Russian spelling reform of 1918
In 1904, the Russian Academy of Sciences founded a special commission on orthography whose main task was to reconcile the phonology and orthography of the Russian language. But it was not until May 1917 that a meeting was convened in which the prepared spelling reform was read out and decided. Because of the internal unrest after the February Revolution and before the October Revolution in 1917, the government was unable to enact the spelling reform by decree . The spelling reform worked out by the Special Commission on Orthography was subsequently approved by the ruling Council of People's Commissars and passed into law on October 10, 1918 as Декрет о ввведении новой орфографии (“Decree on the Introduction of a New Orthography”).
Content of the reform
Abolished letters
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Russian alphabet before the spelling reform in 1918
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The spelling reform implemented in 1918 was the last and one of the largest spelling reforms in Russia. It gave birth to the modern Russian alphabet with 33 letters, which greatly simplified Russian orthography. Four letters have been removed from the alphabet and replaced with other letters that were used to reproduce identical sounds. The complicated spelling of many words, which for etymological or traditional reasons was considered the norm and usually required laborious memorization , was made simple and easy to learn. The four letters that have not been used in contemporary Russian since the spelling reform in 1918 are:
І / i
The letter І / i was replaced by И / и, which was used to reproduce identical sounds [i] and [j]. The І was written before other vowels, before the letter Й and in some words for etymological reasons, e.g. B .:
- before: истор і я - today: истор и я (the story)
- before: син і й - today: син и й (blue)
- before: м і ръ - today: м и р (the world)
- before: Нью- І оркъ - today: Нью- Й орк (New York)
Ѣ / ѣ
The letter Ѣ / ѣ , which is called ять (Jat) in Russian, has been replaced by Е / е. Originally, in the Old Church Slavonic language, the Ѣ was used to reproduce a long sound, which was probably similar to the sound [æ:] or the diphthong [ie:]. Over time, however, the pronunciation of this sound changed and merged with [e] in modern Russian and with [i] in Ukrainian . Before 1918, the Ѣ was written as a linguistic relic in very many words of Slavic origin. Since it could no longer be distinguished phonetically from the sound [e], one had to memorize a multitude of rules and exceptions for its correct use. That is why there is still the phrase выучить на ять, (to learn [something] like [the] Jat [-use]) in Russian today, that is, to know something by heart. Some examples of the old and new notation are:
- before: д ѣ вочка - today: д е вочка (the girl)
- before: л ѣ то - today: л е то (summer)
- before: медв ѣ дь, with І in the first and Ѣ in the second syllable - today: медв е дь (the bear)
- before: кр ѣ пкій - today: кр е пкий (firm, strong)
Ѳ / ѳ
The letter Ѳ / ѳ, which was called фита́ (Fita) in Russian and represented the Greek theta in unchanged form, was replaced by Ф / ф, which was used to reproduce the identical sound [f]. The Ѳ was used for etymological reasons in words of Greek origin that were written with theta in Greek, e.g. B .:
- before: ѳ ита - today: ф ита (the theta )
- before: ари ѳ метика - today: ари ф метика ( arithmetic )
- before: Ѳ еодоръ - today: Ф ёдор ( Theodor )
- before: Мара ѳ онъ - today: Мара ф он ( marathon )
Ѵ / ѵ
The letter Ѵ / ѵ, which was called и́жица (Ischiza) in Russian and represented the Greek Ypsilon in a modified form , was replaced by И / и, which was used to reproduce the identical sound [i]. However, since the Ѵ had become very rare in the 18th century, it was not mentioned in the spelling reform. It was used consistently only in the word мѵро (more rarely in the word сѵнодъ). For etymological reasons, the Ѵ was mainly used in very few ecclesiastical terms of Greek origin that were written with an Y in Greek, e.g. B .:
- before: с ѵ нодъ - today: с и нод (the Synod )
- before: м ѵ ро - today: м и ро (the Myron )
- before: ѵ постась - today: и постась (the hypostasis , one of the three persons of the Trinity)
- before: ѵ ссопъ - today: и ссоп ( hyssop , Joseph's herb)
Reduced use of Ъ
The spelling reform abolished the use of the letter Ъ , which was written after hard consonants at the end of the word (see examples above). The letter ъ, which was called еръ jer before 1918 , remained in the Russian alphabet and is now called твёрдый знак twjordy snak , the hard sign. Its function is to denote [j] between (hard) consonants at the word fugue and vowels (e.g. от ъ ехать (ot-jechat) 'abfahren' from от- (ot-) 'ab-' and ехать ( jechat) 'drive', which would be read as * otechat in the spelling * отехать without the fugue ). Especially in the 1920s and 1930s, however, due to the greatly reduced scope of the letter, the spelling reform was widely understood among the population to mean that ъ was also abolished in this function (compare the widespread misconception that the German spelling reform had abolished the ß ). In printing works, in which all letters had been thrown away in the spirit of revolution, and when typewriters no longer had a corresponding key, the letter was therefore often replaced by the apostrophe ' .
Further changes
There were some other adjustments to the spoken language. The genitive endings of adjectives -аго and -яго were replaced by -ого and -его.
Advantages and disadvantages of the spelling reform
Already in the second half of the 18th century, MW Lomonossow noted that the letters Е and kaum hardly differ from each other in colloquial language and it is only when reading aloud that Е is pronounced as an open sound and as a closed sound have to. A century later (1885) JK Grot , one of the most important Russian philologists , stated in his work Русское правописание ("Russian Spelling") that there was not the slightest difference in the pronunciation of the two sounds. In the following years, more and more well-known Russian writers and scholars advocated adapting the orthography to the changes in the phonetic structure of the language. The spelling reform implemented in 1918 was the result of this endeavor and has considerably simplified Russian orthography.
In its entirety, the spelling reform has not only made the spelling of many Russian words easier to learn, but also fundamentally changed their appearance and thus made their morphological structure take a back seat. This has resulted in a series of homographs , words with originally different roots and meanings that are spelled the same way in Russian today, e.g. B .:
- before: м i ръ (the world / the community, in the expanded sense the society) / м и ръ (the peace) - today: м и р (the world or the peace)
- before: в ѣ д ѣ ніе (the competence) / в е д е ніе (the leadership) - today: в е д е ние (the competence or the leadership)
- before: жел ѣ за (of the iron, Gen. Sing. ) / жел е за (the gland) - today: жел е за (of the iron or the gland)
As the first example shows, before the spelling reform, the Russian word мир was written either as міръ ("world") or as мир je ("peace"), depending on its meaning. Today the different meanings of the word мир can no longer be recognized because of the same spelling. That is why one can experience again and again the discussion among Russian native speakers as to how the title of the novel Война и Мир War and Peace, written by Leo Tolstoy , should be interpreted correctly: Was Tolstoy referring to the coalition war between France and Russia in 1812 and the subsequent peace or the Napoleonic war War and the Russian society involved in it, that is, the world? Since the novel was published in 1868 with the original title Война и Миръ, the clear meaning of the title is war and peace . The title has also been translated into numerous foreign languages.
Regardless of the disadvantages described and some associated confusion, the new, simplified spelling was well received by the majority of the Russian population.
Spelling reform as part of the political struggle
After the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks saw the old spelling as a symbol of the abolished tsarism , which is why they tried to implement the prepared spelling reform as quickly as possible. Immediately after their entry into force, the Bolsheviks had all letters with the abolished letters quickly removed from the newspaper printing works in order to prevent the possible use of old spelling. Large book printing companies, however, could not immediately switch to the new spelling due to mostly manual and therefore very time-consuming changes to the fonts. Even in 1920 was the capital of Karl Marx still published in old orthography. The Russian Academy of Sciences used the old spelling in its scientific books until around 1924. At the same time, only the new spelling was taught in educational institutions and during the "mass measures to eradicate illiteracy " in the 1920s and 1930s.
But the spelling reform became part of their political struggle not only for the young Soviet power . The Russian aristocracy, and especially the counter-revolutionary intellectuals , vehemently refused to recognize the new spelling. White-Russian political emigrants sometimes printed their newspapers and books in the old spelling until after the Second World War .
Spelling of proper names (composers and other artists)
After the orthography reform, the proper names of well-known composers and other artists were - and continue to be - spelled differently. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote himself during his lifetime (died in 1893, i.e. before the reform) Петръ Ильичъ Чайковскій. Even Igor Fedorovich Stravinsky used in his name originally the old spelling (Ѳедоровичъ instead Фёдорович). This difference to today's spelling is usually not taken into account.
See also
literature
- Vjačeslav Vsevolodovič Ivanov: The Great October and the Russian Language . VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig, 1977.
- Ivan Pawlowsky: Russian language teaching for Germans . Reyher'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Mitau, 4th edition, 1862 (pdf; 10 MB).
- Iwan Pawlowsky: Conjugation tables for Russian language teaching for Germans . Reyher's Verlagbuchhandlung, Mitau, 4th edition 1862 (pdf; 469 kB).
- Philipp Ammon: Tractatus slavonicus . In: Sjani (Thoughts) Georgian Scientific Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature , N 17, 2016, pp. 248-256 (pdf; 1.4 MB).