The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology (Yale Language Series)

This work uses linguistic, cultural and historical themes to provide an account of the development of the Slavic languages. The book contends, among other things, that an understanding of early Slavic writing is incomplete outside the context of medieval culture. Contents ... vii List of maps ... xiii Preface ... xv Note on transliteration and abbreviations ... xix ◦ 1. HISTORICAL SETTING ◦ — 1.1 In search of roots ... 1 — 1.2 The autochthonous theory ... 1 — 1.3 Material culture and language ... 2 — 1.4 Were the Veneti Slavic ... 3 — 1.5 Evidence of place and river names ... 5 — 1.6 Classical sources ... 5 — 1.7 Médos and strava ... 6 — 1.8 The Danubian and mid-Dnieper theories ... 6 — 1.9 The Indo-European homeland ... 8 — 1.10 The Great Migrations. Jordanes’ testimony ... 9 — 1.11 The Avars ... 9 — 1.12 Constantinople and Christianity ... 11 — 1.13 Europe after the Great Migrations ... 12 — 1.14 Christianization of the Goths and of other Germanic tribes ... 13 — 1.15 Christianization of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons ... 13 — 1.16 The Franks ... 14 — 1.17 Charlemagne and the Papacy ... 14 — 1.18 The Slavs in the Balkans. Procopius’ testimony ... 15 — 1.19 John of Ephesus’ testimony ... 16 — 1.20 Emperor Maurice’s Strategikon ... 16 — 1.21 Theophylact Simocatta’s History ... 17 — 1.22 The siege of Constantinople in 626. The Paschal Chronicle ... 18 — 1.23 The Croats and Serbs. Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ testimony ... 19 — 1.24 The Bulgars. Theophanes the Confessor’s testimony ... 19 — 1.25 Christianity among the Balkan Slavs ... 21 — 1.26 Samo’s Slavic state in central Europe. Fredegar’s testimony ... 21 — 1.27 The Alpine Slavs. Paul the Deacon’s testimony ... 22 — 1.28 The Carantanian mission. The testimony of the Conversion Bagoariorum et Carantanorum ... 23 — 1.29 The Aquileian mission. The Gospel of Cividale ... 24 — 1.30 Moravia and Pannonia in the ninth century ... 25 — 1.31 The Cyrillo-Methodian sources ... 26 — 1.32 The early careers of Constantine and Methodius ... 28 — 1.33 The mission to the Khazars ... 29 — 1.34 The background of the Moravian mission ... 30 — 1.35 The Constantinian period ... 32 — 1.36 The Methodian period ... 34 — 1.37 The testimony of papal correspondence ... 36 — 1.38 Was the Moravian mission Byzantine or Roman? ... 40 — 1.39 The Moravian debacle ... 41 — 1.40 The legacy of the Moravian mission in Bulgaria ... 42 — 1.41 From Moravia to Bohemia ... 43 — 1.42 The northwestern Slavs. The testimony of Frankish and Saxon chronicles ... 46 — 1.43 Religious beliefs of the northwestern Slavs as reported by Thietmar and Helmold ... 48 — 1.44 Poland ... 50 — 1.45 The eastern Slavs ... 53 — 1.46 The Norsemen in eastern Europe ... 54 — 1.47 The terms Rus’ and Russian ... 57 ◦ 2. LANGUAGE ... 61 ◦ — 2.1 The historical comparative method and the concept of the proto-language ... 61 — 2.2 Linguistic reconstruction and phonetic laws ... 63 — 2.3 Indo-European languages and Proto-Indo-European ... 65 — 2.4 Survey of the Indo-European languages ... 66 — 2.5 Periodization of Proto-Slavic ... 69 — 2.6 The problem of Balto-Slavic ... 70 — 2.7 Survey of the Slavic languages ... 70 — 2.8 Problems in phonological reconstruction ... 75 — 2.9 Late Proto-Indo-European phonemic system ... 77 — 2.10 Laryngeals ... 77 — 2.11 Proto-Indo-European ablaut ... 78 — 2.12 Loss of aspiration ... 79 — 2.13 Treatment of velar stops ... 80 — 2.14 Retroflexion of s ... 80 — 2.15 Merger of ō and ā ... 81 — 2.16 Phonemic inventory of Early Proto-Slavic ... 82 — 2.17 Constraints on syllabic structure ... 82 — 2.18 Elimination of word-final consonants ... 82 — 2.19 Resolution of syllable-initial clusters ... 82 — 2.20 Shifting of morhemic boundaries ... 83 — 2.21 Rise of prothetic semivowels ... 83 — 2.22 First palatization of velars ... 83 — 2.23 Yodization ... 84 — 2.24 Proto-Slavic consonant system ... 85 — 2.25 Fronting of back vowels after soft consonants ... 86 — 2.26 Monophthongization of diphthongs in i and u ... 86 — 2.27 Backing of ē after soft consonants ... 88 — 2.28 Rise of y ... 88 — 2.29 Phonemic pitch and the new vowel system ... 88 — 2.30 From Early to Late Proto-Slavic ... 89 — 2.31 Second (regressive) and third (progressive) palatalization of velars ... 89 — 2.32 The relative chronology of the palatalization of velars ... 90 — 2.33 Clusters tl and dl ... 92 — 2.34 Monophthongization of diphthongs in nasal sonants ... 92 — 2.35 Resolution of diphthongs in liquid sonants ... 93 — 2.36 Development of ť ď ... 95 — 2.37 Word stress ... 96 — 2.38 Strong and weak positions of short high vowels (jers) ... 97 — 2.39 Rise of the neoacute ... 98 — 2.40 Rise of qualitative distinctions in the vowel system ... 99 — 2.41 Rise of new quantity oppositions ... 100 — 2.42 Tense jers ... 101 — 2.43 Phonemic status of i (j) and u (v) ... 101 — 2.44 Phonemes of Late Proto-Slavic and their distribution ... 102 — 2.45 Nouns versus verbs ... 103 — 2.46 Grammatical categories ... 104 — 2.47 Nominal stems ... 106 — 2.48 Declensions ... 123 — 2.49 Inflection of adjectives and numerals ... 128 — 2.50 Verbal stems ... 129 — 2.51 Verbal aspect ... 134 — 2.52 Personal endings ... 137 — 2.53 Present tense. Conjugations I and II ... 138 — 2.54 Aorist ... 140 — 2.55 Imperfect ... 143 — 2.56 Imperative ... 144 — 2.57 Infinitive and supine ... 145 — 2.58 Participles ... 145 — 2.59 Compound verbal categories ... 148 — 2.60 Verbal substantive ... 148 — 2.61 Syntactic reconstruction ... 149 — 2.62 Syntactic constructions ... 150 — 2.63 Use of cases ... 153 — 2.64 Word order ... 154 — 2.65 Composition of the wordstock ... 155 — 2.66 Lexical borrowing ... 159 — 2.67 Grammatical productivity ... 161 — 2.68 Grammatical analogy ... 161 — 2.69 Late Proto-Slavic dialect isoglosses ... 162 ◦ 3. EARLY WRITING ... 165 ◦ — 3.1 Paleography ... 165 — 3.2 Slavic alphabets ... 165 — 3.3 The genealogy of Glagolitic ... 166 — 3.4 Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters ... 167 — 3.5 Slavic writing before the Moravian mission ... 172 — 3.6 The testimony of the monk Khrabr ... 173 — 3.7 Unsystematic Slavic adaptations of Greek and Latin alphabets ... 174 — 3.8 The “Russian” letters in the Vita Constantini ... 176 — 3.9 The abecedarium from St. Sophia in Kiev ... 176 — 3.10 The origin of the terms Glagolitic and Cyrillic ... 177 — 3.11 Why was Glagolitic introduced? ... 177 — 3.12 The locale of Glagolitic ... 178 — 3.13 The precedence of Glagolitic ... 179 — 3.14 Digraphs and ligatures ... 180 — 3.15 Abbreviations ... 181 — 3.16 Numerals ... 182 — 3.17 Dates ... 183 — 3.18 Punctuation and diacritics ... 183 — 3.19 Styles of handwriting ... 183 — 3.20 Physical description of manuscripts ... 184 — 3.21 Writing materials ... 184 — 3.22 Palimpsests ... 185 — 3.23 The term Old Church Slavonic ... 185 — 3.24 Old Church Slavonic and Proto-Slavic ... 186 — 3.25 The periodization of Old Church Slavonic ... 187 — 3.26 The Ohrid and Preslav schools ... 188 — 3.27 The canon of Old Church Slavonic ... 189 — 3.28 Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic ... 190 — 3.29 Local recensions of Church Slavonic ... 190 — 3.30 (Old) Church Slavonic literary community ... 193 — 3.31 Translations versus original works ... 194 — 3.32 Authors and authorship ... 196 — 3.33 Constantine and Methodius ... 197 — 3.34 Clement of Ohrid ... 198 — 3.35 Constantine of Preslav ... 198 — 3.36 John the Exarch ... 199 — 3.37 Textual criticism ... 199 — 3.38 Early Slavic texts ... 200 — 3.39 Biblical texts ... 201 — 3.40 Apocrypha and pseudoepigrapha ... 201 — 3.41 Liturgical an paraliturgical texts ... 202 — 3.42 Fourfold Gospels ... 209 — 3.43 Biblical exegeses ... 210 — 3.44 Homiletic texts ... 211 — 3.45 Miscellanies and florilegia ... 213 — 3.46 Hagiography ... 214 — 3.47 Hymnography and other poetic works ... 216 — 3.48 Monasticism ... 222 — 3.49 Learning ... 224 — 3.50 Historiography ... 228 — 3.51 Legal texts ... 232 — 3.52 Epistolary literature and correspondence ... 234 — 3.53 Epigraphic texts ... 235 — 3.54 Glosses ... 237 — 3.55 Place and personal names ... 238 ◦ 4. APPENDICES ... 241 ◦ A. Rise of Slavic philology ... 241 B. Chronological table ... 253 C. Orthodox Church calendar ... 258 D. Samples of early Slavic writing ... 261 ◦ Bibliography ... 303 Index ... 337 This Unique Book Weaves Linguistic, Cultural, And Historical Themes Together To Form A Concise And Accessible Account Of The Development Of The Slavic Languages. Alexander Schenker Demonstrates That Inquiry Into Early Slavic Culture Requires An Understanding Of History, Language, And Texts And That An Understanding Of Early Slavic Writing Is Incomplete Outside The Context Of Medieval Culture. 1. Historical Setting -- 2. Language -- 3. Early Writing -- 4. Appendices. Alexander M. Schenker. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [303]-335) And Index. of Slavic 1 Contents 3 List of Maps 9 Preface 11 Note on Transliteration and Abbreviations 15 1 Historical Setting 17 2 Language 79 3 Early Writing 183 Appendices 259 A. Rise of Slavic philology 259 B. Chronological table 271 C. Orthodox Church calendar 276 D. Samples of early Slavic writing 279 Bibliography 321 Index 355