Slavonic Languages

The formation of the sentence is not naturally complicated, and the word order is almost as free as in the classical languages, but Slavonic has in times past been largely influenced by Greek, Latin and German with their involved periods ; latterly there has been a tendency to follow the simpler models of French and English.

Such being the Slavonic languages as a whole and regarded in their relationship to LE„ they may now be considered in their relationship to each other. Some account of each language will be found under its name.

Divisions.

The Slavonic languages are usually divided into three groups: (1) The Western, comprising Polabian, Polish, Sorb or Wen dish, and Czechoslovak. Polabian, which was the language of the Slays of the Elbe (Labs is the Slavonic name for the Elbe), is now dead, its speakers having been Germanized in the course of the last thousand years. It was spoken in the South-Eastern part of Holstein, in Mecklenburg and on the island of Riigen, in part of Hanover (where the last remnants of the language sur vived until the 18th century), in the northern part of Branden burg and in Pomerania. Closely connected with Polabian is Polish, which has an old literary tradition. Kagube, spoken in the neighbourhood of Danzig, presents archaic features in the ac centuation, and in its earlier form was the connecting link with Polabian. Sorb or Wendish, which is spoken on both sides of the Spree in Upper and Lower Lusatia, and is divided, according to the dialect used, into Upper and Lower Sorb, formerly occu pied a much larger area and formed a natural transition to Polabian, Polish and Czech. Czech and Slovak—really two sep arate but closely related literary languages, although the com pound word Czechoslovak to express either one or both languages is winning acceptance—are spoken respectively in Bohemia and Slovakia. The dialects of Moravia bridge the two languages.

(2) The Eastern, comprising Great Russian, the scientific name of the language generally known as Russian simply ; Little Russian, now usually called Ukrainian and formerly also called Ruthenian in those parts of old Austro-Hungary where it was spoken; and White Russian, which has recently been elevated into a literary language.

(3) The Southern, comprising Slovene, Serbo-Croat and Bul garian. The Croat spoken near Zagreb (the so-called kaj dialect) is a transition dialect between Slovene and literary Serbo-Croat. Serb and Croat are identical languages, but the former is written in the Cyrillic and the latter in the Latin alphabet. The Mace donian dialects represent a midway stage between Serb and Bul garian, the last of the Southern group. The language of the first Slavonic translators was an old form of Macedonian Bulgarian and, because of certain phonetic resemblances to Bulgarian, is called either Old Bulgarian or Old (Church) Slavonic, and is here abbreviated as O.B.

Without entering into the peculiarities of each Slavonic language, it may be said that on the whole the geographical classification of the Slays is justified linguistically, though the lines of division are rendered less definite by the approximation of the languages which are contiguous in area, the special char acteristics of each group being generally represented in dialects of the others, if not in the written languages. Also, within his toric time, certain languages have influenced others through literary and political intercourse. O.B. has influenced all the Orthodox Slays and the Croats, so that Russian is full of O.B. forms, pronounced a la Russe. Czech has almost overshadowed Slovak and early afforded literary models to Polish. Polish has overshadowed Kagube and much influenced Little and White Russian, and Great Russian in a less degree. Russian has in its turn supplied modern Bulgarian with a model. Again, other tongues have contributed ; in Common Slavonic Germanic loan words already occur, and others have followed at various periods, especially in Czech, Polish and Slovene. Bulgarian and Serbo Croat have incorporated many Turkish words; Russian added many Eastern words in the Tatar period and has absorbed the common vocabulary of Western civilisation since the time of Peter the Great (this tendency has been accentuated under the Bol shevik regime) ; but on the whole, though the Slav easily takes to a fresh language, he has kept his own free from any great admixture. The various Slavonic languages are treated under the national headings. But for Bulgarian see OLD SLAVONIC.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Enciklopedija

slavjanskoj filologii, in particular the first volume, Istorija slay. fil., by V. JagiC (Iwo) ; A. Meillet, Le Slave Commun (1924) ; V. Vondrak, Vergleichende Slavische Gram matik (2nd edition, Gottingen, 1924) ; E. E. Mikkola, Urslavische Grammatik (Heidelberg, /913) ; R. Trautmann, Baltisch-Slavisches Worterbuch (Gottingen, 1923) ; E. Berneker, Slavisches etymologisches Worterbuch (only 1st volume is completed ; reference must therefore be made to the earlier work of F. Miklosich, Etym. Worterbuch d. slay. Sprachen, Vienna, 1886) ; 0. Broch, Slavische Phonetik (Heidel berg, 1911) gives a good account of the pronunciation of all the Slavonic languages. The Archiv fur slavische Philologie (Berlin) and the Revue des etudes slaves (Paris) will provide any further biblio graphy required. Some general information will also be found in the Slavonic Review (London, 1922 seq.). (N. B. J.)