The role of the Church Slavonic language in the formation and development of Russian speech culture

Abstract

The article examines the role of Church Slavonic in the formation and development of Russian speech culture. The first monuments of Slavic writing were created by the first teachers Cyril and Methodius as translations of Greek liturgical books. In linguistics, this language is called Old Church Slavonic. Basically, it reflects the Old Bulgarian language, which was spoken by people from the city of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki) - the birthplace of Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius. Old Church Slavonic plays the role of a common Slavic literary language, because it belongs to a single Slavic culture. Since the 11th century, several editions or versions of this language have appeared, which reflect the living linguistic environment of their peoples: Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, etc. It is this Old Church Slavonic language, imbued with the features of local Slavic speech, that is commonly called Church Slavonic. Naturally, the Church Slavonic language has undergone significant changes compared to the Old Church Slavonic language of the era of Cyril and Methodius: for example, it lost nasal vowels. Church Slavonic had a special influence on the formation of the spiritual culture of the Russian people. The author comes to the conclusion that Church Slavonic is a powerful reserve and source of spiritual semantic, sound-formative, word-formative and stylistic enrichment of the Russian literary language.