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The history of Proto-Slavic is the linguistic history of the Proto-Slavic language, the hypothetical ancestor of the modern-day Slavic languages, as it developed from the ancestral Proto-Balto-Slavic language (c. 1500 BC), which is the parent language of the Balto-Slavic languages (both the Slavic and Baltic languages, e.g. Latvian and Lithuanian). The first 2,000 years or so consist of the pre-Slavic era, a long, stable period of gradual development during which the language remained unified, with no discernible dialectal differences. The last stage in which the language remained without internal differences can be dated around 500 AD and is sometimes termed ''Proto-Slavic proper'' or ''Early Proto-Slavic''. Following this is the Common Slavic period (c. 500–1000 AD), during which the first dialectal differences appeared but the entire Slavic-speaking area continued to function as a single language, with sound changes tending to spread throughout the entire area. By around 1000 AD, the area had broken up into separate East Slavic, West Slavic and South Slavic languages, and in the following centuries it broke up further into the various modern Slavic languages of which the following are extant: Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn and Ukrainian in the East; Czech, Slovak, Polish, Kashubian and the Sorbian languages in the West, and Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian in the South. The period from the early centuries AD to the end of the Common Slavic period around 1000 AD was a time of rapid change, concurrent with the explosive growth of the Slavic-speaking area. By the end of this period, most of the features of the modern Slavic languages had been established. The first historical documentation of the Slavic languages is found in isolated names and words in Greek documents starting in the 6th century AD, when Slavic-speaking tribes first came in contact with the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire. The first continuous texts date from the late 9th century AD and were written in Old Church Slavonic—based on the language of Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia—as part of the Christianization of the Slavs by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their followers. Because these texts were written during the Common Slavic period, the language they document is close to the ancestral Proto-Slavic language and is critically important to the linguistic reconstruction of Slavic-language history. This article covers historical developments up through the end of the Common Slavic period. For later developments, see History of the Slavic languages. ==Introduction== Proto-Slavic is descended from Proto-Balto-Slavic (the ancestor of the Balto-Slavic languages). This language in turn is descended from Proto-Indo-European, the parent language of the vast majority of European languages (including English, German, Spanish, French, etc.). Proto-Slavic gradually evolved into the various Slavic languages during the latter half of the first millennium AD, concurrent with the explosive growth of the Slavic-speaking area. There is no scholarly consensus concerning either the number of stages involved in the development of the language (its periodization) or the terms used to describe them. For consistency and convenience, this article and the Proto-Slavic article adopt the following scheme: # ''Pre-Slavic'' (c. 1500 BC — 300 AD): A long, stable period of gradual development. The most significant phonological developments during this period involved the prosodic system, e.g. tonal and other register distinctions on syllables. # ''Proto-Slavic proper'' or ''Early Common Slavic'' (c. 300 — 600 AD): The early, uniform stage of Common Slavic, a period of rapid phonological change. There are no dialectal distinctions reconstructible from this period. # ''Middle Common Slavic'' (c. 600 — 800 AD): The stage with the earliest identifiable dialectal distinctions. Rapid phonological change continued, although with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Although some dialectal variation did exist, most sound changes were still uniform and consistent in their application. By the end of this stage, the vowel and consonant phonemes of the language were largely the same as those still found in the modern languages. For this reason, reconstructed "Proto-Slavic" forms commonly found in scholarly works and etymological dictionaries normally correspond to this period. # ''Late Common Slavic'' (c. 800 — 1000 AD, although perhaps through c. 1150 AD in Kievan Rus', in the far northeast): The last stage in which the whole Slavic-speaking area still functioned as a single language, with sound changes normally propagating throughout the entire area, although often with significant dialectal variation in the details. Slavic scholars differ widely in both the terminology and periodization of these developments. Some scholars do not use the term "Common Slavic" at all. For some others, the Common Slavic period comes ''after'' Proto-Slavic rather than including it. Some scholars (e.g. Frederik Kortlandt) divide the Common Slavic period into five or more stages, while others use as few as two (an early, uniform stage and a late, dialectally differentiated stage). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Proto-Slavic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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