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).

Pronunciation

In most cases, the Church Slavonic language is pronounced like the modern vernaculars; consequently, its pronunciation today differs considerably between the different Slavic nations. In Russia, the Church Slavonic language is pronounced in the same way as Russian, with some exceptions:

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• There is no vowel reduction in unstressed syllables. That is, о and е in unstressed positions are always read as IPA {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} respectively (like in Northern Russian dialects), whereas in standard Russian pronunciation they then become {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}.
• There should be no devoicing of final consonants, although in practice there often is.
• The letter е {{IPA|}} is never read as ё {{IPA|}} (the letter ё does not exist in Church Slavonic writing at all). This is also reflected in borrowings from Church Slavonic into Russian: in the following pairs the first word is Church Slavonic in origin, and the second is purely Russian: небо / нёбо (nyebo / nyobo), одежда / одёжа (odyežda / odyoža), надежда / надёжный (nadyežda / nadyožniy).
• The letter "g" is read as voiced fricative velar sound {{IPA|}} (just as in Southern Russian dialects), not as occlusive{{IPA|}} in standard Russian pronunciation. When unvoiced, it becomes {{IPA|}}; this has influenced the Russian pronunciation of Бог (Bog) as Бох (Bokh). In modern Russian Church Slavonic occlusive is also used and considered acceptable; however Бог (nominative) is pronounced (Bokh) as in Russian.
• The adjective ending -его ({{IPA|}}) is pronounced as written, whereas in Russian it is pronounced –ево ({{IPA|}}).