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Pre-revolutionary Russian orthography | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5404 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes  Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 9 of 17 16 September 2010 at 3:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Who? Why? Though having experiences with xenophobic and nationalist people, it does not surprise me a bit that these things happen, however, I am curious how come it is happening on this forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| argentum Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5202 days ago 15 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Italian | Message 10 of 17 16 September 2010 at 5:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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No one in Russia uses old orthography now. Even letter 'ё' is hardly used in printed literature. I wonder when they
stop using 'ъ' (твердый знак) as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5404 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 11 of 17 16 September 2010 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, I am aware almost no one in Russia uses the old orthography, I did study Russian for four years. What I was asking does anyone here find the old orthography more beautiful than the modern one?
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 12 of 17 16 September 2010 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, what you were asking was: "how many people in Russia or better yet what groups or institutions today in Russia and in the diaspora still actively use the pre-revolutionary (pre-1918) orthography?". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5404 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 13 of 17 16 September 2010 at 1:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, that's irrelevant now. History is re-written and now I'm saying I was asking a different question. :-P
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 14 of 17 16 September 2010 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say nobody still uses the old orthography. Exiled anti-Bolshevik Russians used it for a while, partly because that was how they had learned the language, and partly as a rejection of spelling reforms they associated with the Russian Revolution. My university library had and perhaps still has bound copies of the exile journal Vozrozhdeniye ("Rebirth"), published in the 1920s and 1930s, which still used the old orthography. Later anti-Soviet exile publications went over to Soviet spelling norms, however.
I don't see it as more beautiful, and the 1918 reform was rational. Soviet editions of novels were often shorter than the Tsarist editions, simply because removing many thousands of hard signs in a big novel like War And Peace amounted to a saving of a couple of dozen pages at least. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ad Lib Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5261 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 17 16 September 2010 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Coincidentally, earlier today I was reading the introduction to the New Penguin Russian course, which says "it is worth noting that the plans for the spelling reform were put forward before the 1917 socialist revolution." Further research (i.e. wikipedia ...) confirms that the philologist Shakhmatov prepared the reforms, which were them implemented by the Bolsheviks.
I must admit that, of all the facets of the revolution I was taught in history, spelling reforms were not among them. Personally I can't really comment on one versus the other, as I haven't ever seen a page of text in the old form of Cyrillic, but I do find the current one aesthetically appealing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arti Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 7013 days ago 130 posts - 165 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 16 of 17 17 September 2010 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm curious too :) Spelling reforms in Russia is a big topic to discuss, actually my great-grandmother really appreciated the reform as it was a pain to learn when you should write i or и and other things. The last reform was implemented during the 1950s. (I don't remember the exact date). I have Stalin-era published books and some words are written differently there. Today the pre-revolution orthography is used a lot in ads, commercials and alike. It's kind of a trend I think. 
 
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