Customer Reviews

Russian Historical Grammar (London East European)

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W.K. Matthews' RUSSIAN HISTORICAL GRAMMAR, like most volumes of the London East European Series, is a delightfully clear and superbly typeset handbook of diachronic linguistics. The Russian language has had a long and continuously attested evolution, and Matthews has painstakingly combed through the myriad historical sources to present a picture of how it came to its modern form.

The work is split into two parts. The first is a "linguistic prehistory". This takes the reader from Proto-Indo-European through Common Slavonic, with a historical account of major events such as the mission of Sts Cyril and Methodius and a list of sources, up to a description of the grammar and lexicon of Old Russian (= Proto-East-Slavonic). While Matthews tries to write for a general audience, some basic knowledge of comparative Indo-European linguistics and of Old Church Slavonic is recommended. For OCS, a superb guide is Nandris & Auty's two-volume HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC.

The second part of the book is the historical study of the Russian language as most think of it, from the earliest specimens such as the Ostromir Gospels up to the first Soviet writers. As a student of Old Church Slavonic, it was fascinating to discover here how Old Russian abandoned the Common Slavonic verbal system, collapsing its many tenses into present and past, and developing a formal aspectual division. Of course, there is ample discussion of nominal morphology, phonological changes, and syntactic changes as well. The chapter devoted to lexical changes is substantial, listing terms from many subjects as they arise through loans or internal derivation until they are replaced by new terms.

Three appendixes follow the central material. The first is a collection of specimens of Russian prose from each period, the second is a history of the study of Russian historical grammar, and the third is a bibliography. The book closes with a Russian word index and a general index.

If you are interested in the historical study of the Slavonic languages, I heartily recommend finding a used copy of this RUSSIAN HISTORICAL GRAMMAR, and luckily it was reprinted several time and copies abound. Still, some knowledge of Russian, OCS, and the general theme of IE linguistics is necessary, too, so be sure to seek out resources for those.