Abstract:
The article presents an analysis of dialectal substratum in the language of twelve 16th-17th century didactic Gospels. The basic criterion for the identification of dialectal elements was existence of the same features in modern Ukrainian dialects. In particular typical dialectal features in the system of consonantism were detected, such as pronunciation of guttural and velar consonants ([г], [к], [х]), palatalization of fricatives [ж], [ш] and affricate [ч], manifestations of consonants [дж], [дз], [ф], [ґ], аrticulation specificity of consonant [л], manifestations of epenthetic [л] and prothetic consonants [в] and [г], simplification of consonant clusters, different assimilation and dissimilation processes. Early fixation of some features, such as dispalatalization of [ж], consonants [дж] and [дз] written with graphics of that time etc., have been found. Separated dialectal features in didactic Gospels texts were analyzed in comparison with other Ukrainian written monuments of the same period. The biggest number of dialectal features is associated with the speech of the Carpathian area. The detected dialectal peculiarities indicate the territory of origin and existence of some of the monuments.