Lexical borrowings from Old Church Slavonic in selected Belorussian-Lithuanian Chronicles

Katarzyna Grabowska

Uniwersytet w Białymstoku, Wydział Filologiczny, Instytut Filologii Wschodniosłowiańskiej

Abstract

This article focuses on the analysis of lexical borrowings from the Old Church Slavonic language excerpted from two 16th-century monuments of Old Belorussian writing: the Supraśl Chronicle and the Krasińscy Chronicle. In the article the borrowings which got into the Old Russian language through the Old Church Slavonic language have also been considered, although they could have been of a different provenance. On the basis of the collected data two types of borrowings can be distinguished: structural-semantic and calque. In both chronicles dominate lexical borrowings proper and their semantics is connected mainly with religious matters. The comparison of research material obtained from the Supraśl Chronicle and the Krasińscy Chronicle leads to the conclusion that the former demonstrates stronger links with the Old Church Slavonic tradition. Most of its documented borrowings can be found in the oldest part which is a compilation of earlier Ruthenian chronicles.

Keywords:

the literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Belorussian-Lithuanian chronicles, borrowings, the Old Church Slavonic Language