Slavic languages ​​within each group has its own characteristics. Each Slavic language includes a literary language with all its internal varieties and its own territorial dialects. Dialectal division and stylistic structure within each Slavic language are not the same.

Branches of Slavic languages:

East Slavic branch Belarusian (ISO 639-1: be; ISO 639-3: bel) Old Russian † (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: orv) Old Novgorod dialect † (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: -) Western Russian † (ISO 639-1: - ;ISO 639-3: -) Russian (ISO 639-1: ru; ISO 639-3: rus) Ukrainian (ISO 639-1: uk; ISO 639-3: ukr) Rusyn (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: rue)

West Slavic branch Lehitic subgroup Pomeranian (Pomeranian) languages Kashubian (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: csb) Slovinian † (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: -) Polabian † (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: pox) Polish (ISO 639-1: pl; ISO 639-3: pol) Silesian (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: szl) Lusatian subgroup Upper Sorbian (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: hsb) Lower Sorbian (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: dsb) Czech-Slovak subgroup Slovak (ISO 639-1: sk; ISO 639-3: slk) Czech (ISO 639-1: cs; ISO 639-3: ces) knaanite † (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: czk)

South Slavic branch Eastern group Bulgarian (ISO 639-1: bg; ISO 639-3: bul) Macedonian (ISO 639-1: mk; ISO 639-3: mkd) Old Church Slavonic † (ISO 639-1: cu; ISO 639-3: chu) Church Slavonic (ISO 639-1: cu; ISO 639-3: chu) Western group Serbo-Croatian group/Serbo-Croatian language (ISO 639-1: - ; ISO 639-3: hbs): Bosnian (ISO 639-1: bs; ISO 639-3: bos) Serbian (ISO 639-1: sr; ISO 639-3: srp) Slavic Serbian † (ISO 639-1: - ;ISO 639-3: -) Croatian (ISO 639-1: hr; ISO 639-3: hrv) Kajkavian (ISO 639-3: kjv) Montenegrin (ISO 639-1: - ;ISO 639-3: -) Slovenian (ISO 639-1: sl; ISO 639-3: slv)

Origin

Family tree of modern Slavic languages ​​according to Gray and Atkinson

Slavic languages ​​within the Indo-European family are closest to the Baltic languages. The similarities between the two groups served as the basis for the theory of the “Balto-Slavic proto-language”, according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first emerged from the Indo-European proto-language, which later split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, many scientists explain their special closeness by the long-term contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs, and deny the existence of the Balto-Slavic language.

It has not been established in what territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European/Balto-Slavic occurred. It can be assumed that it occurred to the south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral homelands. From one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavic), the Proto-Slavic language was 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. over a long period of time it developed as a single dialect with an identical structure. Dialectal variants arose later.

The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language into independent languages ​​took place most actively in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD, during the period of the formation of the early Slavic states in the territory of South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of various geographical zones with different natural and climatic conditions were developed, the Slavs entered into relationships with the population of these territories, standing at different stages of cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of Slavic languages.

The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the oldest - before the establishment of close Balto-Slavic linguistic contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialect fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.

Modern research

In 2003, Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson, scientists from the University of Oklad, published their study of modern languages ​​of the Indo-European family in the scientific journal Nature. The data obtained indicate that the Slavic linguistic unity disintegrated 1300 years ago, that is, around the 8th century AD. And the Balto-Slavic linguistic unity collapsed 3400 years ago, that is, around the 15th century BC.

History of development

Main article: History of Slavic languages Bascan slab, 11th century, Krk, Croatia

In the early period of development of the Slavic proto-language, a new system of vowel sonants was formed, consonantism was significantly simplified, the reduction stage became widespread in ablaut, and the root ceased to obey ancient restrictions. The Proto-Slavic language is part of the satem group (sрьдьce, pisati, prositi, Wed. Lat. cor, - cordis, pictus, precor; zьrno, znati, zima, Wed. Lat. granum, cognosco, hiems). However, this feature was not fully realized: cf. Praslav *kamy, *kosa. *gǫsь, *gordъ, *bergъ, etc. Proto-Slavic morphology represents significant deviations from the Indo-European type. This primarily applies to the verb, to a lesser extent to the name.

Novgorod birch bark charter of the 14th century

Most of the suffixes were already formed on Proto-Slavic soil. During the early period of its development, the Proto-Slavic language experienced a number of transformations in the field of vocabulary. Having retained in most cases the old Indo-European vocabulary, he at the same time lost some lexemes (for example, some terms from the field of social relations, nature, etc.). Many words were lost due to various kinds of prohibitions (taboos). For example, the name of oak was lost - the Indo-European perkuos, from which the Latin quercus. In the Slavic language, the taboo dǫbъ was established, from where “oak”, Polish. dąb, Bulgarian dab, etc. The Indo-European name for the bear has been lost. It is preserved only in the new scientific term “Arctic” (cf. Greek ἄρκτος). The Indo-European word in Proto-Slavic was replaced by the taboo combination of words *medvědь (originally “honey eater”, from honey and *ěd-).

Zograph Codex, X-XI centuries.

During the period of the Balto-Slavic community, vowel sonants were lost in the Proto-Slavic language, in their place diphthong combinations arose in the position before consonants and the sequence “vowel sonant before vowels” (sъmрti, but umirati), intonations (acute and circumflex) became relevant features. The most important processes of the Proto-Slavic period were the loss of closed syllables and the softening of consonants before the iota. In connection with the first process, all ancient diphthong combinations turned into monophthongs, smooth syllabic, nasal vowels arose, a shift in the syllable division occurred, which, in turn, caused a simplification of consonant groups and the phenomenon of intersyllabic dissimilation. These ancient processes left their mark on all modern Slavic languages, which is reflected in many alternations: cf. “reap - reap”; “take - I’ll take”, “name - names”, Czech. ziti - znu, vziti - vezmu; Serbohorv. zheti - we reap, uzeti - we will know, name - names. The softening of consonants before the yot is reflected in the form of alternations s - sh, z - zh, etc. All these processes had a strong impact on the grammatical structure and the system of inflections. Due to the softening of consonants before the iota, the so-called process was experienced. first palatalization of the posterior palatal: k > h, g > g, x > w. On this basis, even in the Proto-Slavic language, the alternations k: ch, g: zh, x: sh were formed, which had a great influence on nominal and verbal word formation.

Later, the second and third palatalizations of the posterior palatal developed, as a result of which the alternations arose: c, g: dz (z), x: s (x). The name changed according to cases and numbers. In addition to the singular and plural numbers, there was a dual number, which was later lost in almost all Slavic languages, except Slovenian and Lusatian, while the rudiments of dualism are preserved in almost all Slavic languages.

There were nominal stems that performed the functions of definitions. In the late Proto-Slavic period, pronominal adjectives arose. The verb had the bases of the infinitive and the present tense. From the first, the infinitive, supin, aorist, imperfect, participles in -l, active participles of the past tense in -в and passive participles in -n were formed. From the bases of the present tense, the present tense, the imperative mood, and the active participle of the present tense were formed. Later, in some Slavic languages, an imperfect began to form from this stem.

Dialects began to form in the Proto-Slavic language. There were three groups of dialects: eastern, western and southern. From them the corresponding languages ​​were then formed. The group of East Slavic dialects was the most compact. The West Slavic group had 3 subgroups: Lechitic, Serbo-Sorbian and Czech-Slovak. The South Slavic group was the most differentiated in terms of dialect.

The Proto-Slavic language functioned in the pre-state period of the history of the Slavs, when the tribal social system dominated. Significant changes occurred during the period of early feudalism. XII-XIII centuries further differentiation of the Slavic languages ​​took place, and the super-short (reduced) vowels ъ and ь, characteristic of the Proto-Slavic language, were lost. in some cases they disappeared, in others they became fully formed vowels. As a result, significant changes occurred in the phonetic and morphological structure of the Slavic languages, in their lexical composition.

Phonetics

In the field of phonetics, there are some significant differences between the Slavic languages.

In most Slavic languages, the long/short vowel opposition has been lost, at the same time in the Czech and Slovak languages ​​(excluding the North Moravian and East Slovak dialects), in the literary norms of the Shtokavian group (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin), and also partly in the Slovenian language these differences persist. Lechitic languages, Polish and Kashubian, retain nasal vowels, which are lost in other Slavic languages ​​(nasal vowels were also characteristic of the phonetic system of the extinct Polabian language). For a long time, nasals were retained in the Bulgarian-Macedonian and Slovenian language areas (in the peripheral dialects of the corresponding languages, relics of nasalization are reflected in a number of words to this day).

Slavic languages ​​are characterized by the presence of palatalization of consonants - the approach of the flat middle part of the tongue to the palate when pronouncing a sound. Almost all consonants in Slavic languages ​​can be hard (non-palatalized) or soft (palatalized). Due to a number of depalatalization processes, the opposition of hard/soft consonants in the languages ​​of the Czech-Slovak group is significantly limited (in Czech the opposition t - t', d - d', n - n' is preserved, in Slovak - t - t', d - d' , n - n', l - l', while in the Western Slovak dialect, due to the assimilation of t', d' and their subsequent hardening, as well as the hardening of l', as a rule, only one pair n - n' is presented, in a number of Western Slovak dialects ( Považski, Trnava, Zagorje) paired soft consonants are completely absent). The opposition of consonants in terms of hardness/softness did not develop in the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian and Western Bulgarian-Macedonian language areas - of the old paired soft consonants, only n’ (< *nj), l’ (< *lj) не подверглись отвердению (в первую очередь в сербохорватском ареале).

Stress is implemented differently in Slavic languages. In most Slavic languages ​​(except for Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian), the polytonic Proto-Slavic stress was replaced by a dynamic one. The free, mobile nature of the Proto-Slavic stress was preserved in the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian languages, as well as in the Torlak dialect and the northern dialect of the Kashubian language (the stress was also mobile in the extinct Polabian language). Central Russian dialects (and, accordingly, in the Russian literary language), in the South Russian dialect, in the Northern Kashubian dialects, as well as in the Belarusian and Bulgarian languages, this type of stress caused the reduction of unstressed vowels. A number of languages, primarily Western Slavic, have developed a fixed stress assigned to a specific syllable of a word or beat group. The penultimate syllable is stressed in the literary Polish language and most of its dialects, in the Czech North Moravian and East Slovak dialects, in the southwestern dialects of the southern dialect of the Kashubian language, as well as in the Lemko dialect. The stress falls on the first syllable in the Czech and Slovak literary languages ​​and most of their dialects, in the Sorbian languages, in the South Kashubian dialect, as well as in some Gural dialects of the Lesser Poland dialect. In the Macedonian language, the stress is also fixed - it falls no further than the third syllable from the end of the word (accent group). In the Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian languages, the stress is polytonic, varied; the tonic characteristics and stress distribution in word forms are different among dialects. In the Central Kashubian dialect, the stress varies, but is assigned to a specific morpheme.

Writing

The Slavic languages ​​received their first literary treatment in the 60s. 9th century. The creators of Slavic writing were the brothers Cyril (Constantine the Philosopher) and Methodius. They translated liturgical texts from Greek into Slavic for the needs of Great Moravia. The new literary language was based on the South Macedonian (Thessalonica) dialect, but in Great Moravia it acquired many local linguistic features. Later it was further developed in Bulgaria. In this language (usually called Old Church Slavonic) a wealth of original and translated literature was created in Moravia, Pannonia, Bulgaria, Rus', and Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From the 9th century no Slavic texts have survived. The most ancient ones date back to the 10th century: the Dobrudzhan inscription of 943, the inscription of Tsar Samuel of 993, the Varosha inscription of 996 and others. Since the 11th century. More Slavic monuments have survived.

Modern Slavic languages ​​use alphabets based on Cyrillic and Latin. Glagolitic script is used in Catholic worship in Montenegro and several coastal areas in Croatia. For some time in Bosnia, in parallel with the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet, the Arabic alphabet was also used.

Literary languages

In the era of feudalism, Slavic literary languages, as a rule, did not have strict norms. Sometimes the functions of the literary language were performed by foreign languages ​​(in Rus' - the Old Church Slavonic language, in the Czech Republic and Poland - the Latin language).

The Russian literary language has experienced centuries-long and complex evolution. It absorbed folk elements and elements of the Old Church Slavonic language, and was influenced by many European languages.

In the Czech Republic in the 18th century. literary language, which reached in the XIV-XVI centuries. great perfection, has almost disappeared. German was the dominant language in the cities. The period of national revival in the Czech Republic artificially revived the language of the 16th century, which at that time was already far from the national language. History of the Czech literary language of the 19th-20th centuries. reflects the interaction between the old book language and the spoken language. The Slovak literary language had a different history; it developed on the basis of the folk language. Serbia until the 19th century. The Church Slavonic language was dominant. XVIII century the process of bringing this language closer to the folk language began. As a result of the reform carried out by Vuk Karadzic in the mid-19th century, a new literary language was created. The Macedonian literary language was finally formed in the middle of the 20th century.

In addition to the “large” Slavic languages, there are a number of small Slavic literary languages ​​(microlanguages), which usually function alongside the national literary languages ​​and serve either relatively small ethnic groups, or even individual literary genres.

see also

• Swadesh lists for Slavic languages ​​at Wiktionary.

Notes

1. Balto-Slavonic Natural Language Processing 2009
2. http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/worldlang.htm
3. Languages ​​Spoken by More Than 10 Million People (Languages ​​spoken by more than 10 million people) according to the Encarta encyclopedia. Archived from the original on October 31, 2009.
4. Omniglot
5. 1 2 Sometimes separated into a separate language
6. see Meillet's Law.
7. Vasmer M. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. - 1st ed. - T. 1-4. - M., 1964-1973.
8. Suprun A. E., Skorvid S. S. Slavic languages. - P. 15. (Retrieved March 26, 2014)
9. Suprun A. E., Skorvid S. S. Slavic languages. - P. 10. (Retrieved March 26, 2014)
10. Lifanov K.V. Dialectology of the Slovak language: Textbook. - M.: Infra-M, 2012. - P. 34. - ISBN 978-5-16-005518-3.
11. Suprun A. E., Skorvid S. S. Slavic languages. - P. 16. (Retrieved March 26, 2014)
12. Suprun A. E., Skorvid S. S. Slavic languages. - pp. 14-15. (Retrieved March 26, 2014)

Literature

• Bernshtein S. B. Essay on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Introduction. Phonetics. M., 1961.
• Bernshtein S. B. Essay on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Alternations. Name bases. M., 1974.
• Birnbaum H. Proto-Slavic language. Achievements and problems of its reconstruction, trans. from English, M., 1987.
• Boshkovich R. Fundamentals of comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Phonetics and word formation. M., 1984.
• Hilferding A.F. Common Slavic alphabet with the application of samples of Slavic dialects. - SPb.: Type. Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1871.
• Kuznetsov P. S. Essays on the morphology of the Proto-Slavic language. M., 1961.
• Meie A. Common Slavic language, trans. from French, M., 1951.
• Nachtigal R. Slavic languages, trans. from Slovenia, M., 1963.
• National revival and formation of Slavic literary languages. M., 1978.
• Entering the historical tradition of Slovenian languages. Per ed. O. S. Melnichuk. Kiev, 1966.
• Vaillant A. Grammaire comparee des langues slaves, t. 1-5. Lyon - P., 1950-77.
• Russell D. Gray & Quentin D. Atkinson. Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature, 426: 435-439 (27 November 2003).

Proto-Slavic language † (proto-language)
Eastern	Old Novgorod † (Old Pskovsky †) Old Russian † Western Russian † Belarusian (dialects) Russian (dialects) Ukrainian (Rusyn dialects)
Western
Southern
Other	literary microlanguages ​​pan-Slavic languages
† - dead, split or changed languages

Slavic microlanguages
Eastern	Galshansky | Carpatho-Rusyn | Podlaski | Western Polesie
Western	Wichskiy | Eastern Slovak | Polish | Pannonian-Rusyn
Southwestern	Venetian-Slovenian | Gradiscan-Croatian | kaykavian | Molese-Slavic | Prekmurje-Slovenian | rezyanskiy | Chakavian
Southeast	Banat-Bulgarian | Pomak | Aegean-Macedonian
see also

Slavic languages, Slavic languages ​​of India, Slavic languages ​​of Spain, Slavic languages ​​of Kazakhstan, Slavic languages ​​of cats, Slavic languages ​​of love, Slavic languages ​​of the world, Slavic languages ​​of flame, Slavic programming languages, Slavic markup languages

Slavic languages ​​Information About