“Where does the Motherland begin,” as the old and soulful song says? And it starts small: with love for the native language, with the alphabet. Since childhood, we have all become accustomed to a certain type of letters in the Russian alphabet. And as a rule, we rarely think: when and under what conditions did it arise? Nevertheless, the presence and emergence of writing is an important and fundamental milestone in the historical maturation of every people in the world, contributing to the development of its national culture and self-awareness. Sometimes, in the depths of centuries, the specific names of the creators of the writing of a particular people are lost. But this is not how it happened in the Slavic context. And those who invented the Russian alphabet are still known today. Let's find out more about these people.
The word “alphabet” itself originates from the first two letters: alpha and beta. It is known that the ancient Greeks put a lot of effort into the development and spread of writing in many European countries. Who was the first to invent an alphabet in world history? There is scientific debate about this. The main hypothesis is the Sumerian "alphabet", which appears about five thousand years ago. Egyptian is also considered one of the most ancient (of the known). Writing develops from drawings to signs, turning into graphic systems. And the signs began to display sounds.
The development of writing in human history is difficult to overestimate. The language of the people and their writing reflect life, everyday life and knowledge, historical and mythological characters. Thus, by reading ancient inscriptions, modern scientists can recreate what our ancestors lived.
History of the Russian alphabet
It has, one might say, a unique origin. Its history goes back about a thousand years and contains many secrets.
Cyril and Methodius
The creation of the alphabet is firmly connected with these names in the question of who invented the Russian alphabet. Let's go back to the 9th century. In those days (830-906), Great Moravia (a region of the Czech Republic) was one of the large European states. And Byzantium was the center of Christianity. Prince Rostislav of Moravia in 863 turned to Michael III, the Byzantine emperor at that time, with a request to hold services in the Slavic language to strengthen the influence of Byzantine Christianity in the region. In those days, it is worth noting that the cult was performed only in those languages that were displayed on the Jesus cross: Hebrew, Latin and Greek.
The Byzantine ruler, in response to Rostislav's proposal, sent him a Moravian mission consisting of two monk brothers, the sons of a noble Greek who lived in Saluny (Thessaloniki). Michael (Methodius) and Constantine (Cyril) and are considered the official creators of the Slavic alphabet for church service. She's in honor church name Kirill and received the name “Cyrillic”. Konstantin himself was younger than Mikhail, but even his brother recognized his intelligence and superiority in knowledge. Kirill knew many languages and mastered the art of oratory, participated in religious verbal debates, and was a wonderful organizer. This, as many scientists believe, allowed him (together with his brother and other assistants) to connect and summarize the data, creating the alphabet. But the history of the Russian alphabet began long before the Moravian mission. And that's why.
Who invented the Russian alphabet (alphabet)
The fact is that historians have unearthed interesting fact: even before leaving, the brothers had already created the Slavic alphabet, well adapted to convey the speech of the Slavs. It was called Glagolitic (it was recreated on the basis of Greek writing with elements of Coptic and Hebrew characters).
Glagolitic or Cyrillic?
Today scientists different countries Most people recognize the fact that the first was the Glagolitic alphabet, created by Cyril back in 863 in Byzantium. He presented it in a fairly short time. And another, different from the previous one, Cyrillic alphabet was invented in Bulgaria, a little later. And there are still disputes over the authorship of this, undoubtedly, cornerstone invention for pan-Slavic history. Afterwards, a brief history of the Russian alphabet (Cyrillic alphabet) is as follows: in the tenth century it penetrated into Rus' from Bulgaria, and its written recording was fully formalized only in the XIV century. In more modern form- With late XVI V.
Its sound means of expression and artistic possibilities were sung by many famous people. It was spoken by Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky... and more than 260 million people continue to speak it. It arose not so long ago as the rest of its “brothers”, but has already rich history. It's about, of course, about the Russian language, the history of the emergence and development of which we will tell today.
Origin: versions of several scientists
According to a legend that exists in India, seven white teachers can be considered the “fathers” of the Russian language. In ancient times, they came from the cold North (the Himalaya region) and gave people Sanskrit - the ancient literary language, which became widespread in India from the 1st century. BC - thereby laying the foundation of Brahmanism, from which Buddhism was later born. Many believe that this North at that time was one of the regions of Russia, which is why modern Hindus often go there as pilgrims .
However, what does Sanskrit have to do with the Russian language?
According to the theory of ethnographer Natalya Guseva, who wrote more than 150 scientific works According to the history and religion of India, many Sanskrit words completely coincide with Russian ones. But why did she even come to this conclusion? Once, on a tourist trip along the northern rivers of Russia, Guseva accompanied a respected scientist from India. While communicating with residents of local villages, the Indian suddenly burst into tears and refused the services of an interpreter. Seeing puzzled looks, he replied that he was very happy to hear native Sanskrit. Natalya Guseva was very interested in this case, so she decided to devote her whole life to studying the Russian language and Sanskrit.
By the way, the famous philologist Alexander Dragunkin fully supports his colleague and claims that great language The Russian people actually come from a simpler one - Sanskrit, which has fewer word-formation forms, and its writing is nothing more than Slavic runes slightly modified by the Hindus.
Text in Sanskrit.
Source: Wikimedia.org
According to another version, which is approved and accepted by most philologists, people about 2.6 million years ago (the time of the appearance of the first man) were simply forced to learn to communicate with each other during teamwork. However, in those days the population was extremely small, so individuals spoke the same language. Thousands of years later, a migration of peoples took place: the DNA got mixed up and changed, and the tribes became isolated from each other, and so many different languages appeared, which differed from each other in form and word formation. Later, there was a need for science that described new achievements and things invented by man.
As a result of this evolution, so-called matrices - linguistic pictures of the world - arose in people's heads. The linguist Georgy Gachev studied these matrices; at one time he studied more than 30 of them. According to his theory, the Germans were very attached to their home, and this is how the image of a typical German-speaking person was formed - organized and thrifty. And the mentality of the Russian speaker came from the image of the road and the path, because In ancient times, Russian-speaking people traveled a lot.
The birth and development of the Russian language
Let's bring a little specificity to our article and talk in more detail about the birth and formation of our native and great Russian language. To do this, let's go back to India of the 3rd millennium BC. At that time, among the Indo-European languages, the Proto-Slavic dialect stood out, which a thousand years later became the Proto-Slavic language. In the VI-VII centuries. already n. e. it was divided into several groups: eastern, western and southern (the Russian language is usually classified as eastern). In the 9th century. (moment of formation Kievan Rus) the Old Russian language reached its maximum development. At the same time, two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, invented the first Slavic alphabet and alphabet based on the Greek letter.
However, the creators Slavic writing they did not limit themselves only to the alphabet: they translated and wrote down gospel sermons, parables, liturgical texts and apostolic epistles; and also spent about three and a half years educating the Slavs in Moravia (the historical region of the Czech Republic).
Thanks to the work and knowledge of the enlightenment brothers, the Slavic language began to develop rapidly. By that time, in terms of popularity, it could already be compared with Greek and Latin, which, by the way, also belong to the Indo-European language family.
Division of language and normalization of writing
Then came the era of feudalism, and the Polish-Lithuanian conquests in the XIII-XIV centuries. divided the language into three groups: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as some intermediate dialects. By the way, until the 16th century. Russian was greatly influenced by the other two – Belarusian and Ukrainian and was called “prosta mova”.
In the 16th century Muscovite Rus' decided to normalize the written language of the Russian language, and it was then that they introduced the predominance of coordinating connections in sentences and the frequent use of conjunctions “yes”, “and”, “a”. Also, the declension of nouns became similar to the modern one, and the basis of the literary language became the features characteristic of modern Moscow speech: “akanie”, the consonant “g”, the endings “ovo” and “evo”.
Russian language in the 18th century.
The Petrine era greatly influenced Russian speech. It was at this time that our language freed itself from the tutelage of the church, and in 1708 the alphabet was reformed and made similar to the European one.
“Geometry Slavonic Land Measurement” is the first secular publication printed after the reform of the Russian alphabet in 1708.
Russian language is the largest language in the world. In terms of the number of people speaking it, it ranks 5th after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish.
Origin
Slavic languages, to which Russian belongs, belong to the Indo-European language branch.
At the end of the 3rd – beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. the Proto-Slavic language, which is the basis for Slavic languages. In the X – XI centuries. The Proto-Slavic language was divided into 3 groups of languages: West Slavic (Czech, Slovak arose from it), South Slavic (developed into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian) and East Slavic.
During the period of feudal fragmentation, which contributed to the formation of regional dialects, and Tatar-Mongol yoke three emerged from East Slavic independent language: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. Thus, the Russian language belongs to the East Slavic (Old Russian) subgroup Slavic group Indo-European language branch.
History of development
During the era of Muscovite Rus', the Middle Russian dialect arose, the main role in the formation of which belonged to Moscow, which introduced the characteristic “akan”, and the reduction of unstressed vowels, and a number of other metamorphoses. The Moscow dialect becomes the basis of the Russian national language. However, a unified literary language had not yet emerged at that time.
In the XVIII–XIX centuries. rapid development received special scientific, military, and naval vocabulary, which was the reason for the appearance of borrowed words, which often clogged and burdened native language. There was a growing need to develop a unified Russian language, which took place in the struggle of literary and political movements. The great genius M.V. Lomonosov in his theory of “three” established a connection between the subject of presentation and the genre. Thus, odes should be written in a “high” style, plays, prose works– “average”, and comedy – “low”. A.S. Pushkin in his reform expanded the possibilities of using the “middle” style, which now became suitable for ode, tragedy, and elegy. It is from the language reform of the great poet that the modern Russian literary language traces its history.
The emergence of Sovietism and various abbreviations (prodrazverstka, people's commissar) are associated with the structure of socialism.
The modern Russian language is characterized by an increase in the number of special vocabulary, which was a consequence scientific and technological progress. At the end of the twentieth century beginning of XXI centuries lion's share foreign words comes into our language from English.
The complex relationships between the various layers of the Russian language, as well as the influence of borrowings and new words on it, have led to the development of synonymy, which makes our language truly rich.
Russian language is one of the largest languages in the world, official language multinational and, as a consequence, the language interethnic communication peoples of the country. It is the main language of international communication of countries former USSR and the current language of the UN.
The modern Russian language, as we know it now, and as it is studied abroad, has long history origin. Its predecessor was the Old Russian language (from the 7th to the 14th centuries), the language Eastern Slavs located on the territory of the Kyiv state. Since all Slavic languages had a common ancestor - the Proto-Slavic language, the emerging Old Russian was similar to the languages of the South Slavic and West Slavic peoples, but, from the point of view of phonetics and vocabulary, it had some differences. Next, feudal fragmentation occurred, which led to the formation of a number of dialects. The Mongol-Tatar and Polish-Lithuanian conquests left their mark, causing the collapse (collapse of the Kyiv state) in the 13th-14th centuries. and consequently the collapse of the common Old Russian language. Three independent but closely related East Slavic languages were formed: Russian (Great Russian), Belarusian and Ukrainian.
As for writing, the Slavic states (modern Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, Bulgaria) and later Russia and the development of the church as a state institution required special rituals and readings of liturgical books; at first it was carried out in Greek, but then the Old Church Slavonic language appeared. This language was created by Cyril and Methodius to adapt Greek writings; it was not just made up, it was based on the language of the South Slavic peoples. The Greek scholar Cyril and his brother Methodius used it to adapt Slavic speech to expressions and ideas that Christian teaching wanted to convey, since, for example, pagan religion and christian religion had different lexical content and concept of God. This is how the Old Church Slavonic language acquired the name Church Slavonic. Initially it was Glagolitic, but since some sounds were missing for complete adaptation, Cyrillic appeared (a Greek set of letters supplemented in accordance with Glagolitic). The Church Slavonic language was exclusively written.
At this time, spoken Russian was undergoing its own changes; from the 14th to the 17th centuries, dialects continued to develop. Two dialect zones were formed: the Northern Great Russian dialect and the Southern Great Russian dialect with an intermediate Central Great Russian dialect. The leading language was dialect (later it became the basis for the literary language).
In the 17th century, during the reign, many transformative measures were carried out, including language reforms. European enlightenment became popular, science and technology developed, and a translation that was accessible and understandable to the general public was needed. foreign books. All this required new means of expression, which the Church Slavonic language could not provide. His vocabulary and semantics carried more of a church-religious idea than resembled free “living speech.” An accessible literary language was needed wide circles society. The Church Slavonic language was relegated to the background in the 18th and early 19th centuries. became a kind of church jargon, intended only for worship. The popularity of foreign languages has grown secular society I tried to introduce them into my native Russian as much as possible. There was a threat of language clogging and then the need arose to create unified national language norms.
The 20th century brought new, major events in Russia, and with them changes in the Russian language. The economy, culture, and technology continued to develop. It began to be enriched with new words, terminology, stylistic devices, etc. Socialism came to power through the revolution. The level of literacy has increased, the literary language has become the main language of communication of the people. Russian literature gained worldwide fame, and at the same time, interest in studying the language itself increased abroad.
If it were not for Christianity, then the Russian language, despite its entire history of development, would be unrecognizably different... Cyril and Methodius would not have understood worship in modern Orthodox Church, which is supposedly conducted in their language... Is the Russian language Slavic?
Today you can hear different “hypotheses” on language issues from non-specialists. Some believe that the Russian language “settled” in Ukraine almost earlier than the Ukrainian language. Others generally argue that Russian is not a Slavic, but a Finno-Ugric language...
Twin languages
Language, as we know, is perhaps the most reliable keeper historical memory. Comparing seemingly distant languages - say, Hindi and Lithuanian or Tajik and Greek - scientists came to the conclusion that in the distant past there was a certain Indo-European community of people. Unfortunately, no other evidence of this has survived. And studying the names of rivers, mountains, cities and villages gives an idea of the processes of migration of peoples in prehistoric times.
Language also contains traces of relatively recent events - you just have to look closely...
The spread of Orthodoxy among the Eastern Slavs left such a mark on Russian that we can confidently state: if not for Christianity, the Russian language would be unrecognizably different. Moreover, the differences between the East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian) would seem to have been so insignificant that the same language would probably still be spoken here. This means that this land would have developed a completely different ethnic picture from the current one. After all, language is the main feature of an ethnic community.
Much has been said and written about the “close relationship” of the Russian and Ukrainian languages. Indeed, these languages are very close to each other - lexically, phonetically, grammatically. However, few people (except perhaps specialist linguists) pay attention to precisely what separates them, that is, to the fundamental differences that make it possible to assert that Russian and Ukrainian are indeed different languages, and not adverbs of one language.
To understand these differences, it is enough to analyze any Russian text (preferably from a newspaper, magazine or fiction book), highlighting words in it that are not typical for Ukrainian. To do this, of course, it is advisable to speak both languages.
Here is a somewhat tendentiously selected (for clarity) excerpt from the newspaper:
"While working general meeting The presiding officer twice asked to speak, but representatives of the opposition interrupted him with exclamations from their seats. Only the head of the organizing committee, who was involved in coordinating positions at the forum preparation stage, managed to cool down the raging passions.”
The highlighted words are either absent in the Ukrainian language (general - zagalniy, chairman - head, exclamation - vikrik), or are phonetically significantly different from their Ukrainian counterparts (work - robot, interrupt - pererivati, cool - okholodzhuvati). What kind of words are these? How did they appear in the Russian language or disappear in the Ukrainian language (if we take the hypothesis of East Slavic unity seriously)?
Indeed, all the words highlighted in the text have something in common - they are considered borrowed from the so-called Old Church Slavonic language, in which the Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius spoke and wrote.
The creation of Cyril and Methodius
Many even fairly literate people believe that Old Church Slavonic is the language of our ancestors, which they spoke during the times of Rus'. Apparently, the name itself – Old Church Slavonic – causes confusion. In fact, this language belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of Slavic languages, more precisely, it is the Thessalonica dialect of the ancient Macedonian language, into which Cyril and Methodius translated the Greek text of the Bible in the 9th century. In addition to the living words of their native dialect, they introduced into the translated text many new, Greek words or words from Greek, since there were clearly not enough of their own.
The closest relatives of the Old Church Slavonic language are Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian. Having become the language of Slavic Orthodoxy, Old Church Slavonic also received the name Church Slavonic. Although there are significant phonetic differences between the “original” Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic: the same words are read differently. At the very least, Cyril and Methodius would hardly understand the services in the modern Orthodox Church, which seem to be conducted in their language.
In general, the Old Church Slavonic language, that is, the language into which the Bible was translated in the 9th century, as is known, was never native to the Eastern Slavs who inhabited Rus', neither before they adopted Christianity, nor after. They spoke (and still speak) in East Slavic dialects, unfortunately named in scientific literature"Old Russian language".
Having come to Rus' along with Orthodoxy, the Old Church Slavonic language received the status of a bookish, or written, language. In addition to the church, it was used as a “single rule” for drawing up documents, keeping chronicles, writing letters, works of art, etc. However, most people did not understand him; South Slavic grammatical constructions were poorly perceived, therefore, for secular needs, consumers of the written language (scribes, copyists, chroniclers, writers) gradually Ukrainized it, that is, made it more understandable and perceivable.
Already “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (12th century) was written, as they say in Ukraine (in relation to the Ukrainian-Russian vernacular) “Surzhik” - a mixture of Old Church Slavonic and Old Ukrainian. Moreover, the author, apparently not particularly knowledgeable in the rules of grammar of the language of Cyril and Methodius, came up with such constructions that some scientists, relying on them, are quite seriously trying to “reconstruct” the mythical living Old Russian language. For example, not perceiving the Old Slavonic forms of the past tense (byashe, sitha), the author of the word stuck to them Ukrainian endings-that’s it, and it turned out: babbling, sitting, bawling, cackling, like – sitting, flying, walking. Or this example from the Lay: “Chi li vysp’ti was...” Apparently, the author did not quite understand the meaning of the Old Slavonic particle li, so he “strengthened” it with its Ukrainian analogue – chi.
Thus, with the advent of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine in X - XVIII centuries and even later, three languages coexisted simultaneously: East Slavic proper, which was spoken by the East Slavic tribes and their descendants, who formed, in particular, the Ukrainian ethnos; Old Church Slavonic (Church Slavonic), serving the needs of the Orthodox Church; and book Ukrainian-Slavic, that is, Ukrainized Church Slavonic, which was considered the “correct”, literate language in which they conducted office work, wrote works of art, letters and even taught in educational institutions. With the development of living East Slavic, the book language also changed, while Old Church Slavonic, having undergone significant phonetic changes in the East Slavic environment back in the 10th – 11th centuries, then changed very little.
All famous texts The 11th – 18th centuries that have come down to us were written either in the Church Slavonic language proper (for example, “Selections of Svyatoslav”), or in Ukrainianized Old Church Slavonic (“The Tale of Igor’s Host”, “The Tale of Bygone Years”, works by Grigory Skovoroda, etc.).
This brief excursion into history helps to see how closely the Ukrainian and Church Slavonic languages came into contact; however, Slavic vocabulary penetrated into living Ukrainian very little - compared to Russian, in which it occupies at least a third of the dictionary, and if we take into account derivational morphemes - more than half!
Slavicisms in the Ukrainian language for the most part have a strict stylistic overtones: they are perceived as archaisms (often with a “church” bias), that is, as words from the times of Ukrainian-Slavic bilingualism, or even as Russianisms (gate, omnipresent, blessed, etc. ). Alive Ukrainian language practically did not accept Slavicisms into his vocabulary. There are few words and word-forming morphemes with clearly expressed South Slavic features in Ukrainian: region, teacher, needy...
Adventures of Slavicisms in Russian
What explains such a deep penetration of Old Church Slavonic vocabulary (and partly grammar and phonetics) into the Russian language and its rejection by Ukrainian?
Soviet linguists somehow avoided this problem, limiting themselves to stating: Slavicisms penetrated into the dialects of the Eastern Slavs in the 10th – 13th centuries, then, after the fall of Byzantium and the formation of a powerful center of Orthodoxy in Moscow in the 14th – 15th centuries, their second wave came. Moreover, it was Ukrainian teachers who imposed the Church Slavonic language in the capital of the Moscow state, according to scientists. The merit in consolidating Church Slavonic vocabulary in the Russian language dictionary is attributed to Mikhail Lomonosov, who developed the doctrine of three “calms”. Let us note in passing that Lomonosov did not introduce Slavicisms into use, as Soviet philologists sometimes try to present, but stated the state of his contemporary language.
Slavicisms both in the time of Lomonosov, and several centuries earlier, and now were and are integral part Russian vocabulary. In Russian, unlike Ukrainian, they are perceived as completely “our own”, with the exception of rarely used or deliberately “church” ones (breg, voice of one crying, daughter).
Apparently, it is incorrect to talk about the borrowing or assimilation of Slavicisms into the Russian language, since the process of their penetration into the language is identical to its evolution. In other words, if there were no Old Church Slavonic, there would be no Russian.
For some reason, Soviet scientists were “embarrassed” to admit the fact that Orthodoxy played a decisive role in the formation of the Russian ethnic group. The study of the genesis of language as a reflection of the development of culture and the formation of an ethnos helps to restore the not entirely clear picture of the consolidation of different ethnic elements into the Russian ethnos.
At the beginning of the last century, academician Alexander Shakhmatov emphasized that the Russian language appeared as a result of the interaction of the Church Slavonic language with the East Slavic language in Kyiv. That is, if we call a spade a spade, Russian originates in the Ukrainianized Slavic - the book language of the 10th - 12th centuries. And he owes it precisely to the Orthodox Church, with which the Church Slavonic language came to Rus'.
It is unlikely that any scientist will argue with all of the above. There is, however, a hypothesis according to which part of the Slavic tribes that inhabited the lands north of Rus' came there from the Slavic south, that is, they were southern Slavs. Hence the ease with which the Russian language “absorbed” South Slavic characteristics. However, even this hypothesis does not contradict the above. After all, if it were not for the language of Cyril and Methodius, moving north from Kyiv, these South Slavic islands would have dissolved into the East Slavic mass.
Missionary role of the word
But the question still remains not entirely clear: how did the massive penetration of foreign, South Slavic, vocabulary into the language of different tribes (by the way, often not even Slavic) occur? Indeed, in the living Russian language, since the beginning of its formation, words and forms alien to the East Slavic dialects have appeared: time, sweet, cloud, average, harmful, beloved, beat, sunrise, enemy, only, twice, guard, brave, Vladimir, strange, captivity, each, between, perhaps cool, etc.
Such linguistic expansion is possible when one people is conquered by another, as a result of which one language absorbs another, as a result of which something third is formed (“the victorious” language receives phonetic and other characteristics of the “defeated” language). Thus, as a result of the conquest of the British Isles by the Normans in the 11th century, the English dictionary - Germanic in origin - contained about 70 percent of words of French (Latin) origin. In the German environment, the Prussian language ceased to exist, in English, the Welsh language dissolved... History knows many such examples when speakers of one language pushed out speakers of another language. However, in the case of Russian, something unique is observed: after all, the East Slavic tribes that spread their influence to the territory of present-day Russia were not native speakers of the Church Slavonic language.
The “triumphal march” of the Church Slavonic language is apparently explained by the fact that expansion to the north was accompanied by intensive missionary work of the clergy and nobility. The conquerors went not just to take tribute from new subjects, but also carried a faith inextricably linked with its language.
As evidenced historical sources, missionary conquerors often encountered resistance from the conquered peoples, among which, in addition to the Slavic ones, there were many Finno-Ugric tribes. However, over time, the new faith had such an influence on those who accepted it that along with it they accepted its language. The formation of the Russian ethnic group and language began in the 12th – 15th centuries, when the Russian language began to take shape on the basis of East Slavic dialects and Church Slavonic vocabulary. At first, the adoption of Christianity and, accordingly, language (as we see, these processes are inseparable) did not always go smoothly: old rituals, objects of worship, and possibly writings associated with worship were forcibly eradicated pagan gods. Modern Russian has preserved traces of living bilingualism, when in the conquered territories the East Slavic language of the pre-Christian period and the new one, universally imposed by the clergy and educated nobility. Many parallel forms have been preserved: cold - coolness, side - country, sedentary - sitting, volost - power, even - equal, block - block, one - united, torture - test, etc.
Several generations passed until the Christian faith, like Church Slavonic vocabulary, firmly entered the life of the emerging people.
Thus, it becomes clear why the Russian language adopted Slavicisms, but Ukrainian did not. After all, the formation of ethnic groups and, accordingly, languages took place in different periods: by the time the Old Church Slavonic language arrived in Rus', an ethnos had already formed with its own language, on which foreign language elements, even over several centuries of interaction in “peaceful conditions,” could not have a significant influence. To the north of Rus', the consolidation of different ethnic elements occurred later - under pressure from outside, accompanied by the instillation of faith and “its” language.
It's not easy to draw today real picture that, by historical standards, is a very recent era, but one thing is clear: Christianity radically changed the ethnic picture in the East Slavic world.
Vladimir Ilchenko, Ph.D. Dzherelo
P.S. REPLY TO MESSAGES MARKED RU
kamrad (RU):“What’s the point of this worthless article anyway?”
Author: This article is a response to those who, without understanding issues of linguistics, attribute a certain isolation to the modern Russian language or deny it altogether Slavic origin. And also to those who believe that the Russian language supposedly has fewer borrowings from other Slavic languages than, say, Ukrainian, which supposedly has a lot of Polish words.
Maksim: “The article is provocative! What other “ancient Ukrainian ethnic group”? There was no such “ethnic group”! What nonsense?
Author: For any linguist, there is nothing new in this article, much less provocative. I am talking about the problems of ethnogenesis in the context of linguogenesis, that is, the process of language formation. I'm not playing with names, I'm interested in the essence. But what you call it - ancient Ukrainian or ancient Russian, or something else - does not matter. It is important that the population of present-day Ukraine had its own language, which was influenced less significantly by South Slavic (the language of Cyril and Methodius) than by the language of the neighboring emerging ethnic group (let’s call it Suzdal or Moscow).
Other PhD (RU):“I’m going to write a dissertation: compare the vocabulary of Polish and Ukrainian. All words are not from Russian in Ukrainian from Polish. Accordingly, Ukrainian Mova is a Polonized Russian language.”
Author: But this just doesn’t work out. In the Ukrainian language there are not so many Polish words, and especially MORPHEMES, for Ukrainian-Polish language contacts to be comparable to New Russian-Church Slavic ones. Read popular literature in linguistics – you have published a lot of such literature in Russia.
Vitaly (RU):“I read the book “Hitler’s Table Speeches”....”
Author: You can read everything. The only thing I can add: Hitler, as far as I know, did not particularly delve into issues of linguistics, but Stalin devoted a series of articles to this issue. You could say he was a “specialist” in languages.
Egor (RU): “Everything is fine, but only in the 10th-11th centuries Ukraine could not have existed, but the language turns out to be as it was.”
Andrey: “For some reason, the author kept silent about the castration of the Russian language by Cyril and Methodius. And the incident with replacing the alphabet with the alphabet has been omitted." 1. tell us. HOW exactly Cyril and Methodius castrated the Russian language. 2. if this is true, then isn’t it a shame to speak in a eunuch language? 3. please tell us about the fundamental differences in the alphabet from the alphabet. Otherwise, dictionaries say that these are synonyms...”
Author: I know nothing about the castration of language by Cyril and Methodius. These were great educational scientists who played an important role in the formation of the modern Russian language. Dictionaries are not mistaken; in modern Russian, words differ only in origin (Azbuka is a word of South Slavic origin).
Likefire (RU):“We need to somehow introduce into people’s minds that the real Ukrainian history is not three hundred years old, but much more... I didn’t understand at all from the article why the Russian language did not accept Slavicisms, unlike Ukrainian, and what kind of thing should be made of this conclusion? That Russians are not Slavs?
Author: I didn’t say anything about history, although the history of a country is what happened on the territory of this country earlier. It could be three hundred, five hundred, a thousand, a million years. And the fact that you did not understand about Slavicisms is not strange, since I am writing about the complete opposite phenomenon: the Russian language has absorbed Church Slavonicisms, but the Ukrainian language has not accepted them (read textbooks for Slavic philologists, everything is written very clearly there).
Nora (RU):“Somewhere in the middle, I lost my idea of what I was reading about... I caught myself saying that I don’t understand what is Old Church Slavonic and what is Church Slavonic - the definitions are blurred, i.e. they are there, but not clearly, unmemorably... I had to return again to the first mention of these terms.”
Author: Definitions of terms are given in textbooks and dictionaries. At the Faculty of Journalism (if you graduated from it), everyone goes through this. Old Church Slavonic is a dead South Slavic language, to a certain extent artificially “modified” by Cyril and Methodius for the translation of theological literature. Church Slavonic is the same as Old Church Slavonic in writing (a little simplified, some new letters have been added and some old ones have been “forgotten”). It is used for worship. However, words are pronounced in Church Slavonic in a completely different way than in the time of Cyril and Methodius. Short vowels are not read at all, diphthongs are replaced by ordinary vowels.
Nora (RU):“As far as I understand: South Slavic constructions and Ukrainization are not the same thing???”
Author: Modern South Slavic languages - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian, etc. Modern East Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian. Do not confuse “South Slavic” and “South Russian”.
Nodva (RU): «…..»
Author: You wanted to write to me something, but you didn’t formulate what exactly. In fact, is it possible? Read textbooks on Slavic linguistics... However, don’t. Read some quality fiction – more benefit will.
For Ph.D. Vladimir Ilchenko (RU):“Look how I caught the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” being illiterate.”
Russophile: Yes, there was no ancient Ukrainian language in the 12th century. There was no such thing then. There was an Old Church Slavonic language.
Author: You get confused in concepts like a student. Read textbooks and dictionaries. Every language on earth has its own past state (usually this state is called “ancient”). Read a lot educational literature, then we’ll discuss, but for now, sorry, I’m not interested.
