Old Church Slavonic

• The letter щ denoted different sounds in different dialects and is not shown in the table. In Bulgaria, it represented the sequence /ʃt/, and it is normally transliterated as št for that reason. Farther west and north, it was probably /c(ː)/ or /tɕ/ like in modern Macedonian, Torlakian and Serbian/Croatian.
• /dz/ appears mostly in early texts, becoming /z/ later on.
• The distinction between /l/, /n/ and /r/, on one hand, and palatal /lʲ/, /nʲ/ and /rʲ/, on the other, is not always indicated in writing. When it is, it is shown by a palatization diacritic over the letter: ⟨ л҄ ⟩ ⟨ н҄ ⟩ ⟨ р҄ ⟩ .

• Accent is not indicated in writing and must be inferred from later languages and from reconstructions of Proto-Slavic.
• The pronunciation of yat (ѣ/ě) differed by area. In Bulgaria it was a relatively open vowel, commonly reconstructed as /æ/, but further north its pronunciation was more closed and it eventually became a diphthong /je/ (e.g. in modern standard Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin, or modern standard Serbian spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina) or even /i/ in many areas (e.g. in Chakavian Croatian, Shtokavian Ikavian Croatian and Bosnian dialects or Ukrainian) or /e/ (modern standard Serbian spoken in Serbia).
• The yer (ь) and (ъ) vowels ĭ and ŭ are often called "ultrashort" and were lower, more centralised and shorter than their counterparts i and y/u. They disappeared in most positions in the word, already sporadically in the earliest texts but more frequently later on. They also tended to merge with other vowels, particularly ĭ with e and ŭ with o, but differently in different areas.
• The exact articulation of the nasal vowels is unclear because different areas tend to merge them with different vowels. ę /ɛ̃/ is occasionally seen to merge with e or ě in South Slavic, but becomes ja early on in East Slavic. ǫ /ɔ̃/ generally merges with u or o, but in Bulgaria, ǫ was apparently unrounded and eventually merged with ŭ.

Several notable constraints on the distribution of the phonemes can be identified, mostly resulting from the tendencies occurring within the Common Slavic period, such as intrasyllabic synharmony and the law of open syllables. For consonant and vowel clusters and sequences of a consonant and a vowel, the following constraints can be ascertained:[27]

• Two adjacent consonants tend not to share identical features of manner of articulation
• No syllable ends in a consonant
• Every obstruent agrees in voicing with the following obstruent
• Velars do not occur before front vowels
• Phonetically palatalized consonants do not occur before certain back vowels
• The back vowels /y/ and /ъ/ as well as front vowels other than /i/ do not occur word-initially: the two back vowels take prothetic /v/ and the front vowels prothetic /j/. Initial /a/ may take either prothetic consonant or none at all.
• Vowel sequences are attested in only one lexeme (paǫčina 'spider's web') and in the suffixes /aa/ and /ěa/ of the imperfect
• At morpheme boundaries, the following vowel sequences occur: /ai/, /au/, /ao/, /oi/, /ou/, /oo/, /ěi/, /ěo/

As a result of the first and the second Slavic palatalizations, velars alternate with dentals and palatals. In addition, as a result of a process usually termed iotation (or iodization), velars and dentals alternate with palatals in various inflected forms and in word formation.

In some forms the alternations of /c/ with /č/ and of /dz/ with /ž/ occur, in which the corresponding velar is missing. The dental alternants of velars occur regularly before /ě/ and /i/ in the declension and in the imperative, and somewhat less regularly in various forms after /i/, /ę/, /ь/ and /r^ь/.[28] The palatal alternants of velars occur before front vowels in all other environments, where dental alternants do not occur, as well as in various places in inflection and word formation described below.[29]

As a result of earlier alternations between short and long vowels in roots in Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic times, and of the fronting of vowels after palatalized consonants, the following vowel alternations are attested in OCS: /ь/ : /i/;   /ъ/ : /y/ : /u/;   /e/ : /ě/ : /i/;   /o/ : /a/;   /o/ : /e/;   /ě/ : /a/;   /ъ/ : /ь/;   /y/ : /i/;   /ě/ : /i/;   /y/ : /ę/.[29]

Vowel:∅ alternations sometimes occurred as a result of sporadic loss of weak yer, which later occurred in almost all Slavic dialects. The phonetic value of the corresponding vocalized strong jer is dialect-specific.

The Introduction of the Slavonic Liturgy in Great Moravia (1912), by Alphonse Mucha, The Slav Epic

The language was standardized for the first time by the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia from 863. The manuscripts of the Moravian recension are therefore the earliest dated of the OCS recensions. The recension takes its name from the Slavic state of Great Moravia which existed in Central Europe during the 9th century on the territory of today's western Slovakia and Czech Republic.

In the Prague fragments, the only Moravian influence is replacing /ʃt/ with /ts/ and /ʒd/ with /z/. This recension is exemplified by the Kiev Folia. Certain other linguistic characteristics include:

• Confusion between the letters Big yus (Ѫ) and Uk (оу) - this occurs once in the Kiev Folia, when the expected form въсоудъ vъsudъ is spelled въсѫдъ vъsǫdъ
• /ts/ from Proto-Slavic *tj, use of /dz/ from *dj, /ʃtʃ/ *skj
• Use of the words mьša, cirky, papežь, prěfacija, klepati, piskati etc.
• Preservation of the consonant cluster /dl/ (e.g. modlitvami)
• Use of the ending –ъmь instead of –omь in the masculine singular instrumental, use of the pronoun čьso

"Simeon I of Bulgaria, the Morning Star of Slavonic Literature". (1923), by Alphonse Mucha, The Slav Epic

Old Church Slavonic language is developed in the First Bulgarian Empire and was taught in Preslav (Bulgarian capital between 893 and 972), and in Ohrid (Bulgarian capital between 991/997 and 1015).[30][31][32] It did not represent one regional dialect but a generalized form of early eastern South Slavic, which cannot be localized.[33] The existence of two major literary centres in the Empire led in the period from the 9th to the 11th centuries to the emergence of two recensions (otherwise called "redactions"), termed "Eastern" and "Western" respectively.[34][35] Some researchers do not differentiate between manuscripts of the two recensions, preferring to group them together in a "Macedo-Bulgarian"[36] or simply "Bulgarian" recension.[37][38] Others, as Horace Lunt, have changed their opinion with time. In the mid-1970s, Lunt held that the differences in the initial OCS were neither great enough nor consistent enough to grant a distinction between a 'Macedonian' recension and a 'Bulgarian' one. A decade later, however, Lunt argued in favour of such a distinction, illustrating his point with paleographic, phonological and other differences.[39] The development of Old Church Slavonic literacy had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the South Slavs into neighboring cultures, which promoted the formation of a distinct Bulgarian identity.[40]

The manuscripts of the Preslav recension[41][42][43] or "Eastern" variant[44] are among the oldest of the Old Church Slavonic language. This recension was centred around the Preslav Literary School. Since the earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions were found in the area of Preslav, it is this school which is credited with the development of the Cyrillic alphabet which gradually replaced the Glagolic one.[45][46] A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at the Preslav Literary School, including Naum of Preslav (until 893), Constantine of Preslav, John Exarch, Chernorizets Hrabar, etc. The main linguistic features of this recension are the following:

• The Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets were used concurrently.
• In some documents the original supershort vowels ъ and ь merged with one letter taking the place of the other.
• The original ascending reflex (rь, lь) of syllabic /r/ and /l/ was sometimes metathesized to ьr, ьl; or a combination of the ordering was used.
• The central vowel ы y merged with ъи ъi.
• Sometimes the use of letter ⟨Ѕ⟩ (/dz/) was merged with that of ⟨З⟩ (/z/).
• The verb forms нарицаѭ, нарицаѥши (naricajǫ, naricaješi) were substituted or alternated with наричꙗѭ, наричꙗеши (naričjajǫ, naričjaješi).

The manuscripts of the Ohrid recension or "Western" variant[47] are among the oldest of the Old Church Slavonic language. The recension is sometimes named Macedonian because its literary centre, Ohrid, lies in the historical region of Macedonia. At that period, Ohrid administratively formed part of the province of Kutmichevitsa in the First Bulgarian Empire until the Byzantine conquest.[48] The main literary centre of this dialect was the Ohrid Literary School, whose most prominent member and most likely founder, was Saint Clement of Ohrid who was commissioned by Boris I of Bulgaria to teach and instruct the future clergy of the state in the Slavonic language. The language variety that was used in the area started shaping the modern Macedonian dialects.[33][49] This recension is represented by the Codex Zographensis and Marianus, among others. The main linguistic features of this recension include:

• Continuous usage of the Glagolitic alphabet instead of Cyrillic
• A feature called "mixing (confusion) of the nasals" in which /ɔ̃/ became [ɛ̃] after /rʲ lʲ nʲ/, and in a cluster of a labial consonant and /lʲ/. /ɛ̃/ became [ɔ̃] after sibilant consonants and /j/
• Wide use of the soft consonant clusters /ʃt/ and /ʒd/; in the later stages, these developed into the modern Macedonian phonemes /c/ /ɟ/
• Strict distinction in the articulation of the yers and their vocalisation in strong position (ъ > /o/ and ь > /e/) or deletion in weak position
• Confusion of /ɛ̃/ with yat and yat with /e/
• Denasalization in the latter stages: /ɛ̃/ > /e/ and /ɔ̃/ > /a/, оу, ъ
• Wider usage and retention of the phoneme /dz/ (which in most other Slavic languages has dеaffricated to /z/);

Later use of the language in a number of medieval Slavic polities resulted in the adjustment of Old Church Slavonic to the local vernacular, though a number of Southern Slavic, Moravian or Bulgarian features also survived. Significant later recensions of Old Church Slavonic (referred to as Church Slavonic) in the present time include: Slovene, Croatian, Serbian and Russian. In all cases, denasalization of the yuses occurred; so that only Old Church Slavonic, modern Polish and some isolated Bulgarian dialects retained the old Slavonic nasal vowels.

The Serbian recension[50] was written mostly in Cyrillic, but also in the Glagolitic alphabet (depending on region); by the 12th century the Serbs used exclusively the Cyrillic alphabet (and Latin script in coastal areas). The 1186 Miroslav Gospels belong to the Serbian recension. They feature the following linguistic characteristics:

• Nasal vowels were denasalised and in one case closed: *ę > e, *ǫ > u, e.g. OCS rǫka > Sr. ruka ("hand"), OCS językъ > Sr. jezik ("tongue, language")
• Extensive use of diacritical signs by the Resava dialect
• Use of letters i, y for the sound /i/ in other manuscripts of the Serbian recension

Due to the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria in 1396, Serbia saw an influx of educated scribes and clergy who re-introduced a more classical form, closer resembling the Bulgarian recension. The letter Ꙉ was also created, in place of the sounds *d͡ʑ, *tɕ, *dʑ and d͡ʒ,also used during the Bosnian recession.

The Russian recension emerged after the 10th century on the basis of the earlier Bulgarian recension, from which it differed slightly. Its main features are:

• Substitution of [u] for the nasal sound /õ/
• Merging of letters ę and ja[51]

The line between OCS and post-OCS manuscripts is arbitrary, and terminology varies. The common term "Middle Bulgarian" is usually contrasted to "Old Bulgarian" (an alternative name for Old Church Slavonic), and loosely used for manuscripts whose language demonstrates a broad spectrum of regional and temporal dialect features after the 11th century.[52]

The Bosnian recension used the Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet (better known as Bosančica) and the Glagolitic alphabet.[53][54]

• Use of letters i, y, ě for the sound /i/ in Bosnian manuscripts. The letter Щ was used in place of the sounds *tɕ *ʃt and *ɕ

The Croatian recension of Old Church Slavonic used only the Glagolitic alphabet of angular Croatian type. It shows the development of the following characteristics:

• Denasalisation of PSl. *ę > e, PSl. *ǫ > u, e.g. Cr. ruka : OCS rǫka ("hand"), Cr. jezik : OCS językъ ("tongue, language")
• PSl. *y > i, e.g. Cr. biti : OCS byti ("to be")
• PSl. weak-positioned yers *ъ and *ь in merged, probably representing some schwa-like sound, and only one of the letters was used (usually 'ъ'). Evident in earliest documents like Baška tablet.
• PSl. strong-positioned yers *ъ and *ь were vocalized into a in most Štokavian and Čakavian speeches, e.g. Cr. pas : OCS pьsъ ("dog")
• PSl. hard and soft syllabic liquids *r and r′ retained syllabicity and were written as simply r, as opposed to OCS sequences of mostly rь and rъ, e.g. krstъ and trgъ as opposed to OCS krьstъ and trъgъ ("cross", "market")
• PSl. #vьC and #vъC > #uC, e.g. Cr. udova : OCS. vъdova ("widow")

Here are some of the names used by speakers of modern Slavic languages:

• Belarusian: стараславянская мова (starasłavianskaja mova), ‘Old Slavic language’
• Bulgarian: старобългарски (starobălgarski), ‘Old Bulgarian’ and старославянски,[70] (staroslavjanski), ‘Old Slavic’
• Czech: staroslověnština, ‘Old Slavic’
• Macedonian: старословенски (staroslovenski), ‘Old Slavic’
• Polish: staro-cerkiewno-słowiański, ‘Old Church Slavic’
• Russian: старославянский язык (staroslavjánskij jazýk), ‘Old Slavic language’
• Serbo-Croatian Latin: staroslovenski / staroslavenski, Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: старословенски / старославенски, ‘Old Slavic’
• Slovak: staroslovienčina, ‘Old Slavic’
• Slovene: stara cerkvena slovanščina, ‘Old Church Slavic’
• Ukrainian: староцерковнослов’янська мова (starotserkovnoslovjans'ka mova), ‘Old Church Slavic language’