Slavistik vs. Slawistik (was: Slavic vs. Slavonic)

[Loren A. BILLINGS]

>I am a German scholar dealing with Slavonic (Slavic??) languages and would
>be anxious to know whether there are any obliging terminological norms as to
>how we should name the languages of our investigations in press. Is it
>'Slavonic' or 'Slavic'? Is this a question of personal preferences or are
>there meaningful distinctions that have to be borne in mind when using these
>adjectives?

_Slavonic_ is generally used in Britain, while _Slavic_ is used in America.
(One notable exception:  OCS is generally Old Church _Slavonic_ in the
States.  A word in Russian that is not E.Sl., but from liturgical, S.Sl.
influence, is called a _Slavonicism_ in the United States.)

In the German-speaking world, there is an (albeit orthographic) distinction
between _Slawistik_ (roughly speaking, in Austria and East Germany) and
_Slavistik_ (used elsewhere).  Predictably, this distinction has become
functionalized.  With German unification, some places, such as my own
current affiliation (for two more days) in the former East Germany, use
_Slavistik_; I've heard of some places where the institute's name is
spelled one way while the name of a publication there is spelled the other
way.