|
Proto-Slavic is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 5th to 9th centuries AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; scholars have reconstructed the language by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic languages and by taking into account other Indo-European languages. Rapid development of Slavic speech occurred during the Proto-Slavic period, coinciding with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Dialectal differentiation occurred early on during this period, but overall linguistic unity and mutual intelligibility continued for several centuries, into the 10th century AD or later. During this period, many sound changes diffused across the entire area, often uniformly. This makes it inconvenient to maintain the traditional definition of a proto-language as the ''latest reconstructable common ancestor'' of a language group, with no dialectal differentiation. (This would necessitate treating all pan-Slavic changes after the 6th century AD or so as part of the separate histories of the various daughter languages.) Instead, Slavicists typically handle the entire period of dialectally-differentiated linguistic unity as Common Slavic. One can divide the Proto-Slavic/Common-Slavic time of linguistic unity roughly into three periods: * an early period with little or no dialectal variation * a middle period of slight-to-moderate dialectal variation * a late period of significant variation Authorities differ as to which periods should be included in Proto-Slavic and in Common Slavic. The language described in this article generally reflects the middle period, usually termed ''Late Proto-Slavic'' (sometimes ''Middle Common Slavic'') and often dated to around the 7th to 8th centuries AD. This language remains largely unattested, but a late-period variant, representing the late 9th-century dialect spoken around Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia, is attested in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts. ==Introduction== The ancestor of Proto-Slavic is Proto-Balto-Slavic, which is also the ancestor of the Baltic languages, e.g. Lithuanian and Latvian. This language in turn is descended from Proto-Indo-European, the parent language of the vast majority of European languages (including English, German, Spanish, French, etc.). Proto-Slavic gradually evolved into the various Slavic languages during the latter half of the first millennium CE, concurrent with the explosive growth of the Slavic-speaking area. There is no scholarly consensus concerning either the number of stages involved in the development of the language (its periodization) or the terms used to describe them. For consistency and convenience, this article adopts the following scheme. # ''Pre-Slavic'' (c. 1500 BCE — 300 CE): A long, stable period of gradual development. The most significant phonological developments during this period involved the prosodic system, e.g. tonal and other register distinctions on syllables. # ''Early Common Slavic'' or simply ''Early Slavic'' (c. 300 — 600 CE): The early, uniform stage of Common Slavic, but also the beginning of a longer period of rapid phonological change. As there are no dialectal distinctions reconstructible from this period or earlier, this is the period for which a single common ancestor (that is, "Proto-Slavic proper") can be reconstructed. # ''Middle Common Slavic'' (c. 600 — 800 CE): The stage with the earliest identifiable dialectal distinctions. Rapid phonological change continued, although with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Although some dialectal variation did exist, most sound changes were still uniform and consistent in their application. By the end of this stage, the vowel and consonant phonemes of the language were largely the same as those still found in the modern languages. For this reason, reconstructed "Proto-Slavic" forms commonly found in scholarly works and etymological dictionaries normally correspond to this period. # ''Late Common Slavic'' (c. 800 — 1000 CE, although perhaps through c. 1150 CE in Kievan Rus', in the far northeast): The last stage in which the whole Slavic-speaking area still functioned as a single language, with sound changes normally propagating throughout the entire area, although often with significant dialectal variation in the details. This article considers primarily ''Middle Common Slavic'', noting when there is slight dialectal variation. It also covers ''Late Common Slavic'' when there are significant developments that are shared (more or less) identically among all Slavic languages. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Proto-Slavic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|