Russian orthography

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Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

Russian orthography (правописание [ˈpra.və.pʲɪˈsa.nʲjə]) is formally considered to encompass spelling (орфография [ˈo.rfəˈgra.fʲɪ jə]) and punctuation (пунктуация [pən.ktuˈa.ʦɪ.jə]). Russian spelling, which is quite phonetic in practice, is a mix of the morphological and phonetic principles, with a few etymological or historic forms, and occasional grammatical differentiation. The punctuation, originally based on Byzantine Greek, was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reformulated on the French and German models.


NOTE. The IPA transcription attempts to reflect vowel reduction when not under stress. The sounds that are presented are those of the standard language; other dialects may have noticeably different pronunciation for the vowels.

Contents

[edit] Spelling

Russian is written with a modern variant of the Cyrillic alphabet.

[edit] Morphological principle

Under the morphological principle, the morphemes (roots, suffixes, infixes, and inflexional endings) are attached without modification; the compounds may be further agglutinated. For example, the long adjective шарикоподшипниковый [ˈˌʂa.rʲɪ.kə.pʌtˈʂɨ.pnʲɪ.kə.vɨj] "relating to ball bearings" may be decomposed as follows (words having independent existence in boldface):

шар
/ˈʂarʲ/		 [ик]
/ik/		 [o]
/o/		 под
/pod/		 шип
/ˈʂɨp/		 [ник]
/nʲik/		 [ов]
/ov/		 [ый]
/ij/
"sphere" diminutive suffix combining interfix "under"
(preposition or prefix)		 "tenon" suffix indicating agency adjectival suffix inflexional ending, nominative masculine singular
шарик
[ˈʂa.rʲɪk]
"little sphere", "ball"		 [о]
 
 		 подшипник
[pʌtˈʂɨ.pnʲɪk]
"bearing"		 [ов]
 
 		 [ый]
 
 
шарикоподшипник
[ˈʂa.rʲɪ.kə.pʌtˈʂɨ.pnʲɪk]
"ball bearing"		 [овый]
 
 
шарикоподшипниковый
[ˈˌʂa.rʲɪ.kə.pʌtˈʂɨ.pnʲɪ.kə.vɨj]
"relating to/of ball bearings"

Note again that each component in the final production retains its basic form, despite the vowel reduction.

The phonetic assimilation of consonant clusters also does not usually violate the morphological principle of the spelling. For example, the decomposition of счастье [ˈɕːa.sʲtʲjə] "happiness", "good fortune", is as follows:

с часть [ье]
/s/ /ʨasʲtʲ/ / ʲje/
"with"
(prefix or preposition)		 "part" (here in the related meaning "fate") (suffix for formation of abstract noun of state)

Note the assimilation with сч- so that it represents the same sound (or cluster) as щ- The spelling "щастие" was fairly common among the literati in the eighteenth century, but is usually frowned upon today.

[edit] Phonetic principle

The phonetic principle implies that:

  • all morphemes are written as they are pronounced in isolation, without vowel reduction, Church Slavonic style, or, more strictly, taking inflexion into account (this in combination with the morphological agglutination described above is sometimes called the morphemic principle);
  • certain prefixes that end in a voiced consonant (in practice, only those in -з /z/) have that consonant devoiced (become [s]) to voicing assimilation. This may be reflected orthographically. For example, for the prefix/preposition без [bʲez] "without":
безумный [bʲɪˈzu.mnɨj] "mindless", "mad" (ум [um] "mind")
бессмертный [bʲɪsˈsmʲɛ.rtnɨj] "immortal" (смерть [smʲerʲtʲ] "death")
  • certain roots and prefixes occasionally do have their vowel modified in individual cases to reflect historical changes in pronunciation, usually as a result of being unstressed, or conversely, stressed. In practice, this usually applies to -o- /o/ changing to -a- [ʌ] or [ə] (akanye), and alternations between the allophonic vowels [ɨ] and [i] (represented by ы and и respectively):
рост [rost] "growth"
расти [rʌˈsʲtʲi] "to grow"
история [iˈsto.rʲɪ.jə] "history"
предыстория [ˈprʲɛ.dɨˈsto.rʲɪ.jə] "prehistory"
  • the spelling of borrowed words is usually phonetic, until the word is fully adapted:
кафэ [kʌˈfɛ] "café" (pre-1918)
кафе [kʌˈfɛ] "café" (modern)

Note that the unpalatalized [f] above has remained.

[edit] Etymological principle

The fact that Russian has retained much of its ancient phonology has made the historical or etymological principle (dominant in languages like English, French, and Irish) less relevant. Because the spelling has been adjusted to reflect the changes in the pronunciation of the yers and to eliminate letters with identical pronunciation, the only systematic examples occur in some foreign words and in some of the inflectional endings, both nominal and verbal, which are not always written as they are pronounced. For example:

русского [ˈru.skə.və]
not *[ˈru.sko.go]		 "of the Russian"
(adj. masculine/neuter genitive singular)
хочешь [ˈхo.ʨɪʂ]
not *[хo.ʨeɕː]		 you (sg) want
present second person singular, -e- conjugation
смотришь [ˈsmo.trʲɪʂ]
not *[ˈsmo.trʲɪɕː]		 you (sg) are looking
present second person singular, -и- conjugation

[edit] Grammatical principle

The grammatical principle has become stronger in contemporary Russian. It specifies conventional orthographic forms to mark grammatic distinctions (gender, participle vs. adjective, and so on). Some of these rules are ancient, and could perhaps be considered etymological; some are based in part on subtle, and not necessarily universal, distinctions in pronunciation; and some are basically arbitrary. Here are some characteristic examples:

  • for nouns ending in a sibilant -ж /ʐ/, -ш /ʂ/, -щ /ɕː/, -ч /ʨ/, a soft sign ь is appended in the nominative singular if the gender is feminine, and is omitted if masculine:
дочь [doʨ] daughter F -
меч [mʲeʨ] sword M -
грач [graʨ] rook (Corvus frugilegus) M modern levelling: Lomonosov (1755) gives грачь
(Though based on common ancient etymology, by which a hard sign ъ was appended to masculine nouns before 1918, both symbols having once been pronounced as ultra-short or reduced yers, the modern rule is nevertheless grammatical, because its application has been made more nearly universal.)
  • The past passive participle has a doubled -нн- /nn/, the same word used as an adjective has a single -н- /n/:
варёный [vʌˈrʲo.nɨj] "cooked/boiled"
варенный [ˈva.rʲɪn.nɨj] "(something that has/having) been cooked/boiled"
жареный [ˈʐa.rʲɪ.nɨj] "fried"
жаренный [ˈʐa.rʲɪ.nɨj] "(something that has/having) been fried"
(This rule is partly guided by pronunciation, and has its origins in the nineteenth century. Russian phonological processes often transform the -e before the single -н- in the adjective into a -ё- but not universally so. This rule is therefore considered one of the difficult points of Russian spelling, since the distinction between adjective (implying state) and participle (implying action) is not always clear. A proposal in the late 1990s to simplify this rule by basing the distinction on whether or not the verb is transitive has not been formally adopted.)
  • Prepositional phrases in which the literal meaning is preserved are written with the words separated; when used adverbially, especially if the meaning has shifted, they are usually written as a single word:
во время (чего-либо) [vʌ ˈvrʲe.mʲə] "during the time (of something)"
(он пришёл) вовремя [ˈvo.vrʲɪ.mʲə] "(he arrived) on time"
(This is extracted from a whole set of extremely detailed rules about run-together, hyphenated, or separated components. Such rules are essentially arbitrary. There are enough sub-cases, exceptions, undecidable points, and inconsistencies that even well-educated native speakers sometimes have to check the dictionary. Arguments about this issue have been continuous for 150 years.)

[edit] Punctuation

[edit] Basic symbols

The full stop (period) (.), colon (:), semi-colon (;), comma (,), question mark (?), exclamation point (!), and ellipsis (...) are equivalent in shape to the basic symbols of punctuation (знаки препинания [ˈzna.kʲɪ prʲə.pʲɪˈna.nʲə]) used for the common European languages, and follow the same general principles of usage.

The colon is used exclusively as a means of introduction, and never, as in slightly archaic English, to mark a periodic pause intermediate in strength between the semicolon and the full stop (period) (cf. H.W. Fowler, The Kingˈs English, 1908).

[edit] Comma usage

The comma is used very liberally to mark the end of introductory phases, on either side of simple appositions, and to introduce all subordinate clauses. The English distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses does not exist:

Итак, царя свергнули! So the tsar has been overthrown!
Мужчина, которого вы вчера сбили, умер. The man you ran over yesterday has died.
Это странное явление, о котором так часто пишут в газетах, так и остаётся без научного объяснения. This strange phenomenon, which is so often reported in the press, remains unexplained by science.

[edit] Hyphenation

The hyphen (-), and em-dash (—) are used to mark increasing levels of separation. The hyphen is put between components of a word, and the em-dash to separate words in a sentence, in particular to mark longer appositions or qualifications that in English would typically be put in parentheses, and as a replacement for a copula:

Наш телефон: 242-01-42. Our telephone: 242-0142.
Без сильной команды — такой, которую в прошлом собирал и тренировал Тихонов — Россия не взяла золотую медаль на Олимпиаде-2002. Without a strong team (like the one that Tikhonov in the past selected and trained), Russia did not win the gold medal at the 2002 Olympics.

[edit] Direct speech

Quotes are not used to mark paragraphed direct quotation, which is instead separated out by the em-dash (—):

—  Я Вас обожаю! — сказал мишка лисе. "I adore you!" said the bear to the fox.

[edit] Quotation

Inlined direct speech and other quotation is marked at the first level by angled brackets («»), and by lowered and raised reversed double quotes („“) at the second:

Гончаров начинает «Фрегат „Паллада“» словами: «Меня удивляет». Goncharov begins his "Frigate Pallada" with the words: "I am surprised."

Unlike American English, the period or other terminal punctuation is placed outside the quotation. As the example above demonstrates, the quotes are often used to mark the names of entities introduced with the generic word.

[edit] Parenthetical expressions

These are introduced with the international symbol of parentheses (). However, their use is typically restricted to pure asides, rather than, as in English, to mark apposition.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Spelling

As in many languages, the spelling was formerly quite more phonemic and less consistent. However, the influence of the major grammarians, from Meletius Smotrisky (1620s) to Lomonosov (1750s) to Grot (1880s), ensured a more careful application of morphology and etymology. Orthography has remained quite phonetic simply because the phonology has not undergone fundamental changes since the fourteenth century at least.

Today, the balance between the morphological and phonetic principles is well established. The etymological inflexions are maintained by tradition and habit, although their non-phonetic spelling has occasionally prompted controversial calls for reform (as in the periods 1900-1910, 1960-1964). The two primary areas where the spelling is utterly inconsistent and therefore controversial are:

  • the spelling of foreign words, for which precise transliteration sometimes looks quite ugly in Cyrillic;
  • the complexity (or even correctness) of some of the grammatical principles, especially with respect to the strung-together, hyphenated, or disjoint writing of the constituent morphemes.

These two points have been the topic of scientific debate since at least the middle of the nineteenth century.

In the past, uncertainty abounded about which of the ordinary or iotated/palatalizing series of vowels to allow after the sibilant consonants ж [ʐ], ш [ʂ], щ [ɕː], ц [ʦ], ч [ʨ], which are not standard in their hard/soft pairs. This problem, however, appears to have been resolved by applying the phonetic and grammatical principles (and to a lesser extent, the etymological) to define a complicated though internally consistent set of spelling rules.

In 2000-2001, a minor revision of the 1956 codification was proposed. It met with public protest and has not been formally adopted.

[edit] Punctuation

Punctuation naturally evolves, and has not been so controversial in Russian orthography as spelling. The ability to punctuate (not merely to spell) correctly has been taken as the standard of the literate Russian.

[edit] History

Main article:

The modern system of spelling was rationalized by Grot in the 1880s. The spelling reform of 1918, though drastically changing the appearance of the language by eliminating four letters, did not introduce fundamental theoretical changes to the principles he laid down.

Contemporary spelling and punctuation follow the 1956 rules, which were aimed at codifying existing practice rather than establishing new principles.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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