Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!spar!ellis From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Slavic languages Message-ID: <349@spar.UUCP> Date: Fri, 21-Jun-85 10:58:02 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.349 Posted: Fri Jun 21 10:58:02 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 07:38:30 EDT References: <921@houxf.UUCP> Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA Lines: 138 >I am in the process of learning Slovak and >I was wondering the following: >(1) Is anyone else interested in discussing it? > >(2) Does anyone have good references to learn >Slovak, or Ukranian? >and >(3) for the purpposes of this group, can anyone relate >the Slavic languages to the Romance languages, when did they >"split" or differentiate? -- R. Switzer Sure. The IndoEuropean language family began splitting around ~2000BC: CENTUM languages SATEM languages greek baltic latin lithuanian,estonian french slavonic portuguese N:great Russian spanish little R=ukrainian italian white Russian rumanian W:czechoslovak celtic polish Q:gaelic wendish P:welsh S:CS->bulgarian breton serbocroat teutonic slovene gothic aryan N:icelandic OPersian -> farsi swedish Sanskrit norwegian hindustani/urdu danish bengali W:Hi:german singhalese Lo:dutch armenian english albanian The division between CENTUM/SATEM is somewhat arbitrary and is based on one of the earliest consonant splits in {k}, as in the word for `hundred' *k'mtom = L centum = Gk he-katon = Skt s'ata = OIr cet = Ger hund = Church Slavonic (CS) suto => Russian sto. Other IE dialect differences could be used to split IE into north/south branches; features shared among teutonic and slavonic groups are: an extra set of adjective endings, and dative plural in -m-. The baltic and slavonic groups have both preserved the IE 8-case system to a remarkable degree, and also share much vocabulary, as well as the verbal infinitive ending -ti. A major slavic innovation is the perfective/imperfective aspect in most verbs, which denotes whether an action is viewed as a single event or continuing over time. The stem slav- is probably from the slavic word slova=`word', in this case implying `those who speak'. Linguistic evidence may suggest a distinct protoslavic tongue as early as 1000BC. Some historians guess that the Slavs settled near eastern Poland several centuries before the christian era prior to a later waves of teutonic invaders between 0-300AD. Tacitus first mentions the Slavs as nomads between the foothills of the Carpathians and the land of the Finns. Later references describe them as unwarlike, ardent farmers. The slavs diffused northeast towards Russia and south towards Bulgaria from ~100-400AD, when the turko-tatar hordes (~400-1200) from asia entered. Today, the geographical extent of the slavic languages is split by Romanians and Hungarians and cut off by Turks to the south. By 600 the identity of the Slavs had disintegrated into at least three groups north, west, and south. Church Slavonic (CS) is earliest literary slavic language, and used an alphabet devised by St. Cyril (Cyrilic) in 918 devised from Greek letters, naturally enough, since he was of East Orthodox Christian presuasion. Though CS is basically Old Bulgarian, it was probably not too different from the dialects to have been easily understood by most Slavs in ~1000. One of the remarkable historical events to impact the Russian branch was a Viking invasion in 862 by the Varingians (ON vaeringjar, R vremennych, Gk barangoi), also called the Rus, who reputedly sailed down the atlantic, thru the mediterranean and black seas and up the Dnieper? river. Russian developed at least four major dialects: north great R, white R, little R, and Muscovite. Little Russian is also known as Ukrainian or Ruthenian. Today's standard Russian derives from a mixture of Muscovite and great Russian. All are today written with cyrilic letters. West slavic is today represented by Polish, Czechoslovak (with its dialects Czech and Slovak). Wendish is also in this group, but I have no idea if it is still spoken, cut off as they (are,were) by German speaking people. Polish, Czech and Slovak are all written in roman characters, due to the predominately Catholic faith traditionally in those regions. South Slavic languages are Bulgarian, and the languages of Yugoslavia, Slovene and Serbocroatian (with its dialects Serb and Croatian). Bulgarian has evolved the furthest of any slavic language, having lost its case system. Croatian and Slovene use the roman alphabet, Bulgarian and Serbian the cyrilic. I'd guess that the difference in alphabets was likewise according to traditional religious allegiance to either western or eastern christian churches. Here's a crude linguistic map taken from a ~1935 text showing the approximate extent of the various slavic languages. Things may be somewhat different today.. GGGGGGGGGGGGGG G=Great Russian Baltic / GGGGGGGGGGGGGG M=Muscovite / Baltic GGGGGGGGGGGGGG W=White Russian ^^^^^^^' Languages GGGGMMMMGGGGGG w=Wendish w WWWWWWWGGGGMMMMGGGGGG P=Polish PPPP WWWWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGGGGGG C=Czech PPPPPPPPPPWWWWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGGGGGG S=Slovak Germany PPPPPPPPPPPPWWWWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGGGGGG s=Slovene PPPPPPPPPPPPPPWWWWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGGGGGG c=SerboCroatian PPPPPPPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUWWWUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGG B=Bulgarian w PPPPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG w PPPPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG PPPPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG CCCCCCCCCPPPPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG CCCCCCCCCCCSSSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG CCCCCCCCCCCSSSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG SSSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGG Hungary UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU ssssss UUUUUUUUUUUU ssssssssc Rumania / / ccccccccccccc / / ccccccccccccc / Black \ cccccccccccccccBBBBBBBBBBBBBB Sea \ cccccccccccccBBBBBBBBBBB \ cccccccccBBBBBBBBBBB \ BBBBBBBBBB^^^^ \ BBBBBB \ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ \ \ / Greece | Turkey -michael