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An Introduction to Old Church Slavic

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William Schmalstieg's AN INTRODUCTION TO OLD CHURCH SLAVIC is a primer of the earliest attested Slavonic language, vital for understanding the development of the Indo-European languages and the reconstruction of their common ancestor, and useful for studying the development of Christianity among the Slavs. In addition to a grammar synchronically tracking the development of Common Slavonic and Old Church Slavonic, it also includes a collection of readings so that students can put their knowledge to work with real texts.

The grammar is, for the most part, satisfying as a reference, though better introductions to the language can be found elsewhere. I was especially happy with his references to Lithuanian, since the possibly common heritage of the Baltic and Slavonic branches is a matter of great importance. While OCS works are normally given in Latin transliteration (retaining the yer letters from Cyrillic), tables of conjugation and declension use the Cyrillic alphabet, and there is also a small layout of the Glagolitic script.

Schmalstieg's work has some problems. Instead of presenting a normalized view of the language and saving matters of debate for later, he essentially begins the book by laying out every disagreement before he even presents the phonemic system which has sparked such polemic. I think that a student who has never studied OCS before would be quite lost for the first fifty pages of the work. Schmalstieg's style is also somewhat unpolished, the text did not make a complete transition from lecture notes to a text for the ages. Finally, the selection of texts is mostly Biblical, which won't test students fully because one already knows the English of such famous passages as the Sermon on the Mount; texts such as saints' lives or prayers would have been a bit more challenging.

An additional failing, which is by no means limited to Schmalstieg's primer, is that the work does not discuss the evolution of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals in the Slavonic branch. Schmalstieg wrote a paper in 1986 called "Monophthongizations--more probable than laryngeals!" which perhaps means that he does not even believe in their existence, but the time has come for an introduction to OCS that includes laryngeals in the view of the proto-language.

If you have no prior experience with this sexiest of early Indo-European languages, I would recommend Nandris' HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC I: Grammar (London: The Athlone Press, 1959). That a truly impressive work, equally useful as primer and as reference grammar, and written in a clear style all linguistics works should emulate. If you read Russian, Voylova's STAROSLAVJANSKIJ JAZYK is a good introduction as well. One might also mention the old chesnut that is Lunt's OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC GRAMMAR, but since its examination of the language is synchronic, it is of limited utility for the Indo-Europeanist. Schmalstieg's work is worth acquiring, but not as the very first textbook.

Note that the title of this book is "Introduction to Old Church Slavic", not "Old Church Slavonic." It is an exercise in historical linguistics. If that's your interest, it covers the subject in considerable depth and you'd be hard pressed to find another book written in English to do it so thoroughly.

However, if your interest is in reading Eastern Orthodox material, this book won't be much help, except in a very roundabout way. Be advised.