Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts and their Reflexes in

Early Old Church Slavonic Texts

Salvatore Del Gaudio (University of Kyiv)

Introduction
A study of Latin-Proto Slavic contacts may still appear inappropriate since
it is generally assumed that linguistic and cultural contacts between Latin and
Slavic languages have to be assigned to relatively later periods. It is usually ac-
cepted that Latin began to exert a certain degree of cultural-linguistic influence
on Slavic dialects after the consolidation of the first Slavic territorial entities,
e.g. Samo’s Realm (7th c.), Great Moravia (9th c.) etc. Latin elements are primar-
ily investigated in Church Slavonic textual sources, also as a consequence of a
lack of written evidence in the early Slavic vernaculars. For this reason, in the
literature1, the early Latin borrowings are often associated with the appearance
of Slavic writing and the formation of the distinct Slavic languages.
However, ethno-linguistic research on ancient toponymy, along with ar-
chaeological evidence, has demonstrated the fallacy of such an assumption2. It
remains however problematic, without detailed historical accounts, to establish
the degree and the term post quem these contacts took place. Drawing up a re-
liable outline of the initial Latin-Proto-Slavic contacts is therefore a major un-
dertaking because of the long period of time involved, and the scanty documen-
tary material available. Despite early Proto-Slavic and Italic contacts which,
according to certain interpretations3, took place within the process of dialectal
differentiation of the Indo-European language family, successive contacts date
back to the recorded history of Ancient Greece and, particularly, Rome. They
correspond to the Roman geo-political and cultural expansion (approximately
from the 2nd c. BC-2nd c. AD) far beyond the geographical boundaries of the Ital-
ian Peninsula. In the early centuries of our era the Latin language reached an
enormous geographical area, associated with cultural-military prestige, leaving
traces in large parts of the Balkan area.
The evaluation of the Latin elements which entered the Proto-Slavic dialects
through the mediation of other languages of antiquity and the early middle ages,
e.g. Greek, Gothic etc., and the Latinisms that penetrated into the oral Slavic
dialects as a result of direct contacts with ‘Latin’ speaking populations of the Ro-
man provinces remains problematic. It is highly probable in fact that many Latin

1
Also see Keipert 1996: 106-128.
2
As we shall see in next sections, the relation between archeology and history is
fundamental to understand the ethnogenesis of the Slavs.
3
See Section 1.

Contributi italiani al XV Congresso Internazionale degli Slavisti, a cura di M. Garzaniti et al.,

ISBN 978-88-6655-404-2 (online), ISBN 978-88-6655-403-5 (print),
© 2013 Firenze University Press
50 Salvatore Del Gaudio

words and calqued expressions penetrated the Proto-Slavic vernaculars well be-
fore the appearance of the first organized Slavic territorial entities.
For this reason an approach to this topic can only follow if we examine the
problem according to two main directions: one that deals with the presumed
‘direct’ oral contacts; the other that assumes the cultural mediation of other lan-
guages. Nonetheless an overlapping of the two approaches is conceivable, due
to the practical difficulty of operating a clear-cut distinction between two as-
pects of the same issue. The oral contacts can be distinguished in: a) Pre-historic
contacts4; b) Historic contacts.
The pre-historic phase includes the initial Italic (and Proto-Latin, as a mem-
ber of the Italic linguistic family) – early Proto-Slavic contacts. These took place
at the dawn of European civilization around the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC5. Such
a long time span is of lesser concern to us since we primarily intend to assess
the degree of continuity between those Latinisms that entered the Proto-Slavic
dialects in historical times6 (2nd-7th c.), and that were later reflected in the early
Old Church Slavonic texts. Therefore, fundamental to the present analysis are
the historic contacts between the Latinitas (Roman cultural heritage) and those
populations living at the margins of the Greek-Latin cultural “commonwealth”,
later continued by the Byzantine Empire.

1. Italic (Latin) – Early Proto-Slavic: Unsettled Issues

A series of open issues are related to the characterization of Proto-Slavic.
The Proto-Slavic period covers an extremely long time span extending over
several millennia, most of which has no recorded history. Therefore a study
on language contacts Proto-Slavs entertained with other Indo-European people,
both in pre-recorded, and later, in historic times, implies a series of debatable
questions: a) their ethno-genesis; b) the definition of Proto-Slavic / Common
Slavic and whether this protolanguage as a construct has indeed ever existed; c)
the reliability of historic reports.
The first ongoing debate concerns the assessment of the ethno-genesis and
the original homeland (Urheimat) of the Slavs7. The Slavs in fact were “the last
4
Pre-historic with reference to the western European languages which in the 3rd
millennium BC had not been attested yet.
5
This period (according to a traditional partition of Proto-Slavic) coincides with
the initial phase of the development of Proto-Slavic as an independent branch of Indo-
European languages (Schenker 2002: 60-121).
6
With reference to the conventional subdivision of the Proto-Slavic reconstruct-
ed stages, the time span under analysis approximately covers the middle and late Proto-
Slavic periods. The middle period lasts from the 1st millennium BC until the 3-5th cen-
tury AD; whereas the late Proto-Slavonic period last until the 6th -7th centuries AD, prior
to the earliest writing attempts made by the Slavs.
7
The traditional identification of the original homeland of the Slavs relies on
two theories: a) the migration theory, and b) the autochthonous theory. The migration
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 51

Indo-Europeans to have appeared in the annals of history and Slavonic texts

were not recorded until the middle of the 9th century” (Schenker 2002: 60). Con-
temporary scholars agree that between the end of the third and the beginning
of the second millennium BC Slavic people began to differentiate themselves
from other Indo-European groups, e.g. Celtic, Greek, Italic, Proto-Germanic
etc. Apart from theories of a speculative nature, the individuation of the original
settlement of the Slavs can more reliably be achieved with the support of ethno-
linguistic studies; e.g. the investigation of hydronomy, toponymy and ethnony-
my and the interaction of auxiliary disciplines such as paleobotany, archeology
and anthropology, along with historic accounts of classical writers etc.
Trubačev (1991: 35-40; 2003: 229-278) holds the view that the territory be-
tween the middle Danube and Tisza Rivers (present day Hungary) are to be rec-
ognized as the oldest settlement area of Proto-Slavs. This interpretation is based
on the fact that the evocative image of the Danube River is often present in an-
cient Slavic songs, folklore, rituals etc., even among those Slavic peoples (the
majority of them) who have no apparent historical and geographical ties with
this area8. He dates the beginning of the first Slavic-Italic (Proto-Latin) contacts
(and not Slavic-Iranian) to a very early period, e.g. Slavic *goveti – Lat. favere
(Trubačev 1973-2002, VII: 72-73) etc. Contacts also reveal the earliest special
isoglosses in the denomination of natural phenomena: Lat. paludem – Slavic
*pola voda (Trubačev 2003: 25, 128ff.).
Martynov (1982: 6), adopting a different theoretical approach, also main-
tained that Italic elements originated in Slavic at a very early epoch. To this pur-
pose, he wrote that Proto-Slavic includes ‘Baltic and Italic lexical ingredients’,
with the oldest component of Proto-Slavic being Italic. The status that preceded
a break of Italic people into the territories of the Vistula and Oder basins cannot
be considered Slavic and it has to be considered as Proto-Baltic. He recognizes
a series of Italic elements in Proto-Slavic, e.g. agnъ, bedro, boršьno, dĕtъ, glъtъ,
golǫb, gǫserъ, gъrnъ, kobyla, lĕto, luna, matorъ, moltъ, ǫgъlъ, pasti, pravъ,
rydlo, sekyra, vidla, and assumes that the origin of Slavic personal pronouns ny

theory, typical of the 19th century, considered the Slavs as a population who reached
Europe around the first millennium BC. This idea was based on a historiographic in-
terpretation of the early medieval Rus’ Primary Chronicle “Pověst’ Vremennych Lět”.
Here the unknown author states that “the Slavs first settled beside the Danube, where
the Hungarian and Bulgarian lands now lie (По мьнозѣхъ же временѣхъ сели суть словени
по Дунаѥви, где ныне Угорська земля и Болгарська) that is along the middle and lower
Danube Valley, and from the Pannonian Plain to the Black Sea”. The autochthonous
theory fixes the primordial settlement area of the Slavs in Europe and is confirmed by
the historical comparative linguistic data and archaeological findings. Cf. Mel’nyk et
al. 1991: 24; Leuta 2007: 16. A critical interpretation to soviet, and to a larger extent,
Eastern Slavic theoretical constructs about the chronology and formation of the Slavs
can be consulted in Curta 2001.
8
Also see: Pivtorak 2004: 18-20; Lučyk 2008: 109. Studies from the late 1970s
based on archeological data of the previous decade on the other hand, seem to partially
contradict the hypothesis of Slavic settlements in the Danube area in the early Proto-
Slavic period. Cf. Sedov 1979: 28. Also, see: Vasmer 1926: 118-143.
52 Salvatore Del Gaudio

and vy has to be ascribed to Italic influence. Recent studies seem to corroborate

the idea of proximity and contact between Proto-Italic and Proto-Slavic at very
early stages (Borščevs’kyj 2010: 91). Other theories place the original Proto-
Slavic homeland in other geographic areas, e.g. Vistula and the Oder River; the
Middle Dnieper and the Buh River etc.
The only thing that seems certain is that the Slavic peoples and their Proto-
Slavic ancestors were present in Eastern Europe from at least the first millen-
nium BC. Their exact location, however, will probably remain a topic of debate
among specialists9. In recent times the theory that seems to have found a larger
consensus places the prehistoric Slavs in the Middle Dnieper Basin. This geo-
graphical territory corresponds by and large to modern north-central and west-
ern Ukraine and south-eastern Belarus (Schenker 2002: 62).
The fact that some of the Slavic peoples moved towards the ‘Ukrainian’
area can be explained by the natural wealth of these lands. Moreover, their trade
possibilities with the Greek and, later, Roman cities of the Pontus area (Black
Sea and the Sea of Azov) were enhanced. The contact with the nomadic and
semi-sedentary civilizations that lived on those territories was inevitable.
The second controversial issue has to do with the definition of “Proto-Slav-
ic” and its temporal-linguistic delimitation. The concept of Proto-Slavic in fact
is a theoretical abstraction, since unlike Latin, in relation to the Romance lan-
guages, Proto-Slavic was never recorded. The formal relation of the Proto-Slav-
ic language with the existing Slavic languages is the result of a historical com-
parative reconstruction, and therefore subject to a certain degree of relativity10.
The extensive period, circa four millennia long, separating the disintegra-
tion of the Indo-European linguistic ‘unity’ and the formation of individual
Slavonic languages or language groups (around the 8th century) is generally
subdivided into subperiods. There is no agreement on the criteria for such a sub-
division, yet the periodization has some practical value. It is in fact essential to
provide a chronological framework on the character of the Latin borrowings that
took place at the beginning of our era, especially from the 2nd century onwards,
separating them from those features that could be traced back to the earliest Pro-
to-Slavic – Italic period or even to the common Indo-European word-stock. For
practical reasons, we adopt the following scheme11: 1) early Proto-Slavic: 3rd-1st

9
Cf.: Magocsi 1997: 38-39; Curta 2001.
10
The concept of ‘Proto-Systems’ has been repeatedly questioned in the last
few decades. One of the forerunners, who criticized the reconstructed system of Indo-
European, advancing the hypothesis that it could be nothing more than a bundle of
isoglosses, was Pisani (1971). Other criticisms of ‘Indo-European’ were more recently
raised by Dixon (1997). Similarly, the concept of ‘Proto-Slavic’ (Common Slavic) has
been questioned by Holzer (1995: 55-89), Lunt (1997: 7-67), Steinke (1998: 371-378).
Although not taking a theoretical stance on the concept of ‘Indo-European’ and ‘Proto-
Slavic’ because of the different scope of this contribution, we are nevertheless inclined
to question some of the ideas behind a pre-historical, highly abstract “Proto-System”, in
line with the objections already expressed.
11
Cf. Rusanivs’kyj et al. 2007: 538-540; also Bräuer 1961.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 53

millennium BC; 2) Middle Proto-Slavic: 1st millennium BC until approximately

the 5th century our era; 3) late Proto-Slavic: from the 5th century until the early
8th century (prior to the formation of the single Slavic languages). The period of
our concern is going to be the middle-late Proto-Slavic.
Related to the periodization, a few terminological issues are still the ob-
ject of discussion, e.g. Proto-Slav(on)ic, Balto-Slavic, and Common Slavic12.
In relation to the latter, one can say that never was a concept so debated as the
term Common Slavic (Radovič 1969: 10-11). The least arbitrary criteria seem
to be those suggested by Schenker (2002: 61) and based on the differences in
linguistic change. Thus, the period including the beginning of dialect differ-
entiation within Slavic can be defined as Late Proto-Slavic; the period during
which changes affected all of Slavic is termed Early Proto-Slavic, and the period
whose changes affected Baltic and Slavic is called ‘Balto-Slavic’13.
If historical-comparative studies have had the merit of reconstructing the Slav-
ic proto-language and of putting it in relation to the Indo-European branch, they
cannot identify with certainty the historic periods and the geographic areas where
language contacts took place. In this case, historic-archeological materials offer a
valid support to linguistic theories and reconstructions. Onomastics as a branch of
historical linguistics also represents a valid support in this field of studies.
One can therefore conclude this section by stating that the question of the or-
igin, reconstruction, development and breaking of Proto-Slavic ‘unity’ has shift-
ed from a mere linguistic question into a problem of an ethno-linguistic nature.
Therefore the research of recent years evidences a multilayered approach to the
ethno-genesis of the Slavs, and the people/languages they were in contact with.

1.1. Historical Reports about the ‘Slavs’

The Slavs had probably begun to spread out in various directions from their
original settlement areas by the middle of the first millennium BC. This gradual

12
It is generally assumed that Slavic tribes, although occupying a rather vast ter-
ritory, often not homogeneous in its ethnic and linguistic composition, preserved their
ethno-linguistic ‘unity’ approximately until the year 500 AD. For this reason this period
in the pre-history of Slavic people is also defined as “Common Slavic” or Proto-Slavic.
However in the history of Slavic unity, and from a strict linguistic viewpoint, one can
distinguish between an earlier period, designated as Proto-Slavic proper, and a more
recent epoch, already characterized by some linguistic innovations, leading to its future
linguistic differentiation, and referred to as Common Slavic. In some national linguistic
traditions the term “Common Slavic” is used (cf. Meillet 1937). This can be applied
either to the entire Proto-Slavonic period, or most often, to the last phase of Slavonic
linguistic unity, approximately coinciding with the “Late Proto-Slavonic” adopted here.
Bräuer (1961), instead, adopts the term “Gemeinslavisch” for the period until the year
800. For the periodization, also see: Andersen 1994: 447-448.
13
See Trubačev 2003: 29.
54 Salvatore Del Gaudio

process of outward migration was to last another millennium. One can agree
with Magocsi (1997: 39-42) that during this long period the Slavs remained in
the shadow of other populations: e.g. the Scythian, the Sarmatians, the Antes
and the Avars etc. The word ‘Slavic’ probably became in historic times a kind of
hyperonym to designate various populations whose leading groups adopted the
speech14 and some habits of the dominating ruling classes, later named “Slavic”.
This point of view also seems to have been confirmed by anthropological and
genetic studies, whose results seem to imply that among the different Slavic
peoples, there is little somatic affinity15.
From approximately the 4th century AD, the Slavs lived on a vast territory
extending from the Oder River Basin in the west, including the southern shores of
the Baltic Sea, up to the Central Dnieper Basin and the Prypiat (Pryp’jat’) marshes
in the east. The presence of Slavs in these areas is also supported by the research
carried out by Toporov and Trubačev (1962), and Trubačev (1968). Their mapping
of the upper and middle Dnieper basins demonstrated the presence of a few ar-
chaic Slavic hydronyms and toponyms scattered in the southern part of the Prypiat
and the Desna rivers (today Ukraine, Belarus, Russia), and along the course of the
Dnieper and in the western part of the Buh and middle Dniester.
As to the recorded history, reports about the Slavs are scanty and subject to
national-historical interpretations16. They consist of brief descriptions made by
a few historians of antiquity and the early middle Ages, e.g. the Greek historian
Herodotus in the 5th century AD17, or by brief accounts of Roman, Greek and
Byzantine Greek historians in the first centuries of our era. The historiographic
difficulty of ancient scholars was also increased by the fact that these popula-
tions lived in the inner regions of the European Continent, distant from the cul-
tural centres of the ancient world. Plinius (Pliny) the Elder (23 BC-79 AD) in his
Naturalis Historia (77 AD) describes those people (Slavic?) living in the Vistula
basin, named Venethi/Veneti/Venedi18, reaching as far as the area of the Aestii

14
The hypothesis that ‘Slavic’ might have been used as a lingua franca over vast
territories until the collapse of the Avar khanate, thus preserving a high degree of mutual
intelligibility seems plausible. Cf. Lunt 1985: 417-422; Curta 2004: 125-148.
15
[…] Антропологи з’ясували, що в різних регіонах слов’янської території
існують помітні відмінності у фізичній будові місцевого населення. Це дало
можливість зробити висновок про влив на фізичну будову слов’ян іншоетнічних
рис – балтських, германських, фракійських та ін.” (Anthropologists have ascertained
that there exist noticeable differences in the physical complexion of locals in the vari-
ous Slavic territories. This led to the conclusion that other ethnic traits, e.g. Baltic, Ger-
manic, Thracians etc., have affected the physical complexion of the Slavs). [Translated
by the author]. Cf. Mel’nyk et al. 1991: 29; Bocchi, Ceruti 2001.
16
See Curta 2001: 6-36.
17
Cf. Herodot 2007.
18
This ethnonym occurs in the letters of the Roman historian Pomponius Mela
(1st c. BC) and was later re-used by Plinius the Elder. Both historians refer to an episode
when the Roman consul of Gaul received as a gift from Germanic people two merchants
of the Baltic area, named Indi (Vindi). In some sholars’ opinion, this is a proof that the
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 55

(probably the ancestors of contemporary Estonians). His reports are based on the
accounts of the Roman expedition in the year 5 BC to the mouth of the Vistula.
Plinius’ historical reports were later to be completed by the Roman historian
Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 AD), who refers to them as Veneti. Nevertheless he
does not concretely define the geographical borders of the latter but he only adds
that their territory is situated to the east of the lands inhabitated by the Germanic
people. A geographic account of the Alexandrine geographer and historian Ptol-
emy Claudius (90-178 AD) illustrates the Carpathian Mountains as belonging to
the Venedi; the Baltic Sea is also indicated with a similar name. The ethnonym
Venethi is also mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana19. If on one hand one must
admit that this name was quite widespread in Europe at that time; on the other, it
may seem plausible, on the basis of the frequent occurrence of this ethnonym in
different documents, that Venethi might have also designated some Slavic tribes.
Nevertheless historical episodes of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD refer of a
few conflicts, (this implies military and diplomatic contacts), between the Sar-
mats and the Roman legions of the Danube area. A first impact took place in the
year 15 BC, when the proconsul of Macedonia Gaius Lucius inflicted a defeat
on the Sarmats, reaching as far as the western territories of the Dnieper. Fur-
ther conflicts with the Romans took place in the year 11 (expedition of Gneus
Cornelius Lentula against the Sarmats), and in the years 35-37, when the latter
attacked the Roman province of Moesia. This episode is also reported by the
poet Ovid in his “letters from the Pontus”. Such incursions and clashes with the
Romans lasted until the reign of the emperor Trajan in the 2nd century and the
beginning of the so called Pax Romana in the Pontus (Black Sea) area20.
More detailed reports about Slavs date back to the 6th-7th centuries AD,
when they played a fundamental role in the struggle with the Byzantine Empire,
and they appeared as a quite extensive force occupying vast territories from
the rivers Elba and Saale down to the Danube and the Balkan Peninsula. The
interest of Byzantine historians (Procopius, Menandros Protector, Theophylact
Simocatta etc.) was awakened by the massive penetration of the Slavs into the
regions of the empire. They named the Slavs as Anti and Sclavini. The Goth Jor-
danes, besides the words Anti and Sclavini, also uses Veneti, to mean different

Baltic area was already inhabitated by “Slavs” in the 1st century BC (see Łomiański
1963: 136-138). As to the word “Venedi”, one can say that it is connected with differ-
ent etymologies. One is related to the Common Slavic root *vent-. This root is the su-
perlative of the adjective ‘tall’ (compare with Ukrainian високий; великий). Therefore
vened- means a person of high stature. Worth of mention is also a second interpretation
of the root *vent-, a variant of the root *ǫd (ond) associated with old Church Slavonic
ѫда; old east Slavic (Russian) оуда; Ukr. Вудка; Polish wędka. This name has there-
fore to do with the concept of ‘fisherman’; ‘hunter’ etc. Cf. Leuta (2007: 18). Also, see
Stryžak 1991: 37-54; <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula_Veneti> (13.12.2012).
19
The Tabula Peutingeriana (Peutinger Map) is a map showing the road network
in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised
in the fourth or early fifth century (cf. Levi, Levi 1967).
20
Cf. Holovko 1994: 235ff.
56 Salvatore Del Gaudio

Slavic groups but with a common origin21. A comparison of the various histori-
cal sources, especially the Roman and the Byzantine ones, seem to corroborate
the hypothesis that the Slavic element was also present among the Veneti. How-
ever the Slavs appeared in the chronicles with their own ethnonym of Sclavini
around the 5th-6th c., and by the 7th and 9th century AD, Slavic people occupied a
vast territory covering most of Central-Eastern Europe.

2. Latinisms and the Role of Greek

At first sight, it may seem easier to trace Latin elements attested in literary
languages, such as Greek/Byzantine Greek, Gothic etc., and transmitted to those
languages Greek was in contact with. Nevertheless the relative chronology of
the written sources of various provenances, and the vastness of the territories
involved, also gives ground to a certain degree of speculation.
A correct description of early Latin-Slavic contacts can only be accomplished
if one considers some preliminary aspects of extra linguistic nature such as, for
example, the cultural function and the influence Latin exerted on other dominant
languages of antiquity and the early middle ages, e.g. Greek, Gothic etc., espe-
cially within and beyond its always shifting eastern and north-eastern borders.
The historical interaction between Latin and Greek began on the Italian
Peninsula at the time of the Magna Graecia. Nevertheless Latin began to affect
Greek more constantly from the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. This process
was intensified after the victory of Leucopetra that marked the end of Greek po-
litical independence (Viscidi 1944: 1-10).
Latin words can already be found in Greek authors who wrote about Roman
facts, as for example, Polibius, Cassius Dione and Plutarch, but loan-words
from Latin, related to law, administration, army and even private life, began to
be popular also in the Koinē (χοινή)22. However the interaction between Greek

21
The well-known passage extracted from Jordanes’ account On the origin and
the Deeds of the Goth or Getica (De origine actibusque Getarum) will supply a more
vivid image of the assumed historic-geographic location of the Slavs: {34} “Introrsus
illis Dacia est, ad coronae speciem arduis Alpibus eniunita, iuxta quorum sinistrum la-
tus, qui in aquilone vergit, ab ortu Vistulae fluminis per inmensa spatia Venetbarum
natio populosa consedit, quorum nomina licet nunc per varias familias et loca mutentur,
principaliter tamen Sclaveni et Antes nominantur (…)” (The Dacia is situated in the in-
ner part of these, towards a chain of mountains, a kind of steep Alps, on whose left side,
(extending) towards the north. Eastwards from the river Vistula, on immense territories,
dwell the populous nation of the Venedi, whose name is likely to change according to
the different tribes and the areas. However the main stems are known as Sclaveni and
Antes [translated by the author]). Cf. <http://krotov.info/acts/06/iordan/iordan01.html>
(30.04.2012).
22
A critical examination of the texts about the quantity of Latin words is not al-
ways fully reliable since a major number of Latinisms, in a particular epoch, may also
depend on the richness of details of a particular source.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 57

and Latin, also in those areas where the former prevailed, e.g. the regions of
Epirus, Macedonia, some of the eastern provinciae of Asia and Africa etc., was
not unidirectional but, as is always the case in language contact situations, the
influence was reciprocal, even though it might have been stronger in one direc-
tion than in another. If it is true that Latin received a stronger influence from
Greek, especially in relation to cultural terms, it is likewise certain that Latin
left a significant mark on the Greek language. This can be easily explained if we
think that Latin, at a certain point in its history, became the official language of
the army also in the East, and it was (or it was supposed to be) additionally the
language of administration, justice etc. It is generally assumed that the eastern
part of the Roman Empire, both before and after the official division between
Arcadius (395-423) and Onorius (376-408), was never completely Latinized in
the language. Latin had great difficulties in expanding in those territories where
it was in direct competition with Greek. The latter enjoyed among the culti-
vated Romans a greater cultural and historical prestige. It is therefore not easy
to trace a well-defined borderline between Latin and Greek linguistic spheres
of influence. Notwithstanding the fact that south of the Jireček’s line23 (from
Lesh to the Black Sea, through the Balkan Peninsula) Greek was the prevailing
language, even under Roman rule, Latin linguistic evidence can be also found.
Skok (1931: 372) wrote to this purpose: “Il va sans dire que cette ligne de dé-
marcation entre les deux langages de civilisation ne pouvant nullement con-
stituer une espèce de mur infranchissable”.
The exact degree of Latin influence on the languages spoken in the former
Eastern regions of the Roman Empire and in the borderline areas is difficult to
estimate with any certainty. Nevertheless archeological evidence, historic docu-
ments, ethnolinguistic studies and toponymy have proven that various forms
(varieties) of colloquial Latin penetrated in those areas where Greek was the
traditional language of ‘inter ethnic’ communication24.
The most copious categories of loan-words25belonged to the military, the
government-administrative (state) and juridical spheres. This is understandable,

23
A divisional criterion, based on the occurrence of Latin and Greek inscriptions
discovered in each single region of the Balkan Peninsula, was adopted by the Czech his-
torian Konstantin Jireček. Such a line started from Lissus in Albania (cf. Albanian Lesh;
Italian Alessio) went South through Scrutari and Prizren and further North up to Scupi
(Maced. Skopje), continuing to the East until Serdica (Sofia), this line continued further
following the Danubian course down to the mouth of the River. The adopted criterion
is obviously far from being sufficient to establish the linguistic usage of the different
populations. Nevertheless the Jireček’s line, with some improvements, can be consid-
ered reliable. Greek predominated south of this line, whereas Latin prevailed north of it.
The Dacia region, instead, remained Romanized but it was completely isolated among
non Romanic populations (Tagliavini 1982: 173-175).
24
See Kahane, Kahane 1982.
25
Our selection criteria are based on the conceptual category of loanwords sug-
gested by Viscidi (1944: 10-42). The majority of loanwords reported in this section have
an equivalent item in Slavic etymological dictionaries and in Old Church Slavonic texts.
58 Salvatore Del Gaudio

if one thinks that the Roman army was dislocated in all the provinces, its state
organization differed from the Greek administration and the Roman legal sys-
tem served as a model up until the modern age. Therefore, even a culture and
language as reluctant to accept foreign borrowing as Greek preferred to inte-
grate those realia which more directly reflected the Roman military-adminis-
trative system rather than adapting their own to the innovations, as often hap-
pens with loanwords, cf. Lat. quaestor, drungus, legio, centurio, ala, magister,
veteranus, arma, castra, collega, comes etc. with Greek and Byzantine Greek
χυαίστωρ, δροΰγγος, λεγιών, χεντουρίων, άλα, μαγιστερ, βετερανός, άρμα,
χάστρα, χολλήγας, χόμης.
The legal sphere mainly introduced learned/bookish words. As expected,
they can be found in works of 6th century (Byzantine) authors, as in Justin-
ian’s Corpus juris civilis. Viscidi (1944: 26) remarked that “of the three hundred
words of Latin origin in Byzantine Greek, only two have survived in Modern
Greek: χώδιξ – codex and ληγάτον – legatum”. This testifies the bookish charac-
ter of legal Latin terms, most of which were just ‘άπαξ λεγόμενα’. The greatest
number of Latinisms paradoxically entered Byzantine Greek in the 6th century at
the time of Justinian I, when the prestige of the Latin language began its decline
in the east. Greek was also affected, to a considerably more limited extent, by
words designating measures, calendar (and months’ names), religion, flora, and
fauna (here arranged in decreasing order): cf. Latin denarius, centenarium, mo-
dius, sextarius, kalendae, aprilis, tabula, cattus – Greek δηνάριον, χεντηνάριον,
μόδιος, ξέστης, χαλάνδαι, άπρίλιος, τάβλα, χάττος etc.
An analysis of those words of popular (vulgar) origin is also important
to understand the extent of Latin influence. These elements continued to sur-
vive well through the Byzantine period and they have correspondences in the
Latinity of Rumanian, in Albanian, Modern Greek and Balkan Slavic26. From a
cultural point of view, the elements of popular origin and the learned or semi-
learned terms, assimilated by Greek, extended and penetrated into all those lan-
guages, where Greek was spoken, either as an official language or as a language
of communication. Thus, Latin elements infiltrated in Asia Minor, Egypt and the
Dacian-Pontus regions also through the mediation of Greek. One can therefore
conclude, even not excluding earlier oral contacts with the populations (Slavs)
living beyond the limes, that many elements of Balkan Latinity penetrated into
the Slavonic dialects of those people who began to settle down in the Balkan
Peninsula after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.
Byzantine Greek had a fundamental role in the widespread of Latin words in
Slavic (and later in Turkish)27.

26
Also see Skok 1931: 372.
27
As Skok (1931: 374) stated: “Byzance ne cesse pas de répandre les éléments du
vocabulaire latin qu’elle avait adoptés. Seulement, elle est obligée de changer de route.
Elle les répand parfois directement, mais souvent elle se sert des Slaves ou bien plus tard
des Turcs comme intermédiaires”.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 59

3. Latin at the Periphery: Dacia and the Pontus Areas

Apart from the Roman presence in the Southern Balkan area, historic-ar-
cheological studies have demonstrated the presence of Roman or Romanized
soldiers and dwellers in the Black Sea area and in part of the territories of pres-
ent-day Moldova and Ukraine. The Romanized presence in these areas lasted
from approximately the 1st century AD until the late 4th century (370 onwards)28.
Tyras, Olbia (in the area around contemporary Odessa), Cherson were some
of the major towns that constituted the Roman province of the Moesia Inferior.
In spite of the Greek origin of these places, the culture, and to some extent
the language, tended to be Latinized after they shifted under the jurisdiction of
Rome. The Roman presence is attested by archeological remains, e.g. defensive
ramparts, town blocks, baths and mints. A Latin inscription was found on the
fronton of a defensive wall in Tyras29. Roman coins are scattered around in dif-
ferent Ukrainian regions, as for example in Bukovyna. A large quantity of Ro-
man silver coins (denarius) was discovered during research work carried out in
the areas of the cultures of Černjachiv and Carpathian kurgans30. As mentioned
elsewhere (Del Gaudio 2011: 18ff.), there is no doubt however about historic
contacts between Rome and those populations living in the upper Dnieper and
the Dniester areas, amidst whom Slavic tribes were very likely concealed. Dur-
ing the period of the so called Zarubynec’ culture (from approximately the 2nd
c. BC until the 2nd c. AD), as testified by archaeological finds, there must have
existed an intense monetary exchange with Rome. The so called Černjachiv cul-
ture (2nd-5th c. AD) was also permeated by Latin influence (Magocsi 1997: 41-
42). Evidence of monetary circulation between Rome and the area dominated
by the Sarmats (2nd century BC - 2nd century AD) can be also traced. Roman cur-
rency was found, and probably circulated, in the entire forest-steppe “Ukraini-
an” region: more than six thousand pieces in more than thirty different locations
were detected in the Kyjiv area alone (Brajčevs’kyj 1963: 99; Tyščenko 2006:
240). One can agree with Antonovyč, who considered money “the first massive
written documents of history” (Tyščenko 2009: 39). An objection to this state-
ment is that coins could have only been the result of mediated contacts. Even
if it were so, they still imply a trade with the Roman provinces: it is therefore
axiomatic that commerce always involves a form of language contact and the
transmission of culture specific lexical items.
28
At the beginning of the 3rd century AD the Roman influence grew weaker, and
a Northern population, the Goths, originally from Scandinavia, settled down between
the Vistula and Crimea, until they were forced to move under the impacts of the Huns
in the 4th century. It was the time of the great invasions. Many populations from central
Asia, probably because of the unfavorable living conditions of this area, began to move
towards Europe and the borders of the collapsing Western Roman Empire. As a conse-
quence of those migration waves, the Slavs officially appeared in these territories for the
first time (6th - 7th century AD).
29
Cf. Kryžyc’kyj 1998: 413ff.
30
Cf. Baluch, Kocur 2005: 10.
60 Salvatore Del Gaudio

It is likewise safe to assume, even admitting a mediation of other popula-

tions directly bordering with the Roman provinces, that early Latin-Slavic oral
contacts intensified during the maximal eastward extension of the Roman em-
pire under Trajan (98-117 AD), when the Latin language and culture was pen-
etrating the new conquered lands and thus gradually replacing the Greek sphere
of influence in the Black Sea region31. After the second Dacian war, for ex-
ample, the Romans, in order to defend the new acquired lands, built two Trajan
banks. One of these included the western half of today’s Odessa region. Some
of the original place names partially survived till the present day32. These re-
gions turned out to be of strategic importance for the central-eastern European
limes. Relevant is the fact that the defensive ramparts underneath the fortress of
Kam’janec’ Podil’s’kyj are also called Trajan’s walls (Plamenyc’ka 1999: 5ff.).
These walls defend the area around the town from Sataniv up to Komariv where
remnants of Roman buildings have been discovered. Ptolemy, in his “Geogra-
phy”, indicated five locations situated on the left bank of the river Dniester33 as
being part of the Roman Dacia. These places have been identified as the con-
temporary Ukrainian Žvanec’, Ol’vija, Skel’ka, Pryberežne and Kerkinitida.
After a geometric measurement of the plan of Kam’janec’ Podil’s’kyj fortress,
O. Plamenyc’ka (1999: 18) concluded that “the ancient topographic and urban
structure of this castle with its regular centre built before the Mongolian epoch,
could well be a Roman military camp (castrum romanum). Moreover, in this
area objects dating back to the first century AD were found. Plamenyc’ka’s Da-
cian-Roman conjecture, as appropriately underlined by Tyščenko34 (2009: 46),
undoubtedly opens up new perspectives not only in historical research but also
in related disciplines. Such a discovery would be of paramount importance,
if supported by further evidence, for Slavic studies at large, and more specifi-
cally, for a correct interpretation of the beginning of Latin influence during the
Middle Proto-Slavic period.

31
It should be remembered that the Bosporan Kingdom, north of the Black Sea,
from 63-66 AD until the 4th century AD was a Roman Protectorate (even though Goths
are believed to have reached the shores of the Black Sea between the Dniester and the
Danube about the mid of the 3rd century AD). The Roman influence in these territories
intensified after Dacia became a Roman Province under Trajan (106 AD) and extended
over a relatively long time span also affecting the period that led to the break-up of
Proto-Slavic linguistic unity.
32
In the Black sea area today there are few ancient place names left. This can
be explained by the fact that this strip of land, north of the Black Sea, became a sort of
“corridor” for those nomadic people moving to the lower Danube, and to Europe.
33
The Latin denomination of the river Dniester was Tyra(s). Ptolemy remarked
that “supra Tyram penes Daciam” (Eng. above the Dniester in possession of Dacia).
34
In Tyščenko’s words (ibid.): “Цілком очевидно, що дако-римська концепція
О. Пламеницької розкриває нові перспективи в історичних дослідженнях не лише
Поділля, а й прилеглих теренів”. (It is evident that O. Plamenyc’ka’s Dacian-Roman
concept opens new perspectives for historical researches not only of Podillia but also in
contiguous fields [translated by the author]). Cf. Plamenyc’ka 1999: 5.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 61

The geo-political and cultural extension of the Roman world (until 476 AD,
decline of the Western Roman Empire35) must have had directly or indirectly
some kind of commercial and cultural / linguistic influence on those populations
living beyond the borders (limes) of the Empire36. The strong influence of the
dominating Latin culture in the European territories, to a greater or lesser extent,
left their imprint on all spheres of life and also in peripheral regions37.
It is therefore not surprising that the oldest currency system of the Rus’ of
Kyjiv seems to have derived from the Roman denarius of the 2nd c. AD (Tyščenko
2009: 38). Brajčevs’kyj (1959) explained such coincidences of measures and
terminology, first observed by B. Rybakov, as the results of commercial relations
between populations (Slavs) living in what was to become the East Slavic area
and the Romanized people during the first centuries AD. The scholar is likewise
convinced that only this epoch could have brought about such coincidences be-
cause prior to this period there were no direct contacts between Slavs and Ro-
mans, and later Rome ceased to exist38. We can only partially agree with the latter
statement since Latin culture and language continued to survive the decline of
the Roman Empire in the Byzantine territories well until the reign of Heraklion
I (610-641), when Greek became the official language of the Empire, thus re-
placing Latin39. However, language traces of Latinity survived both in Byzantine
Greek and in the Balkan Peninsula, (later occupied by the Slavic speaking popu-
lations), before and after the appearance of Slavic writing in the 9th century40. The
province of Dacia41 must have had a fundamental role in transmitting a number of

35
It has to be added though that Latin continued to be widely used among learned
men also in the remnant territories of the former Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire
until the 7th-8th centuries AD when it was gradually and completely replaced by Greek.
36
Kryžc’kyj (1998: 427) to this point states: “(…) посилення впливу культури
Римської імперії, який здійснювався як через східні, так і через західні провінції”
(the intensification of the cultural influence of the Roman empire that was accomplished
both through the Eastern and the Western provinces”. [Translated by the author]).
37
“(…) Cильні впливи панівної на території Європи римської культури тією
чи іншою мірою наклали свій відбиток на всі сфери життя і в цих віддалених від
центрів регіонах”. (A strong influence of the dominant Roman culture in the European
territories, to a greater or lesser degree, left its imprint in all spheres of life and in those
regions distant from the main centres [Translated by the author]). Cf. Kryžyc’kyj 1998:
427ff.
38
He wrote: “Жодна інша епоха не могла породити такий збіг: раніше – бо
не існувало контактів слов’ян з Римом, а пізніша – бо не стало самого Риму”. (Ev-
ery other epoch could not generate such a coincidence since contacts with Rome in an
earlier epoch did not exist and later because Rome ceased to exist. [Translated by the
author]) (ibid.).
39
See Ostrogorsky 1993: 94ff.; <http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impero_bizantino>
(18.07.2010).
40
See Tagliavini 1982: 192-193; Skok 1931: 371-378; Romansky 1909: 89-134.
41
The Dacia region included at that time territories which roughly correspond to
present day Romania, Moldova, as well as smaller parts of Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary
and Ukraine.
62 Salvatore Del Gaudio

labour instruments and tools to the populations of the lower Dniester (including
Slavs), e.g. the iron tip, the rotatory millstone, axe with horizontal butt-end, file
etc. New methods of making bread and handcraft spread out from the Dniester
area among the upper Dnieper territory42. The intense trade of Roman manufac-
ture (e.g. widespread tools, jewelry, textile wares, ceramics etc.) and grain prod-
ucts of “Ukrainian” provenance prospered during the Roman rule over Dacia,
and in the towns north of the Black Sea area. Evidence that bread was among the
number of products exported from the Dnieper Basin to the Roman Empire is the
coincidence in the units of measurement and their formal names in use between
‘Slavic’ and Romanized people. Compare: Lat. quadrantārius (= 26, 26 litres) <
Lat. quadra ‘quarter’ and Old Rusian četverik (= 26,26 litres) < PSL čvert’. The
same applies to the double measure; e.g. Lat. medimnus (= 52, 52 litres) < Lat.
medius ‘half’ and PSL medimn (Tyščenko 2009: 39)43.
Roman colonial influence intensified in the Dnieper area between the 1st
and the 3rd c. AD. The colonizers of Dacia were people who came from the most
distant corners of the Roman Empire, and many also came from the Italian rural
areas44. These people spoke a kind of everyday (common/provincial) or popular
Latin45. As pointed by Lučkanyn (2011: 74), Dacia was intensively romanized
between the years 106-271, and the time span was long enough to favour the
linguistic assimilation of the local population46.
A peculiar synthesis of Graeco-Roman peripheral culture must have affected
the populations living on the other sides of the limes as testified by the fact ex-
pressed above. Moreover the language of oral communication was probably a
mixture of spoken Latin-Greek with Thracian features of the Roman soldiers and
colonists living in the border and across the border areas, probably a kind of lin-
gua franca. Innovative terminology of Latin origin was also introduced thank to
the Romanized presence47. Rosetti (1986: 270) points out the function Proto-Slav-
ic vernaculars had in spreading some Latin words in Romanian via South Slav-
ic forms, cf. Lat. creatione, calendae, Rosalia, Traianus > South Slavic kračun,
kolęda, Rusalija, Troian > Rumanian crăciun, colinda, Rusalii, Troian etc.
Finally, Onomastics, as mentioned, plays an important role in mapping out
the presence of Latin linguistic substrata in the geographical place-names of
East and South East Europe. The fact that in some regions Ukrainian toponomy
apparently discloses Latin roots could be explained by the Roman presence in
42
In other words, “Правобережна Україна стала, таким чином, близькою пе-
риферією пізньоантичної цивілізації” (Right Bank Ukraine became in that way the
close periphery of the late ancient world. [Translated by the author]). Cf. Toločko, Ko-
zak et al. 2000: 153.
43
Cf. 3.1
44
See: Lingue romanze balcaniche <http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingue_roman-
ze_balcaniche> (27.10.2012).
45
Cf. the terms: sermo vulgaris, sermo castrensis, sermo cotidianus, sermo pro-
vincialis.
46
Cf. Mihăescu 1960; 1993.
47
Cf. Kryžyc’kyj 1998: 434-435.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 63

some of these territories, most probably the south-western and south-eastern

regions of contemporary Ukraine. The toponymic interpretation, though, given
by Tyščenko (2009: 44ff)48 may induce to negative critics. This particularly re-
gards his interpretation of some Ukrainian place-names that the scholar, with-
out hesitation, associates with Latin – Proto (East)-Slavic contacts49. One can
theoretically agree with Tyščenko that the preservation of place and geographic
names of Latin origin in part of the contemporary East Slavic area is plausible.
East European toponymy may certainly reveal Latin roots, e.g. Plinius’ lacus
Pelsonis (today Lake Balaton in Hungary), or other place names such as Prolis-
sum and Dacia Prolissensis (cf. Ukrainian lěs > lis; Dakija Pidlisna), the locality
Bustricius, cf. Bistrica etc50; however, the presence of toponymic roots, on the
East Slavic (Ukrainian) area, such as Трояни, Домниця, Колядин51 etc., in spite
of their formal coincidence with Latin personal names, might not necessarily
derive from an ancient Latin borrowing of the Proto-Slavic period52. Železnjak
(1992: 77-87), for example, notwithstanding the large diffusion of place names
with the stem “Trojan-” on part of the Slavic territories, particularly on the
Ukrainian, to a lesser extent Belarusian, Polish and Bulgarian-Serbian territory,
excludes its direct relation with the name of the Roman emperor Trajanus53.
He admits the possible derivation from a personal name and/or god’s name (as
well as the possibility that it indicates an appellative with the numeral function
“three”); however he relates the word to a local Proto-Slavism.

48
His argument can be summed up as follows: a) presence of early Slavic
place names in Latin documents, loan-words of Latin origin in the vocabulary of the
Proto(East) Slavs; b) frequent and consistent diffusion of specific roots of evident Latin
origin on the Ukrainian territory where many place names are formed; e.g. Trojan-;
Doman-; Rim-; Avgust- (plus variants) etc.
49
Tyščenko always indicates such contacts as “Ukrainian”. In our opinion, his
terminology may be justified only if considered in a strict synchronic interpretation of
the language phenomena. Otherwise the word is not appropriate since at the time of the
analyzed facts an individual Ukrainian nation did not yet exist. In addition, in all his
works, the word ‘Rome’ and its derivates are too often used as synonym of Latin (lan-
guage) or Romanized populations.
50
Cf. Trubačev 2003: 299, 383-384, 355.
51
Колядин- is related to the Latin ‘Сalendae’ (1st day of the month; see: calen-
dar), cf. Ukr. календи; Rus. календы. There are a few places that still preserve ancient
stems with an apparent Latin root, for example: Ромейки Рв etc. Roman money has
been found not far from these places.
52
See Verbyč 2010: 50-68 (recension on Tyščenko’s four monographies).
53
“Разом із тим, принаймні східнослов’янська лексика не має зв’язку з іме-
нем римського імператора. Слов’янські мови мають досить прикладів апелятивної
лексики, що свідчить про її давність, семантичну чіткість. (…). Зовнішній збіг з
іменем римського імператора слід вважати випадковим” (Besides that, East Slavic
lexis is not connected with the name of the Roman emperor. Slavic languages have
enough examples of appellative lexis proving its ancient origin and semantic exactness.
(…). The formal coincidence with the name of the Roman emperor has to be considered
as accidental [translated by the author]) (Ibid., 87).
64 Salvatore Del Gaudio

An analysis of the toponymy of the present-day Slavic speaking countries

reveals a large number of elements of Latin origin. Yet it should be pointed out
that it is not always easy to distinguish the forms, both in toponymy and lexis,
which are of direct Latin derivation from those loan-words that were mediated
through other romance languages, such as Rumanian and Dalmatic54. The latter,
through the migrations of the “Walach” shepherds brought Latinized elements
(in a later era) not only to the south Slavic languages but also to the east Slavic
ones, especially in Ukrainian55.

3.1. Latinisms in Greek and their Reflexes in Old Church Slavonic

The classification of Latin loan-words in Old and Byzantine Greek made
by F. Viscidi (1944: 10-42) is particularly useful as means to examine which
Latinisms found correspondences in the early developmental phase of Slavic
vernaculars. The number of Latin loan-words recorded in Greek (especially
from the 2nd century onwards), is relatively high56. They can be detected in the
Gospels and in several other textual sources of the Byzantine period, e.g. Lido,
Malala, Procopius, Chrysostom etc.
In this section we will mainly restrict our analysis to those lexical Latinisms
that entered the Middle-Late Proto-Slavic vernaculars either directly or through
the mediation of Byzantine Greek, showing reflexes in Old Church Slavonic
texts. In particular, we will compare the Greek Gospel of Mark with one of its
earliest Church Slavonic translations contained in the Codex Zografensis.
The issue of a Latin syntactic influence on the Old Church Slavonic version
of the Gospel of Mark has long attracted the attention of Slavists57. Since we are
not primarily concerned with the syntactic-stylistic aspects of the translation, we
will only consider a limited number of lexical Latinisms that, because of their
wide diffusion in different Old Church Slavonic textual sources and in other
extinct languages of the first centuries of the vulgar era, e.g. Gothic, must have
been known to the Slavs well before the appearance of writing. Our choice to
begin with the Gospel of Mark is motivated by the following reasons:
a) The Gospel According to Mark (Τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον; Evangelium
Secundum Marcum; Отъ Марка), according to the majority of contempo-
rary biblical scholars58, is the earliest of the canonical Gospels. It was writ-
ten as early as the year 70 in the Roman province of Syria or, according to
other interpretations, in the 2nd century in the Greek speaking community
54
See Romansky 1909: 89-134. In Tagliavini’s view (1982: 191-193) Romansky
exaggerated the number of elements of direct Latin derivation.
55
Cf. Miklosich 1879: 1-66.
56
According to Viscidi (1944: 43) the total number of Latin words in Byzantine
Greek was about two thousand. The number of Latinisms which has survived in Modern
Greek is drastically reduced.
57
Cf. Pogorelov 1925: 3-10.
58
Cf. Brown 1997: 70.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 65

of Rome. The high frequency of Latin words in Mark has been sometimes
used as an argument for a Roman provenance of the Gospel59.
b) This Gospel contains a number of lexical, morphological and syntactic
Latinisms that were in use, at the time it was compiled (between the 1st and
2nd century?), in large sectors of the Greek speaking communities across
the Roman Empire as has been argued in the previous sections60. Most of
the Latinisms in the Gospel have correspondences in other languages of the
late imperial period and early middle Ages, e.g. Aramaic (Late Hebrew)61,
Gothic etc. The fact that the Roman Christian community was interethnic
and used a kind of colloquial Greek, enriched with lexical elements from
other languages, reinforces our thesis that the selected Latinisms must have
been recurrent, and actively used, in the speech of many nationalities. They
were widespread on extensive territories of the former Roman Empire, and
must have had an impact also on Middle Proto-Slavonic.
c) The Glagolitic Mark’s Gospel contained in the Codex Zographensis62 is one
of the earliest Old Church Slavonic texts (Macedonia 10th-11th century) and
it shows diverse lexical equivalences and morpho-syntactic parallelisms
with the Greek Text;
d) In our opinion such parallelisms cannot be only attributed to translation
patterns following a kind of word-for-word translation of a Greek original
since the lexical Latinisms do not show a one to one correspondence in
the compared texts. The Greek version, for instance, always uses the word
“κεντυρίων”, whereas the Church Slavonic often replaces it with the Slavic
calque “сотникъ”. The lexical Latinisms of the Greek text outnumber the
lexical Latinisms of the Old Church Slavonic version, and we can add of
the Gothic Gospel63. This speaks of a stronger Latin influence on Greek, as
it was logical to expect, in the first centuries of our era rather than in the late
Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic period.
e) The lexical Latinisms selected below coincide by and large with those Latin
words that, also according to the etymological sources64, must have entered
the Proto-Slavic vernaculars between the 2nd and the 7th centuries as argued
in the previous sections. They basically indicate specific Roman realia that,

59
See: J. Schroter, Gospel of Mark, in: Aune 1987: 278. The Greek speaking
Christian community of Rome must have included different nationalities who used
Greek as a language of interethnic communication.
60
Our arguments have found support also in Biblical exegetes such as Cadbury
(1958: 88-89).
61
Ibid.
62
Here we use the Jagić edition (1879: 47-78) in its Cyrillic transcription.
63
Cf.: Die Gotische Bibel von Wilhelm Streitberg, <http://wikisource.org/wiki/
Die_gotische_Bibel#XII._2> (25.10.2012).
64
Vasmer 1950-1958; Mel’nyčuk et al. 1982-2006; Trubačev 1973-2002; Brück-
ner 1957; Lehmann 1986; Kurz 1966, etc.
66 Salvatore Del Gaudio

notwithstanding Greek reluctance to accept new terms, represented innova-

tive concepts65.

Table 1
Recurrent Latinisms in the Gospel of Mark in its
Greek-Gothic-Old Church Slavonic Version

Gospel Latin Greek Gothic Old Church

of Mark Slavonic
12:14 Census κῆνσος kaisaragild кинсъ
“poll-tax”
15:45 Centurio κεντυρίων hundafaþ кенътоурионъ
“centurion”
12:15 Denarius δηνάριον skatt пѣнѧзь
“a Roman
coin”
15:15 Flagellum φραγελλόω usbliggwands тепъ
“to flog”
5:9, 15 Legio λεγιών laigaion легеонъ
“legion”
4:21 Modius μόδιος uf melan спѫдомь
“peck
measure”
15:16 Praetorium πραιτώριον praitoriaun прѣторъ
“governor’s
official
residence”
12:42 Quadrans κοδράντης (missing text) конъдратъ
“a Roman
coin”
7:4 Sextarius ξέστης stikle стьклѣ
“quart measure,
pitcher”

65
Viscidi (1944: 19) notes: “(…) una voce straniera entra e vive come prestito
in un’altra lingua – e soprattutto così poco accessibile come la greca – solo quando
rappresenta qualcosa di nuovo che non può trovare corrispondenza esatta nel lessico
dell’idioma mutuante”.
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 67

6:27 Speculator σπεκουλάτωρ spaikulatur воiн

“executioner”
2:22 Vinus oινον wein вино
“wine”

The table shows a one-to-one correspondence between Latin realia and the
Greek text in all the reported lines of the Gospel of Mark. The Old Church Sla-
vonic text, on the other hand, shows six direct correspondences with the Greek
Gospel and, in two cases: воін, тепъ, it completely replaces the Latinisms with
Slavic words. The Slavic version does not reveal a word-for-word translation of
the lexical Latinisms, e.g. in Marc, 15:39, the Old Church Slavonic replaces the
Latin centurio with a Slavic morpho-semantic calque сътникъ; whereas a few
lines later it adopts the Latinism. Similar cases are rather frequent in the selected
text. This implies that the translation of lexical items is far from always being
literal and that the Latin words are probably used as synonyms, thus pointing
out to a deep penetration of these items in the middle-late Proto-Slavic speech.
As to the unity of measures, it is interesting to note that the word динарии
(< Lat. denarius) in our text is either replaced by пѣнѧзь, a loan-word from Old
High German66, or cъребрьникы. The latter is a loan-translation of the Roman
denarius since it expresses the exact value of the Roman silver coin. The word
динарии is attested as a synonym in other Old Church Slavonic sources67 and
in most (if not all) modern Slavic languages68. Also the form конъдратъ, apart
from its phono-morphological adaptation to Proto-Slavic via the Greek form (kw
> k; ā > o; + metathesis), corresponds to the Roman (coin) unity quadrans. The
lexeme for ‘vessel’ спѫдь corresponds to the Greek μόδιος69 < Lat. modius.
As to the Gothic translation, one can observe five lexical Latinisms, plus
an example of a morphological calque, cf. centurio vs. hundafaþ. A few lines/
excerpts are missing in the Gothic Bible; others present lexical Latinisms in dif-
ferent passages. It should be added that a number of studies70 enhance the im-
portance of Gothic as a mediator of Latin language elements into Proto-Slavic
vernaculars, for the Goths were already present in part of the Moesia, Dacia
and Pontus area by the end of the 3rd century. A certain number of Latin words
undoubtedly penetrated into Gothic either directly or through the mediation of
Greek, e.g. kintus / aiz < centussis = centum + as (also skatts), hunda-faths <
66
*Pěnędzь < Old High German pfenni(n)g (cf. Wiesław 2005: 429). This fact
seems not to exclude an influence of Old High German dialects on the compilation of
the Gospel or, more exactly, on the terminology of the first Methodius’ successors.
67
Cf. Vasmer 1950-1958, I: 515; Kurz 1966, I: 481.
68
Lat. denarius > gr. δηνάριον (cf. the Byzantine pronunciation of η = i; Old
Slavonic dinar > Serbo-Croatian dinar, etc.; also compare Arabic, Persian and Turkish
dinār (cf. Romansky 1909: 101).
69
See Cejtlin et al. 1999: 620.
70
See Schenker 2002: 110; Birnabum 1984: 7-19; also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Proto-Slavic_borrowings> (12.12.2012).
68 Salvatore Del Gaudio

centurio (morpho-semantic calque), praitoriaun < praetorium, laigaion < legio

(also thusundi) etc., for this people came into direct contact with the Greek-Ro-
man cultural world. Nevertheless the intermediary role of Gothic in transmitting
Latinisms to the Proto-Slavic vernaculars has often been overestimated for the
following reasons:
a) As mentioned, also other populations of late antiquity and the early middle
Ages had direct contacts with the Latinitas, e.g. the Sarmats, Avars, Antes,
‘Slavs’ etc.;
b) Gothic textual sources, in particular Wulfila’s (Ulfilas) translation of the
Bible, are also the result of direct translation from Greek;
b) There is no evidence that the Gothic Bible served as a model for the Old
Church Slavonic translations;
c) They partially contradict the criteria71 used to assess the character and the
origin of early borrowing as already argued by Simeonov (1968: 121ff.).
If one assumes Gothic mediation, it is difficult to explain the different out-
come of the same word, cf. Latin Caesar – Gothic kaisar – Old Church
Slavonic кесарь, цесарь, цъсарь, цѣсарь (all attested), or Latin acetus
– Gothic akeit – OCS осьтъ. In the case of кесарь one can assume that:
1) it is either an indirect (bookish) loan-word from Greek since by the 10th
century all the Vulgar Latin varieties (Romance territories) show traces of
palatalization of the velar [k], or
2) a Gothic influence has to be postulated. If it were so, how can one explain
the other/palatalized variants diffused in OCS and Slavic languages? In our
opinion, it is safer to assume that the form кесарь was directly adapted
from Greek; whereas the palatalized forms entered Proto-Slavic, and later
OCS, directly from the Balkan Latinity where the local populations spoke a
sermo vulgaris, different from the classical Latin of the 1st century.
Even though the idiosyncrasies of Old Church Slavonic morpho-syntax are
beyond the scope of this paper, a few words about the assumed Latin origin of
the Ukrainian compound future tense, advanced by Tyščenko (2009: 42-43),
fits well into the argumentative framework of this contribution. The latter re-
lates the specific Ukrainian compound future tense on the pattern: pysaty-mu
(писатиму) = pysaty (inf. ‘to write’) + maty (ending of the conjugated form of
the verb ‘to have’) to a direct vulgar Latin pattern / early Romance development
of the 2nd-3rd century, on the model ‘scribere habeo’, cf. Italian scriverò, Span-
ish escribiré, French j’écrirai etc. Such a postulate should be rejected for the
following reasons72:
71
These criteria mainly rely on: a) phonetic changes; b) the geographic extension
of the borrowings (extra-linguistic factor).
72
“Die Futurperiphrase έχω + Infinitive, z.B. έχω γράϕαι ist schon in der χοινή
bekannt und in byzantinischer Zeit lange vorherrschend. Man wird diese Struktur nicht
 Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts 69

a) This kind of periphrastic future is already attested in the χοινή and largely
widespread in Byzantine Greek;
b) This morphological pattern found space through the mediation of the so
called Balkan Latinity and reinforced by its usage in Byzantine Greek. Lat-
er it was recorded in Old Church Slavonic: imamь pisati (имамь писати).
c) Ukrainian did not exist as a language at that time; one could have spoken in
general terms of ‘Proto-East-Slavic’.

For the reason expressed above and other observations, we assumed else-
where (Del Gaudio 2011: 32ff.) that Latin morpho-syntactic constructions and
literary tropes, common to the Greek-Latin literary, juridical and ecclesiastic tra-
dition, mediated through Byzantine Greek written sources, entered the early Old
Church Slavonic language. Latinisms are undoubtedly more limited in number
in the Old Church Slavonic corpus than in Greek textual sources since Church
Slavonic texts had been created to fulfill specific religious-cultural functions,
whose original aim was to create a language that could be easily understood by
the illiterate mass of the faithful (reason for the mission of Cyril and Methodius
in Moravia). They were therefore devoid of complex literary stylistic and lexical
means not understandable by the Slavic illiterate mass of the first millennium.

Conclusions
Notwithstanding the awareness of the intrinsic complexity that a study on
Latin-Proto-Slavic contacts implies, we have tried to provide evidence that there
exists a kind of continuity in the transmission of Latin lexical items between the
Middle-Late Proto-Slavic period and the earliest attestations of Slavic, e.g. Old
Church Slavonic. We demonstrated that a certain number of Latin words must
have entered into the oral usage of Proto-Slavic vernaculars directly from the
contacting areas of Dacia (Balkan Latinity at large) and the Pontus areas in a
period of time when there was a minimal dialectal differentiation between them
(2nd-5th century). In the first centuries of our era, in fact, vast areas in the north-
ern part of the Balkan Peninsula were Latinized (geographic criterion).
On the other hand, Greek and Byzantine Greek sources, but also archeolog-
ical finds in the vast areas beyond the official limes (boundaries) of the Roman
Empire, reveal traces of cultural-commercial and linguistic contacts between the
Latinitas (Roman world) and the nomadic populations of the early centuries (1st-

von der entsprechenden vulgärlateinischen scribere habeo trennen wollen, auch im Sla-
vischen ist sie bekanntlich geläufig” (The future periphrasis έχω + infinitive, e.g. έχω
γράϕαι was already known at the time of the χοινή and it was predominant in the Byz-
antine period. One can hardly distinguish this structure from the corresponding vulgar
Latin scribere habeo; moreover it was commonly used also in Slavic [translated by the
author]). Cf. Trunte 2007: 263-264; Renzi 2003: 155.
70 Salvatore Del Gaudio

6th) of the vulgar era (ethno-historic criterion). One can therefore assume that
populations speaking Proto-Slavic vernaculars and living amidst the nomadic
populations of the steppe areas, north of the Pontus, and also in the area north of
the Danube, came into contact with the Greek-Roman civilization. This implies
that Proto-Slavs must have already been acquainted with specific Latin realia
widespread in the language spoken by the legionary and the sedentary people
of the Danube provinces and Pontus protectorate since the early centuries of the
vulgar era. One can even advance the hypothesis that in the eastern provinces
the language of communication was a sort of lingua franca made up of Greek
with the overlapping of Latin and other local elements. This contribution was
restricted to the analysis of a small number of lexical items of Latin origin that
are recurrent in many Greek and Byzantine sources but that have parallels in
Gothic and Old Church Slavonic and are widely used in modern Slavic lan-
guages (linguistic criterion). Our contribution can be regarded as a first attempt
at examining some aspects of a complex problematic that involves the overlap-
ping of several factors of extra and intra-linguistic nature and the difficulty to
objectively interpret the several studies on etymology, historical linguistics and
Onomastics carried out by eminent Linguists and Slavists.

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Abstract

Salvatore Del Gaudio

Latin-Protoslavic Language Contacts and their Reflexes in Early Old Church
Slavonic Texts

Language contacts between Latin and Proto-Slavic ‘dialects’, with the exception of
a few authoritative contributions, have traditionally been neglected. The difficulties that
arise in this field of studies have mainly to do with the fragmentary historical-linguistic
facts. The reconstruction of the historic-cultural and linguistic dynamics which took
place between ‘Slavic’ people and the ‘latinitas’ (Roman world) are complicated by the
scanty available Greek and Roman historical sources. It is therefore our aim to re-ex-
amine the already known linguistic facts within a perspective that considers the diverse
processes of historic-cultural interaction (extra linguistic factors) which created the con-
ditions for the diffusion of elements of spoken Latin (sermo vulgaris) among ‘Slavic’
speaking populations. At the same time we also intend to prove that some Latin lexemes,
recorded in Old Church Slavonic texts, were not, as one may assume, the consequence
of translation practice but rather a functional part of the middle and late Proto-Slavic (or
Common Slavic) lexis. Therefore they should be not considered any longer the exclu-
sive results of translation activities, as has been implied until now.