Ostromir Gospels

The Ostromir Gospel is the oldest dated East Slavic manuscript ( and after the Novgorod Codex is the second oldest East Slavic book at all ). It includes a church slavonic Aprakos Gospel, which was copied from a South Slavic template. The transcript was made 1056/1057 for the Novgorod governor Ostromir. The Ostromir Gospel is now in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.

Language

Even if the language is very archaic and has only minor differences from the Old Church Slavonic Gospels manuscripts such as the Codex Zographensis or Sawwina kniga, there are some linguistic characteristics, August Leskien this has led not to count the Ostromir Gospel to the canon of classic Old Church Slavonic. Such language features, for example, the use of place - ть etymologically correct - тъ in the 3rd person singular of the present tense. In this respect, the Ostromir Gospel can be regarded as archaic representatives of the Russian Church Slavonic literacy.