Proto-Slavic

**Wild North** · 12-21-2016, 01:55 AM

**Shah-Jehan** · 12-21-2016, 01:55 AM

What is the modern Slavic language closest to Old Slavic languages?

**Dick** · 12-21-2016, 01:59 AM

Originally Posted by Shah-Jehan

What is the modern Slavic language closest to Old Slavic languages?

This is Old Church Slavonic, closest is Serbian/ekavian accent

**Wild North** · 12-21-2016, 02:06 AM

Originally Posted by Shah-Jehan

What is the modern Slavic language closest to Old Slavic languages?

Hard to say. I believe it´s either Russian, Belarusian or Bulgarian.

**Dick** · 12-21-2016, 02:07 AM

Originally Posted by Wild North

Hard to say. I believe it´s either Russian, Belarusian or Bulgarian.

No.

**Wild North** · 10-04-2017, 11:35 AM

**~~Stears~~** · 10-04-2017, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by Dick

This is Old Church Slavonic, closest is Serbian/ekavian accent

The closest slavic language to the church slavonic is Bulgarian, not Serbian.

**~~Böri~~** · 10-04-2017, 11:54 AM

I doubt it's pure proto-Slavic. There is a Greco-Latin sounding, which would explain the Church connection.
Proto-Slavs lived in the forests of Poland and Belorussia, stretching to the Baltic until their expansion which started in the 6th century.
They were hunter gatherers. Proto-Slavs probably also ate dead animal flesh for a long time.

**EasternEurope** · 10-04-2017, 11:55 AM

I'd have to say Bulgarian, as it was developed out of the Slavicized First Bulgarian Empire.

EDIT: Talking about Old Church Slavonic, rather than the Proto-Slavic language since I don't know too much about it as of now.

**GhostFromThePast** · 10-09-2017, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by Shah-Jehan

What is the modern Slavic language closest to Old Slavic languages?

If you're talking about Old Church Slavonic, it is basically Old Bulgarian. Russian has also experienced a strong OCS influence (since it's the liturgical language for the Orthodoxy), but it's not genetic.

With regards to proto-Slavic, on the other hand, I would say Slovak or some of the Rusyn dialects are probably the closest living idiom, simply because they had the least outside influences and are in the middle of the Slavic dialect continuum. They are still pretty different. Modern Slovaks wouldn't understand it for sure (though with some practice it wouldn't be too hard). Surprisingly, modern Baltic languages such as Lithuanian are in certain ways more similar to the proto-Slavic (which was a Baltic dialect essentially) than modern Slavic languages are.