Hello everyone.
I've been reading about Old East Slavic (I'm learning Russian). According to the Primary Chronicle, the Ukrainian capital is written like києвѣ. Although I'm very much a beginner in Russian (I cannot speak for Ukrainian), this translates into K - IE - V. Is this correct?
Please note I'm not interested in commenting on current events, including the war in Ukraine or Russia. I'm just curious about this as I'm not a linguist. Also, by 'Modern English' (a somewhat vague term) I'm referring to British English in the current day.
Thank you!
Well, this sort of depends on the century you're talking about. While the earliest attested copy of the Primary Chronicle (in the Laurentian Codex) is from the fourteenth century, the original text was probably much older, from the twelfth century - this is a time where a lot of phonological shifts happened for Old East Slavic.
To start off, the form киѥвѣ is the locative case form of киѥвꙏ. The original pronunciation of the lemma form is - per the usual reconstructions, like those by Zaliznyak - something like /ˈkʲijɛʋʊ/ (so, in English, roughly KEE-yeah-wuh) in the eleventh century. In the following centuries, gradually, the final vowel was lost (this process is commonly known as the loss of yers).
In Ukrainain, the original [i] later backed to [ɪ̞], a regular change, as also seen in the words like бити (< OES бити).
There was probably also a competing pronunciation in that time, where the /i/ preceding the /j/ regularly lowered to what is called a tense yeri (this was probably something like [ɪ], the English "i" in "pit"). Subsequently, following the loss of yers, this sound would change into [ɛ], the "e" in "bed". It seems like none of the daughter languages actually inherited this form.