The article deals with the analyses of the problem of comparative-historical linguistics from the point of view of the new dialect data. Assessing the preliminary results of the OLA project, the author focused her attention on the new linguistic geography data given in the Atlas, and the evolution of some units and Proto-Slavic dialect differentiation of Slavia.

The review is devoted to the monograph of the Slovak professor P. Žigo Evolution of Noun Declension in the Slavic Languages. The author appreciates the monograph and considers it as theoretical breakthrough in historical and areal linguistics, as it offers new methodology of the way we read and interpret the linguistic maps of Slavic Linguistic Atlas. The Monograph based on the unique materials of the Slavic Linguistic Atlas, free from previous atomicity and arbitrariness in linguistic research, largely clarifi es the complex picture of connections and relations of the Slavic languages, which have changed often in their long history.

The article presents another volume “Slavic Linguistic Atlas”, “Personal Characteristics”. The majority of works on this topic have often been atomic – both in the reflection of some aspects and in terms of linguistic geography. In contrast to them the Atlas materials allow to expand its research and to come into cultural dialectology which aims at the reconstruction of the Slavic “living antiquity”. The author pays attention to the fact that the Atlas maps reflect lexical synonymy in various ways: some of them show unity in comprehension of these or those nominated features whereas others demonstrate the high grade of variability. As a result the semantic density of maps is different. Using the criteria of word number per meaning item, the author reveals the areas of “high language voltage” and proves that they have come from different cultural development of the concrete meanings in different Slavic dialects. The author thinks that the difference in map lexical density proves different cultural socialization of human being in different Slavic dialects which has leaded to their differentiation. Thus the maps of “Slavic Linguistic Atlas” along with dialect differentiation illustrate cultural differentiation of the Slavic dialects.

This article analyzes the common Slavic linguistic atlas maps (OLA). Assessing the preliminary results of the OLA project, the author focused her attention on the new linguistic geography data given in the Atlas, and the evolution of some units and Proto-Slavic dialect differentiation of Slavia.