The Dregoviches , also called the Dregovichi , were an East Slavic tribal union. They inhabited the territories along the lower Pripyat River and the northern parts of the right bank of the Dnieper River (more exact extents of the tribe's domain are still unknown).
30-627: The name of the tribe most probably derives from the Proto-Slavic word "*drъgъva" (found only in Southern Belarusian as "dregva" and Northern Ukrainian as "dragva, dryagva", which is a loanword from Baltic languages "dreguva" meaning ' swamp '), because the Dregoviches used to live in the marshlands . Linguists consider that they are "undoubtedly" related to a South Slavic tribe with a similar name, Drougoubitai . The first known reference to
60-439: A distinction between two pitch accents, traditionally called "acute" and "circumflex" accent. The acute accent was pronounced with rising intonation, while the circumflex accent had a falling intonation. Short vowels (*e *o *ь *ъ) had no pitch distinction, and were always pronounced with falling intonation. Unaccented (unstressed) vowels never had tonal distinctions, but could still have length distinctions. These rules are similar to
90-715: A late-period variant, representing the late 9th-century dialect spoken around Thessaloniki ( Solun ) in Macedonia , is attested in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts. Proto-Slavic is descended from the Proto-Balto-Slavic branch of the Proto-Indo-European language family, which is the ancestor of the Baltic languages , e.g. Lithuanian and Latvian . Proto-Slavic gradually evolved into the various Slavic languages during
120-541: A macron above the letter, while in the latter it is not clearly indicated. The following table explains these differences: For consistency, all discussions of words in Early Slavic and before (the boundary corresponding roughly to the monophthongization of diphthongs , and the Slavic second palatalization ) use the common Balto-Slavic notation of vowels. Discussions of Middle and Late Common Slavic, as well as later dialects, use
150-473: Is slight dialectal variation. It also covers Late Common Slavic when there are significant developments that are shared (more or less) identically among all Slavic languages. Two different and conflicting systems for denoting vowels are commonly in use in Indo-European and Balto-Slavic linguistics on the one hand, and Slavic linguistics on the other. In the first, vowel length is consistently distinguished with
180-484: Is the unattested , reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages . It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th century AD . As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; scholars have reconstructed the language by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic languages and by taking into account other Indo-European languages . Rapid development of Slavic speech occurred during
210-554: The Pan-Slavist movement. Among the first scholars to use the term was Josef Dobrovský (1753–1829). The history of Slavic studies can be divided into three periods. Until 1876 the early Slavists concentrated on documentation and printing of monuments of Slavic languages, among them the first texts written in national languages. At this time the majority of Slavic languages received their first modern dictionaries, grammars, and compendia. The second period, ending with World War I, featured
240-516: The Severians and Krivichians , it was suggested these are the same people as the Dregoviches. By the 12th century, they were assimilated into the main East Slavic peoples . The chronicles do not tell historians much about the Dregoviches. We only know that they had their own princely rule in the city of Turov . In the 10th century, the lands of the Dregoviches became a part of Kievan Rus and later
270-968: The Turov Principality . The northwestern part of the land of the Dregoviches became a part of the Polotsk Principality . This article about Belarusian history is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Ukrainian history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Proto-Slavic Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl. , PS. ; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic )
300-575: The Dregoviches is in the Primary Chronicle , where they are listed among the 12 tribes. However, there is a reference in the De Administrando Imperio of Constantine Porphyrogenitus to "δρουγουβίται", "Drougoubitai". Since the reference appears in a passage describing the "Druguvitai" as one of the Slavic peoples who pay tribute to the princes of Kievan Rus' , and they are named alongside
330-519: The Proto-Slavic period, coinciding with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Dialectal differentiation occurred early on during this period, but overall linguistic unity and mutual intelligibility continued for several centuries, into the 10th century or later. During this period, many sound changes diffused across the entire area, often uniformly. This makes it inconvenient to maintain
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#1732869869563360-552: The Proto-Slavic/Common Slavic time of linguistic unity roughly into three periods: Authorities differ as to which periods should be included in Proto-Slavic and in Common Slavic. The language described in this article generally reflects the middle period, usually termed Late Proto-Slavic (sometimes Middle Common Slavic ) and often dated to around the 7th to 8th centuries. This language remains largely unattested, but
390-515: The Slavic notation. For Middle and Late Common Slavic, the following marks are used to indicate tone and length distinctions on vowels, based on the standard notation in Serbo-Croatian : There are multiple competing systems used to indicate prosody in different Balto-Slavic languages. The most important for this article are: The following is an overview of the phonemes that are reconstructible for Middle Common Slavic. Middle Common Slavic had
420-525: The South Slavic languages, as well as Czech and Slovak, tended to preserve the syllabic sonorants, but in the Lechitic languages (such as Polish) and Bulgarian, they fell apart again into vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel combinations. In East Slavic, the liquid diphthongs in *ь or *ъ may have likewise become syllabic sonorants, but if so, the change was soon reversed, suggesting that it may never have happened in
450-498: The United States, Slavic studies is dominated by Russian studies . Ewa Thompson , a professor of Slavic studies at Rice University , described the situation of non-Russian Slavic studies as "invisible and mute". Slavistics emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, simultaneously with Romantic nationalism among various Slavic nations, and ideological attempts to establish a common sense of Slavic community, exemplified by
480-448: The accent (moved it to the preceding syllable). This occurred at a time when the Slavic-speaking area was already dialectally differentiated, and usually syllables with the acute and/or circumflex accent were shortened around the same time. Hence it is unclear whether there was ever a period in any dialect when there were three phonemically distinct pitch accents on long vowels. Nevertheless, taken together, these changes significantly altered
510-452: The accent was free and thus phonemic; it could occur on any syllable and its placement was inherently a part of the word. The accent could also be either mobile or fixed, meaning that inflected forms of a word could have the accent on different syllables depending on the ending, or always on the same syllable. Common Slavic vowels also had a pitch accent . In Middle Common Slavic, all accented long vowels, nasal vowels and liquid diphthongs had
540-617: The beginning of the syllable. By the beginning of the Late Common Slavic period, all or nearly all syllables had become open as a result of developments in the liquid diphthongs . Syllables with liquid diphthongs beginning with *o or *e had been converted into open syllables, for example *TorT became *TroT, *TraT or *ToroT in the various daughter languages. The main exception are the Northern Lechitic languages ( Kashubian , extinct Slovincian and Polabian ) only with lengthening of
570-463: The distribution of the pitch accents and vowel length, to the point that by the end of the Late Common Slavic period almost any vowel could be short or long, and almost any accented vowel could have falling or rising pitch. Most syllables in Middle Common Slavic were open . The only closed syllables were those that ended in a liquid (*l or *r), forming liquid diphthongs, and in such syllables,
600-504: The first place. Slavicist Slavic ( American English ) or Slavonic ( British English ) studies , also known as Slavistics , is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was primarily a linguist or philologist researching Slavistics. Increasingly, historians, social scientists, and other humanists who study Slavic cultures and societies have been included in this rubric. In
630-479: The following vowel system ( IPA symbol where different): The columns marked "central" and "back" may alternatively be interpreted as "back unrounded" and "back rounded" respectively, but rounding of back vowels was distinctive only between the vowels *y and *u. The other back vowels had optional non-distinctive rounding. The vowels described as "short" and "long" were simultaneously distinguished by length and quality in Middle Common Slavic, although some authors prefer
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#1732869869563660-450: The latter half of the first millennium AD, concurrent with the explosive growth of the Slavic-speaking area. There is no scholarly consensus concerning either the number of stages involved in the development of the language (its periodization ) or the terms used to describe them. One division is made up of three periods: Another division is made up of four periods: This article considers primarily Middle Common Slavic, noting when there
690-599: The least in Russian and the most in Czech. Palatalized consonants never developed in Southwest Slavic (modern Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian), and the merger of *ľ *ň *ř with *l *n *r did not happen before front vowels (although Serbian and Croatian later merged *ř with *r). As in its ancestors, Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Indo-European, one syllable of each Common Slavic word was accented (carried more prominence). The placement of
720-414: The preceding vowel had to be short. Consonant clusters were permitted, but only at the beginning of a syllable. Such a cluster was syllabified with the cluster entirely in the following syllable, contrary to the syllabification rules that are known to apply to most languages. For example, *bogatьstvo "wealth" was divided into syllables as * bo-ga-tь-stvo , with the whole cluster * -stv- at
750-557: The rapid development of Slavic philology and linguistics, most notably outside of Slavic countries themselves, in the circles formed around August Schleicher (1821–1868) and around August Leskien (1840–1916) at the University of Leipzig . At this time, Slavonic scholars focused on dialectology . After World War II, centers of Slavic studies were created at various universities around the world, with much greater expansion into other humanities and social science disciplines. This development
780-470: The restrictions that apply to the pitch accent in Slovene . In the Late Common Slavic period, several sound changes occurred. Long vowels bearing the acute (long rising) accent were usually shortened, resulting in a short rising intonation. Some short vowels were lengthened, creating new long falling vowels. A third type of pitch accent developed, known as the "neoacute", as a result of sound laws that retracted
810-460: The syllable and no metathesis (*TarT, e.g. PSl. gordъ > Kashubian gard ; > Polabian * gard > gord ). In West Slavic and South Slavic, liquid diphthongs beginning with *ь or *ъ had likewise been converted into open syllables by converting the following liquid into a syllabic sonorant (palatal or non-palatal according to whether *ь or *ъ preceded respectively). This left no closed syllables at all in these languages. Most of
840-491: The terms "lax" and "tense" instead. Many modern Slavic languages have since lost all length distinctions. Vowel length evolved as follows: In § Grammar below, additional distinctions are made in the reconstructed vowels: Middle Common Slavic had the following consonants (IPA symbols where different): The phonetic value (IPA symbol) of most consonants is the same as their traditional spelling. Some notes and exceptions: In most dialects, non-distinctive palatalization
870-447: The traditional definition of a proto-language as the latest reconstructable common ancestor of a language group, with no dialectal differentiation. (This would necessitate treating all pan-Slavic changes after the 6th century or so as part of the separate histories of the various daughter languages.) Instead, Slavicists typically handle the entire period of dialectally differentiated linguistic unity as Common Slavic . One can divide
900-576: Was probably present on all consonants that occurred before front vowels. When the high front yer *ь/ĭ was lost in many words, it left this palatalization as a "residue", which then became distinctive, producing a phonemic distinction between palatalized and non-palatalized alveolars and labials. In the process, the palatal sonorants *ľ *ň *ř merged with alveolar *l *n *r before front vowels, with both becoming *lʲ *nʲ *rʲ. Subsequently, some palatalized consonants lost their palatalization in some environments, merging with their non-palatal counterparts. This happened
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