OLD CHURCH SLAVIC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The oldest language and literature of the Slavic group of ludo Germanic languages, presenting one of the most important dialects for the study of compara tive Iinguisties. (Sec PHILOLOGY.) Formerly called Old Slovenian, and even now frequently termed Old Bulgarian.' the best name seems to be Old Church Slavic, for the language ap pears not to have coincided with any national or geographieal division. while its use from an early time in the Greek Church (where it occupies a position somewhat analogous to Latin in the Roman Catholic Church), and its evident Slavic characteristics, amply justify the use of this term. The place of its origin cannot he exactly determined, although it seems to have been the dialect of a region in the Balkan Peninsula. The widespread use of the language. however. per mitted the of certain Pannonian isnis and Bohemianisms or Slovenianisms. even in the oldest records. It nevertheless remained free from the Russian. Servian. and other im portations wide]] characterize the later form of the language which may be called Clinreh In its phonology Old Church Slavic adheres elosely to the characteristic representations of the Indo-Germanic sound-system which mark the Slavic languages (q.v.).
The inflection of Old Church Slavic is full and in many cases primitive in type. The noun has three numbers. singular, plural, and dual; seven cases. nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocatne, locative, and instrumental; and three systems of declension, nominal, pronominal, and compound. There are six nominal declensions, according as the stems end in -o, -u, or a consonant. As in other Indo-Germanic languages, the pronominal declension was originally entirely different from the nominal, although transfers from one system of inflection to the other are not infrequent. The compound inflection, pecu liar to the Slavic and Scandinavian In DgliagPS, is formed by adding the pronoun i to au ad jective or a participle, both parts of which are then declined. as dobra, 'of good (man)', yoga 'of him,' dobra yego, 'of the good (man).' fhe process, therefore, is precisely analogous to the Scandinavian article suffixed to a noun. as old Icelandic /Jo/Ts-ens. 'of the shield.' rhe com parative of the adjective is formed by -cis, as krfplikii, 'strung,' k rrpyii ; dabril , 'good,' dobrl'i; and the superlative is either the com parative used with superlative force, or is formed by prefixing nai- to the comparative, as noikrepyii, • stronge,t: The verb in 0111 Church Slavic. as in other languages of this group, is either perfective, expressive of a completed ac tion, or imperfeJtive, denoting either a continuous (durative) or interrupted (iterative) action. A durative verb becomes perfective if a preposition i. prefixed (as //esti, to carry,' but iffnesti, `to carry our), while under like conditions an itera tive verb becomes durative, or more rarely itera tive-perfective. Only two of the original tenses
are retainetl, present and aorist, and only two moods. indicative and imperative, the latter be ing originally an optative. The lndo-Oermanic middle voice has been lost, like the future and perfect tenses, while of the original passive only the present and perfect participles (as redo/nu, rcrIcn from rcsli, conduct' ) remain. addition to the active infinitive there is a supine corresponding precisely to that found in Litin is Latin datam. Old Church Slavic from (hie, du i, 'to give'), The florist. inherited from the Pre-Indo.(fermanie period, is formed either or without R. the latter class steadily in creasing at the expense of the former. The im perfect is specifically a Slavic formation, being made apparently by adding to a datival (or pos sibly loeatival) infinitive an augmented imperfect of the root a he: its ,,,puoiri. recta hit, from re.cti, 'to conduct.' future and perfect. like the pluperfeet, future perfect, passive, and con ditional, are periphrastic in formation, the future is often expressed by the present. and the passive by a reflexive made hy the active chilli the r, ilexive pronoun sc. (as I,h, k rist I Nr, 10 he baptized by thee,' more rirt lv l,l napisano. `it was wrilt?TC). in .tynt x the Host noteworthy features are the use (•1 the e'enilive instead of the aeensative after negative Nerbs. and after transitive verbs in the ease of proper MI ttle•;. rt usage which probably" arose front the desire to avoid the resulting from the identity of form of (Ito nominative and sossisIthe singular of masculine nouns: the use f t he dttive as an absolute case, and the use of the predicative dative after verbs of becoming (as i siro/ugg din1sai nu bo(Ict , 'and the child shall not become an old Church Slavic is written in two alphabets, called Glagolitic and Cyrillic. (See (:L.ct;uurs.tc Cuttmac \ teilYta:r.) The literature, which is of considerable extent, and consists altogether of translations, is entirely religious. Besides the Bible, there arc versions of the Euchologium, homilies, legends of the saints, cud certain apoc ryphal books.
Consult: Schleicher, Inc n lch rc (1( r k irchru sla ischca prache (1;unn, zu in tot s lo co (Prague, 1505) ; Chodzka, rain mai re int Mos/ a re (Paris, 1869) Handbuch tic r all bu rischen (oil k irchrn slo en) !troche (.3(1. ed., Weimar, 1898) ; Vtuidnik, Al t k irchcosla teischc tlrrWHneIfik (Ber lin, 19(10); Wiedemann, Ita 1 riigc zur altbul yarisclicil Con j uga t ion (Saint Petersburg, 1886) ; 1:cch crc hes sir fehuplot 4111 gc'n t if - fICCU• :Olaf en Itx-sla cc ( Paris, 1897); ,Nliklosieh, Lexicon Lingute ,.`qurcnicte 1 cris Dialect i (Vienna. 1850).