The Dawn of Slavic

Book excerpt: This unique book weaves linguistic, cultural, and historical themes together to form a concise and accessible account of the development of the Slavic languages. Alexander Schenker demonstrates that inquiry into early Slavic culture requires an understanding of history, language, and texts and that an understanding of early Slavic writing is incomplete outside the context of medieval culture. Drawing on contemporary manuscripts and other primary sources, Schenker presents a historical sketch of Slavic settlement in Europe, tracing the migrations, the political maneuvers, and the integration of the Slavs into the medieval European cultural commonwealth. He next outlines the development of Slavic from its Indo-European origins to the breakup of Slavic linguistic unity and the formation of individual Slavic dialects. In a chapter devoted to the beginnings of Slavic writing, he includes a thematic classification of the oldest Slavic texts, a section on Slavic paleography, and a discussion of the formation of Old Church Slavonic and its role as the first Slavic literary language. An overview of the development of Slavic philology, samples of early Slavic writing with facsimile illustrations, maps, and a chronological table contribute further valuable material to this volume.