The Neolithic Hypothesis (Latin et al.)

[Rick Mc Callister]

	I've heard/read that Old Macedonian/Bulgarian was the Slavic
dialect in closest proximity to Byzantium and therefore, the most
convenient Slavic language for Byzantine monks to learn. So in that sense,
standardization was really serendipitous.

[snip]

>Church Slavonic was designed specifically to give "all Slavia one tongue to
>worship with" and it provides the earliest records preserved of Slavic.  That
>is planned standardization.  But even before that Slavic may have been
>standardized by traders as the lingua franca of the northeastern trade routes
>- this is pretty much Dolukhanov's theory for the enormous ground Slavic
>already covers when it first appears in history.  Conversely, the greatest
>diversity (least standardization) among early Slavs is said to appear between
>the Elbe and Vistula, where agriculture is attested to have been more intense
>and productive than even among the northern Germans and Church Slavonic never
>reaches due to persistent paganism.