Old Church Slavonic

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Old Church Slavonic (also Old Church Slavic, formerly inaccurately called Old Slavic or Old Bulgarian) is the first literary and liturgical Slavic language developed from the native language of the 9th century missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius. It was used by them for translation of the Bible and other ecclesiastical texts from Greek. It is important in the Eastern Orthodoxy Churches of the Slavic peoples. (See also liturgical language.)

History

The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia around 863 (see Glagolitic alphabet for details). For that purpose, Cyril and Methodius first codified Old Church Slavonic from the Slavonic dialect spoken in the Solun (Thessaloniki) region of the Byzantine Empire.

In the Byzantine Empire an alphabet for the language (Glagolic) was created. The language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy (Veľkomoravské učilište) and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885 AD. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia.

Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolic alphabet and the Old Church Slavic language to Bulgaria. It was taught at two academies in Ohrid (in present-day Macedonia) and Preslav. Shortly afterward the Cyrilic alphabet was created in Bulgaria and substituted the Glagolic. The texts written during this era contain characteristics of the vernacular of Bulgaria. There are some linguistic differences between texts written in the two academies.

Thereupon the language spread to other Eastern European Slavic territories, most notably to Croatia, Serbia, Bohemia, Lesser Poland and Russia. The texts written in each country contain characteristics of the local Slavonic vernacular.

A redaction of Old Church Slavonic, made much later, is known Church Slavonic (ru: церковнославя́нский язы́к, tserkovnoslavyánskiy yazík), but these terms are often confused. Church Slavonic maintained a prestige status, particularly in Russia, for many centuries — among Slavs in the East it had a status analogous to that of the Latin language in western Europe, but had the advantage of being less divergent from the vernacular tongues of average parishioners. Some Eastern Orthodox churches, such as the Russian and Serbian churches, still use Church Slavonic in their services and chants. Additionally, several Eastern Rite Catholic churches use Church Slavonic.

Script

Initially Old Church Slavonic language was written with the Glagolitic alphabet, but later it was superseded by the Cyrillic alphabet.

Authors

The most significant writers in Old Church Slavonic were:

• Byzantine missionaries Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, mostly during their mission to Great Moravia, and
• Climent of Ohrid, Konstantin Preslavski, Chernorizetz Hrabar and Joan Ekzarh, all of them working at the end of the 9th and at the beginning of the 10th century in medieval Bulgaria.

Nomenclature

The language is sometimes called Old Slavic, but that term is undesirable as it may be confused with the distinct Proto-Slavonic language.

Bulgarian linguists call the language Old Bulgarian as they regard it as based on a 9th century Bulgarian dialect, and the designation Old Bulgarian was generally used in 19th and early 20th-century linguistics to refer to Old Church Slavonic. The term is now considered outdated, as it implies that OCS was the ancestor exclusively of Bulgarian. "Old Church Slavonic" and "Old Church Slavic" are the only terms commonly accepted in English-language scholarship.

The original name of the language in the Old Church Slavonic texts was simply "the Slavic language", therefore the present-day Slavic names of the language are derived from the old or new word for Slavs. The intuitive pronunciation of the old word for Slavs can be given as appr. slovaeneh [ae stands for a very open e] or sloveneh at that time.

Here are some of the modern names in alphabetic order:

• Bulgarian Старобългарски (starobəlgarski)
• Czech staroslověnština
• Polish staro-cerkiewno-słowiański
• Russian старославя́нский язы́к (staroslavyánskiy yazík)
• Serbian староцрквенословенски (starocrkvenoslovenski)
• Slovak staroslovienčina
• Slovene starocerkvenoslovanščina
• Ukrainian старослов’янська (staroslovians'ka)

External link

• Old Church Slavonic Online, a comprehensive tutorial at the A. Richard Diebold Center for Indo-European Language and Culture, Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

bg:Старобългарски език cs:Staroslověnština de:Altkirchenslawisch ja:古代教会スラヴ語 nl:Oud-Kerkslavisch pl:Język staro-cerkiewno-słowiański ru:старославянский язык