Talk:History of the Slavic languages

proto-slavic people?

if there was a proto-slavic language, then theoretically there was also a proto-slavic people.

There were people speaking a set of closely related dialects that, long after the fact, could be seen to have been the precursors of the Slavic group of languages.--Wetman 08:26, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Common Slavonic?

The references I've seen speak of Early-Proto-Slavic, Proto-Slavic, and Late Proto-Slavic; after that, I would assume that individual Slavic languages began forming (>such as Old Church Slavonic, a literary example of early South eastern Slavic/proto-Bulgarian). Common Slavonic is interchangeable with Late Proto-Slavic (I'll quote Schenker's book which states this), and I suggest that the article Common Slavonic is merged into Proto-Slavic, and Late Proto-Slavic (=Common Slavonic) will soon be further detailed in this article. 007 07:10, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This periodization of Proto-Slavic (PS) is not generally accepted. However, most scholars agree that the PS period lasted for 2,000 years or so. It is impossible that the language would not have been changing for so long. That is why reconstructed forms labelled "Proto-Slavic" are very various indeed (*supnas, *supnu, *sunu and *sъnъ ('a dream' or 'sleeping') can all be termed Proto-Slavic). There is not even the agreement when the period ended. Some give even 600 AD as the final date (after which individual languages existed), others say that OCS (ca. 850 AD) was still a literary form of the latest Proto-Slavic (of course, with strong dialectal, local features). And there do not seem to be any real basics for any periodization of PS. Specialists argue even on relative chronology of some language phenomena (inc. phonetic changes, for example some would see the sequence -as > -us > -uš > -u > -ъ, i.e. first changing and losing of -s, next vowel reduction, while others would assume -as > -us > -ъs > -ъ, i.e. first vowel reduction, then loss of final consonants). And to say nothing of the absolute chronology!

The situation is even more complicated when we took into consideration that most of the literature on the subject is not English and the authors use terms which are not strict renderings for English Proto-Slavic and Common Slavic. In fact, in Slavic languages there exists the term praslavyanski (or silmilar) where pra- means the same as great in great grandfather (= praded or similar). This term should be translated as Old Slavic then. Besides, the term protoslavyanski (=Proto-Slavic) refers - at least in some sources - to the early period of the Slavic language commonwealth (less or more, equal to Schenker's EPS). and finally, the (Russian) term obshcheslavyanski ('Common Slavic', Polish ogólnosłowiański with the same meaning) refers to features which are present in each modern Slavic language rather than to their common ancestor.

Anyway, I see no reasons for keeping two different articles, one on Proto-Slavic, the other for Common-Slavic, whatever these terms mean.

--Grzegorj 12:18, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Common Slavonic

Why the suggested merge of Common Slavonic into this article? If anything, the term "Common Slavonic" is better-known, and I think that language is less theoretical than the earlier hypothesized Proto-Slavic. But what's the reason to merge them, anyway? —Michael Z. 2005-07-13 15:04 Z

They don't necessarily have to be merged (though I recommend that they are), but "Common Slavonic" (though a common term) is simply a less-precise term for Late Proto-Slavic (LPSl). And unless I'm mistaken, Common Slavonic is also unattested and hypothetical, so I don't see the difference. 007 15:07, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So the clear distinction between the early and late is artificial, and they should be merged into one article on Proto-Slavic language? That makes sense. Does this represent a changing view in modern historical linguistics? Perhaps Common Slavonic should remain as a stub which mentions the earlier views of linguists, and refers to the Proto-Slavic article. —Michael Z. 2005-07-13 15:32 Z

There was no change in view: Common Slavonic and LPSl are the same thing, different term. It would be okay if a stub remains, and I guess we need more people to say whether they want to merge or keep a stub. 007 15:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It should be merged. Common Slavonic is the last period of Proto-Slavic language. If LPSl grows as a part of article Proto-Slavic language, then it should be moved to the separate article (and I think that "Common Slavonic" is better term then LPSl). --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:24, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Have two articles for basically the same thing is confusing. Whatever the difference between Proto and Common may be, between Slavic and Slavonic there is none. Very inconvenient. Merge and redirect. --IJzeren Jan 12:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As I have stated above, there is even no clear equivalent of "Common Slavic" in the literature written in Slavic languages (and such an equivalent has hardly ever been used there). Only some (not very numerous) authors distinguish "classic" Proto-Slavic ("praslavyanski") from the earlier period which they call "protoslavyanski". The best thing is to merge both articles and to describe things as they were developing through centuries - rather than to introduce artificial divisions. --Grzegorj 12:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The conviction which stands behind the distinction between Proto-Slavic and Common Slav(on)ic is that until the 10th century Slavs still spoke the same language. How to call that language then? It may not be called "Proto-Slavic", because it has its written form (Old Church Slavonic in the first place), and according to the linguistic naming tradition, the "Proto-" prefix is only used for languages which hasn't been written down and are reconstructed. The term "Common Slav(on)ic" is more appropriate here, because it only implies Slavs spoke one common language.

What language is the language of the Freising manuscripts? It's not Proto-Slavic, because it's written. On the other hand, it would be anachronistic to call that language Slovene. The language is very close to Old Church Slavonic, but can't be named OCS, of course. In cases like this the term "Common Slav(on)ic" seems to be useful. And it was used like this in some Wikipedia articles. So if we decide to merge the articles, we also need to check links to Common Slavonic and eliminate inconsistencies. Boraczek 11:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is an interesting question... but the problem lies only in terminology. Let's assume that we have discovered a text written in Germanic from Ceasar's time, so from the 1st century BC (impossible? why? couldn't the Romans write Germanic texts in their alphabet?). Proto-Germanic is said to be used until the 3rd century AD. And? Should we rename Proto-Germanic into something else, only because of our discovering?

There is a similar problem with Proto-Slavic. Some scholars say that OCS was the literary form of the latest Proto-Slavic. I can see nothing incorrect with this. But proto can mean just common ancestor and not reconstructed. Then Proto-Slavic would be Proto-Slavic independently whether we would accept OCS as the form of Proto-Slavic or not.

And why the language of the Freising manuscripts cannot be named OCS? Indeed, some scholars think just so. See for example W. Mańczak, Wieża Babel, Ossolineum, p. 19.

--Grzegorj 18:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Slavic vs. Slavonic

In the United States at least, 'Slavonic' is rarely encountered in the sense used here, referring only to the Old Church Slavonic version of the Bible, and much more rarely, as an adjective for 'Slavonia' (part of Croatia), or in musical titles, as with Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. British English uses the word more broadly, but even here, it's conforming to US usage. I suggest that 'Slavic' be used in all contexts except for the one I mentioned above.

Slavic has my preference too (but then, who am I?)... --IJzeren Jan 07:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer Slavic, too. But, I noted that schoolar name for OCS is Old Church Slavonic. However, term "Proto-Slavic" should stay with Slavic, because I didn't hear that anyone calls it "Proto-Slavonic". --millosh (talk (sr:)) 15:05, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Slavic is more frequent also in the Internet. Especially, Common Slavonic gives only 545 hits while Common Slavic - 5150. I strongly suggest renaming the article. --Grzegorj 18:38, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Loanwords

I have added some information on loanwords in Slavic. See the external links and the references for the source. --Grzegorj 13:35, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure *kupiti is from Latin, and not the common Germanic word *kaupan, (itself a borrowing from Latin caupo, tho) ?

The entire section is bullshit. I wish I had seen it earlier. Some people - especially Germans prior to and at the time of Hitler had an itch to assign Germanic or any other origin to every Slavic word. They just couldn't accept that the Slavs and Balts were the last branches to remain in the PIE Urheimat after all the rest had departed, hence, they preserved the largest portion of PIE vocabulary intact. Some comments per Vasmer:

gatati 'to divine' - purely Slavic, numerous cognates in all IE branches (e.g., Lith. godóti, Norse gáta, Latin prehendō);
divъ 'demon' - word not recorded in Slavic languages apart from a fringe interpretation of two places in Tale of Igor's Campaign; the same root as Lat. deus/divus, Greek διος, Lith. diẽvas - no need to guess about iranian origin;
bogъ 'God' and *svętъ 'saint, holy' - two of the most problematic words; two schools of thought: one holds these are loans, others - that these are purely Slavic derivations;
nebo 'sky, heaven', *soxa, *čaša - bullshit; these words are purely Slavic;
tjudjь - Slavic per Brandt, Obnorsky, Ilyinsky;
(j)aščerъ - Slavic per everyone;
melko - one of the most contentious issues, either Germanic or Slavic, hard to say;
istъba - not Germanic but Latin, per some scholars (cf. Romanian ехtūfа, It. stufа);
polъ - there were no Celtic or Ugro-Finnic borrowings in Proto-Slavic, hence bullshit;
tynъ and *lēkeis - both borrowed from Germanic people, who may have borrowed them from Celts, but this is another story;
makъ and *olkъtь - Slavic per every reference I've been able to consult;
xyzъ/*xyzja - definitely not Turkic, the same root as English "house";
kъnęga/*kъniga - one of the most mysterious Slavic words (three schools of thought - postulating Germanic, Armenian, or Chinese origin);
braga - from Chuvash, according to the latest research;
sluga - purely Slavic, Celtic origin is Shakhmatov's myth;
proso - dark word, likely from Latin. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of these etymologies are sourced (Schenker's The Dawn of Slavic). Instead of commenting them out entirely, you must represent both sides as per NPOV. Deleting well-sourced academic content is not appreciated here, as you well know. Furthermore, using profanity (you seem to throw around the word "bull****" left and right) is not appropriate on Wikipedia. CRCulver 11:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you even have Schenker's book? Then don't claim that this is unreferenced content. It's right there in the book, which is easily obtainable from any university library. I will take this to RfC if you do not cease. CRCulver 11:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a problem with the section: some words were added by later editors and I don't remember them in Schenker's book. I may get the book from the library myself. Also, many of these etymologies are probably disputed, and we should mention additional ideas regarding them, with citations of course. Alexander 007 19:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Phonology

I have added my translation from Polish Wikipedia. --Grzegorj 18:04, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

About Loanwords

My question is, why need 'kupiti' be from any language? Could this not have simply been a word which Proto-Slavic inherited from its own predecessor? Is it not possible that the other words, sluga, knige, xleb etc. may be natural formations and modernizations of earlier words than borrowed from neighbouring languages? It is already clear that some philosophical words come from Iranian languages but this nearly outstrips the entire language. It looks like Modern Polish, Russian and Serbo-Croat don't have a single word of their own... neologisms are simply corruptions of English in loanword approximation, and traditional words just seem to be borrowed Frank and his friend Herman. Did they not all develop seperately from an earlier language, PIE? Could PIE have not had words such as 'Kupiti' and it not, from where did Frank get his word? Did the Slavs not know how to make bread before Herman explained it? How then do we even know that Slavic was an IE language? I might also ask, what are Frank, Herman and Greco's modern words from these earlier formations? Celtmist 24 February 2006

xleb is definitely a loan from Gothic because it has initial x-, which was the normal reflex of k- and k^- in Germanic but not in Slavic. If it were a native Slavonic word, it would begin with k- or s-. There is a similar explanation behind all of these words. We know Proto-Slavonic was an IE language because it has regular phonological correspondences with other IE languages, and preserves much the same nominal and verbal morphology as them. CRCulver 20:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Crculver. Tell me, could you just explain something to me, in simple English rather than the encyclopaedic talk... what is meant by the 'reflex' of another letter? Does it imply that any word initially starting with 'X' in a Slavic language is of a foreign source? And the other thing is, even if it this is the case, is it not possible that what was K or S could not have yielded to the gutteral continuant (however it is called)? I mean I know of one modern example: The southern reach of the Western Slavic languages tend to have an 'X'-sound where it appears the rest of the Slavic world maintains a 'Γ'/'G' (voiced), the Czech language employs this usage as standard and it also applies to neighbouring Upper Sorbian (of Germany), Slovak, and traditional Southern Polish dialects including Silesian...at least in rural areas and among the older even if the rest of the local speech in now in trawl to Standard Polski...my other observation on which you might comment is that, just as sure as there existed the Indo-European language, the Slavic branch and the Baltic branch (whether together or seperately is still unsure) broke from the branch which included Germanic at a time when it was one of only four IE languages... (I mean when Iranian and Greek were still one, and Celtic and Latin were yet to split), might this not explain certain similarities? My opinion is that it is all too easy in the 21st century to assume that a similarity means Slavic borrowed from Germanic because of the modern difference in prestige. Let's be honest, it is suggested that Old Church Slavic was used some 200 years after Proto-Slavic was last spoken, and way back then I don't think a great many languages were committed to paper. I don't know how early any Germanic dialect was attested but Slavic definitely wasn't in the 7th century. We are left to guess, but I think that the 'malako' of Russian (as a modern example) is hysterical: milk can no more be a 'new' concept than 'day' or 'night' or 'son' or 'mother'...in fact it is probably uttered by a baby as one of her first words. My thoughts would be that Russian Malako and English Milk were natural formations in a language which was predecessor to both...how do I prove this? How does anyone? - I'm also quite interested to know how Knyaz (Prince) and Kniga (book) came from Germanic and what might their modern versions be (or what could they mean) in say, Dutch or Norwegian (or any language). Slavs were not of the barbarian category and there is nothing to suggest that they could not have had such words, even if they meant something else AND were pronounced differently originally... it is known that they were led by Dukes, and so far I havn't seen proof that 'Voyvoda' has been borrowed, but if the article turns out to be true, then sure enough 'voyvodship' may too be an import. Can you shed some light Crculver? (sorry my monologue was a bit long - I have trimmed it, I assure you!) Celt 25 February 2006

If you don't know basic terminology, then you should obtain a textbook on historical linguistics before asking here. I'd also warn against making your own hypotheses ("My thoughts would be...", "I think") if you don't have any training in the field. All of these issues the you ask about are explained in the standard handbooks. See, for example, Lyle Campbell's Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (Boston: MIT Press, 2004). CRCulver 21:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Warn me about what? The thoughts I make are here in the discussion; you havn't seen me make an edit to the article and I have no intention of doing so. However you look at it, no encyclopaedia can be based on solid facts, you have to rely on analysis sometimes... I know roughly what the reflexive is, so how do you come to these conclusions? Celt 26 February 2006

The term "reflex", which you exhort me not to use above, has nothing to do with anything called the "reflexive", so forgive me if I say that you really need basic training in the field. I know you haven't made any negative edits to the article, but you are asking here on the discussion page very basic questions that could be immediately answered if you just got the basic textbooks. Don't take it as an insult, we all have to start with those sometimes. CRCulver 00:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

None taken. It was my error to write "reflex" when meaning reflexive, based on quick typing and no concentration. I've realised what it means now so I won't mention it again...right you are. Celt 28 February 2006

Loanwords, again

I have the Schenker book next to me, and I will begin quoting it tonight and more tomorrow. I will only report what he wrote, so if someone disagrees with his statements, don't have the impression that I necessarily agree with him (I am not in the field of Slavonic linguistics or linguistics even), though this is a fine and current book in the field. For now, here is the first paragraph of section 2.66, Lexical Borrowing [note:I will use Latin script, and I do not have the font for the Cyrillic soft sign, which I will represent with: ']:

The lexical stock of Proto-Slavic includes a number of loan words

from the languages of various tribes and nations who were neighbors of the Slavs. The earliest lexical or semantic borrowings were from the North Iranian languages of the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Alanic tribes. Many of these borrowings had religious connotations, including such terms bog' 'god', div' 'demon', gatati 'to divine', raj' 'paradise', svet' 'holy', as well as the name of the supreme Slavic deity, Svarog However, such non-religious terms as (j)ascer' 'serpent', patriti 'to look after', radi 'for the purpose of', sobaka 'dog', topor' 'axe', xata 'house', xvala 'glory' are also of Iranian origin.

---More quotes to come. Alexander 007 04:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]