Old Belarusian Language - Development

Development

The emergence of the Old Belarusian literary language as a separate linguistic entity and beginning of its documented development as such, are dated back to the 14th century, with further development taking place in 15th, and the "pinnacle of the development" reached in 16th century. In the 2nd half 16th — 1st half 17th century, several attempts of codification of the Old Belarusian language were made. The most notable of them were grammar and elementary reading by Ivan Fyodorov (1574, 1578), grammar by Lavrentiy Zizaniy (1596) and grammar by Ivan Uzhevich (1645).

However, the characteristically Belarusian phonological influences are noted in local Old Church Slavonic texts dating back to mid. 11th century, and the earliest known literacy artifact, showing the distinctive features of the Old Belarusian language, is the Charters of Smolensk (Belarusian: «Смаленскія граматы»), dating back to 1229.

The formation of the Old Belarusian took effect under the powerful influence of the Old Church Slavonic literary tradition, and was based on the local East Slavonic dialects ("Western branch of Middle Russian dialects", as put by Karskiy), initially chiefly on those of the Polatsk—Smolensk region, with center of influence subsequently moving westwards, to the Middle Belarusian dialects, then to the dialects of Vilnia (Vilnius) region.

While the literary language had gradually become, to an extent, artificial, still the vernacular language had been preserving the relative purity, with the literary language permanently drawing upon the vernacular.

The major factor in the Old Belarusian development after the end 14th century was the Polonization, developing in the Grand Duchy lands, and spreading from the upper toward the middle classes, and taking strong hold in the mid. 15th century, already. The Latin and German influences were also prominent in the vocabulary of the literary language. In the 1st half 17th century, certain Ukrainian influence was noticed after the Polonisation successes in Belarusian lands, and center of Orthodox printing moving to Kiev in the early 17th century

The phonology and morphology of the Old Belarusian reached stabilisation in the 16th century, including such features, which were both absent before and characteristic to the Belarusian. Among the most prominent phonological were "akanye", developed c. 14th century, and "shortening of u", developed c. early 13th century. The morphology developed sporadic Old Belarusian particularities in the 14th – 15th cent already.

The syntax and lexics continued changing after the 16th century, with the literary language being strongly influenced by the Polish language, especially in the 16th–17th centuries. It is considered that the vernacular language was relatively free in that aspect, and differed in its syntax and, especially, in its lexicon.