Old Church Slavonic

The oldest texts written in Slavic languages are actually not Slavic at all, but translations of the Bible and other religious material into a language that was called Old Church Slavonic. This language was primarily a written language, developed by missionaries in the 9th century expressly to translate the bible. A somewhat updated version is still used by the modern church today in Slavic areas of the world.

Of course, since it is primarily a written language, there are differences between it and the dialects of Slavonic that it was based on. This is true for any written language, because writing by nature is different from speaking, even beyond the fact that one uses sounds and the other uses symbols. Writing is pre-meditated. It allows for deliberation and planning as well as revision. Written sentences are generally complete sentences. Spoken sentences tend to be shorter than written ones and often fragment. They include hesitation noises, slurred words, repetitions, and sudden changes in tense, person, topic, or whatever else. Written sentences have to be clear and self-contained, but spoken language allows for elaboration and explanation. Spoken language accompanies vocal tone and body language, while written does not. I took an English usage class over the summer (what most of us would think of as grammar--the difference between can and may and such things), and for each "grammar rule" that we learned we also learned when it is socially acceptable to "break" the grammar rule. Our teacher taught us that most of the rules should be followed in formal writing, but almost anything is acceptable in speech, even in formal situations.

All of our historical information about languages is solely written, at least everything before Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonoautograph in the middle of the 19th century. This colors our view of the languages, and I think that it is important to remember, when you are reading Homer or Virgil, that these examples of the language are not typical. People didn't go around the house washing their dishes or sweeping the floor while spouting perfect Latin in dactylic hexameter. Latin, Greek, the language that Old Church Slavonic was based on--these weren't always the high, classical languages that they are viewed as today. People spoke to their babies. People spoke them to the beggars in the streets. Congratulations, a 10-year-old street urchin from thousands of years ago speaks Latin better than you ever will, and he doesn't even have to think about it.

Despite the differences, though, there are a lot of things that can be learned about an oral language from a written one, especially by way of the general structure of the language. I'll return to my topic of the Slavic languages. One of the defining features of Slavic languages is that, unlike most other Indo-European languages, they have, on the whole, not lost their high level of inflection. Inflection, when we are talking about linguistics, means changes in a word, often a word ending, to express grammatical function*. For example, English is only weakly inflected, but we still have the noun inflections car, cars, and car's; the verb inflections ride, rides, rode, riding, ridden ; and the adjective inflections big, bigger, and biggest. Slavic languages have many more inflections. We know from writing that Old Church Slavonic had 7 cases, 3 genders (male, female, neuter), 3 numbers (single, dual, plural), a variety of tenses, and a smattering of other inflections. This was almost definitely true in speech as well. Because of this, word order was quite free, and words were generally arranged by importance (more important words first), rather than grammatical function.

I found this lovely little website that provides lessons to learn Old Church Slavonic. It also contains word-by-word analysis of a handful of scriptures. I thought I would post one here. Unfortunately, I can't write the Slavonic words phonetically, but this gives you an idea of the structure of the language.

Matthew 5:7 -- Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

блажєни милостивиі ѣко ти помиловани бѫдѫтъ |

• блажєни -- adjective; nominative plural masculine of <блажєнъ> blessed -- blessed (are)

• милостивиі -- adjective; nominative plural masculine of <милостивъ> compassionate, full of grace -- the merciful

• ѣко -- conjunction; <јако> as, when; in order to; that; because; (introduces quotation) -- for

• ти -- demonstrative pronoun; nominative plural masculine of <тъ> that, that one -- they

• помиловани -- verb; past passive participle; nominative plural masculine of <помиловати, -лѹѭ, -лѹѥши> pity, have mercy on -- obtain mercy

• бѫдѫтъ -- verb; 3rd person plural present of <бъіти, бѫдѫ, бѫдєши> be, become -- shall