Which Slavic language is the most archaic

[rashka]

Question of all questions, where is Bosnian?

The relatively new Bosnian language is really the language of the Serbs and Croats.

[Yaroslav]

I voted for Russian, but I admit that my knowledge is limited on the subject. With that being said, I can confidently say that Bulgarian is NOT the most archaic; in fact, along with Macedonian, it's furthest away from proto-Slavic than any other Slavic tongue.

Here's why:

Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), has several characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages: changes include the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article (see Balkan language area), and the lack of a verb infinitive, but it retains and has further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system. Various evidential verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, and doubtful action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_language

[Yaroslav]

Russian language had 2 major reforms, firstly by Peter the Great, then by bolsheviks in 1920s, so it can not be archaic, neither bulgarian can, because modern bulgarian is simplified russian, my guess it is slovakian or slovenian (or even czech), those ethnicities had no state in the past, so their language could have been preserved in villages in its archaic form

Only Russian alphabet was reformed, not the actual language. And all the Bolsheviks did is the standardization of the Moscow dialect in expense of all other dialects, so that doesn't diminish its "archaicness". As for your claim that Bulgarian is simplified Russian, get off dem pills bruh and read some books.

[Sisak]

I agree. ca. 2-3 decades ago, one Prague intellectual visited one distant rural area in Beskydy Mts., at eastern Moravia, where almost each village had its own dialect. He was surprised that locals use aorist, what disappeared from Czech language ca. in 15th Century, but survived there.

Aorist exists in Croatian, Bulgarian, Sorbian and Ancient Greek language. It is very usable in the Croatian language.

[Yaroslav]

Aorist exists in Croatian, Bulgarian, Sorbian and Ancient Greek language. It is very usable in the Croatian language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aorist#Slavic_languages

Until recently, in Serbian and Croatian, the aorist had mostly been used in literary language and legal writing. The predominantly young users of the modern means of communication (SMS, email) have found advantages of using the rarely spoken verb forms like aorist and imperfect as they require fewer characters than compound verbs, thus bringing them back to popular use.

Very interesting indeed.

[Sisak]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aorist#Slavic_languages

Until recently, in Serbian and Croatian, the aorist had mostly been used in literary language and legal writing. The predominantly young users of the modern means of communication (SMS, email) have found advantages of using the rarely spoken verb forms like aorist and imperfect as they require fewer characters than compound verbs, thus bringing them back to popular use.

Very interesting indeed.

example: Upravo "pročitah" vrlo smiješan novinski članak.

verb to say/glagol reći :

1. rekoh rekosmo
2. reče rekoste
3. reče rekoše