Great Russian language (Russian: Великорусский язык,
Velikorusskiy yazyk) is a name given in the 19th century to the
Russian language as opposed to the
Ukrainian and
Belarusian languages. For instance,
Vladimir Dahl's monumental dictionary of the Russian language is titled "
The Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian Language".
By the standards prevalent in 19th-century
Imperial Russia, many scholars did not distinguish between the
Eastern Slavic languages spoken within the borders of the
Russian Empire. The Eastern Slavic languages were claimed to be mutually intelligible, a position which has been called into question since. Great Russian,
Little Russian (
Ukrainian), and
White Russian (
Belarusian) were considered to be three dialects within the Russian language.
The name itself comes from the word
Velikorossiya, or
Russia Major, the term used in the
Byzantine Empire and
Russian Empire to distinguish the Russia proper from
Malorossiya (
Little Russia, now
Ukraine) and
Belorussia (
White Russia, now
Belarus).
The Great Russian, or just Russian, language was formed in the
Late Middle Ages in the northern Russian principalities under heavy influence of
Church Slavonic language. As compared to the Great Russian, other Eastern Slavonic languages were termed one-dimensional because they lacked the stratum of
high speech, derived from the Church Slavonic. For political reasons, the literary Russian language evolved under the...
Read More