Talk:Old Novgorod dialect

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I don't understand why this article contains the text of birch bark letter Novgorod 109. There isn't a single typical Novgorod feature in it.

• Nsg. masc. in -ъ: коупилъ, възалъ
• Apl. masc. in -ы: съводы

I would also like to add that the бытовая графическая традиция is not specifically Novgorodian. The spelling of Zvenyhorod 2, Vitsebsk 1, and other texts is also бытовой. Xyboi 17:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, http://gramoty.ru/dnd/a14.pdf states: Таким образом, грамота № 109 не имеет никаких однозначных признаков др.-новг. диалекта. ("So, letter 109 contains no definite charactristics of Old Novgorodian dialect") —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.143.166.253 (talk) 09:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

@Ghirlandajo / second palatalization & MR

@Ghirlandajo: I guess what the author pointed to is the absence of the second palatalization in all instances and the absence of the progressive (or third) palatalization in some. Since these palatalizations were consired to be a Common Slavic development (and have, indeed, operated in ALL Slavic languages - the second palatalization only partly in all of West Slavic) and the Old Novgorod/Pskov dialects lack it, there is reason to assume a seperate branch. The issue is somewhat problematic, but archaic (i.e. non-palatalized, not innovated by palatalization) forms like kěl- and vьх- do make clear that a homogenous Common East Slavic can never have existed.

Ilmen Slavs are thought to have moved into Novgorod region and further to Beloozero and Rostov from the nothern areas of modern-day Poland. So the distinct features of their dialect should have been explained by its proximity to Polish dialects. Which doesn't justify your conclusion that "a homogenous Common East Slavic can never have existed". Since every language has dialects, there are no homogenous languages at all. Anyway, a separate article on North Slavic languages is prerequisite to adding any speculations on their features into other articles, including this one. --Ghirlandajo 13:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The issue is that the Old Novgorod dialect, as far as the palatalizations are concerned, is not divergent just of East Slavic, but of ALL of Slavic. The absence of progressive palatalization in vьx- cannot be explained by Polish (or West Slavic) influence, since Polish does palatalize in this instance. The same goes for kěl- and ruki. The only thing West Slavic and Old Novgorodian have in common is the absence of palatalization of *kv-, *gv- followed by a front vowel, which is a specific divergence of the common development in West Slavic, but much less specific in Novgorodian, since the development of which this particular palatalization is a part did not take place in Novgorodian AT ALL.

Indeed, every language has dialects, there is always some variety, but there are limits to the divergence. If one uses the term East Slavic, one assumes that the languages labeled as such have developed from some common stage, which does indeed not have to be entirely homogenous, but which does feature a number of specific developments the attested languages arisen from this stage share. Old Novgorodian does NOT share a number of important developments, which are not only Common East Slavic, but largely (except for kv/gv) Common Slavic.

Of course, the second palatalization could have been solved by analogy in alternating position, but not in word-initial position, simply because there is no model. This makes it far more likely to assume that there just wasn't a second palatalization in the language which developed into the Old Novgorod dialect. Xyboi 15:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we do not have any record of Old Polish or Old Czech, but Old Russian was well documented, see the bulk of Sreznevsky's dictionary for that. Therefore there is no ground to question its existence. I suppose that the number of dialectal characteristics of Old Novgorod developed as the time went by, so it is not a vestige of older languages, rather a sign of linguistic divergence which could have resulted in development of a new East Slavic language, on the par with Ukrainian or Belarusian. --Ghirlandajo 14:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

There a problem of chronology there. If all attested languages arisen from a certain common stage show an identical development, one has to assume that this development belongs to the proto-language. If Old Novgorodian has forms that correspond with the archaic situation, i.e. before the common palatalization took place, it is hardly likely to assume that this a result of a later development. Indeed, languages and dialects diverge all the time, like Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian did, and eventually became so different by dialect-specific developments that they can be viewed as seperate languages. All things happen, but one has to look at the nature of the divergence as well, for this is a major indication for the chronology of events. Xyboi 15:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

While I'm at it, I would also like to point out that the claim that the second palatalization is not attested in Modern Russian ("The second palatalization, characteristic of all other Slavic languages except Modern Russian") is incorrect or at least misleading. Indeed, Modern Russian lacks palatalized forms in alternating position (within a paradigm), but this is because these cases were solved by analogy - Old Russian (non Novgorod) texts do show palatalized forms in the expected cases. MR does, however, feature forms like целый, which would have been something like *келый, had the second palatalization not taken place. Xyboi 13:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Xyboi, you are free to modify the ridiculous claim, provided that you cite appropriate sources. --Ghirlandajo 14:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I will think about a new formulation. Xyboi 15:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK, 2nd palatalization didn't operate in Russian only on morpheme boundary position (in front of flexional endings). Sorry but saying that it's "not attested in modern Russian" is simply untrue. Russisn цена < Late Proto-Slavic *cěna < Early Proto-Slavic=Proto-Balto-Slavic *kayna < PIE *kʷoyneh₂. Old Novgorod dialect wouldn't have had that k>c change!
2nd palatalization itself is approx. dated from the end of 6th century to the middle of 7th century, spreading from the Slavic South. Unlike the e.g. 1st palatalization, it was not a Common Slavic change, and though is usually taken into account when talking about 6-th century "Late-Proto-Slavic", it was not really a pan-Slavic change. post-6th century Slavic sound changes acted upon already differentiated Slavic dialects (that were more or less mutually intelligible for a few centuries to come).
"Sout Slavic", "West Slavic" and "East Slavic" divisions are based on geographical not linguistic criteria. One can find many ancient isoglosses connecting East-West Slavic, West-South Slavic or East-South Slavic not occurring in the other branch. That fact cannot be emphasized enough. It's very sad to see people talking about "Proto-East Slavic" or "Common East Slavic". That language never existed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, the 2nd palatalisation did operate in Old Russian (Old East Slavic proper) regardless of morpheme boundaries (the dative and locative of рука ruka being руцѣ rucě), while seeming lack of palatalisation in Modern Russian (such as dative/prepositional руке ruke) is really due to analogy.

Old Russian only started to develop regional dialectal differences foreshadowing the modern East Slavic dialects/languages between the 11th and 13th centuries – earlier dialectal differences appear to have been erased as East Slavic absorbed all other Early Slavic dialects in the region, with the exception of the Old Novgorod dialect, which was conspicuously divergent already in the 11th century and thus cannot be derived from Old Russian – i. e., East Slavic proper. So I agree that Old Novgorodian should not be classified as "East Slavic". But if we exclude Old Novgorodian and unrecorded early Slavic dialects divergent from Old East Slavic proper, it is justified to view Old East Slavic (Old Russian, the "mainstream" dialect of the Kievan Rus') in the 10th or 11th century as Proto-East-Slavic, effectively. It is probably true that a coherent "Proto-West-Slavic" or "Proto-South-Slavic" dialect never existed, but the situation of East Slavic is somewhat different. By the way, it is worth noting that the modern traditional dialects of the Novgorod–Pskov region, as well as apparently the Pomor dialects, still retain lexicon from the Old Novgorodian substrate, showing characteristic features of this dialect, even though these modern dialects derive from Old East Slavic proper, so the bulk of the lexicon does not show these divergent features, as far as I know. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Re. Omega in 2.2.1

Shouldn't the Cyrillic Omega (ѡ) be used instead of the Greek one? It Is Me Here (talk) 19:54, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Linguistic features - ъ ~ о and ь ~ е

The sentence "The orthography is also very special, using ъ and о on the one hand and ь and е on the other synonymously" could be made better. Rather than orthography, one should say spelling (orthography means 'correct spelling' or 'spelling norm'; and the pecularity in question is certainly more a question of pronunciation than of spelling norm). Rather than synonymously, the wiki contributor probably meant equivalently or indiscriminately. But even so that would probably not be correct: I am sure that the Novgorod writers would still use the (etymologically) "right" vowel letter more often than the "wrong" one. So one can speak on inconsistency in usage or something. Unfortunately I know not enough about the Novgorod texts to suggest a correction. Note also spellings such as солова (twice) for слова in the second example (no. 497), where the first о doesn't even stand for an expected ъ, but stands for zero. --Zxly (talk) 15:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Is this a language or a dialect?

Indo-European Tree

GoreGrindGeek (talk) 14:29, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Linguistically, there's no difference. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. CodeCat (talk) 14:54, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Savignac

Russchron, I saw that you've added a work by Savignac to the Soruces section. This section is supposed to contain the sources cited in the article and I don't see references to any of Savignac's articles. If in fact some information is referenced to these article, please add inline references. Alaexis_¿question? 16:58, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Novgorod name?

@Lokys dar Vienas, I seen that you deleted native name of Novgorod dialect as "OR". I don't understand why you classified this as original research, while this gramota is described in scientific literature – this page used as reference contains two fragments of works which describe it. Wojsław Brożyna (talk) 09:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, gramota is described. But the gramta does not mention the name of the language. Lokys dar Vienas (talk) 17:57, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Gramota mentions the adjective refered to Novgorod. The language of Novgorodians is named by an adjective refered to Novgorod per se – this is how language names works. As long as you cannot prove that the Medieval Novgorodians did not use this adjective to their language, it has to be that adjective. Wojsław Brożyna (talk) 18:29, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

You got it upside down: the template data says:

| nativename = новъгородьске (Novŭgorodĭske)

But we do not know what the native name was, if there was at all. And I do not have to prove anything; that's you have to prove the name, because it is you who adds information. Lokys dar Vienas (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of Novegradian language

This conang does not have significant coverage. Also, the conference paper explicitly says that it is marginal. Therefore it does not have encyclopedic value. Lokys dar Vienas (talk) 18:00, 25 May 2023 (UTC)