- Great Russian language
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 Living Great Russian Language".By the standards prevalent in 19th-century
Imperial Russia , many scholars did not distinguish between theEastern Slavic languages spoken within the borders of theRussian Empire . The Eastern Slavic languages were claimed to be mutually intelligible, a position which has been called into question since. Great Russian,Little Russia n (Ukrainian), andWhite Russia n (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 theByzantine Empire andRussian Empire to distinguish the Russia proper from "Malorossiya" (Little Russia , nowUkraine ) and "Belorussia" (White Russia , nowBelarus ).The Great Russian, or just Russian, language was formed in the
Late Middle Ages in the northern Russian principalities under heavy influence ofChurch Slavonic language . As compared to the Great Russian, other Eastern Slavonic languages were termed one-dimensional, [http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/TNS/tns10.htm] because they lacked the stratum of "high speech", derived from the Church Slavonic. For political reasons, the literary Russian language evolved under the significant influence of theMoscow dialect . See theRussian language for more detailed information.
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