Old Novgorod Dialect - Linguistic Features

Linguistic Features

The short birch-bark texts are written in a peculiar Slavic vernacular, reflecting living speech, and almost entirely free of the heavy Church Slavonic influence seen in the literary language of the period. Some of the observed linguistic features are not found in any other Slavic dialect, representing important Proto-Slavic archaisms.

Zaliznyak differentiates amongst Old Novgorod features that were already known before the discovery of birch bark letters, and those that have been ascertained after their study during the last few decades. Features previously known were:

1. tsokanye
2. the secondary pleophony, i. e. мълъвити as opposed to мълвити
3. retention of /x/ in the root of the word "весь", i. e. вьхо
4. lack of the Slavic second palatalization in root-final position, i. e. рукѣ, моги
5. the change vl’ > l’, i. e. Яколь, Яковлев
6. nominative singular masculine of o-stems -e, i. e. Иване, посаднике, хлѣбе
7. genitive singular of а-stems in -ě i. e. бес кунѣ
8. nominoaccusative plural of а-stems in -ě, i. e. кобылѣ, сиротѣ

Features of the Old Novgorod dialect ascertained by the philological study in the last decades are:

1. lack of the second palatalization in root-initial position, i. e. кѣл-, хѣр-
2. a particular reflex of *CъRC clusters, i. e. млъви versus мълви
3. a particular reflex of *CоRC clusters, i. e. погродье versus погородие
4. the change ml’ > n’, i. e. емлючи > енючи
5. no merger of nominative and accusative singular of masculines regardless of animacy, i. e. N sg. погосте : A sg. на погостъ
6. Proto-Slavic *kv, *gv clusters were retained (like in West Slavic languages) instead of being transformed to cv, zv before front vowels like in other East Slavic dialects

Often the orthography is domestic (as opposed to bookish), using ъ and о on the one hand and ь and е on the other synonymously (about 50% of birch-bark documents from the mid-12th to the late 14th century).