Russian orthography

Russian orthography (правописание, pronounced|ˈpravəpʲɪˈsanʲjə) is formally considered to encompass spelling (орфография IPA| [ˈorfəˈgrafʲɪ jə] ) and punctuation (пунктуация IPA| [pənktuˈatsɪjə] ). Russian spelling, which is quite phonemic 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 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.

pelling

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

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 IPA| [ˈʂa.rʲɪ.kə.pɐtˈʂɨ.pnʲɪ.kə.vɨj] ('relating to ball bearings') may be decomposed as follows (words having independent existence in boldface):

* 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- IPA|/o/ changing to -a- IPA| [ɐ] or IPA| [ə] ("akanye"), and alternations between the allophonic vowels IPA| [ɨ] and IPA| [i] (represented by ы and и respectively):

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 IPA|/ʐ/, -ш IPA|/ʂ/, -щ IPA|/ɕː/, -ч IPA|/ʨ/, a soft sign ь is appended in the nominative singular if the gender is feminine, and is "omitted" if masculine:: (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 in a dictionary. Arguments about this issue have been continuous for 150 years.)

Punctuation

Basic symbols

The full stop (period) (.), colon (:), semicolon (;), comma (,), question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), and ellipsis (...) are equivalent in shape to the basic symbols of punctuation (знаки препинания IPA| [ˈznakʲɪ prʲəpʲɪˈnanʲə] ) 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).

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:

Direct speech

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

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:

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.

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.

Controversies

pelling

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.

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). A primary area where the spelling is utterly inconsistent and therefore controversial is:
* 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 IPA| [ʐ] , ш IPA| [ʂ] , щ IPA| [ɕː] , ц IPA| [ʦ] , ч IPA| [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.

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.

History

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.

ee also

* Russian language
* Russian alphabet
* Cyrillic alphabet

External links

* [http://www.gramota.ru/ GRAMOTA.ru] A reference and tutorial site on Russian literacy sponsored by the Russian government]
* [http://www.astro.usu.ru/content/source/chair/doc/pravila56_web/default.htm The full text of the 1956 Russian orthographic codification]
* [http://members.shaw.ca/arsoys/grot-russkoe-pravopisanie.djvu J.K. Grot, "Russkoe Pravopisanie"] (standard guide to the pre-reform rules), 1894 (DJVU file, pre-1918 orthography)
* [http://www.lingvo.com/multilingual/dictinfo.asp?dictId=95257 The Comprehensive Dictionary of the Contemporary Russian Language.] The largest Russian dictionary with orthography