The Russian language is a kind of mirror that reflects the spirit inherent in all the people. Its sound, expressive means, artistic possibilities are an integral part of culture and at the same time its extremely concentrated essence. The qualities of the Russian language were very colorfully described by Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov: he has the tenderness of Italian and the splendor of Spanish, the liveliness of French and the strength of German, the richness and expressive brevity of Greek and Latin. All these properties did not appear suddenly. The history of the Russian language is rooted in the depths of time.
Protolanguage
Today, there are several theories of the development of the Proto-Slavic language. All researchers agree that he stood out from the Proto-Indo-European. Some scientists note that for a long time there was a Proto-B alto-Slavic language, which then broke up into Proto-Slavic and Proto-B altic. In favor of this speaksa large number of found similarities. However, other researchers write about the parallel development of the two languages and the later period of their convergence.
Be that as it may, the separation of the distant "ancestor" of the Russian from the Proto-Indo-European dates back to the III millennium BC. Written sources of that time do not exist. However, careful research work and collected data allow scientists to reconstruct the development of the language in such distant times.
As a result of the movement and settlement of tribes, their relative isolation, the Proto-Slavic language in the VI-VII centuries. n. e. split into three branches: southern, western and eastern.
Old Russian
The eastern branch was called the "Old Russian language". It existed until about the 13th-14th centuries. Eastern Slavs spoke Old Russian.
In fact, it was the sum of several dialects, interpenetrating and constantly interacting with each other. Their proximity was largely facilitated by the formation of the Old Russian state. By the XI-XII centuries. several dialects were distinguished in the language:
- southwest - in Kyiv, Galicia and Volhynia;
- western - in Smolensk and Polotsk;
- southeast - Ryazan, Kursk, Chernihiv;
- North-Western - Novgorod, Pskov;
- northeast - Rostov and Suzdal.
Dialects differed by a whole set of characteristics, some of which have been preserved in these areas today. In addition, there were discrepancies in the written language used for legaldocuments. According to scientists, it was based on the ancient Kievan dialect.
Cyril and Methodius
The written period in the history of the Old Russian language begins in the 11th century. It is associated with the names of Cyril and Methodius. In the 9th century they created the Church Slavonic alphabet. The letters of the Russian language, familiar to us from childhood, “grew” precisely from it. Cyril and Methodius translated the Holy Scriptures into Church Slavonic. This version of the language is still the main one for Orthodox services today. For a long time it was used as a written, literary and never - as a colloquial.
Church Slavonic is based on the South Bulgarian Slavic dialect. It was native to Cyril and Methodius and influenced the vocabulary and spelling of the Old Russian language.
Three branches
More or less common Old Russian was until the XI century. Then the state began to turn into a combination of relatively independent principalities. As a result of this separation, the dialects of different folk groups began to separate and eventually turned into completely independent languages. Their final formation dates back to the XIII-XIV centuries. The Russian language is one of the three branches. The other two are Ukrainian and Belarusian. Together they are part of the group of East Slavic languages.
Old Russian period in the history of the language
The modern literary Russian language is the result of combining the features of two dialects: northwestern (Pskov and Novgorod) and central eastern (Rostov, Suzdal,Ryazan and Moscow). Its development preceded the appearance of some new features in the XIV-XVII centuries. Let's dwell on them in a little more detail.
At this time, the language of the Moscow Principality borrowed several syntactic and lexical features from Polish. However, to a greater extent, he was exposed to Church Slavonic. His influence was reflected in the vocabulary, syntax, spelling and morphology of the Russian language. At the same time, the formation of own, non-borrowed new features was also observed:
- loss in declination of alternations c/c, g/s, x/s;
- changing vocabulary;
- disappearance of IV declension and more.
The period from XIV to XVII in the history of the language is called Old Russian.
Modern Literary Russian
The language familiar to us was actually formed in the 17th-19th centuries. The activities of Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov played a significant role in this process. He created the rules of versification in Russian, was the author of scientific grammar.
However, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is considered to be the direct creator of the modern Russian literary language. Of course, if you look at any book of recent years and compare it, for example, with the text of The Captain's Daughter, you will find a lot of differences. Nevertheless, it was the great poet and writer who managed to combine the features of the literary language of previous eras with colloquial features, and this became the basis for further development.
Borrowings
Great importance in the history of any language is the impactdialects spoken by the population of neighboring or simply friendly states. Over the course of many centuries, Russian was replenished with words that were foreign in origin. Today they are called borrowings. They are easy to hear in almost any conversation:
- English: football, sports, hockey;
- German: hairdresser, sandwich, gateway;
- French: veil, scarf, jacket, floor lamp;
- Spanish: cocoa, bullfighting, castanets;
- Latin: vacuum, delegate, republic.
Along with borrowings, native Russian words are also distinguished. They arose in all periods of history, some of them passed from the ancient form of the language. Original Russian words can be divided into several groups:
- common Slavic (formed before the 5th-6th centuries): mother, night, day, birch, drink, eat, brother;
- East Slavic (formed before the XIV-XV centuries, common to Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian): uncle, walk, forty, family;
- properly Russian (since the 14th century): nouns denoting persons, with suffixes -shchik and -chik (machine gunner), abstract nouns formed from adjectives with the suffix -ost (touchiness), compound abbreviated words (university, BAM, UN).
The role of language
Today, several countries use Russian as their official language. These are Russia, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. Russian is the national language of our people and the basis of international communication in Central Eurasia, Eastern Europe, the countries of the former USSR, and also one ofworking languages used by the UN.
The power of the Russian language is fully reflected in classical literature. Imagery, richness of vocabulary, peculiarities of sound, word formation and syntax made it worthy to play an important role in the interaction of different peoples of the whole world. All this is revealed to schoolchildren when they study the subject "Russian language". Grammatical and punctuation jungles become more interesting when they hide a long history, the great power and strength of the people and language.
