Talk:History of Proto-Slavic

History of this page before Nov 3, 2013

See Talk:History of the Slavic languages.

History of the diphthongs

Kallio seems to say here on p. 155 (see also p. 160) that the PBSl. diphthongs *au and *ei went through a stage *ō and *ē (probably [oː] and [eː]) before being raised to *ū and *ī.

By the way, pay attention to footnote 19 (on pp. 162f.). I still think we should acknowledge that some scholars use "Proto-Slavic" to refer to an earlier stage. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:59, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Hold on Salonica was slavic speaking at the time of Slavic first know written language.

https://www.docdroid.net/U7MwVPo/img-20140510-0018.pdf.html Hold on salonica was slavic speaking at the time. Byzantine offical language was latin only byzantine church liturgy was also written in Greek. Look at the names and aritfacts all over the empire. Also Greek empire did not exist as it was under the Bulgarian Empire and Slavic speaking — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.191.130.184 (talk) 02:55, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Merge

Merge into Proto-Slavic? Why have "History of Proto-Slavic" when the concept itself is historical?--Zoupan 22:57, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

The reason is pretty simple: article size. See WP:SIZE and WP:SIZESPLIT. That's not to imply that none of this article would be better suited to the primary article (I don't know) but it is certainly reasonable to have both. Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 16:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Based on your comments, I have removed the merge template. --Inc (talk) 09:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Thessaloniki to Novgorod

In the Proto-Slavic and Common Slavic (c. 400–1000 AD) section it is claimed that "By the eighth century AD, Proto-Slavic is believed to have been spoken uniformly from Thessaloniki to Novgorod." This claim seems dubious, or at least misleading. It is my understanding that Eastern Romance dominated what is now Romania, Moldova and a few surrounding areas, which lie between Thessaloniki and Novgorod. I'm also not sure whether Pannonia (i.e. the rest of the Avar Khaganate) was "uniformly" Slavic-speaking, nor if it is even known one way or the other. That is not to say that there was not a single contiguous Slavic-speaking area which stretched from Thessaloniki to Novgorod (I don't know), but to say that it was "spoken uniformly" implies that all of the interceding area was Slavic-speaking, which is not the same thing. Unfortunately I know too little about the situation to rectify this, otherwise I'd just do it myself. Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 16:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

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Havlík's law, phonetically

Here's my interpretation of what Havlík's law may actually have meant, phonetically speaking:

By 900 AD, I propose the Common Slavic vowel system to have been /i ɪ e ɛ ɨ a u ʊ ɔ ɛ̃ ɔ̃/. Of these, /ɪ e ʊ ɔ/ reflect Proto-Balto-Slavic short vowels (I'm not completely sure if /ʊ/ was actually still rounded). In a sequence of syllables containing /ɪ/ or /ʊ/, such a vowel, if standing in an odd syllable (counting from the end), was allophonically realised as [ə]. This allophone (it was probably ultra-short, unlike the other vowels including the even-syllable main allophones of /ɪ/ and /ʊ/) was particularly prone to syncope or apocope.

There is apparently a significant difference between East Slavic and the rest. In most of Slavic, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ eventually merged altogether, yielding /ə/, which was lost if even (by 1000 AD in South Slavic), but simply retained if odd (although eventually merged with another vowel in most dialects). However, in East Slavic as well as in West Slavic, /ɪ/, like every front vowel, triggered palatalised allophones of preceding dental (and other) consonants. In West Slavic, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ then merged into /ə/ (causing phonologisation of the palatalised allophones), which was lost if even (probably between 1000 and 1100 AD), retained if odd, and eventually merged into /e/ (but see below). In East Slavic, however, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ were retained until after 1100 AD, including their allophone [ə] in even syllables. By 1200 AD, this allophone was subject to syncope and apocope as well (also causing phonologisation of the palatalised allophones), but in odd syllables, /ɪ/ merged with /e/ and /ʊ/ with /ɔ/ and thus their contrast was retained.

Let's take as example Common Slavic *dьnь /dɪnɪ/ 'day':

Western South Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dənə/ [dənə̆] > /dən/ > Štokavian /dan/

West Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dɪnɪ/ [dʲɪnʲə̆] > /dʲənʲə/ [dʲənʲə̆] > /dʲənʲ/ > /dʲenʲ/ > Polish /d͡ʑɛɲ/, Czech /ɟɛn/, Slovak /ɟɛɲ/

East Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dɪnɪ/ [dʲɪnʲə̆] > /dʲɪnʲ/ > /dʲenʲ/ > Russian /dʲenʲ/, Belarusian /d͡zʲenʲ/, Ukrainian /denʲ/

However, considering that at least the contrast between Common Slavic /ʊ/ and /ɔ/ (and also /ɪ/ and /e/?) is retained in Ukrainian if an /ɪ/ or /ʊ/ originally followed, it seems that the merger of /ʊ/ with /ɔ/ (and also /ɪ/ with /e/?) postdates Old East Slavic, which should then still have /dʲɪnʲ/, although this could be phonologically analysed as /dʲənʲ/. Thus:

East Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dɪnɪ/ [dʲɪnʲə] > /dʲənʲə/ [dʲənʲə̆] > /dʲənʲ/ > Russian /dʲenʲ/

Looking up the reflexes of Common Slavic *rъtъ /rʊtʊ/ 'beak; point; cliff, hill' made me realise a twist I didn't think of: the sequence /rʊ/ becomes a syllabic /r/ here, so that Havlík's law does not apply in South Slavic in this case.

Also, per History of the Slavic languages#Strong vs. weak yers, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ did not actually merge in eastern South Slavic, either. Hence:

Eastern South Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dɪn/ > Bulgarian /den/, Macedonian /den/

Contrast:

Eastern South Slavic: /dʊʒd͡ʒɪ/ [dʊʒd͡ʒə̆] > /dʊʒd͡ʒ/ > Bulgarian /dəʃt/, Macedonian /dɔʃt/

Nor did they actually merge in Slovak, and the reflexes, similar to East Slavic, might even preclude a stage /ə/ (in principle it is possible that their reflexes were distinct because of the preceding palatalisation in the case of original /ɪ/). Thus:

• Eastern South Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dɪn/
• Western South Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dənə/ [dənə̆] > /dən/
• West and East Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪnə̆] > /dʲɪnʲɪ/ [dʲɪnʲə̆] > /dʲɪnʲ/ ?> /dʲənʲ/

Holzer, in his Historische Grammatik des Kroatischen (2007), however, has a completely different interpretation (p. 68): According to him, vowel length was still retained in Common Slavic even after the vowel shift (but now phonologically redundant), and all short vowels preceding a syllable with word-final /ɪ/ or /ʊ/ in unstressed word forms are lengthened. Hence we get:

• Eastern South Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪːnɪ] > /dɪːn/
• Western South Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪːnɪ] > /dənə/ [dəːnə] > /dəːn/
• West and East Slavic: /dɪnɪ/ [dɪːnɪ] > /dʲɪnʲɪ/ [dʲɪːnʲɪ] > /dʲɪːnʲ/ ?> /dʲəːnʲ/