Slavic language identification request

[ekeme_ndiba]

Which languages are these?

(1) History of Different Slavic Peoples by J. Rajic (1823)
(2) Bulgarian History by Chrysanth of Dupnitsa (1844)

I'd classify both as Church Slavonic. However, the former seems to be influenced by Russian, and the latter has typical Bulgarian grammatical features similar to those of Modern Greek («за да видите вы» = «για να

Comments

[5x6]

You confuse me. I know you are a native Russian speaker and I thought you were a linguist, how in the world could you possibly be calling the former example Church Slavonic? It bears no resemblance neither to Church Slavonic, nor even to Old Russian, it is modern Russian, albeit not contemporary but typical of, say, 1700s (maybe 1600s, but not much earlier). There is not even a single past tense form besides the reduced perfect, a hallmark of the modern Russian.

The latter may be Church Slavonic, but to me it looks like a mix between the real Old Slavonic and one or more modern Slavic languages (note total absence of yuses, for instance), but I am definitely not an expert enough to say with any confidence.

[13chapters]

I am definitely not an expert, but I do speak Bulgarian (not as a native speaker) and I can read the second one pretty easily. I am really intrigued by it! It has quite a few aspects I associate with Russian (which I've studied, but don't really speak very well), like cases, the letter ы, and words ending in ъ.

Irrespective of the language, I am also pretty delighted that this guy decided that a history of Bulgaria had to start with Noah's flood. I mean, it just makes sense if you think about it, I guess.

"Japeth had seven sons...the sixth one was Mosoh. From him descended the Cappadocians, the Misini (?), the Russians, the Illyrians, and all of the Slavic nations...Mosoh travelled from Babylon through Asia and into Europe above the shore of the Black Sea, where he built his city." It turns out Mosoh was also the forefather of the Muscovites, Lehi (?? Lithuanians maybe?), Bulgarians, Boemtsi (?), Hungarians, Serbs, Dalmatians, Croatians, Herzegovians, Montenegrins, Slovenians, and Venetians.

This book is GOLD.

[13chapters]

Ah, thanks! Hungarians and Venetians aren't Slavs either, so I didn't think that was necessary.

[ekeme_ndiba]

Final yers were written in Bulgarian until 1945 as well: езикъ, царь (and since ь didn't affect pronunciation, unlike Russian, it was often confused with ъ).

«Лехи» are Poles, «боемцы» are Bohemians (i.e. Czechs).

[13chapters]

Until 1945, really! I have seen them on old plaques (like on statues and in churches) in Bulgaria, so I knew that they were used in the past, but I didn't realize it was that recent. Interesting!

[ekeme_ndiba]

The document (1) is an example of written language widely used in contemporary Russia indeed. Yes, it's very heavily influenced by Russian in both vocabulary and grammar. But still this doesn't make it Russian per se:
- inflectional endings are Church Slavonic, they also consistently induce second palatalization of final stem consonants,
- consistent South Slavic liquid metathesis without any occasional pleophonic Russian forms,
- South Slavic reflex of *tj/*dj,
- yes, perfect prevails, still aorist is also used, and even traces of imperfect are visible («весма осилѣли бяху» - cf. «прежде отлучени быша»),
- inflected participle in dative absolute constructions, etc, etc,
Thus I wouldn't be that straightforward.