Subgroups
A number of researchers, in addition to the languages mentioned above, distinguish now extinct languages that in the past occupied an intermediate position between South Slavic and West Slavic (Pannonian Slavic), as well as between South Slavic and East Slavic languages (Dakoslavic).
Origin
The Slavic languages within the Indo-European family are closest to the Baltic languages. The similarity between the two groups served as the basis for the theory of " Balto-Slavic proto-language", according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first separated from the Indo-European proto-language, later splitting into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, many scientists explain their special closeness by the long contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs and deny the existence of the Balto-Slavic language.
It has not been established in which territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European / Balto-Slavic took place. 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. For a long time it developed as a single dialect with an identical structure. Dialect variants arose later.
The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language into independent languages most actively took place in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD, during 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 mastered, the Slavs entered into relationships with the inhabitants of these territories, who stood at different levels cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of the Slavic languages.
Separation time
Gray and Atkinson
Atkinson and Gray performed a statistical analysis of cognate words in 103 living and dead Indo-European languages (out of about 150 known) using a lexico-statistical database (created from Swadesh lists by Isidore Dayen) and additional information.
And the Slavic linguistic unity, according to the results of their research, broke up 1300 years ago, that is, around the 8th century AD. The Balto-Slavic linguistic unity broke up 3400 years ago, that is, around the 15th century BC.
The methods and results of Gray and Atkinson have been heavily criticized from various quarters.
Chang, Cathcart, Hall and Garrett
Kasyan, Dybo
In September 2015, A. S. Kasyan and A. V. Dybo, as part of an interdisciplinary study on Slavic ethnogenesis, published a lexico-statistical classification of Slavic languages, built on high-quality 110-word Swadesh lists, collected according to the Global Lexicostatistical Database project standard » and processed by modern phylogenetic algorithms.
The resulting dated tree is in agreement with the traditional Slavic point of view on the structure of the Slavic group. The tree suggests the first division of the Proto-Slavic language into three branches: eastern, western and southern. The moment of collapse is dated to ca. 100 AD e., this is consistent with the opinion of archaeologists that at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. e. the Slavic population occupied a rather vast territory and was no longer monolithic. Further, in the V-VI centuries. n. e., three Slavic branches are almost synchronously divided into more fractional taxa, which corresponds to the rapid spread of the Slavs in Eastern Europe and the Balkans in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e. (Slavicization of Europe).
The Slovene language was excluded from the analysis, since Ljubljana Koine and Literary Slovene show a mixture of South Slavic and West Slavic lexical features (presumably this may indicate the original West Slavic attribution of the Slovene language, which for a long time was influenced by neighboring Serbo-Croatian dialects), and qualitative Swadeshevic lists for Slovene dialects were not collected at that time. Due to the lack or unreliability of lexical data, the study did not cover the so-called. Old Novgorod dialect, Polab language and some other Slavic idioms.
History of development
In the early period of the development of the Slavic proto-language, a new system of vowel sonants developed, consonantism became much simpler, the stage of reduction became widespread in ablaut, and the root ceased to obey the ancient restrictions. The Proto-Slavic language is included in the satem group (sürdce, pisati, prositi, cf. lat. cor, - cordis, pictus, precor; zürno, znati, zima, cf. 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.
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. There were 3 subgroups in the West Slavic group: Lechitic, Lusatian Serb and Czech-Slovak. The South Slavic group was dialectally the most differentiated.
The Proto-Slavic language functioned in the pre-state period in the history of the Slavs, when the tribal social system dominated. Significant changes took place during the period of early feudalism. In the XII-XIII centuries, there was a further differentiation of the Slavic languages, 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 turned into full vowels. As a result, there have been significant changes 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 opposition of vowels in longitude / brevity is lost, at the same time in Czech and Slovak languages (excluding North Moravian and East Slovak dialects), in the literary norms of the Shtokavian group (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin), and also partly in Slovene these differences persist. In the Lechitic languages, Polish and Kashubian, nasal vowels are preserved, 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 respective 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 consonants in terms of hardness / softness in the languages of the Czech-Slovak group is significantly limited (in Czech, the opposition t - t', d - d', n - n', in Slovak - t - t', d - d', n - n', l - l', while in the West Slovak dialect due to assimilation t', d' and their subsequent hardening, as well as hardening l', as a rule, only one pair is presented n - n', in a number of Western Slovak dialects (Povazhsky, Trnavsky, Zagorsky) 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 - from the old paired soft consonants, only n' (< *nj), l' (< *lj) have not undergone hardening (primarily in the Serbo-Croatian area).
Stress in Slavic languages is realized in different ways. In most Slavic languages (except Serbo-Croatian and Slovene), the polytonic Proto-Slavic stress has been 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 extinct Polabian language also had a mobile stress). In the Central Russian dialects (and, accordingly, in the Russian literary language), in the South Russian dialect, in the North Kashubian dialects, as well as in the Belarusian and Bulgarian languages, this type of stress caused the reduction of unstressed vowels. In a number of languages, primarily in West Slavic, a fixed stress has formed, assigned to a certain syllable of a word or bar group. The penultimate syllable is stressed in the Polish literary language and most of its dialects, in the Czech North Moravian and East Slovak dialects, in the southwestern dialects of the southern Kashubian dialect, and also in the Lemko dialect. The first syllable is stressed in the Czech and Slovak literary languages and most of their dialects, in the Lusatian languages, in the South Kashubian dialect, and also in some Goral dialects of the Lesser Polish dialect. In Macedonian, 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, multi-local, the tonic characteristics and the distribution of stress in word forms are different in dialects. In the Central Kashubian dialect, the stress is different, but is assigned to a certain morpheme.
Writing
Slavic languages received their first literary processing in the 60s. ninth century. Creators Slavic writing there were brothers Cyril (Konstantin the Philosopher) and Methodius. They translated liturgical texts from Greek into Slavonic for the needs of Great Moravia. At its core, the new literary language had a South Macedonian (Thessalonica) dialect, but in Great Moravia it learned a lot of local language features. It was later developed further in Bulgaria. In this language (usually called Old Church Slavonic) the richest original and translated literature was created in Moravia, Pannonia, Bulgaria, in Russia, in Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From IX century. Slavic texts have not been preserved. The most ancient date back to the 10th century: the Dobrudzhan inscription of 943, the inscription of Tsar Samuil of 993, the Varosh inscription of 996 and others. Starting from c. more Slavic monuments have been preserved.
Similarities and differences of Slavic languages
Due to historical reasons, the Slavic languages managed to maintain significant similarities with respect to each other. At the same time, almost each of them has a number of unique features.
| Eastern group | Western group | Southern group | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | Ukrainian | Belorussian | Polish | Slovak | Czech | Serbo-Croatian | Bulgarian | Macedonian | Slovenian | |
| Number of carriers | 250 | 45 | 6,4 | 40 | 5,2 | 9,5 | 21 | 8,5 | 2 | 2,2 |
| Nearest | Belorussian | Ukrainian | Kashubian | Czech | Slovak | Serbo-Croatian | Macedonian | Bulgarian | Slovenian | |
| Writing | Cyrillic | Cyrillic | Cyrillic | Latin | Latin | Latin | Cyrillic / Latin | Cyrillic | Cyrillic | Latin |
| Differences from others Slavic languages |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Accent type | free dynamic |
free dynamic |
free dynamic |
fixed on penultimate |
fixed- noe on the lane |
fixed- noe on the lane |
free musical |
free dynamic |
fixed- third layer ha from the end of the word) |
free musical |
| Morphology: vocative form (case) |
No | there is | there is | there is | No | there is | there is | there is | there is | No |
Literary languages
In the era of feudalism, the Slavic literary languages, as a rule, did not have strict rules. Sometimes the functions of the literary were performed by foreign languages (in Russia - the Old Slavonic language, in the Czech Republic and Poland - the Latin language).
The Russian literary language has gone through a centuries-old and complex evolution. He absorbed folk elements and elements of the Old Slavonic language, was influenced by many European languages.
Czech Republic in the 18th century literary language, which reached in the XIV-XVI centuries. great perfection, almost disappeared. The German language dominated in the cities. During the period of national revival in the Czech Republic, the language of the 16th century was artificially revived, which at that time was already far from the national language. History of the Czech literary language of the 19th - centuries. reflects the interaction of the old book language and colloquial. The Slovak literary language had a different history, it developed on the basis of the vernacular. in Serbia until the 19th century. dominated
Languages. Distributed throughout the USSR, as well as in some countries of Europe and America. The total number of speakers in the USSR is about 240 million people (1979, census).
In the 6th-7th centuries. ancestors Eastern Slavs occupied territories along the middle reaches of the Dnieper and adjacent areas, gradually moving to the north and east and partly to the south and southwest. By the 9th c. Eastern Slavs settled on the great waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks", i.e. from Lake Ilmen and the Western Dvina basin to the Dnieper to the east (in the upper reaches of the Oka, Volga and Don) and to the west (in Volyn, Podolia and Galicia ). To East Slavic tribes or tribal unions Slovenes, Krivichi, Vyatichi, Radimichi, Dregovichi, Polans, Drevlyans, Northerners, Streets, Tivertsy, Dulebs and Croats belonged. Settling over a vast territory, the Eastern Slavs encountered Finno-Ugric tribes, entering into language contacts with them (see Language Contacts).
The East Slavic languages differ from the South Slavic and West Slavic languages in a number of features that developed in the Proto-Slavic period: 1) the presence of full-vowel combinations -oro-, -olo-, -here- from Proto-Slavic *or, *ol, *er, *el between consonants in accordance with South Slavic ra, la, rѣ, lѣ; cf. Russian and Ukrainian "city", "swamp", "milk", "shore", Belarusian. "city", "malako", "berag"(Polish ogród, błoto, mleko, brzeg, Old Slav. “grad”, “blato”, “milk”, “brѣg”); 2) the presence of consonants "h", "zh" from the Proto-Slavic combinations *tj, *dj in accordance with pcs, zhd among the southern Slavs and c, dz among the Western Slavs; cf. Russian "candle", "I see", Ukrainian "candle", "I see", Belarusian. “Svyacha”, “I see” (Polish świeca, widzę, Old Slav. “Sveshta”, “I see”); 3) consistent development l epenthetic after labials in a non-initial position from the Proto-Slavic combinations of labials with j in the absence of it among the Western Slavs and inconsistent development among the South Slavs; cf. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian "land", "purchase" (Polish ziemia, kupiony).
In the history of the development of the East Slavic languages, a common loss for the entire group occurred by the 10th century. nasal vowels "o" and "e" (ǫ, ę), changed into "u" and "'a": Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. "tooth" (from *zǫbъ), "hand" (from *rǫka), Rus. "five", Ukrainian "p'yat", Belarusian. "five" (from *pętь), Rus. "meat", Ukrainian "m'yaso", Belarusian. "meat" (from *męso). At the same time, the general process of loss by the 12th-13th centuries. reduced “b” and “b” also revealed differences between the Eastern Slavs. In Russian, "b" and "b" were lost in weak positions, and in strong positions they successively changed into "o" and "e": "sn" > "sleep", "sna" > "sleep"; "day" > "day", "day" > "day"; "kr'v" > "blood", "kr'vi" > "blood"; “tear” > “tear”, “slz” > “tears”, etc. In the Ukrainian language, there was a change in the original o, e in the syllable, which became closed after the loss of weak ъ, ь in the subsequent syllable: o, e lengthened and diphthongized : “horse” > “kōn” > “ku͡on” (with a further change in the diphthong to “i”: “kіn”). In the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, "b" and "b" in the position after "r" and "l" between consonants changed into "s" and "i": Ukrainian. "krishiti", Belarusian. "roof" (< «кръшити»), укр. «глитати» , белорус. «глытаць» (< «глътати»).
The first actually East Slavic written monuments date back to the 11th century. (written in Cyrillic).
- Bernstein S. B., Essay on comparative grammar of Slavic languages. Introduction. Phonetics, M., 1961;
- his own, Essay on Comparative Grammar of Slavonic Languages. Alternations. Name bases, M., 1974;
- Owl F. P., The formation of the language of the Eastern Slavs, M. - L., 1962;
- his own, Origin of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, L., 1972;
- Nachtigal R., Slavic languages, trans. from Slovenian, M., 1963;
- Entry to the historical-historical culture of the words of the Jansk language, Kiev, 1966;
- Essays on the history and dialectology of East Slavic languages, M., 1980;
- Bulakhov M. G., Yellowbelly M.A., Kodukhov V. I., East Slavic languages, M., 1987.
Slavic languages are related languages of the Indo-European family. More than 400 million people speak Slavic languages.
Slavic languages are distinguished by the closeness of word structure, the use of grammatical categories, sentence structure, semantics (semantic meaning), phonetics, and morphonological alternations. This proximity is explained by the unity of the origin of the Slavic languages and their contacts with each other.
According to the degree of proximity to each other, the Slavic languages are divided into 3 groups: East Slavic, South Slavic and West Slavic.
Each Slavic language has its own literary language (a processed part of the common language with written norms; the language of all manifestations of culture) and its own territorial dialects, which are not the same within each Slavic language.
Origin and history of the Slavic languages
The Slavic languages are closest to the Baltic languages. Both are part of the Indo-European family of languages. From the Indo-European parent language, the Balto-Slavic parent language first emerged, which later split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. But not all scientists agree with this. They explain the special closeness of these proto-languages by the long contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs, and deny the existence of the Balto-Slavic language.
But it is clear that 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 long. For a long time, the Proto-Slavic language developed as a single dialect. Dialect variants arose later.
In the second half of the 1st millennium AD. e. the early Slavic states began to form on the territory of South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. Then the process of division of the Proto-Slavic language into independent Slavic languages began.
The Slavic languages have retained significant similarities with each other, but at the same time, each of them has unique features.
Eastern group of Slavic languages
Russian (250 million people)
Ukrainian (45 million people)
Belarusian (6.4 million people).
The writing of all East Slavic languages is based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
Differences between East Slavic languages and other Slavic languages:
reduction of vowels (akanye);
the presence of Church Slavonicisms in the vocabulary;
free dynamic stress.
Western group of Slavic languages
Polish (40 million people)
Slovak (5.2 million people)
Czech (9.5 million people)
The writing of all West Slavic languages is based on the Latin alphabet.
Differences between West Slavic languages and other Slavic languages:
In Polish, the presence of nasal vowels and two rows of hissing consonants; fixed stress on the penultimate syllable. AT Czech- fixed stress on the first syllable; the presence of long and short vowels. Slovak has the same features as Czech.
Southern group of Slavic languages
Serbo-Croatian (21 million people)
Bulgarian (8.5 million people)
Macedonian (2 million people)
Slovenian (2.2 million people)
Writing: Bulgarian and Macedonian - Cyrillic, Serbo-Croatian - Cyrillic / Latin, Slovenian - Latin.
Differences of South Slavic languages from other Slavic languages:
Serbo-Croatian has free musical stress. In the Bulgarian language - the absence of cases, the variety of verb forms and the absence of the infinitive (indefinite form of the verb), free dynamic stress. Macedonian language - the same as in Bulgarian + fixed stress (no further than the third syllable from the end of the word). The Slovenian language has many dialects, the presence of a dual number, free musical stress.
Writing of Slavic languages
The creators of Slavic writing were the brothers Cyril (Konstantin the Philosopher) and Methodius. They translated for the needs of Great Moravia from Greek liturgical texts into Slavic.
Prayer in Old Church Slavonic
Great Moravia is a Slavic state that existed in 822-907. on the Middle Danube. In its best period, it included the territories of modern Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lesser Poland, part of Ukraine and the historical region of Silesia.
Great Moravia had a great influence on the cultural development of the entire Slavic world.
Great Moravia
The new literary language was based on the South Macedonian dialect, but in Great Moravia it adopted many local linguistic features. Later it was further developed in Bulgaria. A rich original and translated literature was created in this language (Old Church Slavonic) in Moravia, Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic.
The most ancient Old Slavonic texts date back to the 10th century. Starting from the XI century. more Slavic monuments have been preserved.
Modern Slavic languages use alphabets based on Cyrillic and Latin. The Glagolitic alphabet is used in Catholic worship in Montenegro and in several coastal areas in Croatia. In Bosnia, for some time, in parallel with the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, it was also used Arabic alphabet(in 1463 Bosnia completely lost its independence and became part of the Ottoman Empire as an administrative unit).
Slavic literary languages
Slavic literary languages did not always have strict norms. Sometimes the literary language in the Slavic countries was a foreign language (in Russia - Old Church Slavonic, in the Czech Republic and Poland - Latin).
The Russian literary language had a complex evolution. It absorbed folk elements, elements of the Old Slavonic language, and was influenced by many European languages.
Czech Republic in the 18th century dominated German. During the period of national revival in the Czech Republic, the language of the 16th century was artificially revived, which at that time was already far from the national language.
The Slovak literary language developed on the basis of the vernacular. in Serbia until the 19th century. dominated by the Church Slavonic language. In the XVIII century. began the process of rapprochement of this language with the people. As a result of the reform carried out by Vuk Karadzic in the middle of the 19th century, a new literary language was created.
The Macedonian literary language was finally formed only in the middle of the 20th century.
But there are also a number of small Slavic literary languages (microlanguages) that function along with the national literary languages in small ethnic groups. These are, for example, the Polissian microlanguage, the Podlachian in Belarus; Rusyn - in Ukraine; vichsky - in Poland; Banat-Bulgarian microlanguage - in Bulgaria, etc.
The Slavic group of languages is a large branch of the Indo-European languages, since the Slavs are the largest group of people in Europe united by similar speech and culture. They are used by more than 400 million people.
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). The languages belonging to the Slavic group originated from Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine) and spread to the rest of the above territories.
Classification
There are three groups of 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 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 of Russian and Bulgarian).
Therefore, it should be noted that the traditional classification in terms of three separate branches should not be considered as a true model. 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 \u200b\u200bhas a striking homogeneity throughout the entire territory of its distribution. For centuries, the paths of different peoples intersected, and their cultures mixed.
Differences
Still, it would 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 the 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 Slovene, the similar expression is “cloth” - “dress” in Ukrainian.
Eastern group of Slavic languages
It includes Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. Russian is the native language of almost 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. Including the Moscow dialect, on which the literary language is based, belongs to it. 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 major 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 know the language in Canada and the United States. This is due to the presence of a large ethnic community of migrants who left the country in late XIX century. The Carpathian dialect, which is also called Carpatho-Russian, is sometimes treated as a separate language.
- Belarusian - it is spoken by about seven million people in Belarus. Its main dialects are southwestern, some features of which can be explained by proximity to the Polish lands, and northern. The Minsk dialect, which serves as the basis for the literary language, is located on the border of these two groups.
West Slavic branch
It includes Polish language and other Lechitic (Kashubian and its extinct variant - Slovenian), 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 (in particular, in 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 the northwestern, southeastern, Silesian and Mazovian. The Kashubian dialect is considered part of the Pomeranian languages, which, like Polish, are Lechitic. Its speakers live west of Gdansk and on the coast of the Baltic Sea.
The extinct Slovene dialect belonged to the northern group of Kashubian dialects, which differs from the southern one. Another unused Lechitic language is Polab, which was spoken in the 17th and 18th centuries. Slavs living in the region of the Elbe River.
His is Serbal Lusatian, which is still spoken by the inhabitants of Lusatia in East Germany. It has two literary (used in and around Bautzen) and Lower Sorbian (common in Cottbus).
Czechoslovak language group
It includes:
- Czech, spoken by about 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, most of them 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 the central and eastern ones, which share common 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 interesting group Slavic languages, the list of which, as well as their dialects, is very extensive.
They are classified as follows:
1. Eastern subgroup. It includes:
2. Western subgroup:
- Serbo-Croatian - about 20 million people use it. The basis for the literary version was the Shtokavian dialect, which is common in most of the Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin territory.
- Slovenian is spoken by more than 2.2 million people in Slovenia and the surrounding areas of Italy and Austria. It shares some common features with Croatian dialects and includes many dialects with great differences between them. In Slovene (in particular its western and northwestern dialects), traces of old connections with the West Slavic languages (Czech and Slovak) can be found.
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 kindred and unrelated ethnic groups.
Slavic languages are usually divided into 3 groups according to the degree of their proximity to each other: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian) and West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish with a Kashubian dialect that retained a certain genetic independence , Upper and Lower Lusatian). There are also small local groups of Slavs with their own literary languages. 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. At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. the Polish 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 features of dialects. Sometimes the dialects of one Slavic language differ from each other more than independent Slavic languages. For example, the morphology of Shtokavian and Chakavian dialects of the Serbo-Croatian language differs much more deeply than the morphology of Russian and Belarusian languages. The proportion of identical elements is often different. For example, the category of diminutive in Czech is expressed in more diverse and differentiated forms than in Russian.
Of the Indo-European languages, C. I are the closest to the Baltic languages. This proximity served as the basis for the theory of " Balto-Slavic proto-language", according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first separated from the Indo-European proto-language, later splitting into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, most modern scientists explain their special closeness by the long contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs. It has not been established in which territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European took place. It can be assumed that it took place 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. On the basis of one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavonic), 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 the same structure. Later, dialect variants appear. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language, its dialects into independent S. Ya. was long and difficult. It was most active in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e., during the formation of the early Slavic feudal 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 mastered, the Slavs entered into relationships with peoples and tribes standing at different stages of cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of the Slavic languages.
The Proto-Slavic language was preceded by the period of the Proto-Slavic language, elements of which can be restored with the help of the ancient Indo-European languages. The Proto-Slavic language in its main part is restored using the data of S. Ya. different periods of their history. The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the most ancient - before the establishment of close Balto-Slavic language contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialect fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.
The individuality and originality of the Proto-Slavic language began to take shape even in the early period. It was then that a new system of vowel sonants was formed, consonantism became much simpler, the stage of reduction became widespread in ablaut, the root ceased to obey the ancient restrictions. According to the fate of the middle palate k ’and g’, the Proto-Slavic language is included in the satəm group (sürdce, pisati, prositi, cf. lat. cor - cordis, pictus, precor; zürno, znati, zima, cf. lat. granum, cognosco, hiems). However, this feature was implemented inconsistently: 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. Most of the suffixes were already formed on the Proto-Slavic soil. Proto-Slavic vocabulary is distinguished by 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. While retaining in most cases the old Indo-European lexical fund, at the same time he lost many old Indo-European lexemes (for example, some terms from the field of social relations, nature, etc.). Many words have been lost due to various kinds of prohibitions. Forbidden, for example, was the name of the oak - Indo-European. perku̯os, whence lat. quercus. The old Indo-European root has come 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, Bulgarian 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 formation medvědъ ‘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 diphthong combinations arose in position before consonants and the sequences of “vowel sonant before vowels” (sьmürti, 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 softening of consonants before iot. In connection with the first process, all ancient diphthongic combinations turned into monophthongs, syllabic smooth, nasal vowels arose, a syllable division moved, which, in turn, caused a simplification of consonant groups, the phenomenon of intersyllabic dissimilation. These ancient processes have left their mark on all modern Slavic languages, which is reflected in many alternations: cf. Russian "reap - reap"; “to take - I will take”, “name - names”, Czech. žíti - žnu, vzíti - vezmu; Serbohorv. zhȅti - zhmȇm, uzeti - ȕzmȇm, ȉme - names. The softening of consonants before iot is reflected in the form of alternations s - š, z - ž, etc. All these processes had a strong impact on grammatical structure, onto a system of inflections . In connection with the softening of the consonants before the iot, the process of the so-called first palatalization of the posterior palate was experienced: k > č, g > ž, x > š. On this basis, even in the Proto-Slavic language, the alternations k: č, g: ž, x: š were formed, which had a great influence on nominal and verb word formation. Later, the so-called second and third palatalization of the posterior palate began to operate, as a result of which the alternations k: c, g: ʒ (z), x: s (š) arose. The name changed by cases and numbers. In addition to the singular and plural, there was a dual number, which was later lost 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 infinitive and present tense stems. From the first, the infinitive, supine, aorist, imperfect, participles in -l, participles of the active voice of the past tense in -vъ and participles of the passive voice 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, the imperfect began to form from this stem.
Even in the depths of the Proto-Slavic language, dialect formations began to form. The most compact was the group of Proto-Slavic dialects, on the basis of which the East Slavic languages later arose. There were 3 subgroups in the West Slavic group: Lechit, Lusatian and Czech-Slovak. The most differentiated dialectally was the South Slavic group.
The Proto-Slavic language functioned in the pre-state period in the history of the Slavs, when tribal social relations dominated. Significant changes occurred during the period of early feudalism. This was reflected in the further differentiation of the Slavic languages. By the 12th-13th centuries. there was a loss of super-short (reduced) vowels ъ and ь, characteristic of the Proto-Slavic language. In some cases they disappeared, in others they turned into full vowels. As a result, there have been significant changes in the phonetic and morphological structure of the Slavic languages. Many common processes have gone through the Slavic languages in the field of grammar and lexical composition.
For the first time, Slavic languages received literary processing in the 60s. 9th c. The creators of Slavic writing were the brothers Cyril (Konstantin the Philosopher) and Methodius. They translated liturgical texts from Greek into Slavonic for the needs of Great Moravia. At its core, the new literary language had a South Macedonian (Thessalonica) dialect, but in Great Moravia it adopted many local linguistic features. Later it was further developed in Bulgaria. In this language (usually called the Old Church Slavonic language), the richest original and translated literature was created in Moravia, Pannonia, Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia. There were two Slavic alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From the 9th c. Slavic texts have not been preserved. The most ancient date back to the 10th century: the Dobrudzhan inscription 943, the inscription of Tsar Samuil 993, etc. From the 11th century. many Slavic monuments have already been preserved. Slavic literary languages of the era of feudalism, as a rule, did not have strict norms. Some important functions were performed by foreign languages (in Russia - Old Church Slavonic, 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 the national Slavic languages. The Russian literary language has gone through a centuries-old and complex evolution. He absorbed folk elements and elements of the Old Slavonic language, was 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 went 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 dominated in the cities. During the period of the national revival, the Czech "wake-ups" artificially revived the language of the 16th century, which at that time was already far from the vernacular. The entire history of the Czech literary language in the 19th-20th centuries. reflects the interaction of the old bookish language and spoken language. The development of the Slovak literary language proceeded differently. Not burdened by old book traditions, it is close to the folk language. Serbia until the 19th century. the Church Slavonic language of the Russian version dominated. In the 18th century began the process of rapprochement of this language with the people. 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 he 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 Slavic studies.
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