Pre-1918 Russian Alphabet Questions for Today
Jarel
two months and I am enjoying it. I will admit that all the gender agreement
with adjectives is rather difficult! Anyway, I had some questions about some
of the abolished letters from the pre-1918 Russian Cyrillic alphabet. I think
there were four of them: i, yat', thita, and izhitsa. Since communist rule in
Russia has ended for a while now, has there been a movement to bring back the
abolished letters or do any writers use them? I just think they look cool! :)
Jarel
"Ah! si la liberte me doit etre ravie,
Est-ce a toi d'etre mon vainquer?"
(Phillipe Quinault)
Avi Jacobson
nah...@aol.com (Jarel) wrote:
> I think
> there were four of them: i, yat', thita,
skazhi: "fita". kak "timofej" i "efjopija".
--
Avi Jacobson, Manager of Language Localization, Gallery Systems
A...@GallerySystems.com - (510) 652 8950, ext. 246
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <20010208214744...@ng-mq1.aol.com>,
> nah...@aol.com (Jarel) wrote:
>
> > I think
> > there were four of them: i, yat', thita,
>
> skazhi: "fita". kak "timofej" i "efjopija".
Historicall /T/, obviously; but because of the merger, you'd be
introducing a major complication into Russian spelling.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
Jarel
>Historicall /T/, obviously; but because of the merger, you'd be introducing a
major complication into Russian spelling.
Yes, it would be an added complication, but I think it would be a nostalgic
if not romantic addition. I checked out a Russian dictionary from 1916. While
they used yat' and i, they didn't bother with fita or izhitsa. I guess I will
have to find an older dictionary to see the words with izhitsa. I guess the
letters were pronounced:
i [i]
izhitsa [i]
yat' [jE]
fita [f]
ruffnready
Jarel wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
[...]
> you'd be introducing a major complication into Russian spelling.
> Yes, it would be an added complication, but I think it would be a
> nostalgic if not romantic addition.
It would be great (for the etymologists at least)
to restore "yat'" (the rest of the abandoned letters
are not relevant) although will certainely provoke students'
uprising.
RR
Per C. Jorgensen
> with adjectives is rather difficult! Anyway, I had some questions about
some
> of the abolished letters from the pre-1918 Russian Cyrillic alphabet. I
think
> there were four of them: i, yat', thita, and izhitsa. Since communist
rule in
> Russia has ended for a while now, has there been a movement to bring back
the
> abolished letters or do any writers use them? I just think they look
cool! :)
I did see someone advocating this in the papers when I lived in Russia in
the
spring of '92, but these were mainly fringe movements.
I have seen yat' etc. used in a modern context, but that was mainly in a
Good Old Days, Ye Olde context, the kind of context where we Westerners
might have used an Old English or Fraktur font.
The 1918 reform was not communist, as a lot of philologists had advocated
it in parts or whole for quite some time. That goes especially to the
superfluous
letters and the superfluous use of the 'hard yer'. Some reformers were more
partial to the i ('tenner-i')that looked more like ours, and wanted to
retain it
as a digraph in certain contexts.
I must admit I, too, find these letters nice, especially the yat'.
-- Per
pritch...@my-deja.com
Dear Jarel,
I lived in Moscow in 1992-97 and I never heard of the abolished letters
being brought back. I found that most Russians had had little contact
with the earlier alphabets. I was working in the area of history and
found that when trying to make out early documents or books it was just
better to learn the various alphabets myself. I believe that many of
the greek letters in the russian alphabet and galgolitic numbering
system were abolished in 1728. Some of the pre-revolutionary letters
are still used in Belorussian like the "i" , the "i" with a hacheck
above and either Belorussian or Ukrainian use a "y" and a "y" with a
hacheck above which was droped from Russian long ago.
Kindest Regards,
David Pritchard
appren...@my-deja.com
In Martin Cruz Smith's novel "Havana Bay" reference is made to the
impossibility of alphabetisation of the Russian Alphabet. My library
borrower wants to know if this is correct? (I have some doubts) or
whether it is a misunderstanding of something like this pre-1918 extra
letters issue?
Hoping someone can help.
Rural librarian in South
Australia
appren...@my-deja.com
question:
In Martin Cruz Smith's novel "Havana Bay"
reference is made to the impossibility of
alphabetisation of the Russian Alphabet. My
library borrower wants to know if this is
correct? (I have some doubts) or whether it is a
misunderstanding of something like this pre-1918
extra letters issue?
Hoping someone can help.
Rural librarian in South
Australia
Peter T. Daniels
That doesn't make any sense -- the Russian alphabet already is an
alphabet.
If they meant "transliteration," that also doesn't make any sense; there
are several common ways of reproducing Russian by replacing each letter
with a corresponding letter or group of letters (like ch, sh, ts) in the
Roman alphabet.
Can you find the passage in Cruz Smith that gave them this idea?
ruffnready
[...]
> Some of the pre-revolutionary letters
> are still used in Belorussian like the "i" , the "i" with a hacheck
> above
There is no such letter.
> and either Belorussian or Ukrainian use a "y"
A character from the common Cyrillic alphabet
> and a "y" with a hacheck above
In Belorussian it renders a sound like English "w"
> which was droped from Russian long ago.
which was never employed in Russian.
RR
Anatoly Vorobey
Avi Jacobson <A...@GallerySystems.com> wrote:
>In article <20010208214744...@ng-mq1.aol.com>,
> nah...@aol.com (Jarel) wrote:
>
>> I think
>> there were four of them: i, yat', thita,
>
>skazhi: "fita". kak "timofej" i "efjopija".
"Efiopija", though.
Fita used to be /T/. Yat' used to be a diphthong [ie] in the 17-18th
centuries, and before that, noone knows for sure. i was probably always
identical with the other i.
There won't be any return to the old alphabet, it's not an option,
politically or culturally. I read some arguments, by the way, for
the old alphabet claiming that texts were easier to read, because there
were more elements sticking out above other letters, allowing faster
identification (such as the higher part of yat' and the dot of i). I'm
not sure how credible these arguments are, maybe someone here knows
more about this?
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mel...@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
Peter T. Daniels
> There won't be any return to the old alphabet, it's not an option,
> politically or culturally. I read some arguments, by the way, for
> the old alphabet claiming that texts were easier to read, because there
> were more elements sticking out above other letters, allowing faster
> identification (such as the higher part of yat' and the dot of i). I'm
> not sure how credible these arguments are, maybe someone here knows
> more about this?
Yes. Scripts with the salient information at the tops of the characters
in preference to the bottoms (like Arabic compared with Hebrew) are more
legible.
Roman lowercase is more legible than Roman capitals.
Roman is more legible than Cyrillic, because in Cyrillic the tops of the
letters present an almost uniform straight line.
Jarel
letters present an almost uniform straight line.
Do you know where Modern Georgian (mxedruli), Armenian, and Greek are in the
legibility scale? I think Greek is more legible than Roman which is in turn
more legible than Cyrillic. I also think that Georgian is far more legible
than Armenian. I do think all of these scripts are beautiful though! :)
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >Roman is more legible than Cyrillic, because in Cyrillic the tops of the
> letters present an almost uniform straight line.
>
> Do you know where Modern Georgian (mxedruli), Armenian, and Greek are in the
> legibility scale? I think Greek is more legible than Roman which is in turn
> more legible than Cyrillic. I also think that Georgian is far more legible
> than Armenian. I do think all of these scripts are beautiful though! :)
Nope.
Armenian is UnXeroxable -- all the light lines disappear, leaving
nothing but a picket fence. I imagine it would be just about at the
bottom of a legibility scale.