--- Sergejus Tarasovas <
S.Tarasovas@...>
wrote:
But
> what about the
> language the East Slavs spoke, say, in the 9th -
> 11th cc.?
*****GK: An additional complication here is the fact
that while in the south, Slavic groups and ethna (I
use the term "nationes" in my writings for entities
such as the Sivera/Siverjany et sim. ["nations of the
mediaeval type"] were relatively cohesive as to
contact and contiguity in rural areas (the steppe
populations were largely a border phenomenon)further
north there were certainly large and as yet
unintegrated groups of Balts and Ugro-Finns living
amongst the (not always) majority Slavic population.
While this left little trace in the extant written
literature such as it was, the influence on daily
speech would have been more pronounced. I read a book
a couple of years ago on the 20th c. rural dialect of
Vladimir oblast in Central Russia, which apparently
still retained many lexical "ugrofinnisms". This would
surely have been even more noticeable hundreds of
years earlier.*****
(ST)There's
> still no consensus on the point, but it seemes to me
> the two
> tendencies exist:
> 1. Still one language >.....
2. A set of the dialectal groups, forming a
> Sprachbund, but not
> forming a separate genetic subbranch of Slavic.
*****GK: I'm not sure which is correct. I suspect,
however, that "national" (in the mediaeval
sense)consciousness in these groups was to a very
large degree independent of language (an excellent
example is 12th c. Suzdalia), and I would be more
inclined to favour solutions which emphasize diversity
over unity, esp. at the level of colloquial everyday
speech.****
(ST)The
> subgroups would
> be > 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.
****GK Whatever the linguists have to say on this, it
is clear to me as a historian that these "nationes"
had political affinities different than the groupings
enumerated above, and I feel certain that these must
have had an increasing influence on their speech.Thus:
the Dregovichi (especially their northern areas) began
to integrate with the Western Krivichi (also known as
the Polochane) rather early (and particularly after
the rule of the Iziaslavichi began in Polotsk: this
branch did not even share in the making of the "Rus'ka
Pravda"). The Eastern Kryvychi were actively
colonizing Meryaland after 1058. There is one group of
Kryvychi which was dominant in the Pskov area. I
remember that this dialect shared some features with
West Slavic (the only thing that comes to mind at the
moment is that "milk" here was "mleko" as in Poland
rather than the full-voiced "moloko"). I think I have
solved the issue of the "Ulichi" and "Tivertsi" (wrote
a special article about this in 1997). The "Polany"[an
artificial literary name for the Central "natio" of
Old Rus' concocted in the 11th c.]were politically
very close to the Derevlany since the time of Yaropolk
Sviatoslavych (+978). And they (the "Polany") were the
only ethnos or "natio" in that complex which was
"Rus'" in the narrow sense of the term.I'll get into
this as time allows.*****
>
>
>(ST) At any rate, this subgroups are not equal to
> anything that could be
> defined as proto-Ukrainian, proto-Belarusian and
> proto-Russian.
****GK: Certainly not according to the linguistic
groupings mentioned above. But politically there were
"nationes" which became the nuclei of the later
nations. As I see this, the earliest proto-Ukrainians
were the "Polany", the earliest proto-Belorusans were
the Western Krivichi or Polochany, and the earliest
proto-Russians may be sought in the population of
Suzdalia (Merya, Galindians, and Eastern Krivichi).
The evolution was not pre-determined in any way, but
the local sense of identity was strong enough in
Suzdalia, Polotsk and Novgorod to resist the Monomakh
plan to recast Old Rus' as a kind of Slavic Byzantine
Empire with the Rus' of Kyiv in the driver's seat.
Interestingly enough, those "nationes" which accepted
this project became "Ukrainian" for the most part in
subsequent centuries. [Novgorod and Pskov present a
special problem. I tend to favour those who think
these populations might have developed into discrete
nationalities had political circumstances been more
favourable. And perhaps others as well]. This plan
collapsed under the rule of his second successor
Yaropolk Volodymyrych (1132-1139) after which the
centrifugal tendencies became practically
irreversible.=== Another extremely important component
in this evolution was the pattern of Christianity's
spread (which had of course a lot to do with the
cultural forms prevalent in various areas). It is
abundantly clear that the "dominant" culture of this
area was preponderantly "made in Kyiv" in the early
period of Old Rus', and it is only later that other
centers arose and began to flourish. Meryaland for
instance did not become Christianized until the 12th
century (and the Galindians held out even longer).
This aloofness from the dominant Christian culture
would doubtless have had linguistic consequences of
sorts. But there's still an awful lot to be discovered
here.*****
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