Old Slavs: signs and use in modern Russian

Despite the fact that Old Slavs are studied in secondary school, a rare graduate will remember the meaning of this term. What can we say about the more adult people whose school bench is far behind.

What is Old Slavism?

The signs of these words are so common that we do not even notice them. Old Slavs are words borrowed from the old Slavic language, which is considered the first literary in the ancient Slavs.

Also in textbooks or on the Internet you can find a term such as Church Slavism. Under it is often meant the same as under Old Slavism, with the only difference being that words are borrowed from the Church Slavonic language. It is considered a later version of the Old Slavonic.

Nevertheless, words with signs of Old Slavism are used throughout everyday speech. This may seem incredible, but either of us speaks borrowed terms at least three times a day. And they utter such words so often that they do not even notice Old Slavism at all.

Signs of such words

So how do you determine when similar terms flit through the speech? There are quite distinctive signs of Old Slavism in the Russian language. The characteristic features of these borrowed words can be found both in the similarity of the sound and in writing.

With a more detailed study of this topic, it turns out that there is a fully working way of identifying words such as Old Slavs, whose symptoms are as follows:

1. Phonetic. Similarity in sounding, determination of stresses.
2. Formative. The way of writing similar words.
3. Lexical. The meaning of words, their coloring in speech and in literary works.

The beginning of the introduction of Old Slavs

Beginning in the 9th century, in Russia there is a diglossia in the language environment. This term is often confused with bilingualism, although they are very different:

1. When bilingual, one of the languages used is gradually replaced by another, as a result of which only a few words remain in everyday life.
2. With diglossia, two languages complement each other, forming a symbiosis, which then grows into something that is average from the original variants. Dysglasia is a stable language state and can last for a long time, as it was in Russia.

During the heyday of Christianity in Russia, diglossia was spread everywhere, and Russian was considered a household language, and Church Slavonic was a high literary language with sacred significance.

What's next?

Only at the beginning of the 17th century did diglossia begin to turn into bilingualism. As a result, the Old Slavonic language began to slowly fade and weaken its positions, leaving a mark only in literary works.

A translation into "everyday" Old Russian language of sacred books and "high" literature was carried out. Gradually, Old Slavism went into the shadow of the Russian language, leaving behind a lot of reminder terms.

How often do we meet borrowed words?

Often. Even more often than you can imagine.

The Old Slavonic words passed into modern language in two different states:

1. Completely. These are such words as the cheeks, eyes, pupils, and others, not too familiar to us.
2. Partially. Here the situation is more interesting, because it is not always possible to guess whether the word was borrowed. Partly translated words include: superstition, correspondence, blah, prudence and others.

So how often do we use old Slavs in our speech?

At least once a week. Did you know that the word "Sunday" is also borrowed? It, like the word "Lord", completely changed into our speech from the Church Slavonic dialect.

Also it should be remembered that not always words with Old Slavonic signs, suggest associations with literary language. Many of them do not have any stylistic coloring at all, which makes their use invisible. Could you think that "health care" refers to Church Slavonic vocabulary, as well as "drifting"?

The use of borrowed terms can not be considered homogeneous, because some of them were in the Russian language initially, only with the passage of time took over a part of another language. To such words carry, for example, "precious", "Belgrade" and others.

Still old Slavs are often used when writing works of art, especially poetry. Such words not only can immerse the reader in a special atmosphere, but also give a complex unique rhyme, and also enhance the overall impression of the written.

For example, "lanita", used in the poem, will clearly bring into it an ancient knightly romance, which for many years has conquered the hearts of women.

Phonetic features of Old Slavs

So how do you determine phonetically the Old Slavs? Signs of these words can be found if you analyze the Old Slavonic (otherwise - South Slavic) ways of forming words.

It is interesting that with almost identical spelling there is often a complete divergence of terms in meaning.

Phonetic features of Church Slavicisms:

• They have a combination of syllables r / la or oro / olo, which originated from the Slavonic vocabulary. To such words carry: has risen in price, scold, congratulate - to get well, back, hair, decapitated, cloudy-shell, cool and other.
• There are combinations of syllables re / le, which correspond to the Russian (or East Slavic) ephemeral. To them carry: a veil-film, a lot, forward / henceforth, milky-milky, a transfer-betray and others.
• Alternation of syllables r / la and rolo / lo at the very beginning of the word: scattering, crumbling, boat-boat, story, difference-retail, separately, equal-even and others.
• Vowels a / e / w / o / y / y at the very beginning: lamb, lunatic, lonely, ugly, single.
• The combination of the letters of the rail, and it corresponds to the Russian: enjoy, protect, convict-condemned, ignorant-ignorant, everyday-daily and others.
• Letters w / pc / hh / h: stray-wandering, jerk, disgust, and others.

Lexical signs of Old Slavs

Similar signs are considered:

• Excessive "bookishness" of words, their solemnity. Such terms are difficult to use in everyday speech.
• Belonging to the topic of religion, especially Christianity.
• The beginning of complex words with the help of God / good / suu / good / belly / evil / one and so on. These words include: theology, worship, blessing, blessed, evil deed, villainy, superstition, unity, unity and others.

Formative signs of Old Slavs

Like the phonetic features of words like Old Slavism, the signs of their formation are also important. The most characteristic features of the word formation of Church Slavicisms are the following their morphemes:

• Well familiar to all pre / through / from / bottom, having a correspondence in the Russian language (over / through / interes / in / c). To such words carry: to step over-the criminal, excessive-too, to choose-elected, to lower-pimp-to reduce and so on.
• The common ones are / ysh / acc / yasch (corresponding in the Russian language uch / yy / ac / yach), which then transformed into a distinctive feature of the adjectives. These are: current-flowing, astringent, lying-lying, and others.
• Suffixes -sign, -tv / tva, -tai, -stvo, -yn / ynya: stronghold, pride, harvest, life, herald, architect, oath, action, invasion and others.
• Suffix -man: entrepreneur, driver, builder, conqueror, buyer and so on.

So, after learning how to identify Old Slavs, you can always understand when you use them. After all, it is only necessary to notice this once, as everyday speech blossoms with the terms of antiquity, before this modestly hiding behind the shadow of everyday words.