How to learn Church Slavonic

[SeraphimSarov]

Any suggestions? I've pretty much got the alphabet down, but any suggestions on how to acquire the appropriate vocabulary to start understanding the services? Is there a grammar in book form available, perhaps?

 

[All4Christ]

Good luck...I've tried and found it difficult. Music is the best way for me to learn, especially when there are English versions to the same melody. I think most books are Old Slavonic, though St Tikhon's has a vocab book. There was a pretty comprehensive website by Justin Z(?) someone....it is on the wayback machine. If you look for resources online, you probably will see people referencing that. Copy the link and put it into the Wayback Machine and you'll have a lot of resources.

ETA: http:// justin.zamora.com/slavonic/

 

[ArmyMatt]

I would say talk to someone who knows both languages and can teach.

 

[archer75]

Church Slavonic is a heavily inflected language, lots of wacky endings and things. If you know a modern Slavic language well, passive understanding of the grammar will pretty much take care of itself, as will tons of the vocab.

Maybe you don't want to go that route, but learning to read modern Russian (read well, not chit-chat Russian) would get you maybe 97% of what you want from CS. Two for one, kind of.

Just a thought.

 

[rusmeister]

I agree. I have never formally studied Church Slavonic; just learned Russian and have attended services for fifteen years. I've got the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom down. I spent ten years referring to English-OCS texts. I still get lost in the changing parts of the service, troparia, etc.
It's not a living language, so you can't go out and find native speakers and say "Братия, вонмем!" and learn like you do living language. Practical application means attending services.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'll definitely check out that website on the Wayback Machine. Seems to me I tried years ago as well to try to learn Slavonic, and I'm gonna bet that your website is the one I was pointed to back then. I just couldn't remember how to find it.

Rus, I got a parallel English-Slavonic prayerbook, and I've been listening to the hymns found in that book on YouTube to try to get a feel for it. My home parish uses a little Slavonic on Sundays, and then I go to an all-Slavonic cathedral on Saturdays for vigil. I hope I can pick it up quickly! (Though maybe not if you actually live in Russia and you still get lost...)

 

[archer75]

Final advice from me: the most most people will be able to do by just trying to pick it up is recognize this or that, basically keep up with "where they are" in the service.

If you want to "actually learn it", you'll need actual study, the kind that isn't part of a service and may not always feel rewarding in itself. Maybe that isn't what you want, but there you go.

 

[SeraphimSarov]

Final advice from me: the most most people will be able to do by just trying to pick it up is recognize this or that, basically keep up with "where they are" in the service.

If you want to "actually learn it", you'll need actual study, the kind that isn't part of a service and may not always feel rewarding in itself. Maybe that isn't what you want, but there you go.

Don't worry. Learning languages is a hobby of mine. I just wish there were a physical book written on the subject.

 

[archer75]

Don't worry. Learning languages is a hobby of mine. I just wish there were a physical book written on the subject.

There are, but the ones I know of are in Russian, which is too bad.

 

[nutroll]

Don't worry. Learning languages is a hobby of mine. I just wish there were a physical book written on the subject.

Grammar of the Church Slavonic Language by Archbishop Alypy