THE RISE OF THE NORTH RUSSIAN DIALECT OF COMMON SLAVIC

come increasingly clear that at an early date North Russian must have occupied a very special position among the dialects of the rapidly disintegrating Slavic proto-language. The principal facts seem to be the following: A . The oldest and/or most authentic North Russian material abounds in examples which seem not to have been affected by the Second Palatalization of velars. The present state of our knowledge is summarized by Zaliznjak in his recent grammar of the language of the birchbark documents :