--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>I wonder how you
> define
> > these terms,
> > especially the dirfference between Old Russians and
> > Old Ukrainians in
> > the Primary Chronicle's times?
>
> *****GK: Fair enough. I'll post something on this in a
> bit. You could try getting my "Rus' and Ukraine in
> mediaeval times" via interlibrary loan or from
> amazon.com. It's a small item but touches on all the
> essentials. It was reviewed in "Slavic Review" by
> Prof. Janet Martin.*****
Emotions aside, it would be interesting to know your opinion on the
ethnogenetical moments - my knowledge of pre-Mongolian ethnogenesis
of (proto-)Ukrainians is limited to the primitive (and probably
incorrect) scheme: the Slavs + (a bit of) Iranian and Dacian
substratum (?) + (a bit of) Baltic substratum (?) + Turkic
(Khazarian) influence + (a bit of) Scandinavian (or other Germanic,
since the RusI-problem is not solved) adstratum. But what about the
language the East Slavs spoke, say, in the 9th - 11th cc.? There's
still no consensus on the point, but it seemes to me the two
tendencies exist:
1. Still one language (a set of mutually understandable dialects
sharing some common innovations and thus contrasting with other
Slavic languages), though the term itself has extra-linguistic
(political) connotations and is somehow vague. If you agree with that
point of view, you should offer the name for this language, which has
been conveniently and, I agree, a bit conventionally labeled as 'Old
Russian', but at any rate there would be no need to use three labels
instead of one.
2. A set of the dialectal groups, forming a Sprachbund, but not
forming a separate genetic subbranch of Slavic. The subgroups would
be (since I'm not aware of the conventional English terms, the names
are given in normalized Standard Old X form, /I/ for yer', /c^/ for
cherv', /e^/ for yat', /e,/ for yus maliy):
2.1 DrIgovic^i and Derevl'ane^
2.2 Pol'ane^, Se^ver'ane^ and Slove^ne^ (IlImenIscii)
2.3 Radimic^i and Ve,tic^i
2.4 Krivic^i
2.1 and 2.2 are supposed to form the basis of (codified in written
language) the interdialectal koine conventionally known as Standard
Old X (Slove^ne^ are sometimes supposed to have some South Slavic
features).
2.3 demonstrates West Slavic features (gradually levelled out)
2.4 demonstrates linguistic features which can not be classified as
East, West or South Slavic.
It's hard to say something definite on Volyn'ane^, Tiverci and Ulic^i.
Of course this classification is just a possible one, though the
evidence for 2.2 and especially 2.4 is rather strong, 2.3 is based
mostly on the analysis of toponymical evidence.
At any rate, this subgroups are not equal to anything that could be
defined as proto-Ukrainian, proto-Belarusian and proto-Russian.
Indeed, DrIgovic^i and partly Krivic^i and Derevl'ane^ have formed
Belarusians, Pol'ane^, Se^ver'ane^, Derevl'ane^, Volyn'ane^, Tiverci
and Ulic^i - Ukrainians, and Radimic^i, Ve,tic^i, Slove^ne^, partly
Krivic^i and Se^ver'ane^ - Russians. A question arises: what could in
that case the terms Old Ukrainian (language), Old Russian (proper, in
your narrow
sense) and Old Belarusian mean and are they relevant?
P. S.
You mentioned 'the linguists you respect'. To avoid any confusion, I
repeat what I've already said on that list nearly two years ago: I'm
not a professional linguist (though I have plans to take my
bachelor's degree in Baltistics if the circumstances let me do it) so
you can ignore my messages just on that ground if you prefer. Anyway,
I guess I can provide you with reliable first-hand information on
colloquial Lithuanian if you happen to be interested :)
Sergei