Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic
ⰔⰎⰑⰂⰡⰐⰠⰔⰍⰟ словѣ́ньскъ ѩзꙑ́къ slověnĭskŭ językŭ
Native to	formerly in Slavic areas, under the influence of Byzantium (both Catholic and Orthodox)
Region	Eastern Europe
Era	9th–11th centuries; then evolved into several variants of Church Slavonic
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Old Church Slavonic
Writing system	Glagolitic, Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-1	cu (with Church Slavonic)
ISO 639-2	chu
ISO 639-3	chu (with Church Slavonic)
Glottolog	chur1257  (Church Slavic)
Linguasphere	53-AAA-a

Old Church Slavonic (pronunciation: /sləˈvɒnɪk/, /slæˈ-/), also known as Old Church Slavic (/ˈslɑːvɪk, ˈslæ-/; often abbreviated to OCS; self-name словѣ́ньскъ ѩзꙑ́къ, slověnĭskŭ językŭ), was the first Slavic literary language. The 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius of Slavic, Greek descent, or both, are credited with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek ecclesiastical texts as part of the Christianisation of the Slavic peoples. It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica (now in Greece). It played an important role in the history of the Slavic languages and served as a basis and model for later Church Slavonic traditions, and some Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches use this later Church Slavonic as a liturgical language to this day. As the oldest attested Slavic language, OCS provides important evidence for the features of Proto-Slavic, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Slavic languages.

History

A page from the Flowery Triod (Triod' cvetnaja) from about 1491, one of the oldest printed Byzantine-Slavonic books, National Library of Poland.

The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia in 863 (see Glagolitic alphabet for details). For that purpose, Cyril and his brother Methodius started to translate religious literature to Old Church Slavonic, allegedly based on Slavic dialects spoken in the hinterland of their home-town, Thessaloniki, in the today's Greece.

As part of the preparation for the mission, in 862/863, the Glagolitic alphabet was created and the most important prayers and liturgical books, including the Aprakos Evangeliar (a Gospel Book lectionary containing only feast-day and Sunday readings), the Psalter, and Acts of the Apostles, were translated. (The Gospels were also translated early, but it is unclear whether Sts. Cyril or Methodius had a hand in this). The language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy (Slovak: Veľkomoravské učilište) and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia.

In 885, the use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by Pope Stephen V in favour of Latin. Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet to Bulgaria. There it was taught at two literary schools: the Preslav Literary School and the Ohrid Literary School. The Glagolitic script was originally used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School where it superseded Glagolitic. The texts written during this era exhibit certain linguistic features of the vernaculars of the First Bulgarian Empire (see Basis and local influences below). Old Church Slavonic spread to other South-Eastern and Eastern European Slavic territories, most notably to Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Bohemia, Lesser Poland, and principalities of the Kievan Rus' while retaining characteristically South Slavic linguistic features. Later texts written in each of those territories then began to take on characteristics of the local Slavic vernaculars and, by the mid-11th century, Old Church Slavonic had diversified into a number of regional varieties. These local varieties are collectively known as the Church Slavonic language.

Apart from the Slavic countries, Old Church Slavonic has been used as a liturgical language by the Romanian Orthodox Church, as well as a literary and official language of the princedoms of Wallachia and Moldavia (see Old Church Slavonic in Romania), before gradually being replaced by Romanian during the 18th to 19th centuries. Church Slavonic maintained a prestigious 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 substantially less divergent from the vernacular tongues of average parishioners. Some Orthodox churches, such as the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Macedonian Orthodox Church, as well as several Eastern Catholic churches, still use Church Slavonic in their services and chants today.

Script

Initially Old Church Slavonic was written with the Glagolitic alphabet, but later Glagolitic was replaced by Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire by a decree of Boris I of Bulgaria in the 9th century. In Bosnia was preserved the local Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet, while in Croatia a variant of the Glagolitic alphabet was preserved. See Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the sounds it originally expressed.

Phonology

For Old Church Slavonic the following segments are reconstructible. The sounds are given in Slavic transliterated form rather than in IPA, as the exact realisation is uncertain and often differed depending on the area that a text originated from.

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	p b	t d		k g
Affricate		t͡s d͡z	t͡ʃ
Fricative		s z	ʃ ʒ	x
Nasal	m	n	nʲ
Lateral		l	lʲ
Trill		r	rʲ
Approximant	v		j

• The letter щ denoted different sounds in different dialects and is not shown in the table. In Bulgaria, it represented the sequence /ʃt/, and it is normally transliterated as št for that reason. Further west and north, it was probably /c(ː)/ or /tɕ/ like in modern Macedonian, Torlakian and Serbian/Croatian.
• /dz/ appears mostly in early texts, becoming /z/ later on.
• The distinction between l, n and r on one hand, and palatal l', n' and r' on the other is not always indicated in writing. When it is, it is shown by a kamora diacritic over the letter.

Vowels

Oral vowels Front unrounded Back unrounded Back Rounded i ɯ u ь/ɪ ъ/ɨ e o ɛ a

Nasal vowels Front Back ẽ õ

• Accent is not indicated in writing and must be inferred from later languages and from reconstructions of Proto-Slavic.
• The pronunciation of yat ě differed by area. In Bulgaria it was a relatively open vowel, commonly reconstructed as /æ/, but further north its pronunciation was more closed and it eventually became a diphthong /je/ or even /i/ in many areas.
• The yer vowels ĭ and ŭ are often called "ultrashort" and were lower, more centralised and shorter than their counterparts i and y/u. They disappeared in most positions in the word, already sporadically in the earliest texts but more frequently later on. They also tended to merge with other vowels, particularly ĭ with e and ŭ with o, but differently in different areas.
• The exact articulation of the nasal vowels is unclear because different areas tend to merge them with different vowels. ę is occasionally seen to merge with e or ě in South Slavic, but becomes ja early on in East Slavic. ǫ generally merges with u or o, but in Bulgaria, ǫ was apparently unrounded and eventually merged with ŭ.

Phonotactics

Several notable constraints on the distribution of the phonemes can be identified, mostly resulting from the tendencies occurring within the Common Slavic period, such as intrasyllabic synharmony and the law of open syllables. For consonant and vowel clusters and for sequences of a consonant and a vowel, the following constraints can be ascertained:

• two adjacent consonants tend not to share identical features of manner of articulation
• no syllable ends in a consonant
• every obstruent agrees in voicing with the following obstruent
• velars do not occur before front vowels
• phonetically palatalized consonants do not occur before certain back vowels
• the back vowels /y/ and /ъ/ as well as front vowels other than /i/ do not occur word-initially: the two back vowels take prothetic /v/ and the front vowels prothetic /j/. Initial /a/ may take either prothetic consonant or none at all.
• vowel sequences are attested in only one lexeme (paǫčina 'spider's web') and in the suffixes /aa/ and /ěa/ of the imperfect
• at morpheme boundaries, the following vowel sequences occur: /ai/, /au/, /ao/, /oi/, /ou/, /oo/, /ěi/, /ěo/

Morphophonemic alternations

As a result of the first and the second Slavic palatalizations, velars alternate with dentals and palatals. In addition, as a result of a process usually termed iotation (or iodization), velars and dentals alternate with palatals in various inflected forms and in word formation.

Alternations in velar consonants

original	/k/	/g/	/x/	/sk/	/zg/	/sx/
first palatalization and iotation	/č/	/ž/	/š/	/št/	/žd/	/š/
second palatalization	/c/	/dz/	/s/	/sc/, /st/	/zd/	/sc/

Alternations in other consonants

original	/b/	/p/	/sp/	/d/	/zd/	/t/	/st/	/z/	/s/	/l/	/sl/	/m/	/n/	/sn/	/zn/	/r/	/tr/	/dr/
iotation	/bl'/	/pl'/		/žd/	/žd/	/št/	/št/	/ž/	/š/	/l'/	/šl'/	/ml'/	/n'/	/šn'/	/žn'/	/r'/	/štr'/	/ždr'/

In some forms the alternations of /c/ with /č/ and of /dz/ with /ž/ occur, in which the corresponding velar is missing. The dental alternants of velars occur regularly before /ě/ and /i/ in the declension and in the imperative, and somewhat less regularly in various forms after /i/, /ę/, /ь/ and /r^ь/. The palatal alternants of velars occur before front vowels in all other environments, where dental alternants do not occur, as well as in various places in inflection and word formation described below.

As a result of earlier alternations between short and long vowels in roots in Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic times, and of the fronting of vowels after palatalized consonants, the following vowel alternations are attested in OCS: /ь/ : /i/;   /ъ/ : /y/ : /u/;   /e/ : /ě/ : /i/;   /o/ : /a/;   /o/ : /e/;   /ě/ : /a/;   /ъ/ : /ь/;   /y/ : /i/;   /ě/ : /i/;   /y/ : /ę/.

Vowel:∅ alternations sometimes occurred as a result of sporadic loss of weak yer, which later occurred in almost all Slavic dialects. The phonetic value of the corresponding vocalized strong jer is dialect-specific.

Grammar

Main article: Old Church Slavonic grammar

As an ancient Indo-European language, OCS has a highly inflective morphology. Inflected forms are divided in two groups - nominals and verbs. Nominals are further divided into nouns, adjectives and pronouns. Numerals inflect either as nouns or pronouns, with one through four also showing gender agreement.

Nominals can be declined in three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), three numbers (singular, plural, dual) and seven cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, genitive, and locative. There are five basic inflectional classes for nouns: o/jo-stems, a/ja-stems, i-stems, u-stems and consonant stems. Forms throughout the inflectional paradigm usually exhibit morphophonemic alternations. Fronting of vowels after palatals and j yielded dual inflectional class o : jo and a : ja, whereas palatalizations affected stem as a synchronic process (N sg. vlьkъ, V sg. vlьče; L sg. vlьcě). Productive classes are o/jo-, a/ja- and i-stems. Sample paradigms are given in the table below.

Sample declensional classes for nouns

		Singular							Dual			Plural
Gloss	Stem type	Nom	Voc	Acc	Gen	Loc	Dat	Instr	Nom/Voc/Acc	Gen/Loc	Dat/Instr	Nom/Voc	Acc	Gen	Loc	Dat	Instr
"city"	o m.	gradъ	grade	gradъ	grada	gradě	gradu	gradomь	grada	gradu	gradoma	gradi	grady	gradъ	graděxъ	gradomъ	grady
"knife"	jo m.	nožь	nožu	nožь	noža	noži	nožu	nožemь	noža	nožu	nožema	noži	nožę	nožь	nožixъ	nožemъ	noži
"wolf"	o m	vlьkъ	vlьče	vlьkъ	vlьka	vlьcě	vlьku	vlьkomь	vlьka	vlьku	vlьkoma	vlьci	vlьky	vlьkъ	vlьcěxъ	vlьkomъ	vlьky
"wine"	o n.	vino	vino	vino	vina	vině	vinu	vinomь	vině	vinu	vinoma	vina	vina	vinъ	viněxъ	vinomъ	viny
"field"	jo n.	polje	polje	polje	polja	polji	polju	poljemь	polji	polju	poljema	polja	polja	poljь	poljixъ	poljemъ	polji
"woman"	a f.	žena	ženo	ženǫ	ženy	ženě	ženě	ženojǫ	ženě	ženu	ženama	ženy	ženy	ženъ	ženaxъ	ženamъ	ženami
"soul"	ja f.	duša	duše	dušǫ	dušę	duši	duši	dušejǫ	duši	dušu	dušama	dušę	dušę	dušь	dušaxъ	dušamъ	dušami
"hand"	a f.	rǫka	rǫko	rǫkǫ	rǫky	rǫcě	rǫcě	rǫkojǫ	rǫcě	rǫku	rǫkama	rǫky	rǫky	rǫkъ	rǫkaxъ	rǫkamъ	rǫkami
"bone"	i f.	kostь	kosti	kostь	kosti	kosti	kosti	kostьjǫ	kosti	kostьju	kostьma	kosti	kosti	kostьjь	kostьxъ	kostъmъ	kostъmi
"home"	u m.	domъ	domu	domъ/-a	domu	domu	domovi	domъmь	domy	domovu	domъma	domove	domy	domovъ	domъxъ	domъmъ	domъmi

Adjectives are inflected as o/jo-stems (masculine and neuter) and a/ja-stems (feminine), in three genders. They could have short (indefinite) or long (definite) variants, the latter being formed by suffixing to the indefinite form the anaphoric third-person pronoun jь.

Synthetic verbal conjugation is expressed in present, aorist and imperfect tenses, while perfect, pluperfect, future and conditional tenses/moods are made by combining auxiliary verbs with participles or synthetic tense forms. Sample conjugation for the verb vesti "to lead" (underlyingly ved-ti) is given in the table below.

Sample conjugation of the verb vesti "to lead"

person/number	Present	Asigmatic (simple, root) aorist	Sigmatic (s-) aorist	New (ox) aorist	Imperfect	Imperative
1 sg.	vedǫ	vedъ	věsъ	vedoxъ	veděaxъ
2 sg.	vedeši	vede	vede	vede	veděaše	vedi
3 sg.	vedetъ	vede	vede	vede	veděaše	vedi
1 dual	vedevě	vedově	věsově	vedoxově	veděaxově	veděvě
2 dual	vedeta	vedeta	věsta	vedosta	veděašeta	veděta
3 dual	vedete	vedete	věste	vedoste	veděašete
1 plural	vedemъ	vedomъ	věsomъ	vedoxomъ	veděaxomъ	veděmъ
2 plural	vedete	vedete	věste	vedoste	veděašete	veděte
3 plural	vedǫtъ	vedǫ	věsę	vedošę	veděaxǫ

Basis and local influences

Written evidence of Old Church Slavonic survives in a relatively small body of manuscripts, most of them written in First Bulgarian Empire during the late 10th and the early 11th centuries. The language has a Southern Slavic basis with an admixture of Western Slavic features inherited during the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia (863–885). The only well-preserved manuscript of the Moravian recension, the Kiev Folia, is characterised by the replacement of some Southern Slavic phonetic and lexical features with Western Slavic ones. Manuscripts written in the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396) have, on the other hand, few Western Slavic features.

Old Church Slavonic is valuable to historical linguists since it preserves archaic features believed to have once been common to all Slavic languages. Such features include:

• Most significantly, the yer (extra-short) vowels: /ĭ/ and /ŭ/
• Nasal vowels: /ɛ̃/ and /ɔ̃/
• Near-open articulation of the yat vowel (/æ/)
• Palatal consonants /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ from Proto-Slavic *ň and *ľ
• Proto-Slavic declension system based on stem endings, including those that later disappeared in attested languages (e.g. u-stems)
• Dual as a distinct grammatical number from singular and plural
• Aorist, imperfect, Proto-Slavic paradigms for participles

Old Church Slavonic is also likely to have preserved an extremely archaic type of accentuation (probably close to the Chakavian dialect of modern Serbo-Croatian), but unfortunately no accent marks appear in the written manuscripts.

The Southern Slavic nature of the language is evident from the following variations:

• Phonetic:
  • ra > /la/ by means of liquid metathesis of Proto-Slavic *or, *ol clusters
  • sě from Proto-Slavic *xě < *xai
  • cv, (d)zv from Proto-Slavic *kvě, *gvě < *kvai, *gvai
• morphosyntactic use of the dative possessive case in personal pronouns and nouns: 'рѫка ти' (rǫka ti, "your hand"), 'отъпоущенье грѣхомъ' (otŭpuštenĭje grěxomŭ, "remission of sins"); periphrastic future tense using the verb 'хотѣти' (xotěti, "to want"); use of the comparative form 'мьнии' (mĭniji, "smaller") to denote "younger".
  • morphosyntactic use of suffixed demonstrative pronouns 'тъ, та, то' (tŭ, ta, to). In Bulgarian and Macedonian these developed into suffixed definite articles.

Old Church Slavonic has some extra features in common with Bulgarian:

• Near-open articulation [æ] of the Yat vowel (ě); still preserved in the Bulgarian dialects of the Rhodope mountains;
• The existence of /ʃt/ and /ʒd/ as reflexes of Proto-Slavic *ť (< *tj and *gt, *kt) and *ď (< *dj).
• Use of possessive dative for personal pronouns and nouns, as in 'братъ ми' (bratŭ mi, "my brother"), 'рѫка ти' (rǫka ti, "your hand"), 'отъпоущенье грѣхомъ' (otŭpuštenĭje grěxomŭ, "remission of sins"), 'храмъ молитвѣ' (xramŭ molitvě, 'house of prayer'), etc.
• Periphrastic compound future tense formed with the auxiliary verb 'хотѣти' (xotěti, "to want"), for example 'хоштѫ писати' (xoštǫ pisati, "I will write").

Proto-Slavic	OCS	Bulg.	Czech	Maced.	Pol.	Rus.	Slovak	Sloven.	Cro./Serb.
*dʲ	ʒd	ʒd	z	ɟ	dz	ʑ	dz	j	dʑ
*ɡt/kt, *tʲ	ʃt	ʃt	ts	c	ts	tɕ	ts	tʃ	tɕ

Great Moravia

The language was standardized for the first time by the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia from 863. The manuscripts of the Moravian recension are therefore the earliest dated of the OCS recensions. The recension takes its name from the Slavic state of Great Moravia which existed in Central Europe during the 9th century on the territory of today's western Slovakia and Czech Republic.

Moravian recension

In the Prague fragments the only Moravian influence is replacing /ʃt/ with /ts/ and /ʒd/ with /z/. This recension is exemplified by the Kiev Folia. Certain other linguistic characteristics include:

• confusion between the letters Big yus (Ѫ) and Uk (оу) - this occurs once in the Kiev Folia, when the expected form въсоудъ vъsudъ is spelled въсѫдъ vъsǫdъ
• /ts/ from Proto-Slavic *tj, use of /dz/ from *dj, /ʃtʃ/ *skj
• use of the words mьša, cirky, papežь, prěfacija, klepati, piskati etc.
• preservation of the consonant cluster /dl/ (e.g. modlitvami)
• use of the ending –ъmь instead of –omь in the masculine singular instrumental, use of the pronoun čьso

First Bulgarian Empire

Map of the First Bulgarian Empire with its literary centres, the places where the two earliest revisions of Old Church Slavonic were developed along with Cyrillic

Old Church Slavonic developed in the First Bulgarian Empire and was taught in Preslav (Bulgarian capital between 893 and 972), and in Ohrid (Bulgarian capital between 991/997 and 1015). It didn't represent one regional dialect but a generalized form of early eastern South Slavic, which cannot be localized. The existence of two major literary centres in the Empire led in the period from the 9th to the 11th centuries to the emergence of two recensions (otherwise called "redactions"), termed "Bulgarian" and "Macedonian" respectively. Some researchers do not differentiate between manuscripts of the two recensions, preferring to group them together in a "Macedo-Bulgarian" or simply "Bulgarian" recension. Others, as Horace Lunt, have changed their opinion with time. Initially Lunt (1974:5-6) stated that the differences in the initial OCS were neither great, nor consistent to oppose the Macedonian from the Bulgarian recension. However, a decade later Lunt (1985:202) seems to conceive OCS and its "adjustments" in somewhat different terms, that a Macedonian and a Bulgarian variety of OCS existed, illustrating his point with paleographic, phonological and other differences. The development of Old Church Slavonic literacy had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the South Slavs into neighboring cultures, which promoted the formation of a distinct Bulgarian identity.

Bulgarian recension

The manuscripts of the Bulgarian recension or "Eastern" variant are among the oldest of the Old Church Slavonic language. This recension was centred around the Preslav Literary School. Since the earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions were found in the area of Preslav, it is this school which is credited with the development of the Cyrillic alphabet which gradually replaced the Glagolic one. A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at the Preslav Literary School, including Naum of Preslav (until 893), Constantine of Preslav, John Exarch, Chernorizets Hrabar, etc. The main linguistic features of this recension are the following:

• The Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets were used concurrently.
• In some documents the original supershort vowels ъ and ь merged with one letter taking the place of the other.
• The original ascending reflex (rь, lь) of syllabic /r/ and /l/ was sometimes metathesized to ьr, ьl; or a combination of the ordering was used.
• The central vowel ы y merged with ъи ъi.
• Sometimes the use of letter ⟨Ѕ⟩ (/dz/) was merged with that of ⟨З⟩ (/z/).
• The verb forms нарицаѭ, нарицаѥши (naricajǫ, naricaješi) were substituted or alternated with наричꙗѭ, наричꙗеши (naričjajǫ, naričjaješi).

Macedonian recension

The manuscripts of the Macedonian recension or "Western" variant are among the oldest of the Old Church Slavonic language. The recension is sometimes named Macedonian because its literary centre, Ohrid, lies in the historical region of Macedonia. At that period, administratively Ohrid formed part of the province of Kutmichevitsa in the First Bulgarian Empire until the Byzantine conquest. The main literary centre of this dialect was the Ohrid Literary School, whose most prominent member and most likely founder, was Saint Clement of Ohrid who was commissioned by Boris I of Bulgaria to teach and instruct the future clergy of the state in the Slavonic language. The language variety that was used in the area started shaping the modern Macedonian dialects. This recension is represented by the Codex Zographensis and Marianus, among others. The main linguistic features of this recension include:

• continuous usage of the Glagolitic alphabet instead of Cyrillic
• a feature called "mixing (confusion) of the nasals" in which /ɔ̃/ became [ɛ̃] after /rʲ lʲ nʲ/, and in a cluster of a labial consonant and /lʲ/. /ɛ̃/ became [ɔ̃] after sibilant consonants and /j/
• wide use of the soft consonant clusters /ʃt/ and /ʒd/; in the later stages, these developed into the modern Macedonian phonemes /c/ /ɟ/
• strict distinction in the articulation of the yers and their vocalisation in strong position (ъ > /o/ and ь > /e/) or deletion in weak position
• confusion of /ɛ̃/ with yat and yat with /e/
• denasalization in the latter stages: /ɛ̃/ > /e/ and /ɔ̃/ > /a/, оу, ъ
• wider usage and retention of the phoneme /dz/ (which in most other Slavic languages has dеaffricated to /z/);

Later recensions

Main article: Church Slavonic

Later use of the language in a number of medieval Slavic polities resulted in the adjustment of Old Church Slavonic to the local vernacular, though a number of Southern Slavic, Moravian or Bulgarian features also survived. Significant later recensions of Old Church Slavonic (referred to as Church Slavonic) in the present time include: Slovene, Croatian, Serbian and Russian. In all cases, denasalization of the yuses occurred; so that only Old Church Slavonic, modern Polish and some isolated Bulgarian dialects retained the old Slavonic nasal vowels.

Serbian recension

The Serbian recension was written mostly in Cyrillic, but also in the Glagolitic alphabet (depending on region); by the 12th century the Serbs used exclusively the Cyrillic alphabet (and Latin script in coastal areas). The 1186 Miroslav Gospels belong to the Serbian recension. They feature the following linguistic characteristics:

• nasal vowels were denasalised and in one case closed: *ę > e, *ǫ > u, e.g. OCS rǫka > Sr. ruka ("hand"), OCS językъ > Sr. jezik ("tongue, language")
• extensive use of diacritical signs by the Resava dialect
• use of letters i, y for the sound /i/ in other manuscripts of the Serbian recension

Due to the annexation of Bulgaria in 1396 and to the Ottoman conquest of Serbia in 1459, Serbia saw an influx of educated refugee-scribes who re-introduced a more classical form - as in manuscripts of the Bulgarian recension.

Russian recension

The Russian recension emerged after the 10th century on the basis of the earlier Bulgarian recension, from which it differed slightly. Its main features are:

• substitution of the nasal sound /õ/ with [u]
• merging of letters ę and ja

Middle Bulgarian

The line between OCS and post-OCS manuscripts is arbitrary, and terminology varies. The common term "Middle Bulgarian" is usually contrasted to "Old Bulgarian" (an alternative name for Old Church Slavonic), and loosely used for manuscripts whose language demonstrates a broad spectrum of regional and temporal dialect features after the 11th century.

Bosnian recension

The Bosnian recension used the Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet (better known as Bosančica) and the Glagolitic alphabet.

• use of letters i, y, ě for the sound /i/ in Bosnian manuscripts

Croatian recension

The Croatian recension of Old Church Slavonic used only the Glagolitic alphabet of angular Croatian type. It shows the development of the following characteristics:

• de-nasalisation of PSl. *ę > e, PSl. *ǫ > u, e.g. Cr. ruka : OCS rǫka ("hand"), Cr. jezik : OCS językъ ("tongue, language")
• PSl. *y > i, e.g. Cr. biti : OCS byti ("to be")
• PSl. weak-positioned yers *ъ and *ь in merged, probably representing some schwa-like sound, and only one of the letters was used (usually 'ъ'). Evident in earliest documents like Baška tablet.
• PSl. strong-positioned yers *ъ and *ь were vocalized into a in most Štokavian and Čakavian speeches, e.g. Cr. pas : OCS pьsъ ("dog")
• PSl. hard and soft syllabic liquids *r and r′ retained syllabicity and were written as simply r, as opposed to OCS sequences of mostly rь and rъ, e.g. krstъ and trgъ as opposed to OCS krьstъ and trъgъ ("cross", "market")
• PSl. #vьC and #vъC > #uC, e.g. Cr. udova : OCS. vъdova ("widow")

Canon

The core corpus of Old Church Slavonic manuscripts is usually referred to as canon. Manuscripts must satisfy certain linguistic, chronological and cultural criteria to be incorporated into the canon, i.e. they must not significantly depart from the language and tradition of Constantine and Methodius, usually known as the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition.

For example, the Freising Fragments, dating from the 10th century, do show some linguistic and cultural traits of Old Church Slavonic, but are usually not included in the canon as some of the phonological features of the writings appear to belong to certain Pannonian Slavic dialect of the period. Similarly, the Ostromir Gospels exhibits dialectal features that classify it as East Slavic, rather than South Slavic, so it is not included in the canon either. On the other hand, the Kiev Missal is included in the canon, even though it manifests some West Slavic features and contains Western liturgy, due to the Bulgarian linguistic layer and connection to the Moravian mission.

Manuscripts are usually classified in two groups, depending on the alphabet used, Cyrillic or Glagolitic. With the exception of the Kiev Missal and Glagolita Clozianus which exhibit West-Slavic and Croatian features respectively, all Glagolitic texts are assumed to be of the Macedonian recension:

• Kiev Missal (Ki, KM), seven folios, late 10th century
• Codex Zographensis, (Zo), 288 folios, 10th or 11th century
• Codex Marianus (Mar), 173 folios, early 11th century
• Codex Assemanius (Ass), 158 folios, early 11th century
• Psalterium Sinaiticum (Pas, Ps. sin.), 177 folios, 11th century
• Euchologium Sinaiticum (Eu, Euch), 109 folios, 11th century
• Glagolita Clozianus (Clo, Cloz), 14 folios, 11th century
• Ohrid Folios (Ohr), 2 folios, 11th century
• Rila Folios (Ri, Ril), 2 folios and 5 fragments, 11th century

All Cyrillic manuscripts are of the Bulgarian recension and date from the 11th century, except for Zographos Fragments which is of the Macedonian recension:

• Sava's book (Sa, Sav), 126 folios
• Codex Suprasliensis, (Supr), 284 folios
• Enina Apostle (En, Enin), 39 folios
• Hilandar Folios (Hds, Hil), 2 folios
• Undol'skij's Fragments (Und), 2 folios
• Macedonian Folio (Mac), 1 folio
• Zographos Fragments (Zogr. Fr.), 2 folios
• Sluck Psalter (Ps. Sl., Sl), 5 folios

Example text

The Lord's prayer in Old Church Slavonic:

Cyrillic	Transliteration	Translation
Отьчє нашь· ижє ѥси на нєбєсѣхъ: да свѧтитъ сѧ имѧ Твоѥ· да придєтъ цѣсар҄ьствиѥ Твоѥ· да бѫдєтъ волꙗ Твоꙗ ꙗко на нєбєси и на ꙁємл҄и: хлѣбъ нашь насѫщьнꙑи даждь намъ дьньсь· и отъпоусти намъ длъгꙑ нашѧ ꙗко и мꙑ отъпоущаѥмъ длъжьникомъ нашимъ· и нє въвєди насъ въ искоушєниѥ· нъ иꙁбави нꙑ отъ нєприꙗꙁни: ꙗко твоѥ ѥстъ цѣсар҄ьствиѥ и сила и слава въ вѣкꙑ вѣкомъ Аминь჻	Otĭče našĭ iže jesi na nebesěxŭ. da svętitŭ sę imę Tvoje da pridetŭ cěsar'ĭstvije Tvoje da bǫdetŭ volja Tvoja jako na nebesi i na zeml'i. xlěbŭ našĭ nasǫštĭnyi daždĭ namŭ dĭnĭsĭ i otŭpusti namŭ dlŭgy našę jako i my otŭpuštajemŭ dlŭžĭnikomŭ našimŭ i ne vŭvedi nasŭ vŭ iskušenije nŭ izbavi ny otŭ neprijazni. jako tvoje jestŭ cěsar'ĭstvije i sila i slava vŭ věky věkomŭ Aminĭ.	Our father thou who art in heaven. may hallowed be Thy name may come Thy empire may become Thy will as in heaven and on earth. our daily bread give us daily and release us of our debts as we also release our debtors and do not lead us to temptation but free us from evil. as Thine is the empire and the power and the glory for all time Amen.

Authors

The history of Old Church Slavonic writing includes a northern tradition begun by the mission to Great Moravia, including a short mission in the Balaton principality, and a Bulgarian tradition begun by some of the missionaries who relocated to Bulgaria after the expulsion from Great Moravia.

Old Church Slavonic's first writings, translations of Christian liturgical and Biblical texts, were produced by Byzantine missionaries Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, mostly during their mission to Great Moravia.

The most important authors in Old Church Slavonic after the death of Methodius and the dissolution of the Great Moravian academy were Clement of Ohrid (active also in Great Moravia), Constantine of Preslav, Chernorizetz Hrabar and John Exarch, all of whom worked in medieval Bulgaria at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century. The Second Book of Enoch was only preserved in Old Church Slavonic, although the original most certainly had been Greek or even Hebrew or Aramaic.

Nomenclature

The name of the language in Old Church Slavonic texts was simply Slavic (словѣ́ньскъ ѩзꙑ́къ, slověnĭskŭ językŭ), derived from the word for Slavs (словѣ́нє, slověne), the self-designation of the compilers of the texts. This name is preserved in the modern names of the Slovak and Slovene languages. The language is sometimes called Old Slavic, which may be confused with the distinct Proto-Slavic language. The commonly accepted terms in modern English-language Slavic studies are Old Church Slavonic and Old Church Slavic.

The term Old Bulgarian (German: Altbulgarisch) is the only designation used by Bulgarian-language writers. It was used in numerous 19th-century sources, e.g. by August Schleicher, Martin Hattala, Leopold Geitler and August Leskien, who noted similarities between the first literary Slavic works and the modern Bulgarian language. For similar reasons, Russian linguist Aleksandr Vostokov used the term Slav-Bulgarian. The term is still used by some writers but nowadays normally avoided in favor of Old Church Slavonic.

The term Old Macedonian is occasionally used by Western scholars in a regional context.

The obsolete term Old Slovenian was used by early 19th century scholars who conjectured that the language was based on the dialect of Pannonia.

Modern Slavic nomenclature

Here are some of the names used by speakers of modern Slavic languages:

• Belarusian: старажытнаславянская мова (staražytnasłavianskaja mova), ‘Old Slavic’
• Bulgarian: старобългарски (starobălgarski), ‘Old Bulgarian’, старославянски (staroslavjanski), ‘Old Slavic’
• Croatian: staro(crkveno)slavenski, ‘Old (Church) Slavic’
• Czech: staroslověnština, ‘Old Slavic’
• Macedonian: старо(црковно)словенски (staro(crkovno)slovenski), ‘Old (Church) Slavic’
• Polish: staro-cerkiewno-słowiański, ‘Old Church Slavic’
• Russian: старославянский язык (staroslavjánskij jazýk), ‘Old Slavic language’
• Serbian: старословенски / staroslovenski, ‘Old Slavic’
• Slovak: (staro)slovienčina, ‘(Old) Slavic’
• Slovene: stara cerkvena slovanščina, ‘Old Church Slavic’
• Ukrainian: старослов’янська мова (staroslovjans'ka mova), ‘Old Slavic’

See also

• Church Slavonic language
• Old Bulgarian
• Old Macedonian
• Proto-Slavic language
• Slavonic-Serbian

External links

• 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
• Medieval Slavic Fonts on AATSEEL
• Old Slavic data entry application
• Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum Helsingiense: An Electronic Corpus of Old Church Slavonic Texts
• Research Guide to Old Church Slavonic
• Old Church Slavonic and the Macedonian recension of the Church Slavonic language, Elka Ulchar (Macedonian)
• Vittore Pisani, Old Bulgarian Language, Sofia, Bukvitza, 2012. English, Bulgarian, Italian.