User talk:Buncic

Hi Daniel. Welcome to Wikipedia. Thanks very much for your input on East Slavic languages. We've really needed it.

I'll get a few of the articles started, as you've outlined them in your summary. I'll put an "in use" notice at the top of some of them, so people know that they're looking at unfinished material. Please edit at will, and remove the in use notice when you're done.

—Michael Z. 17:31, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Well, that was easier than I thought. I've set up a stub at Ruthenian language, and disambiguation pages at Old Russian language and Old Ruthenian language. None of this should be at all controversial, since these pages already had similar functions as disambig or redirects. I'll have a look back late tonight, and see how I can help out. —Michael Z. 18:05, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)

Old East Slavic Language

The Russian term for this language in the period 950-1400 (+/-) is "древнерусский". Without exception, basically. "Древневосточнославянский", if used at all, denotes the dialect, proto-language, or whatever, in the period between the Common Slavonic breakup (whenever and whatever that was) and the earliest known written samples, which begin in the tenth century. Since there is no formal history or chronology before 852 (the earliest precise date in the Primary Chronicle), there is no basis for knowing the "national language" status of any of the dialects at this early period. The article is about the language in what is already the historical period. If the English term "Old East Slavic" must be used in Wikipedia to avoid biased edits by people who (a) believe that the omission of one s in Russian somehow makes it less applicable to Russian, (b) have in the past claimed Russian is descended from Bulgarian, (c) possess certain knowledge of the ethnic mixture in the region, and (d) do not know what full-voicing is -- so be it. But let us not invent terms in other languages. That goes against every policy here I am aware of. I'm changing the Russian designaion for "Old East Slavic" back.

Political centres are no match for precise linguisting evidence. The region that has provided the most samples from the earliest periods is not Kiev, but Novgorod, with the birch-bark letters. The Kievan Sviatoslav miscellanies of 1073 and 1076 are really Church-Slavonic, with E-Slavic influence. The earliest extant manuscript for the Kievan chronicles dates from 1377, was written in Suzdal, and kept in Vladimir — all places in the Muscovite region. Tedious political commentary aside, that fact surely should say something about cultural unity, in those days at least, and of "Russian" claims to "Rus", to the modern purveyors of historical wrongedness.

If you are who you say you are, you know all of this. If you have any scholarly integrity whatsoever, you should know better than to presume altering the standard terms in other languages, despite what your own emotional symapthies tell you.

My last point is cheap. Russians have no sensitivities to protect. Offending them God himself does ordain. :( A. Shetsen 17:33, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)