Reviews for Serbo-Croatian Basic Course, Vol. 2

The average rating for Serbo-Croatian Basic Course, Vol. 2 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-07-08 00:00:00 John Boswell Horace G. Lunt's OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC GRAMMAR (7th ed.) is the easiest to find of the several OCS grammars in English. For this student of comparative Indo-European linguistics, however, it proved quite disappointing and nearly unusable for anyone looking for a diachronic view of OCS. Though he gives a brief description of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic writing systems, Lunt proceeds to use transliteration everywhere (though he continues to use the yer symbols). He is also entirely unconcerned with describing variant spellings, feeling it would distract from pedagogical efficiency. The great failing of this work, however, is that Lunt attempts to analyse Old Church Slavonic as a meaningful system in itself. That means that the language is neither linked to its parent Proto-Indo-European nor compared to the modern Slavonic languages which are either descended from OCS or owe a large part of their vocabulary to it. Considering that most students of Old Church Slavonic study it in order to see its place in a grander scheme of things, Lunt's grammar is entirely unhelpful. The seventh edition does contain a new sketch of OCS' development from PIE and Proto-Baltic-Slavonic, but it is too brief and not integrated with the grammar. There are several grammars of OCS in English which are quite usable for students of IE linguistics, though they are less easy to find than Lunt's. My personal favourite is Nandris' HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC, which predates widespread acceptance of laryngeal theory but which is supremely readable and which has a second volume (edited by Auty) of OCS readings. There's also Schmalstieg's OLD CHURCH SLAVIC, which is pretty good once one gets past its idiosyncratic introduction. For people who have a good grasp of Russian, Voylova's STAROSLAVJANSKIJ JAZYK is also worth obtaining. Except as a curiosity, for rarely are dead IE languages analysed as meaningful in isolation, I cannot recommend Lunt's grammar. Old Church Slavonic is my favourite archaic language in the IE family, and I encourage its study, but pick up one of the better grammars.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-07-08 00:00:00 Arie Budhinata Like a lot of books I've found on Slavonic Language it is mainly an academic study of linguistics rather than instruction on the language itself for liturgical purposes.