Capital or Lowercase Letters? The History of Orthography Practices in the 17 th and 18th  Centuries

The article is devoted to the practice of capitalization in church and secular publications of the 17th and 18th centuries. Smotritsky's Grammar prescribed to capitalize proper names, geographical names and nomina sacra. However, in reality books of the church press did not comply with this recommendation. It was solely in prefaces and afterwords that the norms described by Smotritsky were partially followed, and it was only the names and titles of secular rulers that were consistently marked with capital letters. In the first editions, which were printed in the civil alphabet created by Peter the Great, capital letters were used randomly, but the names and titles of secular governors were capitalized. By the middle of the 18th century, the general principles of using capital letters in the new orthography had been approved. These principles were fixed in grammars and began to be perceived as universal, belonging to both the Russian and Church Slavonic languages. The last quarter of the 19th century was marked by a lengthy discussion about the need to use capital letters in Church Slavonic books. This idea was rejected, but the very fact of such a discussion shows that during this period the idea of normative spelling was determined by the norms of Russian rather than Church Slavonic orthography.

Keywords

civil Russian alphabet, orthographic reform, Church Slavonic, Peter the Great, secular culture, church culture, uppercase letters, lowercase letters

Received

02.03.2022

Publication date

03.03.2022

Number of characters

17092

Cite

GOST	Kravetsky A. Capital or Lowercase Letters? The History of Orthography Practices in the 17 th and 18th Centuries // Russkaya Rech’ – 2022. – C. 71-81 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/rusrech/s013161170018741-4-1-en (circulation date: 03.05.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013161170018741-4
MLA	Kravetsky, Aleksandr G "Capital or Lowercase Letters? The History of Orthography Practices in the 17 th and 18th Centuries." Russkaya Rech’ 1 (2022):71-81. DOI: 10.31857/S013161170018741-4
APA	Kravetsky A. (2022). Capital or Lowercase Letters? The History of Orthography Practices in the 17 th and 18th Centuries. Russkaya Rech’ (1), pp.71-81 DOI: 10.31857/S013161170018741-4

100 rub.

When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 0, views: 437

Readers community rating: votes 0

1. Vedomosti ot 19 iyunya i 5 iyulya. M., 1722. 16 s.

2. Geometrıa slavenskı semlemѣrıe... M., 1708. 233, [11], 4 s.

3. Grech N. I. Nachal'nye pravila russkoj grammatiki. SPb.: V tipografii izdatelya, 1842. 144 s.

4. Lomonosov M. V. Polnoe sobranie sochinenij. T. 7. Trudy po filologii (1739–1758 gg.). M.–L.: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1952. 996 s.

5. Priklady kako pishutsya komplementy… M., 1712. 300 s.

6. Sokolov D. D. Spravochnaya knizhka po tserkovnoslavyanskomu pravopisaniyu [Uchitel'skaya biblioteka po voprosam shkol'nogo vospitaniya i obucheniya. Vyp. IV]. SPb.: Redaktsiya zhurnala «Narodnoe obrazovanie», 1907. 40 s.

7. Ukaz vsem vo flote Rossijskom obretayuschimsya… koim obrazom i v kotoroe vremya… prinosit' Gospodu Bogu moleniya. SPb., 1727. 21 s.

8. Ukaz vsem v vojske Rossijskom obretayuschimsya… koim obrazom i v kotoroe vremya… prinosit' Gospodu Bogu moleniya. SPb., 1741. 24 s.

9. Kravetskij A. G. Materialy diskussii ob upotreblenii propisnykh bukv v knigakh tserkovnoj pechati (1876–1892) // Trudy Instituta russkogo yazyka im. V. V. Vinogradova. Vyp. 5. M.: IRYa im. V. V. Vinogradova RAN, 2015. S. 127–163.

10. Kravetskij A. G. K istorii i predystorii liturgicheskikh perevodov XVII–XXI vv. // Liturgické jazyky v duchovnej kultúre Slovanov. Monotematický súbor štúdií / Slavistický ústav Jána Stanislava Slovenskej akadémie vied, Slovenský komitét slavistov / ed. by P. Žeňuch, P. Zubko. Bratislava: Veda, 2017. S. 227–238.

11. Kravetskij A. G. Tserkovnaya sluzhba kak chast' gosudarstvennogo tseremoniala: ob odnom ehksperimente Ekateriny II // Devyatye Rimskie Kirillo-Mefodievskie chteniya. Materialy konferentsii (Rim – Salerno, 4–9 fevralya 2019 g.) / Otv. red. I. Verner, N. Zapol'skaya, M. Obizhaeva. M.: Indrik, 2019. S. 112–115.

12. Kravetskij A. G. Grazhdanskij shrift v izdaniyakh bogosluzhebnykh tekstov XVIII veka: sborniki molitv dlya matrosov i soldat // Trudy Instituta russkogo yazyka RAN im. V. V. Vinogradova. № 1. 2021. S. 186–204.

13. Kuz'minova E. A. (sost.). Grammatiki Lavrentiya Zizaniya i Meletiya Smotritskogo / Sost., podg. teksta, nauchnyj kommentarij i ukazateli E. A. Kuz'minovoj. M.: Izdatel'stvo MGU, 2000. 528 s.

14. Osipov B. I. Sud'by russkogo pis'ma. Istoriya russkoj grafiki, orfografii i punktuatsii. Moskva–Omsk: Izdatel'skij tsentr «Omskij nauchnyj vestnik», 2010. 320 s.

15. Uspenskij B. A. Pervaya russkaya grammatika na rodnom yazyke. M.: Nauka, 1975. 231 s.