Talk:Proto-Slavic

Proto-Slavic people?

If there was a Proto-Slavic language, then theoretically there was also a Proto-Slavic people.

There were people speaking a set of closely related dialects that, long after the fact, could be seen to have been the precursors of the Slavic group of languages.--Wetman 08:26, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Common Slavonic?

The references I've seen speak of Early-Proto-Slavic, Proto-Slavic, and Late Proto-Slavic; after that, I would assume that individual Slavic languages began forming (>such as Old Church Slavonic, a literary example of early South eastern Slavic/proto-Bulgarian). Common Slavonic is interchangeable with Late Proto-Slavic (I'll quote Schenker's book which states this), and I suggest that the article Common Slavonic is merged into Proto-Slavic, and Late Proto-Slavic (=Common Slavonic) will soon be further detailed in this article. 007 07:10, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

This periodization of Proto-Slavic (PS) is not generally accepted. However, most scholars agree that the PS period lasted for 2,000 years or so. It is impossible that the language would not have been changing for so long. That is why reconstructed forms labelled "Proto-Slavic" are very various indeed (*supnas, *supnu, *sunu and *sъnъ ('a dream' or 'sleeping') can all be termed Proto-Slavic). There is not even the agreement when the period ended. Some give even 600 AD as the final date (after which individual languages existed), others say that OCS (ca. 850 AD) was still a literary form of the latest Proto-Slavic (of course, with strong dialectal, local features). And there do not seem to be any real basics for any periodization of PS. Specialists argue even on relative chronology of some language phenomena (inc. phonetic changes, for example some would see the sequence -as > -us > -uš > -u > -ъ, i.e. first changing and losing of -s, next vowel reduction, while others would assume -as > -us > -ъs > -ъ, i.e. first vowel reduction, then loss of final consonants). And to say nothing of the absolute chronology!

The situation is even more complicated when we took into consideration that most of the literature on the subject is not English and the authors use terms which are not strict renderings for English Proto-Slavic and Common Slavic. In fact, in Slavic languages there exists the term praslavyanski (or silmilar) where pra- means the same as great in great grandfather (= praded or similar). This term should be translated as Old Slavic then. Besides, the term protoslavyanski (=Proto-Slavic) refers - at least in some sources - to the early period of the Slavic language commonwealth (less or more, equal to Schenker's EPS). and finally, the (Russian) term obshcheslavyanski ('Common Slavic', Polish ogólnosłowiański with the same meaning) refers to features which are present in each modern Slavic language rather than to their common ancestor.

Anyway, I see no reasons for keeping two different articles, one on Proto-Slavic, the other for Common-Slavic, whatever these terms mean.

--Grzegorj 12:18, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Merge Common Slavonic

Why the suggested merge of Common Slavonic into this article? If anything, the term "Common Slavonic" is better-known, and I think that language is less theoretical than the earlier hypothesized Proto-Slavic. But what's the reason to merge them, anyway? —Michael Z. 2005-07-13 15:04 Z

They don't necessarily have to be merged (though I recommend that they are), but "Common Slavonic" (though a common term) is simply a less-precise term for Late Proto-Slavic (LPSl). And unless I'm mistaken, Common Slavonic is also unattested and hypothetical, so I don't see the difference. 007 15:07, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

So the clear distinction between the early and late is artificial, and they should be merged into one article on Proto-Slavic language? That makes sense. Does this represent a changing view in modern historical linguistics? Perhaps Common Slavonic should remain as a stub which mentions the earlier views of linguists, and refers to the Proto-Slavic article. —Michael Z. 2005-07-13 15:32 Z

There was no change in view: Common Slavonic and LPSl are the same thing, different term. It would be okay if a stub remains, and I guess we need more people to say whether they want to merge or keep a stub. 007 15:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It should be merged. Common Slavonic is the last period of Proto-Slavic language. If LPSl grows as a part of article Proto-Slavic language, then it should be moved to the separate article (and I think that "Common Slavonic" is better term then LPSl). --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:24, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Have two articles for basically the same thing is confusing. Whatever the difference between Proto and Common may be, between Slavic and Slavonic there is none. Very inconvenient. Merge and redirect. --IJzeren Jan 12:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

As I have stated above, there is even no clear equivalent of "Common Slavic" in the literature written in Slavic languages (and such an equivalent has hardly ever been used there). Only some (not very numerous) authors distinguish "classic" Proto-Slavic ("praslavyanski") from the earlier period which they call "protoslavyanski". The best thing is to merge both articles and to describe things as they were developing through centuries - rather than to introduce artificial divisions. --Grzegorj 12:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

The conviction which stands behind the distinction between Proto-Slavic and Common Slav(on)ic is that until the 10th century Slavs still spoke the same language. How to call that language then? It may not be called "Proto-Slavic", because it has its written form (Old Church Slavonic in the first place), and according to the linguistic naming tradition, the "Proto-" prefix is only used for languages which hasn't been written down and are reconstructed. The term "Common Slav(on)ic" is more appropriate here, because it only implies Slavs spoke one common language.

What language is the language of the Freising manuscripts? It's not Proto-Slavic, because it's written. On the other hand, it would be anachronistic to call that language Slovene. The language is very close to Old Church Slavonic, but can't be named OCS, of course. In cases like this the term "Common Slav(on)ic" seems to be useful. And it was used like this in some Wikipedia articles. So if we decide to merge the articles, we also need to check links to Common Slavonic and eliminate inconsistencies. Boraczek 11:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

It is an interesting question... but the problem lies only in terminology. Let's assume that we have discovered a text written in Germanic from Ceasar's time, so from the 1st century BC (impossible? why? couldn't the Romans write Germanic texts in their alphabet?). Proto-Germanic is said to be used until the 3rd century AD. And? Should we rename Proto-Germanic into something else, only because of our discovering?

There is a similar problem with Proto-Slavic. Some scholars say that OCS was the literary form of the latest Proto-Slavic. I can see nothing incorrect with this. But proto can mean just common ancestor and not reconstructed. Then Proto-Slavic would be Proto-Slavic independently whether we would accept OCS as the form of Proto-Slavic or not.

And why the language of the Freising manuscripts cannot be named OCS? Indeed, some scholars think just so. See for example W. Mańczak, Wieża Babel, Ossolineum, p. 19.

--Grzegorj 18:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Slavic vs. Slavonic

In the United States at least, 'Slavonic' is rarely encountered in the sense used here, referring only to the Old Church Slavonic version of the Bible, and much more rarely, as an adjective for 'Slavonia' (part of Croatia), or in musical titles, as with Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. British English uses the word more broadly, but even here, it's conforming to US usage. I suggest that 'Slavic' be used in all contexts except for the one I mentioned above.

Slavic has my preference too (but then, who am I?)... --IJzeren Jan 07:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I prefer Slavic, too. But, I noted that schoolar name for OCS is Old Church Slavonic. However, term "Proto-Slavic" should stay with Slavic, because I didn't hear that anyone calls it "Proto-Slavonic". --millosh (talk (sr:)) 15:05, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Slavic is more frequent also in the Internet. Especially, Common Slavonic gives only 545 hits while Common Slavic - 5150. I strongly suggest renaming the article. --Grzegorj 18:38, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I thought this was a just a British English/American English difference, that "Slavic" and "Slavonic" are the same.--D. Kapusta 18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

'Slavic' people use the word Slavonian to describe themselves. English gets it wrong, but who cares, it's a different languange. Use slavic if you like... 99.236.221.124 (talk) 12:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Loanwords

I have added some information on loanwords in Slavic. See the external links and the references for the source. --Grzegorj 13:35, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure *kupiti is from Latin, and not the common Germanic word *kaupan, (itself a borrowing from Latin caupo, tho) ?

The entire section is bullshit. I wish I had seen it earlier. Some people - especially Germans prior to and at the time of Hitler had an itch to assign Germanic or any other origin to every Slavic word. They just couldn't accept that the Slavs and Balts were the last branches to remain in the PIE Urheimat after all the rest had departed, hence, they preserved the largest portion of PIE vocabulary intact. Some comments per Vasmer:

• gatati 'to divine' - purely Slavic, numerous cognates in all IE branches (e.g., Lith. godóti, Norse gáta, Latin prehendō);
• divъ 'demon' - word not recorded in Slavic languages apart from a fringe interpretation of two places in Tale of Igor's Campaign; the same root as Lat. deus/divus, Greek διος, Lith. diẽvas - no need to guess about iranian origin;

- This is incorect: дивъ is quite widely recorded, cf. Bulgarian самодива (samodiva) (also partly in Serbian, although it normally prefers самовила, samovila, which is also used in Bulgarian). 

66.65.15.134 07:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• bogъ 'God' and *svętъ 'saint, holy' - two of the most problematic words; two schools of thought: one holds these are loans, others - that these are purely Slavic derivations;
• nebo 'sky, heaven', *soxa, *čaša - bullshit; these words are purely Slavic;
• tjudjь - Slavic per Brandt, Obnorsky, Ilyinsky;
• (j)aščerъ - Slavic per everyone;
• melko - one of the most contentious issues, either Germanic or Slavic, hard to say
  • actually nothing about this word is contentious: the verb "to milk" is mlêsti, where the k has passed to an s, quite natural for a satem language family like Slavic, while the appearance of k in this word can only mean it's a borrowingFlibjib8 03:15, 23 September 2006 (UTC);
    • No, it's contentious. The passing of the k to s isn't because Slavonic is satem, but because of the second palatalisation of the velars. CRCulver 06:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Interesting, compare Lith melzù "I milk" and Sanskrit márs.at.i "he wipes or rubs off"; notice the passing of k to s is fairly uniform. notice as well that mlêsti is also distinguished by its typically slavic metathesis of -el- to -le-; the dual presence of a -k- and an -s- in two supposedly related words, as well as metathesis in only one word, is a sure indication that the former is a borrowing, regardless of the ultimate phonetic origin of s. Flibjib8 15:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• istъba - not Germanic but Latin, per some scholars (cf. Romance *ехtūfа > It. stufа, Fr étuve);
  • This word is clearly borrowed, most likely through Latin or Greek, but it ultimately comes from either Germanic (OEng stofa "steam room", Ger Stube "sitting room", Dutch stoov "heated room") or from Greek (ex + Gk typhos "smoke"). The tell-tale i- prefix gives it away as a Late Latin word.Flibjib8 02:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• polъ - there were no Celtic or Ugro-Finnic borrowings in Proto-Slavic, hence bullshit;

Try again. Celtic I will agree on, but most Slavic tribes were in contact with Finno-Ugric tribes for a large part of their early history. It is also highly likely, for example, Finnish for half is "puoli-". 24.57.69.157 01:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you read your history, you will find that Celts and Slavs were neighbors for a long time. -iopq 02:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• tynъ and *lēkeis - both borrowed from Germanic people, who may have borrowed them from Celts, but this is another story;
• makъ and *olkъtь - Slavic per every reference I've been able to consult;
• xyzъ/*xyzja - definitely not Turkic, the same root as English "house";
• kъnęga/*kъniga - one of the most mysterious Slavic words (three schools of thought - postulating Germanic, Armenian, or Chinese origin);
• braga - from Chuvash, according to the latest research;
• sluga - purely Slavic, Celtic origin is Shakhmatov's myth;
• proso - dark word, likely from Latin. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Most of these etymologies are sourced (Schenker's The Dawn of Slavic). Instead of commenting them out entirely, you must represent both sides as per NPOV. Deleting well-sourced academic content is not appreciated here, as you well know. Furthermore, using profanity (you seem to throw around the word "bull****" left and right) is not appropriate on Wikipedia. CRCulver 11:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you even have Schenker's book? Then don't claim that this is unreferenced content. It's right there in the book, which is easily obtainable from any university library. I will take this to RfC if you do not cease. CRCulver 11:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a problem with the section: some words were added by later editors and I don't remember them in Schenker's book. I may get the book from the library myself. Also, many of these etymologies are probably disputed, and we should mention additional ideas regarding them, with citations of course. Alexander 007 19:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Phonology

I have added my translation from Polish Wikipedia. --Grzegorj 18:04, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

About Loanwords

My question is, why need 'kupiti' be from any language? Could this not have simply been a word which Proto-Slavic inherited from its own predecessor? Is it not possible that the other words, sluga, knige, xleb etc. may be natural formations and modernizations of earlier words than borrowed from neighbouring languages? It is already clear that some philosophical words come from Iranian languages but this nearly outstrips the entire language. It looks like Modern Polish, Russian and Serbo-Croat don't have a single word of their own... neologisms are simply corruptions of English in loanword approximation, and traditional words just seem to be borrowed Frank and his friend Herman. Did they not all develop seperately from an earlier language, PIE? Could PIE have not had words such as 'Kupiti' and it not, from where did Frank get his word? Did the Slavs not know how to make bread before Herman explained it? How then do we even know that Slavic was an IE language? I might also ask, what are Frank, Herman and Greco's modern words from these earlier formations? Celtmist 24 February 2006

• xleb is definitely a loan from Gothic because it has initial x-, which was the normal reflex of k- and k^- in Germanic but not in Slavic. If it were a native Slavonic word, it would begin with k- or s-. There is a similar explanation behind all of these words. We know Proto-Slavonic was an IE language because it has regular phonological correspondences with other IE languages, and preserves much the same nominal and verbal morphology as them. CRCulver 20:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Crculver. Tell me, could you just explain something to me, in simple English rather than the encyclopaedic talk... what is meant by the 'reflex' of another letter? Does it imply that any word initially starting with 'X' in a Slavic language is of a foreign source? And the other thing is, even if it this is the case, is it not possible that what was K or S could not have yielded to the gutteral continuant (however it is called)? I mean I know of one modern example: The southern reach of the Western Slavic languages tend to have an 'X'-sound where it appears the rest of the Slavic world maintains a 'Γ'/'G' (voiced), the Czech language employs this usage as standard and it also applies to neighbouring Upper Sorbian (of Germany), Slovak, and traditional Southern Polish dialects including Silesian...at least in rural areas and among the older even if the rest of the local speech in now in trawl to Standard Polski...my other observation on which you might comment is that, just as sure as there existed the Indo-European language, the Slavic branch and the Baltic branch (whether together or seperately is still unsure) broke from the branch which included Germanic at a time when it was one of only four IE languages... (I mean when Iranian and Greek were still one, and Celtic and Latin were yet to split), might this not explain certain similarities? My opinion is that it is all too easy in the 21st century to assume that a similarity means Slavic borrowed from Germanic because of the modern difference in prestige. Let's be honest, it is suggested that Old Church Slavic was used some 200 years after Proto-Slavic was last spoken, and way back then I don't think a great many languages were committed to paper. I don't know how early any Germanic dialect was attested but Slavic definitely wasn't in the 7th century. We are left to guess, but I think that the 'malako' of Russian (as a modern example) is hysterical: milk can no more be a 'new' concept than 'day' or 'night' or 'son' or 'mother'...in fact it is probably uttered by a baby as one of her first words. My thoughts would be that Russian Malako and English Milk were natural formations in a language which was predecessor to both...how do I prove this? How does anyone? - I'm also quite interested to know how Knyaz (Prince) and Kniga (book) came from Germanic and what might their modern versions be (or what could they mean) in say, Dutch or Norwegian (or any language). Slavs were not of the barbarian category and there is nothing to suggest that they could not have had such words, even if they meant something else AND were pronounced differently originally... it is known that they were led by Dukes, and so far I havn't seen proof that 'Voyvoda' has been borrowed, but if the article turns out to be true, then sure enough 'voyvodship' may too be an import. Can you shed some light Crculver? (sorry my monologue was a bit long - I have trimmed it, I assure you!) Celt 25 February 2006

If you don't know basic terminology, then you should obtain a textbook on historical linguistics before asking here. I'd also warn against making your own hypotheses ("My thoughts would be...", "I think") if you don't have any training in the field. All of these issues the you ask about are explained in the standard handbooks. See, for example, Lyle Campbell's Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (Boston: MIT Press, 2004). CRCulver 21:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Warn me about what? The thoughts I make are here in the discussion; you havn't seen me make an edit to the article and I have no intention of doing so. However you look at it, no encyclopaedia can be based on solid facts, you have to rely on analysis sometimes... I know roughly what the reflexive is, so how do you come to these conclusions? Celt 26 February 2006

The term "reflex", which you exhort me not to use above, has nothing to do with anything called the "reflexive", so forgive me if I say that you really need basic training in the field. I know you haven't made any negative edits to the article, but you are asking here on the discussion page very basic questions that could be immediately answered if you just got the basic textbooks. Don't take it as an insult, we all have to start with those sometimes. CRCulver 00:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

None taken. It was my error to write "reflex" when meaning reflexive, based on quick typing and no concentration. I've realised what it means now so I won't mention it again...right you are. Celt 28 February 2006

and THATS why kyrill and method created cyrillic. otherwise roman and german will claim everything that has a latin letter... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.220.126.173 (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Loanwords, again

I have the Schenker book next to me, and I will begin quoting it tonight and more tomorrow. I will only report what he wrote, so if someone disagrees with his statements, don't have the impression that I necessarily agree with him (I am not in the field of Slavonic linguistics or linguistics even), though this is a fine and current book in the field. For now, here is the first paragraph of section 2.66, Lexical Borrowing [note:I will use Latin script, and I do not have the font for the Cyrillic soft sign or hard sign, which I will omit]:

The lexical stock of Proto-Slavic includes a number of loan words from the languages of various tribes and nations who were neighbors of the Slavs. The earliest lexical or semantic borrowings were from the North Iranian languages of the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Alanic tribes. Many of these borrowings had religious connotations, including such terms as bog 'god', div 'demon', gatati 'to divine', raj 'paradise', svet 'holy', as well as the name of the supreme Slavic deity, Svarog. However, such non-religious terms as (j)ascer 'serpent', patriti 'to look after', radi 'for the purpose of', sobaka 'dog', topor 'axe', xata 'house', xvala 'glory' are also of Iranian origin.

---More quotes to come. Probably, Alexander Schenker is a bit dogmatic about some of these, and surely many of these derivations are disputed. The Proto-Slavic language article needs more references. Alexander 007 04:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The passage you cite testify to the quality of the book. Etymology of languages without early written records is necessarily temptative; peremptory tone evinces ignorance at best. Most Slavic-related linguistic or historical research I've seen in English amounts to plagiarizing old Russian sources without so much as naming them. I suppose the guy is overenthusiastic about 19th-century German authors who wished to assign an Iranian or, better still, Germanic provenance to every Slavic word. No analysis of any of the lemmas is given above. I would like to know which Slavic languages use "gaTati" in the meaning "to divine" and "div" in the meaning "demon". --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

In Russian, gadat' is to divine and divо is wonder -Iopq 21:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

In Bulgarian gadaia is to divine and (samo) diva is fairy. Vladislav

Well, it is published by Yale University Press, 1995, in the Yale Language Series. It is a book of academic quality [also, it has a nice-looking dust jacket :-)]; however, it is an Introduction to Slavic Philology, as it states, and it surely has it flaws (or rather, Schenker has his flaws). Alexander 007 08:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

vasmer corrections

while i cannot speak for every word you contest, i can say that:

• gatati (or OCSl gadati "to guess, suppose"), is more than likely inherited rather than borrowed. constrast with Old Persian cognate xšathra "dominion". it is also worth noting that Latin prehendere is not a cognate with this word.
  • OSl gadati "to guess, suppose"; akin to Alb gjej "to find", Eng get, Gk ktaomai "to acquire, get, procure; marry", ktēma "possession", OPers xšathra "dominion", MIr gataim "I steal", Welsh cyfoeth "wealth; realm", Lith godetis "to be eager"
  • Latin prehendere "to take, seize", praeda "prey"; akin to Alb zë "to catch", Eng begin, OIr ro-geinn "to encircle, surround", Welsh genni "to delve, submerge oneself", Gk chandánein "to hold, contain"
• xata, or rather Ukrainian khata "kind of traditional house", is in fact Iranian, akin to Avestan kata "chamber", Farsi kad "house", and Ossetian xatän. This word was also borrowed into Finno-Ugric, e.g., Finn kota "dwelling, tent, hut", Estonian koda "house", Mordvin kudo "house", and into Germanic, e.g., ON kot "hut" and Old English cott "cottage" (vs. native Goth heþjo "chamber"). The native Slavic words are instead OSl kotǐcǐ "chamber", Russ kotéc "fishweir" The o-a difference is significant.
• bogǔ is hard to believe as originating from Iranian, considering Avestan baxshaiti "he has or gives a share" and Farsi bakhshîdan "to offer, share", where the -a- and the -x-/-kh-, not to mention the meaning, do not lend themselves to a borrowing.

I quite honestly don't have much faith in slavic etymology.

71.64.112.34 03:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

For bogǔ, see Gołąb, Zbigniew. The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's View (Columbus: Slavica, 1990), pp 74 & 103. Gołąb believes that it was inherited in Slavonic with the original pan-IE meaning, but then under the influence of a neighbouring Iranian population, the meaning shifted to match theirs. Since both the early Proto-Slavonic form (*bɔgɔs) and the Iranian form (Avesta bagō) were quite similar, it's easy to see how a shift in meaning in one language could occur. CRCulver 22:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

well, that's much more believable than a wholesale borrowing, especially considering related bogatu^ 'rich', whosse meaning is probably closer to the original meaning of bogu^. Flibjib8 15:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Cyrillic

Why is Proto-Slavic given in Cyrillic? Cyrillic descended from the Glagolitic alphabet, which itself is from the ninth century. Proto-Slavic was spoken before the seventh. That makes no sense. What alphabet was Proto-Slavic written using? PS: I am aware that no writings of it have been found, but I'm simply asking if it was written, which alphabet would it have most likely used. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 07:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic was not written at all. However, since it is generally reconstructed from Old Church Slavonic on one hand and e.g. Old Russian on the other, it's understandable that some might use the Cyrillic alphabet for the reconstructions as well. CRCulver 01:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Especially because Cyrillic was devised specifically to render unique Slavic sounds, such as SHCH and Ы, which are not conveyed adequately by other alphabets. If you attempt to render Slavic sounds in Latin alphabet, you will get... well, Polish. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Look at Czech orthography, neat and phonetic, it's been adopted in a modified sense by most Slavic nations that use the Latin alphabet. I see no reason Latin can't be used, as this is the English Wikipedia it will be more familiar to readers. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 05:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Uh, Old Church Slavonic didn't have the sound SHCH, the character later used for that in Russian is an appropriation of the original Cyrillic sign for SHT, which is hardly a unique sound. Also, Ы is a digraph of the back yer and i, which would be just as easily represented with the Latin alphabet. I don't mind Cyrillic meaning used, but one has to merely argue from tradition, I don't think your points here are convincing. CRCulver 14:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

But what are you going to write instead of ь, ъ and other symbols that are not in Czech orthography? These symbols exist in Cyrillic but not in Latin. -Iopq 15:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

How about International Phonetic Alphabet? 惑乱 分からん 03:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

IPA isn't used for reconstructed languages. CRCulver 03:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I see... There are no scholars using reconstructed approximations according to schwa indogermanicum, laryngeal symbols, or similar? 惑乱 分からん 12:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

While the transcriptions used in FU linguistics, IE linguistics, etc. have symbols that overlap with those of IPA, they are not IPA. The International Phonetic Alphabet is a standard described in the Association's handbook, reconstruction transcriptions are consensus-based and informal. Think about how many ways IEists write aspirated stops (with h following as a full letter or as a superscript), labiovelars (superscript w or u with inverted breve below), laryngeals (h with subscript or, as in the Encyclopedia, distinct symbols for each of the three), etc. CRCulver

I rethought about my first idea, and thought we could choose one scholarly standard that would be easy to interpret... 惑乱 分からん 15:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be using the ĭ symbol for ь and the ŭ symbol for ъ, ę, ǫ for their nasal corresponding vowels and ě for yat. -iopq 13:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess that'd suffice? We'd better try to avoid Cyrillic here for the layman audience. 惑乱 分からん 23:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind using Cyrillic, but mixing the two alphabets is confusing. I looked at the list of vowels, which now ends in "ъ, y, and u", and thought that "y" was "у", which is pronounced "u". What about listing all the sounds once in Cyrillic, and once in Latin? phma 16:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's how Vasmer's etymological dictionary uses it. -iopq 02:24, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the whole phonology part on the page should be written using IPA alone. It is very confusing when someone has to learn different standards for different languages, if all one wants is to get a description of the phonology of the language. If there are some established conventions used by Slavisists, they should definitely be mentioned, but not used for the actual purpose of explaining the matter. --Midjungards 12:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

IPA is for phonetic transcriptions. Historical linguistics deals with phonemic transcriptions. It would be OR to use IPA here, when the actual literature already has standards for transcription. 82.181.205.224 13:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You could use IPA for phonemic transcription as well, just without going into phonetic details. It is very confusing the way it is now. You have to learn that ǯ means /ʤ/, ǫ means /ɔ̃/, ě means /æ/, etc. just in order to get an overview of the phonetics, even if you don't wish to go into details. For example, when the phonemes of the most languages on Wikipedia are explained, it is in IPA, with additional explanation of the “standard” for the language in question (In the case of a living language, that is the corresponding letter of the alphabet). One will say that a language has a phoneme /ʃ/, regardless of the fact that Czech uses š as a standard, that German uses sch, Turkish ş and so on. Besides, IPA is a common standard for transcription, which could be expected to be understood universally. --Midjungards 18:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You forget, what if the newest research indicated that ǫ was actually /õ/? Then we'd have to change the article in every place. But if we use the standard symbols we just change the phonetic value of it in one place and the reconstructions still stay accurate elsewhere. -iopq 09:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Cyrillic is used because it is the alphabet first used to write down Slavic, use of Latin came way later. You can use it if you like, so long as you explain this 99.236.221.124 (talk) 12:14, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Chronological order

If this article is supposed to detail how PIE changed into Proto-Slavic then we should have the sound changes in chronological order. The current technique of listing the sounds in arbitrary order and detailing backwards how they came from PIE is barely functional to any understanding of the way Proto-Slavic developed. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

It definitely does. Without the diachronical perspective, it's impossible to expand existing data or to add more, and it becomes misleading to the reader (e.g. there was no */ę/ by the time the first palatlization took place..) This article should IMHO start were Proto-Balto-Slavic left, listing the phonemic inventory of Early Proto-Slavic (after the first patalization) and possibly major changes that happened from PIE times, and list all Common Slavic changes in chronological order, finishing the phonemic inventory of Late Proto-Slavic. Major changes like palatalizations and liquid metathesis are very fertile subjects to write on, and could be also redirected to separate article for extensive discussion (when did they happen, detailed differences in reflexes in various dialects, exceptions etc.). And this is just the phonology, there is also the morphology.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

My above comment was made when the article was in a much worse state. I agree with what you've just said, though, and I trust that you have the skill to add proper detail. Be sure to cite thoroughly, though. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 15:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

rewrite

I just did a major rewrite to address my concern detailed above. I also changed the transcription from the "slavicist" one to what I suppose one might call an ad-hoc system combining Channon's palatals (š, ž, dz, č) with the vague "some people" transcription the short high vowels (ĭ, ŭ). This system is a bit more intuitive for the average reader and is, I imagine, slightly less confusing than having two almost identical characters denoting different sounds. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

In books, yers are almost never "transliterated", but kept in Cyrillic signs. ĭ, ŭ transliteration is based on the assumption that those were pronounced like short vowels i, u. Article should follow the established standards in the field, and not some imaginary guidelines. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, frowny face! How can I convince you to accept this? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Loanwords, Old High German

Why are Old High German examples given in the loanwords section? It doesn't seem probable these words were borrowed from OHG, since the Slavic words lack the High German consonant shifts, that had influenced OHG. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It could be the other way around, Slavic is as old as German and there may have been crosses from Slavic to German 99.236.221.124 (talk) 12:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Separate article on borrowings

As I can see from the discussions here, this is very delicate topic. AFAICS, most of the borrowings listed here were taken from Schenker's book which just lists them en masse without discussion/references IIRC, and some of which are almost certainly wrong. Since the topic of borrowings into Common Slavic is so vast (there are like 300 page monographs that deal just with e.g. borrowings from Iranian into Slavic), wouldn't it be nice to have separate article on it, one that extensively discusses contacts of Proto-Slavic-speakers with Iranian, Germanic, Celtic, Turkic etc. peoples, and the semantic spheres of the borrowings into Slavic? I was thinking of starting Borrowings into Proto-Slavic, but I'm not sure that kind of article would be suitable for WP (there are no "borrowings into Proto-Germanic" or similar articles)?--Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And also the Borrowings from Proto-Slavic into Celtic, Germanic (which there are, even if some pan-Germanists don't like to admit it ^_^) etc. So Proto-Slavic borrowings? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm hesitant about this idea. I think that we should develop it as a section in this article first, then, if it gets too large, we split it off into its own article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Section on the loanwords is already pretty large, and pretty disproportional with respect to the rest of the article (esp. considering the fact that the borrowings are just a minor detail, and that this article should focus on PSl. language). I was thinking of writing at least 10-15k article just on the borrowings (with separate section for Germanic, Iranian, Greco-Roman, so-called-Celtic and others), listing the opinions of Slavists in the last century and status of the scholarship today. Than the section on this article can just list some main conclusions, and redirect to the main article with {{main}}.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is a possibility, but I think you should develop it here first. I personally don't think the section is too large right now (could this mean the rest of the article needs to beefen up?) and I'd hardly call it ready to become a new article with the many citation requests that section still has. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comments? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

| I feel that the loanwords section should simply be about a sentence or so and then link to Proto-Slavic borrowings. I find grammar and phonology to be more important in a language's development than vocabulary, which is historically fluid.

Also, I don't get why some people get so upset about loanwords in Slavic or loanwords into German. The Proto-Slavs occupied their original Urheimat for the longest time of all the Indo-Europeans, remaining "purer" and autochtonous, so to speak. Proto-Germans were for a long time spreading out during this time and already had a large stock of words borrowed from each other or from the Celts. There was no need for the Germanic languages to absorb all these new Slavic words when the Slavs begin to travel, since the words had already been defined. The opposite may be true for the Slavs; the Germans had a good stock of words to use for these new techniques, so it seems natural that the Slavs took these words when they first become known to history after their long ancient "hiding".

Regardless, I do agree that the etymology of all these loanwords is still disputed, and the article only has a few sources (Schenker, Vasmer) who strongly represent a pro-Germanic position in terms of loanwords. Regardless, the most-used core vocabulary of Slavic ends up remaining, well, Slavic. Sort of like how the most-widely used words in English, even today, are Germanic, but on a much smaller scale (Slavic didn't borrow as many words as English has).

So much talk of loanwords, in conclusion, should be moved to their own article and more content should be focusing on the rest of the proto-language.| CormanoSanchez (talk) 00:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Ivan Štambuk has done a good job of writing Proto-Slavic borrowings and has already shrunk the loanwords section in this article. I don't see a problem with having a few paragraphs on it in this article the way we have it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, the LWs sections so far represents the brief account of the [[Proto-Slavic borrowings]] article, and I don't know how far would it need to be crippled, as one sentence is hardly enough to succinctly represents the conclusion of the article it links to by using {{main}}.

Borrowings are very important, but not for the fact of lexical borrowings themselves, but the manifestation of various later innovations in Proto-Slavic that acted upon them. We have no extent writings of the Slavic speech of that period, but have of of language-donors (such as Gothic, Ancient Greek or Latin), and if you look in the abovementioned article you can literally devise a dosen sound laws on the basis of Germanic borrowings alone operating in Proto-Slavic period (substitution of quantitative oppositions with qualitative ones, elimination of all closed syllables, palatalisations, accents shifts operating on Germanic borrowings [which had fixed accent on the first syllable, like Proto-Germanic did] etc.). They're as important as Slavic borrowings preserved as toponyms, LWs in much more archaic languages like Finnic or Greek, or glosses of Slavic names and words in FL sources.

Common people usually attach borrowings as a form of cultural domination and supremacy exerted by language-donor upon the receiver, corresponding it to some form of social-level domination—a view very much wrong and misleading. For example, for a long time it has been maintained that Slavs were "ruled" by some Iranian elite which would explain the alleged high amount of Iranian borrowings in Slavic. The fact is, that there is but a little provably real Iranianisms in Slavic, much of them pertaining to religious-magical sphere and not common everyday life. Lots of former Iranianisms have newer, by the modern-day standards of historical linguistics much more plausible, explanations. That is even more real for some "Celtic" or "Illyrian" words in Slavic. Words with obscure etymologies are often candidates for various imaginative explanations not because they are inherently more "valid", but because they cannot be disproven within the framework of derivational morphology of the observed language itself. An explanations with unattested language-donor etymon reached on the basis of what "is" and "isn't" a result of the "tendencies of the system" (whatever that means) is no explanation at all.

You're mistaking two markedly different terms German and Germanic. Yes, it can be said that Proto-(Balto-)Slavs are the remnant of the old Late PIE dialect continuum, being the last branch to "desintegrate". Proto-Balto-Slavic changes are in fact the changes of Late PIE itself, and what we today call "Baltic languages" are in fact last remnant of PIE itself. This is confirmed by a remarkable fact that the reconstruction of "Proto-Baltic" is extremely problematic (it. turns out to be no different in time-scale than of Proto-Balto-Slavic itself), and where Slavic languages experienced common innovations basically all the way to the 9th c., Baltic may have done so only in some dialect clusters like "West Baltic" and "East Baltic", and so you get remarkably archaic Lithuanian not attested before the 16th c., and at the same time in many respects comparably archaic to Vedic, Ancient Greek and Latin (and in few of them even more!).

Vasmer is badly outdated, and Schenker doesn't discuss LWs in his book thoroughly enough to be used as ultimate evidence—he just lists them and doesn't even cite sources, and doesn't state how disputable some of those really are, having much acceptable alternative explanations. I think that the article on PSl. borrowings is generally sufficiently objective in its perspective to modern, up-to-date scholarship, in both presenting the problem and the conclusions it reaches. All views (even wrong ones) have to be represented, if they're important (being held by notable linguists, or for simply being influential for a long time), per WP:NPOV policy. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

| Thank you for your explanation, which really helped me understand this a bit more. I have a hunch that the layman's interpretation of loanwords implies "domination" like you said. This issue is contentious of course and nationalists on both sides of the aisle have battled each other forever on it. Such a battle should be kept out of Wikipedia (however futile that attempt may be).

I didn't mean that vocabulary was less important or irrelevant, but that the main article should explain further on the other aspects of the language. Again, this isn't easy as so little evidence is around.| CormanoSanchez (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

about loanwords again

just noticing the discussion up above about whether certain words are loanwords from Germanic or native Slavic -- one issue that people seem to have missed entirely is the Germanic Sound Shift. Germanic-borrowed words will have it, native Slavic ones won't. For example: 'moloko' must be borrowed from Germanic because of the /k/. The PIE form looks like *melĝ- which gives e.g. Latin 'mulgere' "to milk" and Eng. "milk". A native Slavic equivalent would have a /z/ or perhaps a /g/, but not a /k/.

As for 'kupiti', the Lat. word 'caupō' means "small trader" or "innkeeper" and is listed in my Amer. Heritage Dict. of IE Roots as being a Latin-only root of unknown origin, i.e. presumably not PIE, and the root shows up nowhere else in any other IE language. There's no verb in Latin that uses this root and has the meaning of "buy"; the "buy" meaning was a Germanic innovation when 'caupō' was borrowed into early Germanic and a verb '*kaupjan' "buy" (Go. 'kaupjan', Mod. Germ. 'kaufen') was formed. 'kupiti' "buy" goes back to pre-PrSl. 'kaupītī' and has exactly the form and meaning of the Germanic word, including the preservation of the /j/ stem-forming element. All of this taken together makes it very unlikely that 'kupiti' is a native Slavic word.

Similarly 'xlep' "bread" shows the Germanic Sound Shift in it. Benwing (talk) 06:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You might be right, but some sound changes occurred amongst Baltic, Slavic and Germanic languages simultaneously due to areal proximity. Therefore its presence in German doesn;t imply its origin there Hxseek (talk) 10:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Slavic liquid metathesis and pleophony

A "competing" article which should be work'd in here (using {{main}} probably, it's clearly long enuff not to merge). I stuck it as a "See also" for now… --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 23:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Consonant clusters

Are there any consonant clusters with more than three consonants in Proto-Slavic? --84.61.151.145 (talk) 17:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Zvezda

"Russian: *gwojzda → *gwězda → zvězda → [zʲvʲɪˈzda] ('star')" I'm sorry, but in Russian the first [z] in the word "звезда" isn't palatalized (I mean Russian palatalization, [zʲ]), at least normally. What was the source of that transcription? It probably should be fixed, the word normally sounds as [zvʲɪˈzda]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.84.243.135 (talk) 08:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:IPA for Russian#Cluster palatalization. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

ě in Slovak

Please excuse me if I am confusing scope here, but is it accurate to state that ě evolved into e in Slovak in all cases. It seems if one compares the OCS terms rěka, mlěko, mĕsto, mlěti, one sees the following in Slovak: rieka, mlieko, miesto, mlieť. -- Mahabhusuku (talk • contribs)

It looks like it evolved into "ie" in Slovak from your examples. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 01:08, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In Czech and Slovak, ě can go various ways. Its development is rather unpredictable, so indeed, the statement that ě evolved into e in Slovak is inaccurate.

I'd also like to note that the statement in Ukrainian, ě merged with i is nonsense. If anything, you could say ě merged with o in closed syllables. What happened in Ukrainian, is that i merged with y (into y), while ě became i. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 09:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)