The Paschal greeting "Христосъ воскресе! - Воистину воскресе!" ("Christos voskrese! – Voistinu voskrese!" i.e. "Christ is risen! - Truly, He is risen!") is an Old Slavonic relict. While not spoken anymore, Old Slavonic remains the liturgical language of Orthodox Christians.
The word "Христосъ" is spelt similarly to its modern Russian equivalent, except for "ъ" (the hard sign).
The word "воскресе" (meaning "revived, resurrected, rose from the dead") represents an obsolete verb form called "aorist", which was one of the Old Slavonic past tenses. Interestingly enough, modern Russian has no past tense at all since such archaic forms have been superseded by the present perfect (lacking any auxiliary now). So the words being taken (even by native Russian speakers) for past tense verbs are in fact past participles.
The word "воистину" used to mean "truly" or "indeed" but today it sounds antediluvian.
Isn't it funky to outclass your Russian language teachers?..
1 comment:
> Iisus Voskres! Istina Voskres!
Sorry, this needs correction.
The Paschal greeting "Христосъ воскресе! - Воистину воскресе!" ("Christos voskrese! – Voistinu voskrese!" i.e. "Christ is risen! - Truly, He is risen!") is an Old Slavonic relict. While not spoken anymore, Old Slavonic remains the liturgical language of Orthodox Christians.
The word "Христосъ" is spelt similarly to its modern Russian equivalent, except for "ъ" (the hard sign).
The word "воскресе" (meaning "revived, resurrected, rose from the dead") represents an obsolete verb form called "aorist", which was one of the Old Slavonic past tenses. Interestingly enough, modern Russian has no past tense at all since such archaic forms have been superseded by the present perfect (lacking any auxiliary now). So the words being taken (even by native Russian speakers) for past tense verbs are in fact past participles.
The word "воистину" used to mean "truly" or "indeed" but today it sounds antediluvian.
Isn't it funky to outclass your Russian language teachers?..
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