Re: Slavic "drag-"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Jim Rader" <jrader@...> wrote:

> The two Pskov hits are citations from Old Russian chronicles. In

this

> passage--
>
> Â ëåòî 6822. Èçáè ìðàç âñÿêî æèòî, è áûñòü äîðîãîñòü ëþòà,
> ïî ïÿòè ãðèâåí çîáíèöà; è áÿøå ïðèòóæíî ëþäåì âåëìè;
> áÿøå æå òà äðàãîñòü ìíîãî âðåìÿ.
> (Sorry if this comes out as gibberish--I'm at work and don't have
> time to transliterate.)

With Internet Explorer 6.0, it can be read by switching the encoding
to 6.0 Cyrillic (Windows).

> "dragostI" and "dorogostI" are apparently free variants, the first

a

> Church Slavic form and the second with East Slavic polnoglasie.

The

> word in this context means "dearness" = "high prices," as near as

I can

> make out.

And _dragotsennyj_ 'precious, invaluable' makes it into my pocket
Russian dictionary. I'm not sure what the remark 'tserk. dragiy' in
the entry for _dragoj_ means. Does it simply mean '_dragij_ under
Church Slavonic influence'? Why does Alex want to know if a South
Slavic form spread beyond South Slavic?

Richard.