In the Church Slavonic language, the alphabet consists of 40 letters, most whose spelling and pronunciation corresponds to Russian letters. Every letter is ecclesiastical Slavic language has its traditional name.

Spelled differently, but pronounced the same next letters and letter combinations:

1. e є e
2. and і m v3 Ђ
3. o o w q
4. t from
5. x x
6. p ps

The Church Slavonic alphabet was created on the basis of Greek. This explains the presence of a number of letters (f w x p v) that are redundant for the transmission of Slavic speech. Greek influence also explains the rule according to which the combination gg is read as [ng], and the combination gk - as [nc], for example: є3vaggelіe, смгкл1т.

The letter e was used to convey a special vowel sound, represented in many Slavic dialects. Some dialects of the Russian language have distinct sounds e and e. On Western Ukraine when reading ordinary Church Slavonic texts, e under stress is pronounced as [and].

Superscripts and punctuation marks

In the Church Slavonic language, special icons are used, which are placed above the line level and are called superscript. This accent marks, special aspiration sign And word abbreviations. A strict system of using superscripts appears quite late. The oldest manuscript with accent marks is Chudovsky New Testament(mid-XIV century), new translation from Greek into Slavic, executed, according to legend, by St. Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow. The system of superscript characters was finally formed by the beginning of the 18th century.

Accent marks

In Church Slavonic there are three types of stress:

• a - acute accent, or nxjz
• A - heavy stress, or varjz
• † - light stress, or kam0ra

The difference in accent marks is not related to pronunciation features. Thus, the words rab and r†b, zemS and zemls are read the same. Church Slavonic accent marks are borrowed from Greek. Acute stress is placed over the vowel at the beginning and middle of the word, for example Гдъ, соторi1ти. Heavy is used if the word ends with a stressed vowel, for example cruci2 є3го2. However, if after such a word there are words: bo, same, li, mz, mi, tz, ti, cz, si, us, you, which do not have their own stress, then the acute stress is retained on the previous vowel, for example: the earth is invisible and unstructured[Gen. 1. 2].

Light stress serves to distinguish forms singular and plural (dual) forms. For example:

• tsar (I. unit) - tsar (R. pl.)
• tsarS (R. unit) - tsar‰ (I. or V. dv.)

Aspirate sign

If a word begins with a vowel, then an aspiration sign is placed above this vowel, which in Slavic is called zvateltso: ґ. This icon is not pronounced at all. In Slavic texts it appeared in connection with the orientation towards Greek orthography. IN Ancient Greek aspiration marks influenced pronunciation.

The aspirate mark can be combined with the accent mark. The combination of these signs has special names. The combination of acute stress and aspiration is called u4so, and the combination of aspiration with heavy stress a5 is called gostrophe

Title signs

A number of words in Church Slavonic are written not in full, but in abbreviation. Abbreviations are highlighted using special sign, which is called the title sign. Under the title are written words related to the sacred sphere, i.e. denoting sacred, revered objects, for example bGъ - God, btsda - Mother of God, sp7s - Saved.

In some cases, the title sign is used to distinguish God (this word is written under the title sign when we're talking about about God, in whom Christians believe) from pagan gods (in this case b0gъ, b0zi is written without the title sign). In the same way, when talking about the angels of God, the word GgGl is written under the title sign, and if it is talking about the fallen angel, Satan, then the word Gggel is written completely without the title sign and is read [aggel].

There are several options for the title sign:

1. 7 - simple title.
2. alphabetic titles (i.e., a way of abbreviating a word when one of the missing letters is placed above the line):
   • d good-title - btsda
   • g verb-title - є3ђліе
   • b he-title - prрb0къ
   • > rtsy-titlo - i3m>k
   • c word-title - кртъ

Punctuation marks

In Church Slavonic, the rules for placing punctuation marks are less strict than in Russian, i.e. in the same case there may be different marks, or there may be no punctuation mark at all. You should pay attention to the most significant differences between Church Slavonic punctuation marks and modern Russian ones:

• A semicolon in Church Slavonic indicates interrogative intonation, i.e. performs the same functions as the question mark in modern Russian: of little faith, almost2 ўdoubtedz є3сi2; - You of little faith, why did you doubt?[Matt. 14.31].
• In liturgical books, instead of frequently repeated prayers and exclamations, only the first words are given. So, instead of exclamation Glory to nts7Y and3 sn7u and3 s™0mu d¦u, and3 nhne and3 pr1snw and3 forever and ever, ґmi1n the words Slava and 3 nhne are given: . In this case, a colon is placed instead of an ellipsis. If the liturgical book says Џ§е ours: , then the prayer is read in its entirety in this place Our Father[Matt. 6.9-13].
• We have seen that in Church Slavonic the sign<;>(semicolon) matches question mark modern Russian language. The function of the semicolon in Church Slavonic is the dot, which in this case is called small point. It is no different in size from a regular period, but after it the sentence continues with a small letter.
• There are no strict rules for placing commas in the Church Slavonic language. But commas, as in modern Russian, help to understand the division of a sentence and highlight its main parts.

Numerical letter values

Church Slavonic texts do not use Arabic and Latin numerals. To write numbers, letters of the Church Slavonic alphabet are used, which have numerical values. In this case, a title sign is placed above the letter.

If a number is written in two or more letters, then the title sign is usually placed above the second letter from the end.

Numbers from 11 to 19 are written like this: in the first place are the letters denoting units, and in the second place is the letter i, which has the digital value “ten”, for example №i - 11, В7i - 12, Gi - 13, etc.; numbers from 21 onwards are written like this: first the letter denoting ten is written, then the letter denoting one, for example k7z - 27, n7g - 53, o7a - 71. This rule is easy to remember if you understand that the letters in the Church Slavonic number are written like this: how to pronounce a number, for example 11 - one-over-twenty (twenty - ten), 13 - three-over-twenty, 23 - two-twenty-three

Thousands are indicated by the sign ¤, which can be attached to any letter below the line level, for example ¤в7 - 2000, ¤f7 - 9000, ¤… - 60,000, ¤ф\ - 500,000.

Calculation can be carried out both from the Nativity of Christ and from the creation of the world. The time interval between these events, according to church tradition, is 5,508 years. Therefore, if the date is indicated as ¤з7ф (7 500), then this means 1992 from the Nativity of Christ or in Slavic ¤ац§в

Textbook on OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE

http://linguistica.spb.ru/

OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE

TUTORIAL

(didactic units)

The concept of the Old Church Slavonic language. Old Church Slavonic as a common written and literary language for the Slavs. Language grouping Slavic peoples based on their origin. The place of the Old Church Slavonic language among other Slavic languages.

Old Slavonic letter. Glagolitic and Cyrillic: the question of their origin. Characteristics of the Cyrillic letter.

The most important monuments of Glagolitic and Cyrillic writing. Brief description of them.

Sound processes that took place in the early and late periods development Proto-Slavic language: a) associated with a tendency towards openness of the syllable; b) associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmonism; c) alternation of vowel sounds.

Phonetic system of the Old Church Slavonic language (IX–XI centuries).

1. Sound system of the Old Church Slavonic language of the second half of the 9th century: phonetic structure of the syllable; vowel sounds, their classification; reduced vowels, their positions; consonant sounds, their classification according to deafness/voice, hardness/softness;

2. Later sound processes reflected in the monuments of the 9th and partly 10th centuries: the fall of reduced vowels and changes in the phonetic system of the language associated with the loss of reduced vowels.

Morphology. Grammatical categories words in Old Church Slavonic. Noun. Basic grammatical categories: gender, number,

case, types of declension.

Pronoun. Personal pronouns 1st and 2nd person and reflexive pronoun. 3rd face expression demonstrative pronouns. Non-personal pronouns. Their classification by meaning. Features of the declension of personal and impersonal pronouns.

Adjective. Places, nominal and full forms, declension. Numeral. Quantitative, complex and ordinal numerals

Verb. Conjugated and non-conjugated verb forms. Verb classes. Verb tense forms, their formation and conjugation. Verb moods, their formation. Nominal forms of the verb, their formation.

Syntax. A simple proposal. Ways of expressing subject and predicate. Features of use case forms. Complex sentences. Expression of denial.

Questions to prepare for the test and exam:

The examination card includes two theoretical questions: 1) on general issues related to the origin Old Slavonic writing, characteristics of alphabets, written monuments and phonetic structure of the Old Church Slavonic language; 2) in morphology - and a practical task: reading, translating an excerpt from the text of Old Slavonic written monuments; its phonetic and morphological analysis(4 - 6 lines).

1. Slavic languages, the place among them is the Old Church Slavonic language.

2. Slavs and Slavic languages. The question of the ancestral home of the Slavs.

3. Common Slavic language, its relationship to the Indo-European proto-language. Comparative-historical method of linguistics.

4. The question of the beginning of Slavic writing. The activities of Constantine and Methodius. The folk-colloquial basis of the Old Church Slavonic language.

5. Slavic alphabets, their origin.

6. Glagolitic and Cyrillic monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing.

7. Characteristics of the Cyrillic alphabet in terms of letter composition (compared to modern Russian writing).

8. Vowels at the beginning of a word. The system of Indo-European vowels, their quality and quantity.

9. Basic phonetic laws Proto-Slavic language.

10. Diphthongs of the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.

11. Diphthong combinations of vowels with nasal consonants and their transformation in the Proto-Slavic language.

12. Diphthong combinations *tort, *tolt, *tert, *telt in the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.

13. Diphthong combinations *ort, *olt in the Proto-Slavic language and their fate.

14. The fate of the combinations *dt, *tt in the Proto-Slavic language.

15. The fate of the combinations *tl, *dl in the Proto-Slavic language.

16.Quality and quantitative alternations vowel sounds.

17. Diphthong and positional alternations sounds.

18. First and second palatalization of velar consonants. 19. Changes in the back lingual consonants *g, *k, *ch and sibilant consonants

nykh *z, *s in combination with *j.

20. Change in labial consonants *b, *p, *w, *m in combination with *j. 21. Change in front-lingual consonants *d, *t in combination with *j. 22.Changing combinations of consonants ( *kw, *gw, *kt, *gt, *st, *sk, *zd),

associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmonism. 23. The vowel system of the Old Church Slavonic language. Vowels at the beginning of a word.

24. Reduced sounds ъ ь. Strong and weak position. The fall of the reduced and the consequences of their loss.

25. Reduced sounds ы и и. Strong and weak positions. Loss of the reduced and its consequences.

26. System of consonant sounds in the Old Church Slavonic language. Their classification.

27. Basic grammatical categories of a noun in the Old Church Slavonic language.

28. Declension with ancient basis on *-a, -ja and its history. 29. Declension with an ancient base on *-o, -jo and its history. 30. Declension with an ancient basis on a consonant sound and its history. 31. Declension with ancient stems on *-ŭ and *-ū and their history. 32. Declension with an ancient base on *-ĭ and its history. 33. Pronouns in Old Church Slavonic. Places by value. Oso-

the importance of declension of personal pronouns.

34.Characteristics of demonstrative pronouns and their declension. Origin n basis indirect cases pronouns.

35.Adjective. Classification of adjectives by meaning. Nominal and clause forms of adjectives. Education full adjectives and features of their declension.

36. Degrees of comparison of adjectives.

37. Basic grammatical categories of the verb in the Old Church Slavonic language.

38.Two verb stems. Verb classes.

39. Present tense of verbs. Features of conjugation of thematic and non-thematic verbs.

40.Aorist, his grammatical meaning. Types of aorist, their formation and conjugation.

41. Imperfect, its grammatical meaning. Formation of the imperfect and features of conjugation.

42.Perfect, its meaning. Formation and conjugation of the perfect. 43.Plusquaperfect, its meaning and education. Features

zheniya plusquaperfect.

44. Forms of the future tense of the verb, their formation and conjugation. 45. Conditional mood verb. Its formation and conjugation.

46. ​​Imperative mood in Old Church Slavonic. Its formation and conjugation.

47.Infinitive and supin in Old Church Slavonic. Their meaning and education.

48. Participles of the Old Church Slavonic language. Their formation and conjugation. 49. Features of the use of the predicate in the Old Church Slavonic language. 50. The phrase “independent dative” in Old Church Slavonic.

Abstract topics:

1. From the Indo-European language to the Slavic languages.

2. The activities of Constantine and Methodius in creating the Slavic alphabet

3. Characteristics of the Slavic alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

4. Monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing.

5. Linguistic, historical, cultural and pedagogical significance studying the Old Church Slavonic language.

6. Development of Slavic linguistics and comparative historical method.

7. Slavic languages, their kinship.

8. History of views on the folk basis of the Old Church Slavonic language.

9. Words denoting number in Old Church Slavonic.

10. Syntactic features of the Old Church Slavonic language.

LITERATURE

1. *Gorshkov A.I. Old Church Slavonic language. M.: graduate School, 1963 1 .

2. Gorshkova O.V., Khmelevskaya T.A. Collection of exercises on Old Slavonic language. M., 1960.

3. Dementiev A.A. Collection of problems and exercises in the Old Church Slavonic language. Samara: SGPU, 2001

4. Elkina N.M. Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1963.

5. *Istrin V.A. 1100 years of the Slavic alphabet. M., 1963.

6. *Krivchik V.F., Mozheiko N.S. Old Church Slavonic language. Minsk: Publishing house "Higher School", 1970.

7. Nikiforov S.D. Old Church Slavonic language. Ed. 2nd. M.: Uchpedgiz, 1955.

8. *Tikhonova R.I. Old Church Slavonic language. Samara, 1993.

9. *Tikhonova R.I. Old Church Slavonic language. M., 1995.

10. Khaburgaev G.A. Old Church Slavonic language. M.: Education, 1974.

1 Note: * marks works, excerpts from which formed a file of materials for study.

THE CONCEPT OF THE OLD SLAVIC LANGUAGE

Old Church Slavonic is the oldest literary language of the Slavs. This is the earliest written processing and written consolidation of Slavic speech that has reached us. The first monuments of Old Church Slavonic writing date back to the second half of the 9th century. (60s of the 9th century). They represent both translations of liturgical books from Greek and later untranslated, original works. Since the Old Church Slavonic language was close to other Slavic languages sound system, grammatical structure And vocabulary, it very quickly spread in Slavic countries as the language of the church, scientific and partly fiction. All other Slavic languages ​​were fixed in writing much later (the oldest surviving Russian written monuments date back to the second half of the 11th century; ancient Czech - to the 13th century; among the surviving Polish monuments, the oldest date back to the 14th century). Thus, the Old Church Slavonic language in a number of cases makes it possible to present Slavic sounds and forms at their most ancient stage of development.

The Old Church Slavonic language came to Rus' at the end of the 10th century (988) in connection with the adoption of Christianity as the language of church writing.

Currently Old Church Slavonic language is dead: It is not spoken or written. The disappearance of the Old Church Slavonic language as a living language passed early, no later than the 11th century, and is explained by the fact that, being close to the languages ​​of those Slavic peoples among whom it was widespread, it itself was so exposed to the influence of the vernacular languages ​​of these peoples that it lost its original quality and finally disappeared like a language. However, his disappearance did not happen instantly. More and more elements of colloquial Slavic speech penetrated into church and religious literature. That type of Russian literary language, which was based on the Old Church Slavonic language, is called Church Slavonic language of the Russian version.

Church Slavonic language for a long time was a supra-ethnic language, performing the functions of a church-religious language. In Rus' they knew him, they studied him, but for the Russians he was not native. Scientists explain the preservation of the Church Slavonic language in Rus' right up to the times of Peter the Great by the needs of the church and cultural traditions.

All Slavic languages ​​of our time are united into three groups: eastern, western and southern2.

2 Old Church Slavonic was part of the South Slavic family of languages.

All Slavic languages ​​are related in origin. Their common source is the Proto-Slavic, or Common Slavic language. Proto-Slavic, or common Slavic, language is called language system, summing live speech Slavic tribes from the time of their formation (the ancestor of a group of tribes was one tribe) until the time of the emergence of early Slavic peoples on their basis, that scientifically restored language that served as a means of communication among the Slavs in early period their stories3. Most modern linguists believe that the formation of the Slavs should be attributed to the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. This is the stage of tribal life when cattle breeding is already widely developed and agriculture is known.

The collapse of Slavic unity began with the emergence of the “Iron” Age, i.e. even before the advent of the new era. The final disintegration of Slavic unity and the formation of three groups of Slavs: eastern, western and southern - coincides with the period of decomposition of the primitive communal classless system. The end of the Proto-Slavic language can be dated to the second half of the first millennium AD. (VI-VII centuries AD).

The Proto-Slavic language itself is a branch of a more ancient linguistic unity - Indo-European. Indo-European proto-language that existed from IV-III millennium BC and further into the depths of centuries, is the common source of all languages ​​called European. Indo-European languages ​​include most of the native languages ​​of Europe and some languages ​​of Asia. Later Indo-European languages became widespread on the other three continents.

HISTORY OF WRITING AMONG THE SLAVS

In 862 or 863, the Moravian prince Rostislav sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor Michael III with a request to send preachers4 to Moravia who would teach the Moravians Christian faith in their native language. Apparently the request Moravian prince was caused by the fact that he, fighting against the Latin-German clergy, who was the guide

3 It is generally accepted to write Proto-Slavic forms under the sign* and Latin letters: *woda, *sestra, *stolos and so on.

4 The boundaries of the Moravian principality included the areas of present-day Slovakia.

influence of the German Emperor Louis, wanted to receive political and church support for his power from Byzantium. In Byzantium, ambassadors were treated favorably, as this opened up prospects for the spread

And strengthening the influence of Byzantium in the west, in the regions of the Moravian Principality. It was decided to send a mission to Moravia, headed by two Greek brothers Constantine and Methodius. The first of them, who devoted himself to church service, was known for his learning and missionary activity. His name in sources is usually used with the epithet “philosopher”. Methodius was for some time the ruler of one of the Slavic regions. Both of them are natives of the city of Thessaloniki, which at that time was Greek colony on Slavic territory and was surrounded by Slavic settlements. Constantine and Methodius knew well the language of the Slavs who lived both in the city itself and in its environs. This is exactly what he said, according to the Life of Methodius. Byzantine emperor, addressing the brothers: “You are both Solunians, and the Solunians all speak Slavic well.”

According to the Lives of Constantine and Methodius, Constantine, even before leaving for Moravia, compiled Slavic alphabet and began to translate the gospel into Slavic.

The brothers spent more than three years in Moravia, where they trained cadres of Slavic “book people”, future ministers of the church, and translated Greek liturgical books into Slavic. From the very first days, the Slavic language in writing and church ritual was met with hostility by the German clergy, who saw a great danger to themselves in the activities of Constantine and Methodius. To get support, Konstantin

And Methodius and a group of his students went to Rome, to the pope. Along the way they stopped in Pannonia 5, a Slavic principality inhabited by the ancestors of today's Slovenes. There they were warmly welcomed by Prince Kocel, who gave them about 50 students to teach Slavic writing.

IN In Rome, Constantine and Methodius were received by Pope Adrian II, who,

trying to strengthen his influence in Moravia and Pannonia, he recognized the Slavic language in writing and liturgy6. There Constantine fell ill and died in 869, shortly before his death he became a monk under the name of Cyril. After the death of Constantine, Methodius and his disciples first returned to Pannonia. In Moravia at this time, Svyatopolk, Rostislav’s nephew, ascended the throne, changing his political orientation to Latin-German. In order to consolidate his influence in Moravia and Pannonia, Pope Adrian II founded a special Slavic bishopric for these areas, and Methodius was

5 The territory of Pannonia was located between the upper Danube, Drava and Mur.

6 In the Middle Ages, worship was allowed only in three languages: Latin, Greek and Hebrew (as the Gospel legend tells, An inscription was made in ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek and Latin on the cross on which Jesus was crucified). Constantine and Methodius obtained from the Pope recognition of the Old Church Slavonic language as the fourth language of the church, which was a major victory in their struggle for the rights of the Slavs to conduct worship in their native language.

appointed Bishop of Pannonia. But he soon fell into the hands of the German clergy and was imprisoned in Bavaria. Methodius stayed there for more than two years. After his release, he returns to Moravia, where great changes have taken place during this time. After the uprising against the Franks, Svyatopolk became the independent ruler of this country. Increasingly subject to German influence, he was not a supporter of Slavic writing. Therefore, the activities of Methodius and his disciples took place in extremely difficult conditions.

In 885 Methodius died. After his death, opponents of Slavic writing obtained from Pope Stephen V a ban on the Slavic language in church liturgy. Methodius's disciples were expelled from Moravia. Having left its borders, some of them headed south, to the Croats, and others to the southeast, to Bulgaria, where they continued the work of Slavic writing.

Especially favorable conditions for Slavic writing were created in Bulgaria. The most talented student of Methodius was Clement, whose activities took place in Macedonia and southeastern Albania. In Macedonia, he and his students rewrote the original Cyril and Methodius liturgical books and made new translations from Greek.

The heyday of Slavic writing falls during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), when the capital of Bulgaria Preslav became not only state center, but also the center of Slavic writing in eastern Bulgaria. The Preslav scribes used the same language as they wrote in Macedonia, but in their manuscripts deviations from the previous linguistic book norms were reflected more significantly than in the West.

In Moravia and the Czech Republic after the expulsion of the disciples of Methodius Slavic writing continued until the end of the 11th century, when in the Czech Sazavsky monastery, where it was still preserved, Slavic books were either destroyed by supporters of the Latin script, or were so damaged that they could no longer be read.

Slavic alphabet

The oldest Old Church Slavonic alphabets that have come down to us are written in two alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

The Cyrillic alphabet later formed the basis of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian alphabets. The Glagolitic alphabet fell out of use and was preserved only in Croatia in church use (until the 17th century it was used there for secular purposes).

The question of the emergence of two Slavic alphabets and their mutual relations has occupied scientists for a long time. Old Slavonic monuments indicate that two alphabets that were very different from each other already existed in ancient times.

The Czech scientist I. Dobrovsky believed that more ancient alphabet there was a Cyrillic alphabet and it was it that was compiled by Konstantin. As for the Glagolitic alphabet, in his opinion, it arose around the 14th century. in Croatia. He explains its emergence as follows: the Roman Church in the areas that were under its subordination persecuted everything that testified to a connection with Byzantium, i.e. with the Greek Church. And since the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Greek letter, clearly spoke of this connection, it was replaced by the Glagolitic alphabet in order to preserve worship in the Slavic language.

In 1836, the Slavic philologist V. Kopitar discovered an ancient manuscript written in Glagolitic alphabet in the library of Count Klotz. According to paleographic data, it was much older than those manuscripts that were still known and dated no earlier than the 14th century. This discovery led to a revision of the previous point of view on the origin of the Slavic alphabet. V. Kopitar put forward a hypothesis about the comparative antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet in comparison with the Cyrillic alphabet.

Further discoveries in this area confirmed the point of view of V. Kopitar.

The greater antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet is indicated by the following:

1. The Glagolitic alphabet is poorer in the number of letters, and, therefore, the Cyrillic alphabet is a more advanced alphabet.

2. The oldest linguistic monuments are written in Glagolitic alphabet (for example, the Kyiv leaves, the Zografsky and Mariinsky Gospels).

3. There are many manuscripts written in Cyrillic on parchment with

the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet, but there are no manuscripts written in the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet in the washed-out Cyrillic alphabet.

All this gave reason to believe that the more ancient alphabet created by Constantine was Glagolitic. The Cyrillic alphabet arose in eastern Bulgaria during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), i.e. then, when the Christian religion had long been accepted there, but services were performed by Greek priests in Greek. Tsar Simeon wanted to oppose Byzantium not only with state power, but also with cultural power. To protect the independence of Bulgarian culture from unnecessary encroachments by Byzantium, it was necessary to introduce worship in the Slavic language. But the Greek priests had difficulty mastering the Glagolitic alphabet. Therefore, it was necessary to make a compromise solution: replace the Glagolitic alphabet with another alphabet, similar to Greek. It is believed that, based on the model of the Greek alphabet, this new Slavic alphabet was compiled by Methodius’s student, Presbyter Constantine. Later, Slavic scribes began to identify the presbyter Constantine with the first teacher Constantine - Cyril, and the alphabet he invented began to be called by the name of the second - the Cyrillic alphabet.

There has long been heated debate about how to read the psalms more correctly - in Church Slavonic or in Russian. Conservatives are of the opinion that it is impossible to change ancient tradition in the Old Church Slavonic language - they say, this will contribute to the severing of ties between generations of Orthodox Christians and the gradual loss of the “prayer” of the Psalter.

Their opponents believe that the psalms in Old Church Slavonic are archaic and incomprehensible to modern man, and therefore requires modernization. Both sides have pros and cons that we can agree with, but we'll leave this one controversial issue for the consideration of theologians and let’s talk better about how to learn to read the psalms in Church Slavonic.

Learning to read Orthodox psalms in Old Church Slavonic

Today you can buy a collection of psalms in Old Church Slavonic at any church store. However, a person who does not own in the old language Orthodox worship, opening it, he will understand that he not only does not understand the meaning of the psalms, but simply cannot read them. The Church Slavonic alphabet, created in the 10th century by the enlightenment missionaries Methodius and Cyril, consists partly of the letters of the Greek alphabet, and partly of Slavic letters, which only very vaguely resemble modern letters of the Russian alphabet.

Therefore, when buying a Psalter, pay attention to the fact that the psalms in Church Slavonic are written in Russian letters - comparing the ancient and modern texts, You will gradually learn to distinguish individual words. A dictionary of the Church Slavonic language will not hurt at first - from it you can learn the rules for reading letters, as well as figure out how to correctly read the psalms in Church Slavonic without vowels (with titles).

Orthodox psalms in Church Slavonic - from reading to understanding

Learning to read Orthodox psalms in Old Church Slavonic is not difficult: just a few simple rules and the language barrier in reading will be a thing of the past. Things are a little more complicated with reading comprehension: difficulties arise due to specific features ancient biblical texts. In order to enjoy not only reading beautiful and melodious psalms in Old Church Slavonic, but also understanding their meaning, I recommend buying the Psalter with a translation into Russian, as well as

Church Slavonic language for everyone. Introduction

Dear brothers and sisters! Emerging in lately the tendency to reduce the sacred Church Slavonic text to the human mind through translation, not always successful and accurate, into Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and other languages ​​of the Slavic peoples, as well as urgent need every Orthodox soul in reading on Church Slavonic language prompted me to specifically write lessons of the Church Slavonic language for posting on the website of our church for everyone who wants to quickly master it.

These lessons are partially based on materials from classes that take place in our Sunday school for adults on Sundays at 17-00 (classes in the Church Slavonic language alternate with classes on general issues of faith, catechism, Orthodox liturgy, dogmatic theology, Orthodoxy in Japan, etc.) at our Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the city of Shostka. Lessons are intended for rapid practical independent mastery of this church language.

First of all, if you don’t already have it, you need to purchase Orthodox prayer book in Church Slavonic(preferably a pocket edition in a hard cover with a bookmark attached - such a prayer book is very convenient to use). Please note the following when purchasing:

1) it must be published by the canonical Orthodox Church (for example, the publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate);

2) the text should be two-colored - black (the text of the prayers itself) and red (they highlight the names of the prayers and various kinds of instructions, as well as the first capital letter prayers);

3) the text itself should be clear, not small, not dense (sometimes this is done to save space), all characters (especially superscripts) should be clearly visible and distinguishable;

4) it should contain everything you need:

— Morning prayers with memorials for the living and for the dead;

— Prayers for those coming to bed;

— Canons (at least three: n damned to our Lord Jesus Christ, m Olebny Ko

Blessed Virgin Mary, and A guardian angel);

— Akathists (at least two: AND to the Sweetest Jesus, P Holy Mother of God);

— Follow up to Holy Communion;

— Troparion (holidays and Sundays);

— Prayers of thanksgiving after Holy Communion;

— Canon and hours of Easter;

— The rite of funeral litia performed by a layman;

— Various prayers (check availability prayers before taking prosphora and holy water –

Unfortunately, it is not found in all prayer books!);

- The Commandments of God and the Beatitudes.

I strongly recommend that you purchase, in addition to the Orthodox prayer book, also Psalter on Church Slavonic language, And New Testament on Church Slavonic language(these requirements apply to those stated above in the first three points when choosing an Orthodox prayer book) .

How gratifying and useful it will be for us to hear in church every word spoken by a reader, deacon, priest, or sung by a choir (choir), and also to take part in the reading during the service. We will begin to distinguish words, get used to them and understand their deepest meaning, going back to the original meaning. They will take shape and accumulate in our hearts, and from the fullness of our hearts our lips will, in their measure, utter eternal verbs pleasing to God; then we will be able to feel the taste and aroma of real prayer. We will breathe deeply with this language, after the stale breath of our secularized, clouded, vain and mundane modern language. What a joy and benefit it is for us to learn it, because only thanks to this will the endless and innumerable mysteries of God be revealed to us, contained both in the words of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, and between their lines; only on it will we be able to humbly speak with God himself, for He himself gave it to us through Saints Cyril and Methodius!

So, my dears, having prayed, let us begin to climb not only the linguistic ladder, but also the spiritual one, raising our minds to this living, pure, kind, spiritually high and sanctified by the Grace of the Holy Spirit of the Church Slavonic language, leading us along the right way Knowledge of God.

And finally, I would like to introduce you to a wonderful spiritual poem by Viktor Afanasyev about the Church Slavonic language:

He is the most prayerful in the world,

He came into being by the will of God,

The language of our wondrous Psalter

And patristic books;

He is a royal decoration

Church service,

A spring of living grace,

The Lord's comfort to us -

Church Slavonic language.

I wish you while studying Church Slavonic language, as well as reading or praying in it , feel spiritual joy and, inspired, “infect” (in the words of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh) your neighbors with this language, striving for internal self-improvement!

May the Lord and Mother of God bless you all on all the paths of your life!

Sincerely, P. E. Ivlev

Lesson 1. Church Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet

Learning any language begins with the alphabet. This is exactly how the Church Slavonic language has always been taught, starting with Ancient Rus'. But there were no dictionaries, textbooks or grammar then (they appeared only in the 17th century). Therefore, at that time, they first learned letters in order to recognize them, then mastered their combinations in order to pronounce them correctly, then read sentences, and finally, memorized prayers from the Book of Hours and psalms from the Psalter, and thus learned everything! And we will start the same way. We will study letters along with their way(i.e. by style), name(or as they say now, the name), meaning of the name, pronunciation, and also its numerical value. Let’s also see how this letter is reflected in our modern writing to see that all Church Slavonic letters form the basis of our modern language and writing.

The Russian alphabet originates from the Church Slavonic alphabet, which is called “ Cyrillic"in honor of its creator - saint Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril (only 50 days before his death, Saint Constantine took the schema with the name Cyril; he rested in Rome on February 14, 869 at the age of 42; his relics are in the Church of Saint Clement in Rome) with his assistance sibling – Saint Methodius(he died on April 6, 885 at the age of about 60 years and was buried in cathedral church Velehrad - the capital of Moravia).

Let me remind you that the first Slavic alphabet, which was created by St. Cyril in the 9th century, was the Glagolitic alphabet. It was she who was the first writing that was revealed to him by God in prayers, and which in the best possible way corresponded to the sounds of Slavic speech, and was also suitable for expressing Christian concepts. With its help, it was possible to construct phrases in such a way that a coherent and consistent narrative was obtained - the same as in the Greek originals. (Actually, the word “glagolitic” is not special name; V literal translation on modern language“Glagolic” means “an initial letter, a system of letters (or sounds).” Therefore, any alphabet can be called Glagolitic. The word “Glagolic” becomes the name of a certain writing system much later). At the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century in

Bulgaria began to replace the “Glagolic alphabet” with “Cyrillic alphabet”. In the last column of the table I have given the Glagolitic alphabet to compare it with the Cyrillic alphabet.

Let's look at the Church Slavonic alphabet. It consists of 40 letters:

Church Slavonic alphabet Cyrillic:

As we can see from the table, each letter of the Cyrillic alphabet has its own image or outline, i.e. how is she from image looks, looks or is written. This is exactly how icon painters paint them with a brush on their icons (after all, an image becomes an icon only after an inscription is made on it). Previously, scribes used a specially sharpened quill pen or cane stick for their work, and devoted themselves to writing and decorating books with great reverence. Eat most interesting art Church Slavonic calligraphy (some call it cursive), but it is extremely difficult to find a specialist in it. Without touching on the theme of decor and pattern old books, it is worth saying that not only the name of the letter, but also its image (inscription) had a mysterious meaning, were deeply symbolic and carried higher knowledge, calling us to be closer to heaven. The image of the Cyrillic letters that you see in the table, and which is now used everywhere when printing prayer books and liturgical books in Church Slavonic, goes back to such a solemn and slow type of writing as charter, when the letters were written strictly vertically, they had strong main pillars and thin strokes and serifs. Each letter was written out separately with a cane or a broad-pointed pen, in several steps.

Let me also mention that to highlight book titles and various titles, it is used ligature(in Rus' already in the 15th century it was widely used and was most often made with red paint based on cinnabar). This is a continuous pattern of letters that makes up a decorative letter, where there are no spaces between words, all letters are of different heights and widths. Several letters, merging, could become one, and some voids could be filled with patterns.

Elm: “From Mark the Holy Gospel”

Next we see in the table Name each letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Previously, the alphabet was taught by the names of the letters, and the alphabet by its name, by the name-word, composed a sermon, and various prayers were composed from the names of the letters. Currently, unfortunately, we call our letters only “a”, “be”, “ve”, etc. (due to the spelling reform of 1917 - 1918 carried out by the Bolsheviks) - this is all that remains of their beautiful, pure, mysterious and deeply meaningful names: “a44зъ” ( A h), “beeches” (b at ki), “lead” (in e di), etc. If we put three modern letters “a b c” side by side, what do we get? Nothing! Because they were depersonalized, deprived of their name. Now let’s put the first three letters of the Cyrillic alphabet next to each other by name, and we will get a44з ььки веди, and now you have already said in Church Slavonic “I recognized the letters”

or “Know the ABC” or, going back to the original meaning: “My presence (stay) here on earth consists in Scripture know". Do you hear?! What “smart beads” were made from just three letters, and what spiritual tension we felt, didn’t we? Exactly this one high style(raising and making us supramundane), and the fullness of the meaning was lost! I think that this was precisely the goal of the “creators” of the Russian language reform at the beginning of the 20th century.

ABOUT meaning of letter names and them pronunciation we will find out in the next lesson when we talk about reading and using letters.

Also in the table you can see a column with numerical value letters. In Church Slavonic, numbers are indicated only by letters. Arabic and Latin numerals are not used in Church Slavonic texts. We will talk about this in more detail in a separate lesson dedicated to the depiction of numbers in the Church Slavonic language.

God bless you all and Mother of God!

Pushkin exclaimed passionately: “My children will read the Bible in the original with me.” “In Slavic?” - asked Khomyakov. “In Slavic,” Pushkin confirmed, “I will teach them myself.”
Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky).
Pushkin in his attitude to religion and the Orthodox Church

The Russian rural school is now obliged to impart knowledge to its pupils... this is a pedagogical treasure that no rural school in the world possesses. This study, constituting in itself an excellent mental gymnastics, gives life and meaning to the study of the Russian language.
S.A. Rachinsky. Rural school

To ensure that children continue to master Slavic literacy, we periodically write texts in this language. We don’t sit down at the table and write down dictations with an A, but we do this. For every twelfth holiday, or great one, or name day, we prepare troparia, kontakia, and magnifications, written in Church Slavonic on beautiful cardboard. One child gets one prayer, the other gets another. Older children copy the text from the prayer book themselves; younger children find it easier to circle what their mother wrote. Very little children color the initial letter and the ornamental frame. Thus, all children participate in preparation for the holiday, for younger children this is the first acquaintance, for older children it is training, for those who already know how to read it is consolidation. And we take these leaves to the church for the all-night vigil to sing along with the choir. At home on holidays, we also sing troparia, kontakion and magnification - before meals and during family prayers. And it is very convenient for everyone to look not at the prayer book, where the troparion still needs to be found and it is written in small print, but at the text prepared by the children. Thus, children regularly engage in activities without even knowing it. Similar activities themselves teach the child to write correctly on this ancient language. Once I suggested that my nine-year-old son write a kontakion for some holiday, but I could not find the Church Slavonic text. I gave him this kontakion in Russian, offering to write it off. And he copied, but in Church Slavonic, according to his own understanding, placing ers at the end of masculine nouns, stress and even aspiration, writing down almost everything the right words under the titles. As he explained, it is much more beautiful. True, his yati and izhitsy were written in the wrong places; of course, there were mistakes. But in general, a child who has not attended a single lesson in the Church Slavonic language, who studied it in that primitive form, as described in this article, simply following my memory, I wrote down the unfamiliar text almost correctly.

To study a language at a more serious level, of course, you will still have to turn to grammar. If you are not satisfied with the method of natural immersion in the language and unobtrusive acquisition of knowledge given here, you can conduct something similar to lessons in the Church Slavonic language. Having introduced the Slavic alphabet to a child (in this case, who already knows how to read Russian), we will highlight those letters that are not similar to modern Russian ones - there are not many of them. Let's ask the child to write them down and indicate how they are read. Then we will look at superscript and lowercase characters, including simple and alphabetic titles. We will separately analyze the recording of numbers in Church Slavonic. If a child already knows how to read Slavic, such lessons will not be difficult for either him or his parents. If there is a task to truly study the Church Slavonic language, then in the future you can either purchase textbooks on this subject and master them at home, or go to courses, then in specialized university... From textbooks, we can recommend N.P.’s manual. Sablina “Slavic initial letter”, for older children and parents - a self-teacher of the Church Slavonic language Yu.B. Kamchatnova, unique theme that it was not written for philologists and accessible language. But all this will be learning a language that has already become native.

The “teaching method” described here can not only be implemented in the family - it is designed specifically for the family. After all, culture parental family first of all becomes ours native culture, and it is the language of our parents that becomes our native language. School study may give us knowledge, perhaps brilliant - but for a child this knowledge will not become a part of life if it is not part of the life of the family. Home “immersion in the language”, of course, will not make the child a specialist - but it will make Church Slavonic his native language, whether he will be a specialist in this field of linguistics in the future or will not study the language as a subject at all. And most importantly: similar home education, even in this simplest form, opens up new opportunities for communication between parents and children, allows them to find new general topics, without requiring special effort and time from adults.

Such home activities educate parents in more to a greater extent than their students; Parents study together with their children and receive unlimited opportunities for free pedagogical creativity, which also brings all family members closer together. Maybe this is not possible in every family, but everyone can try. Try to make your home a place of education.