Church Slavonic language

Church Slavonic is a traditional liturgical language that was used in the Slavic countries of the Orthodox churches and a limited part of the Catholic Church and is used to some extent today. It was created as part of the mission by Slavs Cyril and Methodius and was until modern times, the most important Slavic literary language. The best-studied variant of Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic is.

Today, the Church Slavonic is the liturgical language of the Slavic Orthodox Churches ( ISO 639-1 language code cu ).

Editors

The Old Church Slavonic is only the " tip of the iceberg " in Church Slavonic literature, a clearly defined handwriting corpus, which is characterized by archaic orthographic - phonological characteristics. The vast majority of the Church Slavonic literature, which was created to modern times and has been handed down, experienced a linguistic influence by the local vernacular idioms and differed in the Old Church Slavonic canonical texts. One speaks in this context of editorial offices of the Church Slavonic.

Bulgarian Church Slavonic

Methods After the students were expelled from Great Moravia, they found - and with them the Church Slavonic literature - in the Bulgarian Empire, the so-called "second home". Under the Tsar Simeon I a variety of mainly from the Greek translated texts, the oldest of them still count überliefernde manuscripts in part to the Old Church Slavonic canon was formed.

Later, from about 1200, the texts of the Old Church Slavonic differ by the influence of local dialects, for example, through the confusion of the nasal vowels. This corpus is called Bulgarian Church Slavic or Bulgarian agent.

The ever- traditional books were in the 14th century a revision subjected ( Euthymius of Turnovo, orthography of Tarnovo ), where tradition bugs were eliminated and the orthography was archaic simplified. An important role is played here in the Slavic monasteries on Mount Athos, in which hard-working and has worked with the tradition. With the advance of the Ottomans in the Balkans, the flowering of the Church Slavonic literacy in Bulgaria has ended.

Serbian Church Slavonic

In Serbia, Church Slavonic was influenced by štokavischen substrate. There, too, the tradition was to seem archaic as a result of the treatise "On the letter" of Constantine of Kostenec based on the school of Tarnovo, whereby the prestige of the language should be increased. As flowering time are the 14th and 15th centuries (from the Greek translated transcripts, hagiographies ). Serbian Church Slavonic was the main written language of Serbia to the 18th century and one of the official languages ​​in the early period of the Ottoman Empire. The Serbs who settled after the Turkish wars in Vojvodina, since the late 17th century came Russian Church Slavonic ( Neukirchenslawisch ) and later for the secular literature Slawenoserbisch as a written language in use in the rest of Serbia Serbian Church Slavonic was even used.

Russian Church Slavonic

The most important editing the resultant on the floor of Kievan Rus so-called Russian Church Slavonic may apply, the first dated monument is the Ostromir Gospel of 1056, which was apparently written by a South Slavic template that is not obtained. The Ostromir Gospel, in contrast to the Old Church Slavonic monuments, the confusion of the nasal vowels ę and ǫ u with the oral vowels and ' a In the overall picture only minor linguistic differences from the Old Church Slavonic has been made.

Also, do not explicitly liturgical monuments used in the early times, as the Primary Chronicle, orthographic - phonetic features and isolated lexical Ostslawismen largely show off the above ( and more ) in Church Slavonic form. The development of the East Slavic idioms and the independent handing down the literature on ostslawischem ground, however, led to the fact that until the 14th century, the Russian editors at least orthographically quite clearly differed from the Old Church Slavonic texts.

Second South Slavic Influence

A re- archaization the orthographic form of the text was made when as a result of the advance of the Ottomans in the Balkans many Slavic, vornehmend Bulgarian scholars of Tarnów school ( such as the later Metropolitan Cyprian ) from the end of the 14th century in the now strengthened Moscow Rus found refuge. One speaks in this context of the Second South Slavic Influence (, which has to be considered as the first South Slav influence the acquisition of the Bulgarian Church Slavonic literature related to the Christianization of Kievan Rus under Vladimir I in the year 988 ). Result of this re- archaization was among other things an attempt to correct etymologically Nasalenschreibung, as for example in amounts in the first Church Slavonic full Bible, the Gennadiusbibel of 1499, to be found.

The way to Neukirchen Slavic

In the 16th century, the Rus was confronted as a now leading representative of the Slavic Orthodoxy with diverse cultural challenges. As a result of the Reformation, and especially by the Jesuits in the united since 1569 under the Polish crown ( south ) western East Slavic territories (now Belarus and West Ukraine) -driven counter- Reformation orthodoxy, and thus the Church Slavonic was threatened. An important role in the dissemination of theologically diverse body of thought played the printing press, which became widespread during the 16th century in the eastern parts of Europe. The denominational and theological challenges and the need of the printer for uniformity led to the first printed Church Slavonic Bible, the Ostrog Bible of 1581, and to Kodifikationsversuchen of the Church Slavonic grammars and dictionaries which a high prevalence learned the basis of which, because they were printed, and thus were able to develop normative force. Call to have arisen in this respect include the grammar of Meleti Smotryzky (1619 ) and the Dictionary of Pamwo Berynda ( 1627 ), works in all shaped by cultural contacts of the room ( south ) western Rus. The hereby standardized and codified system of Neukirchen Slavic took place in the mid-17th century with Ukrainian scholars his way to Moscow. This cultural import is called a third party South Slavic influence, even if the South Slavic area hardly played a role here, but rather the spiritual life in the ( south of Moscow lying ) Ukraine; Moscow broadcast the Neukirchen Slavonic after the revision of the liturgical books based on Greek texts under Nikon and the pressure of other editions of the Bible in the other regions of the Orthodox Slawia and is still used today in nearly this form in Orthodox worship.

Croatian Church Slavonic

A special position in the history of the Church Slavonic literature occupies the Croatian Church Slavonic. The Catholic- Latin culture belonging, it still preserved the tradition kyrillomethodianische in the textual tradition even after the Oriental schism of 1054, the square Glagolitic was used for text creation. Since no permanent cultural contacts with the Ostbalkanraum or the Rus were present through which the tradition had been influenced, can be divided into Croatian Glagolitic manuscripts often archaic readings testify.

Czech Church Slavonic

The early testimonies of Church Slavonic in the western periphery, namely the Czech Church Slavonic, played only a minor role in the further history of the Church Slavonic tradition.