Mānoa Horizons Volume 2 | Issue 1 Article 4 9-22-2017 Russian Orthographic Reform Martha A. Holland University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/horizons Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Holland, Martha A. (2017) "Russian Orthographic Reform," Mānoa Horizons: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/horizons/vol2/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mānoa Horizons by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Russian Orthographic Reform Martha A. Holland Linguistics 102 (Introduction to the Study of Language) Mentor: Dr. Anastasia Kostetskaya To truly understand a society’s culture, study their language. The history of how the Rus- sian language developed mirrors how Russian society evolved and changed. The written record of how the orthography changed and what influenced it sheds light on milestones within the language and, thus, its cultural as well. This paper takes a historical analysis of the Russian language from the early beginnings of the Glagolitic alphabet to modern Russian Cyrillic. This paper shows that Russian leadership in the past not only knew that language was key to a unified society, but manipulated it in such a way that would prevent any diversion from their attempts to control orthographic development and thus control an increasingly literate society. The paper will conclude with the most recent official changes to the modern Russian alphabet, but with a greater understanding and appreciation for how it was forged in Russian society. ery few alphabets have anything close to an equal cor- an overall standardizing body that all speakers of a lan- Vrespondence between phonemes and written charac- guage must recognize, as well as the promotion of the ters, where one character represents only one sound. If reform in a manner that speakers will accept and adopt. the language has a phonetic alphabet, where the charac- This is more difficult if the population has an established ters represent the pronunciation of words, it can be a literary tradition, as compared to an illiterate population benefit to students. It has been a linguistic goal by writ- learning new spellings for the first time. One unusual ers in several languages at various times to approach a example of multiple official spelling reforms in a lan- more phonetic representation of the spoken language. guage is Russian. This paper seeks to describe the histo- Benjamin Franklin proposed in a 1779 essay an early ry of Russian orthographic reforms and their implications phonetic alphabet for English, but due to the lack of any for Russian pronunciation and Russian politics, with use overseeing body there have been no official reforms of of the International Phonetic Alphabet (Fig. 1.) to approx- the English language’s orthography, only gradual refine- imately describe the sounds of the characters. ments through private bodies like dictionaries. Spelling The Cyrillic alphabet used to write the Russian is usually the result of centuries of history and highly re- language has been reformed several times over the last sistant to reform. Any change in the language requires four centuries, with major official reforms in 1701, 1885, I am a transplant from New England by way of Los Angeles. I work full-time at a real estate firm, and part-time at a public health clinic in addition to pursuing full time studies at the University of Hawai‘i. I plan to graduate with a degree in Russian Studies and may pursue a graduate degree in the same. I wrote this piece after taking an introduction to linguistics along with my Russian major coursework and becoming fascinated with the origins of the language that I study. I wrote with the intention of taking what would otherwise be a dense, dull set of in- formation and making it accessible and interesting for readers outside of my particular field. With the guidance of Dr. Anastasia Kostetskaya and the Russian Department I am pleased to have wrought this paper into a form that presents a brief look into a thousand years of language history in a manner that engages the audience. Mānoa Horizons, Vol. 2, 2017, pp. 11–19 Copyright © 2017 by the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa 11 12 Mānoa Horizons Vol. 2, Fall 2017 1918, and 1956. In the longer dialects two large reforms diverse and the and additional cod- less contact there ifications, the Rus- is among them, sian alphabet has the more likely systematically re- these dialects will moved characters become separate and streamlined languages, whereas its phonemes and dialects with closer morphemes to contact will remain the detriment of dialects of the par- some diversity of ent language and of sound inventory, each other. Saints but ultimately to Cyril and Metho- the advantage of dius (Fig. 2.) are modernizing and believed to have simplifying the lan- designed the alpha- guage for ease of bet while introduc- use for a progres- ing Christianity to sively literate popu- Slavs in Moravia lation. The Russian at the request of reforms were en- the Byzantine Em- forced by govern- peror Michael III mental policies in the 860s.There starting from Pe- is no known Slav- ter the Great, pro- ic writing system viding an official prior to their ex- standardizing body cursion. Cyril and to identify, evalu- Methodius invent- ate and implement ed the new writing them, and were system to translate aided by the forced religious liturgical compliance of the texts into the lan- Russian-speaking guage of Old Slav- population through ic, understandable manipulation of Figure 1 International Phonetic Alphabet Chart. to the general pop- printed media and ulation of the area censorship of improperly spelled words. and thus helpful to their quest of introducing and clar- The Cyrillic alphabet originated a thousand years ifying Christianity in the region. This original alphabet ago in the Glagolitic alphabet. It was specific to the Mace- subsequently contained characters derived from cursive donian dialects of the spoken Bulgarian language, which Greek as well as new symbols to represent the phonetic fell into a dialect continuum with many other Slavic lan- inventory of the Slavic languages that could not be easily guages. The dialect continuum is a theory of language represented using existing characters known to Cyril and evolution. It states that with lack of contact and natural Methodius. The origin of vowels is particularly difficult language evolution, languages with the same parent lan- to trace—Cubberly states that it is possible that Cyril and guage will evolve into varying dialects. Over time, due to Methodius used Hebrew or Coptic symbols as sources for geography and lack of contact, these dialects will contin- the vowel characters of Glagolitic. Another theory Cub- ue to diverge further and eventually lose mutual intel- berly posits is that Greek characters may have comprised ligibility along a continuum of contact and time. Thus, the vowels while Armenian characters the consonants. Holland Russian Orthographic Reform 13 The Glagolitic alphabet was retained as Old Church GlaGolitic IPA name Slavonic for several centuries, and the saints’ names per- Ⰰ /a/ Az sisted into naming the evolving writing system Cyrillic Ⰱ /b/ Buky after Saint Cyril. The alphabet spread over the next few Ⰲ /ʋ/ Vedi centuries to provide literacy to other Slavic languages Ⰳ /g/ Glagoli along with the Orthodox faith. The original Glagolitic Ⰴ /d/ Dobro alphabet was primarily used for liturgy in the Orthodox Ⰵ /ɛ/ Jest Church, with thick-lined images not far removed from Ⰶ /ʒ/ Zhivete their carved originating logographic glyphs, and Greek Ⰷ /dz/ Dzelo borrowed letters. As the alphabet evolved into early Cyril- Ⰸ /z/ Zemlja lic in order to better write the Old Slavonic Church lan- Ⰹ /i/, /j/ Izhe guage, several characters were dropped and the alphabet began to take a form that was easier to write in cursive Ⰺ /i/, /j/ Izhe with a quill.This evolution preserved some Macedonian Ⰻ /i/, /j/ I and Bulgarian spelling and phonetic conventions (Sulli- Ⰼ /dʑ/ Djervь van 1996). It dropped the yuses (Ѫ /ja/, Ѭ /ju/, Ѧ /ja/, and Ⰽ /k/ Kako Ѩ /ju/). Each of these presented a nasal variety of /j/ with Ⰾ /l/, /ʎ/ Lyudie or without palatalization (the softening of consonants by Ⰿ /m/ Myslite applying a larger amount of the tongue to the palate in Ⱀ /n/, /ɲ/ Nash the mouth during pronunciation). This set of phonemes Ⱁ /ɔ/ On can be found as a legacy in modern Cyrillic as Й, which Ⱂ /p/ Pokoj also usually presents as /j/. Some parts of the original Ⱃ /r/ Rtsi sounds of the yuses have unfortunately been lost entirely. Ⱄ /s/ Slovo Each of these characters represented a sound found else- Ⱅ /t/ Tverdo where in the Cyrillic alphabet, and thus redundant. As the Ⱆ /u/ Uk Glagolitic alphabet progressed into the form we now call Ⱇ /f/ Fert Cyrillic, these redundancies only confused the spelling of Ⱈ /x/ Kher words, as words could be spelled using a yus or another Ⱉ /ɔ/ Oht character. The loss of these characters reduced the na- Ⱋ /tʲ/, /ʃt/ Shta sal vowels available to the language, but standardized the Ⱌ /ts/ Tsi spelling of words so that they could be understood more Ⱍ /tʃ/ Cherv easily by a language community that was only slowly Ⱎ /ʃ/ Sha gaining literacy. Some of the original phonetic values of Ⱏ /ɯ/ Yer these vowels have, however, been lost entirely, and while ⰟⰉ /ɨ/ Yery one can surmise that the loss of the yuses to the language Ⱐ /ə/ Yer’ was no great change, it is reasonable to assume that vari- ation in pronunciation was simplified by the loss of com- Ⱑ /æ/, /jɑ/ Yat plexity and detail.