Old Church Slavonic: The First Slavic Literary Language
| Name | Who uses it |
|---|---|
| Old Church Slavonic / Old Church Slavic | Standard terms in English-language scholarship |
| Old Bulgarian (старобългарски) | Bulgarian scholarship; also some 19th-century German scholars |
| Old Slavonic | Neutral alternative in some works |
| Old Macedonian | Some scholars, in a regional sense; disputed |
| Slavic (slověnьskъ) | What the medieval texts themselves called it |
Old Church Slavonic is the first Slavic literary language, created in the 9th century when Saints Cyril and Methodius translated church books for their mission to Great Moravia. It was based mainly on the South Slavic dialect spoken around Thessaloniki. Most surviving manuscripts come from the First Bulgarian Empire, which is why Bulgarian scholars call it Old Bulgarian.
Old Church Slavonic is the oldest written Slavic language. It took shape in the 860s, when Saints Cyril and Methodius translated the Gospels and church services for Slavs in Great Moravia. Its base was the dialect of Slavs living around Thessaloniki, the brothers’ home city.
It was a written standard, not anyone’s everyday speech. Yet it is the ancestor of a long tradition of Slavic writing, and it is closely tied to the history of Bulgarian and of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Where Old Church Slavonic came from
The brothers needed a written language that Moravian Slavs could understand in church. Slavic dialects in the 9th century were still close to each other, so a language built on the Thessaloniki dialect worked well across the Slavic world.
They wrote it first in the Glagolitic alphabet, which Cyril designed. After Methodius died in 885, their disciples brought the language to Bulgaria. There it became the language of church and state. In 893 the Council of Preslav replaced Greek with Slavic in the liturgy, and scholars at Preslav and Ohrid produced a large body of translated and original texts.
Wikipedia notes that most surviving Old Church Slavonic manuscripts, from the 9th to 11th centuries, come from the First Bulgarian Empire.
Old Church Slavonic or Old Bulgarian?
The language has several names, and the choice often reflects a scholarly tradition. Its own medieval texts simply called it “Slavic.”
- Old Church Slavonic (or Old Church Slavic) is the most widely accepted term in English. It stresses the language’s role in the church and avoids tying it to one modern nation.
- Old Bulgarian (старобългарски език, starobalgarski ezik) is the standard term in Bulgaria. It reflects the dialect’s place in the Eastern South Slavic group and the fact that the main literary centers were in the First Bulgarian Empire. 19th-century scholars such as August Schleicher and August Leskien also used it.
- Old Macedonian is used by some scholars in a regional sense, since Thessaloniki and Ohrid lie in the geographic region of Macedonia. Others reject it. The linguist Henrik Birnbaum called it anachronistic, because no separate Macedonian language existed at the time.
Older works also used names like Old Slovenian, and scholars from several Slavic nations have claimed the language as their own. This site uses “Old Church Slavonic” as the neutral English term and notes “Old Bulgarian” where Bulgarian usage matters.
Old Church Slavonic manuscripts
No texts survive from the brothers’ own hands. The oldest manuscripts are copies made a century or so later. A small group of early texts forms what scholars call the “canon” of Old Church Slavonic.
- Codex Zographensis and Codex Marianus: Glagolitic Gospel books.
- Kiev Missal: a short Glagolitic text, often dated to the 10th century and sometimes called the oldest surviving manuscript.
- Codex Suprasliensis: a 10th-century Cyrillic manuscript written in medieval Bulgaria, the largest surviving text of the canon. It holds readings for March, lives of saints and homilies.
The Codex Suprasliensis is now split between libraries in Ljubljana, Warsaw and St. Petersburg. In 2007 it was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.
Features of Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic preserves many features that later Slavic languages lost. This makes it a key source for reconstructing Proto-Slavic, the common ancestor of all Slavic languages.
- Nasal vowels. The letters Ѫ (big yus, [ɔ̃]) and Ѧ (little yus) wrote nasal vowels, a bit like French on and in.
- Yers. Ъ and Ь wrote two short vowels. In modern Bulgarian, Ъ survives as a full vowel [ɤ], while Ь survives only in a few spellings like шофьор (shofyor, driver).
- Dual number. Nouns and verbs had special forms for exactly two of something.
- Full case system. Nouns changed endings for their role in a sentence.
- Aorist and imperfect tenses. These past tenses still exist in modern Bulgarian.
From Old Church Slavonic to modern Bulgarian
Modern Bulgarian descends from the spoken dialects that Old Church Slavonic was based on, but it changed a great deal. It lost most noun cases and gained a definite article added to the end of words, as in книгата (knigata, the book). The nasal vowels disappeared. Big yus merged with Ъ in standard Bulgarian, which is why old рѫка became ръка (raka, hand).
Bulgarian spelling kept Ѫ and Ѣ until 1945, long after their old sounds had changed. You can see these letters on our Old Bulgarian alphabet page and follow the reforms in our Bulgarian alphabet history.
Church Slavonic today
Over time, Old Church Slavonic absorbed local features wherever it was used. The result was a family of regional versions known as Church Slavonic, with Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, Croatian and Czech-Moravian recensions.
Church Slavonic is still a liturgical language. The Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches use it, as do the Macedonian Orthodox Church and several Eastern Catholic churches. Most modern services also use the local language.
Common mistakes about Old Church Slavonic
- Calling it “Old Russian.” Old East Slavic, the ancestor of Russian, is a different language. Russia received Old Church Slavonic from Bulgaria.
- Assuming people spoke it at home. It was a literary and church language based on one dialect, not a spoken standard.
- Treating Church Slavonic and Old Church Slavonic as the same. The second is the early language of the 9th to 11th centuries; the first is its later, regional descendant.
- Assuming it was written only in Cyrillic. Many of the oldest manuscripts are Glagolitic.
Frequently asked questions
Is Old Church Slavonic the same as Old Bulgarian?
They are two names for the same language. Old Church Slavonic is the usual English term; Old Bulgarian is the standard term in Bulgarian scholarship, reflecting where most early texts were written.
What was Old Church Slavonic based on?
It was based mainly on the South Slavic dialect spoken around Thessaloniki in the 9th century, the home region of Saints Cyril and Methodius.
What alphabet was Old Church Slavonic written in?
First in Glagolitic, which Cyril created. From the late 9th century it was also written in Cyrillic, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire.
Is Old Church Slavonic still used?
Its later form, Church Slavonic, is still used in services of several Orthodox churches, including the Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian churches, and in some Eastern Catholic churches.
Can Bulgarian speakers understand Old Church Slavonic?
Partly. Many roots are familiar, but grammar features such as cases, the dual and nasal vowels make it hard to read without study.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Old Church Slavonic
- Wikipedia: Council of Preslav
- Wikipedia: Codex Suprasliensis
- UNESCO Memory of the World