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Delodephius · **Posted:** Fri 16 Oct 2009 8:23 pm

На рѣкахъ вавѷлѡнскихъ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vS2BcpK ... re=related

Note: Church Slavonic is not the same as Old Church Slavonic. Church Slavonic is younger and it is used in Slavic Orthodox churches. Old Church Slavonic is no longer used in churches (not since the 11th century at least).

Yaziq · Joined:Tue 19 May 2009 5:58 pm Posts:109

Is Old Bulgarian the same as Old Church Slavonic? Who was the first to write in Glagolitic?

Delodephius · **Posted:** Fri 16 Oct 2009 8:47 pm

I suggest you check this short article I posted on my website:
http://sites.google.com/site/oldchurchs ... ofslavonic

Old Bulgarian can mean two things:
1) the language of the Bulgars, a nomadic warrior society that took control over much of eastern Balkans;
2) the language of the subjects, the conquered Slavic-speaking population that lived within the borders of the Bulgarian Empire.

Old Church Slavonic was however based on the dialect of southern Macedonia around Salonika, Solun, which was never conquered by the Bulgars and was never part of any Bulgarian state. It is more correct to refer to it as Old Macedonian, but that would be a modern invention since its speakers simply called it Slavonic. The article explains this a bit too.

Delodephius · **Posted:** Fri 16 Oct 2009 8:58 pm

Glagolitic was first used to write Old Church Slavonic. The first books were written in that script and it was brought to Great Moravia by St. Cyril and Methodius. Later it was abandoned for Cyrillic, invented in Bulgaria, which is basically a modified Greek script of the era (9-10th century AD).

Glagolitic however was still taught in central and eastern Balkan regions and most learned monks and clergy knew how to read Glagolitic, but they wrote primarily in Cyrillic. In these regions Glagolitic was longest used for writing in and around Ohrid in Macedonia.

In Dalmatia however Glagolitic was fully embraced and used until the early 20th century. There it developed a secular form known as the Glagolitic cursive and it was used as a popular script, until it finally started to loose favour to Latin. Glagolitic was also brought to Bohemia from there to write couple of books but was never adopted.

In Russia and other East Slavic states Glagolitic was unknown, but some sources indicate it was known to at least some monks and merchants from the Balkans who came there.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Sat 17 Oct 2009 1:06 am

Yaziq wrote:

Is Old Bulgarian the same as Old Church Slavonic?

"Old Bulgarian" (bul: Старобългарски език) is generally what Bulgarians call Old Church Slavonic, especially their recension of it.

Delodephius wrote:

Old Bulgarian can mean two things:
1) the language of the Bulgars, a nomadic warrior society that took control over much of eastern Balkans

The language of the Bulgars is usually called "Bulgar" or "Proto-Bulgarian" (bul: Прабългарски език) in English, not "Old Bulgarian".

Delodephius · **Posted:** Sat 17 Oct 2009 10:57 am

Well, maybe in English. In most Slavic languages it doesn't. Outside of Bulgaria there is no mention of Prabulgarski, Proto-Bulgarian. It is a little complicated here because the language of the Bulgars and their Slavic-speaking subjects was spoken parallelly during the time when OCS came into use. Hence, there is no logical reason to call one Proto- and one Old Bulgarian, unlike Proto-Slavonic and Old Slavonic which are clearly different evolutionary stages of one language.

To quote the article:

Quote:

§20. Consequently with different understanding about the origin and territory of the Old Slavonic language the name also changed.

With the name the intent was:
1) either to point to the tribal and territorial qualification of the Old Slavonic language;
2) or to point to the character and function of the Old Slavonic language.

On the basis of the former – the term ALTBULGARISCHE SPRACHE (= Old Bulgarian language) was created by German linguists Schleicher and Leskien which today is still used ONLY by Bulgarian linguists.

The weak points of this term are: - Old Bulgarian can be mistaken for the language of the old Turanian or Turkic Bulgars who still haven't melded with the Slavic speakers in the 9th century; - it doesn't explain the Macedonian character of the Old Slavonic language, thus it doesn't give an accurate idea about the tribal qualification of the Old Slavonic language; - it presents a wrong idea that the Modern Bulgarian language is a further development of the Old Bulgarian language; - it cannot be used to designate all Old Slavonic texts; - it doesn't give the idea about the Old Slavonic as a written language and Old Slavonic as a sacral language.

My translation from Serbian might not be the best, but I think it'll do.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Sun 18 Oct 2009 1:09 am

Delodephius wrote:

Outside of Bulgaria there is no mention of Prabulgarski, Proto-Bulgarian.

Except in Macedonian where it's called Прабугарски јазик. Interestingly enough, they sometimes refer to Old Church Slavonic as старомакедонски. This is confusing because that term also refers to the Ancient Macedonian language of Macedon.

Delodephius · **Posted:** Sun 18 Oct 2009 9:53 am

Macedonians consider themselves descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, which genetically is accurate, as is for most people in Europe that they are more or less descendants of the people that lived in the lands they now live.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Wed 21 Oct 2009 5:33 am

Delodephius wrote:

Macedonians consider themselves descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, which genetically is accurate

Hmmm, I thought the modern Macedonians are descended from Slavic tribes that migrated to & settled in the region of Macedonia. I suppose it wouldn't be surprising to find some Macedonians who are descendants of the original Greek Macedonians, though. Or perhaps many Macedonians are a mix of both.

Delodephius · **Posted:** Wed 21 Oct 2009 8:02 am

Actually, it would be surprising to find "Slavic genes" in any of modern South Slavic speaking peoples. Genetic studies have shown Macedonians belong to an older Mediterranean group of peoples, older then the Greeks who exhibit mostly Middle Eastern and African genetic structure. Traditional historiography equates the spread of languages with that of whole tribes and ethnic groups. It was only the Proto-Slavic language that spread, as the Lingua Franca of the Avar Khaganate, and it was slowly spreading into Balkans during a period of more than 500 years. Many of the Slavic tribes that Early Medieval writers mention by name are actually Turkic, not Slavic. The term Slavic in Late Antiquity represented a specific political construct that was created on the borders of the Roman Empire. It did not represent a language group, a meaning that it acquired centuries later during the Moravian mission of the Salonikan brothers.