Slavic Languages
Karen Burgos
Stephanie Bittner
Slavic Phonology
• In proto-Slavic:
• Vowel length, accent, and tone were distinctive
• Nasal vowels
• Lots of palatalization occurred
• In modern Slavic languages:
• Dropping vowels created consonant clusters ([vzbljesk])
• 5 vowel system most common (but other vowels available)
• Palatalization either became distinctive
or created new phonemes
Slavic Grammar
• Proto-Slavic
• Preserved nominative, accusative, locative, dative, instrumental, vocative, merged
ablative with genitive
• Number system had a singular form, dual form, and plural form
• evolved lexical aspect on verbs (verbs are inherently perfective or imperfective)
• Modern Slavic languages
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Retain most of the cases
Kept or further developed aspect
Most languages lost the dual form
Usually 3 genders (male, female, neuter), with animacy playing a role in declension
A Tour of the Slavic Languages
• dialect continuum between Slavic languages
• Many ‘transition’ dialects
• Mutual intelligibility
• High when written, lower when spoken
• Social factors play a role, leading to over- and underestimation of intelligibility
West Slavic
• Written with Latin alphabet
• Tend to have stress fixed on penultimate/antepenultimate syllable
• Polish
• Preserved nasal vowels
• Hella fricatives (10!) and affricates (6)
• Czech & Slovak
• Retained syllabic consonants ([r] and [l])
• Czech has a unique phoneme: voiced alveolar fricative trill
South Slavic
• Eastern South Slavic
• Bulgarian & Macedonian
• Lost case system
• But developed articles & extensive verb conjugation
• Western South Slavic
• Slovene
• Large variety of dialects that preserve features like pitch and vowel length
• Serbo-Croatian
• Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are mutually intelligible but politically
distinct
Old Church Slavonic
• Oldest attested Slavic language
• First Slavic literary language
• Served same purpose as Latin, used among different language
groups
• Crucial difference: it is not the ancestor of all Slavic languages
• Strong influence on literary traditions of Slavic languages
• Nowadays only used in liturgical contexts
East Slavic
• More homogenous than other branches
• Written in Cyrillic alphabet
• Pleophony, breaking ‘liquid diphthongs’ into two syllables:
• *gordъ 'settlement, town' > OESl. gorodъ,
• Russian
• Preserved much of the palatalization
• Belorussian
• Ukrainian
Writing Systems
• Cyrillic
• Щи – это хорошая еда. (Shchi – eto khoroshaya yeda)
• Latin
• Wszyscy ludzie rodzą się wolni i równi w swojej godności i prawach.
• Bosnian used to be written with Arabic script
• .‫پراوىما‬
ٖ ‫سوا ڵۆدسقا ٖبىڃا راݗايۆ سە سلۉبۉدنا ٖو يەدناقا ۆ دۉستۉيانستوۆ ٖو‬
• Use of writing system is often a politically charged issue,
reflecting religious differences (Orthodox vs Catholic) or political
alliance (“West” vs “East”)
• Serbian has a unique system – both Latin and Cyrillic are given
equal legal status and neither is preferred
• In practice, most people prefer Latin
Naming Conventions
• Given name sources include Orthodox tradition and pre-Christian
pagan names
• Patronymic system: father’s name and a suffix indicating gender
• Father is named Vladimir, son’s patronym is Vladimirovich, daughter’s is
Vladirmirovna
• Family name often comes from occupation or associated
characteristics
• Pushkin comes from pushka (cannon), Tolstoy means thick or plump
• Name & Patronymic is respectful form of address
Contact & Lexicon
• Germanic (e.g. kartofel’ in Russian)
• Indo-Iranian (controversial)
• Persian ‘maidan’ gave Ukrainian ‘maidan’ (square)
• Turkic languages
• Proto-Turkish ‘küiniŋ’ gave ‘kniga’ (book)
• Slavic languages have influenced other languages, forming
sprachbunds
• Baltic, Romanian, Albanian, Hungarian have been influenced
• Language purity movements have occurred in all of them
• Latin ‘viktoria’ replaced with Russian ‘pobyeda’
• Serbian and Croatian purposefully distancing themselves from each other
Most important concepts:
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Palatalization important in Slavic phonology!
Crazy consonant clusters caused by dropping vowels
Robust case system and aspect on verbs
Dialect continuum connects Slavic languages (they are not too dissimilar)
Social factors play a role in intelligibility
• Serbo-Croatian is a thorny political issue
• West Slavic has Latin alphabet, East has Cyrillic, South uses both
• Alphabet reflects political or religious alliances
• Old Church Slavonic – the “Latin” of Slavic
• Naming system is Given Name, Patronymic, Family Name
• Slavic language features have spread to other languages, forming
sprachbunds that are not related but still similar
• Language purification has affected all Slavic languages
References
• The Slavonic Languages. Vernard Comrie and Greville Corbett.
• The Slavic Languages. Sussex and Cubberley