Slavic Languages Past and Present
by
Emily Liz Helgersen
Anybody who knows a thing or two about linguistics has undoubtedly
heard of the Indo-European languages, a family of languages spoken
in an area ranging from Ireland in the west to India in the east.
Among its branches are Germanic (English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian
tongues), Italic (Latin and the present-day Romance languages), and
Indo-Iranian (Farsi, Hindi and a number of other languages, including
the classical Sanskrit). Another division of the Indo-European
family consists of the Slavic languages, which are concentrated in
Eastern Europe and, since Russia’s expansion into Siberia, the
Russian part of Asia.
Just as the Indo-European family contains a number of branches, the
Slavic languages are further split into three subdivisions.
They are the Eastern Slavic branch, which includes Ukrainian, Byelorussian
(White Russian) and Russian; the Western Slavic branch, which consists
of Polish, Czech, Slovak, and Wendish, spoken in the German area of
Lusatia near the Czech Republic; and finally the South Slavic tongues,
such as Serbo-Croatian (sometimes considered two separate languages
by nationalists), Slovenian, Macedonian (not to be confused with what
Alexander the Great spoke, which was a dialect of Ancient Greek),
and Bulgarian. In the last category also belongs Old Church
Slavonic, which is closely related to Bulgarian and which was employed
as a liturgical language by the Eastern Orthodox Church in the same
way that Latin was used in the Roman Catholic Mass.
A more superficial but still significant split within the Slavic languages
concerns the way they are written. As a general rule, the traditionally
Catholic countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, use the
Latin alphabet, whereas the Orthodox ones (Russia, Bulgaria, Belarus,
etcetera) employ the Cyrillic script, invented by Greek missionaries
Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who brought Christianity to many of the
Slavic lands. We therefore have a situation where a single language
- Serbo-Croatian - is written in two forms, with the Roman alphabet
in Croatia and the Cyrillic one in Serbia. Nonetheless, the
Slavic languages all resemble one other considerably. Many are in
fact mutually intelligible.
The existence of the Slavs was first noted by Roman historians in
the first centuries after Christ. Scholars believe they originated
in the area north of the Carpathians, a mountain range running from
Austria to Ukraine. From there they expanded southward into
the Balkans and to Russia and Byelorussia to the northeast.
At one time they even occupied what are now the East German cities
of Berlin and Leipzig (which, by the way, gets its name from a Slavic
word meaning “linden tree”). The Slavs share their
present habitat of Eastern Europe, however, with speakers of a number
of non-Slavic languages, like Lithuanian and Latvian (both belonging
to the Indo-European Baltic division), Romanian (a Romance language),
Albanian (another Indo-European language in a branch by itself) and
Finnish and Estonian (members of the non-Indo-European Finno-Ugric
family of languages).
_______________________
We
therefore have a situation where a
single language is written in two forms.
_______________________
The Slavic language with the greatest number of speakers and the most
extensive cultural influence is without doubt Russian, used by 145
million people as a mother tongue and a further 110 million as a second
language. The latter group of Russian speakers includes a large
number of inhabitants of many former Soviet bloc countries who studied
it in school, where it was a required subject. While Russian
is perhaps the only Slavic tongue to become a truly international
language, a distant competitor may be Polish, which is still spoken
by some older Jews in Israel who emigrated there years before from
Poland. In addition, Slavic immigrant communities have brought
their native tongues to their adopted nations. My own city of
Toronto, for instance, has several local Polish-, Russian- and Ukrainian-language
newspapers.
On the topic of Slavic languages outside their homelands, special
mention should be given to Russian in Alaska. As an imperial
power (under the tsar), Russia ruled that state for 126 years, from
1741 to its sale to the United States in 1867. During that time
Russian missionaries, traders and hunters came to Alaska and exerted
considerable influence on its native people, particularly those of
the Aleutian Islands off the southwestern coast. Among the relics
of Alaska’s Russian past are place names, Orthodox churches,
some of which still conduct services in Russian, and Russian personal
names of the inhabitants. Nonetheless, because the number of
immigrants from Russia to Alaska was comparatively small, Russian
never caught on as a mother tongue for most of the state’s natives,
though some mixed-race family did (and still do) use it on a daily
basis.
The Slavic languages boast an impressive body of literature.
Probably the best known is that of Russia, with such classical greats
as Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky
and more modern writers like novelist Boris Pasternak and poet Anna
Akhmatova. The Czechs meanwhile have novelist Milan Kundera,
author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and playwright Vaclav
Havel (also the former president of the Czech Republic). The
Polish language found expression in the writings of Czeslaw Milosz
– though it must be noted that Poland’s most famous literary
figure, Joseph Conrad, composed most of his works in English.
A number of Slavic words have found their way into English and other
Western languages. One category of such borrowings consists
of personal names. Among the most popular is Nadine or Nadia,
derived from “Nadezhda,” Russian for “hope.” (“Nadia”
also made its way into non-Slavic Eastern Europe with Olympic gymnast
Nadia Comaneci, who is Romanian.) Another Slavic name with some
favour in the West is the Polish Stanislaus, “glorious rule,”
which is sometimes used by Catholic families due to two saints from
Poland bearing this name. For example, the Irish writer James
Joyce had a brother Stanislaus. Some Italian families near the
border with Slovenia have taken to calling their daughters Ludmila,
meaning “beloved of the people” in a number of Slavic languages.
_______________________
“Pravda”
has since become a derogatory
synonym of “party line.”
_______________________
Most borrowings from the Slavic languages into English come from Russia,
given its primacy in the Slavic world. Some exceptions exist.
For instance, Czech contributed robot, from “robota,” or
“work,” and pistol, from the term “pistala,” or
“pipe.” Poland gave us kielbasa, pirogi, and mazurka, all
features of Polish life. Similarly, many loan words from Russian
describe things or concepts associated with Russia, like balalaika,
troika (from “troe,” three), pogrom, and vodka (from “voda,”
or water). The Soviet Union’s emergence as a world superpower
introduced some further Russian-derived terms to the West. They
include gulag, Soviet (meaning “council”) and Kremlin (of
note, the headquarters of the CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster,
has been referred to by rival radio stations as “the Kremlin”).
Another Russian word that has entered the Western public consciousness
is Pravda (literally, “truth”), the name of the official
Communist newspaper. “Pravda” has since become a derogatory
synonym of “party line.” For example, Jewish-American
writer Naomi Wolf was called “Little Miss Pravda” by her
nemesis Camille Paglia for supposedly towing the feminist party line.
After writing this essay, I’m a little embarrassed to say that
I don’t speak a single Slavic language. I’ve got no
excuse; I have plenty of friends from Slavic countries as well as
at least two in-laws of Polish descent. But I have another Slavic
connection in my life: my Russian blue cat Shadow. Though she
was already named when I got her, if she passes away before I do I’ll
pay tribute to my Slavic friends and family members by adopting another
Russian Blue and giving him or her a Slavic name.
Thank you to Alexey Bayukov and Wayne Leman for help
on this essay.
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Emily
Liz Helgersen is a secretary and musician based in Canada. When
she’s not busy with her job, social activities and hobbies,
she likes to write about religion, music, culture or anything
else that happens to strike her fancy. In this picture here she’s
trying to look composed despite the fact her brother is pinching
her arm. You can contact her at ehelgersen@hotmail.com
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