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Novgorod birch bark certificates, year 1185

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Novgorod birch bark certificates, year 1185

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The Old Russian language is currently considered a dead language. In the process of its development, it broke up into modern closely related languages - Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian. The modern genealogical classification of languages defines the Old Russian language as an East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family.

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Researchers define the time frame for the existence of the Old Russian language as the period from the 7th to the 15th centuries. It, in turn, is divided into:
Pre-literate period (VII-X centuries)
Written period (XI-XV centuries).
Since only single, uninformative inscriptions have survived to this day from the monuments of the pre-written period of the development of the Old Russian language, a holistic view of its history has developed only thanks to information from indirect sources.

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Distinctive linguistic features that can be noted among the Eastern Slavs, in contrast to the Western and Southern Slavs, are full harmony, the absence of nasal vowels, etc. For the most part, the grammatical and phonetic systems of the Old Russian language were inherited from Proto-Slavic.

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Characteristics and distinctive features of the Old Russian language.

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Characteristics and distinctive features of the Old Russian language.

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Old Russian writing was based on the Cyrillic alphabet, which was used as the alphabet for the Old Church Slavonic language. Another Old Slavonic alphabet - Glagolitic - was not used in Kievan Rus, which confirms the absence of finds of the corresponding literary monuments. The emergence and development of ancient Russian writing was inextricably linked with the adoption of Christianity in Russia. Many sacred books that were distributed in the East Slavic lands were translations from the original into the Old Slavonic language.
Written monuments of the Old Russian language were mainly preserved on the territory of the Novgorod land. The explanation for this lies both in historical (remoteness of Novgorod from the Mongol invasion), and in natural and climatic (in particular, soil quality) factors.