Old Church Slavonic

Overview

Old Church Slavonic (OCS; in German Altkirchenslavisch, often also Altbulgarisch; in Russian старославянский язык) is the oldest attested Slavic literary language. It is a South Slavic idiom (Eastern South Slavic, the Bulgaro-Macedonian group), based on the Slavic vernacular of the region of Salonica (Thessalonica) in the ninth century. It was codified from 862-863 by the Byzantine brothers Constantine (in religion Cyril) and Methodius, missionaries sent to Great Moravia in order to translate the Scriptures and the Christian liturgy. Old Church Slavonic is not an ordinary vernacular but an elaborated liturgical and literary language: it remains extraordinarily close to Late Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic), to the point that it serves as a privileged window onto the common state of Slavic around 900. The strict "canonical" corpus comprises a small number of manuscripts (10th-11th c.) written in two alphabets, Glagolitic (the older, attributed to Cyril) and early Cyrillic (derived from the Greek majuscule/uncial). A fully deciphered language, read and taught without interruption, it is the direct ancestor of Church Slavonic, still used liturgically by the Slavic Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches. It is morphologically archaic: nominal inflection with 7 cases, three numbers (singular, dual, plural), a rich verbal system (present, aorist, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect), and it preserves Indo-European features lost elsewhere (nasal vowels, yers, the dual).

History of the people

There is no distinct "Old Church Slavonic people": the language is the work of a lettered Byzantine-Slavic elite in the service of the Christianization of the Slavs. The key figures are Constantine-Cyril (c. 826/827-869) and his brother Methodius (c. 815-885), natives of Thessalonica and familiar with the local Slavic, sent in 863 by the Byzantine emperor Michael III (on the recommendation of the patriarch Photius) at the request of the Moravian prince Rastislav to preach in the Slavic tongue. Faced with the opposition of the Germanic clergy (defenders of the trilingual doctrine of Latin-Greek-Hebrew), the brothers obtained the support of the pope in Rome; Cyril died there (869). After the death of Methodius (885), his disciples (including Clement and Naum of Ohrid) were expelled from Moravia and received into the First Bulgarian Empire under Tsar Boris I and then Simeon, where the great scriptorial centres developed (Ohrid, Preslav). The radiance of this written culture then reached Serbia, Croatia (a durable Croatian Glagolitism), Bohemia and above all Kievan Rus' after its Christianization (988), founding the East Slavic literary tradition. Cyril and Methodius are venerated as saints ("apostles of the Slavs") and proclaimed co-patrons of Europe (John Paul II, 1980). Old Church Slavonic is thus the foundation of Orthodox Slavic written civilization.

History of the language

Old Church Slavonic rests on a South Slavic (Bulgaro-Macedonian) dialect of the region of Salonica, a language known to Cyril and Methodius, natives of Thessalonica. The Moravian mission (863) required a written language; tradition attributes to Cyril the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet and the translation of a gospel lectionary (aprakos), of the Psalter and of liturgical texts. After the death of Methodius (885) and the expulsion of the disciples from Moravia, activity shifted toward Bulgaria (the schools of Preslav and Ohrid, late 9th-10th c.), where Cyrillic was in all likelihood devised (the Preslav school) and where the corpus was copied and enriched. "Canonical" Old Church Slavonic denotes the linguistic state of the 10th-11th c. manuscripts judged the purest, before the copyists introduced too many features of their own vernaculars. From the 11th c. onward regional "recensions" (redactions) appear — Bulgarian, Russian (East Slavic), Serbian, Croatian, Czech — reflecting local phonetic evolution: this is Church Slavonic, a standardized liturgical variant and no longer Old Church Slavonic in the strict sense. The Slavic vernacular, for its part, continued to evolve and differentiated into distinct languages. Old Church Slavonic as a living language never existed outside its written/liturgical use; it therefore did not "die out" through the death of its speakers but became fixed as a sacred language and then diversified into recensions. Russian Church Slavonic remains in cultic use today. An important point: Old Church Slavonic is not the ancestor of all the modern Slavic languages (a frequent misconception) but a very archaic cousin, close to Proto-Slavic.

The script

Old Church Slavonic is written in two distinct but phonetically near-isomorphic systems. (1) GLAGOLITIC (glagolica), the older, traditionally attributed to Cyril (c. 862-863): an original alphabet, not simply derived from an existing script, with rounded forms (Bulgaro-Macedonian "round" Glagolitic) or angular ones (the later Croatian "square" Glagolitic). The early sources and the alphabet tables give a total situated around 38-41 signs depending on the count (the monk Hrabar speaks of 38 letters; the higher totals include letters for non-Greek sounds and later additions/ligatures). Each letter bears a meaningful acrophonic name (azъ "I", buky "letters", vědě "I know", glagoli "say/verb", dobro "good", jestъ "is", živěte "live", zemlja "earth", ižei, i, kako, ljudije "people", myslite "think", našь, onъ, pokoi "peace", rьci "say", slovo "word", tvrьdo "firm"…), whence the famous "alphabet prayer". The numerical values follow the proper order of the Glagolitic alphabet (az=1, buky=2, vědě=3…), independently of Greek. (2) Early CYRILLIC (kirillica), devised in Bulgaria (the Preslav school, late 9th-10th c.), derived from the Greek majuscule (uncial), supplemented by signs borrowed/adapted (often from Glagolitic) for the Slavic sounds absent from Greek (ж, ц, ч, ш, щ, ъ, ь, yat ѣ, the nasals ѫ/ѧ, etc.). For its letters of Greek origin, Cyrillic retains the Greek numerical values. The two alphabets encode the same phonological inventory; the standard scholarly transliteration allows conversion from one to the other (e.g. Glag./Cyr. → Latin ě, ъ, ь, ǫ, ę, y, š, č, ž, x…). The script runs from left to right, frequently in scriptio continua, with sacred abbreviations (nomina sacra) surmounted by a titlo, and letters of numerical value framed by dots or overlined.

Sign system

An alphabetic system (one sign ≈ one phoneme), neither logographic nor syllabic. The usual early Cyrillic inventory (≈43 letters in the grammars) and the parallel Glagolitic. Sign → value correspondences (standard Latin transliteration): azъ→a; buky→b; vědě→v; glagoli→g; dobro→d; jestъ→e; živěte→ž; dzělo→dz (ѕ); zemlja→z; ižei/iže→i, i̇ (ï); đerv (Glag.)→ǵ/ĵ; kako→k; ljudije→l; myslite→m; našь→n; onъ→o; pokoi→p; rьci→r; slovo→s; tvrьdo→t; ukъ→u (digraph оу in Cyr.); frьtъ→f; xěrъ→x (kh); otъ→ô/ō (ѡ, omega); ci→c; črьvь→č; ša→š; šta→št/šč (щ); jerъ→ъ (hard yer, a posterior ultra-short vowel); jery→y (ы); jerь→ь (soft yer, an anterior ultra-short vowel); jatь→ě (ѣ); ju→ju; the iotated a/e; nasals: ǫsь (big yus ѫ)→ǫ [ɔ̃], ęsь (little yus ѧ)→ę [ɛ̃], and their iotated variants jǫ (ѭ), ję (ѩ); spirants/Greek letters ксі→ks (ѯ), псі→ps (ѱ), fita→th (ѳ), ižica→ü/i (ѵ). Numerical values (Cyrillic, inherited from Greek): а=1, в=2, г=3, д=4, є=5, ѕ=6, з=7, и=8, ѳ=9, і=10, к=20, л=30, м=40, н=50, ѯ=60, о=70, п=80, koppa ҁ=90, р=100, с=200, т=300, у=400, ф=500, х=600, ѱ=700, ѡ=800, ц=900. Note: in the oldest Cyrillic manuscripts (the canonical period) the value 90 is carried by the KOPPA (ҁ), a purely numeral sign inherited from Greek; the letter če (ч) acquired the value 90 only later (generalized around ~1300), after the disappearance of the koppa. In Glagolitic, by contrast, the numerical values follow the proper order of the Glagolitic alphabet (and not the Greek order). Auxiliary signs: titlo (abbreviation/number), breathing/accent occasionally, numeral separation dots.

Phonology

A rich vocalic inventory (≈11 vowels): /a e o u i y/ + jatь ě (a front vowel, its realization debated, [æ]~[ɛ] or even a diphthong depending on the hypothesis/dialect) + two ultra-short (reduced) yers: ъ (hard yer, back) and ь (soft yer, front); two NASAL vowels inherited from Proto-Slavic: ǫ [ɔ̃] (big yus) and ę [ɛ̃] (little yus), an archaic feature lost in almost all modern Slavic (except Polish). Law of the open syllable: every syllable tends to end in a vowel (or a sonorant) — no consonantal coda. Palatalization correlations: front vs. back vowels, hard/soft consonant opposition. Palatalizations: three palatalizations of the velars (k g x → č ž š; then c dz s; etc.) and iotation effects (t+j→št, d+j→žd, sk+j, etc.) ubiquitous in the morphology. "Strong" vs. "weak" yers (Havlík's law): in weak position they drop, in strong position they vocalize (ъ→o-type, ь→e-type) — this phenomenon, later than canonical Old Church Slavonic, already accounts for orthographic fluctuations. Consonants: voiceless/voiced stops p b t d k g, affricates c č (dz), fricatives s z š ž x, sonorants m n (n') l (l') r (r') v j; /f/ marginal (Greek loans). Pitch accent/quantity (inherited from Proto-Slavic, not systematically marked in the manuscripts). Reductions and confusions of the nasals and the yers serve as criteria for dating and dialectal localization of the manuscripts.

Grammar — essentials

A synthetic, fusional inflecting language, very close to Proto-Slavic. NOUN/ADJECTIVE/PRONOUN: 3 genders (masc., fem., neuter), 3 numbers (singular, DUAL, plural), 7 CASES: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, locative (prepositional), dative, instrumental. Several thematic declension classes inherited from the Indo-European stems in -o/-jo (e.g. rabъ "slave"), -a/-ja (žena "woman"), -i (kostь "bone"), -u (synъ "son"), -consonant (kamy, mati, slovo, imę), -ū. Adjectives with a double declension: a NOMINAL form (short, indefinite) and a PRONOMINAL/COMPOUND form (long, definite, formed by agglutination of the anaphoric pronoun jь/ja/je: dobrъ vs. dobryjь "the good one"). VERB: oppositions of person (1/2/3), number (sg/dual/pl). Tenses: PRESENT; two simple pasts — the AORIST (a punctual past action, several forms: sigmatic, asigmatic/root) and the IMPERFECT (a durative/repeated past action, in -aaše/-ěaše); compound pasts: the PERFECT (participle in -lъ + present of byti "to be"), pluperfect, future (generally expressed by the present or by periphrastic turns). Moods: indicative, imperative, conditional/optative (with the particle/auxiliary bi). Voice/aspect: the perfective/imperfective aspectual opposition is still emergent, less grammaticalized than in modern Slavic. Numerous inflected PARTICIPLES: present active (-y/-ęšt-), past active (-ъš-/-vъš-), present passive (-mъ), past passive (-nъ/-tъ), and the participle in -lъ. Infinitive in -ti, supine in -tъ (after verbs of motion). The verb "to be" byti is irregular (present esmь, esi, estъ, dual/pl…). SYNTAX: relatively free word order (often calqued on the Greek of the originals), dative absolute (an adverbial clause: dative of the subject + participle), genitive of negation, double negation, use of particles (že, bo, li, ubo). Strong syntactic influence of biblical Greek in the translations.

Reading tips

An operational reading method. (1) Identify the alphabet: Glagolitic (rounded/angular forms, 10th-11th c., the oldest manuscripts) or early Cyrillic (close to Greek). Transliterate first into scholarly Latin (the system ě, ъ, ь, ǫ, ę, y, š, č, ž, x, dz…). (2) Handle the scriptio continua and the abbreviations: spot the nomina sacra under a titlo (bg̃ъ = bogъ "God", g̃ь = gospodь "Lord", is̃ xs̃ = Isusъ Xristosъ, člvkъ = člověkъ "man", d̃xъ = duxъ "spirit"), and the numeral letters (framed by dots/overlined). (3) Segment into words by recognizing the endings. (4) Analyze morphologically BEFORE translating: the ending carries case, number, gender, tense, person — a single root takes dozens of forms. Watch for the DUAL and the 7 cases. (5) For the verb, distinguish the aorist (punctual: -xъ, -stъ, -šę…) vs. the imperfect (durative: -aaše/-ěaše) vs. the perfect (participle -lъ + byti). (6) Recognize the constructions calqued on Greek: the dative absolute (subject in the dative + participle = "as/when X…"), the genitive of negation, conjoined participles. (7) The weak yers (often unpronounced at a late date) and the vocalic alternations (palatalizations k/č/c, g/ž/dz, x/š/s) mask the identity of the roots: mentally restore the base form. (8) Compare, when possible, with the Greek source text (Gospels, Psalter): the vast majority of the corpus is translation, which resolves the ambiguities. (9) Do not modernize: modern Bulgarian/Russian help with the lexicon but mislead as to the grammar (Old Church Slavonic is far more inflectional). Always flag an uncertain reading rather than guess.

Pitfalls

Major pitfalls. (1) Do NOT confuse Old Church Slavonic (the language codified in the 9th-11th c.) with Church Slavonic (the later liturgical recensions, notably the Russian one): forms and orthography diverge. (2) Do NOT treat Old Church Slavonic as the ancestor of modern Russian or Bulgarian: it is an archaic South Slavic cousin; the lexical similarities mislead as to the grammar. (3) The YERS (ъ, ь) are real vowels, not mute signs nor mere marks of hardness/softness as in modern Russian — their fall (in weak position) is later. (4) The NASALS ǫ (ѫ) and ę (ѧ) are not variants of u/a: distinguish the big yus / the little yus and their iotated forms; their confusion in a manuscript is a dialectal clue, not a phonetic equivalence. (5) The DUAL is a distinct third grammatical number: do not read it as a plural. (6) Beware of the ambiguity ě (yat) vs. e, and of the palatalization alternations that disguise one and the same root (rǫka/rǫcě). (7) Abbreviations under a titlo (nomina sacra, numbers) must be expanded before translation, otherwise a misreading results. (8) Numerical values: Glagolitic follows its own order, Cyrillic follows the Greek — do not transpose; and in early Cyrillic, 90 = koppa (ҁ), the letter če (ч) having taken this value only later. (9) The syntax calqued on Greek (dative absolute, participles) must not be rendered word for word. (10) Never invent a reading: prefer to flag the uncertainty.

Decipherment history

Old Church Slavonic was never a "lost" script to be deciphered in the sense of Egyptian or Linear B: the Slavonic liturgical tradition ensured an uninterrupted transmission of the reading of Cyrillic, and Glagolitic remained read in Croatia. The scholarly work was therefore philological (edition, dating, phonetic reconstruction) rather than cryptographic. Key stages: Josef Dobrovský founds the scientific study of Old Church Slavonic (Institutiones linguae slavicae dialecti veteris, Vienna, 1822). August Leskien produces the reference grammar (Handbuch der altbulgarischen [altkirchenslavischen] Sprache, 1871 and numerous reprints), establishing the standardized description. Franz Miklosich elaborates comparative grammars and dictionaries (Lexicon palaeoslovenico-graeco-latinum, 1862-1865). Vatroslav Jagić edits the great Glagolitic codices (Codex Marianus, 1883; Codex Zographensis, 1879). In the 20th c., André Vaillant (Manuel du vieux slave, 1948; Grammaire comparée des langues slaves), Nicolaas van Wijk, Horace Lunt (Old Church Slavonic Grammar, 1955) refine the analysis. The "decipherment" of Glagolitic proper rested on the medieval alphabet tables (abecedaria, alphabet prayers) and on the bilingual/parallel Glagolitic-Cyrillic manuscripts, allowing the secure establishment of the sign correspondences. The corpus is today entirely legible; the residual debates concern the fine phonetic value of ě and of the yers, the origin of the Glagolitic forms, and the dialectal localization of the manuscripts, not the reading of the signs.

Common formulae & expressions

iskoni bě slovo (var. vъ načęlě bě slovo)

"In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1) — an emblematic gospel incipit; the Codex Marianus reads iskoni bě slovo.

otьče našь iže esi na nebesěxъ

"Our Father who art in heaven" — the opening of the Pater noster, the pivotal text of all instruction.

gospodi pomilui

"Lord, have mercy" (Kyrie eleison) — the most frequent liturgical invocation.

slava otьcu i synu i svętuemu duxu

"Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit" — a liturgical doxology.

aminь

"Amen" — the close of a prayer (a Greek loan, of Hebrew origin).

azъ jesmь

"I am" — the verb byti in the 1st person, very frequent (it renders the Greek egō eimi).

bogъ / gospodь

"God" / "Lord" — almost always abbreviated under a titlo (bg̃ъ, g̃ь): nomina sacra.

i reče

"and he said" — a recurrent narrative formula (aorist of rešti), articulating the narratives.

věruǫ vъ jedinogo boga

"I believe in one God" — the opening of the Creed (the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol).

vъ imę otьca

"In the name of the Father" — a liturgical and baptismal opening formula.

Corpora & reference editions

• Canonical OCS corpus: Codex Zographensis (Glagolitic, tetraevangelium, late 10th-11th c.)
• Codex Marianus (Glagolitic, tetraevangelium, early 11th c.; ed. Jagić 1883)
• Codex Assemanianus (Glagolitic gospel lectionary/aprakos, 11th c.)
• Psalterium Sinaiticum (Glagolitic psalter, Monastery of St Catherine at Sinai)
• Euchologium Sinaiticum (Glagolitic ritual, Sinai)
• Glagolita Clozianus (Glagolitic homiletic collection)
• Savvina kniga (Cyrillic gospel lectionary/aprakos)
• Codex Suprasliensis (menaion/homilies, Cyrillic, 11th c., the largest OCS manuscript)
• Kiev Folia (Kiev Missal, Glagolitic, with Moravian-Czech features)
• Prague Folia; Freising Fragments (marginally East Slavic? rather Slovene, Latin-Slavic, outside the strict canon)
• Digital databases: TITUS (Univ. Frankfurt); PROIEL treebank (annotated OCS); the Gorazd portal / Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum

Bibliographic references

• André Vaillant, Manuel du vieux slave, Institut d'études slaves, 1948 (2 vol.: t. I Grammaire; t. II Textes et glossaire) — The reference francophone manual: grammar + annotated texts. Existence and attribution verified.
• Horace G. Lunt, Old Church Slavonic Grammar, Mouton, The Hague, 1955 (7th rev. ed., Mouton de Gruyter, 2001) — The reference descriptive grammar in English, the academic standard. 1st ed. 1955, 7th ed. 2001 confirmed.
• August Leskien, Handbuch der altbulgarischen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache. Grammatik – Texte – Glossar, 1871 (numerous reprints) — A foundational grammar; it establishes the standardized description of Old Church Slavonic. Title and date verified.
• Franz Miklosich, Lexicon palaeoslovenico-graeco-latinum, Vienna, Braumüller, 1862-1865 — The great Old Church Slavonic–Greek–Latin dictionary (~42,000 entries). Verified.
• André Vaillant, Grammaire comparée des langues slaves, 1950-1977 (5 vols.) — A major comparative work situating Old Church Slavonic within Common Slavic.
• Vatroslav Jagić (ed.), Quattuor evangeliorum versionis palaeoslovenicae Codex Marianus glagoliticus characteribus cyrillicis transcriptum, Berlin/St Petersburg, 1883 — The reference critical edition of the Codex Marianus. Title and date verified.
• Josef Dobrovský, Institutiones linguae slavicae dialecti veteris, Vienna, 1822 — The founding work of the scientific study of Old Church Slavonic. Verified (Vindobonae, 1822).
• Slovník jazyka staroslověnského (Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae), Prague, Slavic Institute of the Czechoslovak/Czech Academy of Sciences, 4 vols. (fascicles from 1958; vol. I 1966 – vol. IV 1997) — A complete scholarly dictionary of Old Church Slavonic, the modern lexicographical reference. Publication in fascicles from 1958, bound volumes 1966-1997.