Abstract:
The oldest translations of the Bible (mostly fragmentary) into various European languages
were based on folk languages, which were intellectualised under the influence of contacts with highly prestigious languages – mainly Greek and Latin. In the circle of Slavic Roman culture, folk language material was intellectualised in biblical translations primarily by La tin (Czech, Polish, regional Croatian languages). German was the most important source of linguistic skills (to a lesser extent Latin and Greek) of the oldest Sorbian and Slovenian translations. To a great degree, the folk language is presented by Slovak translations from the period from the 18th century to the mid-19th century. They owe the Czech Bible and partly the Vulgate the appropriate level of language means.
In the circle of Slavic Byzantine culture, the function of liturgical language and all writing was fulfilled for a long time by Old Church Slavonic and later Church Slavonic. Cyril and Methodius’ translations from the second half of the 9th century is an example of intellectualising Slavonic Macedonian dialect of the region of Thessaloniki on the basis of the Greek language patterns. The national languages of Orthodox Slavs (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian) formed quite late on the basis of folk dialects and colloquial languages of urban centres.
The Orthodox Church treated the translations of the Bible into national (folk) Slavonic languages
with reluctance, or even with outright hostility. In each of the translations of biblical texts into so-called literary Slavonic micro-languages (e.g. Kashubian, Podhale dialect, Lemko, Resian dialect, Banatian- Bulgarian) the component of folk language is certainly large.
