Merry Christmas!

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Can someone please explain to me why this greeting is С Рождеством Христовым in Russian? I would expect С Рождеством Христоса. Is this Old Church Slavonic?

I'm sorry if that's not the correct spelling. I can't remember exactly.

Comments

[andrey-bessonov.livejournal.com]

It's the short possessive adjective. Kinda old, I think.
By the way, the genitive of "Христос" is "Христа" but although "Рождество Христа" is grammatically correct it's never used.

[bartoli.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the possessive adjective, but there is no short possessive adjective.
Христов, Христова, Христово, Христовы.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes, possessive adjective, but not short -- there's no shorter or longer forms when it comes to personal names. St.Petersburg, for instance, is (figurally) град Петров (note the use of Church Slavonic градъ instead of Russian город).

The Name Христос came from the Greek language, and Its case forms are heavily influenced by respective Greek forms. This is an exception; no other name follows this pattern.

nominative Иисус Христос (Church Slavonic: Iисусъ Христосъ; in Old Belief Orthodox churches, such as Ancient Orthodox Curch, Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church etc. - Iсусъ Христосъ)
genitive Иисуса Христа
dative Иисусу Христу
accusative Иисуса Христа
instrumental Иисусом Христом
prepositional об Иисусе Христе
vocative (yes, the vocative is widely used with This Name) о Иисусе Христе!

The possessive adjective from it is, once again, Христов/Христова/Христово (as Рождество belongs to the neutral gender, it's the latter.) The same with the Easter: it's Воскресение Христово.

[ex-tritopor.livejournal.com]

Исус. Not Иисус. :-)

[eloise-13.livejournal.com]

oh, please don't =)
coming from some old believers, i reckon?

[racoonbear.livejournal.com]

hey, my grandma is from old believers family )
Her prayer ends with " и во веки веком, аминь".
She says that's important to say "веком", not "веков" )

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

In modern Russian, it's Иисус, period.

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Do people ever refer to St. Petersburg as град Петров, or is that a back formation from Петроград? And thank you for the information about declensions- I expected that there would be a vocative for Christ, since there is for God, and I'm glad to have that confirmed.

[oryx_and_crake]

No, "град Петров" is exclusively archaic and poetic. And it is not a back formation - see about the posessive suffix below. Град Петров is more or less unrelated to Петроград because it just means город Петра, like Васин рюкзак means рюкзак Васи, a backpack that belongs to Vasya.

[yozhevich.livejournal.com]

I believe it's the old possessive adjective. In Russian, the possessive adjectival suffix -ов- for masculine nouns is rarely used, save maybe отцов- (from отец). In spoken Russian, the possessive suffix -ин- for feminine noun is fairly productive, i.e. Катин дом, папин рассказ (note words like папа, дедушка and names like Саша, Ваня are of feminine declension types and can take this suffix). Otherwise, Russian uses the genitive to express possession.

I'm no expert on Old Church Slavonic, but I believe the masculine possessive suffix was productive, as it exists in other Slavic languages and is used quite often. However, it's probably best to think of this instance much as speakers do--an archaic form that has frozen in this particular phrase.

[oryx_and_crake]

masculine possessive suffix was productive
---
Indeed it was - all the Russian surnames ending in -ов(а) are generated in this way. Петров means сын Петра, or Петров сын, Сидорова - Сидорова дочь, i.e. дочь Сидора etc.

[wordchick.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's really interesting. I hadn't realized that the -ин- suffix was only for feminine nouns, and was wondering why it wasn't Христовин, for instance.

[oryx_and_crake]

Not feminine but those that belong to the 1st paradigm (the words like папа, дедушка, Петя, Вася also fall in this category).

[windy-corner.livejournal.com]

There's a poem by Arseniy Tarkovsky where you can see the same type of wordbuilding - ИвАнова ива, there're lots of toponims and other vоcab with that suffix like Архипово, Иваново, or Петров день (compare Ильин день).

Арсений Тарковский

Иванова ива

Иван до войны проходил у ручья,
Где выросла ива, неведомо чья.

Не знали, зачем на ручей налегла, -
А это иванова ива была.

В своей плащпалатке, убитый в бою,
Иван возвратился под иву свою.

Иванова ива, иванова ива,
Как белая лодка плывёт по ручью.