Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary - West Slavic Languages. Slavic

There are, however, differences of a material, functional and typological nature, due to the long-term independent development of Slavic tribes and nationalities in different ethnic, geographical, historical and cultural conditions, their contacts with related and unrelated ethnic groups.

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

Of the Indo-European languages ​​S. I am the closest to the Baltic languages. This closeness served as the basis for the theory of the "Balto-Slavic proto-language", according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language, which later split into Pro-Baltic and Proto-Slavic, first emerged from the Indo-European proto-language. However, most modern scholars explain their special closeness by the long-term contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs. It is not established in what territory the separation of the Slavic linguistic continuum from the Indo-European one took place. It can be assumed that it happened to the south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral homelands. There are many such theories, but all of them do not localize the ancestral home where the Indo-European proto-language could be located. On the basis of one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavic), the Proto-Slavic language was later formed, which is the ancestor of all modern Slavic languages. The history of the Proto-Slavic language was longer than the history of individual Slavic languages. For a long time, it developed as a single dialect with an identical structure. Later, dialect variants appear. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language and its dialects into independent S. i. was lengthy and difficult. It took place most actively in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e., during the formation of the early Slavic feudal states on the territory of Southeast and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of different geographical zones with different natural and climatic conditions were developed, the Slavs entered into relationships with peoples and tribes at different stages of cultural development. All this is reflected in the history of the Slavic languages.

The Proto-Slavic language was preceded by the period of the Proto-Slavic language, the elements of which can be restored using the ancient Indo-European languages. The Proto-Slavic language in its main part is reconstructed using the data of S. i. different periods of their history. The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the oldest - before the establishment of a close Balto-Slavic language contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialectal fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.

The individuality and originality of the Proto-Slavic language began to take shape in the early period. It was then that a new system of vowel sonants took shape, consonantism was greatly simplified, the degree of reduction became widespread in the Ablaut, the root ceased to obey ancient restrictions. According to the fate of the middle palatine k 'and g', the Proto-Slavic language is included in the satəm group (sürdüce, pisati, prositi, compare lat.cor - cordis, pictus, precor; zürno, znati, zima, compare lat.granum, cognosco, hiems). However, this feature was realized inconsistently: cf. praslav. * kamy, * kosa, * gǫsь, * gordъ, * bergъ, etc. Significant deviations from the Indo-European type are represented by the Proto-Slavic morphology. This primarily applies to the verb, to a lesser extent - to the name. Most of the suffixes were formed already on the Proto-Slavic soil. The Proto-Slavic vocabulary is distinguished by its great originality; already in the early period of its development, the Proto-Slavic language experienced a number of significant transformations in the field of lexical composition. Having preserved in most cases the old lexical Indo-European fund, he at the same time lost many old Indo-European lexemes (for example, some terms from the field of social relations, nature, etc.). Many words have been lost in connection with various kinds of prohibitions. For example, the name of the oak, Indo-Europe, was forbidden. perku̯os, whence lat. quercus. The old Indo-European root came down to us only in the name of the pagan god Perun. In the Slavic languages, the taboo dǫbъ was established, from where Rus. "Oak", Polish. dąb, bulg. db, 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 the Proto-Slavic language was replaced by the taboo word composition medvědь ‘honey eater’. During the period of the Balto-Slavic community, the Slavs borrowed many words from the Balts. During this period, vowel sonants were lost in the Proto-Slavic language, in their place were diphthongic combinations in the position before consonants and the sequence “vowel sonant before vowels” (smürti, 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 iota. In connection with the first process, all ancient diphthongic combinations turned into monophthongs, syllabic smooth, nasal vowels arose, the syllable section moved, which, in turn, caused a simplification of consonant groups, the phenomenon of intersyllabic dissimilation. These ancient processes have left an imprint on all modern Slavic languages, which is reflected in many alternations: cf. Russian "Reap - reap"; “Take - take”, “name - names”, Czech. žíti - žnu, vzíti - vezmu; Serbo-Horv. zheti - press, uzeti - uzmȇm, ȉme - ȉmena... The softening of consonants before iota is reflected in the form of alternations s - š, z - ž, etc. All these processes had a strong impact on the grammatical structure, on the system of inflections. In connection with the softening of the consonants before the iota, the process of the so-called first palatalization of the posterior palatine was experienced: k> č, g> ž, x> š. On this basis, even in the Proto-Slavic language, alternations k: č, g: ž, x: š were formed, which had a great influence on nominal and verbal word formation. Later, the so-called second and third palatalization of the posterior palatine began to operate, as a result of which the alternations k: c, g: ʒ (z), x: s (š) arose. The name changed in cases and numbers. Except the only one and plural there was a dual number, which was later lost in almost all Slavic languages. There were nominal stems that served as definitions. In the late Proto-Slavic period, pronominal adjectives arose. The verb had infinitive and present stems. From the first, the infinitive, supin, aorist, imperfect, participles in -l, participles in the past tense in -v and passive participles in -n were formed. From the foundations of the present tense, the present tense, the imperative mood, the participle of the active voice of the present tense were formed. Later, in some Slavic languages, an imperfect began to form from this basis.

Even in the depths of the Proto-Slavic language, dialectal formations began to form. The most compact was that group of Proto-Slavic dialects, on the basis of which the East Slavic languages ​​later arose. In the West Slavic group there were 3 subgroups: Lehite, Serbolic and Czech-Slovak. The most dialectally differentiated was the South Slavic group.

The Proto-Slavic language functioned in the pre-state period of the history of the Slavs, when tribal social relations prevailed. Significant changes took place during the period of early feudalism. This was reflected in the further differentiation of the Slavic languages. By the 12-13th centuries. there was a loss of the ultra-short (reduced) vowels ъ and ь characteristic of the Proto-Slavic language. In some cases, they disappeared, in others they passed into the vowels of a complete education. As a result, there have been significant changes in the phonetic and morphological structure of the Slavic languages. Slavic languages ​​have experienced many common processes in the field of grammar and lexical composition.

For the first time, the Slavic languages ​​received literary processing in the 60s. 9 c. The brothers Cyril (Constantine the Philosopher) and Methodius were the creators of Slavic writing. They translated liturgical texts from Greek into Slavic for the needs of Great Moravia. At its core, the new literary language had a South Macedonian (Solunian) dialect, but in Great Moravia it acquired many local linguistic features. He later received further development In Bulgaria. In this language (usually called the Old Slavonic language), the richest original and translated literature was created in Moravia, Pannonia, Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabet: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From the 9th century. no Slavic texts have survived. The most ancient ones belong to the 10th century: the Dobrudzha inscription 943, the inscription of Tsar Samuel 993, etc. From the 11th century. many Slavic monuments have already survived. Slavic literary languages ​​of the feudal era, as a rule, did not have strict norms. Some important functions were performed by foreign languages ​​(in Russia - the Old Slavonic language, in the Czech Republic and Poland - Latin). The unification of literary languages, the development of written and pronunciation norms, the expansion of the sphere of use of the native language - all this characterizes the long period of formation of national Slavic languages. The Russian literary language has gone through a centuries-old and complex evolution. It has absorbed folk elements and elements of the Old Church Slavonic, influenced by many European languages. It developed without interruption for a long time. The process of formation and history of a number of other literary Slavic languages ​​proceeded differently. In the Czech Republic in the 18th century. literary language, which reached in the 14-16 centuries. great perfection, almost disappeared. The German language predominated in the cities. During the period of national revival, the Czech “awakeners” artificially revived the language of the 16th century, which at that time was already far from the vernacular. The whole history of the Czech literary language of the 19th and 20th centuries. reflects the interaction of the old bookish language and the spoken language. The development of the Slovak literary language proceeded differently. Not burdened with old book traditions, it is close to the folk language. In Serbia before the 19th century. the Church Slavonic language of the Russian version prevailed. In the 18th century. the process of rapprochement of this language with the folk began. As a result of the reform carried out by V. Karadzic in the middle of the 19th century, a new literary language was created. This new language began to serve not only the Serbs, but also the Croats, in connection with which it began to be called Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian. The Macedonian literary language was finally formed in the middle of the 20th century. Slavic literary languages ​​have developed and are developing in close communication with each other. For the study of Slavic languages ​​see Slavistics.

• Meillet A., Common Slavic language, trans. from French, M., 1951;
• Bernstein S. B., Essay on the comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Introduction. Phonetics, M., 1961;
• his, An outline of the comparative grammar of the Slavic languages. Alternation. Nominal bases, M., 1974;
• Kuznetsov PS, Essays on the morphology of the Proto-Slavic language. M., 1961;
• Nachtigall R., Slavic languages, trans. from Slovenian, M., 1963;
• Entry to the porous-historical vivchennya of words' mov. Ed. O.S. Melnichuka, Kiev, 1966;
• National revival and formation of Slavic literary languages, M., 1978;
• Boskovich R., Foundations of comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Phonetics and word formation, M., 1984;
• Birnbaum H., Proto-Slavic language. Achievements and problems of its reconstruction, trans. from English, M., 1987;
• Vaillant A., Grammaire comparée des langues slaves, t. 1-5, Lyon-P., 1950-77.

West Slavic languages

West Slavic languages ​​- a group of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family... Distributed in Central and Eastern Europe (in Czechoslovakia, Poland, partly in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Germany [Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian languages ​​- in the vicinity of Bautzen (Budishin), Cottbus and Dresden]. the territories of America (USA, Canada), Australia and Europe (Austria, Hungary, France, Yugoslavia, etc.) The total number of speakers is over 60 million people.

West Slavic languages ​​include:

• § Lehite subgroup
• § Kashubian
• § Polabian †
• § Polish
• § Silesian (in Poland, the Silesian language is officially considered a dialect of Polish or transitional dialects between Polish and Czech. According to data from 2002, 60,000 people in Poland named Silesian as their native language. The language does not have its own literary tradition, although it was distinguished as a special one by the Slavists of the 19th century)
• § Slovinian †
• § Luzhitsky subgroup (Serbolskaya)
• § Upper Sorbian
• § Lower Sorbian
• § Czecho-Slovak subgroup
• § Slovak
• § Czech
• § knanite †

The most widespread West Slavic languages ​​are Polish (35 million), Czech (9.5 million) and Slovak (4.5 million). The small population of the Kashubians lives in Poland. The Polabian language is now a dead language. It is reconstructed on the basis of individual words and local names found in Latin and German documents, in small recordings of living speech of the 17th - 18th centuries.

In Z. i. 3 subgroups are distinguished: Lehite, Czech-Slovak, Serboluzhytsky, the differences between which appeared in the late Proto-Slavic era. From the Lehite subgroup, which included Polish, Polabian, Kashubian, and earlier other tribal languages, the Polish language with the Kashubian dialect, which retained a certain genetic independence, has survived.

Z. I. differ from the East Slavic and South Slavic languages ​​in a number of features that developed in the Proto-Slavic period:

preservation of a group of consonants kv ", gv" before vowels i, "e," a (‹м) in accordance with cv, zv in South Slavic and West Slavic languages: Polish. kwiat, gwiazda; Czech kvmt, hvmzda; Slovak. kvet, hviezda; bottom-puddles kwmt, gwmzda; top-puddles. kwмt, hwмzda (compare Russian "color", "star", etc.).

Preservation of non-simplified groups of consonants tl, dl in accordance with l in the languages ​​of other Slavic groups: Polish. plуtі, mydіo; Czech pletl, mеdlo; Slovak. plietol, mydlo; bottom-puddles pletі, mydіo; top-puddles. pletі, mydіo; (Wed Russian "wove", "soap").

The consonants c, dz (or z) in place of the Proto-Slavic * tj, * dj, * ktj, * kti, which in other Slavic languages ​​correspond to the consonants and, ћ, љt, dj, ћd, w: Polish. њwieca, sadzaж; Czech svнce, sбzet; Slovak. svieca, sádzaќ; bottom-puddles swmca, sajџazh; top-puddles. swmca, sadџezh (compare Russian "candle", "plant").

The presence of a consonant љ in those cases which correspond to s or њ in the languages ​​of other Slavic groups (with analogous formations ch): Polish. wszak, musze (date-sentence n. from mucha); Czech vљak, mouљe; Slovak. vљak, muљe; bottom-puddles vљako, muљe; top-puddles. vљak, muљe [cf. Russian "Everyone", "fly"; ukr. "Everyone", "musi" (= fly)].

Absence of l epenthetic after labial in the non-initial position of the word (from the combination labial + j): Polish. ziemia, kupiony; Czech zemm, koupm; Slovak. zem, kъpenэ; lower-puddle zemja, kupju; top-puddles. zemja, kupju (compare Russian "land", "purchase").

In the history of the development of Z. i. there were changes common for the whole group:

contraction of groups of vowels into one long one with the loss of intervocal j and assimilation of vowels in inflections and roots: Czech. dobrе

In Z. i. a fixed stress was established either on the first (Czech, Slovak, Lusatian languages), or on the penultimate syllable (Polish, some Czech dialects). In the Kashubian dialect, the stress is different.

For most of the Z. i. and dialects are characterized by the same change in strong reduced b and b> e: czech. sen

The main differences between individual Z. i., Which arose in the historical period of their development: different fate of nasal vowels, sound m (yat), long and short vowels; Proto-Slavic consonant g in Czech, Slovak and Lusatian languages ​​changed to h (guttural, fricative), the differences also concern the category of hardness / softness of consonants. In the system of the nominal declension of all Z. i. general Slavic processes took place: a regrouping of declension types based on grammatical gender, the loss of some previous types (mainly stems based on a consonant), the mutual influence of case inflections within the paradigm, the re-decomposition of stems, the emergence of new endings. In contrast to the East Slavic languages, the influence of the feminine gender is more limited. The most archaic declension system was preserved by the Czech language. All Z. i. (except for Lusatian) have lost the forms of the dual number. The category of animation (Czech, Slovak) and a specific category of personality (Polish, Upper Sorbian) developed and received morphological expression. The short forms of adjectives have disappeared (Slovak, Upper Sorbian) or preserved to a limited extent (Czech, Polish).

The verb is characterized by the transition of unproductive conjugation classes to productive ones (cf. Czech siesti> sednouti), the loss (except for Lusatian languages) of simple past tenses (aorist and imperfect), in some languages ​​and pluperfect (Czech, partly Polish). The most significant changes in the conjugation of the present forms of the verb were experienced by the Slovak language, where all verbs in the present tense have one system of endings.

The syntactic features are due in part to the influence of the Latin and German languages. Unlike East Slavic languages, they are more often used modal verbs, reflexive forms of verbs in an indefinite-personal and generalized-personal meaning such as Czech. Jak se jde? `How to get through? 'And others.

The vocabulary reflected Latin and German influences, in Slovak - Czech and Hungarian. Influence of the Russian language, significant in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially increased after the 2nd World War.

In the early feudal period as a written language the Western Slavs used Latin. The oldest literary language of the Slavs is the Old Slavonic linguistic origin in the 9th century. The first proper Czech monuments date back to the end of the 13th century, Polish - to the beginning of the 14th century, Slovak - to the end of the 15th - 16th centuries, and Lusatian - to the 16th century. Modern goldsmiths. use Latin graphics.

The most widespread West Slavic languages ​​are Polish (35 million), Czech (9.5 million) and Slovak (4.5 million). A small population of the Kashubians lives in Poland. The Polabian language is now a dead language. It is reconstructed on the basis of individual words and local names found in Latin and German documents, in small recordings of living speech of the 17th - 18th centuries.

The Luzhian languages ​​have survived as small islands in Germany. There are about 150 thousand people in Luzhichy. They have their own schools, their own press, there is a Slavic department at the University of Berlin.

Lehitsky subgroup

Kashumbian language (alternative names: Pomor language, Pomeranian language; Kashubian kaszlbsczi jgzlk, ptmtrsczi jgzlk, kaszlbskf mtwa, kaszlbskt-sіowiсskf mtwa) - West Slavic language, widespread in the south of the Lehite subgroup west of the Lehite subgroup. Currently, about 50 thousand people speak the Kashubian language in everyday life, about 150 thousand people are familiar with it.

The closest language to Kashubian is Polish, with which Kashubian shares most of the main vocabulary... Kashubian also experienced a significant influence of Polish on its grammar and word formation. The main differences from Polish are borrowings from Old Prussian and German (of the latter - about 5% of the vocabulary), as well as the omission of vowels in syllables without stress and other rules of stress, which, however, are also heterogeneous in Kashubian itself. While in the south the stress always falls on the first syllable, in the north the stress can vary.

The Pomlsky language (jкzyk polski, polszczyzna) is the language of the Poles, native to about 40 million people in many countries of the world, including about 38 million people in the Republic of Poland. As a second and foreign, Polish is owned by another 5-10 million people.

The dialects of the Polish language include:

• § Wielkopolska dialect, occupies the territory of Wielkopolska, Krajny and Bor Tucholski. This dialect is based on the tribal dialect of Polyans.
• § Lesser Poland dialect, occupies the territory of Lesser Poland, Subcarpathian, Swietokrzyskie and Lubelskie provinces. It was based on the adverb of the Vislyans.
• § The Mazovian dialect occupies the eastern and central part of Poland. It was formed on the basis of the dialect of the Mazovshan tribe.
• § The Silesian dialect, widespread on the territory of Upper Silesia, is a continuation of the development of the Slazan dialect.

The Polambian language is an extinct West Slavic language. The native language of the Polabian Slavs, assimilated by the Germans by the beginning of the 19th century.

The Polabian language was closest to Polish and, together with it, Kashubian and the extinct Slovinian.

The name of the language comes from the Slavic name of the Elbe River (Polish Јaba, Czech Labe, etc.). Other names: ancient Polabian, Vendian. Accordingly, the Slavic tribe that spoke it was called the Polabian Slavs, Drevians (Drevans) or Vends (Vends is the German name for all Slavs in Germany). The language was spread before the first half of XVIII centuries on the left bank of the Elbe in the principality of Lünenburg (now the district of Lüchow-Dannenberg in the state of Lower Saxony), where monuments of this language were recorded, and earlier also in the north of modern Germany (Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Schleswig, Rügen Island).

In the south, the area of ​​the Polabian language bordered on the Lusatian languages, which were widespread in the southern part of modern eastern Germany.

In the 17th century, the Polabian language becomes socially not prestigious, the "Vendians" hide or do not advertise their origin and switch to German, undergoing, among other things, forcible Germanization. By 1725, there are data on a family of native speakers, in which the younger generation no longer knew Polabian. The last entry was made around 1750. In 1790, the compiler of the first consolidated Polabian dictionary, Johann Jugler, was looking for people who could understand Polabian at least a little, but could no longer find anyone.

Slovin (Slovintsky) language is a West Slavic idiom of the Lechite subgroup, which became extinct in the 20th century. It is considered by some authors as independent language, others - as a dialect of Kashubian or (not distinguishing Kashubian) Polish. There is a use of the term "Pomor (Pomeranian) language", which combines Kashubian and Slovin. It was spoken by the Slovinians, who were ethnographically described for the first time by A.F. Hilferding in 1856 and lived to the north-west of the Kashubians, between Lake eb and Lake Gardno.

In the 17th - 19th centuries, the Slovinian language / dialect was used even in church sermons, but after the unification of Germany in 1871 it was finally replaced by the German language. By the beginning of the 20th century, no more than a few hundred speakers remained, and all spoke German.

After 1945, the Slovinians - Protestants (since the 16th century), already speaking mainly German - were considered by the Polish government as Germans and were mostly exiled to Germany or then left Poland of their own free will, settling in the Federal Republic of Germany (many in district of Hamburg). There they finally assimilated. Some old people who remained in Poland remembered Slovinian words back in the 1950s.

Lumzic languages, Serbolumzhytskie languages: (outdated name - Serbian) - languages ​​of the Lusican people, one of the national minorities in Germany.

They belong to the Slavic group of languages. The total number of speakers is about 60,000, of whom about 40,000 live in Saxony and about 20,000 in Brandenburg. In the Lusatian region, the tables with the names of cities and streets are often bilingual.

There are two written languages, which in turn consist of several dialects: the Upper Sorbian language (in the Upper Lusatia) and the Lower Sorbian language (in the Lower Lusatia).

The number of speakers of Lusatian languages ​​in everyday life is significantly lower than the above figures. Unlike the fairly stable Upper Sorbian language, the Lower Sorbian language is on the verge of extinction.

Slovak language West Slavic ethnic

Czecho-Slovak subgroup

Chemsh language (self-name - еeљtina, еeske jazyk) - total number of speakers - 12 million Latin (Czech alphabet)

The Czech language is divided into several dialects, the speakers of which generally understand each other. Currently, under the influence of the literary language, the boundaries between dialects are blurred. Czech dialects are divided into 4 groups:

• § Czech dialects (with colloquial Czech as koine)
• § Central Moravian dialects group (Hanack);
• § East Moravian group of dialects (Moravian-Slovak);
• § Silesian dialects.

The borderlands, previously inhabited by the Sudeten Germans, cannot be attributed to the same dialect due to the heterogeneity of the population.

As in many related, but evolving for a long time independently of languages, similar sounding Czech and Russian words often have different and even opposite meanings (for example, erstve - fresh; pozor - attention; mmsto - city; hrad - castle; ovoce - fruit; rodina - family; and others, the so-called false friends of the translator).

The Slovak language (Slovak. Sloveniina, slovenske jazyk) - the total number of speakers is 6 million. The Slovak language is very close to the Czech language.

The standardization of the Slovak language began at the end of the 18th century. Then the book by Anton Bernolak "Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum" was published with the appendix "Orthographia" (1787). This literary language was based on Western Slovak dialects. The modern literary Slovak language, which is based on Middle Slovak linguistic features, arose in the middle of the 19th century thanks to the efforts of the Slovak patriots Ludovit Stuhr, Michal Miloslav Goji, Josef Miloslav Gurban, etc. The first variant of Stuhr's codification was formulated in the books "Nauka rei sloivenskej" ( Science about the Slovak language) and "Nbreija slovenskuo alebo potreba pнsatja v tomto nbrein" (Slovak dialect or the need to write in this dialect) and proceeded primarily from the speech of the intelligentsia of the Middle Slovak town Liptovsky Mikulas and was characterized by a strong phonological principle of spelling l "(" * ") and a long vowel" y "with the exception of the word" dcйra "(daughter) and other linguistic features that are in the modern version of the Slovak language. In 1851, at a meeting of Slovak intellectuals, a reformed version of Stuhr's codification was adopted, the author of which was the linguist Milan Gattala ( it comes about the so-called. "Gojovsko-Gattal reform"). This variant is the basis of today's literary Slovak language. Important points in the history of further standardization of the Slovak language is the publication of spelling in 1931 and 1953. and the development of terminology in the interwar and, above all, the postwar period.

During the existence of Austria-Hungary, the Hungarian authorities persecuted the literary Slovak language, while promoting the less common Eastern Slovak dialect.

Hebrew-Slavic dialects (Knaanite, Qna`anith) is a conventional name for several dialects and registers of Slavic languages ​​spoken by Jews who lived in the Middle Ages in Slavic countries. All known Jewish-Slavic dialects were supplanted by Yiddish or the surrounding Slavic languages ​​towards the end of the Middle Ages.

The most famous is the Jewish-Czech version of the Old Bohemian language, which was spoken by Bohemian and Moravian Jews before the massive influx of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim from Germany and then the resettlement of both to the east and northeast to the Rzeczpospolita. However, nothing is known about its differences from the language of the surrounding population. Most likely, as in the case of other medieval Hebrew languages ​​in Europe, the differences were minimal and limited to the inclusion of Hebrew and Aramaic words and the use of the Hebrew alphabet.

The name Knaanite (English Knaanic) is associated with the designation of the Slavic countries by the term Qna`an (Old Hebrew lrtp, since ancient times denoting Palestine - Canaan), found in Hebrew texts (for example, Benjamin from Tudela in the XII century. Kievan Rus"Land of Canaan"). The reason for this identification is unknown.

All Slavic languages ​​are very similar to each other, but the closest to the Russian language are Belarusian and Ukrainian. Together, these languages ​​form the East Slavic subgroup, which is part of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family.

Slavic branches grow from a powerful trunk - the Indo-European language family. This family also includes Indian (or Indo-Aryan), Iranian Greek, Italic, Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic language groups, Armenian, Albanian and other languages. Of all Indo-European languages, the Baltic languages ​​are closest to Slavic: Lithuanian, Latvian and the dead Prussian language, which finally disappeared by the first decades of the 18th century. The disintegration of Indo-European linguistic unity is usually attributed to the end of the 3rd - the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Apparently, at the same time, the processes were taking place that led to the emergence of the Proto-Slavic language, to its separation from the Indo-European.

The Proto-Slavic language is the ancestor language of all Slavic languages. He had no written language and was not recorded in writing. However, it can be restored by comparing the Slavic languages ​​among themselves, as well as by comparing them with other related Indo-European languages. Sometimes the less successful term common Slavic is used to denote Proto-Slavic: it seems that it is better to call common Slavic linguistic features or processes inherent in all Slavic languages ​​even after the collapse of Proto-Slavic.

A common source - the Proto-Slavic language - makes all Slavic languages ​​related, endowing them with many similar features, meanings, sounds ... The consciousness of Slavic linguistic and ethnic unity was reflected already in the ancient self-name of all Slavs. According to academician O.N. Trubachev, it is etymologically something like "clearly speaking, understandable to each other." This consciousness persisted in the era of the formation of the ancient Slavic states and peoples. In the "Tale of Bygone Years", an ancient Russian annalistic collection of the beginning of the XII century, it says: "And the Slovenian language and Russian are one ...". The word language is used here not only in ancient meaning"People", but also in the meaning of "speech".

The ancestral home of the Slavs, that is, the territory where they developed as a special people with their own language and where they lived until their division and resettlement to new lands, has not yet been precisely determined - due to the lack of reliable data. And yet, with relative certainty, it can be argued that it was located in the east of Central Europe, north of the foothills of the Carpathians. Many scholars believe that the northern border of the ancestral home of the Slavs ran along the Pripyat River (the right tributary of the Dnieper), the western border along the middle course of the Vistula River, and in the east, the Slavs inhabited Ukrainian Polesie all the way to the Dnieper.

The Slavs constantly expanded the lands they occupied. They also took part in the great migration of peoples in the IV-VII centuries. The Gothic historian Jordan wrote in the essay "On the Origin and Deeds of the Getae" (chronologically brought to 551) that "a populous tribe of Venets" settled "in immense spaces" from the Middle Danube to the lower Dnieper. During the 6th and 7th centuries, waves of Slavic settlement poured into most of the Balkan Peninsula, including modern Greece, including its southern part - the Peloponnese.

By the end of the Proto-Slavic period, the Slavs occupied vast lands in Central and Eastern Europe, stretching from the coast Baltic Sea in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, from the Elbe in the west to the upper reaches of the Dnieper, Volga and Oka in the east.

Years passed, centuries slowly replaced centuries. And after changes in interests, habits, manners of a person, following the evolution of his spiritual world, his speech, his language certainly changed. During its long history, the Proto-Slavic language has gone through many changes. In the early period of its existence, it developed relatively slowly, was highly uniform, although even then there were dialectal differences, dialect, in other words, dialect - the smallest territorial variety of the language. In the late period, approximately from the 4th to the 6th century AD, diverse and intensive changes took place in the Proto-Slavic language, which led to its disintegration around the 6th century AD and the emergence of separate Slavic languages.

According to the degree of their proximity to each other, Slavic languages ​​are usually divided into three groups:

• 1) East Slavic - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian;
• 2) West Slavic - Polish with the Kashubian dialect, which retained a certain genetic independence, Serbolic languages ​​(Upper and Lower Sorbian languages), Czech, Slovak and the dead Polabian language, which completely disappeared by the end of the 18th century;
• 3) South Slavic - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian. The Old Slavic language is also South Slavic in origin - the first common Slavic literary language.

The ancestor of the modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian languages ​​was the Old Russian (or East Slavic) language. In its history, two main eras can be distinguished: preliterate - from the collapse of the Proto-Slavic language to the end of the 10th century, and written. What this language was before the emergence of writing can be found only through a comparative historical study of the Slavic and Indo-European languages, since no ancient Russian writing existed at that time.

The collapse of the Old Russian language led to the emergence of the Russian or Great Russian language, different from the Ukrainian and Belarusian. This happened in the XIV century, although already in the XII-XIV centuries in the Old Russian language there were phenomena that distinguished the dialects of the ancestors of the Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians from each other. The modern Russian language is based on the northern and northeastern dialects Ancient Rus By the way, the Russian literary language also has a dialectal basis: it was made up of the central Middle Russian acant dialects of Moscow and the villages surrounding the capital.

West Slavic languages