Proto-Slavic Language - Introduction

Introduction

The ancestor of Proto-Slavic is Proto-Balto-Slavic, which is also the ancestor of the Baltic languages, e.g. Lithuanian and Latvian. This language in turn is descended from Proto-Indo-European, the parent language of the vast majority of European languages (including English, German, Spanish, French, etc.). Proto-Slavic gradually evolved into the various Slavic languages during the latter half of the first millennium CE, 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. For consistency and convenience, this article and the article on the history of the Slavic languages adopt the following scheme. See history of the Slavic languages for further discussion of the historical and linguistic development of Proto-Slavic from Proto-Balto-Slavic, and the further development of Proto-Slavic into the modern Slavic languages.

1. Pre-Slavic (c. 1500 BCE — 300 CE): A long, stable period of gradual development. The most significant phonological developments during this period involved the prosodic system, e.g. tonal and other register distinctions on syllables.
2. Early Common Slavic or simply Early Slavic (c. 300 — 600 CE): The early, uniform stage of Common Slavic, but also the beginning of a longer period of rapid phonological change. As there are no dialectal distinctions reconstructible from this period or earlier, this is the period for which a single common ancestor (that is, "Proto-Slavic proper") can be reconstructed.
3. Middle Common Slavic (c. 600 — 800 CE): The stage with the earliest identifiable dialectal distinctions. Rapid phonological change continued, although with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Although some dialectal variation did exist, most sound changes were still uniform and consistent in their application. By the end of this stage, the vowel and consonant phonemes of the language were largely the same as those still found in the modern languages. For this reason, reconstructed "Proto-Slavic" forms commonly found in scholarly works and etymological dictionaries normally correspond to this period.
4. Late Common Slavic (c. 800 — 1000 CE, although perhaps through c. 1150 CE in Kievan Rus', in the far northeast): The last stage in which the whole Slavic-speaking area still functioned as a single language, with sound changes normally propagating throughout the entire area, although often with significant dialectal variation in the details.

This article considers primarily Middle Common Slavic, noting when there 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.