In addition to the information Nikita supplies about old & new orthography in
Russian, there are some further points pertaining to Slavonic. Slavonic became a
literary language largely to accommodate translations from Greek; consequently,
the Cyrillic alphabet contains letters that would not have been necessary for
words from the native Slavic lexical stock, but represent Greek letters that in
most cases have come to be pronounce in Greek just like other letters--the
vowels omicron and omega, and the vowels iota, eta, and ypsilon, along with the
diphthong omicron-iota, are all pronounced the same in Greek. Slavic needs only
the eta- and omicron-derived letters, and that is all one finds in the modern
orthographies. The spelling of words of Greek origin is therefore drastically
changed. This does not matter much in modern languages, but in Church Slavonic
it is preferable to be able to represent these words in a way resembling their
appearance in Greek.

(The original purpose of the letters y and z in the Latin alphabet was to spell
Greek words; Latin didn't need them.)

Furthermore, Slavonic is pronounce a bit differently by every Orthodox Slavic
nation. The old orthography accommodated these differences easily in a single
spelling system. The new orthographies cannot do so and therefore impose one
national system, necessitating different systems for one and the same language.

The reason for the prevalent use of new orthographies with Slavonic is simply
that the old orthographies were suppressed by dictatorial governments during the
twentieth century. It was impossible to get fonts or typewriters in the old
orthography. This is no longer the case, and continued use of new orthographies
results from laziness or slovenliness.

Of course, if you adhere to the notion that there is only one correct way to
pronounce Slavonic, then you have a reason for imposing the new orthography on
it; but it is better not to be hoodwinked by an absurd prejudice, so in the long
run it is not good for you.

Stephen


--- In ustav@yahoogroups.com, "Nikita Simmons" <starina77@...> wrote:
>
> I forgot to mention that the old orthography is not completely dead. Folks in
the Russian diaspora (especially in ROCOR) have traditionally tried to maintain
the use of the old orthography, whether successfully or not is debatable. As a
personal observation, it's extremely difficult to maintain a strict adherence to
the old orthography in a world that is in constant contact with modern Russia,
and until the past few years we have not even had computer fonts containing all
the necessary characters for typesetting the old orthography. The results of 90
years of using the reformed spelling means that it's almost impossible to hold
onto the old system in today's world, despite our best efforts. In essence, it's
a lost cause, and whatever valiant efforts are made are still "too little, too
late".
>
> It is interesting that a few brave souls are trying to keep the old
orthography alive, even in Russia, as we can see from this web site:
> http://nasledie.russportal.ru/
> If you really want to know much more about the old vs. new orthographies, see
the articles at this page:
> http://www.russportal.ru/index.php?id=oldorth
>
> Nikita
>
> --- In ustav@yahoogroups.com, "Nikita Simmons" <starina77@> wrote:
> >
> > From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforms_of_Russian_orthography
> >
> > "The most recent large reform of the Russian spelling was prepared by
Aleksey Shakhmatov and carried out shortly after the 1917 Revolution. The
Russian orthography was made simpler by unifying several adjectival and
pronominal inflections, replacing the letters &#1123; (Yat) with е, і (depending
on the context of Moscovian pronunciation) and &#1141; with и, &#1139; with ф,
and dropping the archaic mute yer ъ (hard sign) in the terminal position
following a consonant (thus eliminating practically the last graphical remnant
of the Old Slavonic open-syllable system). For instance Рыбинскъ for Рыбинск
("Rybinsk")."
> >
> > ... a rather simplistic explanation, but accurate. I recommend reading the
whole Wikipedia article to understand the reform in a clearer context. The loss
of the direct historical connection was a linguistic tragedy, but it did make
the goals of public literacy quite a bit more attainable. The spelling rules are
admittedly easier, but it's a rather utilitarian and inelegant system compared
to what we had previously.
> >
> > Nikita
> >
> > --- In ustav@yahoogroups.com, Philip Silouan Thompson <himself@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Nikita Simmons wrote:
> > > > ...most texts available on the web are in modern orthography.
> > >
> > > Besides the obvious cosmetic presentation of the typeface, what is the
> > > difference between the old orthography and the modern? I read Serbian
> > > badly, Russian and Slavonic *very* minimally, and had assumed the modern
> > > Cyrillic orthography was simply an updating of the look of the letters.
> > > Is there a more significant difference?
> > >
> > > Silouan
> > >
> >
>