Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/jьz

What Slavic language has the meaning "because of" ? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Judging from our own entries: Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Belarusian ("since" seems similar enough, but is vague). —CodeCat 22:53, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Seems to be only used in figurative phrases, with out of being a more proper translation, more implying motivation and less causation. Still, this could all be a later invention in the literary language, it is doubtful that old illiterate people employed such metaphorical sophistry in the vernacular. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so quick to judge. Remember that poetry and song developed in oral tradition, and they are full of such things. Just look at Beowulf... that was a spoken story that was eventually committed to writing, and look at how intricate it is. No doubt the Slavs had similar practices. —CodeCat 01:06, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes they did, but unfortunately due to early Christianization and late attestation of Slavic most of that was lost, though reconstructing it from folklore is very fun. My comment on such constructs in Beowulf, Vedas and others - they mostly reflect the speech of the privileged few, and not the common man. OCS for example is full of calques and elaborate syntactic devices taken from Ancient Greek originals (in a very slavish manner often), many of such words were not recorded in any of the Slavic vernaculars up to modern times (when they propagated through literacy) and one has to be very careful to conclude anything on its basis. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:18, 20 October 2013 (UTC)