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Talk:Old Ruthenian language/Archive1


sample (just in case you are interested)

A sample of Old Belarusian (Ruthenian). Leu Sapieha (Lev Sapega) congratulates the Grand Duke Zygimont III Waza on signing the new Grand Lithuanian Statute, December 1, 1588.

Original:

"Наяснейшому пану, пану Жикгимонъту Третему [...] Были тые часы, наяснейшый милостивый г[о]с[по]д[а]ру королю, коли в томъ згромаженью а посполитован[ь]ю людскомъ, которое мы речью посполитою называем, не правомъ якимъ описанымъ або статутомъ, але только своимъ зданъемъ и уподобанъемъ владность свою г[о]с[по]д[а]ры и короли того света надъ людми ростегали. Але ижъ частокроть от пристойное своее повинности отступовали, а, на свой толко пожытокъ речы натегаючы, о сполное доброе всихъ мало дбали, оттул[ь] то было уросло, же люди, брыдечысе ихъ панованьемъ и звирхностю и не господарми, але тыранами оные называючы, на самом только статуте и праве описаномъ все беспеченство и доброе речы посполитое засажали. А прото онъ великий и зацный филозофъ греческий Арыстотелесъ поведилъ, же тамъ бельлуа, а по-нашому дикое звера, пануеть, где чоловекъ водлугъ уподобанья своего владность свою ростегаеть, а где опятъ право або статутъ гору маеть, там самъ богъ всимъ владнеть."

Transliterated Lacinka version:

"Najasniejšomu panu, panu Žikhimontu Trietiemu [...] Byłi tyje časy, najasniejšyj miłostivyj h[o]s[po]d[a]ru korolu, kołi v tom zhromažjeńju a pospołitovanju ludskom, kotoroje my riečju pospołitoju nazyvajem, nie pravom jakim opisanym abo statutom, ale tolko svoim zdanjem i upodobanjem vładnost svoju h[o]s[po]d[a]ry i korołi toho svieta nad ludmi rostiehałi. Ale iž častokroć ot pristojnoje svojeje povinnosti otstupovałi, a, na svoj tołko požytok riečy natiehajučy, o społnoje dobroje vsich mało dbałi, ottul to było urosło, že ludi, brydiečysie ich panovańjem i zvirchnostiu i nie hospodarmi, ale tyranami onyje nazyvajučy, na samom tolko statutie i pravie opisanom vsie biespiečjenstvo i dobroje riečy pospołitoje zasažałi. A proto on viełikij i zacnyj fiłozof hriečjeskij Arystotieles poviedił, žje tam bielłua, a po-našomu dikoje zviera, panujeć, hdie čołoviek vodłuh upodobańja svojeho vładnost svoju rostiehajeć, a hdie opiać pravo abo statut horu majeć, tam sam boh vsim vładnieć."

--rydel 14:44, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Today this language is called "Trasianka". You should know. To say that this a common root of Russian, Balarussian and Ukrainian makes me roll on the floor. The whole idea about "common" old-pan-east-slavic language in the conditions of no TV, no newspapers, to common literacy is so against common sense. Only a continuous multitude of dialects is imaginable for these times, the whole set of which can be called "common language" only with a good deal of stetch. Mikkalai 16:36, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A Russian person would just say that it is simple plain Russian with some dialectal traits, plus some Polish words. — Monedula 07:49, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am frankly surprised by such comments, Mikkalai:

  • Trasianka is NOT a written language, it's not even close to being a language, while Old Belarusian had a damn rich written tradition, starting from Great Lithuanian Statutes and Metrics to prose, poetry, and translated novels (such as stories about Tristan and Isolda, and about Skanderbeg, about knight Bova and many others!)
It was me who added mentions of Statute and Metrika and "Old Belarussian language" into wikipedia([1]), so I know all this. I used the word "trasyanka" in the sense of mixture of languages. THe example of text shows clear lamination: all political terminology is Polish layer. Mikkalai 19:38, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • It's NOT a common root. I never said it is. This above is clearly an example of Old Belarusian.
Yet you put "Ruthenian" in parentheses. Why?
  • What is this "common root" anyway, but an invention of Russian imperialists? Show me that common root? I am the guy who says there never was such a thing. Why are you putting things into my mouth?
My rant was in response to calling Belarussian Ruthenian.
  • Anyway, this does not have any relevance to the naming-renaming issue, does it? I simply provided an example (the first sample I found on my hard drive) of Old Belarusian (I have hundreds more). Because there are people out there voting for something, which they never even saw a single line of, never read a single paragraph in that language. What gives the right to decide how to call it?

--rydel 18:02, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We are not voting about Old Belarussian here. Mikkalai 19:38, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Now you correctly say that the language of your citation is Old Belarusian. It is not the same language as the one the article treats, i.e. the language of the Lay of Igor's Campaign. ---Ghirlandajo 18:18, 24 Dec 2004 (GMT)

The article says: Between 10th and 16th centuries it was also an official language of most of the states occupying the area of Kievan Rus: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Muscovy, and Republic of Novgorod.. So it is not even determined what this article is about. Boraczek 16:28, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Old Slavic?

The article says:

The language was a direct descendant of the Old Slavic language

Old Slavic redirects to Old Church Slavonic. Is this a correct statement? Mikkalai 16:28, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Old Ruthenian/Russian did not evolve from Old Church Slavonic. But it did evolve from the common Slavic language which may be called Old Slavic. For the time being, I'm removing the link. We need to clean up all that mess about old Slavic issues. Boraczek 16:25, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I restored the link - to Common Slavonic. Boraczek 16:36, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
See Old Church Slavonic#Nomenclature about this (if it's not reverted in the meantime). Nikola 12:36, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Old Ruthenian language → Old Russian language

The article was opriginally called "Old Russian", but with the invasion of Ukraininan nationalists, which renamed Kiev into Kyiv whenever possible, the article was renamed into "Old Ruth". 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica speaks about "Old Russian", which say in favor that "Old Ruthenian" is a modern invention of modern russophobes. It is suggested to restore the name. Mikkalai 01:31, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC) P.S. I ain't no bloody Russian.

  • Oppose. The language of Kievan Rus is the ancestor of Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian. It has been called "Old Russian", "Old Ruthenian", and "Old East Slavic". "Old Russian" is perceived as making the other two languages seem insignificant or inferior to modern Russian. Old Ruthenian is a more neutral reference to historic Kievan Rus. —Michael Z. 03:54, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC) P.S. is all the name-calling and non sequitur really necessary?
    • I found the 1911 Britannica, Mikkalai's authority for linguistic nomenclature. It doesn't say anything about "Old Russian" language or russophobes, nor does it acknowledge independent Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. Everything written there has a very narrow viewpoint, precisely equating Eastern Slavs with "Russians". Here's an excerpt from Russian Language. —Michael Z. 23:12, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)
Dialects.Russian dialects fall into two main divisions Great (Velikorusskij), including White (Blorusskij) Russian, and Little Russian (Malorusskij). The latter is spoken in a belt reaching from Galicia and the Northern Carpathians (see RUTHENIANS) through Podolia and Volhyni~ and the governments of Kiev, Chernigov, Poltva, Kh~rkov and the southern part of Vornezh to the Don and the Kubfln upon which the Dnpr Cossacks were settled.
  • Support. The Old Germanic language was the ancestor of English, Dutch, Swedish, but it doesn't make sense to rename Old Germanic into Old Teutonic or something like that. Also, Old Russian has 200000+ hits in the Google Search, the Old Ruthenian has less than 1000. The latter term is rarely used outside Wiki. Perhaps "Old East Slavic" would sound neuter. Xenia 08:45 23 Dec 2004 (CET)
  • Support. Old Russian is the historically evolved term used to refer to the language that was ancestral to Great Russian, Little Russian, and White Russian medieval dialects from which modern Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages developed. The ancestral language is called "drevnerusskiy" (Anciet Russian) in modern Russian, and "davnoruski" (Old Russian) in modern Ukrainian. Ruthenian is a late Latin term of Polish origin: it seems to make Russian and Belarusian insignificant or inferior to modern Ruthenian (the westernmost dialects of Ukrainian). It is a shame to assign Latin names to a Greek Orthodox literature and culture.Ghirlandajo 06:59 23 Dec 2004 (GMT)
    • You apparently forgot to mention that the Polish term is Ruś (pronounced in almost the same way as in modern Russian), so the latin term can hardly be traced from Polish - rather from... Ruthenian itself. Halibutt 13:47, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I agree with what Michael said above. In addition, I strongly oppose introduction of 19th century Imperial Russian bias by downgrading the history of Ukraine and Belarus to merely "White Russia" and "Little Russia". Finally, as to Xenia's argument - I don't really get it. Germanic languages are Germanic languages, not Old German. Also, nobody proposes to move it to Old Dutch, Old German, Old English, Old Norse or Old Icelandic... these are simply different terms. Also, the matter is still unsolved at the talk page, I don't see a reason to duplicate the discussion here. [[User:Halibutt|User:Halibutt/sig]] 08:03, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. "Old Russian" is a well established term, "Old Ruthenian" is not. — Monedula 12:12, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support for precisely the same reason as Monedula. "Old Ruthenian" and language doesn't get that many hits, really, and even quite a few of those seem to be due to forks and mirrors of Wikipedia.--Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:30, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • If Old Russian language is POV, as is Old Ruthenian language, why not Old East Slavic language? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:08, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There is nothing "russophobic" in the name Old Ruthenian. In fact, it follows the Russian name for it, древнерусский язык. The confusion may come from the fact, that while the Russian language distincts between Русь (Ruthenia or Rus', interchangeably) and Россия (Russia), it uses the same adjective, русский for both Ruthenian and Russian. In Ukrainian, each meaning has its own adjective - there is руський and російський. So, both Russian древнерусский язык and Ukrainian давньоруська мова have the same meaning and there isn't any conflict between these two. -- Naive cynic 14:08, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Care to point silly me to an English dictionary that translates or interprets "Русь" (Rus) as Ruthenia or vice versa? Mikkalai 16:19, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. In this case the Google test overwhelms any opposition. - UtherSRG 15:46, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Old Russian is too well-established; and see also Old German. If there's something to be said about Old Ruthenian possibly being more appropriate, it should still be (said) on the Old Russian page. Rd232 15:53, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
However, if we can't have agreement on Old Russian, then Old East Slavic (or Late Old East Slavic) should be preferred to Old Ruthenian. Rd232 16:00, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"Old East Slavic"
  • Oppose. I have always heard it referred to as Old Ruthenian. -- JamesTeterenko 17:22, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Agree with Rd232. There's even no word in Russian that could mean "Ruthenian" (Рутенский, Рутенийский, Руссийский? Sounds like gibberish). There are words, however, like древнерусский (Ancient Russian), старорусский (Old Russian). I could probably give it another thought if someone tells me the exact translation of the word "Ruthenian" from Ukrainian and Belorussian languages. KNewman 19:05, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
    • Russian doesn't have two different adjectives meaning "of Russia" and "of Rus’". English does. —Michael Z. 19:12, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)
      • If someone is thinking that "Ruthenian" is an English adjective from Rus', I suggest them to look up a dictionary. The word "Ruthenia" acquired a new meaning in English, languages tend to change in time. Mikkalai 19:31, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • Mr.Michael Z., I've always thought (being a Russian myself :)) that the word Россия (Russia) has its own adjective российский (which is not exactly русский). Русский has much more to do with Русь (Rus). So believe me, there are different adjectives in Russian for Russia and Rus. It's just that in English they never call Russia Rossiya. KNewman 21:07, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
        • And that's exactly it: most languages I know have the distinction between something related to "Russia" and something related to "Rus'". If the language was spoken in whole (well, most of) "Rus'", not only "Russia", then...? Halibutt
          • The word in Belarusian (not belorussian by the way) is "ruski" for something that relates to Rus (Ruthenia) and "rasiejski" for something that relates to modern-day Russia (which has very little to do with old Ruthenia). --rydel 01:48, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I strongly oppose the move. There is a need for distinction. We shouldn't follow the "traditions" of 19th century Russian imperialists. I talked about this topic hundred times, and I know what I'm talking about. Old Ruthenian is fine. It's better than Old Russian, which is somewhat misleading and NPOV. --rydel 01:45, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose--Emax 02:42, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I always thought Ruthenia was a small part of Ukraine, that formerly controlled by Czechoslovakia from 1919-1939, and that Ruthenian referred to a dialect of Ukrainian. Am I wrong? I've only heard of Old Russian, and Old Slavic...never heard of "Old Ruthenian." So far, I tenatively support the move. —ExplorerCDT 03:03, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • You are right. Russia has never been known as Ruthenia, never. Ruthenia is the name for the Trans-Carpathian Latin Catholic part of Ukraine. -- Ghirlandajo 11:59 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • But we're not speaking about Russia and Russian language here, Ghirlandajo. There indeed was a Trans-Carpathian Ruthenia that once was a part of the greater Ruthenia, just like plenty of others: Red Ruthenia (Sanok, Przemyśl, Lwów, Halicz), Black Ruthenia (Navahrudak), White Ruthenia (central Belarus), Halich Ruthenia (Halicz, Volhynia), Kievan Ruthenia (Kiev)... Read the article on Ruthenia, it gives a pretty well definition. Halibutt 15:02, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • Black Ruthenia and the rest were renamed by the same ukrainian anti-Russian nationalist drive which moved the language article. Mikkalai 16:07, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • Mikkalai, please cut out the labelling, name-calling, and other abusive bullshit already? It doesn't belong here and I'm tired of tolerating it. Your request for a move starts with an insult aimed at people you disagree with, and you attribute any opinions you don't like to 19th century Ukrainians and Poles, as if that were some sort of slur. Between you and Xenia's racist remark on the talk page, this discussion is sickening. If you have to call people names, at least get it right. I'm not a Ukrainian nationalist, I'm a Canadian social democrat of Ukrainian ancestry. Or why don't you just go for the full effect and tell me I'm a dumb maloruskiy khokhol who's opinion doesn't count? —Michael Z.
      • I'd hate to say it for fear you'd call me a racist too (and it's so easy to do so with the veil of anonymity brought on by not signing your comments) but Nineteenth Century nationalism and the descendants of that tradition (more russophobic Ukrainians) seem to be at the heart of the debate. The emotive nature of nationalism (which explains your quick dash to call Mikkalai a racist and say his opinion is "bullshit") should not poison this debate, the facts themselves should determine it, without name calling. The fact, by the google test, is that Old Russian is the more prevalent (by a landslide) usage. Unfortunately, I think your backlash against Old Russian and the idea that someone would call the nationalistic attachment to "Ruthenian" is a result of the emotional connection you have to what the French would call your patrie, hence you succumbing to the appeal of nationalist fervour and rising such a defense.—ExplorerCDT 22:49, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • I didn't call Mikkalai's opinion bullshit, I called his disparaging labelling and sly ad hominem attacks against other Wikipedians bullshit. His habitual abusive tone causes hurt feelings in these discussions and encourages others, like Xenia, to chime in with overt racism. You speak up for "the facts" by analyzing my ethno-political background, and you think this belongs in a Wikipedia discussion? I'm not motivated by nationalism, but by disgust with a display of utter disrespect for people's points of view, unselfconsciously justified by stereotyping. —Michael Z. 16:33, 2004 Dec 26 (UTC)
        • ExplorerCDT, the reason "Old Russian" has such high "google count" is because it was mentioned in 1911 Britannica edition (and later too). That version of Britannica has a totally wrong, not to say misleading, harmful and offending, information about East Slavic languages. So if you do this renaming of Old Ruthenian to Old Russian, then you logically must rename Belarusan to White Russian, Ukrainian to Little Russian. That's what 1911 Britannica says. Should I start the renaming process already, add these two wonderful candidates? I already can see some Russians here happily jumping around and adding their "support" votes for these "wonderful" and "scientific" renamings. --rydel 13:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • Referring to Google results for "Old Russian" without context is useless. The term can refer to "Old Russian vodka", "Old Russian motorcycles", and a thousand other things that have nothing to do with naming a 10th century language. —Michael Z. 16:33, 2004 Dec 26 (UTC)
  • Support, because Old Russian is shorter and more established than Old Ruthenian. --Pierre Aronax 06:53, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose --Steschke 13:29, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC) Old Ruthenian language is definitely not Old Russian language. Ruthenian is a branch of the estslavian languages. It's more an ukrainian dialect (or independent language), but no Old Russian.
    • Steschke, if that's your reasoning, that Ruthenian is a dialect, and not Old Russian (as I read your comment), you should be Supporting the move. Are you confused? Or am I just reading you wrong? —ExplorerCDT 16:22, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

PS. For all those people above who voted to support the move, I'd like to ask you just one small favor, one small question. Have you ever seen a document written in Old Ruthenian? Have you read it? Have you understood it? Can you tell us which document(s) you read? Thank you. --rydel 15:01, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Quite silly request. Only professional linguists can deal with old documents professionally. For a lay person, any old Slavic document written in Cyrillic will be "looking somewhat like Russian" (if the person is Russian), or "looking somewhat like Belarusian (if the person is Belarusian), or "looking somewhat like Ukrainian" (if the person is Ukrainian), or "looking somewhat like Bulgarian" (if the person is Bulgarian). So what do you want? — Monedula 18:47, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
So why do those "lay persons" have the right to vote on the name of the article if they no clue what they are talking about? --rydel 13:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In Wikipedia, everybody has right to vote on anything. Btw, have you got your clue? What is your great reason for changing a well-established name? — Monedula 22:11, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I believe that in your school days you passed The Lay of Igor's Campaign without paying any attention to it. As may be seen from the Middle Belarusian stuff you posted in the Talk page, you still confuse the Old Russian with Middle Belarusian. It's helpful to move the existing page to Old Russian (or Old East Slavic), and then you will write a new page about Middle Belarusian (and will call it Old Ruthenian if you like). :) --- Xenia 11:50, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose for following reasons:
    • Definitely, there's a need for distinction between Kyiv Rus and modern imperial Russia. Such distinction should not necessarily be in favor of Ukraino-centric vision of Rus history, but it SHOULD EXIST. This distinction need is in fact caused by Russian propagandists persistently claiming the direct continuity between Kyiv Rus, Muscovia and Peter's Russia.
    • The whole text looks doubtful for me. After reading the article, it's subject (i.e. language situation in Rus lands in given period) becomes clear. But the conclusions of the authors, as well as BOTH suggested names, seem too simplified and biased. I'm afraid it's more complicated. So I'd like to consult with professional historians and linguists before making a precedent with renaming.
    • Since renaming idea is actively supported by some known Russian propagandists, it automatically becomes suspicious for me.AlexPU 13:58, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support: the language is called Old Russian. Old East Slavic might be more correct, but is not widely used. Old Ruthenian is just a Ukranian nationalist invention, trying to relabel the language "Old Ukranian" (which is what Old Ruthenian means) by using a term unfamiliar to most outside nonspecialists. (OED def. 1 for Ruthene: "A former name for a member of the Ukrainian people".) Aggrieved minority POV is not the same as NPOV. Oh, and Ruthene would not exist in Russian (unless as Rufskij or something; θ -> φ in modern Russian); it's just a Latin deformation of Rus and was used to refer specifically to the Little Russians or, more specifically, those of Galicia or Transcarpathian Ruthenia. —Tkinias 19:16, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose: "Little Russians/Little Russia (Ukraine)" is just a Russian nationalist invention :) However, Old East Slavic is a good compromise.--Emax 20:21, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • No-one is suggesting renaming the Ukraine or Ukrainian language articles. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 09:25, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • Indeed. MaloRus and BelaRus are the Greek names adopted by intellectual elite of these lands in Late Middle Ages, just like Great Poland, Little Poland, etc. It's not the "Russian imperialists" (if such a thing existed) who "invented" these names for the countries. "Ukraine" is hardly better than "Malorus", as it is a Russian word meaning "a land near the border". Also, I don't see why Ukrainians are offended by Malorus, but Belarusians consider the name Belarus perfecly normal. Malorus, Belarus - historic names evolved under the same circumstances, what makes the difference? --- Xenia 11:57, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • MaloRus (Little Ruthenia) - not Russia. Its like to call the Netherlands "Little Germany", only because "Dutch" sounds similar to "Deutsch" ;)--Emax 14:44, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support, for the same reasons as ExplorerCDT. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 09:25, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support, as the "Old Ruthenian" epithet leaves out the largest portion of Kievan Rus, the modern-day Russia, which has never been known as Ruthenia, and attaches too much weight to the westernmost lands historically known as Ruthenia. Meanwhile, the old tradition of architecture, icon-painting continued in the present-day Russia, not in Ruthenia. All the monuments of the Old Russian literature - byliny, The Lay of Igor's Campaign - have been preserved in northern lands and not in Ukraine. "Old Ruthenian" is a partisan and pro-western-Ukrainian name. P.S. I decided to vote twice, following the example of Emax --- Ghirlandajo 11:25, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This needs to be discussed more on the article talk page, where perhaps a compromise can be reached. Jonathunder 15:40, 2004 Dec 26 (UTC)
  • Oppose We need to go beyond advocating one side, and clearly consider the reasons for either side. The sides are "Old Russian" vs. "Old Ruthenian."

The reason for "Old Russian" are as follows: the Rusian Empire most recently controlled MOST (not all) of the major part of Rus' (about 1700-1990). Secondly, the Russian nation, from about 1713 (for over 200 years), began to stop calling itself "Muscovia" and chose to name itself after Rus' (although, under a foreign Greek variant) "Rossiya!" On the "Old Ruthenian" side, the reasons are as follows: 1) The Rus' propria lands, or Rus' in the most proper sense (Kyiv, Pereyaslav and Chernihiv regions), were not in Russia, but in Ruthenia, and are today called "Great Ukraine." Secondly, the name "Ruthenian" was held by the population of Ukraine through the 19th century, perduring in the western part of Ukraine even until the 20th century, in the native form "Rus'ki" (Ruthenian), as opposed to "Russki" or "Rossiyski" (Muscovite or Russian). Thirdly, the difference between Rusian (Ruthenian) of the early Ukrainains and Ukraino-Belarusians) vs. the Finno-Ugkric tribes to the north, united by Moscow, later called, "Russians," was evident even in the period of Rus. The Tale of Ihor's Campaign, was from the Ruthenian areas and distinctly non-Russian, even though ancient manuscripts were preserved in Russia itself. I apologize for the fact that my entry understates the case! Genyo 23:20, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

    • LOL! Your ignorance is the best support for moving the page. The Russian nation never "stopped calling itself Muscovia", because it never used this term. Muscovy (sic!) is a correct appelation of the state in some Western sources, although for Shakespeare, Chaucher, Elizabeth I it was still Russia. And of course in Russian language, self-appelation of people has always been the same: ruskie in Ilarion's Slovo (mid-11th century) as well as now. This has never changed. Ukraine, on the other hand, never had an established name for itself. Currently it uses "Ukrayina", a Russian word for "border land", originally used to refer to "Pskov ukraines", "Ural ukraines" and even "Finnish ukraines". "The Rus propria lands" were invented by you, but there is not any locality in Ukraine having a "rus" root. The original area where the Rus lived is Staraya Russa or Old Rus near Novgorod. The term "Great Ukraine" doesn't exist, and the ugly term "Ukraine" is not 200 years old yet. The word "Russia" is attested in Latin two centuries before the term "Ruthenia". I could go on for pages debunking your lies. But it is useless to argue with chauvinists. Xenia 11:50, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • The late Joseph Chauvin and I are both proud you used the word chauvinist in its correct denotation. Good argument, too, by the way. —ExplorerCDT 05:47, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Xenia and Explorer: could you please read Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Civility? Boraczek 12:38, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yes, Xenia, and we are lynching Negroes... But now seriously, perhaps indeed the word Ukraine is less than 200 years old (although it was used at leas since the Union of Lublin in 1569. Anyway - what does it have to do with the article? You say that there is only one Rus' and the rest is but some 19th century Ukrainian idiotism. Such a statement does not hold the water since the term Rus'/Ruthenia (Ruś in Polish) was used both by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and by those little states annexed by it or by Poland or Lithuania before the two merged. Also note that Lwów was the capital of... Ruthenian Voivodship (Województwo Ruskie) since its creation. Halibutt 09:12, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Please, let's each of us take a deep breath and slowly count to ten before we click "Save page". —Michael Z. 09:16, 2004 Dec 29 (UTC)

  • Support - Wikipedia is to share information, not to wage political partisan campaign. "old russian" will facilitate more people finding the right information rather then "old ruthenian". all this "ruthenian" terms are just plain confusing for anybody other then some hardcore slavic history geek. I completely respect the position of nationalists like MichaelZ , hallibut etc to avoid association with something they don't like (i.e. Russia). If they prefer to think about this language/history as "Old Ruthenia" it would be great to have seperate page presenting this alternative viewpoint and cross-link them both. yet lets recognize the reality that such view point is a minority view point at the moment. I think both descendants of "old-Russians" and "old-Ruthenians" would prefer other billions people of this big big planet actually finding and reading about our history. Since it happen to be "Kievlan Rus" they are very likelly to search for "Old Russian". For same reason i'm against "old slavic" compromise. Its confusing, unknown and will only make it worse. Lordmax 07:55, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • I shouldn't even reply to the remarks by Lordmax, and especially so because of his long contributions list which make me think of sock puppets. However, one thing should be explained: currently Old Russian language, Old Belarussian language, Old Ukrainian language, Old Lemko language, Old Boiko language and some others redirect to Old Ruthenian language. So the argument about confusion of someone being misinformed or prevented from finding enough info is simply false, since after writing any of the names in the search box the correct page appears. Also, the argument about the minority viewpoint seems invalid and this very voting is a great proof. Not counting the vote by Lordmax there were 12 votes in favour and 11 votes against the move. Finally, I'd strongly suggest that Lordmax stopped calling me a nationalist, eventhough in this context the remark was quite funny (I'd be the first Old Ruthenian nationalist since Middle Ages - if there ever were such nationalists back then). Anyway, in where I live this term is extremely offensive and I don't like to be called a nationalist just because I have other oppinion. Halibutt 13:38, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
      • I doubt if the term "nationalist" is offensive in English, but I can see no reason to think that Halibutt and Michael Z. are nationalists. It looked like an irrational and malicious label. Boraczek 12:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The "Old Russian Literature" section needs cleanup

Many things mentioned in this section were written not in Old Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian language, but in Church Slavonic language. — Monedula 11:58, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Appeal for more differentiation

(I hope that this is the right place for this proposal; if not, please tell me where to place it.)

This whole discussion about the terminology seems quite pointless to me, since there are several languages involved, which have to have different names (and different Wikipedia articles). Have a look at the following scheme of the history of the three big East Slavic standard languages:


History of Russian History of Belarusan History of Ukrainian
Preliterary period

(c. until 9th c.)

East Slavic dialects of the Proto-Slavic language
R. праславянский язык
Ukr. праслов’янська мова
Blr. праславянская мова
Old period

(c. 9th to 14th c.)

Old (or Common) East Slavic (or Old Kievan)
R. древневосточнославянский (or древнекиевский) язык
Ukr. давньоруська мова
Blr. агульнаўсходнеславянская (or старажытнаруская) мова
Middle period

(c. 15th to 18th c.)

Old (or Middle) Russian
R. старорусский язык
Ukr. староросійська мова
Blr. старарасейская мова 		(Old or Middle) Ruthenian
R. украино-белорусский язык, «простая мова»
Ukr. староруська мова, «проста мова»
Blr. украінска-беларуская мова, «простая мова»
New period

(c. from 18th c.)

(Contemporary) Russian
R. (современный) русский язык
Ukr. (сучасна) російська мова
Blr. (сучасная) расейская мова 		(Contemporary) Belarusan
R. (современный) белорусский язык
Ukr. (сучасна) білоруська мова
Blr. (сучасная) беларуская мова 		(Contemporary) Ukrainian
R. (современный) украинский язык
Ukr. (сучасна) українська мова
Blr. (сучасная) украінская мова

(This is a modified version of a table I recently presented at a conference in Uppsala; see the original as PDF. And sorry for the long names in some places; it is not my fault that the East Slavs themselves have only nice short names for the national languages.)

Consequently, I am very much in favour of the following changes:

  • The article "Old East Slavic language" should be restricted to the time of Kievan Rus' and should also contain the first two sections of the historical chapter in "Russian language".
  • The language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which is the language of the sample provided by rydel) should be treated in a separate article "Ruthenian language".
  • At the top of this article, people looking for Rusyn (which is often also called "Ruthenian") should be redirected to "Rusyn language".
  • There should be a short article "Old Russian language" which explains the difference between Old East Slavic and Muscovite Russian and links to the "Old East Slavic language" article and the Muscovite section in the "History of the Russian language".
  • Another short article "Old Ruthenian language" should branch to the articles "Ruthenian language" and "Old East Slavic language".
  • Of course the articles for all East Slavic languages (including Rusyn) should link to the respective earlier, pre-national stages of their history, which should, nonetheless, be treated as explained above in separate articles.
  • Old East Slavic and Ruthenian should also be mentioned (as extinct) in the detailed list of the "Slavic languages" article.
  • The names "Old Ukrainian", "Old Belarusan" (for both Old East Slavic and Ruthenian) and "Old Russian" (for Old East Slavic) would have to be mentioned as terms to be avoided because of their national connotation for really pre-national languages. (Their use is still the norm in the respective countries, so that a Ukrainian saying "Old Ukrainian" and a Belarusan saying "Old Belarusan" mean exactly the same thing. But surely this is not appropriate for an international encyclopedia, and indeed modern, 'western' slavicists do use the terms "Old East Slavic" and "Ruthenian" in the way I propose to use them.)

The consequences of these changes would be that

  1. the pre-national stages of the East Slavic languages are treated in supra-national articles;
  2. the same thing (e.g. the language of Kievan Rus') is treated only once and not in three separate articles (i.e., Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusan) from the respective nationalistic points of view;
  3. even the article(s) on Rusyn would already have information on the history of that language up to the 18th century.

Is there general consent to do this?

If so, I would happily make these changes and write the article about the Ruthenian language (which is the subject of my PhD thesis), but someone will have to look for grammatical mistakes then, since I am not a native speaker.

Very interesting. Thank you for the table. I think that's a pretty reasonable and logical table and proposal. (PS. small question - Ukr. (сучасна) белоруська мова. Shouldn't it be Ukr. (сучасна) білоруська мова in Ukrainian?) --rydel 18:01, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for your Ukrainian correction; I've changed it in the original already. --Daniel Buncic, 2005-01-05, 16:10 CET
Sounds good to me too. If we can get consensus, I'd be glad to set up stub articles and post requests for renaming, where necessary. Happy to polish off the English grammar, too. Should a version of this excellent table be added to East Slavic languages? —Michael Z. 23:33, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)
It seems like there is consensus already. I don't know what has to be done, where has this request for renaming to be posted? Please tell me and/or do it. --Daniel Buncic, 2005-01-05, 16:12 CET
You can create new articles just by going to the link, and rename them by clicking the "move" tab at the top. If the heading that you're moving an article to has been used before, Wikipedia may refuse to move it. In that case, a request must be posted at Wikipedia:Requested moves, and 5 days of voting takes place. I can come back late tonight, and get things started. —Michael Z. 17:22, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
The table is great and the proposed changes seem fine too. I thought that the scope of this article was obvious to all who participated in the discussion, but apparently it was not. Thanks for your proposal, I'll be glad to help. I'll also start working on some sort of a navigation box (shortened version of the table you posted) to be placed on all related articles. This would ease the navigation between, let's say, modern Belarusian and Middle Slavic (or whatever is the name we adopt). Halibutt 23:48, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I added the table to the main page (in a wikified and slightly clarified form). I'd also consider adding a "dialects" row, with all sub-dialects, dialects and languages derived of modern forms of the languages, for instance trasianka for Belarusan, surzhyk, Lemko language, Ruthenian language and such for Ukrainian. How about that? The table with such a row would look like this:
History of East Slavic languages
History of Russian History of Belarusan History of Ukrainian
Preliterary period

(c. until 9th c.)

East Slavic dialects of the Proto-Slavic language
R. праславянский язык
Ukr. праслов’янська мова
Blr. праславянская мова
Old period

(c. 9th to 14th c.)

Old East Slavic (also Old Kievan and Common East Slavic)
R. древневосточнославянский (or древнекиевский) язык
Ukr. давньоруська мова
Blr. агульнаўсходнеславянская (or старажытнаруская) мова
Middle period

(c. 15th to 18th c.)

Middle Russian (also Old Russian)
R. старорусский язык
Ukr. староросійська мова
Blr. старарасейская мова 		Middle Ruthenian (also Old Ruthenian)
R. украино-белорусский язык, «простая мова»
Ukr. староруська мова, «проста мова»
Blr. украінска-беларуская мова, «простая мова»
Modern period

(c. from 18th c.)

(Contemporary) Russian
R. (современный) русский язык
Ukr. (сучасна) російська мова
Blr. (сучасная) расейская мова 		(Contemporary) Belarusan
R. (современный) белорусский язык
Ukr. (сучасна) белоруська мова
Blr. (сучасная) беларуская мова 		(Contemporary) Ukrainian
R. (современный) украинский язык
Ukr. (сучасна) українська мова
Blr. (сучасная) украінская мова
dialects and derived languages

(c. from 18th c.)

trasianka surzhyk, Rusyn, Lemko, Boiko

--What do you say? Halibutt 00:53, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that the 'dialects' can be incorporated in this table, for several reasons: First, the dialects in the word's proper sense existed from the beginnings, I'd say even in the Proto-Slavic period (if we take Proto-Slavic as a real language and not just a theoretical reconstruction, then it surely must have had dialects like any other existing language), so they would have to be added in every period (which I did in my original table for the conference). Second, trasianka and surzhyk are not really dialects but mixed speech forms (trasianka is a mixture of Belarusian and Russian, surzhyk a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian). Third, most Rusyns would object to the classification of their (two!) languages as dialects of Ukrainian. And finally, speaking of Rusyn, the Rusyn language spoken in former Yugoslavia is in many respects not even East Slavic, but West Slavic. --Daniel Buncic, 2005-01-05, 16:35 CET

I'd say some people are too easily excited. Look what I've been up to: User:Mzajac/East_Slavic_languages. —Michael Z. 01:14, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

What's the difference apart from the Old/Middle Russian and the (poorly-looking, IMO) switch from "Modern period" to "New period"? And what do you think about the whole dialects idea? Halibutt 02:18, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
Not much difference at all; I had already finished working on it when I saw your posting here. I think this table would be better as a central jumping-off point in the history section of the all-encompassing East Slavic languages article, perhaps with a very small simplified navbox at the bottom of every other language's article. All of the translations of the languages' names should probably be in the respective articles, to keep the table simple. I would like to see all of the 'minor' languages and dialects represented, but I'm worried about them fitting in the table—your small font is the way to go. I like Daniel's layout in the PDF file, which arranges them left-to-right for east-to-west. —Michael Z. 05:51, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
This is a very good idea, as there even is a "History" section in the "East Slavic languages" article. As there was no objection, I've just done it. The problem is that the text there is written from a very Russian point of view and that it does not differentiate between dialect differences (which can indeed be seen in the 12th century) and the emerging of distinct literary standards (which does not take place before 1386). We will have to try to integrate the text and the table with each other. --Daniel Buncic, 2005-01-05 18:21 CET
Bah, didn't notice that. As to the east-west organisation - no problem, I'll do it. I'm also currently trying to prepare a compact version to be used as a navbox (soon to be posted as Template:Eastslavlang, so far not finished), not wider than, let's say, 200px. It could be placed inside of the Language box to replace the Genetic classification section or, alternatively, below it to serve as a navbox. Finally, there is also an option to create a raw tag for the bottom of the page simply listing all languages with links, similarily to Template:Poland. This option however would loose much of the charm of this excellent table. Halibutt 12:29, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

I like all the simplifications and improvements to my table. But one important thing is that my original table was made just for this discussion and that I wanted to make some differences clear. Once we all agree on these things and incorporate them into the Wikipedia structure, they are no longer needed in the 'public' table. First of all, this applies to the East Slavic names of the languages. It is a good idea to mention them on the respective pages, but not in the table. But then I would also like to have just one English name for each language (and mention other names in the respective articles only). I would propose to use "Old East Slavic", "Old Russian", and "Ruthenian". "Common East Slavic" is not bad either, but "Old" gives an additional information and seems to me to be more popular in slavistic literature. "Middle Russian" implies that there is an earlier period called "Old Russian", and this is just what we should avoid, because that earlier period was a common language for all the Eastern Slavs and not just the Russians. Besides, this stage of Russian is usually called старорусский (literally 'Old Russian') in Russian, too — in contrast to древнерусский (literally 'Ancient Russian') for 'Old East Slavic'. The same applies of course also to "Middle Ruthenian". "Old Ruthenian" is just to differentiate it from "Ruthenian" as a name sometimes used for "Rusyn", but as long as we cling to "Rusyn", we can safely call the predecessor of Ukrainian and Belarusian (and of course Rusyn, too) "Ruthenian"; this is in fact common practice in western publications. Oh yes, and "Old Kievan" is in fact just an invention of mine, which has, as far as I know, never been applied to the language (though it has been applied to the culture). This is just meant for those people (especially East Slavs themselves) who reject "Old East Slavic" in favour of "Old Russian" etc. because they consider it too long; this is understandable if you look at древневосточнославянский, but древнекиевский is about just as short as древнерусский. (And it is even parallel to древненовгородский.) --Daniel Buncic, 2005-01-05 17:50 CET

I have just made the changes to the table I think necessary on the main page. I have also added a third colour for Belarusian (by the way, this is the Wikipedia spelling, as I have noticed), because otherwise one might think that all the white cells belong exclusively to the history of Belarusian. And I shaded "Ruthenian" in the (mathematical) mixture of the Belarusian and the Ukrainian colours. Do you like that? In principle, of course, the earlier stages then should be shaded in a mixture of all the three colours (i.e., grey), but when I tried it, that looked just awful. Maybe someone finds a better graphical solution? I have also changed "languages" or "standard languages" in the heading of the table to "literary languages", because on the one hand we have not included dialects and are talking about some kind of supradialectal variety (of which we know only the written form), on the other hand the earliest stages cannot be really called standardized in the modern sense. --Daniel Buncic, 2005-01-05 17:31 CET

Looks good. I've adjusted Ruthenian language, Old Russian language, and Old Ruthenian language. Please have a look and see if it's okay. There's still a little cut'n'paste and lots of writing to do. Now I have to go get some work done, and some Christmas shopping! —Michael Z. 18:22, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

I have written a text on the history of the East Slavic literary languages now, but the dialectal history has still to be written. Is there anyone there who can do that? -- Daniel Buncic 2005-01-06 13:26 (CET)

Wikilove

Dear fellow Wikipedians. We're all trying to improve Wikipedia. Peppering edit summaries with accusations of theft just makes you look like a grouch. "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will...", and all that. Please find your Wikilove. Or vent your anger out in the open, and get over it. Cheers, Michael Z.

Anger? borrowed joke, see edits for History of the Russian language. :). WRT wikilove, sorry, but the discussions are just full of it. (Pun intended.)  :) XXXOOO A. Shetsen 18:20, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)====

IPA/old cyrillic characters

The problem with using IPA and the proper Unicode for the yuses, yats, etc. is that so few fonts include them. In particular, under the default skin, the "sans-serif" font in the stylesheet is mapped under Windows to Arial (not Unicode MS!), and so the ancient quotes are full of little squares. This is why mini-graphics were used when these passages were typed in several months ago. They're ugly and they waste space, but at least they guarantee legibility for all users. And I say this with the greatest of respect.

The alternatives appear to include:

  • Approximating the letters, repacing the yat with a Serbian ђ or ћ, or a capital yer Ъ, etc. Although some Wikipedias and many, many Russian sites do just this, it is a bad solution, because the substitute letters have their own use and may have occurred in some of the ancient manuscripts.
  • Changing the spelling to the modern one. Aside from its historical inaccuracy, this solution is likely to cause further political squabbling, because the ancient usage is reflected differently in each of the three modern East Slavic languages.
  • Overriding the built-in font on the client side. This is, in practice, more difficult than just changing the default font display: a custom stylesheet must be provided for IE.
  • Changing the default font in the article text, providing a font list for all of the possible platforms: Palatino Linotype, Arial Unicode MS, Lucida Grande, XSerif Unicode. This solution is as wasteful of space as the embedded graphics, and, besides, there is no guarantee that a given user will have the font.
  • Changing the skin settings. Again, the problem is that there's no guarantee the fonts will be present.
  • Creating a math-formula-like generation facility. Lots of work for the developers!!
  • Providing server-side fonts with markup. Tedious, because all of the browsers in use have different syntax for retrieving webfonts. Then there's the licensing issue...

I realize there's a modicum of screw-MS mentality at Wikipedia, as at all free projects. But a universal encyclopedia should do its best to be universal. I say, keep the graphics for the old letters. Perhaps this article is not the best place to discuss this point; if so, let's move it to whereever it should be discussed. A. Shetsen 19:02, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All good points, except that images don't guarantee legibility. E.g., a handicapped user with a text-only browser or audible page reader may see something like the following. The same applies to Google. (I generated this using Lynx (browser), which automatically transliterated the text.)
  Slovo o p"lku Igorev Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG . c. 1200, from the Pskov
  manuscript, 15th cent.
  
         Ne l Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG po li ny byashet" bratiie, nachati
         starymi slovesy trudnyh" pov Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG stiij o polku
         Igorev Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG , Igorya Svyat" slavicha?
         Nachatizhesya t" p Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG sni po bylinam" sego
         vremeni, a ne po zamyshleniiyu Boyanyu. Boyan" bo v
         Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG schiij, asche komu hotyashe p
         Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG sn Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG tvoriti, to
         rastekashetsya mysiiyu po drevu, s Image:yat_lc_ru2.PNG rym"
         volkom" po zemli, shizym" orlom" pod" oblaky.
Specifying fonts for runs of text containing old Cyrillic characters isn't necessarily that bad. Have a look at Template:IPA (description), which makes IPA text display correctly in a stock Windows XP installation. We can do something similar. Does anyone know if these characters (yat, yuses, etc.) are in any stock Windows fonts? —Michael Z. 02:27, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
What would you think of a link to a screen shot of the entire paragraph, rather than many little inlined yat and yus images? Then it would look good and be readable in any browser with the right fonts, and after a single click without the fonts. And neither version would suffer from ugly letter pox. —Michael Z. 02:44, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
The new images are great. I was thinking of a little link that serves as a graphic alternative, but these enhance the article whether you have the font installed, or not. They help convey a sense of the original manuscripts' character. —Michael Z. 04:43, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
Thank you! A. Shetsen 05:31, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Confusion with "full vocalism"

There was: A striking innovation in the evolution of this language was the development of so-called full vocalism, which came to differentiate the newly evolving Russian north from Rus' propria, arguably under influence of indigenous Finno-Ugric languages majority population stock of the Russian nation. For instance, Proto-Slavic /*gordъ/ town, became OES /gorod/, Proto-Slavic /*melko/, milk - OES /moloko/, and Proto-Slavic /*korva/, cow - OES /korova/. The more central and more thoroughly Slavic parts of Rus' ("Ruthenia": Ukraine and Belarus') did not undergo this innovation.

However, this version makes no sense, since Russian is no different from Ukrainian or Belarusian in the matter of "full vocalism", as all three have /moloko/, /korova/ etc. — Monedula 10:48, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Glottonyms

Someone keeps deleting my changes, especially the Russian translation for Old East Slavic, "древневосточнославянский". This term was introduced by Ruben I. Avanesov (the author of the book on Russian phonetics and pronunciation) in 1976 (in "О построении истории русского языка", Вопросы русского языкознания 1, Москва 1976, pp.5–20). Yesterday, after I had seen that someone had replaced "древневосточнославянский" with "древнерусский" (though that term had already been mentioned in the next paragraph as the "traditional" term, so that now it appeared twice!), I moved the traditional terms into first position, discussing the supranational terms only in the second paragraph. I thought this would appease the nationalistic feelings of our Slavonic friends, but someone has now restored the old state with "древнерусский" mentioned twice and "древневосточнославянский" not at all. I think it is clear that this is not the ideal. I will now change one of the two "древнерусский"s back to "древневосточнославянский", and I would be pleased if these two names of the language this article is about would remain in place. I do respect the opinion of some people who think the language should be called "древнерусский", but completely removing the politically more correct term does not really enhance the informative value of this article, does it? — Buncic 15:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You should be aware that what is called Old East Slavic in Wikipedia for the sake of neutrality, is never called восточнославянский in Russia. 99% of scientific literature on the subject treats about древнерусский язык. Therefore your transliteration is misleading. Also misleading is the term Old East Slavic itself. I may only hope that, under pressure of the Scottish nationalists, you will rename Old English into Old Albionic and Old Polish into Old Lekhitic. Ghirlandajo 16:04, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There are several statements in this comment; let me answer each of them separately:

  1. The article states explicitly that the national terms are more common in the East Slavic languages, so no-one is "mislead" here. But international Wikipedia is surely not the place to advocate nationalistic terms, however widespread they may be.
  2. What is "misleading" about "the term Old East Slavic itself"?
  3. I did not get your point about Old Polish.
  4. Old English was really spoken in England at a time when Scotland and Wales were still mainly Gaelic-speaking. Apart from that, in contrast to the Eastern Slavs, the English-speaking world does not feel offended by the name of their language. Scotsmen, Americans, Irish and Australians have nothing against going on calling their language English. They have no problem admitting that they speak a language that was originally centered in England and then began to spread over the world. With Old East Slavic it is different: This "Old Russian" was definitely not centered in Russia (but in Kiev), and especially Ukrainians do feel offended by this term. Wikipedia should not use names by which some people feel offended. Therefore, "древнерусский" should be mentioned, but not as the only name if there are alternatives, and it should definitely not be recommended. Buncic 17:24, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I see that Ghirlandayo has already made this point. Let me repeat it. The Russian term for this language in the period 950-1400 (+/-) is "древнерусский". Without exception, basically. "Древневосточнославянский", if used at all, denotes the dialect, proto-language, or whatever, in the period between the Common Slavonic breakup (whenever and whatever that was) and the earliest known written samples, which begin in the tenth century. Since there is no formal history or chronology before 852 (the earliest precise date in the Primary Chronicle), there is no basis for knowing the "national language" status of any of the dialects at this early period. The article is about the language in what is already the historical period. If the English term "Old East Slavic" must be used in Wikipedia to make less tempting biased edits by people who (a) believe that the omission of one s in Russian somehow makes it less applicable to Russian, (b) have in the past claimed Russian is descended from Bulgarian, (c) possess certain knowledge of the ethnic mixture in the region, and (d) do not know what full-voicing is, or even if it actually has a purpose, neutrally indicating a common culture before politics had its say -- so be it. But let us not invent terms in other languages. That goes against every policy here I am aware of. I'm changing the Russian designaion for "Old East Slavic" back.
Political centres are no match for precise linguisting evidence. The region that has provided the most samples from the earliest periods is not Kiev, but Novgorod, with the birch-bark letters. The Kievan Sviatoslav miscellanies of 1073 and 1076 are really Church-Slavonic, with E-Slavic influence. The earliest extant manuscript for the Kievan chronicles dates from 1377, was written in Suzdal, and kept in Vladimir — all places in the Muscovite region. Tedious political commentary aside, that fact surely should say something about cultural unity, in those days at least, and of "Russian" claims to "Rus", to the modern purveyors of historical wrongedness.
My last point is cheap. Russians have no sensitivities to protect. Offending them God himself does ordain. :( A. Shetsen 17:33, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The current status with no foreign-language indication in the first paragraph at all and a special treatment of the respective East Slavic names is acceptable now. But you have wiped out the supranational terms in Ukrainian and Belarusian, which I will get back, because they are used much more frequently than "древневосточнославянский".
We have no possibility of speaking of any "national language" not only before 852 (by the way, the "Русь" mentioned there were Vikings raiding Constantinople, so at least their leaders were speakers of a North Germanic dialect), but until the end of the 18th century. And that not because of any linguistic data but simply because the people before the romantic period had no notion whatsoever of a nation in the modern sense.
The birch-bark letters are not written in the literary language discussed in this article but in a very distinctive speech-form called the Old Novgorod dialect. This dialect is part of the history of Russian but not of Ukrainian and Belarusian — something that cannot be said of Old East Slavic, which is really the heritage of all East Slavic languages.
Please, when evaluating my comments, cling to what I have said. I do not claim that "Russian is descended from Bulgarian", I have no sympathy for Russian terms like "руский", and I do know what full vocalism is (i.e. полногласие; "full voicing" is something different). — Buncic 11:27, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please show me where I've said that you are the one guilty of (a) (b), (c), or (d), Mr. Buncic. Also, please check the edit history more carefully. :) Now, as to your own points. (1) If the Novgorod linguistic info is not applicable to Old East Slavic ( :) ), let's remove all the birch-bark and other stuff dug up on the modern political boundaries of the Russian Federation, including both the basic texts of the Primary Chronicle (the Laurentian and the Hypatian), and the Igor Tale (Pskov, right?) from this article, rename it to Old-Ukraininan-and-Belorussian, and be done. Then the article text can degenerate into the usual political bewailing like Ukrainian language etc. (3) The distinction between the Polish rosyjski and ruski (I hope I have the spelling right) in Russian is basically "российский" and "русский". The Russian super-patriots, predictably, hate the first word and all it stands for. (4) Understand once and for all that in the Russian Empire, for all its unefficient use of arbitrary measures, no formal distinction whatever was drawn between "Great", "Little" and "White" "russians", and the lists of the distinguished (as well as the condemned) are full of people from the territories that are now independent states. Just what was Razumovsky, exactly? (5) Let's dispense with the protestations of mutual sympathy. Like too many others you don't like but keep (to be precise, once kept) in the original the Ukrainian/Belorussian terms, and are sympathetic to, and presume to alter in the original the Russian ones. A. Shetsen 16:51, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC) A. Shetsen 16:59, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Why is this whole text crossed out? Anyway.
I did not say that you accused me of anything, I just remarked that these views you cited had nothing to do with the matter and that therefore you should cling to what I had said.
(1) As to the birch-bark letters, I would in fact really prefer putting just a link to Old Novgorod dialect here, because it is better to treat a subject like that at length in one article than just to mention it in several places. As to the rest: I said that it is typical of all proper Old East Slavic literature that it is a common heritage of all East Slavs. The birch-bark letters, however, are quite off the track: First, they are not literature at all, they were never meant to be kept, let alone copied. Second, their language seems to have exercised no influence on Ukrainian and Belarusian, but it probably did influence Russian (e.g. the lack of palatalization in руке etc.).
(3) The Polish distinction between rosyjski and ruski has nothing to do with the Russian distinction between российский and русский! These are in fact 'false friends'. The two Russian words must both be translated as 'Russian', none of them means 'East Slavic'. For example, Russian русский язык = Polish język rosyjski.
(4) I do understand that there was no distinction made (as long as people spoke "proper Russian" and did not come up with such stupid postulations like wanting to have the right to speak "White Russian" in public or so); so what?
(5) That is not true. I always mentioned the name древнерусский язык and never altered it. I cited the Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalistic terms together with древнерусский, and I cited their supranational terms together with древневосточнославянский. You considered the last one to be non-existing, so we took that away upon your wish. I see no discrimination on my part here.
Let me repeat that the current status of the terminology section seems acceptable to me. If it is acceptable for you too, then we do not need to engage in any further discussion. Let's work on something else to improve Wikipedia! Buncic 15:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Since it would be dishonest to pretend something, once said, was never said, the usual meaning of a struck-out passage is that it is withdrawn. In this case, in its entirety. But I would be very careful to try not to claim that people in the past had or had not a different meaning of the word "nation" (народ) than we do now. That a single nation may split (if that is the case -- I think it is, IMHO) would also not be unique in world history. A. Shetsen 21:02, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I don't think you should have restored wrong nomenclature. We put the Cyrillic names here primarily to help find the term in Russian-language texts or in a library. The term древневосточнославянский is of no help whatsoever. Every existing dictionary of what we call here Old East Slavic language is actually "Словарь древнерусского языка". It is stupid to put the centuries-established term in the same category with the artificial wikiderivatives such as "Old Ukrainian" or "Old Belarusian". Those languages have another established term for Old Russian (давньоруська мова) which may be translated to English as Old Russian as well. Don't be sad and please remember Gogol's dictum that "every Ukrainian with some brains in his head knows that he is a Russian". Ghirlandajo 08:31, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Old Ukrainian and Old Belarusian are not "artificial wikiderivatives" but names well-established in Ukrainian and Belarusian linguistic literature. I personally don't like them, because they are just as nationalistic as Old Russian, but they have to be accepted as facts.
The term давньоруска мова is not in "those languages" but only Ukrainian. It cannot be translated to English as "Old Russian", for that is староросійська мова. This differentiation between російський 'Russian' and руський 'East Slavic' is the same as in Polish rosyjski 'Russian' and ruski 'East Slavic'. In Belarusian, the situation is a bit more complicated. Very broadly speaking, those Belarusians who call their capital Менск also strictly make this differentiation between расейскі 'Russian' and рускі 'East Slavic' (and in this sense беларускі really does not mean 'White Russian'), while those that call their capital by the name form borrowed from Russian (and ultimately coming from Ukrainian), Мінск, also use рускі in the sense of 'Russian'. Therefore, for the former group старажытнаруская мова really means 'Old East Slavic'.
Let us not engage in a fruitless discussion on which documents are more Church Slavonic and which are less so. The fact that early manuscripts are sometimes not preserved does not say anything about their not having been written. If you consider the oldest preserved East Slavic document to be from 1377, what does that say about earlier manuscripts? Did they not exist at all? And if they did exist, why should they not have been written somewhere else? 1377 is at the very end of the Kievan period, when the East Slavic lands are being divided, with centers in Moscow and Vilnius. Kiev had been destroyed, so no wonder the Kievan manuscripts did not survive.
Gogol has been dead for 150 years now. If he really said or wrote so (when? where?), then we should keep in mind that русскій at that time meant something quite different. It was a term used for all Eastern Slavs, of which, however, the великороссы were considered better than the малороссы and the бrьлороссы. — Buncic 11:27, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Old Belarusian is something quite different! It is старобелорусский in Russian. Don't confuse it with Old East Slavic or Old Russian (древнерусский in Russian). — Monedula 12:05, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article "Old Belarusian language" you are referring to contains information about Ruthenian and should be united with that article. As to terminology: Russians do not always differentiate between древнерусский язык, which is Old East Slavic of the Kievan period, and старорусский язык, which is Old Russian proper of the Moscovian period. Just in the same fashion, Belarusians not always differentiate between старажытнабеларуская мова, which is Old East Slavic again, and старабеларуская мова, which means Ruthenian, but which is often used for Old East Slavic as well because it is shorter. This is why I advocate using supranational terms: Russian древнерусский язык, Belarusian старажытнабеларуская мова, and Ukrainian давньоукраїнська мова all mean the same thing, namely, 'Old East Slavic'; who would have thought that? It is the same with Russian западнорусский язык, Belarusian старабеларуская мова and Ukrainian староукраїнська мова, which all mean 'Ruthenian'. — Buncic 16:11, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Authority on the subject (?)

"Different historical destinies of the northeastern and southwestern portions of Rus' have resulted in the linguistic and political division of the area into the three modern states, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
With Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus having a shared past, it has been a common Russian and Western practice to refer to the medieval variety of their languages as "Old Russian," there being no specialized adjectives to correspond to the distinction between Rus' and Russia. This usage, however, has been found offensive and potentially confusing because of the concurrent use of the terms "Old Ukrainian" and "Old Belarusian." To remedy the situation some American scholars have used the adjective Rus'ian as a pendant to Rus'. This coinage, however, has not gained wide acceptance, and in this volume the term East Slavic is used to denote the pre-Pterine variety of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian."

Alexander M. Schenker. The Dawn of Slavic. Yale University. 1995.

So Schenker uses East Slavic. I am surprised though he didn't mention the variant "Old Ruthenian." --rydel 02:16, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Rydel. It's nice to be grounded by an actual reference now and then. I'd welcome other citations about the state of nomenclature too, but hopefully more recent than 1911. (Britannica 1911 is definitely an interesting part of the subject, but I'd prefer more modern references about the subject)
Just to clarify, it looks to me that no one opposes Buncic's proposed reorganization of articles on historic East Slavic languages at all. The current debate seems to be strictly about the nomenclature, to some degree the English, but mostly in the respective languages. (correct?)
Since there's obviously debate, disagreement, and transition in the academic world (e.g., Schenker's mention of Rus'ian), would it not be encyclopedic to document the debate itself? Seems to me this would comfortably belong in the Etymology of Rus' article, with prominent links there from the respective languages' articles. Or maybe in the umbrella East Slavic languages article.
There would still remain the question of what to name the historic language articles. Perhaps we should stick to English for now, and all of the respective Slavic names can be removed to the one article. The debate could continue in one place.
—Michael Z. 04:08, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

Old East Slavic къняжити

The Ukrainian form is княжити, the Russian is княжить. I put it here because some of the more politically-oriented Ukrainian supporters (this means you, Genyo) do not seem to know this. A. Shetsen 05:12, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Slovo o polku

The text Genyo had reverted to (eliminating an earlier edit, see below) was this:

"Illustrates the sung epics. Typical use of metaphor and simile. The nonsensical misquote растекаться мыслью по древу (to effuse/pour out one's thought upon/over wood; a product of an old and habitual misreading of the word мысію, "squirrel-like" as мыслію, "thought-like", and a change in the meaning of the word течь) has become proverbial in the meaning "to speak ornately, at length, excessively"."

It clearly shows its history as having been moved from the History of the Russian language.

Since OESl is (as it's defined here) ancestral to all the modern ESl languages, I changed it back to

Illustrates the sung epics. Typical use of metaphor and simile. The apparent (Russian) misreading растекаться мыслью по древу (to effuse/pour out one's thought upon/over wood) has become proverbial in modern Russian with the meaning "to speak ornately, at length, excessively". (The misreading is of мысію, "squirrel-like", taken to be мыслію, "thought-like". It is present in both the manuscript copy of 1790 and the first edition of 1800, and appears to have been caused by a then misunderstood change in the meaning of the word R течь.)

If someone wishes to add Ukrainian, Belarusian, Rusyn linguistic commentary to this, it would be more than welcome! But politics, politics... A. Shetsen 05:27, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dream on! This is not relevant to my recent edits! Genyo 05:31, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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