Thread: Influence of Church Slavonic in Russian

I'm always curious about this. Church Slavonic is the usual church language in Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I know this is not a common question. How did Church Slavonic contributed to Russian idiomatic expressions, words and grammar?

Church Slavonic language is very close to Old Slavonic language. And Old Slavonic language is actually predecessor of the Russian language
So it was the same language long time ago.

Originally Posted by Doomer

Church Slavonic language is very close to Old Slavonic language. And Old Slavonic language is actually predecessor of the Russian language
So it was the same language long time ago.

Yes. It's a hypothetical Proto-Slavic language. It's still fascinating. I want to understand the role of Church Slavonic in Russian because it is an important literary language in old Russia.

Originally Posted by Karavanshchik

I want to understand the role of Church Slavonic in Russian

And how do you want to achieve that?

Originally Posted by Karavanshchik

I'm always curious about this. Church Slavonic is the usual church language in Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I know this is not a common question. How did Church Slavonic contributed to Russian idiomatic expressions, words and grammar?

Sometimes informally they call Old Church Slavonic "Old Bulgarian". It came from Slavic territories of former Byzantium with religion and missionaries (and with alphabet BTW). You need a specialist to have a responsible answer to your question though in my feeling situation is the following:

OCS gave a set of Russian idioms, lightly influenced literary Russian vocabulary and grammar and almost did not influence spoken Russian (outside of those idioms).

Originally Posted by it-ogo

OCS gave a set of Russian idioms, lightly influenced literary Russian vocabulary and grammar and almost did not influence spoken Russian (outside of those idioms).

Да? И вы говорите "ворог", "шелом", у вас нет слов "небо", "восход", "влияние", "мощный"? Цсл дал все неполногласные сочетания, многие слова с "щ", которые чередуются с "ч" и многие другие слова, некоторые суффиксы, как, например, "арь". Благодаря нему в русском языке до сих пор 4 причастия. Он также оказал влияние на орфографию: красный, синий вместо красной, синей.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

OCS gave a set of Russian idioms, lightly influenced literary Russian vocabulary and grammar and almost did not influence spoken Russian (outside of those idioms).

If I'm not mistaken, the OCS influence also explains the long survival of the Cyrillic vowel ѣ (yat) in Russian, after it had disappeared from other Slavic languages. (And, allegedly, Bolshevik spelling reformers were eager to get rid of this letter because it "looked Biblical/religious".)

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

If I'm not mistaken, the OCS influence also explains the long survival of the Cyrillic vowel ѣ (yat) in Russian, after it had disappeared from other Slavic languages. (And, allegedly, Bolshevik spelling reformers were eager to get rid of this letter because it "looked Biblical/religious".)

I'm not sure that's true. Yat was prnounced differently from e untill the seventeenth century probably in the ancestor of standard Russian.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

If I'm not mistaken, the OCS influence also explains the long survival of the Cyrillic vowel ѣ (yat) in Russian, after it had disappeared from other Slavic languages. (And, allegedly, Bolshevik spelling reformers were eager to get rid of this letter because it "looked Biblical/religious".)

All Russian letters came from OCS, all the alphabet. Maybe except Ё that is purely native letter. On another hand all schoolchildren hated those couples of phonetically unrecognizable letters (like Е-Ѣ, И-І-Ѵ, Ф-Ѳ) which usage in each word they were forced to learn by heart.

The spelling reform was prepared before Bolsheviks, so they just applied ready-made spelling system.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

All Russian letters came from OCS, all the alphabet. Maybe except Ё that is purely native letter. On another hand all schoolchildren hated those couples of phonetically unrecognizable letters (like Е-Ѣ, И-І-Ѵ, Ф-Ѳ) which usage in each word they were forced to learn by heart.

The spelling reform was prepared before Bolsheviks, so they just applied ready-made spelling system.

Речь-то не о том. Троберт говорил о том, что ять продержался так долго именно из-за влияния церковно-славянского. Но молоко же пишется через о, так почему бы ятю не продержаться?
С другими буквами совсем другая ситуация: они были введены в подражание греческому письму.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Речь-то не о том. Троберт говорил о том, что ять продержался так долго именно из-за влияния церковно-славянского. Но молоко же пишется через о, так почему бы ятю не продержаться?
С другими буквами совсем другая ситуация: они были введены в подражание греческому письму.

С молоком ситуация другая. Гласные редуцируются одинаково, но о и а в других ситуациях вполне различимы и ни одну из них упразднить нельзя. Что из них писать конкретно в "малаке" по большому счету неважно, главное чтобы был стандарт, так что реформировать его смысла нет. А ять была фонетически эквивалентна Е во всех ситуациях. Думаю, что в принятии решения об изъЯТии яти было существенно именно это, а не история происхождения.

Хотя большевики потом, конечно, вели агиткампанию за новую орфографию в духе "мы - молодость мира, а они - старые п...ны," но это было уже вторично.

Что же касается фонетических различий Е и яти именно в церковнославянском, я сильно сомневаюсь, что это различие сохранялось в речи попов, даже тех, что свободно могли изъясняться на ЦС. Изначальное произношение - то, что исчезает в мертвых языках первую очередь.

I can imagine only one influence: 'О Боже мой!' instead of more modern 'О Бог мой'. As you can guess, Боже is the old form of the noun God but it's hard to say exactly whether such words came from church slavonic after the separation of old slavonic or they came straightly from old slavonic as archaisms

Originally Posted by Daniel_Brackley

I can imagine only one influence: 'О Боже мой!' instead of more modern 'О Бог мой'. As you can guess, Боже is the old form of the noun God but it's hard to say exactly whether such words came from church slavonic after the separation of old slavonic or they came straightly from old slavonic as archaisms

You have poor imagination. And it's not hard to say.

... 'О Боже мой!' instead of more modern 'О Бог мой'. As you can guess, Боже is the old form of the noun God but it's hard to say exactly whether such words came from...

But Боже is actually vocative, while Бог is nominative, no? So it's different. And "Отче наш..." is vocative. (?)

I am not sure what is vocative exactly. But afaik Боже, отче uses to call someone (god or father). For example: Боже, помоги преодолеть трудности...
But Бог и отец can be use in both ways. Бог существует. Бог, помоги мне.

Если говорить о правильности написания редуцированных гласных, то можно пойти еще дальше
совсем давно редуцированные гласные записывались через Ерь и Ер
например

ⰄⰠⰐⰠ - дьнь - день
ⰔⰟⰐⰟ - сънъ - сон