A literary language is one in which there is a written language of a certain people, and sometimes several. That is, schooling, written and everyday communication takes place in this language, official business documents, scientific works, fiction, journalism, as well as all other manifestations of art that are expressed in verbal, most often written, but sometimes oral. Therefore, oral-colloquial and written-book forms of the literary language differ. Their interaction, correlation and occurrence are subject to certain patterns of history.
Different definitions of the concept
Literary language is a phenomenon that is understood in its own way by different scientists. Some believe that it is popular, only processed by the masters of the word, that is, writers. Proponents of this approach have in mind, first of all, the conceptliterary language, relating to the new time, and at the same time among peoples with a richly represented fiction. According to others, the literary language is bookish, written, which is opposed to living speech, that is, spoken language. This interpretation is based on those languages in which writing is ancient. Still others believe that this is a language that is generally valid for a particular people, in contrast to jargon and dialect, which do not have such universal significance. Literary language is always the result of the joint creative activity of people. This is a brief description of this concept.
Relationship with various dialects
Special attention should be paid to the interaction and correlation of dialects and literary language. The more stable the historical foundations of certain dialects, the more difficult it is for the literary language to unite linguistically all members of the nation. So far, dialects have successfully competed with the general literary language in many countries, for example, in Indonesia, Italy.
This concept also interacts with language styles that exist within the boundaries of any language. They are varieties of it that have developed historically and in which there is a set of features. Some of them may be repeated in other different styles, but a peculiar function and a certain combination of features distinguish one style from the rest. Today, a large number of speakers use colloquial and colloquial forms.
Differences in the development of the literary language among different peoples
In the Middle Ages, as well as in the NewAt different times, the history of the literary language developed differently among different peoples. Compare, for example, the role that the Latin language had in the culture of the Germanic and Romance peoples of the early Middle Ages, the functions that French played in England until the beginning of the 14th century, the interaction of Latin, Czech, Polish in the 16th century, etc.
Development of Slavic languages
In an era when a nation is being formed and developed, a unity of literary norms is formed. Most often this happens first in writing, but sometimes the process can take place simultaneously in writing and in oral form. In the Russian state of the period of the 16th-17th centuries, work was underway to canonize and streamline the norms of the business state language along with the formation of uniform requirements for the colloquial Moscow language. The same process is taking place in other Slavic states, in which the literary language is actively developing. For Serbian and Bulgarian, it is less typical, since in Serbia and Bulgaria there were no conditions favorable for the development of a business clerical and state language on a national basis. Russian, along with Polish and, to a certain extent, Czech, is an example of a national Slavic literary language that has retained its connection with ancient written language.
The national language, which has taken the path of breaking with the old tradition, is Serbo-Croatian, and also partly Ukrainian. In addition, there are Slavic languages that did not develop continuously. At a certain stage, thisdevelopment was interrupted, so the emergence of national linguistic features in certain countries led to a break with the ancient, old-written tradition, or the later one - these are the Macedonian, Belarusian languages. Let us consider in more detail the history of the literary language in our country.
History of the Russian literary language
The oldest of the literary monuments that have survived date back to the 11th century. The process of transformation and formation of the Russian language in the 18-19 centuries took place on the basis of its opposition to French - the language of the nobility. In the works of the classics of Russian literature, its possibilities were actively studied, new language forms were introduced. Writers emphasized its richness and pointed out its advantages in relation to foreign languages. There were frequent disputes on this issue. For example, disputes between Slavophiles and Westernizers are known. Later, in the Soviet years, it was emphasized that our language is the language of the builders of communism, and during Stalin's rule there was even a whole campaign against cosmopolitanism in Russian literature. And at present, the history of the Russian literary language in our country continues to take shape, as its transformation is continuously taking place.
Oral folk art
Folklore in the form of sayings, proverbs, epics, fairy tales has its roots in a distant history. Samples of oral folk art were passed down from generation to generation, from mouth to mouth, and their content was polished in such a way that only the moststable combinations, and language forms were updated as the language developed.
And after writing appeared, oral creativity continued to exist. Urban and worker folklore, as well as thieves (that is, prison camps) and army folklore, were added to the peasant folklore in the New Age. Oral folk art today is most widely represented in jokes. It also affects written literary language.
How did the literary language develop in Ancient Russia?
The spread and introduction of writing in Russia, which led to the formation of a literary language, is usually associated with the names of Cyril and Methodius.
In Novgorod and other cities of the 11th-15th centuries, birch bark letters were in use. The bulk of the surviving are private letters that were of a business nature, as well as documents such as court records, bills of sale, receipts, wills. There are also folklore (household instructions, riddles, school jokes, conspiracies), literary and church texts, as well as records that were of an educational nature (children's scribbles and drawings, school exercises, warehouses, alphabets).
Introduced in 863 by the brothers Methodius and Cyril, Church Slavonic writing was based on a language such as Old Church Slavonic, which, in turn, originated from South Slavic dialects, or rather, from the Old Bulgarian language, its Macedonian dialect. The literary activity of these brothers consisted primarily in the translation of the books of the Old and New Testaments. Their students transferred fromGreek to Church Slavonic set of religious books. Some scholars believe that Cyril and Methodius introduced the Glagolitic alphabet, not Cyrillic, and the latter was already developed by their students.
Church Slavonic
The language of the book, not the spoken language, was Church Slavonic. It spread among numerous Slavic peoples, where it acted as the language of church culture. Church Slavonic literature spread in Moravia among the Western Slavs, in Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia among the southern Slavs, in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Wallachia, and also in Russia with the adoption of Christianity. The Church Slavonic language was very different from the spoken language, the texts were subjected to changes during correspondence, gradually becoming Russified. Words approached Russian, began to reflect the features characteristic of local dialects.
The first grammar books were compiled in 1596 by Lavrenty Zinaniy and in 1619 by Melety Smotrytsky. At the end of the 17th century, the process of forming such a language as Church Slavonic was basically completed.
18th century - literary language reform
M. V. Lomonosov in the 18th century made the most important reforms of the literary language of our country, as well as the system of versification. He wrote a letter in 1739 in which he formulated the basic principles of versification. Lomonosov, arguing with Trediakovsky, wrote that it is necessary to use the possibilities of our language instead of borrowing various schemes from others. According to Mikhail Vasilyevich, poetry can be written in many stops: disyllabic (trochee,iambic), trisyllabic (amphibrachium, anapaest, dactyl), but he believed that the division into spondei and pyrrhia is incorrect.
In addition, Lomonosov also compiled a scientific grammar of the Russian language. He described in his book his opportunities and we alth. The grammar was republished 14 times and later formed the basis of another work - Barsov's grammar (written in 1771), who was a student of Mikhail Vasilievich.
Modern literary language in our country
Its creator is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, whose creations are the pinnacle of literature in our country. This thesis is still relevant, although great changes have taken place in the language over the past two hundred years, and today there are clear stylistic differences between the modern language and the language of Pushkin. Despite the fact that the norms of the modern literary language have changed today, we still consider the work of Alexander Sergeyevich as a model.
The poet himself, meanwhile, pointed to the main role in the formation of the literary language of N. M. Karamzin, since this glorious writer and historian, according to Alexander Sergeevich, freed the Russian language from someone else's yoke and returned its freedom.
