The population of the European part of the USSR, different in its ethnic composition, speaks mainly East Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages.
Modern Slavic languages are grouped into three large groups: South Slavic, West Slavic and East Slavic. One of the characteristic features of the Slavic languages is their proximity to each other, much greater than that of other related Indo-European languages. It is explained not only by its origin from one source - the Proto-Slavic language, common to the ancestors of all modern Slavs, but also, first of all, by the fact that the collapse of the single Proto-Slavic language occurred relatively late.
The Common Slavic era ended approximately in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e.; By this time, as a result of the isolation of tribal formations and the development of social life, the peculiarities in the languages of various groups of the Slavs deepened so much that we can already talk about the beginning of the existence of various groups of ancient Slavic languages.
Unlike the southern and western Slavs, the East Slavic language group initially remained relatively intact: linguistic developments equally affected all the Eastern Slavs, and apparently no significant differences were found in their ancient phonetic processes.
By the 9th-10th centuries. The Eastern Slavs created a single state, the basis of which was the Old Russian people. The linguistic community of this nation was inherited from the linguistic community of the East Slavic tribes (or tribal unions) and was one of the factors that contributed to their unification. At the same time, this commonality was combined with local differences.
In subsequent centuries, under the conditions of developing feudal fragmentation, the stability of the linguistic unit-dialect of a certain territory increased. In the era of earlier tribal formations, such a stable linguistic unit could not have existed, because the tribes were constantly moving, occupying vast territories. This could not but cause a redistribution of dialect features, the formation of new dialect groups, the loss of the previous dialect division of the language and the formation of a new division. The unification of all principalities and the creation of the Kyiv state led to the fact that the common language destinies of the Eastern Slavs, which was disrupted during the existence of individual tribal groups, became after the 9th century. again possible and probable. This was reflected, for example, in the same fate of the common Slavic nasal vowels, which were lost by all Eastern Slavs by the 10th century, in the same fate of their reduced vowels ъ and ъ, etc.
Language of the Old Russian people of the X-XI centuries. was characterized in the field of phonetics by the already developed full consonance -oro-, -olo-, -ere- (in place of the common Slavic combinations -on-, - ol- , - er-, - el- between consonants), the sounds ch and zh (in place of the common Slavic -£/-, - kt- and -d/-), the presence of the sound l (in place of common Slavic - tl-, -sM-), combinations -z- gve-), non-nasal vowels uzha (in place of the common Slavic nasal o and e); in the field of morphology - ending -ъм in creative work. above. units including nouns with the ancient b-stem (in place of the common Slavic -ot), ending b in gender. and wine above. units including in names and wines. above. pl. h* words of women. R. soft varieties of a-base and wines. pad. pl. h. words husband. R. soft variety o-stem (with -e in South Slavic languages) and date forms. pad. units including pronouns tob, sob, etc.
At the same time, in the X-XI centuries. The language of the Old Russian people received different local colors in different areas of its distribution. Dialectal differences gradually accumulated. In the East Slavic south, a change from r to # developed, in contrast to the north, northwest and northeast. In the East Slavic north and northwest, a clattering sound appeared. In the narrow western territory, the ancient combinations -И-, - may have been preserved in a modified form dl-.
The development of the so-called Kyiv Koine also played a role in strengthening the unity of the Old Russian language. The spoken language of Kyiv was initially very diverse. However, a peculiar fusion of dialectal features gradually emerged - Koine, in which some features were southern in origin, and others were northern, as a result of which it could become a language that satisfies the needs of the population of Kyiv in its connections with all of Russia, which, no doubt, strengthened unity of the ancient Russian people.
The emergence, development and strengthening of the Kievan state caused the development and improvement of writing, necessary for state correspondence, for developing trade and culture.
Based on the ancient tradition of formulas for ambassadorial, military and various types of treaty speeches, dating back to the preliterate era, as well as formulas of customary law, a literary and written language is developing, presented in legal documents, the oldest examples of which were treaties with the Greeks of the 10th century, the Mstislav Charter. , Russian Truth and other documents.
The Baptism of Rus' in 988 contributed to the widespread development of church and religious writing, initially in the Old Church Slavonic language. Its language, on ancient Russian soil, was gradually imbued with East Slavic features and took the form of a literary and bookish language, serving religious, church genres and scientific writing of that time. At the same time, the Old Russian literary language itself begins to develop early. It had a nationwide basis and developed on the basis of pre-literate tradition, folk poetic speech, which was a type of oral literary language. Due to the fact that normalization processes were essentially absent in this era, all types of written language had a local dialect coloring.
The strengthening of the feudal fragmentation of Ancient Rus' led to certain changes in the language of the Old Russian people, primarily to the deepening of dialect differences.
Even then, the south and southwest of the ancient Russian territory (Kyiv, Galicia-Volyn land and the Turovo-Pinsk principality) were opposed to the north and northeast. But in the north, northeast and west, dialect differences also deepened, covering either wide or narrow territories depending on the historical destinies of certain regions.
The written monuments of the period under review, clearly reflecting the dialect features of various territories, were nevertheless written in the same Old Russian language. In this language, some phenomena are already developing (or even developed) that later became characteristic features of individual East Slavic languages, although it is still impossible to talk about the formation of these languages. Only later did the unity of individual East Slavic peoples begin to emerge, as did the uniqueness of individual East Slavic languages. In the XIV-XV centuries. on the basis of a single ancient Russian nationality, three separate East Slavic nationalities are formed: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. And at the same time, on the basis of a single Old Russian language, corresponding separate East Slavic languages are formed. In all these processes, the disunity of the ancient Russian lands played a role, which especially intensified during the era of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which disrupted the connections between the southwest and northeast of ancient Rus'. The existence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the seizure of certain East Slavic regions by Poland and Lithuania played a well-known role in strengthening dialect differences.
The unification of Russian lands around Moscow contributed to the formation and development of the language of the Russian people. It was expressed in the fact that during this period (XIV-XVI centuries) linguistic new formations arose on Russian territory, which covered all dialects and did not go beyond the boundaries of this territory. Such features in the field of phonetics include, for example, the appearance of the weak ъ and ъ in place of the weak ъ and ъ in combinations of reduced ones with smooth r and l between consonants (in Ukrainian ы, и), the development of ьш, йь in ой, ёи (cf. Russian. mine, dig, in Ukrainian, ria, Belarusian, mine); in the field of morphology - the loss of the vocative form (while maintaining it in the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages), replacing sibilants with velars in the declension forms of some nouns (while preserving sibilants in Ukrainian and Belarusian), etc.
On the other hand, that part of the Old Russian dialects that found itself outside the Russian state began to live a different life and develop in a different direction. On the basis of these dialects, the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages are formed. The fact that there are two languages here, and not one, is explained by the significant disunity of these territories.
The historical fate of the formation of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages is also reflected in the uniqueness of the linguistic and geographical boundaries between these languages. It is very difficult to draw the line between the Russian and Belarusian languages; on the border Russian and Belarusian territories there are a lot of Russian-Belarusian dialects, which form, as it were, a transition from one language to another. The territories west of Moscow have long been the subject of struggle between Russia and Lithuania, Russia and Poland, and therefore, passing from hand to hand, were within the boundaries of one state or another. On the contrary, the border between the Russian and Ukrainian languages is more distinct. It runs through the south of the Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions, as well as the west of the Rostov region. and covers the territories of new settlement, which were devastated during the Tatar-Mongol invasion and were repopulated when the Russian and Ukrainian languages had already formed. As for the border between the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, it is as unclear as the border between the Russian and Belarusian languages, which also finds its explanation in the history of the formation of these languages at certain stages within the same state (Polish, Lithuanian, Polish-Lithuanian ).
The further development of the languages of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalities is associated with their development into national languages, which was due to the development of the corresponding nationalities in the nation.
The initial stage of the formation of East Slavic national languages dates back approximately to the 17th century, when the socio-economic conditions for the formation of East Slavic nations began to be created. It should be borne in mind that the main features of the phonetic system, grammatical structure and lexical composition of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed back in the pre-national period.
The formation of national languages, associated with the concentration of territories, gradually leads to the cessation of the development of new dialect features, although existing dialects persist for a long time, steadily maintaining their features.
In the history of the Russian language, a special role was played by the Moscow dialect, which initially developed as “Northern Great Russian” and acquired a number of southern Russian features in its development. By the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. it turned into a Central Russian dialect, that is, into one whose structure is characterized by a combination of southern and northern features. On the basis of the Moscow dialect, or Moscow vernacular, as well as on the basis of the written business language of Moscow Rus' by the middle of the 17th century. A unified spoken variety of the Russian language is developing, which subsequently gradually spreads throughout the country.
Moscow oral and colloquial speech also influenced the development of forms of written literary speech, which began to be built on a nationwide basis and satisfy all the needs of society. This circumstance led to the transformation of the church-bookish written language (which still continued to exist, although it had undergone strong changes) into a specifically cultic, church language. The development of the national Russian language was also facilitated by the introduction of printing in Rus' (16th century).
The formation of the written literary Russian language on a nationwide basis was long and complex. In the process of the emergence of the Russian nation and the creation of a written literary language on a nationwide basis, a synthesis of elements of living Russian speech and book-literary language was carried out, in which Church Slavonicisms played a certain role.
In the middle of the 18th century. M.V. Lomonosov created the “theory of three calms”, in which he limited the use of Church Slavonicisms in the written literary language to certain conditions. However, the true creation of the Russian literary language on a broad national basis was carried out by A. S. Pushkin and developed by the great Russian writers of the 19th-20th centuries. Currently, the Russian literary language is not only one of the most developed Slavic languages, but it also serves as a means of interethnic communication between the peoples of the USSR and has become one of the most widespread world languages.
The Ukrainian national language was formed under the determining influence of the Poltava-Kyiv dialect. This dialect was spoken by the population of a vast region of Ukraine, which played a role in the 17th century. main role in the most important political events of that time.
The development of the Ukrainian literary language initially (in the XIV-XV centuries) was associated with the traditions of the literary language of Kievan Rus; it was characterized by the gradual development and consolidation of Ukrainian linguistic features in writing. From the end of the 15th century. In Ukraine, the first attempts are being made to bring the Church Slavonic (Slavic Russian) language closer to the living language of the people. We must also keep in mind the specificity of the fate of the Church Slavonic language in Ukraine: during the period of Polish-gentry rule, this language was common to Ukrainians and Belarusians, as well as to Russians, so advanced people sought to cultivate and develop it. By the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. in Ukraine there were two literary languages: book Church Slavonic (Slavic Russian), and “Russian” (prosta mova), formed as a result of the interaction of Church Slavonic and folk languages. In 1574, printing began in Ukraine, which contributed to the development of the literary language. The reunification of Ukraine with Russia further contributed to the fact that the national, folk element prevailed in the Ukrainian literary language. Elements of the folk language began to widely penetrate into literary works of the 16th-18th centuries. In the formation of the Ukrainian national literary language, the work of I. P. Kotlyarevsky and especially T. G. Shevchenko played a major role, who had a huge influence on the entire further development of this language.
As for the Belarusian national language, the leading role in its development was played by the central dialects of the southwestern region of Belarus, on the territory of which Minsk is located.
In the XVI-XVII centuries. Belarusian writing is developing very intensively. At the beginning of the 16th century. Belarusian educator G. Skorina carried out the first translations of Church Slavonic books. Until this time, the penetration of the Belarusian language into writing was limited, since the written languages here were not only Belarusian, but also Church Slavonic, Polish and Latin.
The Belarusian language was used only in legal documents. Therefore, the task arose to extend the use of the native language to other areas of writing. However, later the historical situation developed in such a way that the Belarusian language was not widely used in writing. The strengthening of the Polish-gentry power and the reactionary policy of Catholicism led to the complete displacement of the Belarusian language from the legal sphere, and in 1696 it was banned altogether. The revival of Belarusian culture and the Belarusian language began after the reunification of Belarusian lands with Russia in 1772 and 1793-1795. Throughout the 19th century. Attempts were made to consolidate the Belarusian language in writing. However, the tsarist government did not allow Belarusians to use their native language in public and state life. The national struggle of Belarusians especially intensified after 1905. At this time, poets such as Y. Kolas and Y. Kupala created works in their native language and thereby laid the foundations of the modern literary Belarusian language.
The development of both the Ukrainian and Belarusian national literary languages was greatly delayed by the reactionary national policies of the tsarist autocracy. Ukrainians and Belarusians did not have their own statehood until 1917; Ukrainian and Belarusian languages were not even considered languages: they were declared “adverbs” of the Russian language; their use in public and state life was prohibited.
Only after the Great October Revolution did Ukrainians and Belarusians receive independent statehood, and the Ukrainian and Belarusian national languages received all the conditions for their development.
The linguistic structure of modern East Slavic languages has a number of common features that distinguish them from the languages of the southern and western Slavs. In the field of phonetics, such common East Slavic features, for example, are: 1) the presence of full consonance, i.e. combinations -oro-> -olo-, -ere- in the roots of words between consonants with combinations -ra-, -la-, -ryo - le- among the southern and -ro-, -lo-, -re-, -le- among the Western Slavs. Wed. Russian and Ukrainian crow, milk, shore; Belarusian varona, malaco, berag; Bulgarian corvid, mlya bryag; Polish t1eko, brzeg; 2) the presence of o at the beginning of the word whenje in other Slavic languages. Wed. Russian autumn, Ukrainian Osin, Belarusian spring, bolg. Yesen, Czech, jesen, 3) pronunciation h and zh in place of common Slavictj, kt, dj at s’ t\ z’ d’ in the south and with, dz among the Western Slavs. Wed. Russian candle, sitting; Ukrainian ceiuna, sitting, Belarusian. candle, sajjuiboyat. candle (<^свешт), саждам; польск. iweca, sadzati etc. In the field of morphology, the East Slavic languages are united by: 1) the use of forms in -am, -ami, -ah in dat., creative. and sentence pad. pl. including all types of declension of nouns with full or partial preservation of the ancient Slavic differences of these forms in different types of declension in other Slavic languages: cf., for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. tables, houses, bones and Czechs, stolum, domom, Kostem;
2) the absence of short forms of pronouns known in some cases in other Slavic languages: for example, in the Czech language, cf. Czech, te, gyo, her (vin. pad.), mi, ti, si (Dat. fall.); 3) the presence of the ending t or t in the 3rd person singular. and many more including present tense verbs in the absence of it in other Slavic languages. Wed. Russian sharpens, Ukrainian sharpen, Belarusian Tochyts and Czechs, prosi, Serbian etc. There are some other features of the same type in the field of morphology. In the field of vocabulary, one can find a whole series of typically East Slavic words that are absent from the southern and western Slavs. Such common East Slavic words include, for example, good, forty, ninety, dog, ladle, jackdaw, bullfinch, absolutely, yaosde, etc.
Modern East Slavic languages are close to each other to such an extent that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians can understand each other relatively freely, despite the fact that the language of each of these peoples has specific words and expressions, grammatical forms and syntactic structures, as well as sounds and combinations sounds.
The most stable part of the vocabulary, which includes the names of immediate relatives, names of parts of the human body, names of seasons, natural phenomena, names of basic actions and qualities, etc., turns out to be the same among all Eastern Slavs.
However, along with this, there are words in the Russian language that are not found in either the Ukrainian or Belarusian languages. These include, for example, peasant (Ukrainian peasant), very (Ukrainian duzhe, Belarusian velmg), thief (Ukrainian zlodsh, Belarusian zlodzey), etc. On the other hand, in the Ukrainian language there are words that are not in Russian: for example, ditina in the meaning 'child 5, godina 'hour', cloudiness with a cloud>. In the same way, in the Belarusian language you can find words that are absent in Russian: for example, torture in the meaning of Interrogate \ tsmentk "writer\ gladzma homeland 5, plyn "current', etc.
In the field of phonetics and morphology, in the same way, along with the general ones, there are also such phenomena that distinguish different East Slavic languages from each other. At the same time, the relationships between the individual languages of the Eastern Slavs are different.
So, for example, the Russian language differs from the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages in the following features in the field of phonetics: 1) in the Russian language there are two types of formation of a voiced velar consonant: plosive g and fricative x; in Ukrainian and Belarusian there is a guttural aspiration, or pharyngeal sound h: Wed. Russian goose - Ukrainian Kus and Belarusian. Kus; 2) in the Russian language there are combinations -ro-, -lo-, -re-, -le- in the roots of words between consonants, while in Ukrainian and Belarusian there are combinations -ry-, -ly-, -ri-, - li-: Wed. Russian crumble, swallow, anxiety, tear; Ukrainian krishiti, glitati, anxiety; Belarusian kryshyts, glyat, sljaza\ 3) in the Russian language combinations of soft dental and hissing words are pronounced with /, and in Ukrainian and Belarusian - long soft dental and hissing words: cf. Russian dress, judge, shreds of Ukrainian pay, judge; Belarusian plaza, klochchi. In the field of morphology, such differences are: 1) the absence of a special vocative form in the Russian language, while it is present in Ukrainian and Belarusian: ukr. brother!, son!] Belarusian: brother!] 2) the absence in the Russian language of the alternation of the posterior palatal k, g, x with the sibilants c, z, s in the case forms of some nouns, while this alternation is present in the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages: cf. Ukrainian hand - rush, leg - noz, plow - code, Belarusian hand-rutse, naga-naze, sakha-sase.
Among the features in the field of phonetics and morphology that bring the Russian language closer to the Belarusian language in contrast to Ukrainian, there are, for example, the following: 1) preservation of the original o and e in new closed syllables (appearing after the loss of the reduced sound in the next syllable) in Russian and Belarusian languages when pronounced in their place and in Ukrainian: cf. Russian nose, table] Belarusian. nose, table] ukr. Hie, st] 2) softening of paired hard consonants before e in the Russian and Belarusian languages while maintaining their hardness in Ukrainian: cf. Russian day, evening] Belarusian. d'z'en, v'echar] Ukrainian. day (i.e. day),ee4 ip(vechir); 3) absence in the Russian and Belarusian languages such forms of the future tense that are characteristic of the Ukrainian language as pisatimu, wearima, robitima, etc., etc.
Finally, two features distinguish the Belarusian language from Russian and Ukrainian. The first of them is the presence of only hard r in the literary Belarusian language and in the southwestern dialects of this language: cf. Russian glad and row, game and dirt, Ukrainian. glad and row, grati and dirt-Belarusian. rad (rad and row), grats and graz, etc. The second is the presence in the Belarusian language of the so-called dzekanya and tsekanya, i.e. the pronunciation of soft d and t with a whistling sound: cf. Russian grandfather, quietly, ukr. did, mixo - Belarusian dzed, shchha.
In the field of phonetics, the Russian literary language is characterized by the following most important features. In unstressed syllables, the vowels a, o and e are not distinguished: in their place one short weak vowel is pronounced: in the first pre-stressed syllable after hard consonants there is a short sound a, and after soft ones - and e(sound between i and e): for example, house-da-ma u n'os-ni e su. In the remaining unstressed syllables, in place of the vowels a, o, e after hard consonants, a very short weak vowel with indistinct articulation is pronounced, for example, dal-d'l'i e ko, les-lsavod.
The consonant system of the Russian literary language is based on the opposition of two correlative series of these sounds: voiceless and voiced (p-b, t-d, s-z, etc.), hard and soft (p-p, t-t\s -s, etc.). Paired deaf and voiced words differ at the end of words and before paired deaf and voiced words: at the end of words and before deaf words, voiced ones are deafened, and before voiced ones, deaf ones are voiced. For example, tooth (zup), teeth (zubof). ).
In the field of morphology, the Russian literary language is characterized by the loss of the vocative form and the use of the nominative case instead.
In the family p. ed. including adjectives husband. and Wed R. the ending -ogo is pronounced as -ovo, -evo: krasnovo, sinevo (the same is observed in non-personal pronouns: kovb, tvoevb, nashevb). The short form of adjectives does not change by gender, number, or case and acts as a nominal part of the compound predicate.
The past participle of the verb is the former participle in l, changing into singular. hours by gender and having unit forms. and many more h. (wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote). The infinitive ends in -ti under stress and in ~t without stress (carry, write); in addition, verbs with a velar stem have an infinitive ending in -ch (like take care).
A specific feature of the vocabulary of the Russian literary language, in contrast to Ukrainian and Belarusian, is that it has strengthened many words of Church Slavonic origin or words that have Church Slavonic features in pronunciation (for example, enemy, burden, time, darkness, captivity, sweet, sir Old Slavonic combinations incomplete in origin; reduce, return, proclaim, clothes, need, enmity with sounds?^ and waiting of Old Slavic origin).
The vocabulary of the Russian literary language is also characterized by the presence in it of a number of borrowed words that appeared in the Russian language at different periods of its development and reflect the historical ties of the Russian people with other peoples. The most ancient (XII-XIII centuries) include borrowings from Turkic languages (for example, armyak, shoe, barn, shed, wagon, lasso, noodles, kvardak, etc.) * These were words that primarily denoted the names of clothes, animals, plants, household utensils, etc.; they were borrowed orally. On the contrary, ancient Greek borrowings penetrated the Russian language through books and related mostly to church concepts (for example, icon, gospel, etc.) but also to everyday concepts (for example, doll, sail, lantern). In later eras, words from Finnish (blizzard, tundra, walrus), Scandinavian (whip, hook, sneak), Iranian languages (weight, target, jackal), Latin, Italian, German, English, French and others penetrated into the Russian language languages. Especially many borrowings appeared in the Russian language during the Peter the Great era. It must be borne in mind that many borrowings are also found in Russian toponymy (cf., for example, names of a geographical nature with the suffix - ma: Totma, Kineshma, Bugulma, etc., of Finnish origin).
The modern sound and grammatical system of the Ukrainian language is characterized by a number of specific features. These include, in particular, pronunciation and (spelling. i) in place o zhe in new closed syllables (“stg, hlb”), a change in the Old Russian diphthong b in i (spelling. i) (pѪti-cnieamu) and etc.
In the field of phonetics, the Ukrainian literary language has a number of features that distinguish it from the Russian language. In unstressed syllables, vowels are not weakened and do not coincide in one sound, as is observed in the Russian language. In other words, Akanya does not speak Ukrainian. An important feature of the Ukrainian language is the alternation of o and e s i, which arose as a result of changes in the original o and after the fall of reduced sounds in new closed syllables (for example, nos^>nos^>ts, pech^>pech^>tch); in open syllables o same remained unchanged: cf. let's lie, Ukrainian ts-nosa, st1l-table, tn-horse, tch-stove, tch-night, shst-six, etc. Neither the Russian nor the Belarusian languages know this feature.
There are also some peculiarities in the relationship between deaf and voiced: in the Ukrainian language, deaf are voiced before voiced, but at the same time, voiced are not voiced in front of deaf and at the end of words, which is observed in the Russian language.
The Ukrainian literary language has a pharyngeal consonant /g, corresponding to the Russian g, voiced affricates dz, dzh, corresponding to the voiceless c, ch\ it is characterized by soft c and hard ch.
In the field of morphology, the Ukrainian literary language is close to Russian. However, unlike the latter, in the Ukrainian language, nouns with stems based on velars k, g, x in case forms have alternations of these consonants with whistling c, z, s (ruka-v rushch, noga-na H03 i, fly-genus pad. musg). There are also features in the expression of the category of animation that are not inherent in the Russian language. Thus, in the plural, this category appears only in words denoting people, while words denoting animals and other animate beings may not have an animation category (for example, herd a cow and herd Kopie, noimucatnoimuhorses).
When all verbs are divided into two conjugations based on the presence of the same endings in the 3rd person plural. h., as in the Russian language, in Ukrainian at the same time the verbs of the 1st conjugation are in the 3rd person singular. h. do not have the ending t: nese, kazhe, may, etc. The forms of the future tense of imperfective verbs can act either as complex (formed by a combination of the auxiliary verb buti and the infinitive: I will write, I will robiti, etc.), or as compounds formed by adding the personal endings of the 1st conjugation to the infinitive of the suffix -m: robitimu, robitime, robitimemo, robitimut1. In the imperative mood there are forms of the 2nd person singular. h. and 1st-2nd persons plural. h.: take-bergmo-take or look-look-look. As in Russian, in Ukrainian the infinitive can end in -ti zh -tъ, but, unlike Russian, the distribution of these forms does not depend on stress; At the same time, in the Ukrainian language forms in -ti are more often used, which are also observed in verbs with a base on velar consonants: mogshi, pekti, lie, etc.
Unlike Russian, the Ukrainian literary language knows almost no Church Slavonicisms. Words of Church Slavonic origin or pronounced with Church Slavonic features in the Ukrainian language correspond to native East Slavic formations: cf. Ukrainian solodky (in Russian, sweet), vorog (in Russian, enemy), skorotiti (in Russian, enemy). reduce), pregnancy (with Russian burden), etc. Particularly noteworthy is the presence in the Ukrainian language of words of Polish origin: for example, tstavyi "interesting 5, rakhunok "count 5, rodzinki "raisin 5, hvilina "minute 5" and some others, as well as borrowings from the Romanian language: for example, tsap "goat 5, brindza "salted sheep cheese 5, dzema "meat stew 5, etc.
Specific features of the modern Belarusian literary language are non-dissimilative akanye, i.e. the pronunciation in place of a, o, e in the first pre-stressed syllable is always the sound a (unlike the north-eastern dialects, where the pronunciation of a vowel in the first pre-stressed syllable depends on the quality of the stressed vowel ); hard r in accordance with hard and soft r in other East Slavic languages (Byaroza) and some others.
The Belarusian language, like the Russian language, is characterized by Akane. At the same time, in the Belarusian language, unlike Russian, akanye is also fixed in writing.
In the ratio of voiceless and voiced consonants in the Belarusian language there are no fundamental differences from the Russian language, except that the sound v at the end of words and before voiceless consonants changes not to f, but to u: halo u ka, garadbu, etc. In In the area of consonants, a specific Belarusian feature is “tsekane” and “dzekanye”, i.e., the pronunciation of soft t and d as the affricates c and d: shchha, chain, dzed, dzela, etc. In the same way, a specific feature of the Belarusian literary language is the absence of soft and pronunciation of only hard r: berag, rabta, rad (row), graz, kuru (smoke) zht. n. The Belarusian language is characterized by pharyngeal h hard sizzling (including ch and gach) and c.
In the field of morphology, the Belarusian language is close to Russian, and in some features it is similar to the Ukrainian language. In the Belarusian language, nouns have three genders and two numbers, as in the Russian language, but retain remnants of the vocative form, as in Ukrainian.
As in the Ukrainian language, in Belarusian in the declension of nouns with a velar stem there is an alternation of k, g, x with the sibilants c, z, s. As for the verb, here too the system as a whole coincides with the system of the Russian language, but at the same time, verbs of the 1st conjugation in the 3rd person singular. h., as in the Ukrainian language, do not have the ending t (byare, greener). The infinitive in the Belarusian literary language ends in -tsъ or -tsi, depending on the final vowel or consonant stem: in addition, velar verbs have the ending -chy: pyachy, byachi or magchy, bechchy.
Also, as in the Ukrainian language, Church Slavonic words or words in the Church Slavonic vowel (for example, salbdkg, malbdshy, etc.) are not very common in the Belarusian literary language. Finally, the Belarusian language, like the Ukrainian language, has in its vocabulary a number of borrowings from the Polish language (for example, Menaeima "exactly 5, zdarytstsa" happen 5, ulasny "own 5, trunak" direction 5, etc.) and borrowings from other languages, received in most cases through the Russian language.
SLAVIC LANGUAGES, a group of languages belonging to the Indo-European family, spoken by more than 440 million people in Eastern Europe and North and Central Asia. The thirteen currently existing Slavic languages are divided into three groups: 1) the East Slavic group includes Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages; 2) West Slavic includes Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian (spoken in a small area in northern Poland) and two Lusatian (or Serbian) languages - Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian, spoken in small areas in eastern Germany; 3) the South Slavic group includes: Serbo-Croatian (spoken in Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian. In addition, there are three dead languages - Slovinian, which disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century, Polabian, which died out in the 18th century, as well as Old Church Slavonic - the language of the first Slavic translations of the Holy Scriptures, which is based on one of the ancient South Slavic dialects and which was used in worship in the Slavic Orthodox Church, but was never an everyday spoken language ( cm. OLD SLAVONIC LANGUAGE).
Modern Slavic languages have many words in common with other Indo-European languages. Many Slavic words are similar to the corresponding English ones, for example: sister –sister,three – three,nose – nose,night – night and etc. In other cases, the common origin of the words is less obvious. Russian word see cognate with Latin videre, Russian word five cognate with German fünf, Latin quinque(cf. musical term quintet), Greek penta, which is present, for example, in a borrowed word pentagon(lit. "pentagon") .
An important role in the system of Slavic consonantism is played by palatalization - the approach of the flat middle part of the tongue to the palate when pronouncing a sound. Almost all consonants in Slavic languages can be either hard (non-palatalized) or soft (palatalized). In the field of phonetics, there are also some significant differences between the Slavic languages. In Polish and Kashubian, for example, two nasal vowels have been preserved - ą And ERROR, disappeared in other Slavic languages. Slavic languages vary greatly in stress. In Czech, Slovak and Sorbian the stress usually falls on the first syllable of a word; in Polish – to the penultimate; in Serbo-Croatian, any syllable except the last one can be stressed; in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, stress can fall on any syllable of a word.
All Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, have several types of declension of nouns and adjectives, which vary in six or seven cases, in number and in three genders. The presence of seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative or prepositional and vocative) indicates the archaic nature of the Slavic languages and their closeness to the Indo-European language, which supposedly had eight cases. An important feature of Slavic languages is the category of verbal aspect: every verb belongs to either the perfective or imperfective form and denotes, respectively, either a completed, or a continuing or repeating action.
The territory inhabited by Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe in the 5th–8th centuries. AD expanded rapidly, and by the 8th century. The common Slavic language spread from the north of Russia to the south of Greece and from the Elbe and the Adriatic Sea to the Volga. Up to the 8th or 9th century. it was basically a single language, but gradually the differences between the territorial dialects became more noticeable. By the 10th century. There were already predecessors to modern Slavic languages.
East Slavic languages are a subgroup of languages that are part of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family. They are common in Eastern Europe, Asia, America and others
Classification
East Slavic languages include both living and dead languages and various dialects. As for the first group, this includes:
- Belorussian.
- Russian.
- Ukrainian.
- Rusyn, which is sometimes considered a dialect of Ukrainian.
As for this, this includes the Old Russian language, which existed before the 14th century, the Western Russian language, which was used by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as well as the Old Novgorod dialect with its own characteristic features.
Story
Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian are Slavic languages. The East Slavic aspect is represented by the fact that these languages had a common ancestor - the Old Russian language, which appeared in the 7th century on the basis of Proto-Slavic. Due to various historical circumstances, it was divided into three large branches - Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian, each of which followed its own path of development.
The East Slavic group of languages developed over a long period of time. Some differences appeared in languages quite late - in the 14th century, while others appeared many centuries earlier. All three languages are characterized by similar morphology, grammar and vocabulary, but they also have significant differences. Some grammatical categories are unique to the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages and are absent in Russian. The same applies to vocabulary, since a significant number of lexical units in the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages are of Polish origin.
Peculiarities
East Slavic languages have their own distinctive features that set them apart from others:
- Phonetics. It is characterized by the presence of Proto-Slavic combinations -oro-, -olo-, -ere-, -elo-, hundred, which is not typical for the southern and western Slavs, as well as the presence of consonants: ch, j, which were simplified in other Slavic languages.
- Vocabulary. The East Slavic subgroup of languages inherited most of their lexical units from the Proto-Slavic language, but also has its own characteristics that distinguish them from other Slavs. The group is also characterized by borrowing, in particular from Finno-Ugric, Baltic, Turkic, Iranian, Caucasian, and Western European languages.
The East Slavic languages use a Cyrillic-based alphabet that came from Bulgaria, but each language in the group has its own characteristics and letters that are not present in the others.
Belarusian language
It is the national language of Belarusians and the official language of the Republic of Belarus. In addition, it is spoken in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, etc. Like other East Slavic languages, Belarusian comes from Old Russian and was formed approximately in the 13-14th centuries on the territory of modern Belarus. This was facilitated by the formation of the Belarusian nationality, united by political, geographical, religious and other factors. A special role in this was played by the unification of lands within the At this time, the Belarusian language became the official language and almost all state and legal documentation was conducted in it. Also, the development of the language was facilitated by schools in communities that arose on the territory of Belarus in the 15th century.
Significant monuments of the written language of the Belarusian language are the Lithuanian Statute, the chronicles of Avraamka and Bykhovets, the “Psalter”, “Small Travel Book”, “Slovenian Grammar”, etc. The revival of the language began in the 19-20th century and is associated with Yanka Kupala, Jacob Kolos and other names .
Russian language
Russian language is one of the East Slavic languages. It is considered one of the world's diplomatic languages and is spoken by several million people around the world. The basis of the Russian nationality were the tribes that inhabited the territory of Veliky Novgorod and the area between the Volga and Oka rivers.
The formation of nationality was facilitated by the development of a centralized state that fought the Tatars and Mongols. An important role in this was played by the reform activities of Peter I, as well as the works of M.V. Lomonosov, G.R. Derzhavina, N.I. Karamzin and others. A.S. is considered the founder of the national Russian language. Pushkin. Its peculiarity is the strict syllabic principle and the double meaning of many letters. The basis of the vocabulary is formed by Old Church Slavonic lexical units, as well as various borrowings.
Ukrainian language
One of the most widespread Slavic languages. It is spoken in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Moldova, etc. The peculiarities of the Ukrainian language began to appear in the 12th century, and since the 14th century, Ukrainians have acted as a separate nationality with their own distinctive features.
The emergence of the Ukrainian nation is associated with the people’s struggle against Polish and Tatar aggression. An important role in the development of Ukrainian writing was played by the works of Grigory Skovoroda, T.G. Shevchenko, I.Ya. Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, I.P. Kotlyarevsky, G.R. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko and others. The vocabulary of the Ukrainian language is characterized by the presence of borrowings from Polish, Turkic and German.
Rusyn language
It is a collection of heterogeneous literary, linguistic and dialect formations that are characteristic of the Rusyns. This nation lives in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, in Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, as well as in Canada and the USA. Today, the number of people who speak this language is about 1.5 million.
There are different opinions regarding whether Rusyn should be considered a separate language or a dialect of Ukrainian. Modern Ukrainian legislation considers Rusyn as the language of national minorities, while, for example, in Serbia, it is considered official.
Characteristic of this language is the presence of a large number of Church Slavonicisms, as well as numerous Polonisms, Germanisms, mannerisms and other features that are not inherent in the Ukrainian language. It is also characterized by the presence of many lexical units that are of Hungarian origin. In addition to this, the language contains a huge layer of Slavic vocabulary, which undoubtedly connects it with other East Slavic relatives.
The East Slavic group of languages is part of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family and has features and differences in comparison with the languages of the Western and Southern Slavs. This group includes Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian and Ruthenian languages, as well as a number of languages and dialects that are now dead. This group is common in Eastern Europe, Asia, America, as well as other parts of the world.
Language is always directly related to society. The history of the origin of words is closely intertwined with the life of the people who speak them.
Any nation with its mentality influences all areas of the language: the pronunciation of sounds, lexical richness, its grammatical structure, etc.
Language is a complete and clear reflection of society. It is connected with the history of the people, with the peculiarities of life, worldview, perception of certain phenomena, with the state structure.
In this article, we invite you to get acquainted with the East Slavic languages, learn their features and similarities, and read about their history.
Indo-Europeans and their language
Until our era came, there was only one Indo-European community in the world. All peoples, including the Slavs, lived in this community and felt great. They were united by language, faith and, of course, territory.
Soon people switched to bronze products and were able to tame the horse, which triggered a wave of migration. These movements spread one language to new territories, which developed differently everywhere, taking on all influences. Now the inhabitants of these territories have nothing in common except the common ancestor of their dialect - the Indo-European proto-language.
Division of the Slavs
The result of migration is the formation of new tribes. One of them was a pre-Slavic tribe that settled in Central and Eastern Europe.
This tribe existed for a long time: until the 6th century AD. Residents led their own way of life, engaged in trade, hunting, cattle breeding, and agriculture.
Soon the Slavs became cramped, because they were constantly expanding the land for their farms. There wasn't enough room for everyone. This led to new movements, and the Slavs split into three groups (or branches) - western, southern and eastern.
The largest community is the Eastern Slavs. They settled on the East European Plain by the 6th century AD.
Each group of Slavs began to divide in turn into several more tribes. The Eastern Slavs formed 15 principalities, each of which had its own land, capital and head - a prince.
Proto-Russian language
How did the East Slavic languages appear? Let's look at history again.
After the migration of the Indo-Europeans, a Proto-Slavic tribe appeared. It is unknown exactly when this event occurred. Scientists cannot indicate the exact date, only approximately this phenomenon can be attributed to the turn of two eras.
Along with the Proto-Slavic tribe, a new language appeared. It lasted as long as the Proto-Slavic unity itself.
But the movements of the people and the beginning of class differences between people shook their integrity. The unity of the Proto-Slavs fell apart, which means the language also fell apart.
This is how the Eastern Slavs separated with their Proto-Russian dialect. It is also called Old East Slavic. By the way, this language began to emerge in the 2nd century AD, before the ties of the Proto-Slavs were broken.
East Slavic languages
By the 7th century AD, the Old East Slavic language had reached a new level, having undergone various changes. This updated dialect is called East Slavic (Old Russian), from which the name of the whole group comes. After some time, Old Russian is divided into several independent dialects.
What languages are included in the East Slavic group? There are only three of them: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. All of them are “descendants” of the East Slavic language.
Let's summarize:
Linguistics groups languages into families. The largest of which is the Indo-European language family. East Slavic languages are a group within this family. All dialects within the same family will be somewhat similar. Take a look at the table:
You can see the similarity of pronunciation, especially in such simple words as be, mother, father, etc. These are the basic words in our speech, so it was them that the Indo-Europeans transferred to new lands, and it was they who retained the similarity.
Spreading
It is generally accepted that the East Slavic group of languages is widespread only in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. However, this is not so: these adverbs have spread quite far.
This group of languages spread to Asia due to the conquest of the Russian Empire.
Russian speech
Russian language is one of the East Slavic languages. It is officially spoken by residents of the Russian Federation. In countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian is one of the official languages.
Russian language is in sixth place in popularity. It is spoken by more than 250 million people worldwide. Half of them speak and write at a high level.
Russian is at the same time the national language of the Russian Federation, international for communication between peoples within Russia and one of the most widespread in the world.
The Russian dialect consists largely of native Russian words. However, over time, the world developed, new concepts, phenomena, inventions, and household items appeared, which then appeared in Russia. Therefore, Russian speech has not avoided borrowings from other languages.
Thanks to Emperor Peter the Great, who ruled in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Russian dialect has many borrowings from Dutch, French and German. And in the 20th century, Russian speech began to adopt words from the English language. This happened in connection with the development of new technologies: computers, the Internet, etc. Borrowings from English still occur, more often even in colloquial speech (Google, hype, meme, etc.).
The Russian language was praised by Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, and the French philosopher Voltaire.
Ukrainian dialect
The second East Slavic language is Ukrainian. It is officially spoken by residents of Ukraine. Since the 19th century, Ukrainians began migrating to Western countries such as Canada, the USA, Australia, as well as to the South American mainland - Argentina and Brazil. Their language accordingly also spread in these territories.
Around the world, 40 million people speak Ukrainian, and in Ukraine itself, 85% of the population.
The Ukrainian language, like other East Slavic languages, was formed on the basis of Old Russian. Literary speech was developed by Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarovsky and Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko.
Belarusian language
The third East Slavic language is Belarusian. It is spoken by 7 million people - residents of Belarus, where there are two official languages - Belarusian and Russian. In 2009, only 53% of the population of this country indicated Belarusian as their native language. The language is now in a vulnerable state. This means that it is spoken mainly only at home.
In the Polish city of Hajnowka and some Polish gminas (minimum administrative units) such as Orla, Czyzhe and Narewka, Belarusian is an auxiliary language. In other words, there it serves for communication between people speaking different languages. Like, for example, English serves for communication between people around the world.
Similarities between Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages
Let's find out what common features the East Slavic languages have. Russian and Ukrainian have only three similarities. But Ukrainian and Belarusian are twelve.
One of the significant common features of the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages is that they have a vocative case. It also existed in the Russian dialect, but already in the 11th century it began to die out.
Russian and Ukrainian languages have soft consonants D and T, and this unites them. Belarusian does not have them. For example: day (Rus), day (Ukr), but zen (bel); shadow (Rus), ten (Ukr), but value (white).
Also in the Russian and Ukrainian languages there is a soft R, but in Belarusian it is pronounced only hard. For example: row (rus) - row (ukr) - rad (white); pockmarked (Russian) - pockmarked (Ukrian) - slaves (white).
Russian and Ukrainian adjectives in the nominative case at the end of the word retain the hard sound Y, but in Belarusian this sound is lost. For example: great (rus) - great (ukr) - vyalik (white); kind (Russian) - kind (Ukr) - kind (white).
Conclusion
East Slavic languages - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. The most common is Russian. They belong to the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of these languages is the Proto-Russian language.
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Experts - linguists and historians - are still arguing where the ancestral home of the Slavs was located, that is, the territory on which they lived as a single people and from where they dispersed, forming separate peoples and languages. Some scientists place it between the Vistula and the middle reaches of the Dnieper, others - between the Vistula in the east and the Oder in the west. Now many experts believe that the ancestral home of the Slavs was in Pannonia, on the Middle Danube, from where they moved to the north and east. One of the proofs that the Slavs were in Central Europe is, for example, the lexical similarity between the Slavic languages and the languages of Western Europe. Compare the Latin and Russian words bostis - “guest”, struere - “build”, fomus - “horn”, paludes - “flood”. The problem of the ancestral home of the Slavs is very complex, and its solution depends on the efforts of scientists of various specialties - historians, archaeologists, linguists, ethnographers, folklorists, anthropologists. Linguistics plays a special role in these searches. In the modern world, there are from 10 to 13 living Slavic languages, depending on the status assigned to several of them, an independent language or a dialect. Thus, official Bulgarian studies do not recognize the Macedonian language as an independent language, considering it as a dialect of Bulgarian. Among the Slavic languages there are also dead ones that no one speaks anymore. This was the first literary language of the Slavs. Russians call it Old Slavonic, and Bulgarians call it Old Bulgarian. It is based on the South Slavic dialects of old Macedonia. It was this language that was used in the 9th century. The sacred texts were translated by Greek monks - the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who created the Slavic alphabet. Their mission to create a literary language for all Slavs became possible due to the fact that in those days Slavic speech was still relatively unified. The Old Church Slavonic language did not exist in the form of living folk speech; it always remained the language of the Church, culture and writing. However, this is not the only dead Slavic language. In the West Slavic zone, in the north of modern Germany, numerous and powerful Slavic tribes once lived. Subsequently, they were almost completely absorbed by the Germanic ethnic group. Their immediate relatives are probably the present-day Lusatians and Kashubians. The disappeared tribes did not know writing. Only one of the dialects - Polabian (the name is derived from the Elbe River, Laba in Slavic) - has reached us in small dictionaries and records of texts made at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. This is a valuable, although rather meager, source of knowledge about the Slavic languages of the past. Among the Slavic languages, Russian is closest to Belarusian and Ukrainian. The three of them form the East Slavic subgroup. Russian is one of the largest languages in the world: in terms of the number of speakers it ranks fifth, behind only Chinese, English, Hindustani and Spanish. Ukrainian in this hierarchy is among the top twenty, i.e. it also belongs to very large languages. In addition to the East Slavic subgroup, the West Slavic and South Slavic subgroups are traditionally distinguished. However, if the East Slavic languages go back to their common ancestor - the Old Russian (“East Slavic”) language, then the same cannot be said about the other two groups. In their origins there were no special Proto-Western and Proto-South Slavic languages. Although the languages of each of these subgroups have a number of features, some linguists tend to view the subgroups themselves not as genetic, but primarily as geographical unities. When the West Slavic and South Slavic subgroups were formed, along with the processes of language divergence (as linguists say, divergence), the processes of their rapprochement (convergence) played an important role. |
