From Bvio

The '''Old Ruthenian language''' (also known as '''Old Russian language '''and '''Late Old East Slavic''') is the name for a language spoken between 10th and 16th century in large part of the Central and Eastern Europe. It was a predecessor of most modern Eastern Slavic languages and was closely related to South Slavic Old Macedonian. {| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300" ! colspan="2" bgcolor="lawngreen" style="font-size:120%"|Old Ruthenian |- | valign="top"|Spoken in: |Eastern Europe |- | valign="top"|Region: | -- |- | valign="top"|Total speakers: |Extinct |- | valign="top"|Ranking: | -- |- | valign="top"|Genetic
classification: |Indo-European
 Slavic
  South
   Eastern
    '''Old Ruthenian''' |- ! colspan="2" bgcolor="lawngreen"|Official status |- | valign="top"|Official language of: | valign="top"|historical: Kievan Ruthenia, Lithuania, Muscovy, Novgorod, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth |- | valign="top"|Regulated by: | valign="top"| -- |} ==Description== The language, although not codified was a direct descendant of the Old Church Slavonic language mixed with many local and borrowed words. Its dialects were spoken, though not exclusively, roughly in the area today occupied by European part of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Poland and Lithuania. Between 10th and 16th centuries it was also an official language of most of the states occupying the area of historical Ruthenia: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Muscovy, Republic of Novgorod, Kievan Ruthenia and finally the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The language was formed on the substrate of the Old Church Slavonic, but with significant influence of many other languages (including local dialects of the earlier common Slavic language, Mongolian, Turkish and Polish). With time it evolved into several more diversified forms, which were the predecessors of the modern Belarusian, Russian, Ruthenian and Ukrainian languages. As such it is often referred to as '''Old Russian''', '''Old Ukrainian''' or '''Old Belarusan'''. Each of the aforementioned languages preserved much of the Old Ruthenian grammar and vocabulary. It was also heavily influenced by the Church Slavonic language. It is impossible to consider this language standardised in the modern sense. The spoken language in Rus' consisted of a variety of dialects, and today we may speak definitely only of the languages of surviving manuscripts, which from the earliest stages (10th or 11th centuries) show regional divergences. However, the written sources are very scarce and provide little information for the scientists. Surviving literary works are almost entirely on the theme of Christianity, the state religion in Kievan Rus' after 988 and therefore contain a large number of borrowed words from Greek and Latin languages. The surviving purely secular writing, such as the Novgorod letters on birch-bark (called Latopisy) and inscriptions on coins or memorial markers are in general too short to provide more than hints about linguistic development and the structure of the language. ==Notable texts== * ''Latopises'' * ''Bylinas'' * ''The Tale of Igor's Campaign'' - one of the most outstanding literary work in this language * ''Russkaya Pravda'' - 11th century legal code issued by Yaroslav the Wise * ''Praying of Daniel the Immured'' * ''A Journey Beyond the Three Seas'' ==See also:== * Russian language * Ukrainian language * Belarusian language ==Related topics:== * East Slavic languages * Slavic languages pl:Język staroruski uk:Давньоукраїнська мова