| Abstract [eng] |
Lithuanian works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are divided into three standard language varieties. The eastern standard was mostly created by Catholics, the western by Lutherans, and the central by Catholics and Reformers. The aim of this article is to examine texts of the central standard language for significant orthographic differences between Catholics and Reformers. Using electronic transcriptions of historic writings prepared by the Lithuanian Language Institute (www.lki.lt/seniejirastai) and the author’s program utilizing methods of analysis, the spelling particulars of a large corpus (140 sources, about 2.4 million Lithuanian words) were examined. The examination of the word stress, the marking of the open /æː/, the spelling of the diphthong /uɔ/, and the nasal vowels /ĩː/ and /ũː/ did not reveal a clear pattern. Specific differences were revealed in the development of the meaning of the glyph <ś> as well as the spelling of the consonant /j/ and the diphthongs /ai/ and /ei/. The development of the meaning of the glyph <ś> can be considered a distinguishing characteristic between Reformer and Catholic works. In the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries the Reformers used it only with the meaning /sʲ/ (PK, MP, KN¹, PP, KN², except Chilinskis); at the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth, the Catholics also used it to mean /sʲ/, but later they began to use this glyph to indicate /ʃʲ/ (Sirvydas’s and later works). Evangelical Reformers, alongside the “modern” glyph <j>, held on to the “archaic” <gh> /j/ longer than anyone else (Chilinskis wrote this way, as well as the editors of the revised 1684 edition of Knyga nobažnystės). There is no known Catholic work where it is used, while the western written language standard of the Lutherans rejected <gh> around 1641 to 1653. Evangelical Reformers and the Catholics using the eastern written language standard most often indicated the diphthongs <ay> and <ey>. This orthography, copied from Polish, was foreign to Daukša (1595, 1599), who wrote in the central written language variety, but by the first half of the seventeenth century works in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania gradually came to use the spelling <ay> and <ey>. In the majority of books, the indication of consonant /j/ and of diphthongs is consistent (different spellings are chaotically scattered throughout the pages). The Reformers’ book Knyga nobažnystės, published in 1653, and the conclusion of the Gospel printed by the Catholics in 1647 are exceptions. The distribution of glyphs in these texts reflects differing contributions by translators or editors. |
