Church Slavonic language

The Church Slavonic language (Bulgarian: ????????????????? ????, tsarkovnoslavyanski ezik; {{lang-ru|??????????????????? ?????, tserkovnoslavyánskiy yazík}}) is the liturgical language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church and other Slavic Orthodox Churches. Historically, this language is derived from the Old Church Slavonic language by adapting pronunciation and orthography and replacing some old and obscure words and expressions by their vernacular counterparts (for example from the Old Russian language).

Related Topics:
Bulgarian - Liturgical - Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Russian Orthodox Church - Serbian Orthodox Church - Slavic Orthodox - Old Church Slavonic language - Vernacular - Old Russian language

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Before the 18th century, the Church Slavonic language was in wide use as a general literary language in Russia. Although it was never spoken per se outside church services, members of the priesthood, poets, and the educated tended to slip its expressions into their speech. During the 17th and 18th centuries it was gradually replaced by the Russian language in secular literature and retained its use only in church. Although as late as the 1760's Lomonosov argued that Church Slavonic was the so-called "high style" of Russian, within Russia itself this point of view largely vanished in the course of the nineteenth century. Elements of its style may have survived longest in speech among the Old Believers after the late-seventeenth century schism in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Related Topics:
18th century - Literary language - Russia - Russian language - Lomonosov - Old Believers

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Church Slavonic (in various modifications) was also used as a liturgical and literary language in other Orthodox countries — Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and (former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia — until it was replaced by national languages (but the liturgical use may continue).

Related Topics:
Belarus - Ukraine - Romania - Serbia - Bulgaria - Republic of Macedonia

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Many words have been borrowed from Church Slavonic into Russian. However, as both languages are Slavic, the borrowings are usually thought of as variants of Russian words, e.g. (the first word in each pair is Russian, the second Church Slavonic): золото / злато (zoloto / zlato), город / град (gorod / grad), горячий / горящий (goryačiy / goryaščiy), рожать / рождать (rožat / roždat).

Related Topics:
Russian - Slavic

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The Church Slavonic language is written with Cyrillic alphabet while using a lot of otherwise archaic letters and diacritical signs. Currently the computer support for this language is very poor, so people have to use some ad hoc solutions.

Related Topics:
Cyrillic alphabet - Diacritical signs

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