The Slavonic Languages (Routledge Language Family Descriptions) (Paperback)

by Bernard Comrie (Author)
Key Phrases: basic color terms, émigré languages, buv tam, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Middle Low German (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'Each chapter has been written by an acknowledged specialist in the particular language. The chapters are highly structured, with each author providing detailed information on the same important topics ... The happy result is that we end up with 18 books in one volume ... Not only does this book provide an up-to-date survey of current knowledge for Slavists the volume is also a source of reference for all others with an interest in the Slavonic family.' - Language International

'The present volume is certainly comprehensive. The editors are to be congratulated on these innovative features. This book is clearly an outstanding achievement: it will quickly become a standard work, which will not be superseded for a very long time to come.' - J.A. Dunn, University of Glasgow

'This is a comprehensive and much needed reference book on Slavonic Languages. The comprehensiveness of the undertaking is unquestionable.' - International Review of Applied Linguistics

'Well made, very legible, and weighty both in grammes and erudition, this addition to the Routledge Reference series on language families will be welcomed by specialists in Slavonic studies ... a thoroughly modern conspectus of a vast and demanding discipline ... This impressive, useful work deserves a home in all reference libraries.' - Reference Reviews

Each chapter has been written by an acknowledged specialist in the particular language. The chapters are highly structured, with each author providing detailed information on the same important topics ... The happy result is that we end up with 18 books in one volume ... Not only does this book provide an up-to-date survey of current knowledge for Slavists the volume is also a source of reference for all others with an interest in the Slavonic family. - Language International

The present volume is certainly comprehensive. The editors are to be congratulated on these innovative features. This book is clearly an outstanding achievement: it will quickly become a standard work, which will not be superseded for a very long time to come. - J.A. Dunn, University of Glasgow

This is a comprehensive and much needed reference book on Slavonic Languages. The comprehensiveness of the undertaking is unquestionable. - International Review of Applied Linguistics

Well made, very legible, and weighty both in grammes and erudition, this addition to the Routledge Reference series on language families will be welcomed by specialists in Slavonic studies ... a thoroughly modern conspectus of a vast and demanding discipline ... This impressive, useful work deserves a home in all reference libraries. - Reference Reviews

Product Description
In this scholarly volume, each of the living Slavonic languages are analyzed and described in depth, together with the two extinct languages--Old Church Slavonic and Polabian. In addition, the various alphabets of the Slavonic languages--especially Roman, Cyrillic, and Glagolitic--are discussed, and the relationships of the Slavonic languages to other Indo-European languages and to one another, are explored. The last chapter provides an account of those Slavonic languages in exile such as Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, and Slovak in the US.

Each language chapter is written by an expert in the field, in a format designed for comparative study. Information on each language includes an introductory description of social context and development, a discussion of phonology, a detailed presentation of synchronic morphology, noting major historical developments, comprehensive treatment of syntactic properties, a discussion of vocabulary, an outline of main dialects, and an extensive bibliography listing English and other sources.

Contributors include P. Cubberley, University of Melbourne, A. Schenker, Yale University, D. Short, University of London, G. Stone, University of Oxford, and A. Rothstein, University of Massachusetts.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1092 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; New edition edition (July 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415280788
• ISBN-13: 978-0415280785
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,154,588 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Ever Penny, February 2, 2005

By	Blah (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Like most language books this one is pretty expensive. However, the price is well worth it if you have an interest in multiple slavic (or slavonic) languages. This book is primarily for linguists but would be interesting for anyone with a love for languages. There is some technical jargon but not too much. I myself am not a linguist but was able to understand quite easily.

The book contains chapters on fourteen languages including the following: PRoto-Slavonic, Old Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Polish, Cassubian, Polabian, Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian. Each Chapter contains six sections as follows: 1. Introduction/history of the language 2.Phonology 3. Morphology 4. Syntax 5. Lexiography 6. Dialects

Each of the chapters is written by a different expert. I found the Bulgarian and the Serbo-Croatian section to be both helpful and complete conjugation charts and declension patterns are included in their respective languages. There is also a good discusions of similarities and differences between each of the languages. Overall you will not be able to find a more complete and percise grammar summary of all the slavic languages. This book is well worth your time and money.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful indeed, one of the best entries in this series, March 8, 2007

By	Christopher Culver - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGES, edited by Bernard Comrie and Greville G. Corbett, is one of the best installments in Routledge's Language Family Description series. Originally published in library binding in 1993, it is now available in significantly less expensive paperback, making it finally accessible to students of linguistics.

Comrie and Corbett contribute an Introduction giving a synchronic sketch of some of the general features of the Slavonic languages, such as aspect, rich nominal and verbal morphology, and various oppositions of palatalization. Paul Cubberly has written a chapter on alphabets and transliteration that ranges from the polemic history of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets up to modern literary reforms and 20th century Cyrillic-Latin conversion schema. A chapter on Proto-Slavonic appears from Alexander Schenker, esentially identical to the same chapter in his later book THE DAWN OF SLAVIC (Yale University Press, 1996), treating the evolution of Common Slavonic out of (late, NW) Proto-Indo-European. There's also a chapter on the Slavonic languages in emigration, continuing the trend in this series (as in THE GERMANIC LANGUAGES) of considering contemporary developments.

The Slavonic languages covered are Old Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croat, Slovene, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Polish, Cassubian, Polabian, Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian. One regrets the lack of Rusyn, but students can rejoice that Polabian is covered in as exhaustive a depth as possible considering its limited attestation, and Cassubian is treated in its own right instead of just getting a brief mention as a "dialect" in the Polish chapter. The treatment of each language varies somewhat, but all include basically the same ordering of grammatical points, synchronically treated, and a section on lexicon. Substantial diachronic details enter only in the chapters on Old Church Slavonic and Polabian. Obviously these can only be sketches, but the bibliographies will send readers off to more detailed descriptions of each language. For Old Church Slavonic, one would do well to add the primers of Schmalstieg (OLD CHURCH SLAVIC) and Nandris (HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC: I. Grammar) to the list David Huntley gives in his chapter.

There's very little I could find fault with in this volume. Since the material is from 1993, one might want more timely information on languages in flux such as Ukrainian and Belorussian. Also, if the book were updated, it would certainly be enriched by information on the Slavonic language one spoken in Pannonia (see e.g. Ronald Richard's monograph THE PANNONIAN DIALECT OF THE COMMON SLAVIC PROTO-LANGUAGE: The View from Old Hungarian published by UCLA in 2002). Nonetheless, this is the best reference currently out to the Slavonic language family in general, and merits a place in the home library of any student whose interests include comparative Indo-European linguistics or historical Slavonic philology.