Words that named things which no longer exist, words replaced by newer ones, and what you need to read a text written before the twentieth century.
I can read older Belarusian texts with support and use archaisms deliberately rather than by accident.
Look at these examples. Can you spot the grammar pattern?
Талакой паставілі хату за тыдзень.
Working together, they put up the house in a week.
Пры прыгоне сяляне не мелі права сысці.
Under serfdom the peasants had no right to leave.
Скарына надрукаваў Псалтыр у Празе ў 1517 годзе.
Skaryna printed the Psalter in Prague in 1517.
У вершы паэт піша «вусны», а не «губы».
In the poem the poet writes "vusny" rather than "huby".
Pay attention to the highlighted parts. What do they have in common?
A гістарызм named something that no longer exists: there is no modern word for it because there is no modern thing. An архаізм named something that still exists but has since been renamed. The difference matters because only the second has a replacement you can substitute.
| Word | What it named |
|---|---|
| ваявода | governor of a voivodeship |
| харугва | a banner, and the unit that marched under it |
| талака | collective work party, neighbours helping in turn |
| прыгон | serfdom |
| карчма | roadside inn |
| асэсар | a court official |
Талака is worth knowing beyond the reading: the practice of neighbours working each other's land in turn is still invoked as a word for collective voluntary effort.
These have modern equivalents: вусны for губы, чало for лоб, правіца for правая рука, рэкучы for кажучы. They survive in poetry, in fixed phrases and in deliberate stylisation.
The chancery language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, used for its statutes and records, is the direct ancestor of modern Belarusian and is close enough to be partly readable. The main obstacles are the orthography, a large Church Slavonic layer, and verb forms the modern language has lost.
Francysk Skaryna printed the Psalter in Prague in 1517 and went on to print further books of the Bible; this is the beginning of printing in the language, and his prefaces are the usual first text a student meets.
Sparingly and knowingly. An archaism in a modern text is a signal - of solemnity, of irony, or of a historical setting. An archaism used by accident is simply an error, and the two look identical to the reader.
Apply this grammar in C1 course exercises
Practice ExercisesTypical errors: using an archaism unintentionally, and expecting a historicism to have a modern equivalent.
Using an archaism without intending to
In a modern text it reads as a signal or an error.
Looking for a modern equivalent of a historicism
The thing is gone; the word is the only name.
Reading Grand Duchy historicisms through Russian history
Ваявода, харугва and талака belong to a different institutional world.
Stylising a whole text with archaisms
They work by contrast with modern language.
Талакой паставілі хату за тыдзень.
Working together, they put up the house in a week.
<em>Талака</em> is the collective work party, still used for voluntary common effort.
Пры прыгоне сяляне не мелі права сысці.
Under serfdom the peasants had no right to leave.
A historicism: the thing is gone, so no modern word replaces it.
Скарына надрукаваў Псалтыр у Празе ў 1517 годзе.
Skaryna printed the Psalter in Prague in 1517.
The beginning of printing in the language.
У вершы паэт піша «вусны», а не «губы».
In the poem the poet writes "vusny" rather than "huby".
An archaism chosen for register, with a modern equivalent available.
У статуце Княства пісалі на старабеларускай мове.
The Statute of the Duchy was written in Old Belarusian.
The chancery language, direct ancestor of the modern one.
Practice in course
Apply this grammar in C1 course exercises