Church Slavic Vital Records
As you look through more and more vital records from
Halychyna / Eastern Galicia, you will undoubtedly come across Church Slavic, a
literary language used for ecclesiastic purposes in the Greek Catholic (and
Eastern European Orthodox) church. Church Slavic uses the Cyrillic
alphabet, like Ukrainian, Russian and Carpatho-Rusyn. For those of you
familiar with some of these other languages, you will have an easier time
reading the Church Slavic. However, please keep in mind that Church Slavic
is a separate language and therefore, has some differences in the alphabet,
grammar and vocabulary. Church Slavic can be a particularly difficult language to read, even to
someone familiar with modern-day Cyrillic alphabets of Ukrainian and Russian.
The greatest challenges are the abundance of abbreviations, superscripts and
diacritical markings to show stress, breathings and types of vowels, as well as
letters in the form of superscripts "floating" above the words.
In addition, heavy influences from the local national
languages were ever present in Church Slavic, which make for different
variations, known as recensions, e.g., the Ukrainian recension, Russian
recension, etc. This is important for the genealogist to keep in mind when
reading Church Slavic vital records.
Church Slavic Alphabet and Number System
Visit my pages on the Church Slavic Alphabet and
Church
Slavic Number System. Even if you are familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet,
you will want to see important notes on certain letters. Also, remember
that numerals were often written by the priest/scribe using the Church Slavic
letters (similar to the use of letters in the Roman numeral system).
Dissection of a Church Slavic Birth /
Baptismal Record
Here's a line by line study of a
Church Slavic
birth/baptismal record.
Dissection of a Church Slavic Marriage Record
Here's a line by line study of a
Church Slavic marriage
record.
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