> > Okay, now look at just the modern languages (and be careful
> > with the Serbian dialects and Macedonian) and see what you
> > come up with. That was just an idea.
>
> What would be the rationale behind that? Why just the modern languages
> count? Because in that case the picture better fits your expectations?
> ;)
>
> Sergei
Sergei, thanks for your comments.
As to the rationale behind avoiding the old Slavic languages: I am
trying to check now, and I also thank Piotr for giving an exact
reference on the Old Polish "jas", to what extent old languages were
related to actual spoken languages and to what extent old languages
are related to one another. It will be a hard thing to follow in
general, because there is little information on that, yet I do have at
least one reason for looking at it this way: The old languages
reflect a codified written language. You probably know better than me
that all church Slavonic languages were adjusted to common languages
in the course of time. Quite logical, if the original was based on
one single regional dialect.
This also applies for Old Bulgarian - with time, texts written in this
language reflected more of the deviating qualities of the current
Bulgarian grammar. Linguists assume these were features already
present in the common language before Old Bulgarian (OCS). Note that
this is not a dogma, but rather something they consider they have good
reasons to say. So if written languages were not a very good
reflection of common spoken languages (living languages), one should
consider the complex relationships between spoken and written before
one assumes something is a proof for anything. E.g. what is called
OCS outside of Bulgaria is called Old Bulgarian in Bulgaria for at
least one reason - the actual oldest OCS texts that we have at our
disposal were written in Bulgaria. We don't have a copy of what the
students of Cyrill and Methodius brought upon their arrival in
Bulgaria (or on their missions anywhere else, for that matter). So
the oldest texts will have already reflected some special addjustments
to Bulgarian. Calling it OCS would not be very exact and help someone
assume instinctively this is some neutral protoslavic language. E.g.
I do not consider the OCS azU in itself proves anything on this word's
being commonly Slavic and not influenced by some special developments
in Bulgarian.
The question remains why modern Slavic languages do not have the same
pronoun in 1. pers. singular (and in 3rd person sing. and plural), why
they do not have articles; why the case system has been preserved in
them, why they show so many simply phonetic deviations from Bulgarian
and OCS (which includes the developments /sht/, /zhd/), shall I
mention the infinitive, which was also lost for some reason not only
in Bulgarian, but also in other Balkan languages. I will not
attribute this just to coincidence and internal development of Slavic
languages. At least for now, I don't find such an argument convincing.
Eva