The
Russian orthography has been reformed officially and unofficially by changing the
Russian alphabet over the course of the history of the
Russian language. Several important reforms happened in the 18th–20th centuries.
Early changes
Old East Slavic adopted the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
, approximately during the 10th century and at about the same time as the introduction of
Eastern Christianity into the territories inhabited by the Eastern
Slavs. No distinction was drawn between the vernacular language and the liturgical, though the latter was based on
South Slavic rather than
Eastern Slavic norms. As the language evolved, several letters, notably the ''
yuses'' (Ѫ, Ѭ, Ѧ, Ѩ) were gradually and unsystematically discarded from both secular and church usage over the next centuries.
The emergence of the centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, the consequent rise of the state bureaucracy along with the development of the common economic, political and cultural space necessitated the standardization of the language used in administrative and legal affairs. It was due to that reason that the earliest attempts at standardizing Russian, both in terms of the vocabulary and in terms of the orthography were made, initially based on the so-called Moscow chancery language. From then and on the underlying logic of language reforms in Russia reflected primarily the considerations of standardizing and streamlining language norms and rules in order to ensure the language's role as a practical tool of communication and administration.
18th-century changes
The printed
Russian alphabet began to assume its modern shape when
Peter I introduced his "
civil script" () type reform in 1708. The reform was not specifically orthographic in nature. However, with the replacement of
Ѧ with and the effective elimination of several letters (Ѯ, Ѱ, Ѡ) and all diacritics and accents (with the exception of ) from secular usage and the use of
Arabic numerals instead of
Cyrillic numerals there appeared for the first time a visual distinction between Russian and
Church Slavonic writing. With the strength of the historic tradition diminishing, Russian spelling in the 18th century became rather inconsistent, both in practice and in theory, as
Mikhail Lomonosov advocated a morphophonemic orthography and
Vasily Trediakovsky a phonemic one.
19th-century changes
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, miscellaneous adjustments were made ''ad hoc'', as the Russian
literary language
A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken langua ...
came to assume its modern and highly standardized form. These included the introduction of the letter (
yo) and the gradual loss of (
izhitsa
Izhitsa or Izhica (Ѵ, ѵ; italics: ; OCS: Ѷжица, Russian: Ижица, Ukrainian: Іжиця) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet and several later alphabets, usually the last in the row. It originates from the Greek letter upsilo ...
, corresponding to the Greek ''upsilon'' υ and the Latin y), in favor of or (both of which represented ); and (
fita
Fita (Ѳ ѳ; italics: ) is a letter of the Early Cyrillic alphabet. The shape and the name of the letter are derived from the Greek letter theta (Θ θ). In the ISO 9 system, Ѳ is romanized using F grave accent (F̀ f̀).
In the ...
, corresponding to the Greek ''theta''), in favor of or . (The standard Russian language neither has nor ever had a
voiceless dental fricative
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
. The was used only for foreign words, particularly Greek.)
By 1917, the only two words still spelled with were (, , 'myrrh') and (, , 'synod'). The remained more common, though it became quite rare as a "Western" (
French-like) pronunciation had been adopted for many words; for example, (, , 'theater') became (, ).
Attempts to reduce spelling inconsistency culminated in the standard textbook of
Grot (1885), which retained its authority through 21 editions until the
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
. His fusion of the morphological, phonetic, and historic principles of
Russian orthography remains valid to this day, though both the
Russian alphabet and the writing of many individual words have been altered through a complicated but extremely consistent system of
spelling rules that tell which of two vowels to use under all conditions.
Post-revolution reform
The most recent major reform of Russian spelling was prepared by
Aleksey Shakhmatov and implemented shortly after the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
of November 1917.
Shakhmatov headed the Assembly for Considering Simplification of the Orthography whose proposals of 11 May 1917 formed the basis of the new rules soon adopted by the Ministry of Popular Education.
Specific changes
Russian
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
was made simpler and easier by unifying several adjectival and pronominal inflections, conflating the letter (
Yat) with , with , and (depending on the context of Moscovian pronunciation) and with . Additionally, the archaic mute ''yer'' became obsolete, including the (the "
hard sign") in final position following consonants (thus eliminating practically the last graphical remnant of the Old Slavonic
open-syllable system). For instance, became ("
Rybinsk
Rybinsk ( rus, Рыбинск, p=ˈrɨbʲɪnsk), the second largest city of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia, lies at the confluence of the Volga and Sheksna Rivers, 267 kilometers north-north-east of Moscow. Population:
It was previously known as ...
").
Examples:
* ''Сѣверо-Американскіе Соединенные Штаты'' to ''Северо-Американские Соединённые Штаты'' – The United States of America (, popular pre-revolutionary name of the United States in Russia)
* ''Россія'' to ''Россия''
* ''Петроградъ'' to ''Петроград'' (
Petrograd)
* ''раіонъ'' to ''район'' (region/district)
* ''мараѳонъ'' to ''марафон'' (marathon)
* ''дѣти'' to ''дети'' (children)
* ''Іисусъ Христосъ'' to ''Иисус Христос'' (
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
)
Practical implementation
In December 1917, the
People's Commissariat of Education, headed by
A. V. Lunacharsky, issued a decree stating, "All state and government institutions and schools without exception should carry out the transition to the new orthography without delay. From 1 January 1918, all government and state publications, both periodical and non-periodical were to be printed in the new style."
The decree was nearly identical to the proposals put forth by the May Assembly, and with other minor modifications formed the substance of the decree issued by the
Soviet of People's Commissars
The Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union was the highest collegial body of executive and administrative authority of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1946.
As the government of the Soviet Union, the Council of People's Commissars of th ...
in October 1918.
Although generally praised by the Russian
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
, the reform was unpopular amongst conservatives, religious leaders and many prominent writers, many of whom were oppositional to the
new state.
In this way, private publications could formally be printed using the old (or more generally, any convenient) orthography. The decree forbade the retraining of people previously trained under the old norm. A given spelling was considered a misspelling only if it violated both the old and the new norms.
However, in practice, the Soviet government rapidly set up a
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
on print production and kept a very close eye on the fulfillment of the edict. A common practice was the removal of not just the letters , , and from printing offices, but also . Because of this, the usage of the
apostrophe as a dividing sign became widespread in place of (e.g., , instead of , ), and came to be perceived as a part of the reform (even if, from the point of view of the letter of the decree of the
Council of People's Commissars, such uses were mistakes). Nonetheless, some academic printings (connected with the publication of old works, documents or printings whose typesettings predated the revolution) came out in the old orthography (except
title pages and, often,
prefaces) up until 1929.
Russian – and later Soviet –
railroads
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
operated
locomotives with designations of "", "" and "". Despite the reformed orthography, the series names remained unchanged up until these locomotives were discontinued in the 1950s.
Some
Russian émigré publications continued to appear in the former orthography until the 1970s.
Simplification of the language
The reform reduced the number of orthographic rules having no support in pronunciation—for example, the difference of the genders in the plural and the need to learn a long list of words which were written with "yat"s (the composition of said list was controversial among linguists, and different spelling guides contradicted one another).
The reform resulted in some economy in writing and
typesetting, due to the exclusion of at the end of words—by the reckoning of
Lev Uspensky, text in the new orthography was shorter by one-thirtieth.
The reform removed pairs of completely
homophonous
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...
graphemes from the Russian alphabet (i.e., and ; and Ф; and the trio of , and ), bringing the alphabet closer to
Russian's actual phonological system.
Criticism
According to critics, the choice of ''Ии'' as the only letter to represent that side and the removal of ''Іі'' defeated the purpose of 'simplifying’ the language, as ''Ии'' occupies more space and, furthermore, is sometimes indistinguishable from ''Шш''.
The reform also created many
homographs and
homonym
In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definiti ...
s, which used to be spelled differently. Examples: есть/ѣсть (to be/eat) and миръ/міръ (peace/the Universe) became ''есть'' and ''мир'' in both instances.
In a complex system of cases, -аго was replaced with -его (лучшаго → лучшего), in other instances -аго was replaced with -ого, -яго with -его (e.g., новаго → нового, ранняго → раннего), feminine cases moved from -ыя, -ія — to -ые, -ие (новыя (книги, изданія) → новые);
Feminine pronouns онѣ, однѣ, однѣхъ, однѣмъ, однѣми were replaced with они, одни, одних, одним, одними; ея (нея) was replaced with на её (неё).
The latter was especially controversial, as feminine pronouns became deeply entrenched in the language and were extensively used by writers and poets.
Prefixes '' з/с'' underwent a change: now all of them (except с-) ended with ''с'' before voiceless consonants and with ''з'' before voiced consonants or vowels (разбить, разораться, разступиться → разбить, разораться, but расступиться).
More recent modifications
While there have not been any significant changes since the 1918 decree, debates and fluctuations have to some degree continued.
In December 1942, the use of letter Ё was made mandatory by Decree No. 1825 of the People's Commissariat of Education.
A codification of the rules of Russian orthography and punctuation was published in 1956 but only a few minor orthographic changes were introduced at that time. The 1956 codification additionally included a clarification of new rules for punctuation developed during the 1930s, and which had not been mentioned in the 1918 decree.
A notable instance of renewed debate followed A.I. Efimov's 1962 publication of an article in
Izvestia
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes i ...
.
The article proposed extensive reform to move closer to a phonetic representation of the language. Following the renewed discussion in papers and journals a new Orthographic Commission began work in 1962, under the Russian Language Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The Commission published its report, (Proposal for the Improvement of Russian Orthography), in 1964.
The publication resulted in widespread debate in newspapers, journals, and on radio and television, as well as over 10,000 letters, all of which were passed to the institute.
Responses to the article pointed to the need to simplify Russian spelling due to the use of Russian as the language of international communication in the Soviet Union and an increased study of Russian in the Eastern Bloc as well as in the West. That instruction for non-native speakers of Russian was one of the central concerns of further reform is indicated in the resistance to Efimov's proposal to drop the terminal "ь" (soft sign) from feminine nouns, as it helps learners identify gender category. Additionally, Efimov claimed that a disproportionate amount of primary school class time was devoted to orthography, rather than phonetics and morphology. Efimov asserted that the existing orthography was essentially unchanged since Grot's codification, and that only by bringing orthography closer to phonetic realization, and eliminating exceptions and variants, could appropriate attention be paid to stylistics and the "development of speech culture". The state's focus on proper instruction in Russian, as the national language of ethnic Russians, as the state language, and as the language of international communication continues to the present day.
Encoding
The
IETF language tags have registered:
* for text from the Peter reforms of 1708 until the 1917–18 reforms.
* for text following the 1917–18 reforms.
See also
*
Yoficator
References and notes
External links
Criticism of 1917 reform
CyrAcademisatorBi-directional online transliteration for ALA-LC (diacritics), scientific, ISO/R 9, ISO 9, GOST 7.79B and others. Supports pre-reform characters
The Writing on the Wall: The Russian Orthographic Reform of 1917
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reforms of Russian Orthography
History of the Russian language
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
Russian orthography