starýchslavanský

Staroslověnština, often referred to as staro-slavonic or Old Church Slavonic (OCS), is the first literary Slavic language. It was created in the 9th century by the Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius. Their primary goal was to translate religious texts into a language that could be understood by the Slavic peoples of the Great Moravian Empire. To achieve this, they developed the Glagolitic alphabet, which was then later simplified into the Cyrillic alphabet.

The language itself was based on the dialect spoken by Slavic tribes in the vicinity of Thessaloniki. While OCS served as a liturgical and literary language, it was not spoken in its pure form by any specific Slavic population. Instead, it acted as a supra-dialectal form, influencing and being influenced by various vernacular Slavic dialects. This led to the development of regional recensions of Old Church Slavonic, such as Old Bulgarian, Old Serbian, and Old Russian.

Despite its artificial creation, Staroslověnština had a profound and lasting impact on the development of all subsequent Slavic languages. It provided a rich vocabulary and grammatical structures that were adopted and adapted by East, West, and South Slavic languages. Its legacy can be seen in the shared roots and similarities that still exist between modern Slavic tongues. Although it eventually ceased to be a living spoken language, its importance as the foundation of Slavic literature and culture remains undeniable.