OCS, Polish, and other Modern Slavic languages

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Sat Apr 3 09:23:02 UTC 1999


In a message dated 4/2/99 6:40:19 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

<<OK, as is commonly known, the Slavic languages are closely similar, and were
sharing common developments rather late:>>

Wait, are you saying they shared common developments after splitting up?
Then that means some of the similarities were due to "mutual contact" and not
common ancestry.  That goes against your premise.

<<Exemplia gratia:  the Germanic proper name "Karl" (as in "Charlemagne"),
which was loaned into Proto-Slavic and became the generic term for "King",
for obvious reasons.  (Rather as "Caesar" became "Emperor" in several
languages.)>>

What you might as well say is "rather as Caesar became Kaiser or Tsar."  Does
that prove something about the relation of German and Russian?  How do we
characterize the sound shifts difference between czar, tsar and kaiser?
(More interesting is the relation of "karl" to such words as "churl",
"coerl", "krailik" and "czele" and the fact that the individual name "Karl"
shows up in a 900 Graeco-Russian treaty alongside of names like  "Boris" and
"Vlad".  That's a little more tricky.  Almost makes you wonder which way the
borrowing went.)

<<It then underwent the characteristic shifts of the various branches of
Slavic.  Which, of course, it wouldn't do if it had been borrowed later.>>

Unless of course your original assumption is incorrect and it doesn't
specifically refer to Charlesmagne and is earlier.  Which is certainly
possible.  All depends on what "karl" meant before Charlesmagne and whether
any Slavic-speakers could have access to that word and meaning, doesn't it?

<<Therefore the characteristic developments of the various Slavic languages
must post-date the early 9th century, at the very least.  QED.>>

Hmmm.  Indubitable.

<<Just to illustrate how close the Slavic languages _still_ are, the first line
of the Lord's Prayer, and keeping in mind that languages get more different
over time>>

Or sometimes, as in the case of Russian and OCS, closer.

<<OCS:  Otice nasi ize jesi na nebesichu: da svetitu se ime tvoje.
Polish:	Ojcze nasz ktorys jest we niebiesiech: swiec sie imie twoje.>>

I am not going to tell you that this example does not reflect a similarity
after at least 1200 years of provable separation.  But I wonder what it
proves about 800 ace.  I just wonder if words like "father," "your", "heaven"
and "hallowed" and the common liturgical prayer of Christianity however are
where you look to find the active differences between languages.

<<indicative, one would think, fairly clearly, of the closeness of the links
we're talking about (far closer than between the Romance languages)>>

This is the problem of how you judge "closeness" again.  John Green writes of
"the high degree of lexical overlap" between the modern Romance languages,
"using the standard lexicostatistical 100-word list."  And that
"intercomprehensibity...is also good in technical and formal registers, owing
to extensive borrowing from Latin..."  (Borrowing from a 'dead language'
should be illegal.)  In any case, I don't think you'd find very much
incomprehensibility - if any - of their own pater noster's among Romance
speakers.

<<...of reasonably complete mutual comprehensibility if we roll back twelve
hundred years or so to OCS times.>>

I think that all anyone can say with confidence is that it is possible -
especially given the "chaotic" way languages behave - if I remember your
description in an earlier post correctly.

Regards,
Steve Long



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