Talk:Church Slavonic

Old talk

zdravstvuyte, Monedula, et. al!

and, please excuse the latin letters!

This is a fascinating article!

But, it also raises some fascinating questions!

So, tell us, Did this Church Slavonic Language (CSL) completely displace the Old Church Slavonic (OCS) that the Russians recieved from Kiev? If so, when? Did the two exist simultaneously--always?--never?--for a while?

The change was rather gradual, and the Church Slavonic changed considerably through the centuries.  So Old Church Slavonic and modern Church Slavonic never coexisted, but rather the former gradually changed into the latter. — Monedula 22:54, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Scholars find several modern variants of OCS due its spread. Isn't this CSL the Russian recension of OCS--called "CSL" in Russia?

Yes, this article is about the Russian recension of CSL (not OSC!), although there have been many others recensions of CSL. — Monedula 22:54, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Did CSL EVOLVE into Russian? Even if it continued say, in worship once a distinct Russian was evident? And if it was, wouldn't it be a kind of proto-Russian, as opposed to the original language of the East Slavs/Rus' in general ("Rusian/Old Ruthenian/Old Russian")? And when did these events occur?

No, CSL did NOT evolve into Russian.  CSL is a South Slavic language, whereas Russian and Old Russian are East Slavic languages — so there are quite characteristic differences between them. — Monedula 22:54, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

And when did OCS and CSL cease to be generally intelligible to the average Russian speaker?

Let us know!

Spasiba! Genyo 17:16, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Pronounciation

I trimmed the following phrase until clarification, because as it was, it is very confusing for non-Russian speakers.

The letter е [je] is never pronounced as ё [jo]. Compare Church Slavonic and Russian words: небо/нёбо, одежда/одёжа.

Two things are mixed into one basket here.

1. First, the lazy Soviet orthography introduced a habit to omit the diacritic in the ё [jo] turning it into е [je]; e.g., Khrushchev is in fact Khrushchyov, Chebyshev is Chebyshov, and (probably no one remembers this) Brezhnev was Brezhnyov when he was politruk during WWII. (Probably to misguide imperialist spies, as it was done with Baikonur Cosmodrome :-).)
2. Second, in the course of evolution Russian phonetics was changed by replacing unstressed word endings with je into stressed endings with jo; e.g., priidem ((we) will come) -> pridyom, but the latter is "lazily" written as pridem.

Therefore an untrained person when reading a church text has an urge to read priidyom instead of priidem. (note: I hope Monedula will add Cyrillics in the above examples (and removes this note).) Mikkalai 18:51, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The fact is, the Church Slavonic language was not a widely spoken language — it was tought in schools, and students were urged to pronounce words exactly as they are written.  So Church Slavonic pronunciation has its own tradition. — Monedula 23:10, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

---

Replaced:

Church Slavonic was also used as a liturgical and literary language in other orthodox countries - Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia - until it was replaced by national languages.

You are probably confusing Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic. Mikkalai

No, it was correct.  Old Church Slavonic as such ceased to exist in the 11th century.  After that, all its variations and descendants are called simply Church Slavonic. — Monedula 23:10, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not careful in reading the sentence: I didn't pay attention to the word "literary " . But IMO it is still incorrect in a sense that it is NOT completely replaced as a liturgical. But I don't know to what extent it is used in Russian church. Can you clarify the discussed phrase in this respect? Mikkalai 23:31, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, Church Slavonic partially remained as a liturgical language. I'm from Poland. I don't really know how about the current liturgical use in other countries. I only know that in the Polish Orthodox Church the basic liturgical language is Polish. Nevertheless, some religious songs (sung during religious ceremonies) are in Church Slavonic, so Church Slavonic is still used by orthodox people in Poland. One of my friends is orthodox, I can ask her for more details, if you'd like me to. Boraczek 08:50, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Ukrainian Orthodox communities in Poland use the Church Slavonic language of Kyiv origin. 176.36.255.126 (talk) 21:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Ukrainians understand Church Slavonic better than Russians. However, Russian was more influenced by Church Slavonic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.36.255.126 (talk) 21:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Slavic/Slavonic

I returned the article to "Slavonic" from "Slavic". I have never heard this language called "Church Slavic" in English. Every single standard (print) reference I have ever seen, every Orthodox priest I have ever spoken to, every Uniate clergyman and cantor I know -- and there have been several of the latter in my family -- call it "Slavonic". The edit comment for the original change was incorrect in this context anyway. "Slavonic" as the name for this language is never taken as referring to the region in Croatia. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

In the academy, this is a matter of British vs. American usage, with the former preferring "Slavonic" and the latter "Slavic". If the article is written according to American orthography and punctuation norms, it should be at "Slavic". Yes, in some eccesiastical contexts you'll see "Slavonic", but I'd prefer the article focus on the linguistic aspects, not liturgical use. CRCulver 01:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I wish that had been made clear in the original edit summary instead of what was said. I generally don't touch issues of English/American orthography. Given that, if you want to put it back I won't argue. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait, I read that backward. I'm in America, born and raised here. If it's called something in academic circles other than what it's called everywhere else in the English-speaking world, I have to admit it's news to me. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to edit this yet again, but I note the article appears to use British orthography otherwise. Although neither style is preferred over the other in Wikipedia, it is preferred that usage be consistent within a single article. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comprehensibility?

How comprehensible are the words of e.g. a Slavonic Liturgy for a modern Slav who has not specifically studied Slavonic? -- 85.182.126.186 23:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is an important and interesting question. Would a person who speaks e.g. Russian be able to understand Church Slavonic? Maybe someone could provide a few sample phrases in Russian and Church Slavonic so that we could get an impression of how strong the differences are? Joreberg (talk) 11:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, when I began studying Slavonic studies in 1967 (University of Graz, Austria) I had do as much Russian as Old Church Slavonic, and each language helped to understand the other. There are, however, lexical and syntactical differences which will prevent a Russian native speaker from fully understandig a Church Slavonic text. Therefore a prayer book (Molitvy i pesnopenia pravoslavnogo molitvoslova, Sankt Peterburg, 1912, reprint Moskva, 1994) gives all prayers, also those to be said privatley, in Church Slavonic (as the really appropriate language to speak to God) with a parallel Russian version. The editor explains, "There is a great number of confessions (prayers) whose meaning will be grasped by the listeners only roughly, but in detail will be explained by everone in his own way and sometimes completely wrong." (Epilogue, p. 338.) --86.33.238.74 (talk) 10:28, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

To me as a native Bulgarian the Church Slavonic language looks like some form of archaic Bulgarian language, something that old people would have used in olden days. So I have no trouble to understand 90% of the meaning of the sentences and 95% of the common words, provided that these are not church "terminology". 92.247.53.89 (talk) 21:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Further work

Note that Church Slavonic does not mean Russian Church Slavonic, and it certainly does not mean Orthodoxy+Cyrillic. The fact that Russian Church Slavonic eventually came to supersede basically all the other local Orthodox Church Slavonic norms does not invalidate their individual centuries-old development, tradition and attested corpus. It would be advisable to separate individual Church Slavonic traditions in the L3 ===X recension=== sections, and if they grow too large, create individual articles like Russian Church Slavonic, Bulgarian Church Slavonic etc. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

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Article is incorrect and mostly refers to Russian Church Slavonic

The article in its current state is largely a mess (also refer to Ivan Štambuk's statement above). The way it is written, it largely refers to the currently extant Russian Church Slavonic, rather than to the range of historical recensions that collectively form Church Slavonic. I would suggest moving the body of the article to a new page called Russian Church Slavonic, and moving the body of the Church Slavonic subsection in Old Church Slavonic here and possibly expanding it. In the absence of any reasonable objections, I hope to have the time to do that in the course of next week. Any interested parties, please holler and give your opinion. VMORO 10:04, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Moreover, for some reason, the Ukrainian variety is considered a variant of the Russian! 176.36.255.126 (talk) 21:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

етеръ

The article describes "етеръ" replaced by "нѣкій" as an example of an ancient pronoun replaced with a newer one. However, this part is not about pronouns, and "етеръ" looks very much like a loanword from Greek (ἕτερος). - Anonimski (talk) 17:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

very informative

this was very insightful and thorough ! thank you for sharing :3 Enervated.clown (talk) 17:31, 5 September 2024 (UTC)