Teaching the Church Slavonic language. Church Slavonic language
Tutorial in OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE
http://linguistica.spb.ru/
OLD SLAVONIC LANGUAGE
TUTORIAL
(didactic units)
The concept of the Old Church Slavonic language. Old Church Slavonic as a common written and literary language for the Slavs. Grouping of languages of Slavic peoples based on their origin. The place of the Old Church Slavonic language among other Slavic languages.
Old Slavonic letter. Glagolitic and Cyrillic: the question of their origin. Characteristics of the Cyrillic letter.
The most important monuments of Glagolitic and Cyrillic writing. Brief description of them.
Sound processes that took place in the early and late periods of the development of the Proto-Slavic language: a) associated with a tendency to open syllables; b) associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmonism; c) alternation of vowel sounds.
Phonetic system of the Old Church Slavonic language (IX–XI centuries).
1. Sound system of the Old Church Slavonic language of the second half of the 9th century: phonetic structure of the syllable; vowel sounds, their classification; reduced vowels, their positions; consonant sounds, their classification according to deafness/voice, hardness/softness;
2. Later sound processes reflected in the monuments of the 9th and partly 10th centuries: the fall of reduced vowels and changes in the phonetic system of the language associated with the loss of reduced vowels.
Morphology. Grammatical categories of words in the Old Church Slavonic language. Noun. Basic grammatical categories: gender, number,
case, types of declension.
Pronoun. Personal pronouns of 1st and 2nd persons and reflexive pronoun. Expression of the 3rd person by forms of demonstrative pronouns. Non-personal pronouns. Their classification by meaning. Features of the declension of personal and impersonal pronouns.
Adjective. Places, nominal and full forms, declension. Numeral. Quantitative, complex and ordinal numerals
Verb. Conjugated and inconjugated verb forms. Verb classes. Verb tense forms, their formation and conjugation. Verb moods, their formation. Nominal forms of the verb, their formation.
Syntax. Simple sentence. Ways of expressing subject and predicate. Peculiarities in the use of case forms. Complex sentences. Expression of denial.
Questions to prepare for the test and exam:
The examination card includes two theoretical questions: 1) on general issues related to the origin of Old Church Slavonic writing, the characteristics of alphabets, written monuments and the phonetic structure of the Old Church Slavonic language; 2) by morphology – and practical task: reading, translation of an excerpt from the text of Old Slavonic written monuments; its phonetic and morphological analysis (4 - 6 lines).
1. Slavic languages, the place among them is the Old Church Slavonic language.
2. Slavs and Slavic languages. The question of the ancestral home of the Slavs.
3. Common Slavic language, its relationship to the Indo-European proto-language. Comparative-historical method of linguistics.
4. The question of the beginning of Slavic writing. The activities of Constantine and Methodius. The folk-colloquial basis of the Old Church Slavonic language.
5. Slavic alphabets, their origin.
6. Glagolitic and Cyrillic monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing.
7. Characteristics of the Cyrillic alphabet in terms of letter composition (compared to modern Russian writing).
8. Vowels at the beginning of a word. The system of Indo-European vowels, their quality and quantity.
9. Basic phonetic laws of the Proto-Slavic language.
10. Diphthongs of the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.
11. Diphthong combinations of vowels with nasal consonants and their transformation in the Proto-Slavic language.
12. Diphthong combinations *tort, *tolt, *tert, *telt in the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.
13. Diphthong combinations *ort, *olt in the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.
14. The fate of the combinations *dt, *tt in the Proto-Slavic language.
15. The fate of the combinations *tl, *dl in the Proto-Slavic language.
16.Qualitative and quantitative alternations of vowel sounds.
17. Diphthong and positional alternations of sounds.
18. First and second palatalization of velar consonants. 19. Changes in the back lingual consonants *g, *k, *ch and sibilant consonants
nykh *z, *s in combination with *j.
20. Change in labial consonants *b, *p, *w, *m in combination with *j. 21. Change in front-lingual consonants *d, *t in combination with *j. 22.Changing combinations of consonants ( *kw, *gw, *kt, *gt, *st, *sk, *zd),
associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmonism. 23. The vowel system of the Old Church Slavonic language. Vowels at the beginning of a word.
24. Reduced sounds ъ ь. Strong and weak positions. The fall of the reduced and the consequences of their loss.
25. Reduced sounds ы и и. Strong and weak positions. Loss of the reduced and its consequences.
26. System of consonant sounds in the Old Church Slavonic language. Their classification.
27. Basic grammatical categories of a noun in the Old Church Slavonic language.
28. Declension with an ancient base on *-a, -ja and its history. 29. Declension with an ancient base on *-o, -jo and its history. 30. Declension with an ancient basis on a consonant sound and its history. 31. Declension with ancient stems on *-ŭ and *-ū and their history. 32. Declension with an ancient base on *-ĭ and its history. 33. Pronouns in Old Church Slavonic. Places by value. Oso-
the importance of declension of personal pronouns.
34.Characteristics of demonstrative pronouns and their declension. The origin of n is the basis of indirect cases of pronouns.
35.Adjective. Classification of adjectives by meaning. Nominal and clause forms of adjectives. Formation of full adjectives and features of their declension.
36. Degrees of comparison of adjectives.
37. The main grammatical categories of the verb in the Old Church Slavonic language.
38.Two verb stems. Verb classes.
39. Present tense of verbs. Features of conjugation of thematic and non-thematic verbs.
40.Aorist, its grammatical meaning. Types of aorist, their formation and conjugation.
41. Imperfect, its grammatical meaning. Formation of the imperfect and features of conjugation.
42.Perfect, its meaning. Formation and conjugation of the perfect. 43.Plusqua perfect, its meaning and education. Features
zheniya plusquaperfect.
44. Forms of the future tense of the verb, their formation and conjugation. 45. Conditional mood of the verb. Its formation and conjugation.
46. Imperative mood in Old Church Slavonic. Its formation and conjugation.
47.Infinitive and supin in Old Church Slavonic. Their meaning and education.
48. Participles of the Old Church Slavonic language. Their formation and conjugation. 49. Features of the use of the predicate in the Old Church Slavonic language. 50. The phrase “independent dative” in Old Church Slavonic.
Abstract topics:
1. From the Indo-European language to the Slavic languages.
2. The activities of Constantine and Methodius in creating the Slavic alphabet
3. Characteristics of the Slavic alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic.
4. Monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing.
5. Linguistic, historical, cultural and pedagogical significance of studying the Old Church Slavonic language.
6. Development of Slavic linguistics and comparative historical method.
7. Slavic languages, their kinship.
8. History of views on the folk basis of the Old Church Slavonic language.
9. Words denoting number in Old Church Slavonic.
10. Syntactic features of the Old Church Slavonic language.
LITERATURE
1. *Gorshkov A.I. Old Slavonic language. M.: graduate School, 1963 1 .
2. Gorshkova O.V., Khmelevskaya T.A. Collection of exercises on the Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1960.
3. Dementiev A.A. Collection of problems and exercises in the Old Church Slavonic language. Samara: SGPU, 2001
4. Elkina N.M. Old Slavonic language. M., 1963.
5. *Istrin V.A. 1100 years of the Slavic alphabet. M., 1963.
6. *Krivchik V.F., Mozheiko N.S. Old Slavonic language. Minsk: Publishing house "Higher School", 1970.
7. Nikiforov S.D. Old Slavonic language. Ed. 2nd. M.: Uchpedgiz, 1955.
8. *Tikhonova R.I. Old Slavonic language. Samara, 1993.
9. *Tikhonova R.I. Old Slavonic language. M., 1995.
10. Khaburgaev G.A. Old Slavonic language. M.: Education, 1974.
1 Note: * marks the work, excerpts from which formed a file of materials for study.
THE CONCEPT OF THE OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE
Old Church Slavonic is the oldest literary language of the Slavs. This is the earliest written processing and written consolidation of Slavic speech that has reached us. The first monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing date back to the second half of the 9th century. (60s of the 9th century). They represent both translations of liturgical books from Greek and later untranslated, original works. Since the Old Church Slavonic language had a sound system close to other Slavic languages, grammatical structure and vocabulary, it very quickly spread in Slavic countries as the language of the church, scientific and partly fiction. All other Slavic languages were consolidated in writing much later (the oldest surviving Russian written monuments date back to the second half of the 11th century; ancient Czech - to the 13th century; among the surviving Polish monuments, the oldest date back to the 14th century). Thus, the Old Church Slavonic language in a number of cases makes it possible to present Slavic sounds and forms at their most ancient stage of development.
The Old Church Slavonic language came to Rus' at the end of the 10th century (988) in connection with the adoption of Christianity as the language of church writing.
Currently, the Old Church Slavonic language is dead: it is not spoken or written. The disappearance of the Old Church Slavonic language as a living language passed early, no later than the 11th century, and is explained by the fact that, being close to the languages of those Slavic peoples among whom it was widespread, it itself was so exposed to the influence of the vernacular languages of these peoples that it lost its original quality and finally disappeared like a language. However, his disappearance did not happen instantly. More and more elements of colloquial Slavic speech penetrated into church and religious literature. That type of Russian literary language, which was based on the Old Church Slavonic language, is called Church Slavonic language of the Russian version.
Church Slavonic language for a long time was a supra-ethnic language, performing the functions of a church-religious language. In Rus' they knew him, they studied him, but for the Russians he was not native. Scientists explain the preservation of the Church Slavonic language in Rus' right up to the times of Peter the Great by the needs of the church and cultural traditions.
All Slavic languages of our time are united into three groups: eastern, western and southern2.
2 Old Church Slavonic was part of the South Slavic family of languages.
East Slavic | West Slavic | South Slavic |
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Polish | Bulgarian |
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Macedonian |
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Ukrainian | Slovak |
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Serbo-Croatian |
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Belorussian | Upper Sorbian |
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Slovenian |
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Lower Sorbian |
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All Slavic languages are related in origin. Their common source is the Proto-Slavic, or common Slavic language. Proto-Slavic, or common Slavic, language is a language system that summarizes the living speech of the Slavic tribes from the time of their formation (the ancestor of a group of tribes was one tribe) until the time of the emergence of early Slavic peoples on their basis, that scientifically restored language that served as a means of communication among the Slavs in early period their stories3. Most modern linguists believe that the formation of the Slavs should be attributed to the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. This is the stage of tribal life when cattle breeding is already widely developed and agriculture is known.
The collapse of Slavic unity began with the emergence of the “Iron” Age, i.e. even before the onset new era. The final disintegration of Slavic unity and the formation of three groups of Slavs: eastern, western and southern - coincides with the period of decomposition of the primitive communal classless system. The end of the Proto-Slavic language can be dated to the second half of the first millennium AD. (VI-VII centuries AD).
The Proto-Slavic language itself is a branch of a more ancient linguistic unity - Indo-European. Indo-European proto-language that existed from the 4th-3rd millennium BC. and further into the depths of centuries, is the common source of all languages called European. Indo-European languages include most of the native languages of Europe and some languages of Asia. Later, Indo-European languages became widespread on the other three continents.
HISTORY OF WRITING AMONG THE SLAVS
In 862 or 863, the Moravian prince Rostislav sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor Michael III with a request to send preachers4 to Moravia who would teach the Moravians Christian faith in their native language. Apparently, the request of the Moravian prince was caused by the fact that he, fighting against the Latin-German clergy, who was the guide
3 It is generally accepted to write Proto-Slavic forms under the sign* and Latin letters: *woda, *sestra, *stolos and so on.
4 The boundaries of the Moravian principality included the areas of present-day Slovakia.
influence of the German Emperor Louis, wanted to receive political and church support for his power from Byzantium. In Byzantium, ambassadors were treated favorably, as this opened up prospects for the spread
And strengthening the influence of Byzantium in the west, in the regions of the Moravian Principality. It was decided to send a mission to Moravia, headed by two Greek brothers Constantine and Methodius. The first of them, who devoted himself to church service, was known for his learning and missionary activities. His name in sources is usually used with the epithet “philosopher”. Methodius was for some time the ruler of one of the Slavic regions. Both of them are natives of the city of Thessaloniki, which at that time was a Greek colony on Slavic territory and was surrounded by Slavic settlements. Constantine and Methodius knew well the language of the Slavs who lived both in the city itself and in its environs. This is precisely what the Byzantine emperor said when addressing his brothers, according to the Life of Methodius: “You are both Thessalonians, and the Thessalonians all speak Slavic well.”
According to the Lives of Constantine and Methodius, Constantine, even before leaving for Moravia, compiled the Slavic alphabet and began to translate the gospel into the Slavic language.
The brothers spent more than three years in Moravia, where they trained cadres of Slavic “book people”, future ministers of the church, and translated Greek liturgical books into Slavic. From the very first days, the Slavic language in writing and church ritual was met with hostility by the German clergy, who saw a great danger to themselves in the activities of Constantine and Methodius. To get support, Konstantin
And Methodius and a group of his students went to Rome, to the pope. Along the way they stopped in Pannonia 5, a Slavic principality inhabited by the ancestors of today's Slovenes. There they were warmly welcomed by Prince Kocel, who gave them about 50 students to teach Slavic writing.
IN In Rome, Constantine and Methodius were received by Pope Adrian II, who,
trying to strengthen his influence in Moravia and Pannonia, he recognized the Slavic language in writing and liturgy6. There Constantine fell ill and died in 869, shortly before his death he became a monk under the name of Cyril. After the death of Constantine, Methodius and his disciples first returned to Pannonia. In Moravia at this time, Svyatopolk, Rostislav’s nephew, ascended the throne, changing his political orientation to Latin-German. In order to consolidate his influence in Moravia and Pannonia, Pope Adrian II founded a special Slavic bishopric for these areas, and Methodius was
5 The territory of Pannonia was located between the upper Danube, Drava and Mur.
6 In the Middle Ages, worship was allowed only in three languages: Latin, Greek and Hebrew (as the Gospel legend tells, An inscription was made in ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek and Latin on the cross on which Jesus was crucified). Constantine and Methodius obtained from the Pope recognition of the Old Church Slavonic language as the fourth language of the church, which was a major victory in their struggle for the rights of the Slavs to conduct worship in their native language.
appointed Bishop of Pannonia. But he soon fell into the hands of the German clergy and was imprisoned in Bavaria. Methodius stayed there for more than two years. After his release, he returns to Moravia, where great changes have taken place during this time. After the uprising against the Franks, Svyatopolk became the independent ruler of this country. Increasingly subject to German influence, he was not a supporter of Slavic writing. Therefore, the activities of Methodius and his disciples took place in extremely difficult conditions.
In 885 Methodius died. After his death, opponents of Slavic writing obtained from Pope Stephen V a ban on the Slavic language in church liturgy. Methodius's disciples were expelled from Moravia. Having left its borders, some of them headed south, to the Croats, and others to the southeast, to Bulgaria, where they continued the work of Slavic writing.
Especially favorable conditions for Slavic writing were created in Bulgaria. The most talented student of Methodius was Clement, whose activities took place in Macedonia and southeastern Albania. In Macedonia, he and his students rewrote the original Cyril and Methodius liturgical books and made new translations from Greek.
The heyday of Slavic writing falls during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), when the capital of Bulgaria, Preslav, becomes not only a state center, but also the center of Slavic writing in eastern Bulgaria. The Preslav scribes used the same language as they wrote in Macedonia, but in their manuscripts deviations from the previous linguistic book norms were reflected more significantly than in the West.
In Moravia and the Czech Republic, after the expulsion of the disciples of Methodius, Slavic writing continued until the end of the 11th century, when in the Czech Sazavsky monastery, where it was still preserved, Slavic books were either destroyed by supporters of the Latin script, or were so damaged that they could no longer be read.
Slavic alphabet
The oldest Old Church Slavonic alphabets that have come down to us are written in two alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic.
The Cyrillic alphabet later formed the basis of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian alphabets. The Glagolitic alphabet fell out of use and was preserved only in Croatia in church use (until the 17th century it was used there for secular purposes).
The question of the origin of the two Slavic alphabets and their mutual relationship has occupied scientists for a long time. Old Slavonic monuments indicate that two alphabets that were very different from each other already existed in ancient times.
The Czech scientist I. Dobrovsky believed that the more ancient alphabet was the Cyrillic alphabet and it was it that was compiled by Constantine. As for the Glagolitic alphabet, in his opinion, it arose around the 14th century. in Croatia. He explains its emergence as follows: the Roman Church in the areas that were under its subordination persecuted everything that testified to a connection with Byzantium, i.e. with the Greek Church. And since the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Greek letter, clearly spoke of this connection, it was replaced by the Glagolitic alphabet in order to preserve worship in the Slavic language.
In 1836, the Slavic philologist V. Kopitar discovered an ancient manuscript written in Glagolitic alphabet in the library of Count Klotz. According to paleographic data, it was much older than those manuscripts that were still known and dated no earlier than the 14th century. This discovery led to a revision of the previous point of view on the origin of the Slavic alphabet. V. Kopitar put forward a hypothesis about the comparative antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet in comparison with the Cyrillic alphabet.
Further discoveries in this area confirmed the point of view of V. Kopitar.
The greater antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet is indicated by the following:
1. The Glagolitic alphabet is poorer in the number of letters, and, therefore, the Cyrillic alphabet is a more advanced alphabet.
2. The oldest linguistic monuments are written in Glagolitic alphabet (for example, the Kyiv leaves, the Zografsky and Mariinsky Gospels).
3. There are many manuscripts written in Cyrillic on parchment with
the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet, but there are no manuscripts written in the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet in the washed-out Cyrillic alphabet.
All this gave reason to believe that the more ancient alphabet created by Constantine was Glagolitic. The Cyrillic alphabet arose in eastern Bulgaria during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), i.e. then, when the Christian religion had long been accepted there, but services were performed by Greek priests in Greek. Tsar Simeon wanted to oppose Byzantium not only with state power, but also with cultural power. To protect the independence of Bulgarian culture from unnecessary encroachments by Byzantium, it was necessary to introduce worship in the Slavic language. But the Greek priests had difficulty mastering the Glagolitic alphabet. Therefore, it was necessary to make a compromise solution: replace the Glagolitic alphabet with another alphabet, similar to Greek. It is believed that, based on the model of the Greek alphabet, this new Slavic alphabet was compiled by Methodius’s student, Presbyter Constantine. Later, Slavic scribes began to identify the presbyter Constantine with the first teacher Constantine - Cyril, and the alphabet he invented began to be called by the name of the second - the Cyrillic alphabet.
In the 9th century, Saints Cyril and Methodius translated the Gospel into Slavic. Old Church Slavonic was similar to the Old Russian language; it was understood in Rus' without translation.
Here is a fragment of the Gospel in Old Church Slavonic and modern Russian. A translation of the Gospel in Russian was published in the mid-19th century.
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Gospel of Mark Chapter 1 1 The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 2 As it is written in the prophets: Behold, I send My angel before You, who will prepare Your way before You. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and the people of Jerusalem came out to him, and they were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 6 And John wore a robe of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, He who is mightier than I is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down to untie; 8 I baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. |
Slavic letters
Vertically:
1. The capital of Ancient Rus'.
3. The name of the city in Macedonia, where the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius, educators of the Slavs, were born.
5. Bread that is blessed in church on Easter.
6. The name of the Patriarch of Constantinople during the life of the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius.
8. Head of a region in the Byzantine Empire during the life of the holy brothers.
9. What does the Greek word "sophia" mean?
Horizontally:
2. A type of painting on wet plaster.
4. Writing material that was used during the time of Saints Cyril and Methodius.
6. What was the name of Constantine among the people?
7. What name did St. Cyril have before becoming a monk?
9. What was the name of the Byzantine emperor who sent Constantine to preach to the Slavs?
10. The name of the prince under whom Rus' was baptized.
11. Set of rules.
Answers
38
(Materials for lessons: in sections 1 and 3 of this collection, as well as in the textbook by N.G. Gorelova, B.I. Pivovarov “Native History”, - Novosibirsk: “Ekor”, 1995)
Lesson No. I
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Dialogue with students, introduction to the topic. |
What is literacy? The beginning of national writing is the most important milestone in the history of every nation. The origin of Slavic writing. Names of the creators. The contribution of Russian literature to world culture. Historical sources. |
See materials on pages 9-13 of section! of this collection. |
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Historical excursion. |
The desire for enlightenment by the faith of Christ led the Slavs to the need for a book language. Who are the Slavs? What do they have in common? Slavs in the 10th century What can become a unifying principle for peoples? | |
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Information on the topic of the lesson. |
Life of the brothers Cyril and Methodius. Konstantin the Philosopher. Translation of the word philosophy (“love of wisdom”). Enlightenment of the Slavic lands with the faith of Christ. Creation of the Slavic alphabet. Death of Konstantin (Kirill) and will to his brother. Translation of the Holy Books into Slavic by Saint Methodius. |
A visual aid is an icon, see the intro on page 53 of this collection. |
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Add. material 10 min. |
Prince Vladimir and the Baptism of Rus' | Page 72-79 textbook N.G. Gorelova, B.I. Pivovarov "Native History". |
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Lesson #2 |
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Basic information on the topic. 20 minutes. |
Slavic alphabet. What alphabet did Constantine create? Cyrillic and Glagolitic. |
Page 12 of this collection. |
| Slavic alphabet and Greek alphabet. Where do Greek words come from in our language? Tracing words. | See the article "Greek Around Us", page 18. | |
| Church Slavonic language and its role in the formation of the literary Russian language. . | See section 3, pp. 59-65. |
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Practical lesson. 20 minutes. |
Reading some words in Slavic Text for the language, reading text in Church Slavonic, writing Slavic letters and numbers in a notebook. | Reading text, see page 35, lettering and numbers - pages 15-17 of the collection. |
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House. exercise |
Learn the names of Slavic letters. | |
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Lesson #3 |
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Information on the topic. 35 min. |
Memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Glorification of the holy brothers by the Orthodox Church (memory day May 24). Icon of Saints Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius. |
Icon - on page 57. |
| Hymn to Cyril and Methodius: Listening to a tape or singing to piano accompaniment. | ||
| Celebrating the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture in Bulgaria. |
See pages 33-34 of this collection. |
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| An ancient book. What were the first books in Rus', when did they appear, how and by whom were they written? In the 11th century, Rus' was one of the most literate countries in Europe. Yaroslav the Wise. High level book art in Rus'. Love for the book. Decoration of ancient books. Charter letter. | Textbook N.G. Gorelova, B.I. Pivovarova “Native History”, pp. 261-266. | |
| Additional material. 10 min | Archive. Who are archaeographers? What is an archive, and what can its documents tell us? The first archives in Rus' (XVIII century). | Textbook "Native History", pp. 261-266. |
Pushkin exclaimed passionately: “My children will read the Bible in the original with me.” “In Slavic?” - asked Khomyakov. “In Slavic,” Pushkin confirmed, “I will teach them myself.”
Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky).
Pushkin in his attitude to religion and Orthodox Church
The Russian rural school is now obliged to impart knowledge to its pupils... this is a pedagogical treasure that no rural school in the world possesses. This study, constituting in itself an excellent mental gymnastics, gives life and meaning to the study of the Russian language.
S.A. Rachinsky. Rural school
To ensure that children continue to master Slavic literacy, we periodically write texts in this language. We don’t sit down at the table and write down dictations with an A, but we do this. For every twelfth holiday, or great one, or name day, we prepare troparia, kontakia, and magnifications, written in Church Slavonic on beautiful cardboard. One child gets one prayer, the other gets another. Older children copy the text from the prayer book themselves; younger children find it easier to circle what their mother wrote. Very little children color the initial letter and the ornamental frame. Thus, all children participate in preparation for the holiday, for younger children this is the first acquaintance, for older children it is training, for those who already know how to read it is consolidation. And we take these leaves to the church for the all-night vigil to sing along with the choir. At home on holidays, we also sing troparia, kontakion and magnification - before meals and during family prayers. And it is very convenient for everyone to look not at the prayer book, where the troparion still needs to be found and it is written in small print, but at the text prepared by the children. Thus, children regularly engage in activities without even knowing it. Such activities in themselves teach the child to write correctly on this ancient language. Once I suggested that my nine-year-old son write a kontakion for some holiday, but I could not find the Church Slavonic text. I gave him this kontakion in Russian, offering to write it off. And he copied it, but in Church Slavonic, according to his own understanding, placing ers at the end of masculine nouns, stress and even aspiration, writing down almost everything the right words under the titles. As he explained, it is much more beautiful. True, his yati and izhitsy were written in the wrong places; of course, there were mistakes. But in general, a child who had not attended a single lesson in the Church Slavonic language, who studied it in the primitive form as described in this article, simply following his memory, wrote down the unfamiliar text almost correctly.
To study a language at a more serious level, of course, you will still have to turn to grammar. If you are not satisfied with the method of natural immersion in the language and unobtrusive acquisition of knowledge given here, you can conduct something similar to lessons in the Church Slavonic language. Having presented the child (in in this case, who already knows how to read in Russian) the Slavic alphabet, let us highlight those letters that are not similar to modern Russian ones - there are not many of them. Let's ask the child to write them down and indicate how they are read. Then we will look at superscript and lowercase characters, including simple and alphabetic titles. We will separately analyze the recording of numbers in Church Slavonic. If a child already knows how to read Slavic, such lessons will not be difficult for either him or his parents. If you have a goal to truly study the Church Slavonic language, then in the future you can either purchase textbooks on this subject and master them at home, or go to courses, then to a specialized university... From textbooks, we can recommend N.P.’s manual. Sablina “Slavic initial letter”, for older children and parents - a self-teacher of the Church Slavonic language Yu.B. Kamchatnova, unique in that it was not written for philologists and in accessible language. But all this will be learning a language that has already become native.
The “teaching method” described here can not only be implemented in the family - it is designed specifically for the family. After all, the culture of the parental family first of all becomes our native culture, and it is the language of our parents that becomes our native language. School study can give us knowledge, perhaps brilliant - but for a child this knowledge will not become a part of life if it is not part of the life of the family. Home “immersion in the language”, of course, will not make the child a specialist - but it will make Church Slavonic his native language, whether he will be a specialist in this field of linguistics in the future or will not study the language as a subject at all. And most importantly: such home education, even in such a simple form, opens up new opportunities for communication between parents and children, allows them to find new common topics, without requiring special effort and time from adults.
Such home studies educate the parents even more than their students; parents study together with their children, receive limitless possibilities for free pedagogical creativity, which also brings all family members closer together. Maybe this is not possible in every family, but everyone can try. Try to make your home a place of education.
There has long been heated debate about how to read the psalms more correctly - in Church Slavonic or in Russian. Conservatives are of the opinion that it is impossible to change the ancient tradition in the Old Slavonic language - they say, this will contribute to the severing of ties between generations of Orthodox Christians and the gradual loss of the “prayer” of the Psalter.
Their opponents believe that the psalms in Old Church Slavonic are archaic, incomprehensible to modern people, and therefore require modernization. Both sides have arguments “for” and “against” with which one can agree, but we will leave this controversial issue for the consideration of theologians and talk better about how to learn to read the psalms in Church Slavonic.
Learning to read Orthodox psalms in Old Church Slavonic
Today you can buy a collection of psalms in Old Church Slavonic at any church store. However, a person who does not speak the ancient language of Orthodox worship, opening it, will understand that he not only does not understand the meaning of the psalms, but simply cannot read them. The Church Slavonic alphabet, created in the 10th century by the enlightenment missionaries Methodius and Cyril, partly consists of letters of the Greek alphabet, and partly of Slavic letters, which only vaguely resemble the modern letters of the Russian alphabet.
Therefore, when buying a Psalter, pay attention to the fact that the psalms in Church Slavonic are written in Russian letters - by comparing ancient and modern texts, you will gradually learn to distinguish individual words. A dictionary of the Church Slavonic language will not hurt at first - from it you can learn the rules for reading letters, as well as figure out how to correctly read the psalms in Church Slavonic without vowels (with titles).
Orthodox psalms in Church Slavonic - from reading to understanding
Learning to read Orthodox psalms in Old Church Slavonic is not difficult: just a few simple rules and the language barrier in reading will be a thing of the past. Things are a little more complicated with reading comprehension: difficulties arise due to the specific features of ancient biblical texts. In order to enjoy not only reading beautiful and melodious psalms in Old Church Slavonic, but also from understanding their meaning, I recommend buying the Psalter with a translation into Russian, as well as
MATERIALSTO STUDY
CHURCH SLAVIC
LANGUAGE
Introduction
How to master the Church Slavonic language? It is clear that no one is able to complete this task in one or two months. As in studying any foreign language, you need perseverance, desire, personal work. Every (modern) person in school tried (some under pressure, some anyway) to cope with such a task, but often it turned out to be so overwhelming that many people think that mastering languages is the lot of only a select few who are capable of them. But is this really the case, or is the problem something else? N. F. Zamyatkin, who has studied many foreign languages on his own, asserts with full confidence that the problem is essentially the same - in the methodology. He outlined his method for mastering foreign languages in the book “It is impossible to teach you a foreign language.”
What is the essence of his method?
Create in central nervous system a separate language center by listening to dialogues in that language for a long time;
Load a “language matrix” into this center by repeatedly speaking loudly the above dialogues in a foreign language;
Fill it with vocabulary and grammar ( The best way– reading books with minimal use of a dictionary), use and enjoy.
Why exactly this approach?
To suppress the initial reaction of rejection of a foreign language by your “I”, which is most closely connected with your native language. To develop close to ideal pronunciation. To master basic grammar. To remember the basic vocabulary in the context. To teach elementary reading, the next stage will be the transition to “marathon” reading of unadapted literature. To develop initial skills in understanding foreign speech by ear. To get into the rhythm and harmony of a foreign language. To create a bridgehead from which you will conduct a further attack on the “enemy”.
How to use this method in studying the Church Slavonic language?
For us, this language is not completely unfamiliar or distant, we encounter it all the time, and this is a big plus. The existing tradition of pronunciation and reading makes the path of “entering” the language extremely easy. After all, in Church Slavonic there is no reduction known to many other languages, when “one hears Manchester, but writes Liverpool.” This means that the first stage will be easy and relaxed for us. There is probably no longer a clergyman who does not have some studio recording of the psalter or gospel in Church Slavonic. If not technical feasibility cut small passages, then at least you can listen to short psalms, then repeat them several times. It is, of course, not difficult to carefully study the meaning of these texts - everyone has a Bible.
The only problem that can arise is spiritual and moral. These texts are sacred and prayerful for us, and repeating them purely technically, not prayerfully, is problematic.
Next stage. After we have learned to read selected passages in Church Slavonic well enough, we begin free reading. Many grammatical forms of Church Slavonic are close to us due to their great similarity with the Russian language. Many words are also close. All this also makes it easier to solve the problem.
The presented course of the Church Slavonic language is, in fact, an introduction to its study, a tool with the help of which, with constant diligence, it is quite possible to master the language and, at a minimum, understand it perfectly.
Instructions for the church reader on how to read in church,
compiled according to the teachings of the holy fathers and ascetics, according to the instructions of the church charter and on the basis of the centuries-old experience of Divine services of the Russian Orthodox Church (in abbreviation)
Read reverently, with the fear of God
1. A God-fearing reader must always remember that he is proclaiming praises and prayers for himself and for all those praying in the temple, where God Himself, His Most Pure Mother, Angels and saints are always invisibly present. The Lord, the Knower of the Heart, knows the feeling and attitude with which the reader performs his duties.
2. A God-fearing reader knows that those present in the temple notice his mistakes, his inattention, etc., and may be tempted by this. Therefore, he does not allow negligence, he is afraid of angering God. For the Scripture says: “Cursed is every man who does the work of the Lord with negligence” (Jer. 48:10). By reading prayers aloud in the holy church for all believers, we are doing God’s work, so read reverently and gracefully, clearly and slowly.
Prepare carefully for reading
3. For the reading that you must perform, you must carefully prepare: familiarize yourself with it in advance and carefully read the text, paying attention to the pronunciation of words, stress, and content in order to read correctly, consciously and meaningfully. If you don’t read well, don’t be lazy to practice reading more often, read it several times and ask someone else who knows to check you.
Read intelligently
4. Read so that, first of all, you yourself understand what you are reading, and so that recited prayers and the psalms penetrated your heart.
5. At the same time, do not forget the people standing in the temple, and read in such a way that the people understand you, so that they, together with you, the reader, pray with one mouth and one heart and glorify the Lord - this is why we gather in holy temple.
6. When reading in Church, always remember what is pronounced through your lips and ascended to the Throne God's prayer all those present, and that every word you utter should penetrate the ears and soul of every person praying in the temple.
Read slowly, clearly and clearly
7. Therefore, do not rush when reading holy prayers, and do not degrade prayers by hasty reading, do not anger God. Hasty and indistinct reading is not perceived by the ears, thoughts and hearts of those listening. Such reading and singing, in the words of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, is “pleasing to the lazy, sadness of heart and sighing to the good, but temptation and harm to all who come (to the temple”).
8. A God-fearing reader will not read quickly and carelessly to please the few, so as not to deprive all those praying of the opportunity to pray reverently and attentively. For he understands well that due to the reader’s negligence, many are embarrassed and tempted and may even leave the temple. Persons who are prone to sectarianism or who are generally inclined to see shortcomings in Orthodoxy, having heard careless and irreverent reading and singing in our churches, may completely fall away from Orthodoxy into sectarianism or cool towards the faith. Thus, through the fault of careless readers and singers, our Orthodox worship, churches, clergy and Orthodoxy itself are dishonored, and those who pray are deprived of many meaningful prayers and religious and moral edification.
In view of this, the church reader should not allow rapid reading, which turns into negligence, and should not fulfill the requests of those who require him to violate his duty of reverent reading. For it is more fitting to obey God than men (Acts 5:29).
9. In order to know the limits at what speed to read, it is necessary to read with understanding of what is being read, and not mechanically, and not only to pay attention to the external side of reading, but also to the content, while praying in your soul.
We must learn to read so freely, without tension, that when reading there is no difficulty in pronouncing words, abbreviations (titles), stress, in choosing the height and strength of the voice, raising and lowering the voice, etc. - in short, so that attention is distracted as little as possible on the reading technique itself, but focused more on the meaning of what was being read and the reader’s heartfelt perception of it.
A reverent reader acquires such an instinct when he himself, in church and at home, tries to pray carefully with his mind and heart. Then he learns from experience that when reading quickly, it is impossible for those praying to have time to grasp the content of the prayer and pray with both mind and heart.
When reading, you should avoid the other extreme: you should not stretch out the reading unnecessarily.
Read with meaningful stops
Read it correctly, in the church way
13. When reading, the pronunciation of words should be Slavic, that is, each letter in the word should be pronounced as printed, for example: solid, but not solid(there is no letter e in the Slavic language); father, but not father, century, but not Vic, his, but not evo or yoga, wretched, but not pathetic. However, here, as in other cases, there are no rules without exceptions. Yes, words Aggel, Loggin, Pagcratius pronounce: Angel, Longinus, Pancratius.
14. When reading Slavic, you should pay attention to accents and titla (abbreviation signs) in order to pronounce words correctly.
15. We must observe the ancient pattern of church reading. When reading, you should not artificially highlight or, as it were, emphasize the meaning of what you are reading. IN church reading secular is inappropriate artistic expression. You need to read without pouring out your feelings through modulations and changes in voice; You should not give tenderness, tenderness, severity or any other feeling to your voice - the church reader is not an actor. Let the holy prayers influence the listeners with their own spiritual dignity. The desire to convey to others your feelings and experiences or to influence them with changes in your voice is a sign of conceit and pride (Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov).
18. It is necessary to read in a moderate voice, not to weaken or strengthen it too much, but to balance it in such a way that all the words clearly reach the ears of every person praying. It goes without saying that the larger the temple or the more people, the more necessary it is to strengthen the voice, but in no way turn it into a shout.
19. The reader should stand straight in front of the book, without bowing, and read without shuffling his feet, without putting them to the side, not sway his body, have his hands freely lowered, not shake his head, read slowly, but not drag, pronounce the words clearly, clearly (with clear diction and correct articulation), making semantic stops in the sentence itself.
If it is read on a stand (lectern), the reader must ensure that the veil on the stand lies straight and not crookedly, and if it sank low, raise it.
G.I.Shimansky (1915–1970)
Part 1. Church Slavonic alphabet and reading rules
The modern Russian alphabet goes back to the Old Church Slavonic, hence the great similarity in the writing of letters. There are some letters in the Church Slavonic alphabet that are unknown to modern writing. This is “zelo” - /z/, “i” - /i/, “omega” - /o/, digraph “ot” - /ot/, “yat” - /e/, “yus small” - /ya/ , “xi” - /ks/, “psi” - /ps/, “fita” - /f/, “izhitsa” - /i/, /v/. Also, “uk” inside the word and “ya” have a somewhat peculiar style. Details about the rules for reading letters are in a separate appendix. A number of letters - zelo, fert, xi, psi, fita and izhitsa are used only in foreign words; “and” (i) is written before a vowel, and in the position before consonants - in case of borrowing. After “a” and “e”, izhitsa (v) denotes the sound “v”, in other positions - “i”.
Yat - in ancient times there was a separate sound, historically long / e / and somewhat reminiscent of a diphthong / no / . Even in the time of Lomonosov, some dialects distinguished it with a separate sound. At the present time, this sound has completely merged with /e/. In Church Slavonic it continues to play a large role.
Another feature of Slavic graphics is stress. There are acute, heavy, invested stress, as well as aspiration; combinations of aspiration with acute and heavy stress. In reality, differences in stress do not matter for reading; this is the “Greek” inheritance of Church Slavonic. The invested stress plays a grammatical role: it is placed over the forms of the plural and dual numbers, if they coincide with any form of the singular number.
The title, an abbreviation icon on the letter of one or more letters, plays a big role in the alphabet. Tilo is placed above words denoting special veneration and respect. There are combined titles - when the letters “d”, “r”, “g”, “s”, “o” appear on the letter. A word with a title is read the same as without a title. At the end of the appendix there is a list of words with abbreviations under the title.
The special purpose of the title is to indicate numbers. The Church Slavonic alphabet, following the Greek tradition, expresses numbers through the letters of the alphabet. The title is placed above the letter indicating the number, if this number is single digit or ten. If a number is written with two or more letter signs, then the title is placed above the second one from the end. The list of numbers is included in the appendix.
Sometimes in writing you can find a small loop over a consonant in the middle of a word or at the end of a preposition - this is “erok”. It means "b". Accordingly, it is not pronounced. A peculiarity of Church Slavonic is the obligatory presence of an unpronounceable “ъ” after a consonant if the word ends with it. This is the heritage of the ancient Russian and Old Slavonic traditions of reading and writing.
So, in Church Slavonic there is a rule: how it is written is how it is read. The exception is the combinations -ia, -aa in names, months, and some other words, where they are read as -iya, -aya. In the words God, good, Lord and their derivatives, there is a tradition of pronouncing “g” as a voiced variant of “x”.
Reading exercises: 1). Listen to the reading of the first psalm in audio format several times. 2). Follow the text as you listen several times. 3). Read it yourself several times. 4). Check your reading with the speaker’s reading, correct your pronunciation.
5). Compare this text with the Russian translation:
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked and does not stand in the way of sinners and does not sit in the congregation of the wicked, but his will is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates on His law day and night! And he will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which brings forth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf does not wither; and in everything he does, he will succeed. Not so - the wicked; but they are like dust blown by the wind. Therefore the wicked will not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Repeat the same exercise with the second psalm:
Why do peoples rebel, and nations plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up, and the princes take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed. “Let us break their bonds, and cast off their fetters from us.” He who lives in heaven will laugh; the Lord will mock him. Then He will say to them in His anger and His wrath will lead them into confusion: “I have anointed My King over Zion, My holy mountain; I will proclaim the decree: The Lord said to Me: You are My Son; today have I begotten You; ask of Me, and I will give the nations to an inheritance for you, and the ends of the earth for your possession; you will crush them with a rod of iron, like a potter’s vessel.” So, understand, kings; learn, judges of the earth! Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Honor the Son, lest He be angry, and lest you perish on [your] journey, for His anger will soon kindle. Blessed are all who trust in Him.
The main problem in mastering the vocabulary of the Church Slavonic language is the presence of paronyms - words that have historically changed their meaning greatly, and for this reason it has become difficult to guess the meaning of such a word. Example: to stagger - to rush about, to exalt; punishment - instruction, admonition. You need to pay special attention to such words. Such words should be remembered in context - an associative series is created. There is a dictionary that it is advisable to use when studying such words: Sedakova O.A. Church Slavic-Russian paronyms. – M.: Greco-Latin cabinet Yu.A. Shichalina, 2005.
In the Church Slavonic language there is such a phenomenon - positional softening of consonants - palatalization. Otherwise - the transition of some consonants (k, g, x) to others (h/ts, zh/z, sh/s):
This is due to the fact that in ancient times the sounds k, g and x were always hard and for this reason they changed to hissing or whistling. The transition to sibilant (zh, sh) is possible only in the vocative case (in circulation).